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What Sci-Fi Movies Teach Us About Project Management Skills

Posted by samzenpus on from the I'm-afraid-I-can't-accept-that-proposal-dave dept.

Esther Schindler writes "It's certainly fun to pretend to find work inspiration from our favorite SF films. That's what Carol Pinchefsky does in two posts, one about positive business lessons you can take away from SF films (such as 'agile thinking can save many a project (and project manager) in a crisis' from Robocop and team motivation lessons from Buffy), and the other, 5 Project Management Horror Stories Found in Sci-Fi Movies, with examples of the impact of poor documentation on Captain America."

2 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Science Fact by bscott · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You don't need to reach for SF to get a great project management lesson, just look at the Apollo program.

    A triumph of the human spirit, of technology, of ingenuity, sure - but mainly, an overwhelming triumph of project management. Who says the government can't handle any big jobs, eh? (well, anyone who's been watching for the last 40 years maybe...)

    --
    Perfectly Normal Industries
    1. Re:Science Fact by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And they launched Challenger when the solid-fuel booster O-rings were too cold to seat properly, over the objections of the engineers.

      That's true, but what's even sadder is that those damn O-rings should've never even been there in the first place. The SRBs were meant to be a one piece monolithic design. However it was changed into a segmented multi piece O-ring design because pork had to be provided to Morton Thiokol at the insistence of the senator from Utah, who held the purse strings. (Thiokol, being in Utah, cannot ship a large one piece by ocean and could only build segmented ones shipped by rail)

      The lesson here is, do not let managers into your project who have their own agendas that conflict with the main project's mission.