[irq]: serially techie

representing non-linearity in project execution

Typically, projects are broken down into constituent activities and tasks and then presented as a two-dimensional process proceeding linearly through time. The overlapping, looping, and conditional flows of activities in an actual project tend to get lost. Critical go/no-go decision [i.e. inflection] points, if identified, are not accurately placed in time or process.

Project management software sucks and is workflow ignorant.

From both the execution side and the client side, misunderstandings (and associated risks) pile up—caused by trying to cram complicated workflows into oversimplified procedural representations. This old hat to most people who run projects or work in the services business. But, there are few approaches to resolve this issue that aren’t mostly manual.

Why don’t people who run projects just use flowcharts? Flowcharts don’t map well to time.

Instead of presenting activities in a “1 then 2 then 3…” fashion, they could be presented as dependency clusters separated by critical milestones-in process and time-that are go/no-go decision points. Each go/no-go decision could then have an associated set of actions undertaken depending on the decision: continue, return to activity x, etc.