Abstract
In Roman mythology, Saturn was the father of Jupiter. Although originally good, he later became an all-powerful and cruel tyrant who ate his children to prevent their usurping this leadership. Eventually Jupiter evaded him, later forcing him to release the children he earlier had swallowed and banishing him to the outer reaches of the sky. In this paper, the personalities of the two mythological protagonists of this legend will be used as an analogy of project and program management.
We will also use the concept of a space exploration to consider the planets Saturn and Jupiter and analyze four areas that our experience and research have identified as crucial differences between program and project managers. We have identified them as LASA (Leadership, Approach, Strategy, and Attitude). Using a space mission analogy, we will divide the audience into four groups that will each explore one of these topics, and facilitate a discussion on how the role of project managers and program managers should be different in each of these areas.
LASA consists of four launch pads:
- Leadership: Facilitating leadership as opposed to directing leadership; stimulating discussions especially around stakeholder engagement, expectations, and acceptance of program objectives.
- Approach: Systems view vs. performance view, stimulating discussions around governance approaches, learning, performance, and decision making in a complex environment.
- Strategy: Strategic focus instead of product focus, which would address the difference between product and benefits, interdependencies between benefits, and alignment with the strategic goals.
- Attitude: Tolerance to ambiguity vs. Cartesian anxiety; the need to be flexible because programs generate turbulence. In programs, changes originate from interfaces with other subsystems of the program and factors external to the program.
Context: Astronomy, Astrology and Mythology
As planets, Saturn and Jupiter have a similar structure to the sun; in fact, if they were not already orbiting around the sun, they would be considered stars in their own right. It is believed that these two bodies approached each other closely at one time, causing a stellar explosion with huge consequences for each other's atmospheres. This led to Saturn being derailed from its orbit. Today, both planets are covered with gases which are in constant motion. Jupiter has at least 14 satellites and several asteroids and comets. Saturn has ten known satellites. At the moment, Jupiter is nearly 330 times more massive than the Earth, and Saturn 80 times more massive; however, this was not always the case. It is believed that both their appearance and respective masses were originally similar (Kuiper, 1959).
Folklore and mythology present Saturn (Kronos-Osiris-Odin) and Jupiter (Zeus-Horus-Thor) in constant tension and powerful clashes. It is now accepted that in immemorial times, during a close encounter with Jupiter, the planet Saturn became unstable and exploded, becoming a nova which, after settling down, was only a shadow of its former glory. Saturn was sent to a distant orbit—the binary system was broken up and Jupiter took over the dominant position in the sky. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans understood this and saw it as Horus-Zeus-Jupiter victorious over his father, Osiris-Kronos-Saturn, forcing him to release the children he earlier had swallowed (the satellites, asteroids, and comets resulting from the clash) and banishing him to the outer reaches of the sky. In their eyes, it was Horus-Zeus-Jupiter assuming royal power, leaving Osiris-Kronos-Saturn to reign over the kingdom of the dead.
Although program management is probably not destined to dethrone project management, it is obvious that, in the last 5 to 10 years, program management has gained a prominent position in project-based organizations, and that its situation is enabling project management to become a discipline recognized at a strategic and organizational level. Program management is the link between project and strategy and as such is assuming a dominant role both in organizational structure and organizational maturity.
“Astrologically Saturn is associated with the principles of limitation, restrictions, boundaries, practicality and reality, crystallizing and structures. Saturn governs ambition, career, authority and hierarchy, and conforming social structures. It concerns a person's sense of duty, discipline and responsibility, and their physical and emotional endurance during hardships. Saturn is also considered to represent the part of a person concerned with long-term planning. Whereas Jupiter is associated with the principles of growth, expansion, prosperity and good fortune; and a person's inner sense of justice and morality and their ideals and higher goals. Jupiter governs long distance and foreign travel, higher education, religion and the law. It is also associated with the urge for freedom and exploration, humanitarian and protecting roles. In Chinese astrology, Saturn is patient, hard-working and reliable. Jupiter is warm, generous and co-operative.” (Wikipedia, 2009)
Exploration: Launching the Discussion
Imagine you are on a space expedition and preparing to send a manned probe to both Jupiter and Saturn to explore their surface and atmosphere and see if they are potentially inhabitable by either project or program managers. The objective is to send the project managers to Saturn and the program managers to Jupiter.
The room will be divided in four groups, each one taking one aspect of our LASA space exploration program. You are asked to define the qualities required by both project and program managers in order for them to be able to inhabit one planet or the other, based on the character of the god these planets are named after.
Personality traits generally associated with Jupiter are: growth, expansion, synthesis, harmony, human networking, group relations, new sociological patterns, transformations in human consciousness, idealism, inner sense of justice and morality, ideals and higher goals, as well as teaching and sharing.
Personality traits generally associated with Saturn are: economy of resources, gate-keeping, conscious choice, justice, creation of structural patterns, focus on cause and effect relationship, objectivity, control, rigid enforcement of the law, and structuring of ideas.
If those traits are representative of program and project managers, respectively, how can they be related to leadership, approach, strategy, and attitude?
Try to draw parallels between both the mythological and the astronomical background of Jupiter and Saturn to demonstrate the difference between the competencies expected from project and program managers.
Leadership: Saturn was known as an authoritative father, not unwilling to eat his own children to achieve his ends. In addition, he had killed his father (Uranus) to gain sole power. Jupiter, on the other hand, was a god with a great deal of power, but he shared Olympus with a number of other gods (among them his siblings, whom he had freed from Saturn) who could and did challenge him on many occasions.
Approach: Saturn was focused on results and eventually became the Roman god of agriculture, justice, and strength. He was focused on control; in Greek mythology, he was the one quizzing the dead to see if they could enter Hades. Jupiter had a broader view of things, sharing power with his brothers and sisters, and not unwilling to make forays in the mortal/human world where he often found lovers and sired many children.
Strategy: Saturn saw very clear means to his ends; in ancient Rome he is associated with the calendar. For Jupiter, ultimate benefits could be achieved through many means, including those that were sometimes contradictory.
Attitude: Whereas Saturn wanted things to be clear and well under control, Jupiter was willing to accept a good deal of ambiguity to achieve its ultimate objectives.
Conclusions
The discussion topics generated by this presentation will first be summarized then continued through the authors' on-line blog “Voices on Project Management” found at http://blogs.pmi.org/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&tag=Michel%20Thiry&limit=20