Chesterton’s Fence(or Someone Put It There For A Reason)

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AlUGHS12Hr8

Introduction

There’s been some talk recently about “Chesterton’s Fence”.

This is a principle that the author G. K. Chesterton wrote about in 1929 and is a useful principle for us as project managers.

In a nutshell, he writes that before you can clear something away you need to be able to see the use for it.

At first sight this might sound like a paradox, but actually it has two important messages for us as project managers.

Beginning A Project

When you begin a project there will be many things you don’t yet know and that you will need to learn about and understand before you can manage the project successfully.

As you do this you may come across something that you don’t see the point of.

In fact, you might find something that no one knows the point of. This might be a piece of equipment in a data centre or communications room. It might be something that appears to be obstructing your progress and it would be tempting to remove it.

However, if you don’t know why it is there in the first place then you can’t really know if it is safe to remove it.

Anything that someone has deliberately put in place has been put there for a reason. This is something that will have taken thought, money and effort and not something that happened by chance.

The reason may no longer exist or may not have been a good reason in the first place, but only by understanding what the reason was can you decide what you can do with it now.

It is important to research all the puzzles like this that you find when managing a project.

There are many examples of business critical applications that have been running on an innocent looking PC under someone’s desk. This isn’t how it should be, of course, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Equipment and cabling that has been provided for use in emergencies are also vulnerable to being removed or redeployed by mistake.

Only when you have found an understanding of why something is there and have consulted with the people who understand this (and have made a judgement on whether it needs to stay) can you arrange for its removal.

If you found that something like this can’t be removed and has become an obstacle then this will be an issue and the project may need to be redesigned and replanned around this. This could become a big problem affecting scope, budget and time.

Ending a Project

Then, at the end of a project please be careful with what you leave behind.

Ideally, don’t leave anything unnecessary behind that future project managers will puzzle over themselves.

When you complete a project you should remove all redundant equipment and cabling as part of closing the project.

You’d be surprised how often this doesn’t happen.

If you can’t remove everything for some reason (which may include that it wasn’t in the scope and not in the budget) then it is important that it is mentioned in the closure handover documentation. If you know that there are continuing costs related to this then include this information. These might include licences, maintenance, rental, etc.

If there is a piece of equipment like this then, at least, disconnect the power. This a universal sign that it is not doing anything useful. You could also put a label on the actual thing itself.

For equipment you discover that needs to stay then it is important that this is properly documented and the equipment itself is labelled. Then a future project manager can benefit from what you have learnt and will not remove it by mistake.

To paraphrase Mr. Chesterton – anything that exists through someone’s time and effort was put in place for a reason.

You can’t remove something until you know what this reason was and if it is still relevant.

When you leave a project remove what should be removed and label what needs to stay so that future project managers can benefit from your knowledge.