Project Science Workshop Or, What I learned in Santa Fe

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Project Science WorkshopOr, What I learned in
Santa Fe

• Tim Abbott
• CTIO

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The overview

• Gary Sanders 4 talks (1.5hr each) make a good
  overview of the linear project and a foray into
  the real world complex project
• But remember, these are just one mans opinion.
• Even so, Id recommend them to anyone beginning
  to play in big-projects.

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Disappointingly, there was not much about working
with operating facilities.
This was about it really
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Dilbert is true
or it wouldnt be funny.
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Aphorisms

• Better is the enemy of good enough
• Not a great line for an operations manager
• The 51 rule
• If 51 of your decisions are right, then youre
  making progress (if not terribly efficiently)
• Project management is all organized to promote
  delivery
• Nothing is inflating at 2.5 any more
• "Borrowing someone else's software is buying
  software that the vendor won't support.
• Management by consensus implies waiting for the
  consensus before making a decision.
• Broke and done on the same day
• Contingency management
• Manage desirements versus requirements.
• Scope creep.

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The false dichotomy of small vs. big science
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Getting good managers
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Owning the project
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The nonexistent, linear project.
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Communications
Would have been nice to hear pointers on how to
run a productive meeting
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Contingency()
Here limited to financial contingency
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How to calculate contingency
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More contingency
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What happens to contingency (in theory)
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What happens to contingency (maybe)
This mass convergence to the politically correct
endpoint seems suspicious to me
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The complex project much resonance with
reality, CTIO, NOAO
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Its not a democracy
Management by consensus implies waiting for the
consensus before making a decision.
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I learned that

• There are actually people who work on the theory
  of project management, with serious looking plots
  and real mathematics and unfortunate jargon
  including nods to popular fads ("tipping point").
  Are they useful or fooling themselves (and us)?
  Not sure. They teach classes at universities,
  but so do social scientists. Hmmm.

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Failure
This begs a definition of "failure. Obvious
conclusion Projects can be large enough that
they can muddy it, or define failure out of
existence.
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Death spirals and vicious circles
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A truly useful slide
well, it would have been, 5-6 years ago.
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Are all projects the same?

• Relevance was an ongoing concern for me. It was
  interesting to hear about large scale underground
  facility development, and the basics of PROJECT
  management are similar if not the same, but I
  have a problem when there are claims that an
  observatory is just a collider in different
  clothing..
• The appeal to authority of "I've got lots of
  experience in bringing projects to completion"
  versus that of "I've been running observatories
  since you've been in diapers can cause friction.
  
• (This is the project vs operations argument)

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Final advice for a project always remember to
have some fun