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Project Management Metaphors: 6 Quick & Easy Visualizations

As you may or may not know, there are three established types of learning styles out there – auditory, kinesthetic and visual. Visual learners comprehend the most amount of information when they’re shown something to look at. Explain how an engine works verbally and a visual learner will comprehend very little. Show that same person a video of an engine working, though, and they’re likely to understand a lot more about it. While metaphors are often visual in nature, learners of all types see metaphors as easy, simple ways to understand a topic. In this article, we’re talking about 6 project management metaphors for quick and easy visualizations!

P.S.: For the literary geeks out there, yes – some of the items below are technically ‘similes’. It happened!

6 Project Management Metaphors For A Quick & Easy Visualization

Jump ahead to a specific Project Management metaphor by clicking below!

Climbing A Mountain Efficiently
Distance Of Your Vision Vs. Title You Hold
Money Is Falling From The Sky…
A Project’s Path Is Like A Roadtrip
Building A House
Communication Is Like Circuitry…

Let’s get into it!

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Project Management Metaphors About Climbing Mountains

Metaphor About Efficiency: There Are Many Ways To Climb A Mountain, But Some Are Much Better Than Others

There’s technically an infinite amount of ways one could theoretically scale a mountain – it’s just that the vast majority don’t make sense.

Some paths might be short, such as a dangerous free climb up a sheer cliff. It has the potential to save time, but comes with so much inherent risk that few would attempt it.

Other paths might seem easy based on the smoothness of the path or the steepness of the grade, but they’ll carry you five times the distance necessary – they spiral around the mountain several times over.

When considering efficiency, it’s best to try and hit that sweet spot. Efficient enough for a successful result, with minimal risk exposure along the way.

There are many ways to climb a mountain, but only a handful are worth following. Considering the many paths up a mountain is one of the most relatable Project Management metaphors, in that we can all feel just how bad it can be to choose the wrong path!

Metaphor About Responsibility: The Higher The Position Held, The Further Their Future Vision Must Reach

Both companies and projects alike are staffed in a heirarchical fashion. There are entry level employees and senior executives alike, plus everything in between.

With these various positions come responsibilities. These responsibilities largely revolve around the ‘size’ of a decision. In terms of size, we could say the level of impact the decision will have on the project. A general correlation we can draw is that the higher the position, the further of a vision they must have when making decisions and following them through.

An entry level employee on a project is taking care of the day to day work – administrative duties, small purchases or coordinating a few processes. At most, they’re thinking a few days ahead when it comes to their work.

As you climb the ranks, this vision increases. Project managers are thinking week-to-week or month-to-month. Senior project managers are thinking month-to-month or maybe year-to-year on a large project. Senior executives are thinking one, five or even ten years ahead.

The higher up the position, the further one’s vision should be within the project. In turn, their decision making and actions.

Metaphor About Prioritizing: Money Is Falling From The Sky! But Not All Is Worth Your Time

Imagine the skies open up and money starts raining down. Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and dollars. We only have so much time to run around grabbing what we can, or it’ll all disappear. No idea how this would happen, but there’s at least a point.

It takes the same amount of time to pick up dollars as it does any of the coins. It’s obvious that we should pick up as many dollars as possible before picking up coins.

As Project Managers we must make sure we’re always picking up the dollars – the work we do and the time we spend should be on ‘dollar’ items as often as possible.

Plot twist – for some reason, you’re REQUIRED to pick up a certain number of coins, too. These pennies, nickels and dimes are analogous to the annoying, silly tasks that pop up or are required for some reason.

It’s best to delegate picking up these coins to someone else. Ideally, you’ll have such a person working with you on the project. If not, at least you’ve got a new project management metaphor!

Project Management Metaphors About Planning

Metaphor About Planning: Plotting Out A Project’s Path Is Like Planning A Roadtrip

Road trip! The planning out of a project path is a whole lot like having to plan a road trip. This particular road trip must pass through specific locations across the country, in a certain amount of time, in a specific vehicle with miscellaneous activities scattered throughout.

Reaching the significant destinations is like hitting major milestones. Planning out the drive time and driver arrangement is like creating a project schedule with work durations of each party involved.

Doing the various activities along the way are like the specific requirements of a project – meetings, document exchanges, approvals, testing, etc. The map or GPS are similar to project documents, schedules and monitoring systems.

The people in the car are like the project staff. Except for the Owner – they’re the passenger who sits up front and doesn’t need to do anything.

The Designers & Engineers? They’re the crazy Grandma in the back. 🙂

In seriousness, a planning a road trip is one of the most important Project Management metaphors to consider, in that both require us to consider more than just today – we must know where we want to be, when we want to be there and what it’s going to take.

Project Management Metaphor About Scheduling: Sequencing A Project Is Like Building A House

Ironically, we talk a lot of about construction project management on this website. This example is literal in some context, but there’s a project management metaphor to appreciate regardless of the industry.

Until there’s a hole dug for a foundation, there’s not much that can happen. The foundation must be built first! What’s the foundation of your project?

When the foundation is done, the house must be rough framed. While this is happening, little else can take place. The framing, sheeting and roofing must be done before any real interior work can start taking place. This situation arises on many projects – a period where only a single activity can take place. It must be finished before anything else can get moving.

The house will then be water-tight and eventually air-tight. Interior work like flooring, painting and finishes can get going at that stage. This work would have been ruined if it was exposed to the elements. The prior steps needed to happen first.

Like building a house, projects must be sequenced in a certain manner to achieve the end result. With this comes a unique approach to phase and accommodate the many activities on your project.

Project Management Metaphors About Communicating Effectively

Project Management Metaphor About Communication: Clear, Efficient Communication Is Like Great Circuitry

What does bad communication look like? People are on different pages, no one’s sure about exactly what’s happening or bad information is being circulated.

In these types of environments, there are always poor communication habits stemming from the top down. This could mean C-level executives, upper management or project managers. Incomplete information is being shared through ineffective mediums.

A helpful project management metaphor to keep in mind is the similarity of well-designed circuitry to clear communication.

Proper circuitry is set up cleanly, with as little interference between any two connecting points as possible, including distance. There are no ‘crossed wires’ or inefficiencies. Everything is set up to move electricity and information.

In short, the project management lessons to take away from circuitry include:

Don’t let any wires cross i.e. give different information to different people.
Keep the space between two connecting points clear of obstacles and short, too. Make it easy as possible for information to be shared, with a clear communication plan.
Electricity or information must be able to travel quickly. There should be a way for communication to happen at a rapid rate for everyone involved with the project.

Project Management Metaphors In Summary

If a picture’s worth 1,000 words…well, I don’t know what a metaphor is worth. Since project management metaphors clearly illustrate a point to us in a visual manner, I’d say these metaphors are worth a lot more words than it took to write them. Weird, right? I hope you’ve found this article helpful and informative. Thanks for reading!

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Entry Level, Learning To Manage, Metaphors, Mindset, Philosophy, Starting A Project, Students

Pat Finnegan

Hello! I'm Patrick, the creator of PM Problems. I have an educational background in Civil Engineering and I've worked in the construction industry since 2008, working on many types of projects in that time. I love talking about project management as well as helping others learn and grow!

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Project Management Metaphors: 6 Quick & Easy Visualizations