One project to rule them all

What the Council of Elrond, a pivotal scene in The Lord of the Rings, can tell us about the importance of project initiation meetings. By Richard Young.

We often hear about ‘accidental project managers’ – people who don’t always think in project management terms, but who might benefit from the professional disciplines we hold dear. And since we rarely, if ever, see project managers explicitly featured in movies or books, that got us wondering: what project management lessons should be applied in popular culture?

And to kick off what we hope will be a series fuelled by you, the readers of Project, we decided to start with film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings (LOTR).

There are many moments in the films that hint at the need for great project management – from the defence of Helm’s Deep to the recruitment of the Army of the Dead. In each case, the projects feed into the wider enterprise: the defeat of Sauron and the saving of Middle Earth from the forces of evil.

But it’s worth looking at that enterprise in more detail to understand the biggest set of project management lessons in the trilogy – the ‘project initiation’ meeting that takes place at the Council of Elrond. It’s a useful reminder that knowing who the project sponsors are, identifying what agenda they have, and establishing how much room for manoeuvre the project manager can exert are all vital considerations.

Who are the project sponsors?
This is perhaps the pivotal question in the LOTR project. And for a long period, it seems simple enough. Gandalf, recognising that the One Ring is in the hands of Frodo in the Shire, decides that something must be done to prevent it falling into the hands of evil. On the face of it, he’s the project manager.

Pretty soon, though, the picture gets murkier – a sensation familiar to many project managers. For a start, Gandalf departs to consult with Saruman (a key stakeholder in this process), leaving the team (Frodo and Sam, along with Merry and Pippin) in the hands of an operational executive – Strider, later revealed to be Aragorn. Already, the project is getting more complicated. And when Saruman decides to undermine the project by taking Gandalf off the team (by imprisoning him), it’s off to a very rocky start.

Obviously, having a key stakeholder actively undermining a project is a big problem. But when Frodo and the team – and a now-escaped Gandalf – reunite at the Council of Elrond in Rivendell, we can see how managing stakeholders, sponsors and seconded team members can get really tough.

Project initiation: start on the right foot
The Council of Elrond is clearly the project initiation meeting, where the various stakeholders meet to agree goals, risks, workflows and even stage gates.

In fact, the meeting sets out a clear project goal: destroy the Ring. Lord Elrond sets out the project requirements very clearly: “The Ring cannot be destroyed by any craft we here possess. It was made in the fires of Mount Doom. Only there can it be unmade. It must be taken deep into Mordor and cast into the fiery chasm from whence it came.”

Any project will have its fair share of pessimists. In this case, the project sponsor from the Gondor side of the joint venture (JV), Boromir, paints a gloomy picture: “One does not simply walk into Mordor.” There follows a detailed breakdown of the risks on the project – perhaps a slightly too colourful one, and ending on an overly downbeat message: it cannot be done.

If we think of the Council as a JV, this is where we see contradictory opinions and historic divisions between entities start to negatively affect this new project. The elves are committed to the goal; the dwarves think this commitment is an attempt to wrest control of the project.

The resulting row will be familiar to many project managers. “On any programme that cuts across directorates, each director has a vested interest in how it is going to impact on them, and almost wants to wrestle in and be the sponsor,” said one senior attendee at APM’s London roundtable last year.

“To avoid that, we appoint a single accountable and responsible owner, driven by the company’s business plan,” he continued. “Almost before we start work, we set out the ground rules: ‘You’re the sponsor, you’re the accountable business owner and this is how this is going to evolve.’ Where somebody has an interest in that programme, or wants to be consulted, then we ensure they form part of the governance structure, or that there is a forum for them to be included.”

The Fellowship of the Ring
In many JV projects, a semi-independent project entity is created to get around these problems. And that’s precisely the role that Frodo takes. He’s broadly aligned with the other project sponsors – but he’s also free of the political motivations that dominate their decision-making, and he’s wholly focused on the project, not the wider context.

As project manager, Frodo is in a perfect position. He has the respect of the lead sponsor (in this case, Gandalf); he is politically neutral for the JV partners; and he’s able to assemble a diverse team around him using the resources of those JV partners to ensure all appropriate skills are met. They commit to the project because their roles are now clear, their politics subsumed by the clarity of the project goal.
Above all, for these reasons, Frodo is trusted by the others to nurse the project through – particularly by Gandalf, who prizes his purity of heart.

As another guest at APM’s London roundtable put it: “Successful sponsors will help to navigate projects and programmes through difficult times.” And that applies to the different characters (‘suppliers’) joining this new Fellowship of the Ring. “Trust is also important with the supply chain. And within the supply chain, each supplier is a project in itself.”

Many of you will recognise the benefits of branding a project team – giving it clarity of purpose, uniting team members round a sense of identity separate from their business-as-usual roles and giving it profile within the sponsoring organisation(s). The Fellowship of the Ring is a brilliant example.

Other PM lessons
We’re starting to hear much more use of the term ‘wagile’ to describe projects where the core discipline is traditional waterfall project management planning, but where agile is factored in from the outside. And we can see this playing out on at least two occasions later in LOTR.

First, when the Fellowship’s path through the Misty Mountains is blocked and it needs to travel through the Mines of Moria. This is one extended sprint, with uncertain conditions (the mine is full of bad guys), changing priorities (it’s also a maze) and the loss of a key team member (most of you will have encountered the project management version of the Balrog at some point).

Having a sense of the key stage gates, but responding in an agile way when external events undermine the plan, is a core project management skill, of course.

Second, there’s the ultimate falling-out with Boromir – who decides he should seize the Ring and use its power to defend Gondor. When a key project stakeholder and JV partner decides they want to take over a project and steer it in an entirely different direction, it’s up to the project manager to stand their ground, and the project sponsor to back them up.

Gandalf, of course, is absent at this point. But project manager Frodo thinks fast, and changes the plan to meet the new circumstances. His loyalty is to the project goal and his sponsor. And that’s a clarity most project managers can well understand.

Now it’s your turn
We hope readers will have spotted some glaring cases of the need for strong project management discipline in films, TV shows, books – and even songs. If you have an idea for this feature for the next edition, email Ben Hargreaves at editor@project-journal.co.uk

Richard Young is consulting editor of Project.