As I teach PMP exam prep to project managers, I often hear ‘war stories’ from my students about insipid management fad behavior that they are experiencing at work (civilian, government and military).

I’ve observed this behavior over decades — valuable concepts like SPC; JIT; 6-sigma; Continuous Process Improvement; Agile; Big Data; Data Analytics reduced to management by cliché.  What explains this fad-like behavior on the part of management?  I suspect the root cause is probably thought contamination from the big consulting houses — McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, etc. leveraging valuable concepts to sell professional services and leaving in their wake smart talk and aimless dithering busy work.

The most frustrating example in the past few years has been attempts by management to perform ‘Digital Transformation’.  ‘Perform’ is exactly the right word here: perform like a clique of local coffee shop baristas at their Thursday night theater group.