I recently volunteered to be part of a setup crew for a school fundraising auction.  The auction is a colossal event which it takes the better part of the school year to plan. The job I signed up for was almost 100% physical labor; I have the sore muscles as evidence.  It did give me a great chance to observe a fast-moving project in action.

Large blueprints were draped across tables, each one a copy of the master plan. The blueprints showed where the lighting should be installed and where tables and display boards should be placed, Many variants of the blueprints were carried by others, detailing decorations, electrical and sound equipment, and functional stations like check-in, food, etc.

As one of the low-level "worker bees," I was given instruction by Tom, who was a supervisor of sorts.  Once Tom realized that I was able to read and understand the blueprint, he asked me to direct some of the latecomer bees.  His instructions were simple:  "here’s the plan: make it happen."

Of course, this didn’t make Tom obsolete.  He had several groups of bees performing different tasks, and as we ran into problems, I would find Tom and ask for a solution.  "Tom, the plan calls for a tall table in this corner, but we only have medium and small tables."  In each case, Tom would consult the master plan and make adjustments as necessary.

On some occasions, Tom would need to consult his "supervisor," who was fielding questions from the field managers like Tom.  These Level 2 managers were poetry in motion.  There were clumps of people around them, each person waiting their turn to present the latest obstacle.  Problems appeared and were resolved in real-time because of their decisions.  Each one had done the same (or a similar) job in previous years, and some of the volunteers were training for their jobs the following year.

It was different from the project management I’m used to (software development).  There wasn’t time for status meetings; in fact, you could see the status very easily by looking around the areas where we were doing our work.  Slowly, steadily, the blueprints were taking shape in three dimensions.

There was a hierarchy of sorts, but much of the hierarchy was being created and organized in real time.  There were self organizing teams, based on what the needs were and the skills of the team.  Communication was ad-hoc but the essential changes to the plan were communicated to everyone who needed to know.

There were many dependencies.  We couldn’t set up the tables until the lighting was in place, and the lighting people couldn’t begin until the chalkers finished their job. Like most projects, delays in earlier tasks caused cascading delays.  Because of the distributed decision making, on-the-fly changes were made to minimize the disruption.

There was a master project plan, but we never saw it; for almost all of us, we never needed to see it.  The plan is refined and improved from year to year, and it was obvious that it worked very well this year. Like most projects, it succeeded because there was a good plan and (more important) experienced, great people responsible for its execution.

On the evening of the auction, all of the ladders, carts, boxes, and stacks of furniture and food had been replaced by a beautiful space, the manifestation of the plan on the blueprints.  Many of the people who were eating, drinking, and bidding on donated items had been involved in the setup, and it gave me the best thing about project management; the great feeling when a project you worked on is a tremendous success.