Originally published in Project Management Review in 2003.
Ever since the day the Romans landed in Britain, people have hailed them as the master strategists and civilising influence. Few realise, however, that it was an unknown Essex man who gave them one of their greatest innovation in logistics.
Almost as soon as they landed, Roman surveyors spread throughout the land, placing milestones wherever they went. Within three years, they had established a grid of thousands of stone tablets, each with the distance from the nearest major town chiselled into the face in smart new Roman numerals. Huge numbers of Roman forces could march from place to place, confidently knowing how far they were from their destination and how far they had marched. They always knew where they were, every time they got to a milestone.
The breakthrough in navigation came about when a smart (mentally, not physically) tribesman in Essex got into conversation with a centurion on the edge of the Essex marshes. In the course of the conversation, the centurion explained that the force was travelling from Bristol to Carlisle.
‘So what are you doing in Essex then?’
‘Isn’t that obvious? We are going to Carlisle, using the milestones to guide us.’
‘So why are you marching via Essex when it is over a hundred miles off the straight line between Bath and Carlisle?’
‘Because the surveyors told us to go via the milestones, stupid!’
Soon after, following the advice of this humble tribesman (who later became a project management consultant), the Romans changed the way they worked and started building roads in straight lines. Milestones were set up besides the road so that the Romans could use them to gauge how far they were along the project – I mean road – without a senseless detour to find inappropriate milestones.
So, do the milestones on your project ‘follow the best road’ or are you forced to compromise project delivery just to target meaningless milestones?
On many big projects, the milestones are set out long before the project plan is put together. Often the milestones are arbitrary, and in the worst cases are put together by people who don’t understand the project, but just regard it as a series of cash flows. This can mean that resources become diverted to satisfying the irrational ‘comfort’ needs of accountants, rather than making real progress towards the delivery of benefits. In the worst case, I came across an engineering project where successfully finished process systems were cannibalised for equipment to complete a less important system flagged as the next milestone. A similar thing could be happening on your project…
Rise up! Complain about inappropriate milestones and measures of progress! Insist that progress is celebrated against meaningful achievement! Stop diverting your troops to Essex! It’s time to face your project sponsor and argue that you should be able to negotiate your own milestones – so that you can meet them without diverting your team from useful work.
© 2003 Richard Byford