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This is one of many excellent presentations given over the last three years of the eVa in the UK series. They can also be found in the archive at: http://evaintheuk.org/archive along with back-copy video footage in http://evaintheuk/pmchannel EVA19, the long established Earned Value conference, has this year described its theme as looking at a project management ‘ABC’ – Agile, Benefits and Complex. The four day event, which returns to the Armourers Hall, runs from the 19th to 22nd of May with the flagship conference being held on 20th and 21st May and workshops before and after. The conference will look at how this ‘ABC’ can be made to work within a portfolio and how agile fits into major and minor projects. It will investigate how to manage the relationship between portfolio benefits and project budgets, and whether complex projects even exist. Conference organiser and APM chairman, Steve Wake says: “Currently there is little evidence that this ‘ABC’ is being effectively deployed and managed. This conference aims to address that concern through EVA’s trademark blend of learning and professional development. Case studies and unusual presentations, delivered by top-notch speakers and experienced practitioners, will again engage and entertain the audience. We’ve used string quartets to illustrate points in the past and this year we will be using a Blues band for the first time.” Speakers across the two days include many familiar faces from the APM events programme including; Adrian Pyne of the APM ProgM SIG ‘Changing the project wasteland with a portfolio culture that works,’ APM Honorary Fellow Tim Banfield Director at the Major Projects Authority and Stephen Jones, Sellafield and Planning Monitoring and Control Specific Interest Group (PMC SIG) and Carolyn Limbert of the APM PMC SIG to talk about agile, benefits and complex. Peter Taylor, the Lazy Project Manager will be presenting on “The project manager who smiled” and the ever popular Stephen Carver will present the leadership lessons that can be learnt from Alfred the Great. In addition, there will be speakers from AIRBUS, TfL, Bloodhound, Heathrow T2 and London Tideway Tunnels. The conference will be supplemented by a number of workshops being held at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Bloomsbury Square on Monday 19th and Thursday 22nd May 2014. 'eVa in the UK' http://evaintheuk.org is building a reputation, brand and a learning legacy for the Project Management Profession. The event series is now in its nineteenth year. It is almost as if it all kicked-off when Steve Wake was in short trousers and knights roamed the land on their chargers! #eva19 is an excellent example of Listening, Learning and Leading #apmLLL in action, and great opportunity for professional development. I would encourage anyone who is interested in 'Building a better Project Manager,' to take a look at the web site, and book your place and get involved.
Citation preview
The Art of Action
APM Earned Value conference
London 15th June 2011
Stephen Bungay
2
20th century business thinking: metaphors
• Business is a science
• Organisations are machines
• Managers are engineers
3
20th century business thinking: implications
• Outcomes are predictable
• Optimise the parts and you optimise the whole
• Managers plan, workers do
4
20th century business thinking: consequences
• Nasty surprises
• Silos
• Paralysis
5
Individual malaise - common symptoms
• I understand the strategy - I think - but what does it mean for me?
• I have seven long-term goals, twelve medium term initiatives and twenty three short term objectives. What am I supposed to do?
• I am actually measured on achieving budget
• There’s too little direction from the top
• There’s too much interference from the top
• This is a very complex business
6
19th century military thinking: metaphors
• War is an art
• Organisations are organisms
• Officers are leaders
7
19th century military thinking: implications
• Outcomes are unpredictable
• Do and adapt
• What counts is aligning and motivating people
8
The theorist
9
The overall concept of friction
Emotion &Stress
PersonalInterests
Differentpriorities
Differentagendas
Differentinterpretations
Misunderstandings
Lack of data
Noise
Chance
Externalactors
Changing Environment
ComplexEnvironment
Independentwills
Imperfectinformation
transfer
Unpredictableevents
Imperfectinformation
Independentagents
Limitedknowledge
HumanFinitude
10
The problem: three critical gaps
Outcomes
Actions Plans
Knowledge Gap:the difference
between what wewould like to know
and what we actually know
Alignment Gap:the difference between
what we want people to do and what they actually do
Effects Gap:the difference
between what we expect our actions
to achieve and what they actually achieve
11
Usual reactions
Outcomes
Actions Plans
Knowledge Gap:more detailedinformation
Alignment Gap:more detailedinstructions
Effects Gap:more detailed
control
12
The result
13
Three mistakes
Confusing understanding with information
Confusing clarity with detail
Confusing outcomes with measures
14
The reformer
15
The practitioner
16
Alignment Autonomy
The dilemma
17
Goals: what and why
Operational Control: how
Autonomy
Alignment
High alignment enables high autonomy
18
Von Moltke on the three gaps
Outcomes
Actions Plans
Knowledge Gap:‘do not command more
than is necessary or plan beyond the
circumstances you can foresee’
Alignment Gap:‘communicate to every unit
as much of the higher intent as is necessary to
achieve the purpose’
Effects Gap:‘everyone retains
freedom of decision and action within
bounds’
19
A follower of the guru – ‘planful opportunism’
‘The Prussian General Staff, under the elder von Moltke…did not expect a plan of operations to survive beyond the first contact with the enemy. They set only the broadest of objectives and emphasised seizing unforeseen opportunities as they arose…Strategy was not a lengthy action plan. It was the evolution of a central idea through continually changing circumstances.’
Jack Welch, Jack, p. 448
20
Giving direction: a demanding intellectual task
Tell me what you want – what you really, really want…
give me some resources, some constraints – and shut up!
21
Letting your people find the path
Think
Do
(Learn)
(Adapt)
(Observe
Orient)
(Decide
Act)
22
High performance – recurring patterns
Over 200 years…
Over 2,000 years…
23
Directed opportunism: the challenges
• Answer the Spice Girl’s question– Making critical choices instead of setting multiple
targets
• Get the important message across– Aligning your people with the outcomes instead of
planning their actions
• Give space and support– Encouraging and guiding rather than appraising and
controlling
Appendix
Intent and briefing
25
A core alignment discipline: strategy briefing
1. My intent – our part in the plan– what and why– Measures
2. Higher intent– one and two levels above
3. Implied tasks– responsibilities to assign to realise my intent– main effort
4. Defining the boundaries– freedoms and constraints
5. Confirm the intent: has the situation changed?
26
Cascading intent: each level is more specific
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Intent(What &
why)
Intent(What &
why)
Tasks(How)
Tasks(How)
Intent(What &
why)
Tasks(How)
Strategic Intent
‘Backbrief’
27
Theoretical Thinking
Practical Thinking
Ways of Thinking
28
The three ‘S’s of simplification
Articulating the essential point to create clarity by:
•Structuring– Turning lists into sets of relationships
•Selecting– What details matter?– What is merely detail and should be forgotten?
•Summarising– Articulating the meaning of a large number of facts
29
Crafting intent: the ‘what’ and the ‘why’
Significantly reduce time-to-market for development, enhancements and support of high-quality products to our customers in a cost-effective manner in order to help aggressively grow our revenues and increase our margins.
To accelerate development, support and enchancement of critical products in order to enable sales channels to halt market share erosion by December 2003.Measures:
Critical products available during 2003; Market share 12/03 = market share 1/03
