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Unit 11: Future of Project Management-I

material creativity. On the other there are the “existentialists” who, rejecting dogma, prefer to Notes
rely on the passions, impulses, urges and intuitions that are the basic ground of our personal
existence.
Figure 11.2: The Tetrad Tradeoff — Four Objectives or Constraints

11.5 Thinkers and Feelers

In short, there is a split between thinkers and feelers and the impact on project work should not be
underestimated.
When confronted by project goals and objectives, there are those who obtain satisfaction through
the successful achievement of these goals and objectives. Their concerns stem from ensuring that
the necessary time and resources are available and within their power to control. These are the
thinkers who are usually involved by choice and often represent management.
The feelers, however, tend not to be stimulated by setting goals and objectives and indeed see it
as being of little or no consequence. In their view, the only important thing about goal-setting
is that the goals should be broadly based, loosely defined and flexible. Typically, they are the
stakeholders and constituents and their satisfaction comes, if at all, not from a sense of achievement
but from participating in the process.
We can see this dichotomy as far back as our story of Imhotep and King Zoser. Imhotep was
clearly a thinker and achieved what he achieved through a satisfaction of “getting things done”.
King Zoser, on the other hand, was a feeler and was obviously greatly concerned about how he
would feel incarcerated in his magnificent mastaba.
Companies such as IBM, Microsoft & Deloitte have come to realization that they must excel at
project management.
Today, the pendulum of management thought has swung towards “participative management”
which is the buzz word for corporate management’s attempt to bridge this gap. We can already see
this trend emerging in project work, and we can expect to see this trend continue. Indeed, the
greater the number of stakeholders and constituents that are involved in the end results of a
project, whether it be internal administrative or external infrastructure, the more important it is.
Unfortunately, these project constituents are rarely accountable for the project’s time and cost, at
least in the short term. Consequently, “participation” in the project process may become stalled
and even reversed, exacting a terrible toll in terms of the project’s core constraints.
As populations grow and the share of the world’s resources diminish, we can confidently expect
the rate of change to accelerate. Project management will continue to be the most powerful

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