Teaching Project Survival Skills: Lessons from "The Martian."

Teaching Project Survival Skills:Lessons from The Martian

Wayne P. Pferdehirt, Jeffrey S. Russell, John Nelson

U. Of Wisconsin-Madison

Adapting Graduate Project Management Education for Practicing Professionals to the High-Stakes,

Turbulent World Where Projects Live or Die

Wayne P. Pferdehirt, Jeffrey S. Russell, John Nelson

U. Of Wisconsin-Madison

Paper titled as

Today’s Premise and Question

• The success of engineering project managers is much more dependent on ability to perceive, adapt, and nimbly lead change than traditional project management curriculum addresses.

• How can we, as engineering management educators, best prepare and equip our students to effectively lead projects and teams in a world of permanent white water?

Organizational Agility is Key to Project Success

Source: Capturing the Value of Project Management through Organizational Agility, PMI, 2015

UW MEM Students

• Ave. 10 years professional experience

• Project engineers to CEO’s

• All bring interesting projects

• Highly motivated

UW MEM Program

• Launched in 1999; 450+ graduates

• Cohort- and project-based

• Online active learning

• Twelve courses, two years

The Course

• Technical Project Management

• Course faculty

• Students make major contributions to class learning

• Emphasis on semester-long real-world, team project

What’s the Big Deal about The Martian?

• Highly trained team; well planned and equipped mission

• The unexpected happened

• Survival was at stake

• The movie is a great example of adaptability driven by resilience, courage, ingenuity, and commitment to each other and a shared mission

• The Lesson

Astronaut WatneyShares a Lesson in

Project Management

“At some point, everything’s going to go south on you. … you’re gonna say, ‘This is it, this is how I end.’ Now, you can either accept that, or you can get to work. You have to solve one problem, and then solve the next problem, and then solve the next problem, and if you solve enough problems, you get to go home.”

Mark Watney, Astronaut,

Mechanical Engineer, and Botanist

Realities Often Don’t Match Plans

“Work the problem”

Sooner or Later Our Students Will Face Their Own Project Crises

• Unpredictable project circumstances• Unpredictable opportunities• Do students

– Expect and embrace change– Remain fixed on an obsolete project plan and

schedule?

• Career-limiting or Career-maker?

• What can we do to best prepare and equip students to deal successfully with unexpected, unwelcome, success-threatening change?

Modern, Fast-Paced Project Live in a Worldof Permanent White Water

• Threatens survival of boat and team

• Dangers can be hard to read

• Always changing

• Requires individual and team agility

Developing a Project Strategy is like Planning a Route through Challenging Rapids

Keys to Navigating Project White Water

• Build and plan for agility

• Begin planning from the end

• Expect midstream adjustments to course

• Success is determined by outcome, not the route followed

• Aligned teamwork essential

Living Order is a Helpful Concept in Teaching Project Management

• Projects happen in dynamic environments

• Project managers, their teams, and practices need the

agility to anticipate and adapt to change

Living Order: recognizes that a system of things is always in the process of remaking itself, and always - at some level – in a state of uncertainty.

Often, Project Management Curricula Over-Emphasize

Geometric Order

• Often, project management teaching idealizes this understanding and expectation for project planning and execution.

• Can overemphasize achieving original budget and schedule over project goals and outcome

• We can and should prepare students to expect changes and new knowledge as part of project management

Geometric Order: The ‘traditional’ concept of order associated with linear development and rigid structuralism.

LEA

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A New Course Roadmap Provides Basis for Contrast, Discussion and Application

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Push Shift Budget Order Standards & GuidelinesSOSBAU

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Laufer’s Principles

Collaboration

Organizational Push Hierarchy Deterministic

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Anticipate AdaptableSustainability

Learning Organizations

Last Planners / Dashboards

Linear /Fixed Respond Price

Week

Rethinking how project management is taught and practiced

Example Applications

• Project Scheduling– Emphasis on phased scheduling

• Project Budget Management– Plan and execute using target value cost

• Project Partner Alignment– Shared goals and success

• Scope Control– Differentiate scope evolution v. scope creep

Integration of CPM and Lean/Pull Planning

From Huber and Reiser, “The Marriage of CPM and Lean Construction.

Teaching Our Students How to Prepare the Perfect Project Plan May

Doom Them to Failure

• Failure to plan is planning to fail

• We overestimate our understanding of the future

• Build culture and equip team to learn and adapt throughout project

• Focus on project goals over predetermined plan

Mark Watney, Jazz Musicians, and Our Students

Masters at appropriate, effective, well-timed improvisation

We Invite You to Continue the Dialogue, Learning, and Adapting

Wayne PferdehirtWayne.Pferdehirt@wisc.edu

Jeff Russelljeffrey.russell@wisc.edu

John Nelsonjsnelson4@wisc.edu