8 Project Management Journal December 1999 M ost project management texts and training pro- grams imply that any project can be successful as long as certain guidelines for defining, planning, and im- plementing the project are followed. I have a radical proposition to make: classic project management doesn’t work—mainly because it doesn’t go far enough. Not only does classic project management not ensure success, but it also fails to define success realistically and overlooks several elements that are critical to achieving it. Moreover, classic project management ignores the reality that some projects may not succeed no matter how well defined, planned, and implemented. For ex- ample, most competitive exercises won’t succeed (since someone has to lose in order for the victor to win) yet winning Super Bowl games and attaining elective of- fices are perfectly acceptable project goals. Projects that require technologies or capabilities that either do not exist or are, for one reason or another, unavailable also belong in this category. How can success be planned or measured in situations such as these? What criteria can we use for evaluating competitive projects such as team sports and political campaigns or high-risk projects such as space exploration and searches for cures for disease? Unfortunately, classic project management does not address this issue. As chief executive of an international manufac- turing firm that trains its managers and sales force in classic project management, I have more than a passing interest in the success of my company’s projects. I ini- tially became aware of classic project management theory’s limitations following a late-night meeting in the summer of 1989. A project manager at our plant in Italy was having difficulty installing a new product eval- uation system. Like most of my company’s projects, this effort had been defined and planned and was being im- plemented according to a classic project management model (Kepner-Tregoe 1993; Pinto & Kharbanda 1995). Unfortunately, like far too many of our projects of that time, it had run into such serious trouble that my immediate on-site intervention was required. The plant manager’s SOS was a wake-up call for me in more ways than one. As we reviewed the situation to- gether, I realized that while the problems he described were specific to his project, they bore a generic resem- blance to difficulties that I’d encountered with other endeavors elsewhere at International Rectifier (IR) loca- tions. Through a subsequent companywide review of disappointing project results, my management team and I discovered that if a project was going to go awry, it would do so because of a problem or problems in one or more of the following five areas: comprehension, motivation, skills, resources, and communication. In connection with this discovery, we also deter- mined that the kinds of difficulties we had been experi- encing could have been prevented—or, at least, antici- pated and provided for—had we taken certain actions in each of these areas prior to launching our projects. Moreover, we recognized that there was a natural, logical sequence to these actions. Just as shoes can be laced most successfully from the bottom up and baby ducks line up behind their mothers to go for a swim, the success and ease of execution of our projects seemed to require that these actions be taken in se- quence. Thus, the genesis of IR’s Duck Alignment Theory—a process to maximize project success. The word maximize is used rather than ensure be- cause no system or process will guarantee the success of all projects. Some projects—such as product and tech- nology development programs—are inherently risky. Similarly, projects that are based on forecasts and statis- tical probabilities are unlikely to succeed if the condi- tions on which they are predicated fail to materialize. Fi- nally, every competitive situation requires that there be a loser. In these instances, the best that Duck Alignment can do is minimize the risks and maximize the chances for project success. I do not know of any system or process that can do these things better. In fact, at IR we have found that noncompetitive projects in which the “Ducks” have been lined up and kept in alignment are virtually assured of achieving their objectives, while those that follow classic project management guidelines fail at least half the time. For this reason, we consider our five Ducks to be prerequisites for the project man- agement process. Finally, I want to point out that Duck Alignment can be applied to projects of all sizes and types because this theory recognizes that the essence of managing a project successfully lies in creating the right conditions for the desired change. With this benefit in mind, Duck Alignment users often refer to the Ducks as preconditions even though, strictly speaking, they are specific actions taken to establish these conditions. FROM MY EXPERIENCE Duck Alignment Theory: Going Beyond Classic Project Management to Maximize Project Success Derek Lidow, Lidow Technologies Inc., 233 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 504, Santa Monica, California 90401 USA