Voices on Project Management

By Peter Tarhanidis

Artificial intelligence is no longer a tool we’ll use on projects in the future. Right now, many organizations are formalizing the use of advanced data analytics from innovative technologies, algorithms and AI visualization techniques into strategic projects.

The maturity of advanced data analytics is creating an opportunity for organizations to unlock value. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates AI’s global economic impact could climb to US$13 trillion by 2030.

As an example, in the healthcare industry, Allied Market Research reports rising demand for data analytics solutions due to the growth in data from electronic health records, among other factors. The global healthcare analytics market was valued at US$16.9 billion in 2017, and the report forecasts it to reach US$67.8 billion by 2025.

The Evolution of AI Maturity
Gartner describes four growth stages of analytics and value activities. The first is descriptive analytics, which gains insight from historical data on what occurred in the firm or a project. This includes key performance measure reports and dashboards. Second, diagnostics analytics allow you to learn why something happened and the relationship between events. Third, is the use of predictive analytics to develop viewpoints into potential future outcomes. Finally, prescriptive analytics allow you to provide users with advice on what actions to take.

Everyday examples of these solutions range from simple automated dashboards, remote check deposit, Siri-like assistants, ride-sharing apps, Facebook, Instagram, autopilot and autonomous cars.  

Tips on Successful Transformation
Leaders must consider advanced data analytics as a transformational journey—not a complex project. Without thoughtful consideration of the implications of managing AI projects, one may create chaos in adopting these new services.

As a project leader, take these steps to avoid key pitfalls:

1. Develop your understanding of data science tool kits and technologies and identify any centers of excellence. Start with basics such as descriptive statistics, regression and optimization techniques. You’ll also want to familiarize yourself with technology such as machine learning and natural language processing.
2. Determine how these AI initiatives integrate into the organization’s mission and vision. This may require a new strategic business plan, optimizing an organization, culture change and change management.
3. Establish a data governance body and framework to ensure accountability, roles, security, legislative and ethical management of consumer, patient, customer and government data.
4. Develop strong multiyear business cases that clearly indicate cost versus revenue or savings.
5. Maintain an agile mindset and leverage design thinking methods to co-create the pilots into products alongside stakeholders.

Please comment below on what approaches you have taken to enable advanced data analytics in your role or in your organization.

By Wanda Curlee

I recently flew across the country with my two grandchildren, both under the age of three. While their mother was with me, we were not seated together., so I was understandably a little concerned about the trip. (And for the people around me.)

The trip did make me wonder, however, if airlines could take a project management approach when small children are traveling. Yes, they allow families with small children to board at the beginning of the process, but is there more that could be done?

All they would need is better stakeholder management.

Before the day of travel, the airline could send tips to those traveling with children. The tips can focus on what will help the child and the parent survive the lengthy trip, such as how to help kids with equalizing ear pressure, how to help with meltdowns and what to pack to keep the child entertained.

Next, for the day of travel, help those traveling with kids understand the rules. I was rather rudely told that I had to have the child in my lap for takeoff and landing. The child was standing between the seat and me (we all know there is not much room) and was between my legs. He was happy while in this position. Once he went into my lap, he went into meltdown mode. While this was not the problem of the flight attendant, it would have been nice to have known the rules and be able to prepare my grandchild for the final part of the flight.

The airline could also provide a small goodie bag for a child. There could be lollipops to help with ears, a list of the rules, a paper book—maybe a couple of pages for the children to draw or color. Maybe even some plastic bags that seal to take care of those dirty diapers that may occur during flight.

During the flight, the flight attendant could reach out to travelers with small children just to let the traveler know that he or she is there to help. I know at the end of flights, during landing, the flight attendant thanks me for being a million miler. So, just saying hi to the mom, dad or grandparent traveling with the small child will go a long way.

This is a little out of the way of what is usually discussed on the blog but taking a better approach to stakeholder management to help families that are traveling with young ones can be beneficial for the traveler, the child and those on the plane sitting around the child. Let’s make traveling a bit more humane for all involved.

By Dave Wakeman

How do we present ourselves to our teams? That’s something I didn’t think about deeply until recently, when I started hanging out with Harrison Monarth, author of Executive Presence: The Art of Commanding Respect Like a CEO. 

I had considered it, of course, but not as something I could focus on or change. And I never connected it to the effectiveness of our leadership. 

But as I thought about executive presence more and more, I realized that everything we do is marketing. So why wouldn’t that bleed into the way we manage our teams? That’s why I wanted to take a moment to highlight how you can improve your presence and leadership. 

Manage How People Perceive You

This became a big issue for me in January when I was at a conference in Texas. At least a dozen people came up to me, waving their phones in my face, practically yelling, “I listen to your podcast and I love it.”

First, I didn’t realize so many people heard my podcast, even though I knew the numbers said thousands of people a month were listening. 

Second, I never thought about the way I presented myself to others because I didn’t realize people were paying attention to me. 

I think many of us fall into that category. We take actions, live our lives and never realize we are being paid attention to. As leaders, we have to manage the way we are perceived. 

This means that our tone of voice, our dress, the way we delegate and lead meetings—basically everything we do—impacts how our teams see us, judge us and react to us. Everything counts. 

For all of you, this means you’d likely benefit from taking a few moments to jot down how you want to be perceived. Then ask yourself whether you are living up to those expectations. If you are, great! If you aren’t, what actions will you take to change that? 

Get Into the Motivation Game 

I like to think everyone has a certain level of self-motivation. I believe this is true, but I’d be lying if I said this means everyone is self-motivated in the way that I want them to be. As a project leader, you are likely confronting this same situation. 

I recently read an interesting story about Pat Riley, the legendary coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Miami Heat. He’s famous for throwing a bag of championship rings on the table when he was recruiting LeBron James to join Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade in Miami. 

Riley clearly knows a thing or two about motivation, but the story I read took this to another level. I learned that he would give a new 20-minute motivational speech to his team each day. From what I can gather, he never repeated them. 

This alone is impressive, but what is relevant to our discussion here is that Riley used these stories to motivate his team and to instill the right mindset and values. 

As we consider how we want to be reflected to our teams, it’s important to think about how we want them to act and behave. That doesn’t happen by chance. It is our job to motivate and inspire our teams to do their jobs in a way that reflects our shared values and goals. 

I challenge you to spend a few moments thinking about how you can inspire and lead your team. Consider the following: What stories should you share, which examples should you use and what values do you want to instill? 

Be Willing to Have Difficult Conversations 

I don’t know anyone who has rushed headfirst into every difficult conversation. Everyone has struggled to begin a conversation at some point. Yet one of the keys to successful leadership is the ability to deliver difficult conversations when you don’t want to. Often, this ties into the idea of accountability. 

If you bought into my idea about motivation, you probably recognize the importance of accountability. In many instances, accountability, motivation and difficult conversations go hand-in-hand. 

If you aren’t holding people accountable with real deadlines, consequences and feedback, you aren’t really being a leader and your presence is suffering. 

To maximize your presence, you have to be willing to have difficult conversations. You can make them easier by understanding exactly what you need to convey and sticking to your planned talking points to ensure you hit your key objectives. Couple this with meaningful accountability in the form of clearly spelled-out expectations, deadlines and consequences in case of non-performance. By doing so, you can achieve real accountability and ease some of the pressure of tough conversations. 

This idea of presence is something I’m still working through, but I’m curious about what you think. Let me know in the comments. 

By Lynda Bourne

Have you ever experienced technical debt on a project? As the debt builds up, everything looks good from the outside. However, when the crunch comes and that debt has to be repaid, a major reversal in fortune can occur.

Technical debt refers to the costs of having to go back and resolve problems that arise because an earlier decision was made to take the easy route, instead of the best one. By taking the easy option, the team incurs a debt to the project that will have to be repaid later. While the concept comes from software development, this insidious effect can be seen across industries.

The Crossrail project in London offers a current, extreme example. In July 2018, it was reported that on-time and on-budget completion of the £14.8 billon rail project would occur in December 2018. By August 2018, completion had slipped by a year. Currently, the delay extends to the end of 2020, with a cost overrun of 20 percent.

What’s the main driver of this delay and associated costs?

It appears to be decisions made to ignore problems in the signaling system development. According to Construction Manager magazine, while giving evidence to a government inquiry, Crossrail’s new chief executive Simon Wright said, “We were testing on incomplete systems. Productivity was under stress, but we fought hard to maintain the schedule and thought all along that we could find a solution to bring it back, just like we have done on countless other problems that occurred during the construction program.”

This is a classic example of management decisions building up a technical debt. 

In 2015, The Independent newspaper reported that rail experts and engineers were having difficulty creating interfaces for the signaling systems. At the same inquiry, Crossrail’s new chairman Terry Morgan said “problems that emerged were mostly due to difficulties with developing software to allow Crossrail trains to travel safely at speed through three separate signalling systems,” according to Construction Manager magazine. The problem was identified in 2015 and hadn’t been resolved by 2019, despite time and money wasted testing incomplete systems. In fact, the irrelevant testing probably added to the delay and costs by distracting people from the real challenge.

Fixing the problem properly the first time would surely have caused a delay and cost blowout between 2016 and 2018. But in all likelihood, the costs would have been lower, the delay would have been shorter, and the current furor surrounding the project would have been minimized.  

The problem with technical debt is that often, the people who need to know about a problem aren’t informed. We will never know what the chair and CEO of Crossrail (both sacked) really knew in the 2016 to 2018 period, or what their senior managers knew about the build-up of the technical debt in the Crossrail signalling systems. But the problem could have been avoided, or at least minimized, if the technical debt had been acknowledged. If people are unaware of technical debt, then they’ll be more likely to identify paths that will result in it being created.

To avoid this lack of insight, everyone in the project group, especially team members, must be in a position to offer insight into technical debt.

The project manager can then choose to act, or not. Aware teams bring up the subject of technical debt in planning meetings, and they keep focused on it. Aware managers pose questions such as, “If this proposed shortcut is the right choice, what is there to gain, and what are the challenges and future implications?”

As with financial debt, there are times when going into debt can be beneficial, but only if you can pay back the accrued debt and interest at the right time.

How much technical debt is your project running? Please share your experiences below.

Business Transformation in Disguise

By Jess Tayel

In the quest to uplift capabilities, better serve customers, improve the bottom line or acquire market share, organizations rely on a mix of projects and programs.

Some projects are scored as critical and complex. Some organizations have a clear and defined scoring system of what is critical and what is not, while others settle for a subjective measure.

But even after you’ve determined a project is critical, there’s more to consider.

Is it Change or Transformation?

When it comes to big, critical projects, ask yourself: Are you delivering a change initiative or a business transformation initiative?

Why is this distinction important? Because they both have different characteristics that dictate how they should be brought to life.

Change initiatives execute a defined set of projects or initiatives that may or may not impact how things work across the entire organization.  Examples include introducing a new payroll system, moving into a centralized shared services model or executing an office move.

Business transformation, however, is a portfolio of initiatives that have a high level of interdependencies, leading to change across the organization. They’re focused not just on execution but also on reinventing and discovering a new or a revised business model. That model is based on a significant business outcome that will determine the future of the organization.

With that in mind, business transformation is more unpredictable and iterative, and it’s about a substantial change in mindset and ways of doing business. The “how” may not be as defined as it is in change initiatives, which means you need to try different methods and be more experimental.

Set Your Organization up for Success

Because of these distinctions, business transformation should never start with finding a solution, i.e., bring in this technology, hire this firm, change model X to Y. It should instead focus on the following:

• Why?
  • Define the purpose and the platform of urgency.
  • Why is this important?
  • What would happen if you do not achieve this transformation?
• Who?
  • Who is your customer (internally and externally)? Tip: Internal customers, i.e., employees, are as important as your external customers. Understanding their point of view and what impact they will have on the success of this program is critical.
  • What would that mean for your customers?
  • What competitive advantage are you bringing to your customers and to the market?
  • What changes to behavior and mindset is required to make this change a success?
• What?
  • Define success.
  • How do you measure success?
  • What does success look like in the future? Tip: Be as detailed as possible. Tell a story of success X months into the future.
  • What are the barriers to success?
  • What are the top three risks that may affect this transformation?
  • What are the top three opportunities that you need to capitalize on to deliver success?

You may say that these questions can be part of the initiation phase. But in my 20 years of experience around the globe, I have rarely seen the above steps executed diligently from a customer centricity point of view before teams start to dig for a solution.

That said, time spent clearly articulating those elements is well spent and directly contributes to the success of the transformation, while reducing rework and change fatigue. It’s like spending time to sharpen your saw before starting to cut the tree.

In my next post, I will talk more about what is required from the leadership and internal transformation teams to facilitate and create success.

Feel free to comment below and send feedback; I would love to hear about your experiences with business transformation