Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Abstract
This book explores project management (PM) from a musical perspective. Seeking ways of understanding PM in musical ways, distinctive
approaches to the management of risk, experimentation, the conception
and practice of teams, and the realization of imagination, are explored to
highlight both the synergies and distinctions between musical practice
and p
roject management in the wider corporate and industrial sectors.
The intention being to surface insights of value, capable of adaptation and
practical application in a range of contexts, a series of conceptual models
and thinking exercises are presented, each designed to structure a more
musical approach to project management and capable of application at
every scale of project management, and every possible project management environment.
The contention of this book is that music provides an interesting
context through which to consider project management practice, and
therefore a unique opportunity to approach project management from
both a different viewpoint and a different mindset. Music is a vibrant field
of activity incorporating distinctive approaches to the development and
maintenance of expertise, the transfer of knowledge, and the realization
of remarkable cultural creativity. Synergies between musical practice and
the wider project management profession are many and varied, and more
musical approaches to project management may not only be possible,
but may also be an engaging means of developing creativity in project
outcomes.
Keywords
agile, code, collaboration, creativity, music, musicality, project management, team, technique
Contents
Foreword by Jim Snyderxi
Foreword by Reinhard Wagnerxiii
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xvii
Chapter 1 What Has Music Got to Do With Project Management?....1
Chapter 2 Locating Project Management Insights in Music................9
Chapter 3 Project Management Insights in Musical Creativity.........43
Chapter 4 Applying a Musical Perspective to Project Management....71
Chapter 5 A Project Management Perspective for Music..................95
Chapter 6 A Resolution of Sorts.....................................................115
About the Authors121
Bibliography and Discography123
Index131
xii FOREWORD
risk can become tools for the management of music composition and
performance projects.
By exploring the ways music relates to projects and looking at the
teaching of music we are introduced to the synergies that exist between
project management and music. Looking at the teaching of music in the
UK exposes the lack of direct teaching of project management and the
opportunities to bring the two disciplines together to the benefit of both.
Enjoythis is a new approach to both project management and to
the understanding of music and how the two are closely related. See how
the inclusion of project management education in music curriculum can
benefit both music and PM.
James R Snyder
Founder of the Project Management Institute (PMI)
Foreword by Reinhard
Wagner
If you read the book title you might thinkhow does music and project
management go together? They do, in a very symbiotic way! I have benefited a lot from my musical education, starting to play flute at the age of
5, switching to clarinet at 9, playing in an orchestra at 12, and starting
a career as conductor of an orchestra with 17. But how can we make use
of all this in project management? Very simple, as a musician you learn
to experience a world of harmonies, beat, rhythm, and teamwork. Each
piece is unique, it develops a melody over time; you feel the rhythm and
develop the music into the future, together with your colleagues of the
orchestra. You are not alone, you are dependent on others, you need to
listen to them, you need to notice them about your next moves, sometimes you are in the middle of the piece with your solo, sometimes others
are, and you move into the background. Music requires the players (or
singers) to be passionate, patient, disciplined, and highly cooperative.
Transfer this into the context of projects, and you will understand the
great synergies.
Sometimes we can read comparisons between the conductor of an
orchestra and project managers, mainly highlighting leadership and communication. Often this comparison is building on a strong, sometimes
authoritarian, leadership style. However, a conductor with a poor orchestra is not performing at all. The conductor is choosing the piece, interpreting it to fit the context and the audience, and guiding the orchestra
through. Each member of the orchestra is important to perform. All are
linked through self-organization and close coordination based on harmonies, beat, and rhythm. Once, we organized a conference in Germany
under the motto Beyond Agile Management. We chose the improvisation in music to make clear, how difficult it really is to be agile, and
reach better performance in a dynamic and complex environment. As a
musician, you may understand the difficulties to ignore all the harmonies,
xiv FOREWORD
beats, and rhythms you have learned so far, and finding a new way forward. Now you need to use intuition, all sensors, and create your own,
unique way forward. It is very difficult to write about this in such a foreword, I strongly recommend you to experience it in person.
Certainly, musicians can profit from our know-how of managing
projects. Each performance needs to be organized, the way of studying
and learning can be managed in a systematic way. However, the project management processes and methodologies may be too sophisticated
for this specific domain. We need a more pragmatic way of managing
projects, programs, or portfolios, easy to apply in education and music.
Daniel Defoe, famous author of Robinson Crusoe, wrote in his first book,
An Essay upon Projects in 1697 about the skills needed: the honest projector is he who, having by fair and plain principles of sense, honesty, and
ingenuity brought any contrivance to a suitable perfection, makes out
what he pretends to, picks nobodys pocket, puts his project in execution,
and contents himself with the real produce as the profit of his invention.
This brings me back to the book and why it is such a great bridge
between the field of music, the project management domain, and the
way of learning. Music is great to explore your own capabilities, to set a
theme into scene, to be co-creative with other people and express yourself
in an emotional way. It is a great way of personal development and holistic growth. Through the experience of music we can also overcome the
formal processes, methods and tools of project management, imposed by
industry and challenged by the complex environment we are faced with
nowadays. People are not a means to projects, on the contrary, projects
are a means for our own development. This is why I strongly recommend
to read this book, perform more research on the topic, and advance the
concept of project management from the industrial into a more humanistic era.
Reinhard Wagner
President of the International Project Management Association (IPMA)
Preface
Why Music Might Make You a Better Project Manager
This book is, ultimately, about the intersection and exchange of ideas, the
celebration of similarity and difference, and a story of a search for insight.
The product of a dialogue between and across disciplines, we have sought
to explore the relationship between two apparently distinct fields of practice in music and project management (PM) as a means of developing
new ideas. This text documents the story of this dialogue and presents the
ideas developed through this conversation.
Music, as ubiquitous and diverse as language in human culture,
represents a distinctive activity through which to consider PM from a
different perspective. A remarkable cultural project in and of itself, music
represents a highly sophisticated and codified space through which
significant aspects of human experience are imagined, explored, and
negotiated. Indeed, in considering precisely how it is that music appears
to convey meaning and evoke emotional reactions, Ball (2010, 355)
explores the intriguing potential for music and spoken language to share a
common evolutionary origin. What better context to consider PM in new
ways? To develop new approaches to PM capable of application in other
sectors, than to focus on something that speaks directly to our emotions?
The book is intended to entertain and to inform, and to empower
readers to enrich their PM practices through more focused consideration
of techniques derived from music. Providing an in-depth look at the areas
of musical knowledge and experience of most relevance to the field of
PM, and PM processes and knowledge areas that are of most significance
and most value for music, readers will gain readily adaptable and s calable
concepts and ideas capable of enriching understanding and p
ractice,
whether beginning to learn to play a musical instrument, seeking to
develop professional careers, or preparing to implement major business
projects. If you have ever been moved by music, or enjoyed its presence,
there is something of relevance and hopefully of profound interest here.
xvi Preface
Do you know what it takes to be a musician? It requires only a decision to be one. It takes a bit of work to become a good one. But as soon
as you decide you are one, you are one.
Welcome.
Acknowledgments
We are extremely honored to have Jim Snyder, the founder of the Project
Management Institute (PMI), provide the introductory foreword to our
book. We are particularly grateful both for his professional insights and
his perspective of project management and music. We are also really
grateful to the current president of the International Project Management
Association, Reinhard Wagner, for his thoughts about the subject, and
particularly for his personal insights about musical experience.
We would also like to acknowledge the support of the publishers
of this book for their willingness to entertain unusual and unconventional ideas, and to Tim Kloppenborg in particular, for his guiding hand
throughout the project, and important advice at key points in the process.
Our thanks also goes out to executive director of Project Consultancy,
Paul Hodgkins, for his contribution (presented as the final comments
in this book), to Jimmy Thomas, and countless other musicians who
preferred to remain incognito, for sharing their musical insights, and
to colleagues from PMI Global, and the PMI Poland Chapter for their
wonderful hospitality and enriching opportunities for related p
rofessional
dialogue. Authors are also grateful to PMI chapters in Montreal, P
ortugal,
New York, Romania, and many others for their encouragement and
passionate support. A special salute is also extended to the American
Creativity Association for providing the germinal moment at which this
book first began to develop in Maine, New England, in 2013.
Finally, we would like to thank our families, friends, colleagues, fellow
musicians, and respective organizations, for providing the space and time
for this dialogue to develop, and through which this story could be told.
CHAPTER 1
Differently Similar
It is reasonable to consider PM of a major civil engineering project as very
different from the composition of a song or learning to play the piano.
Indeed, there is, as observed by Weaver (2007), a very clear distinction
between generalized approaches to PM, and the professional discipline of
PM. As well as the obvious difference of scale of activity and the number
of agents involved, there is also the significant cultural difference between
an industrial and pragmatic context of PM as a field of professional activity, and the individualized, romanticized, and free context associated
with creative musical activities. Adopting a purposefully contrarian perspective, in PM terms, differences between the industrial and the musical,
the corporate and the artistic, are readily identifiable. As characterized in
Uncertain destination
Unplanned/vague route
Uncertain aims/outcomes
Extending uncertainty
Working with naivety
Adding uncertainties
Generating problems
Uncertain progress
Exploring incompetence
Deliberate deviation
Inefficiency
Journey
Increasing/embracing risk
Risk as opportunity
Loss
Germinal
Purpose
Hard
Flexibility
Unstable
Organic
Unpredictable
Difficult
Exhausting
Novelty (unproven)
Unfamiliar (unknown)
Disruption
Blur
Participation
Abandonment
Arrival
Conclusion
collaboration, planning, organization, improvisation, and problem solving. The point at which the band begins the opening number of a gig
represents the culmination of a series of distinct but nevertheless integrated project elements. From the developmental process of refining
musical abilities, the creative process of producing new musical ideas,
the rehearsal of ensemble performance, through to the engagement of
audiences and logistical elements related to equipment, venues, and promotion, while the chorus of the song may only use one or two chords, the
point at which these are performed to an audience ultimately represents
a nexus of multiple project streams. While musicians may not widely
use PM terminology or consciously apply specific PM techniques, there
are numerous examples of musical practice that reflect sophisticated PM
dynamics, discipline, and practice.
Index
ABRSM. See Associated Board of the
Royal Schools of Music
Adaptation, 26
Adjourning stage model, 3637
Agile approach, 103107
Associated Board of the Royal Schools
of Music (ABRSM), 1920
Audience, 1112
Blues music, 90
Blurring process boundaries, 33
Cadences, 8284
Classical music, 89
Collaboration, musical networks,
3037, 41
Collective practice, 96
Color of music, 5962
Communication, 26
Composer, 12
Counterpoint, 7879
Creative convention and innovation,
48
Creative musical experience, 4749
Creative musical risk and innovation,
4748
Creative music motivation, 4546
Creative practice vs. project
management, 3
Creative toolkit approach, 6265
Creativity and code, 42
Deliberate practice, 1718
EA. See Enterprise architecture
Emancipation of dissonance, 5658
Ensemble, 77
Enterprise architecture (EA), 107111
Experimental music, 9091
Extemporization, 81
Feel, 7980
Forming stage model, 3435
Forming-storming-normingperforming-adjourning
(FSNPA) model, 3336
Groove, 79
Harmony, 78
Imitation, 5254
Imperfect cadence, 83
Improvisation, 8082
Individuality/Individual responsibility,
2627
Individual practice, 96
Interrupted cadence, 84
Intonation, 75
Jazz music, 8889
Knowledge transfer (KT), 3739
KT. See Knowledge transfer
Mega projects, 9697
Melody, 7778
30-minutes-per-day approach, 19
Musical awareness, 7273
Musical cadence, 8284
Musical composition
in context, 4344
creative convention and innovation,
48
creative musical experience, 4749
creative musical risk and
innovation, 4748
creative music motivation, 4546
functions of music, 44
practice of, 4449
risk assessment matrix, 49
132 Index