Podcast episode 030 - Pink Floyd project management [8:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2076)

The British rock band Pink Floyd has held a significant place in my life.  I discovered Pink Floyd when the line “We don’t need no education” from “Another Brick in the Wall” was ubiquitous on the radio waves and it definitely seemed to make a lot of sense to me as a rebellious 10 year old.

Later while I was in junior high, my rather conservative father took me to my first R-rated movie, which was “Pink Floyd:  The Wall”  This somewhat awkward outing between a man and his son had a dramatic effect on me.  It wasn’t just the darkness behind the music, the visuals, and the tormented rock star who began his decent into madness.  It was mostly because I actually saw my father in a whole new light - he could actually be pretty cool.

So, after having Pink Floyd shape my early adolescence, it really came to be no surprise to me when I discovered much later in life an interesting (and somewhat eerie) connection between project management and what is considered Pink Floyd’s magnum opus, Dark Side of the Moon.

Pink Floyd’s conceptual album Dark Side of the Moon was released in 1973 and spent over 14 years in Billboard’s top 200 album chart.  The musical and technological experimentation found on the album, even its themes of money, time, and madness were all considered revolutionary at the time.  Even the album artwork has become iconic in pop culture.

Much has been written about an effect known as “The Dark Side of the Rainbow” where apparently when The Dark Side of the Moon is played simultaneously with the classic film The Wizard of Oz, numerous images from the film appear to synchronize with the music and lyrics.  However, I have not been able to find any writings or articles on the also apparent associations between the album and the project management triple constraint of time, cost, and scope.

Album Artwork

The front cover artwork shows a triangular representation of a refracting prism, changing an input of pure white light into the product of all of the colors of the visible light spectrum.  The transformative “scope” of the prism allows light to be separated into its constituent parts by laws of refraction, most of which I have repressed from my high school and college physics classes.  But, what is interesting to us as project managers is that the album cover represents an equilateral triangle, similar to the equilateral triangle frequently used to represent the triple constraint of time, cost, and scope found in project management.

Time

It just so happens that The Dark Side of the Moon contains a track called “Time” that deals with the “refraction” of time that appears to occur as one transitions from life’s beginning to end.  In other words, time has the appearance of speeding up as one gets closer to the end of one’s lifetime.  Often at the end of one’s life people find themselves saying, “If only I had more time.”  I suggest that this even happens on projects.  How often do we “fritter and waste” upfront time in a project due to poor planning or requirement definition only to rush and try to make up the lost time later in the project lifecycle?

Cost

The sixth track on The Dark Side of the Moon is called “Money.”  And even the line “Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash” appeals to the triple constraint’s fundamental “Cost” constraint.  The more money your project is funded with, typically the more successful your project will be in meeting the other tenets of the triple constraint.

Scope

Wikipedia refers to scope within the context of the triple constraint as “requirements specified for the end result.”  I believe that it would have been slightly too obvious if there was indeed a track on the album simply titled “Scope.”  Those that know Pink Floyd know that “the obvious” is just not a theme usually found in their repertoire.  However, there is a three-and-a-half-minute instrumental jam on the album known as “Any Colour You Like,” giving the impression that if you gave the band particular specifications and requirements (i.e. scope), they could paint any picture with their music that you wanted.  What is further interesting is that the “end result” of a prism, as depicted on the album cover of The Dark Side of the Moon, is basically any color within the scope of the visible spectrum.

Of course my suggestions in this article to a connection between The Dark Side of the Moon and the Triple Constraint of project management may be considered by some to be just hyperbole.  But, consider that without a doubt, as Pink Floyd wrote and recorded their masterpiece in the expensive Abbey Road studios back in 1973 they battled with the same triple constraint of time, cost, and scope that we all face on our own projects.  Luckily for us, their project deliverable is still considered unparalleled in the music world to this day.