Analogy between Modern Project Management Theory and Sunzi Art of War: Chapters 1 to 4

Abstract

This article scrutinizes the analogy between modern project management theory and Sunzi Art of War (or “Sunzi” for short in this abstract) by comparing and contrasting them and identifying the similarities and dissimilarities between them. It is revealed that similarities overwhelmingly exceed dissimilarities at least by the numbers of ideas in the two philosophies. To be specific, Sunzi’s decision on war versus no war is comparable to modern project selection, both being worth prior rigorous contemplation and thus analysis. Sunzi’s analysis is analogous to key success factor (KSF) analysis or strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis commonly adopted in modern project management. Sunzi reiterates the criticality of performing analysis prior to any warfare in the same way as modern project management accentuates analysis for the purpose of project selection. Sunzi analyzes war in a quantified manner somewhat akin to the cost-benefit analysis commonly employed in modern project selection. Sunzi assumes the increase of fixed costs with time just as modern project management does. Sunzi’s practice of “team building” resembles modern project management’s. Sunzi regards victory in war as the objective of top priority in a way similar to defining project objectives and establishing project priorities in modern project management. Sunzi pays heed to the satisfaction and other psychological statuses of the soldiers as much as modern project management does. Sunzi prefers to fight wars only after conducting thorough analysis to predict favorable outcomes of the wars, whereas modern project managers likewise would proceed with any projects only after performing systematic analysis for project selection to predict favorable outcomes. Sunzi believes in managing the military by means of the rule of law and discipline, which modern project management is premised on. Sunzi contends that everything in war has to be measured, estimated, calculated, and probability-based, which is exactly the kind of positivism and scientific approaches upheld by modern project management. Having said this, Sunzi’s insistence on “doing it right once” disagrees with a few modern project management methodologies. Also, the approaches to implement the ideas differ between the two philosophies.