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Orchestrating Project Management

By Lisa Ricciuti posted 04-16-2014 22:09

  

I’ve been playing in orchestras for over a decade and I noticed some similarities between playing in an orchestra and working on a project.

1.     Every participant is focused on the same end goal of completion (project or concert).

2.     Dependencies exist between tasks and players. 

3.     Tasks/phrases are completed and set up so the next person can take over. 

4.     We follow the leader (conductor for the musicians, project manager (PM) for project folks).

Playing in an orchestra, and in particular performing a concert, requires me to interact, engage and adjust my actions to those around me.  When I’m playing a phrase, I don’t just end abruptly.  I taper my sound so that the next instrument can pick up where I left off.  Or, if I’m playing with another person, I adjust my playing so the sounds and tones blend together.  Musicians learn about the importance of synchronicity from the beginning. 

Another skill we learn is how to follow and play with a conductor, who in some ways is like a PM.  Sometimes people ask me if the conductor is really doing anything since it often appears that he (or she) is just standing up there flapping his arms around.  Actually, the conductor is beating out a pattern for the musicians to follow so that we know where to place our notes in relation to everybody else’s.  The conductor sets the pace and makes sure everything aligns by following along with his score, which has everybody’s part.  I read music horizontally from L to R, but the conductor reads music horizontally and vertically because he’s looking at multiple parts happening simultaneously. 

As a bassoonist, my one instrument plays different roles in the orchestra.  Sometimes I’m playing bass lines and I must align myself with the cellos and basses.  Other times I’m playing the melody with other instruments or by myself in a solo.  And sometimes I play with the other woodwind instruments (flutes, oboes, and clarinets) or the brass join in and then the whole wind section is playing.  As one instrument I “belong” in several places in the orchestra. 

In some ways, this idea of phrasing and integration applies to project work, which often requires me to “play” with multiple people and roles.  Projects have teammates, collaborators, advisors, leaders, timelines, funding, risks, and dependencies. When I work on tasks, which often appear as a discrete line item on a project plan, I’m never thinking about starting and ending them in isolation of the activity going on around me.  Similar to playing in orchestra, I’m constantly thinking about how my results will feed into the next task, or what actions I can do to make transitions smooth regardless if the next step is performed by me or somebody else.  Ultimately, everybody is working towards ending at the same place, at the same time.   After all, that’s the one way we ever know we played together in orchestra.

 

 

 

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