Top Ten Classical Theories of Project Management

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1. The Peter Principle

Every organization comprises various positions, ranks, or hierarchies to which everyone belongs. Lawrence Peter, an American scholar, concluded The Peter Principle after studying the phenomena related to organizational personnel promotion. Employees are always promoted to their incompetent positions in various organizations. The Peter Principle is sometimes called the Climbing Principle. The phenomenon is ubiquitous in real life: a competent professor promoted to university president is not qualified for the position; an excellent athlete promoted to an official in charge of sports does nothing. Once a considerable number of people are promoted to their incompetent level, the organization will be overstaffed and inefficient, leading to the prominence and stagnation of mediocre people. Therefore, it is necessary to change the promotion mechanism of employees in enterprises based solely on contribution. It cannot be inferred that someone is competent for a higher level because he has done well in a certain position. Promoting an employee to a position where he can not give full play to his talents is not only a reward for himself but also causes losses to the enterprise.

2. Wine and Sewage Law

The Wine and Sewage Law is that if you pour a spoonful of wine into a bucket of sewage, you will get a bucket of sewage. If you pour a spoonful of sewage into a bucket of wine, you will still get a bucket of sewage. There are a few bad characters whose purpose seems to mess things up in almost any organization. Worst of all, they are like rotten apples in the fruit box that will quickly spread and spoil the other apples if left untreated. The terrible thing about a rotten apple is its terrifying destructive power. An honest and competent person entering a chaotic department can be engulfed, while an evil and an incompetent person can quickly turn an efficient department into a mess. Based on mutual understanding, compromise and tolerance, organizational systems are fragile, easily infringed, and poisoned. Another important reason for the extraordinary ability of saboteurs is that it is easier to destroy than to build. A donkey can destroy the ceramics that a skilled artisan takes time to elaborate on in a second. If an organization has such a donkey, skilled artisans can only produce a little decent work. If you have such a donkey in your organization, you should eliminate it immediately. If you cannot do so, you should tie it up.

3. Buckets Effect / Cannikin Law

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The Buckets Effect is that how much water a bucket can hold depends entirely on its shortest board. A common problem that any organization may face is that the various parts of the organization are often uneven. In contrast, the inferior parts often determine the level of the whole organization. The Buckets Effect is different from the Wine and Sewage Law, which deals with the destructive power of an organization. The shortest board is a valuable part of the organization, but worse than others, so you can't throw them away as rotten apples. Strength is a relative term and cannot be eliminated. The question is how much you tolerate the weakness. If it is serious enough to become a bottleneck in your work, you must do something about it.

4. Matthew Effect

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Matthew's story is: A king gave a mina to each of his three servants before going on a long journey and told them, "Take it and do business. When I'm back, come to see me." When the king returned, the first servant said, "Your mina, master, has made ten minas." So the king awarded him ten towns. Then came the second, saying: "Master, your mina has made five minas." So the king rewarded him with five towns. And the third came, saying: Master, I have wrapped the mina in a handkerchief and not taken it out for fear of losing. So the king ordered the third servant to give the mina to the first servant, saying, "The less, the worse. The more, the better." The Matthew effect reflects a common phenomenon in today's society: the winner takes all. In business development, the Matthew effect tells us that you must become strong quickly to stay ahead in one area. When you're the leader in a certain field, it's easier to outperform your weaker peers, even with the same return on investment. And if you need more strength to expand quickly in a certain area, you must keep looking for new areas of development to ensure a better return.

5. Zero-sum Game

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The zero-sum game is a game with winners and losers: one side wins, and the other loses. The total score of the game is always zero. The principle of a zero-sum game is widely concerned because people can find the** situation similar to a zero-sum game in all aspects of society. The glory of the winner often hides the bitterness of losers. In the 20th century, humanity experienced two world wars, rapid economic growth, scientific and technological progress, global integration, and increasingly serious environmental pollution. The concept of win-win gradually replaces the concept of the zero-sum game. People are beginning to realize that profit can be based on something other than the expense of others. Through effective cooperation, a happy ending is possible. But from a zero-sum game to a win-win requires all parties to have the spirit and courage of sincere cooperation. Don't play petty tricks and always want to take advantage of others in cooperation. Please abide by the rules of the game. Otherwise, the win-win situation is impossible, and the loser is the cooperator.

6. Washington Company Law

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The Washington Company Law is that one person is perfunctory, two people pass the buck to each other, and three people can never accomplish anything. More or less like the story of the Three Monks. Cooperation between people is not a simple addition to the workforce but is much more complex and subtle. Assuming that each person's ability is 1 in this kind of cooperation, the cooperation result of 10 people is sometimes much larger than 10, but sometimes even less than 1. Because people are not objects but more like energy in different directions. When they push each other, they will naturally achieve twice the result with half the effort; when they contradict each other, more is needed. In traditional management theory, more research on cooperation needs to be done. The most intuitive reflection is that most current management systems and behaviors are committed to reducing the unnecessary consumption of human resources rather than using the organization to improve human efficiency. In other words, the main purpose of management is not to make everyone do better but to avoid too much internal friction.

7. Watch Law

The watch law means that when a person has one watch, he can know what time it is, but when he has two simultaneously, he can't be sure. Two watches cannot tell a person more accurate time but will make the person lose confidence in the accurate time. The watch law gives us a very intuitive inspiration in enterprise management. That is, we can't adopt two different methods and set two different goals for the management of the same person or the same organization simultaneously. Two people can only command some people simultaneously; otherwise, it will make the enterprise or the person feel at a loss. Another implication of the watch law is that everyone can't choose two different values simultaneously; otherwise, your behavior will be in chaos.

8. Unworth Law

The most intuitive expression of the unworthy law is that what is not worth doing well. This law is simple, but people ignore it and forget its importance. The unworthy law reflects people's psychology; if a person is engaged in something that he thinks is not worth doing, he tends to keep a cynical and perfunctory attitude. Not only is the success rate low, but he feels little sense of accomplishment even if he succeeds. Therefore, for the individual, it is important to choose one of a variety of goals and values to strive for. Choosing what you love and loving what you choose can inspire your fighting spirit and make you feel at ease. For an enterprise or organization, it is necessary to analyze the personality characteristics of employees and allocate work reasonably. For example, employees with a strong desire for achievement should be allowed to complete the work with certain risks and difficulties alone or in the lead, and timely recognition and praise should be given when they are completed; employees with a strong desire for the attachment should be allowed to participate in a group to work together; employees with a strong desire for power should be elected to serve as a supervisor commensurate with his ability. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen employees' sense of identity to the enterprise goals so that they feel that what they do is worthwhile to stimulate their enthusiasm.

9. Mushroom Management

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Mushroom management is a management method for many organizations to treat fledgling people, who are put in a dark corner (unappreciated departments or errands), poured with shit (unwarranted criticism, accusations, and taking the fall for someone else), and left to fend for themselves (without necessary guidance and support). Many people have had such a mushroom experience, which is not necessarily bad, especially when everything is just beginning. Being a mushroom for a few days can eliminate many unrealistic fantasies, make us closer to reality, and analyze problems more realistically. In an organization, recruits are generally treated equally, and there is no big difference from starting salary to the job. No matter how excellent you are, you can only start from the simplest things at the beginning. The experience of mushrooms is like a cocoon for growing young people. It is a necessary step before emergence. Therefore, how to efficiently go through this section of life, learn from it as much as possible, mature, and establish a good and trustworthy personal image is a subject that every young person who has just entered society must face.

10. Occam’s razor

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In the 12th century, William of Occam in England advocated nominalism, which only recognized what exists, and thought that the open universal concepts were useless burdens that should be ruthlessly removed. He advocates not adding entities unless necessary, known as Occam's razor. The razor has threatened many people and is regarded as heresy, and William himself was persecuted for it. However, without harming the knife's sharpness, Occam's razor has been ground faster by history over hundreds of years and overloaded with the original narrow field, which has broad, rich, and profound significance. Occam's Razor law can be further evolved into the law of simplicity and complexity in business management: it's easy to make things complicated, but it's complicated to make things simple. This law requires us to grasp the main essence of things and the mainstream, solve the most fundamental problems, especially to conform to nature, and not to complicate things artificially when we deal with things. Only in this way can we handle things well.