What if Columbus were a PM? He wouldn't have made it

Here Admiral Rickover, who brought nuclear power to the US Navy, goes off against non-technical ("business people") running technical projects.

Excuse the dated language, but the underlying the point is through provoking when it comes to the cult of product management:

"What if Columbus had applied modern management systems to his proposed voyage? He would have attended management seminars. He would have studied tables with brightly colored squares and broad arrows to show which way plans, decisions, and problems were to go. He would not have bothered with details such as navigation and seamanship. These were technical matters. He would simply have “managed” the voyage. He would have used a colored-plastic decision-making card. Further, his analyst- I mean systems analyst- would have presented him with several volumes proving that the venture was not cost-effective. America would never have been discovered. We would all be Indians."