Comment by meow_cat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by meow_cat | Hacker News Reader

I don't get the point the author is trying to make:

* The article starts off by arguing that Gantt charts are for factories not for information work; therefore, software providing "bygone ways" of project management (such as Gantt charts) is bad.

* Then it criticizes that software that masters multiple project management methodologies is also bad because SaaS companies are trying to make money by adding features.

* Then, we find that the issue is that project management software is a simplistic UI in front of a relational database. They don't work because project management is not a problem that can be put into databases.

* Then the problem is that the smartphone generation will never understand relational databases because they are used to smooth UIs, and the problem is that there is no undo button.

* Next, the problem is that we aren't all thinking like managers, so PM methodologies... don't apply at all to us?

* However the supporting example instead says that the problem is that we aren't all thinking like developers, and developers dogfooding their PM software is not necessarily a great selling point for everyone else (this is a take I find somewhat convincing).

* Finally, the issue is poor planning, and no software will ever solve it.

Maybe I am not commenting on the "most charitable reading" of this article, but it leaves me confused. The author is echoing a broadly-felt frustration with the world of PM tools. They further various criticisms of PM tools, but it feels like they struggle to find what their own criticism actually is.

The article hit all the main points I would use for a wholesale take-down of Taylorism and all the MBA BS that grew in its wake, but it's presented in a way that you already have to know where the author is coming from to know what they're saying.

The key point the article missed is that "management doesn't know jack". The author should have opened with that. Everyone thinks they're boss is an idiot, but why is that? This is important because Taylorism was based on bifurcating the thinkers and the doers into managers and workers respectively. Managers would create the schedule based on their unique knowledge and insight, and workers would carry out their directives without skepticism or doubt. In reality, employees have unique knowledge and insight that management does not possess. Gantt charts, PERT, were all created based on the assumption of management expertise. Knowledge work turned this dynamic around explicitly. Knowledge workers, by definition, know more than their managers. How is a manager going to create a work breakdown structure and a schedule for work they don't understand?

MBAs have the answer. The MBA perspective is that management its self is a discrete discipline that can be done in isolation from the work. A good manager, with the management skill set can just as easily manage a hospital, as they can an airport, a shoe factory, a fast food franchise, or a nuclear power plant. This is done through metrics. By measuring performance, the manager can know where and when to conduct corrective actions to satisfy metrics. The metrics are ultimately tied to progress on schedules, WBSs, Gantt charts etc. If these don't map to your projects, the metrics they generate are useless. They will guide managers to make misapplied corrective actions that miss the mark and prevent work from happening, rather than correct any under-performance.

For project management tools, doesn't matter that the interfaces are nicer. It doesn't matter how they're implemented on the back end. It doesn't matter if the companies that make them also use their own products. The fact that your project doesn't map well to a prescribed schedule, or that you're laser focused on KPIs that don't matter. None of that changes anything. The core assumptions these tools are based on are wrong. They don't care, they just want your money.

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