Why should I care about Entropy? Part 2 of 2

In this episode, Ricardo gives three important tips on how to plan for entropy: knowing when to allow fluctuations in the project tasks; recognize that problems will happen and be prepared; learn how to control the process of disorder.

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Episode transcript

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the five minutes BM Podcast do they elect to, to continue my talk about Entropy. If you remember last week I spoke about what is Entropy, what is it? This is so relevant for us. The role of the PM fighting against the growth of Entropy and this natural process of time. Expanding of Calles being implemented into our projects this week. I want to talk is likely different.

I want to talk about how can you plan and prepare yourself for this Entropy in your environment. So I want to give you three basic advices. The first one is that good project managers. They allow fluctuation, but they don't allow chaos. So what do I mean by that is that good project managers. They know that the project is not something written in stone where nothing can change because this will lead to a very poor result.

They know that certain pieces should be preserving, but some pieces I can float. So this fluctuation, we will allow the project and the Entropy to adjust, but the Calles can not be implemented because the kales just destroyed everything, just destroy all your sand castle. So it's very, very important that you understand this point. And the second thing is that the great PMs, they recognize that problems will happen.

They recognize that they cannot remove Entropy removed this from the equation. They understand that every single project, even the most simple one will face challenges. Things will go wrong. Why? Because they're is an incredibly high chance that things will go wrong and not so high chance, that thing will go right. Remember the wall collapse by itself, but the wall do not build by itself.

This is the second law of thermodynamics, and it's so important that you understand, so your tasks will be delayed naturally, but to be on time, it's a very specific timeframe in a very specific set of conditions where the probability is much lower. So the recognize, so they implement a very strong, reliable risk management process. They do what if analysis, they are always evaluating possible future scenarios because then they can anticipate, and they can understand that the chaos is coming.

For example, a good example, a hurricane. So a hurricane is a very high Entropy structure because it's a completely chaos. So what did we do? We develop a set of mathematical models are a set of tools that we can forecast with some reliability, the path of that hurricane. And then I can prevent that. So I'm fighting against the Entropy. I cannot assure that that hurricane will move left or we move, right, but I can make sure that I know the probabilities and that I can prepare different ways to different possible chaotic scenarios.

So it's very important to understand and final advice Mike turd. And the last advice is that most of the failures of the projects, they are related to our inability to control disorder. So when the disorder comes, you completely mismanage it and then, and everything collapsed, then absolutely everything falls up Part. So it's very, very simple. And that you understand that most of the time, when you say my project is failing, I have a problem here.

I have failure here. It's an absolute lack of control. It's your inability to control this Kartik environment. So as soon as you do you understand this, your life becomes time easier because you will start planning. Like, for example, I don't, I don't want to be an advocate a year, but you will start to using tools like critical chain using a theory of constraints because you know, and you know, what is really important for you and then everything else becomes less important.

And then you can control and say, instead of cleaning my full house, okay, I don't care about this part, but this core part of the house, I will keep it clean because every time I need to control Entropy, I need to spend huge amount of energy. And sometimes this energy is not worth just for the sake of controlling things. So it's very, very important that to me understand this, and if you would understand this, you would be to reveal one of the biggest secrets of great successful to executives and great successful project managers.

Think about that in this is why I watch the Brian Cox movie all the time, just to recap, because sometimes I get trapped, but in the paranoid of controlling everything, even knowing that this kind of control is just impossible. Think about that, then see you next week with another five minutes PM. Podcast.

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Why should I care about Entropy? Part 2 of 2

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