Is antifragility the way forward in PM?

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It’s already March, and we’re excited to bring you the fourth issue of The Deliverable! 🚀 A huge thank you to everyone who’s been with us from the start and to our newest subscribers. This time, we’re taking this issue to new heights- literally! Get ready for a space-themed edition filled with insights on antifragility and innovation: 

• PMI launches ‘The Shift Code’ podcast

• Discover the salary benchmarks in the 2024 project management salary guide

• Kyle Nitchen on re-thinking project management and how SpaceX embraced antifragility

• Some of the hardest lessons learnt when starting as a project manager

This month’s top news:

Project Management Institute (PMI) launches ‘The Shift Code’ podcast - PMI has launched The Shift Code podcast, hosted by President and CEO Pierre Le Manh. The series explores how project success drives organizational and digital transformation through interviews with top executives. For project managers, it offers insights on leadership and strategies for successful project outcomes. The first episode features Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, the company that soft-landed a commercial spacecraft on the Moon in February 2024.

The 2024 project manager salary guide by the ‘Digital Project Manager' showcases earnings by country and role - Curious if you're being paid fairly? You're not alone. Salary transparency is the key to ensuring fair compensation. DPM surveyed over 300 community members to provide salary benchmarks by country and position. Read through their findings to see where you stand and what it means for your project management career.

P.S. The 2025 survey is now open, so don’t miss your chance to participate!

🚀 How SpaceX redefined the project management triangle by embracing antifragility

Is the scope-budget-time approach outdated? Kyle Nitchen, a project management expert, thinks so, and we agree! He recently challenged the traditional project management model in a blog post we collaborated on, advocating for a complete rethinking of the approach.

In the post, Kyle mentions SpaceX as a prime example of breaking the triangle. Instead of rigid frameworks, SpaceX embraces antifragility, meaning they thrive on uncertainty and use setbacks to strengthen its processes rather than derail them. 

Inspired by his insights, we took a deeper look at how they do it. Let’s dive in!

1.  Beyond the traditional time-scope-budget relationship

Kyle Nitchen explains that the scope-time-budget triangle oversimplifies project dynamics, but real-world projects are much more complex. SpaceX challenges this model by focusing on rapid prototyping, in-house manufacturing, and iterative design, enabling them to cut costs while increasing launch frequency. They invested in research and development and built an adaptive engineering team. This approach has significantly reduced the cost of a Falcon 9 launch to as low as $62 million, or $2,700–$3,000 per kilogram to LEO, a fraction of the $10,000+ per kilogram cost of traditional expendable rockets. 

2. Applying scrum and agile methods

Instead of aiming for a "perfect" rocket on the first try, SpaceX quickly iterates through design, testing, and data-driven improvements. While they don’t formally use scrum, their approach reflects its inspect and adapt principles. In a 2020 live Reddit AMA, Space X engineers explained their process of testing changes on a sunset of vehicle and rolling back if issues arise. Early Starship prototypes exploded several times. Instead of slowing down, SpaceX has previously used these failures to fix design issues, leading to major improvements in just a few months. As Elon Musk put it: “We don’t see this as a failure… We learned a good amount in building the new ship design and the flight."

3. Building a culture of innovation

As Kyle Nitchen highlights, team excellence is crucial to antifragile project management, where teams don’t just avoid risks but adapt and grow from challenges, making projects more resilient, efficient, and successful. Antifragility is at the core of SpaceX’s success, as the company thrives on learning, testing, and iteration. This would be impossible without a culture of innovation. As Braden Kelley notes, SpaceX’s informal hierarchies and hands-on approach, with engineers working directly on the production floor, foster valuable feedback, ownership, and engagement. These are all key to continuous innovation. A study by MIT Sloan found that the most frequently discussed cultural value is agility, and the most positively discussed value is innovation. 

This month’s cant-miss resources:

🎙Podcast vault - Project management is change management
PM Podcast by Cornelius Fichtner

Why: Tim Creasey and Cornelius Fichtner discuss how combining change management and project management leads to powerful results. With expert advice and practical tips, they cover both the technical and people aspects of change. Whether you're a project manager, team leader, or change expert, you'll walk away with actionable strategies to make your projects more successful.

🗣 Discussions from Reddit -What's one of the hardest lessons you have learned when starting out as a PM?

Why: Have you ever thought, "I wish I knew this when I started as a project manager"? You're not alone! A Reddit user recently asked the same question, and the responses are nothing short of interesting. What’s one thing you wish you knew when you first started? Share your thoughts in the subreddit post above, and see what other project managers have learned along the way!

🗓Webinar - Challenges FP&A leaders face when it comes to improving their planning process @ 19th of March 2025, 11 AM Eastern/8 AM Pacific

🗓Masterclass -The hidden path to landing high-paying project MGMT roles @ 21st of March 2025, 5:30 PM GMT+2

🗓Panel - How 3 PMs rebuilt their careers after layoffs @ 26th of March 2025, 6:00 PM GMT+2

Thank you for reading! See you next month

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