What the heck - pirates and projects?

Set sail with Captain Morgan? Take a trip to The Pirates of the Caribbean with Jack Sparrow? Great, but what does all this to do with project planning and management?!?

It does, more in some ways than others. I manage IT projects, and have had my share of project management buzzwords thrown around  - towards me and by me;-).
I am also a free-time naval history and sailing enthusiastic, and over time some similarities seem striking. So I wanted to put the vague thoughts into writing and that is why this is here.

So what are the similarities? Differences are easy to point to - Pirates were murderous thieves that behaved, judging on today's standards, worse than many of the worst war criminals (the term "war criminal" really applies to post WWII). They risked everything, including their lives, for a stake of great treasure, and worked hard and very focused to reach their goals. The best of them became wealthy or possibly stinking rich, but the failure rate was high.
Hang on - besides the environment and killing people - pirates, whalers, commissioned privateers, explorers all needed to have a plan, get it funded, find the resources, ships, sailors and commitment to execute their plans, and they took calculated risks, often on very incomplete information. Sounds like project planning to me, and more follows if you pay closer attention to what happens under way.

I'll be looking at "DevOps" and compare that with a ships crew, the sailors, officers and idlers, I'll be musing on Agility with on-watch, off-watch, with the easy days on the Trades and the all out effort to reach a safe port in a storm. Commitment and focus on shared goals is amply illustrated in various single vessel trips, be they pirates, whalers, fishermen, explorers or traders on the seas.
Waterfall project model compares nicely with some characteristics of Naval traditions, while inspired and well trained crews and ships demonstrate the immense value of nurturing the specialist tradespeople you have on your roster.

Some of the failures on seven seas are very instructive, and can add to the tool chest of a Project Manager. The nice thing about the sea is that like war it boils sound (and unsound) practices to their essence, and single ship voyages compare fairly well with medium sized IT projects.

So Godspeed, and stay on the horizon, and I'll be hoisting the Blue Peter for you to join this journey of comparing Pirates with Project management!

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