A Programmer's Progress

Picasso vs. the PMBOK

By Paul Epps

I'm working with a company that has a PMO-driven, document-centric development process, the theory being, I guess, that the people who are actually doing the work are not capable of figuring out the best way to do it, and therefore need to have it spelled out for them in excruciating detail.

Pablo Picasso

I'm not a big fan of that approach . . .

Let's say the PMO has a recipe for baking a cake. We hire the world's greatest pastry chef, give him the recipe, and say, "Here's the way we bake cakes around here. Everybody does it this way, and you're going to do it this way. No exceptions."

First of all, it doesn't matter anymore that he's the world's greatest pastry chef . . . if he uses the same recipe, he's going to get the same lousy cake as everybody else. The time and effort that went into becoming the world's greatest pastry chef is wasted.

The next thing that happens is he gets angry and frustrated and goes to work somewhere else.

Not coincidentally, this company has a very high turnover rate in IT. Smart, capable people who want to do good work without being condescended to every minute by people and processes are beating feet to the exits.

If you hire Picasso to paint a picture, do you surround him with PMO types and Six Sigma jackoffs saying things like "That's not the way the PMBOK says to do it"?

"Fuck the PMBOK! You're not fit to mix my paints!"

Thus spoke Picasso.

30 July 2005
programmer@programmers-progress.com