Ithuta JV

Source - Article by Bob Andrew

The scientific method is what keeps scientists busy and earns them a living. Using established principles and processes of discovery and demonstration, they observe nature and physical phenomena, formulate hypotheses to explain the phenomena, experiment by means of repeatable tests to show the truth or falseness of the hypotheses, validate or modify the hypotheses and then share their data with other scientists. If an hypothesis remains proven, by successfully being tested or applied over a period of time, it can become a theory. Theories can then be combined to derive a coherent and supportive structure. Scientists use the scientific method to search for cause and effect relationships in nature. In this way their experiments are designed in such a way to see what changes to one item cause some other item to vary in a predictable way.

The scientific method is unemotional and impersonal. The only chance for real success in science is to describe the evidence without regard to the way you feel it should be. The good and bad parts of a theory have to be explained impartially. As the famous Nobel Physics prize winner, Richard Feynman, stated: "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Science is what we do to prevent us lying to ourselves.”

The body of scientific knowledge at any point in history, including now, is simply the collection of theories and views of the world that have not yet been shown to be wrong. Somewhat flippantly, compare this to the project management body of knowledge, which does not consist of theories but consists mainly of various methodologies and procedures. Based on documented records of project management performance, it would be untrue to say that the current body of project management knowledge represents views that have not yet shown to be wrong.

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One of the reasons that the scientific method has been so successful is that scientists recognise that personal and cultural beliefs can influence both perceptions and interpretations of natural phenomena and for this reason, always aim to minimise those influences when developing a theory through the use of standard procedures and criteria. In summary, the scientific method attempts to minimise the influence of bias or prejudice in the experimenter when testing an hypothesis or a theory. As a famous scientist once said, "Smart people (like smart lawyers) can come up with very good explanations for mistaken points of view."

Project performance targets can be related to the scientific method by cause and effect relationships. Performance targets can be viewed as the effects, and applying the scientific method would relate to identifying the variables over which the project team has control that will cause these desired effects. As a scientist would do, the project manager needs to first articulate ideas as to how the outcome of the project management tasks and activities (experiments: plan-do-check) will produce the desired effects. For example, in scientific terms, a project plan is an experiment to see what you don’t understand about the work. In doing this, the project manager will avoid the situation where projects are completed on time and within budget, but fall short in the performance requirements: ‘the project was done right, but it was not the right project’.

The setting of clear performance targets and measurement methods is closely aligned with the disciplines of scientific statistical design of experiments and is equally relevant to project management. Clear and unambiguous targets are required for project success. Stating and documenting clear performance targets are the prime means of project scope control and performance targets are a starting point for implementation of the scientific method.

The scientific method is also focused on avoiding the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect, where unskilled people make poor decisions and reach wrong conclusions, but cannot recognise their mistakes due to their incompetence. Unlike highly skilled and competent people, who generally underrate their level of competency, people affected by the Dunning-Kruger effect rate their skills very highly and have high levels of misguided self confidence, which can have a negative effect on the design and implementation of project tasks and activities. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a scientific elaboration on a famous quote by Charles Darwin that ‘ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge’. The importance of skills and knowledge, and especially the avoidance of ‘knowledge gaps’ is a strong feature of the scientific method.

An important aspect of the scientific method in relation to its value for project management, is objectivity and avoidance of biased interpretations of results. Another is the emphasis given to documentation, archiving and sharing of all data and methodologies so that they are available for scrutiny by other scientists. This practice, called full disclosure, allows statistical measures of the reliability of the data to be established. This may seem an unlikely practice in the competitive world of business and projects, but the principles are nevertheless worth noting.