Project Documentation as Incantational Magic

Last night, my wife and I were commiserating about writing out project documentation following fixed templates. There are all of these headings, and it feels like the only reason you have to write down something under each heading is so that some project auditor can work their audit trail and check off on their little checklist that each section was filled out. It seems to be form without function. There is so much repetition involved, so much stuff that makes you want to write:"see scetion "C", above")... plus stuff you just make up in order to fill the gap. It is easy to feel like this kind of writing is futile.

However, this morning on the bus ride in, I was reading an "Impact Assessment" document I had written late last year for a training program I am developing. It was one of those department-mandated documents with lots of mandatory headings, and when I was writing it, I felt all the frustrations I referred to above. It felt like a repetitive, persnickey, process-heavy and unnecessarily long production.

Reading it again a few months later was an interesting experience. I realized *so* much all of a sudden.

First of all, reading it as I did - I have my mind full of other pre-occupations, I haven't thought about this in awhile, I only have a brief time to look at it and I am thinking of other things I have to do soon... I began to realize how important that repetition is for slowly easing the attention of the reader to the main points. You can lay all of the main points out once, but the reader's mind is fragmented by other preoccupations, so they barely skim it and get it in the first time. But then, as they read on, section after section, as the message is re-framed and re-delivered, with slight variations that highlight different aspects of it, with consistency that builds over time... it starts to sink in. The consistency and rhythm become soothing. It calms your busy mind and softens you up to receive the message.

It's like music. The reason it isn't just a quick memo is because it isn't supposed to work like communication, it's supposed to work like music - to lull and immerse readers in the idea, and to support their own imaginations as they get into the emotional and physical world of the idea (or in other words, to make them fully present to the idea).

Suddenly, the repetitive structure of the document made perfect sense. Classical music - all classical musics - modern and old, across cultures - are all about themes and variations. So is jazz, so are folk musics... but think about Philip Glass for a moment - there's that recognizable theme, repeating, with slight variations in the instrumentation, slight overlaps of the themes, minor chromatic shifts, but each repetition of the theme pulls you in and through the piece, and into this attentive frame of mind where the experience of the piece becomes increasingly vivid and real to you.

*That's* the kind of composition those repetitive documents are like. To us, when we are writing them, the repetition seems pointless because we already stated the point once, and we don't understand why we have to do so again. But for a preoccupied mind - one who picks up the document to resurrect an awareness of the project but who has not thought about it at all for awhile prior to picking up the document - the first statement of the theme is barely heard through their mental clutter, but by slightly varying and restating the theme in section after section - slowly they get lulled into the state of mind that at some point - probably a different point for each reader - the project inhabits their mind fully, and they inhabit the project mind.

At that point they may set the document aside, and not finish it, and miss some important detail that was in the document, but that they ask you about, even if it was written there, and they did not take the time to read it all the way. That is not stupid or an insult, if you know why those kinds of documents exist - which is that they are musical compositions that get everybody attuned to the mental model of the project.

Repetitive documents also serve a double-function as reference material, so that people who need to look up some specific fact needs to be able to find it under some specific heading that is easy to find, so again, the fact that you kind of echo the overall theme (with variations) under each heading is part of the magic of these documents - so that even though they are hunting out some specific detail, there is enough of the main "tune" there to revive their awareness of the overall picture.

This seems so pointless when we are writing, and the awareness of the theme is total for us, but reading it months later while multi-tasking, it is *such* a usable document format!!

And you know what, I recently had a meeting about this training program with my manager, and she and I did not read the impact assessment document beforehand. As a result, we re-invented a lot of what had already been written in the document. I realized, while reading the older document on the bus this morning, that this was okay.

Part of enculturating a team of people with an imaginary world (a future project is a state we are imagining, and we want to make it true, but nonetheless we are doing the same thing storytellers are doing on some level), is repeating and restaging the core messages. So you can do so beautifully once in a clear document that everybody loves, and everybody praises that document, but then the fragmented multi-tasking nature of the organization means that their awareness and "fusion" with that imaginary world subsides. Later, in another event, you may do something else, including brainstorming anew as if the first document had never been written. This is not a way of invalidating or disrespecting the first document, and it is not stupid. It is smart. Part of your job as a communicator around projects is to restage the invocation of the product vision many times. It may give rise to multiple restatements of similar ideas, but these are just recordings of your various performances. They should all be good, and as a professional, you should know that your job is to perform the same high-valued tunes repeatedly.

Your job in invoking the reality of an invisible, imaginary world over and over until it is made real for people is a lot like the role of a priest or a shaman. The believers all know the core messages you bring up as you perform for them, but to keep that vision alive against the onslaught of everyday life, they need you to bring down the magic over and over again, in ways that keep them on track. Don't expect it to follow the logic of reason, because that is not what you are being asked to do. Your task has the logic of magic, not reason. You are successful if your produce many different artifacts (documents, presentations, minutes, emails, phone calls), and each one repeats goals visions and key points in a gently supportive and evocative way, with infinite patience, because each time you do that is another successful instance of you making this invisible world real for people - in their minds - so that they are then empowered to make it real for real - in reality - an executed project.

Given the normal chaos of organizational life, not everyone will access all the right documents, or not in the right order, and those who do may be so busy that key points are driven out of their mind, or they may not access the documents frequently enough, or have missed updates, etc. This is normal, and part of your job in working the magic is to use repetition, theme and variations across all of your productions so that no matter where they hook up to your project, they can start to hum along with the rest of the crew.

One of the universal structures of human folk musics and even animal communications is the "call-response" structure. In this kind of song, a song leader calls out a phrase, and a chorus of listeners repeats the call. Performers in live concert often start up call-response sequences with their audience, jazz musicians improvise by having one instrument throw out leads while the ensemble responses, soldiers do call-response chants while marching, cheerleading squads use them... some cultures have very rich call response folk music traditions.

Each point of communication is like a call, and you know that it is hard to participate in a call-response song if you don't really know the song. Performers who try call-response sequences in concert often fall flat because the audience doesn't know the words of the song well enough. So your role is to put out calls that enable the chorus to respond because you awaken enough of the whole song in their mind for them to participate. Each communicative fragment is like another call, and it's okay that some of them are repetitive. Call-response games are supposed to be repetitive - that's what makes the format possible.

"The Lord is my shepherd" - think about that idea in the context of organizational life. People are like sheep darting off in all directions while the project dictates they all need to get their heads up and move off for a long journey in one sustained direction. Your job as a priest/representative of the imaginary goal world is to herd those sheep and get them all moving. Each section of a repetitive document, and each repetitive document in a project, and each redundant meeting - is actually a border collie, and you need to deploy several of them around the herd of sheep to enable the herd to move.

So the fact that you have to deploy more than one collie is good, normal and to be expected. As a skilled shepherd, your job is actually to bring forward and deploy multiple border collies, so make sure each collie has a full enough set of the information for the project that it can do its job. One key/dominant sheep may not see your brown collie, only your black one, so every collie has to be a repetition of enough of the overall theme to keep all sheep oriented to the correct direction.

It's a different way of understanding your work. It changes perceptions. Things that seem like organizational/bureaucratic irrationality turn into understandable human dynamics of making the imaginary real. This is how humans normally make the imaginary real - themes, variations, repetition, multiple instances, multiple reminders, multiple re-enactments... that's how a pastor thinks of his or her job list for the year, and that's how a business analyst should think about her role as well - this is part of the magic of the role.

The recursive nature of it is not a useless waste of effort to be resisted - it's the performance. A musician has to practice a piece of music thousands of times and perform it live thousands of times and produce recordings that are played millions of times in order to create a timeless classic. That's the art form. That's what it is. That's what you have to be good at! That's the value you bring to the organization. That's what they count on you for.

Repetitions of project themes aren't wasted reminders to people who can't keep things straight, they are incantations - each one helps bring the imaginary world into real life. If you lovingly and patiently repeat those incantations when people turn to you, relying on you to work your magic once more and bring the invisible world into mental life for them, then you will be succeeding at your task. If you bristle with resentment because you thought you already sent them that message so that now if they don't know what you sent them, they are disrespecting you and your prior investment of time and energy, you are missing the point and misunderstanding your role.

You yourself, if you were taken off your own project, not given time to read the document for a year, and then were brought back to lead the project, would appreciate someone kindly re-invoking the mental model of the project for you in your mind - you would need that, and if someone could do it artfully without making you read your own prior document, in a way that repeated the key themes with subtle variations that were aimed at what you need to know right now, this very minute, you would appreciate their incantation - their magic words of resurrecting the reality of the project to your mind.

So that's your profession. You're a project magician! And your spells are musical compositions that lull people into alternate (achievable!) realities in the world of imagination. The more you succeed at re-invoking those visions into life in peoples' minds over and over again, the better your team will be at making them real, hitting their targets, and enjoying success.