There are so many 'laws' that govern Project Management one wonders how to keep track of them all.
Now comes "The Incompetence Dodge", originally formulated by Sam Rosenfeld and Matt Yglesias. Their domain was foreign policy, but their idea can be recast to project management.
Simply put: if your idea failed, you need not look to the quality of the idea; you simply blame others for implementing your idea incompetently.
Simple tactics, and the dodge
With such a simple tactic, any errors of strategy on your part are transferrable to others as errors of tactics!
Thus, you dodge around bad ideas by the ruse of incompetence by others.
How long can this go on?
How long? It depends on whether you are in charge of the time or the clocks.
If you've got time on your side, you can run out the clock, maintaining the dodge forever.
And, here's the really good part: you don't need jump on incompetence right away. You can wait and see which way it goes.
- If your bad idea is somehow rescued by brilliant execution, you can claim victory.
- But, if it goes awry, you can jump on incompetence and avoid personal defeat!
Bottom line: you can be blameless!
Buy them at any online book retailer!
