In Poor Richard’s Almanac, Benjamin Franklin penned the familiar lines: “For the want of a nail the shoe was lost, for the want of a shoe the horse was lost, for the want of a horse the rider was lost, for the want of a rider the battle was lost, for the want of a battle the kingdom was lost — and all for the want of a horseshoe nail.” Looking at the outcome in hindsight, could project management concepts have avoided the loss of the kingdom? Explain your answers.
What will be an ideal response?
Suggest to students that this can be seen as a simple set of dependent tasks, or events. You might even give them some task durations and ask them to draw a PERT chart that shows the critical path. A PERT approach forces people to ask the right questions. For example, the obvious question would be “What might happen if we have a problem with a horseshoe nail?” Benjamin Franklin used an interesting analogy to show that a relatively small event can have enormous consequences that might not be immediately obvious.
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