The needed technology for managing nontrivial projects

2020-06-29

In the old days, programmers drew a flowchart in glory details before they wrote code.  Computer scientists later on found that a flowchart could help programmers organize their thoughts but if programmers put in a lot of efforts to express everything in glory details in a flowchart, in no time they would get diminishing returns and quickly after that adverse impacts.  

The fundamental problem is that a flowchart is a graphical view of logical flows and it is extremely difficult to scale up a flowchart that is still human readable, understandable and ease-to-update once the information that it contains is beyond the size of a normal whiteboard with normal-size drawings.  

What is a whiteboard automation tool?

Whiteboard automation tool is a project management tool. The commonest types of whiteboard automation tools are:

1. The automation of drawing and redrawing of a flowchart, network diagram or Gantt chart based on manual input to provide the graphical view of the flow or project.
2. The automation of placing and replacing of different yellow sticky papers (representing activities) based on manual input on a Kanban board marked with different columns (representing statuses) to provide the graphical view of project activity statuses.

What are the problems of using a whiteboard or whiteboard automation tool to generate flowchart, network diagram, Gantt chart or Kanban?

Flowchart, network diagram, Gantt chart and Kanban all have similar scalability issues. Once the information that they contain is beyond the size of a normal whiteboard with normal-size drawings, their serious scalability problems will occur quickly, regardless of an oversized-whiteboard-with-magnets or a whiteboard-automation-tool that is used to provide the graphical view. 


People use oversized whiteboard and whiteboard automation tools to generate flowcharts, network diagrams, Gantt Charts or Kanban.  All don’t work once the information is in large-scale.

Is scalability the only issue using a whiteboard or whiteboard automation tool to manage a nontrivial project?

A whiteboard or a whiteboard automation tool shows the time-span, dependency and status information of a project.  The dependency information that it provides doesn’t include the dependencies on resources, costs, materials, procurements and outsourcings.  The time-span and status information that it provides is inaccurate since no mechanism in the process to enforce people to report lateness.   For non-trivial projects, the information is far from sufficient for the project team to act diligently.

What is the industrial example of the successful use of whiteboard to manage complex business operations?

In history, exchanges used blackboards successfully for trading. Exchanges scaled up their trading information on their blackboard by extending the blackboard to cover their entire trading hall and provided enough staff to keep the trading information up-to-date during trading hours.  

In other words, the trading information on trading hall blackboard was readable, understandable, up-to-date and accurate during trading hours.  

Exchanges first succeeded with their manual blackboard trading system and then moved to develop their electronic trading systems to automate trading and settlement, not generation of graphical charts like the whiteboard automation tools do.  

What is an example of how dynamic information can be maintained effectively in our daily life?

A family has 5 members and each has an ATM card of the same account.   

It doesn’t matter how these 5 people are in the same or different countries, at the same or different time and withdrawing or depositing money, the system can always maintain all interaction and transaction information in the clear, accurate and real-time manner with non-corruptible audit trail.

What is the right technology for managing the non-trivial projects?

The real-time transactional project management (Transactional PPM) technology can keep project information up-to-date and accurate, which in turn can keep people honest.  

Transactional PPM uses 4-eyes maker-checker methods and computer’s transaction and straight-thru-processing capabilities to preserve project data integrity.  The result system is analogous to an ATM or a trading system which has only one-copy-of-the-truth and can distribute information concisely and precisely.

Transactional PPM can decode “The Myth of 90% Complete"

The phenomenon of "90% completion of the project is a myth" is so common in our industry and makes the “on-time within-budget” projects minorities.

If projects can change from 90% complete to 80%, 70%, 60% or 50% complete without requirement changes, these projects must have project data integrity problems since their official data don’t reflect the realities. 

Project data integrity problems affect people’s honesty and their work ethics as well as managers’ ability to manage people’s accountability. Results are huge wastes and losses.   

Is any project management product on the market using Transactional PPM technology?

Yes, the 8Manage PPM project management tool is designed to solve the problem of false project information. 

8Manage PPM uses unique real-time transaction-type transaction processing technology, which can maintain the integrity of project data and restrain peoples dishonesty. It is the project management software most lacking in todays project management market.

For more information,please see: https://www.8manage.com/advantages/blockchain_pm.html