Solve Project Puzzles The Sherlock Holmes Way

I was reading Sherlock Holmes the other day – I thought it would be interesting to go back to the original books that I read as a child since the fictional detective seems to be on the television and big screen frequently at the moment. I love detective stories and Sherlock Holmes does seem to be able to unpick some big problems.

His approach to solving cases, whether it’s a murder, a piece of lost jewellery or something a bit more out of the ordinary, is very similar to the approach we take on projects when it comes to diagnosing and resolving issues.

So here is my guide to solving project puzzles, the Sherlock Holmes way.

1. Gather The Facts

The detective always starts off with facts. He meets his client and finds out exactly what has happened. More often than not he will go to the scene of the crime to investigate in person – in other words, going back to the root cause of the issue and assessing the situation based on what he has uncovered personally instead of listening to a third party report the problem to him.

On a project, you can do the same. Use your project status reports to pick out the data required when it comes to working out what happened to cause a project issue. You’ll want to investigate first-hand, and not rely on what a project team member tells you, although they can provide useful ‘evidence’ as well. Focus on establishing exactly what has happened by looking for the root cause and filtering out anything that appears to be opinion rather than fact.

2. Make Some Deductions

Once he has all the facts, Sherlock Holmes will make deductions to work out what has actually happened. He’ll draw conclusions from what he has uncovered and that might involve making some logical leaps, but they will always be based on the facts. Sometimes in the books you’ll see how this is done, and other times you’ll have to wait until the end of the story to work out how he came to his conclusions. Either way, it’s fascinating to follow his thought process.

On your project, you do the same with issue management. When you know the facts about what has happened, you’ll have to make some assumptions and deductions about how this will affect the project and the impact it will have. Some issues will have a large impact, some won’t. And some will need you to apply some very creative thinking to assess exactly how they will affect the project as it may not be obvious at first glance.

At this point you can also start thinking about the implications on the project schedule and budget. Many issues will have an impact on the planned delivery dates and the costs of the project. With the facts you have gathered so far you should be able to deduce how your project will be affected by these. You can also go as far as to deduce how your sponsor is going to feel about the issue! This could help you work out the best way to present it to them when the time comes.

3. Involve Others

Sherlock Holmes might be the figurehead in the stories and get all the glory, but he doesn’t do all his work alone. His trusted sidekick Dr Watson is also involved in the cases. He documents everything and also acts as a sounding board for Holmes. The detective also makes use of gangs of street children (the stories being set in Victorian London) who can move around unnoticed and who often report back about suspicious activity or gather data for Holmes.

You involve other people in your project issue management as well. You might get the rest of the team involved in some brainstorming sessions to ensure that you have identified all the impacts. You could do the same with identifying possible solutions. Just like Watson, your activities at this point in the issue management cycle will include documenting what you know so far and what you plan to do about it. Use your issue log for this so that you can easily keep the status up to date and see at a glance how far you and the team have got with resolving this particular problem.

4. Present Your Conclusions

When Sherlock Holmes has solved the case and come up with a plausible solution, he presents it to the people who need to know. This is normally Inspector Lestrade (who in the books comes off as a bit of a bumbling fool a lot of the time). The Inspector, and the reader, are taken through what has happened in a step-by-step manner. You can see how the elements of the story join up and how it was possible for Holmes to come to these conclusions. Then the action required, like arresting the murderer, is left to the experts and Holmes can move on to solving another puzzle.

This is what happens when you present your issue management plan to your project team and sponsor. OK, it’s almost what happens – you have to implement the actions on the plan, as you don’t have the luxury of being able to pass it off to Inspector Lestrade and his team to go ahead and do the work. Your sponsor will review your conclusions and if you have any recommendations for how best to fix the problem, they will work with you to choose the most appropriate route forward. Once you have your project sponsor’s approval to go ahead with the solution you have recommended, you’ll have to put your action plan in place and get on with completing the work to bring the project back on track. And that, as Holmes would say, is elementary!

Ref: www.projectmanager.com