The Scale of The Problem

I regularly see project management texts discussing character types with respect to project team selection and composition.  For the most part, I believe this is an academic conceit, because it's incredibly rare to have such a large population of team candidates that you can filter on this basis.

If you believe in character types - and some character types don't - there is a piece of information that can inform us of the scale of the problem of premature closure.  In the Jungian character typing system (more commonly known now as Briggs Myers) your character type is identified by a four letter designation of pairs:

E/I  - Extravert / Introvert
S/N  - Sensor / iNtuitive
T/F - Thinking / Feeling
J/P - Judgers / Perceivers

While all these elements indicate something about how you make decisions, it is the final pair, Judgers/Perceivers, which I would like to focus on here.  Judgers make decisions quickly (trusting the Experiential System)…and make up over 87% of executives.  It is these people who will need convincing most that the scope should be properly challenged, that it is a vital and necessary component of the project and a predictor of its success.

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Project, Leadership, Black, Book, Decision+Styles