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"So what are we supposed to do? Early start, no good. Late start, no good."

"Use middle start?" somebody tries to joke.

"Well?" I ask, not knowing the answer.

"I said it all along," Charlie declares, and then clarifies, "I said that we need a much better way to manage our projects."

"That's what we're here for!" Mark's deep voice booms.

What a deep hole I have dug for myself. Maintaining a straight face, I calmly say, "Maybe we can approach it from another angle? A proper control mechanism should keep us focused."

Everybody is quiet because nobody, including me, understands what I actually said. Not for long.

"What do you mean by that?" Ruth asks.

When you are in a hole, stop digging, I remind myself. I'm about to admit that I'm stuck, and highlight that it's not just me but the state of the existing know-how, when I'm saved by the bell. Well, not exactly a bell, but something even louder. Ted.

"It's obvious!" he shouts at Ruth. "Everybody knows what a control mechanism is: it measures the progress of the project. The problem is," he turns to me, "that by the time the progress report indicates something is wrong, it's usually too late."

"Yes," a skinny student, sitting at the end of the second row, supports him.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Ah...Tom."

Before he has a chance to return to his cocoon, I ask him to clarify why he thinks that progress reports usually raise the flag too late.

He doesn't answer. Fred answers for him. "A progress report will tell you that ninety percent of the project is finished in one year and then, the remaining ten percent takes another full year."

The class bursts out laughing.

"It seems like you all share this experience with Fred," I finally manage to say.

Many heads nod.

"In that case," I say, relieved, "we'd better discuss how you monitor the progress of your projects."

It's not long before we get a good handle on how progress is measured in reality. Not much different than what I found in the literature. Progress is measured according to the amount of work, or investment, already done, relative to the amount still to do. In all my students' cases, including the cases where milestones and progress payment were used, this measurement did not differentiate between work done on the critical path and work done on other paths.

"Can anybody predict the impact of measuring progress in this way?" I ask the class.

"We reward starting each path at the earliest possible time," Brian is quick to notice. "This measurement encourages the project leader to start unfocused."

"Moreover," Charlie notices, "it encourages the project leader to continue being unfocused."

"How come?"

"Because according to our measurement," he explains, "progress on one path compensates for a delay on another. So we encourage progressing fast on one path even though another path is delayed."

"What's bad about that?" Mark asks. "If I have difficulties in one path, why shouldn't I move on the other paths where I can?"

"At the end they all merge together," Charlie reminds him. "All the advance that you gain in the open paths will have to wait for the delayed path anyway. You made the investment too early, and what is worse, you allowed yourself to not concentrate on the place you should, on the delayed path that needs your attention."

Mark doesn't answer. It looks like he's doing some soulsearching.

"A shortsighted project manager," Charlie's still talking to him, "can ignore the paths that are slowed down by problems, and the measurement will still indicate that the project is progressing. The project leader looks good. For a while. A long while. Only when the work is complete on all the other open paths, and only the problematic path remains, only then will the fallacy start to be revealed. Mark, don't see this as personal criticism. I do exactly the same thing. Only in the last fifteen minutes have I become so smart."

"Thank you," says Mark. "But I still have to think about it."

I don't