Henry Gantt gave us the chart that bears his name—used to this day to illustrate dependencies within complicated projects and processes. But Gantt baked in a dangerous assumption: that the world can be predicted. In Gantt’s repetitive world of manufacturing, this was tolerable, even helpful. But as his practices fanned out into knowledge work, they became a dangerous addiction. Instead of a means to an end, hitting the plan became an end unto itself.
