Do Penguins Dream of Flying Under Water

The Book

The best work comes from teams that think differently.

More than one project manager has said it. "It would be easier if everyone on the team were like us." And they're right — in many ways it would be easier. The conversations would move faster. The plans would land cleaner. The risk registers would be shorter.

And worse.

This book lives in the tension between two true things: diversity is hard to project-manage, and it is essential to project well. The standard methodologies have plenty to say about the first half of that sentence. Almost nothing about the second.

Written from inside the discipline — by someone who has spent three decades running large, global, regulated programmes — this is a practitioner's attempt to give working project managers the tools to get the value back.

"The project manager who treats their team as interchangeable units of capacity is leaving most of the team's value on the table."

— Ian Warden

Why a penguin?

The Gentoo penguin swims at 22 miles per hour — faster than the fish it hunts. A bird that evolved to be at its best not in the air, but underwater. Diversity, this book argues, looks like a fish out of water from one angle. And like a bird that discovered a different element from another.

Inside the book

Six chapters. One argument.

Each chapter stands alone — read end-to-end or jump to the problem on your desk this week. Either works.

Definitions

What counts as a project

The iron triangle. Who is allowed to manage a project. The duality of management and leadership the role requires.

Methodologies

From Waterfall to Vibe

Waterfall, Agile, Lean — and the 2026 arrival of vibe and agentic engineering. How the hunt has changed, and who the pack now includes.

Obstacles

Not the same for everyone

Personal, team, and external barriers — and why those obstacles are not the same size for every member of the team.

Communications

There is no default channel

What happens when different minds are asked to receive the same message through the wrong channel. The four shapes of communication.

Active vs Passive

When to hunt, when to huddle

The two gears of project management — and how to switch deliberately rather than by default.

Risks

You cannot see the seal alone

Why a diverse team sees risks that a homogeneous one misses. The Johari Window expanded to teams.

About the author

Ian Warden

Ian Warden has spent three decades running large, global, regulated programmes in pharmaceutical R&D — a discipline that loves standardisation and is increasingly aware it cannot afford to.

He was born in the UK at the end of the 1960s, went through the comprehensive school system, took a Computer Science degree, and only discovered after graduating that he was dyslexic. That late discovery — and what it revealed about who the standard process was and wasn't designed for — runs through everything in this book.

This is not a theoretical treatment. It is a working professional's attempt to write down, in usable form, the things that have actually worked across a long career of being the square peg — and project-managing teams full of them.

Be first to know

The book is coming.

Leave your email and we'll let you know when it's available.