A colleague, Dennis Smith (we’ve worked on one project together and are starting a second), has published an article, “Network links go well beyond straight lines.” Dennis and I met about two years ago, and about a year ago we had the big “aha” about how SNA can provide a useful diagnosis of the current context of a project. Dennis’ expertise is in project management, and he consults with project leaders on overcoming the obstacles to success.

Dennis’s insight, expressed well in the article, is that the links between tasks on a project chart often represent [the need for] multiple conversations, iterations between two people completing a hand-off of one’s completed work to the other. As he says, “…microlevel interactions are left for those two people to work out and simplified to a single line in the project plan.”