Systems Thinking, Project Management, and Agile - Part 4: Welcome to the Labyrinth

[For this series, it will help to have read "System Dynamics and Causal Loop Diagrams 101."]

The capable product owners I know have at least an intuitive understanding that the challenge of guiding a project through to completion is more than a bit like Theseus on his way to defeat the Minotaur. The great product owners have a much more present awareness of the labyrinth before them. Depending on the project, the team, and the work environment, the product backlog just might be the easy piece. It's more knowable then the myriad of ways a system can work against project success.

The purpose of this series of articles is to shine light on those wily ways of the system, to make more known what capable product owners intuit, to help you become a great product owner.¹

In the previous article, we covered how a project can end up with a growing delay before completion. The obvious fix was to push out the deadline, thus erasing the delay (The Shift Deadline Loop, Figure 1, B.) Management has a strong dislike for this and often avoids changing deadlines even when faced with minimal consequences. It's more likely there are other factors that make the consequences significantly greater. Perhaps there are budget constraints or a delivery date that is tied to a major event like the launch of a suite of related products or a conference.