IT’S A CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE
The First Amendment enshrines every American’s right to the freedom of expression. Our goal is to elevate and facilitate the exercise of that right in project planning.
“Chase after truth like hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails,” said Clarence Darrow, US defense lawyer (1857 – 1938).
Sticky notes on a wall for the collaborative generation of the schedule framework (the planning phase) is suboptimal. The first step of sticky notes on a printed time scale is limiting in and of itself. Transferring the information from sticky notes to CPM software (the scheduling phase) creates a further dissipation of the group consensus. Not only is the sticky note process two steps, but the second step is rarely accomplished in a collaborative fashion. Consequently, many of the benefits of a fully collaborative session are not realized.
Until very recently, the two-step process was unavoidable. With NetPoint we are able to accomplish a virtual, real-time, full-wall planning session, utilizing the Graphical Planning Method® (GPM). GPM is a graphical, interactive, real-time planning method anchored on object-oriented principles and network based math rules. We can quickly create a visual model of our plan and then manipulate the model to explore alternative delivery modalities.
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Time scaled planning 1950s to present
From the invention of the Gantt Chart Jump ahead just 46 years , and you will find Kelly and Walker visually representing a mathematical model with the use of arrow diagramming method, which subsequently became known as “activity diagramming method” or ADM, a sample of which is shown below. An ADM network is logically intuitive. One can “see” how activities are logically linked and how the network as a whole might be impacted by a change to one activity. Visualization is again the key to understanding the model.
However, there is yet another major departure from the past which coincides with Kelly and Walker; it is the advent of the computer as a tool in the production of time-scaled, logically linked schedules. For the first time in the 27,000 years of calendar and planning history, a machine is interposed between the plan and the planner.
Unbeknownst to Kelly and Walker, the combination of a mathematical model for a network schedule and computer power to drive the model would result in the bifurcation of planning and scheduling. Entering data in tables became a new way to visualize schedules. But 27,000 years of recorded history teaches us that a series of numbers is not the natural way to see time and time-scaled plans. Over the subsequent decades, a Byzantine intellectual structure has calcified around the original CPM thinking to the point where some earlier practitioners are now in a state of rebellion against the malformed manifestations of their original conceptual framework.
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Synchronizing time over space
So as of 1905: time is relative and slows as the speed of light is approached. Calendars are a graphical representation of the passage of time based on the motion of the planets, segmenting time into days, weeks, months, and years. We now enter an age when for the first time in history precision in how we keep time becomes critical. With the advent of train travel over longer distances it became important for clocks in various cities to strike the hour at the same time. Also, if you are trying to coordinate the sharing of a single track between multiple trains, prior to the invention of radio communication, synchronized time is a matter of life and death.
As industrialization and urbanization accelerated in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the standardization and synchronization of time over distance became an important challenge to engineers. The French genius Henri Poincare was a driving force in this area. The first attempts at synchronizing clocks in a large urban area occurred in Paris using pressurized steam to pneumatically blast clocks all over the city into some semblance of synchronicity. An elaborate system of tunnels and steam pipes was developed throughout the City. Later, as the telegraph expanded its reach, the much higher speed of an electrical signal was used to synchronize clocks over large areas.
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Introduction of the Julian calendar and the Gregorian correction
In 45 BC, Julius Caesar inaugurated the basic calendar we use today. However, his calendar was flawed in that it did not align precisely with the rotation of the planets. Over many years, this creates a misalignment between human seasonal celebrations and the weather. For instance, after many years of being off by a day or so, a misaligned calendar might cause a fall harvest celebration to be scheduled for the middle of the summer. Nearly 1,500 years after its debut, the Julian calendar required a 10 day correction.
Around 1,000 A.D. Ptolemy observed in a published article that the Julian calendar was off, but at this time and for hundreds of years to come, it was potentially life-threatening to question the validity of the calendar. In the 13th century, the western world’s view of the universe was dictated by the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church did not recognize that the earth circled the sun, and in order to work out a truly precise calendar, this bit of dogma would have to adjust to match reality. So it should be no surprise that in the 1300’s it was the outcaste, curmudgeonly, genius, monk with superhuman intellectual abilities and independence, Roger Bacon, in league with Pope Clement IV, who died too young, set the stage for the Gregorian correction of the 1500s. While history does not record the reasons behind Clement the IV’s interest in calendar reform it was his interest and advocacy which propelled Roger Bacon to document the failings of the Julian calendar. Shortly after Bacon’s work reached the Pope, the Pope died, leaving Bacon behind with plenty of knowledge but no power to do anything about it.
It is also important to our overall understanding of the evolution of calendars through history to bear in mind that the telescope was not invented until the 1600’s. It was the telescope and minds like Galileo and Copernicus that literally reoriented the universe. This reorientation of the universe leads to a better understanding of the motion of the planets and the place of the earth in the solar system.
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Malcolm Gladwell talks Innovation at the PMI Global Congress
I recently presented a paper at the Project Management Institute, North American Global Congress. My paper was titled the Job Shop Scheduling Problem, Mathematical Complexity Theory, and Non-Polynomial Time Algorithms. As you can imagine, a rather narrow swath of the PMI congregants found my topic compelling enough to part with an hour of their time. I joked with my single digit audience that I should have put the word Agile in the title, and the room would have been full. Another presenter at the same conference was Malcolm Gladwell. His topic was broader in nature. As his name recognition, accomplishments, presentation skills, and writing were somewhat superior to my own, he enjoyed an audience approximately 1000 times larger than I did. Gladwell is a compelling thinker and speaker. He talked about organizational culture and the role it has historically played in innovation. Having read all of his books, most of his articles, and listened, more than once, to his hilarious appearances on The Moth Story hour, I was rife with anxious anticipation at the thought of seeing him speak live. I was not disappointed.
Malcolm started with the statement: “We place such a premium on being first.” The entire patent system is predicated on the notion of being first and reaping huge rewards. But followers and borrowers, not leaders and inventors, are the ones who lead the way.
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The Genesis of visualized collaborative planning
The daily cost to run construction sites can amass to tens of thousands of dollars. That is why businesses in the construction industry require such strict enforcement of schedules. A day over could literally cost clients and/or vendors thousands of dollars. In the construction industry, a critical path schedule is one of the fundamental documents. When a discrepancy arises about who is responsible for a negative impact on the schedule, experts perform forensic schedule analysis Experts testify on matters that would be difficult to translate to the laymen. Often they would have to hire graphic artist to illustrate the schedule impact being described by the experts testimony. This was costly, extremely time consuming, and not mathematically grounded. Thus, the Genesis of Netpoint.
Schedules are created to serve as communication tools and to allow projects to be managed proactively. But scheduling is an ineffective process when only the scheduler can comprehend the result. NetPoint transforms scheduling into an engaging and interactive planning-centric experience. The resulting plan is a unique visual tool that can be understood by the entire project team, regardless of their level of expertise. In addition, NetPoint can toggle between Critical path method ( CPM) and Graphical path method ( GPM) , so the transition is easy for experienced CPM schedulers. Read More