background to lessons from history series, philosophy, characteristics, great projects

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Background to the

Lessons From History Series

Mission

Unique Characteristics
What makes it different

History in Business
Where to find it

Great Projects from the Past
What are your top projects of the past?

Visions of the Future
Taken from the Past

hoover dam construction project

Project Example 1
First Mechanical Computer

Project Example 2
First manned powered flight

Project Example 3
First to the South Pole

What are the Benefits of the Lessons-from-History Series to the Reader?
The series looks at historical projects and:

Outlines the background to the projects, the drivers (business), the financials, and return on investments.
Defines how these projects were managed, the approach, and methods.
Looks at the challenges and accomplishments and provides examples of the phases, results, or tasks.
Investigates the alternatives, options available, and some of the decision making that took place.
Examines the end deliverable(s) or output(s) and works backwards as to how this was achieved.
Provides clear analogies of problem solving using emerging technologies, of the day, and how they were applied.
It mines the project intelligence for best practices.

As a result it:

Makes the experience memorable by looking at envisioned challenges through the eyes of the characters, villains and heroes, and the role they played in the project.
Increases the audience experience through a riveting tale and familiar lesson expressed in a compelling way.
Shows how emerging technology can have a breakthrough effect in solving business problems previously thought insolvable.
Provides a low cost way of training.

In today's world many projects are run as complex programs that may take 3 to 5 years to complete. For example, within corporations the customization, integration, and implementation of a complex software solution (like Customer Relationship Management, or Enterprise Resource Planning), or a journey to an Adaptive Enterprise. As a result, the benefits may not be fully understood or realized until later into the program, and these are very difficult to visualize early on. But a historical analogy demonstrates not only the end-state of the solution but the journey to it (read more about creating visions to understand the benefits of the project in visions of the future taken from the past).

A good historical example of this is the U.S. Space Program of the 1960's which was a series of evolutionary projects within a complex program that lasted close to a decade. When President Kennedy set the program objective in 1963 there was no clear mental picture of how this would be done, and what it would look like. The vision would have to be evolved step by step. After the initial objective of putting a "man on the moon" was achieved in 1969 the U.S. space program found itself it rapid decline as public interest waned, and funding dried up. There were several factors but a significant one was the lack of a clear next step, or mission. Hence, the importance of setting a vision, and evolving it as the program progresses and lessons are learned.

Today the spin offs of the U.S. Space Program are well recognized having driven several technological revolutions like that in microelectronics, and material sciences. With better foresight and project management the U.S. Space Program could have continued at the same pace of the 1960's into the 1970's and acted as a catalyst for creating emerging technologies.

Similarly, in today's business world complexities abound:

"Building high-quality, industrial strength software is difficult. Indeed, it has been argued that developing such software in domains like telecommunications, industrial control, and business process management represents one of the most complex construction tasks humans undertake."

Source: WHY AGENT-ORIENTED APPROACHES ARE WELL SUITED FOR DEVELOPING COMPLEX, DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS. Nicholas R. Jennings;

http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~nrj/download-files/cacm01.pdf

Examples of Historical Projects

The source of historical projects for the series is made up of constructions, inventions, expeditions, and achievements that were all firsts. Many were races which resulted in project failures and successes like the:

First mechanical computer, circa 1840-1890.
First telephone, circa 1876.
First manned powered flight, circa 1903.
First to the South Pole, circa 1911.
First luxury transatlantic liner, circa 1912.
First major air battle, circa 1940.
First electronic computer, circa 1943.
First manned lunar landing , circa 1970.

Read further about the site's collection of great and memorable projects of the past. The lists are all subjective and based on the site author's views.

How Can the Reader Learn from the Series?

As a reader you can look at the historical project and:

Understand it and the events leading up to it.
Analyze it and weigh up all the options.
See project leaders in action:

Study the characters, their decisions and leadership.
Be the project manager and play out the what ifs.

View it from a modern project perspective.
Observe how associated problems were solved.
Study the outcome and the impact of the project.
Compare how similar problems would be solved today.

Even with the development of methods and tools today there are strong parallels with projects of the past. These may not have been readily available but the project still achieved significant results.

This page last updated on October 14, 2006.