Voices on Project Management

Stacy Allison on stage at congress in Orlando, Florida, USA on Tuesday.

By Cyndee Miller

I will never be a mountain climber. If forced, I will do some time on the rowing machine at the gym — but that’s usually followed by a big glass of wine and a Netflix binge. Still, I have the utmost respect for Stacy Allison, the first U.S. woman to summit Mt. Everest. And I’m not alone. She managed to keep a roomful of project practitioners riveted at this year’s closing congress keynote.

What a story. On her first attempt, she and her team spent days huddling in a tiny snow cave to escape a brutal storm, only to be forced back not far from the summit. Now, that’s got to be tough to accept. But it’s something most project or program managers can certainly understand.

“How many of you hold onto a project that’s no longer serving the strategic purpose  of your organization? Because you have so much invested you can’t let go. … At some point you have to cut your losses and move forward,” she said.

The following year, Allison doubled down on her goal and came back with her team, this time via Nepal rather than Tibet. Again, that kind of laser focus — even in the face of naysayers — is something congress-goers know a thing or two about.

“If you don’t have a personal vision, if you don’t believe in your project and the transformational change that it will bring to your organization,” she said, then negativity will bring you down every single time.

As with most projects, there were complications and unexpected events. But after adopting a team-first, solution-focused mentality, Allison made it to the top.

“When you’re not worried about your own success, it frees you up to do the job you need to do at any given time.”

Her bottom line was all about risk — a risk-benefit analysis, actually.

“No matter what our objectives are in this life, personally and professionally, they boil down to what we’re willing to risk. What are you willing to risk, and what’s the benefit to that risk?”

I still have absolutely zero intention of taking up mountain climbing, but Allison has good advice. Everyone needs to take risks. Just make sure you get something out of it.

And she seemed confident project managers would do just that: “The world is going to be changed by each and every one of you.”

I for one can’t wait to hear all about it. See you at next year’s North American congress in San Diego, California, USA.

David Robertson talks Legos at Congress on Monday.

By Cyndee Miller

Confession time: I am bored with disruption. A few years ago the business press and management consultant gurus started issuing decrees about “disruptive innovation.” Stern warnings ensued: Disrupt yourself lest you be disrupted!

Oh, and this was all wrapped up in the cult of personality around Steve Jobs and Apple. Now I’ve got nothing against Jobs and the company he built — I’m typing this on a MacBook while compulsively checking messages on my iPhone. I just don’t think he owns innovation, whether it’s disruptive or not.

And as keynoter David Robertson pointed out, Mr. Job’s early path was more about slow and steady innovation. Organizations can’t all be disruptive all the time — and they don’t need to be. Every innovation doesn’t have to be revolutionary, leading to a patent or creating a new product category. Innovations don’t even have to be incremental advances, he said.

“Most of us can’t spend most of our time focusing on those two ways of innovation,” said Robertson, author of Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry. “Our customers count on us doing better versions of our current products. Business models depend on revenue from those.”

Which brings us to the Lego Group, a veritable case study in how sustainable success can mean simply getting back to basics.

The Danish toy company flirted with bankruptcy in 2003 after spending the previous five years trying to aggressively reinvent itself. Lots of new products moved away from the traditional Lego look and feel. The company lost sight of its core identity and customers, many of whom were left confused.

After making huge lay-offs, taking out emergency loans and selling its headquarters, the company goes “through a deep reconsideration of who they are as a company. They learn something from that brush with bankruptcy,” Robertson said.

Lego’s “disruptive revolutionary phase” had resulted in “variety without value.” Looking for supply chain sanity and consistency, the company simplified its products and centralized approval of any new Lego elements.

Its innovation was to focus on the classic product lines we’ve known for generations — Lego and Duplo bricks — while boosting the storytelling around them. Voilà: a whole universe of tie-in accessories around the bricks is born. Lego-themed books, video games, even bed sheets. And yup, I’ve purchased the Harry Potter and the Batman Legos.

Then there’s the massively successful The Lego Movie from 2014, which brought kids and adults together to revel in what Lego bricks are ultimately all about: imaginative play. It was a stroke of marketing genius. And it helped power Lego to become the second-biggest toy company in the world. Revenue and profits have soared through the roof for years.

“Innovation flourishes when the space for it is limited,” Robertson said. “When you constrain, sometimes you get not just great innovation, but more profitable innovation.”

He left congress attendees with a fitting metaphor: If disruptive innovation is “fighting” existing customers, he said, then Lego’s way is more like dating them.

“Think of innovation as dating your customer. Understand who they are and what they care about. See beyond your products to understand what will make their lives better.”

And then, everything is indeed awesome.

The Scott Brothers — Drew at left, Jonathan at right —on stage at PMI Global Congress 2015 —North America.

By Cyndee Miller

My last trip to Disney World was all about fun — took the nephew on the Mad Tea Cup ride, watched the parade, all the standard tourist stuff. But this time around, I’m here for PMI^® Global Congress — North America at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida, USA. And I’m seeing Walt Disney’s vast kingdom from a new angle: as one of the most successful projects of all time.

Talk about benefits realization. With more than 52 million visitors each year, Disney World ranks as the most popular vacation resort in the world. It’s also not a bad place to bring together project and program managers to trade tips on how to transform a big project vision into reality.

And that can take some time. Even the happiest place on earth wasn’t built overnight.

During a freewheeling congress keynote, Drew and Jonathan Scott — the crown princes of TV home renovation projects — noted that even Disney started small.

“Look at something as massive as Disney world. It didn’t start out all of the sudden like this. You build and you build and you build, and it gets bigger as you go,” said Jonathan Scott during the opening keynote with his twin brother, Drew.

You probably know the Scott Brothers as stars of the hit HGTV shows “Property Brothers” and “Brother vs. Brother.” But they’re not just budding media moguls — they’re entrepreneurs who got their start in real estate renovation projects. They can talk and walk the project talk, from contingency funds to optimizing delivery processes.

“Organization is the most important thing,” Jonathan said. “It’s hard to get it set up in the beginning, but once you have the process and once you’re organized, it’s a lot easier to maintain that process than it was to come up with it in the first place.”

Still, organizations must remain agile. “We’d never be able to [grow rapidly] unless we were constantly evolving our practices and processes along the way,” he added.

Drew said smart evolution demands constant curiosity. Don’t be afraid to fail on a project — as long as you learn from it. The best leaders are humble and unafraid of confronting problems, he said.

“None of us know everything, and if you think you do, I don’t want to work with you.  … The sign of a great manager is the ability to bring in people to do tasks better than they can,” Drew said.

The brothers have built their production company — and executed more than 500 home renovation projects — by sticking with a “no BS” communications policy. Meaning: Tell it like it is. “If there’s something that’s bothering us, we just get it out. And we always emerge with a stronger team,” Drew said.

Eighteen years after their first real-estate project, the Scott Brothers can sum up their project management approach in three words: divide and conquer. Like any longtime colleagues, they’ve learned to trust their teams — and each other —  to get the job done.

As with most siblings, humor helps — and keeps work fun.

Right, Jonathan?

“I know what Drew’s strengths are, and he knows how I have so many more strengths.”

Leaders of Chevron's El Segundo Refinery Coke Drum Reliability Project accept the Project of the Year award on 10 October 2015.

By Cyndee Miller

No team is going to get very far without a mission — and it better be good enough (and clear enough) to convince people it’s worth the effort. There are way too many times when I feel like I’ve nailed it. And then all I get is blank stares. So I’ve got to give credit to Chevron, this year’s Project of the Year winner.

The company knew it had to safely replace six huge coke drums at its refinery in El Segundo, California, USA. And it knew that would take a lot of hard work from everyone on the team. So it made sure that message got through  — loud and clear.

“Early in our project scoping phase, we set a very powerful vision for our project,” said Chevron’s Greg Roos, PMP, while accepting the honor at PMI’s Professional Awards Gala in Orlando, Florida, USA. “The key line was at the very end, and we met with every project team member personally on this: ‘Be a difference maker.’ This really resonated with the team … from leaders to craft workers.”

The solutions rolled in right from the start as the team plotted how to get the six new 96-foot (29-meter) tall coke drums to the refinery. Instead of transporting them from the Port of Los Angeles through one of the world’s most congested cities, the team got creative.

By partnering with a local marina, the team cut the travel route. And then, by working with community stakeholders, it managed to turn the road closures necessary to transport the drums into parade-like events. Once they arrived at the refinery, the team used massive cranes to install the drums — with Chevron again making it abundantly clear that safety came first. The team rallied and completed the project four months ahead of schedule and US$7 million under budget. (Get a look inside the project with this video and the cover story of next month’s PM Network^®.)

The truly amazing thing is that Chevron wasn’t alone in executing on a bold project vision. The other two finalists had some pretty fantastic results, too:

Oregon Transportation Investment Act III State Bridge Delivery Program, Salem, Oregon, USA: The Oregon Department of Transportation worked with a joint venture of Fluor Corp. and HDR Engineering Inc.  to deliver the U.S. state’s largest infrastructure investment in 50 years: a 10-year, US$1.3 billion initiative to repair and replace 365 bridges.

In the first public-private partnership of its kind in the state, the team bundled certain bridge projects into sub-programs and then secured buy-in through customized communications to targeted stakeholder groups. The end result? The program closed US$45 million under budget — and Oregon state officials look to it as a new blueprint for infrastructure project delivery. Check out a video on the project.

River Corridor Base Scope Project, Richland, Washington, USA: Washington Closure Hanford LLC — a joint venture of AECOM, Bechtel and CH2M — tackled a major cleanup of 220 square miles (570 square kilometers) of a former nuclear production site. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the 9-year US$2 billion project included disarming two nuclear reactors and remediating 9 million tons of toxic waste.

With regulators, local residents and Native American tribes watching closely, the team delivered the project two years ahead of schedule and US$227 million under budget. And it did it while maintaining the best safety record of any DOE deactivation and decommissioning closure project. (Watch a video about the project here.)

For more on these projects, look for in-depth feature stories in upcoming issues of PM Network^® .

By Cyndee Miller

I’m not exactly into rugby. Okay, reality check: I’ve never watched a rugby game in my life. Never even been tempted.

But author and congress closing speaker James Kerr made me think I’ve been missing out all these years. Sure, I’d heard of New Zealand’s legendary All Blacks national rugby team. And their pre-match ritual haka is truly a sight to behold. (Note to project managers: Now, that’s how you start a project.)

But what I hadn’t realized is that the All Blacks are a true case study in exceptional team performance. The team has won about 75 percent of all the games it played for more than 100 years. And it’s been ranked number 1 in world rugby rankings longer than all other teams combined.

That’s world-class success. It’s what every organization and project leader dreams of but few achieve.

And yes, part of it comes down to raw talent. You have to be very good to join the All Blacks.

But that’s not enough. Ultimately, victory isn’t about specific skills or an inspiring team leader. It’s about building a mission-driven culture that inspires every player to carry the winning legacy of the team further by constantly pushing themselves.

 “It’s the soft stuff that delivers the hard stuff.” said Kerr, author of Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life.

To write his book, Kerr was granted unprecedented access to the team. The lessons he walked away with are simple and powerful — and give practitioners a recipe for building killer teams.

It starts with a purpose-driven culture based on humility, pursuit of excellence and respect, Kerr said.

“No one is entitled to their place in the team. They have to earn it every day,” he said. “That’s important to a high-performing team. Earn your badge.”

The team culture also blows up the idea of having only one leader. Dependency can breed complacency, which leads to defeat. So the All Blacks coaches rely on one captain, but 15 leaders.

The idea is to “take people from dependence, the idea that someone else will take care of it, to independence—the idea that I will take care of it,” Kerr said.

All Blacks players don’t just take orders. “People don’t follow leaders, they follow a vision that is in their own minds. People will rise to a challenge as long as it’s their challenge.”

Beyond the immediate goals of winning a game or a championship, the team’s culture of responsibility and accountability cultivates long-term resiliency. “Leaders are creating leaders,” Kerr said.

And all team members are trained to embrace expectations: “Aim for the highest cloud, because even if you come up short, you’ll hit a lofty mountain.”

That’s fine advice for any team. I just never knew it would come from a bunch of rugby players. 

That’s it for this year’s coverage of PMI Global Congress — EMEA. I’m headed off to check out another great London project, the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the V&A museum. But worry not, there’ll be more blogging, including from next year’s EMEA event slated for 9-11 May in Barcelona, Spain. Hasta la vista.