Musings on project management: Ideology: a project driver?

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Ideology: a project driver?

Ideology: "A systematic scheme of ideas used to justify a policy"

Simon Heffer,
"A short history of power"

Heffer goes on to say: "Defense of values and identity is a statement of ideology."

Is this news you can use?

I don't want to make a big deal of this, but when I read Heffer I was somewhat struck by idea of a "systematic scheme" as a description of ideology. I wouldn't call my personal ideology systematic, nor capable of being put down as a schematic (scheme)

On the other hand ..........
When it comes to doing projects there maybe something here that's actionable

The enterprise certainly has values, but if the organization is big enough, there are probably multiple value sets, each by a "senior executive" with their own turf. Thus, if you're doing projects across the enterprise, there may be multiple ideologies to contend with, and they may clash.
Your action: to be the risk manager where there are collisions of ideology
I've always thought of policy as a consequence of ideology, but Heffer puts it the other way around: ideology as justification for policy.
What does that mean for you? Beware policies with no foundation in values; such polices can be changed on a dime, and then values retrofit to justify them. Troubling, to be sure
Some good news: if you begin with a value set, then just the defense of those values is an ideology. For many, certainly for me, I can describe my values easier than I can describe an ideology
Project managers: Your project inherits values from your sponsor, and melds them with values inherited from your training and experience, maybe also from some rules that are written down.

Thus, projects are going to have a synthesized ideology, thus a synthesized value set. Consequently, as you assemble the team, some training (should I say indoctrination?) required.

Read as: slower velocity in the beginning, some schedule required and some cost to establish the ideology!