Project Management is not Accountancy

Why counting beans isn't the same as growing them

Recording where you are isn’t the same as deciding where to go.

One of my earliest mentors had a saying that's stuck with me for decades: "Management isn't bean-counting, but you'd better *#$@ing know where your beans are."

This gets to the heart of a problem I see plaguing project management. We spend so much time on the mechanics of project management - tracking tasks, updating schedules, maintaining burn-down charts, writing status reports - that we forget what project management actually is: taking actions today to make the future better than it would otherwise be.

The Accountancy Trap(pings)

Don't get me wrong - tracking, measuring, and reporting are important. You need to know where you are, understand your progress, communicate status and maintain visibility. But these are tools to enable management, not management itself.

Too often I see project managers who

• Spend hours perfecting Gantt charts instead of removing team blockers

• Focus on tracking every task rather than identifying critical problems

• Get caught up in status reporting instead of strategic planning

• Focus on adding more measurements but either don’t take action based on them, or take so little action the measurements cost more than they save

Real Project Management

True project management is about action and impact:

• Spotting problems before they become critical

• Making decisions that shape the future

• Removing obstacles for your team

• Taking calculated risks

• Building capability for tomorrow

The Information You Actually Need

Every piece of project tracking should tell you one of four things:

1. Where we are now

2. Where we'll likely be if we don't change anything

3. What other futures might be possible

4. What the likely results of our actions will be

If it doesn't serve one of these purposes, it's probably waste. Stop it! To tackle the question of what you actually need, look from both sides:

1. Accountancy: For every tracking mechanism you have, ask:

• What decisions does this inform?

• What actions does this enable - and how and when will I decide when to take action?

• Can we get this information more simply?

2. Management: Stop worrying about the perfect information, and spend your time on:

• Understanding implications

• Exploring options

• Taking action

• Removing obstacles

Only when you really can’t do one of these, ask what’s the simplest to get, easiest to understand set of information to allow me to make this decision well?

A Note on Team Engagement

Here's a “secret”: Teams don't hate project management - they hate pointless bean-counting. When your team sees tracking enabling better decisions rather than just monitoring their work, they become partners in gathering good information instead of reluctant participants in bureaucracy.

The Bottom Line

Yes, you need to know where your beans are. But counting them over and over won't make them grow. Real project management is about using that knowledge to make things better. Everything else is just bookkeeping.