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How big things get done, with Bent Flyvbjerg · Project Podcast

0:09
Welcome to the IPM podcast. APM is the childhood body for
0:12
the project profession. My name is Emma DeVito, and I'm
0:15
the editor of project apm's coarsely journal and your host
0:19
today. I'm speaking again with bent
0:21
flew via. The first BT professor and
0:23
inaugural chair of major program management to the University of
0:26
Oxford Sayid business school, who has just published a new New
0:30
book together with journalists and Gardner, called how big
0:33
things get done. The surprising factors behind
0:36
every successful project from home renovations for science,
0:40
exploration published by MacMillan Avid podcast.
0:44
Listeners might remember, I spoke to Bent back in March, 20
0:46
21 about how to make your projects, a success in which he
0:50
spoke about reference class. Forecasting, one of the ways in
0:53
which to help ensure the realistic planning budgeting, as
0:57
setting of expected benefits for your projects, Been formulated
1:01
the iron law of Mega projects that contends that 1 billion
1:04
dollar plus mega-projects rail tunnels nuclear power stations
1:08
Olympic games were almost always blow their budget and schedule
1:12
and yield fewer benefits and promised his new book, outlines
1:16
how the data shows this is no mystery.
1:19
It's usually the result of terrible forecasting and
1:21
planning. The good news is that he
1:24
explains how every projects from a house renovation to the
1:27
building of a new nuclear power station can be done far more
1:29
More successfully, in fact, his approach which hinges on his
1:33
reference class, forecasting tool, will he hopes help us to
1:36
get to grips with the most critical mega-projects of all
1:39
the climate change. Emergency, we all face but
1:46
hello, welcome back to the Opium podcast.
1:49
So I'm delighted to have you back.
1:51
Thank you very much and thank you for having me again.
1:53
Let's get down to your book, How big things get done, the
1:57
surprising factors behind every successful, Checks from home,
2:00
renovations to space exploration.
2:02
First thing I wanted to congratulate you and such a
2:05
gripping read, which is not something I usually say about
2:08
most business books. Why did you want to write this
2:11
particular book when you did because they had to do something
2:15
during the pandemic. But I started thinking about it
2:18
before the pandemic and planning.
2:20
Its and the reason that I wanted to do it was that I wanted to do
2:24
something that was written in a more popular fashion, you know
2:28
where you Have to be an academic or a professional project
2:33
manager in order to understand what we were saying in the book,
2:37
but it was written in a language.
2:39
We are pretty much any person. Could pick it up and understand
2:42
what it was about and also understand that it actually
2:44
relates to their life. It's not just about these big
2:47
projects you hear about in the news like hs2 or a new
2:52
skyscraper somewhere in the world.
2:55
It's also about the products we do in our daily lives like you
2:59
know, Organizing a holiday or a wedding or doing a home.
3:03
Renovation is an example. We love and we use in the book.
3:07
So we also wanted to write about project management in the way
3:11
that it became clear to people that this is actually about your
3:14
life. It's not about something that is
3:16
happening, only in professional circles.
3:18
It's also happening in your daily life.
3:21
One of the messages that really stuck with me is the central
3:25
idea is think, slow act fast, could you explain to listeners
3:29
What this actually means and how it should be applied to
3:34
projects. The first thing I want to say is
3:37
that I think some people would rebel against things slow
3:41
because they think it means take a long time, and it doesn't
3:45
necessarily mean that it means that you need to slow down your
3:47
thinking in accordance with the findings, in behavioral
3:52
economics. So, you know, Daniel kahneman's
3:55
book called thinking fast and slow.
3:58
It's about. We have these two ways of
4:00
thinking and one is our spontaneous way that we use as a
4:04
fallback position. She's the fastest ways, we think
4:08
fast and that gets us into a lot of trouble.
4:12
So there's probably a good reason in evolutionary terms
4:14
that we have this ability to think really fast, you know, but
4:19
some things are not suited for that.
4:21
And I would say that a big project is the kind of thing
4:25
that is not suited for fast thinking that you actually need
4:27
to carefully, consider what you're doing.
4:29
Because the fact that it's big means that it has big
4:31
consequences, including on your own life.
4:34
It's one of your private projects, So the we basically
4:38
use the results from behavioral economics and Behavioral Science
4:41
and saying, okay this is a very, very well documented finding
4:46
that we actually need to think slow to be successful.
4:50
Behavioral economics, don't go further than that.
4:52
But we go further, we take the action side in because, of
4:55
course, that's important when you're doing projects, it's all
4:58
about action. There's no project isn't worth
5:00
much. If it's all just thinking or
5:03
words on paper, it needs to happen in reality and that's
5:06
Where the action comes in and we've started products very
5:09
carefully and and many people actually think the bigger the
5:13
project you do, the more risky and difficult it is.
5:17
And we find that's actually not, that's not the main problem,
5:20
there's a bit of Truth to that but not much actually, the main
5:23
thing is the longer. It takes the more risky it is
5:27
and the higher risk of going terribly wrong.
5:31
So it's actually time that is the killer for projects not size
5:35
and this is something thing that has never been documented before
5:38
that, it's actually about time and not size time is the killer.
5:42
So that's why we say egg fast. So by aging fast, you can
5:46
actually reduce your risks enormously, especially you have
5:49
been thinking slow for her. So that's why we say the rhythm
5:52
of success in projects is think slow act fast.
5:56
So when you say act fast and if you act slower, there's higher
6:00
risk. Can you spell out why that is?
6:02
Is it because you've got a greater window open to Events.
6:06
That might disrupt the project. Exactly.
6:08
That's that's the key the window and how big the window is and we
6:11
call it the window of Doom and that's very well founded.
6:15
I mean, this is based on heart research and because the bigger
6:19
you make the window, which means the the bigger you make the
6:23
period that you are delivering in the higher.
6:26
The risk is that something bad is going to fly through that
6:28
window and smash up your project, black swans, for
6:31
instance, to use the term that nesting Nicholas taleb has made
6:34
popular. That it actually turns out that
6:38
the risk of black swans derailing.
6:41
Your project goes up exponentially with the longer
6:44
the time you take. So it's very risky to take a
6:46
long time in terms of black swans.
6:48
And this is a very important, maybe the most important finding
6:51
in the book, in my own point of view is that the vast majority
6:55
of projects have fed Tails regarding performance.
6:58
So so products are Black Swan inclined.
7:03
That means that the best thing you can do to reduce Who's that
7:06
Black Swan risk and other risks to emphasize is to reduce that
7:10
window by keeping it short. And and we study successful
7:14
project leaders who are doing exactly.
7:16
That probably the most famous right now is Elon Musk.
7:20
You know, he's been extremely successful in his company.
7:23
So that's Tesla and SpaceX in using these principles that we
7:27
are describing in the book, like getting to production really
7:32
fast and, and thinking things, Through very carefully before
7:37
you start actually doing things and how do you square the
7:42
thinking slow with the current appetite for agile and iterative
7:47
thinking and just doing something and pivoting and
7:51
experimenting. So I want to distinguish between
7:54
two types of projects projects that are easily reversible,
7:58
where you can very easily. Reverse your decisions and
8:01
doesn't matter much, you know, whether you did something and
8:04
you have to redo it. And that's Agile is good for
8:07
situations where you can easily reverse your decisions and you
8:10
can get a learning process going and then you just you revise.
8:15
So this is common in software and that's where a child comes
8:18
from, right? But I don't mean to say that a
8:21
child should be limited to just software.
8:23
It's actually very useful method in lots of context.
8:26
But software is particularly suitable, because you're not
8:28
building anything physical, and it's very, it's quite easy to
8:31
change things. And that's why you talk about
8:35
me. Mum.
8:36
Viable products also in hii, right?
8:38
You just build a minimum viable product, your Market, put it to
8:41
Market your test it, and then you just take it back again and
8:43
you, and you fix things that don't work and you improve it,
8:47
then you send it out again and you go through iterations like
8:49
that. That's fine for products that
8:52
are easily reversible, but products that are not reversible
8:55
so irreversible projects, you can't do that.
8:58
So, for instance, if you're putting on a wedding, it's not a
9:00
good idea just to try a little wedding, you know, and then see
9:04
how it goes, and then you do another one, you know.
9:06
The same thing. Like if you're building a
9:07
skyscraper, how on Earth would you say?
9:09
Okay, we're going to put up a skyscraper, it doesn't work.
9:11
We take it down again and then we do another one, that would be
9:14
agile, right? Doesn't work.
9:16
So you have to make a very clear distinction between reversible
9:20
and irreversible decisions. Most big projects that actually
9:23
irreversible. Now, they don't have to be some
9:25
big software products can be built in an agile fashion and,
9:28
and some change management products can be done in an agile
9:32
versus where you're just changing organizational
9:35
structure. Sirs and organizational
9:37
processes and so on. And where it's not that big of a
9:40
deal, if you make a mistake and have to redo it.
9:43
But anything, you know, like you're building a tunnel under
9:46
the channel between the UK and France.
9:48
You can't just start boring and then say, okay, if start
9:50
working, will start pouring somewhere else.
9:53
Why does thinking slow and acting fast, not usually happen
9:58
because we are programmed to not do this, we are hard-wired from
10:01
nature from biology, for whatever reason.
10:06
Probably very good revolutionary regions.
10:09
We have something called availability bias.
10:13
That whatever pops into our brain first and makes itself
10:18
available as a thought. And this could be a thought
10:20
about a project or an idea for the project.
10:22
We tend to take on to that and then disregard all sorts of
10:26
other things. We actually kind of lose
10:29
perspective because we already have a prospective.
10:31
Namely, the first thought that came into our mind.
10:34
This is very well-documented again, in Behavioral Science and
10:37
behavioral economics, that we have this and this is something
10:41
to watch out for. And that's why we think fast, we
10:43
just It jumped to the first thing.
10:45
And then we assume that this is all there is Kahneman has the
10:49
word for he called it. We see a tea which is a terrible
10:52
acronym, but that's what he calls it it stands for what you
10:56
see is all there is. So what you see is all there is
10:59
that's an extremely strong, cognitive bias we have and and
11:03
can a man spends a large part of his book describing this and how
11:07
it trips us up. So that's what's happening in
11:09
projects is that we quickly. Let's go on to some idea.
11:13
Maybe even a specific technology technology that we're going to
11:16
use for this project and then that's all we see.
11:19
What we see is all there is and we run with ads instead of
11:23
instead of setting stepping back and saying, okay now I have one
11:26
idea now let me start to think about some other ideas and we
11:30
give very clear guidance in the book and and take the readers
11:33
hand and walk the reader through processes that you can use to
11:38
step back and think more systematically about what are
11:40
the Alternatives here? What are the many other ways
11:42
that we could do this? This and then decide, which of
11:45
these ways are you going to use? One of our main means is to ask
11:51
why we encourage anybody, who's doing a project to First, sit
11:56
down and ask themselves or whoever is doing this project,
12:00
why are you doing the project Y? And you need to have a very good
12:04
answer to that question before you start.
12:08
So, you actually know precisely and very well thought out what
12:12
the reasons are that Doing the project then after you know that
12:15
you can start thinking backwards from that.
12:17
That's the really the end product, you want to end up
12:19
with, then you work backwards through the against diagram and
12:25
to the left side of the diagram. And then you start thinking
12:27
about how do I deliver the why? And, and what's the best way to
12:32
do that? That's a way to avoid falling
12:35
into this trap of committing to a bad idea of front which is
12:39
very common. And if you do that, then you'll
12:41
get the opposite of thinking slow acting.
12:43
So fast. You get think fast X Lo because
12:46
you have, if you haven't thought out what you are going to do,
12:49
then all sorts of problems are going to pop up when you can
12:52
least afford it. And when it's really going to
12:54
slow you down which is in the delivery phase, I want to talk
12:57
to you about thinking, right to left.
13:00
So that connects with what you were saying.
13:02
Just then about, what is it? Why are you doing this project?
13:05
What do you hope the outcomes to be?
13:08
So thinking right to live is referring to the process.
13:14
Chart that is used in most project planning and management.
13:18
So the Gantt chart classically where you have the end result
13:23
the outcome on the rights and then everything that needs to
13:26
happen left of that. So you start all the way on the
13:28
left and then you eventually end up on the right.
13:31
We say reverse that process, start on the rights, then work
13:35
your way backwards to the lift and then you start delivery
13:38
while you keep your eyes on the right?
13:40
So, you know that at all times, that anything you do.
13:43
Do is contributing to what's on the right of the diagram.
13:46
And the right is established by the question, why, that's why
13:50
you ask the why question, why are we doing this?
13:52
What we're doing it? Because we want this, and that
13:55
this is your end results. So the why question helps you
13:58
put the right thing on the right side of the diagram?
14:01
And then, then you work backwards.
14:03
And the key thing here is that this helps you having, you know,
14:06
you, you're basically having a North star that will lead you
14:10
all the way through the project delivery process.
14:12
No matter. Complex it is and how much you
14:16
you you tend to get lost in the weeds from time to time.
14:20
If you look up and you look at what's out there on the right
14:23
you know where what you should be aiming for and then you just
14:26
look down and see is what I'm doing now.
14:29
Actually contributing to that outcome and if the answer is
14:32
yes, keep doing what you're doing.
14:33
If the answer is no, stop doing what you're doing and start
14:36
doing something that actually contributes to the outcome.
14:39
And very often people get lost in their projects, you know,
14:42
they lose their way. Way, because it's not clear.
14:44
What? What's in the, The Box on the
14:46
right of the process diagram, I was curious on your thoughts
14:50
about optimism. Optimism bias.
14:52
How you mitigate against that in a project?
14:56
Yes. Also, we are seeing that.
14:58
There are two big things that decide the fate of projects one
15:03
in Psychology. The other is power and the
15:06
optimism bias is psychology. So this is probably the most
15:11
well established its cognitive bias and the most research
15:14
cognitive bias that exists it again, very well documented that
15:19
we are hard-wired to be optimists.
15:21
And again, probably for good reason we needed to get up in
15:24
the morning and get to Work and take care of our kids and and do
15:28
projects and and nobody and certainly not me would deny
15:33
that. We need optimism in our lives
15:36
and we need optimism in project management and project delivery.
15:42
However, optimism can be misplaced, it can really get you
15:46
into bed situation. Like just imagine if you are
15:49
getting on a plane and you hear the first pilot saying to the
15:53
second pilot, I'm optimistic about the future.
15:56
Situation. I don't know about you, but I
15:58
don't want to be on that plane. I want to get off.
16:00
I don't want a pilot who's optimistic about the future
16:03
situation. I want the pilot whose they did
16:05
certain and realistic about the fuel situation.
16:09
Now, what's the fuel of products?
16:11
The fuel projects is money and time.
16:14
We need money and time to fuel our products to get to that box
16:18
on the right, you know, of the diagram.
16:22
And I don't want to work with project leaders that are To
16:26
Mystic about the budgets. I don't want to work with
16:28
project leaders that are optimistic about the schedule
16:33
because I know that if that's the case that we have a huge
16:37
risk of crashing just like the airplane would have if you
16:40
optimistic about the future situation.
16:42
Now I'm lucky. I get to work on a lot of
16:44
projects because a lot of product making this error and
16:47
then you know, once they made the error, I can hired into it
16:50
too. Deep is the project and get rid
16:52
of the optimism and and then see if we can, can we can we Salvage
16:57
the prop? The project can be re-baseline
16:59
it and then make sure we have a realistic schedule and a
17:02
realistic budget for for delivering, the rest of the
17:06
project successfully. And there are, you know, very
17:10
good ways of doing this and they're different ways.
17:12
So I've developed a method called reference class
17:16
forecasting, but they also something called similarity
17:19
based forecasting. They are, you know, where you
17:24
can, you can before you even start the You can try to imagine
17:27
everything that could go wrong with it and so that's called a
17:31
pre-mortem. You actually pick the project
17:33
apart before you start it and see.
17:35
Okay. If everything goes wrong what
17:37
could happen here and then you protect yourself against all
17:40
these things. So there are many ways you can,
17:41
you can deep is projects. It's called there's a common
17:44
term for this. Now, that is emerging Court
17:46
decision, hygiene. This is a kind of hygiene that
17:50
you need to do on your decisions, to make them sound,
17:54
you know, and healthy to make. A healthy decision.
17:57
You need to Citizen hygiene D biasing is part of decision.
18:00
Hygiene, we very much need that on Project.
18:04
How important is the well, the politics side of things and how
18:09
is the project manager or project leader to.
18:12
You prepare yourself as best, you can to deal with that side
18:16
of things. So we haven't.
18:18
And if you ristic about that and we call it, builds your Bridges
18:21
before you need them. It's too late to start
18:25
developing stakeholder relations, when you need the
18:28
stakeholders to help you, when things start going wrong with
18:31
your project, you need to have built those relations.
18:34
So those are the bridges that I'm talking about.
18:36
You need to build those bridges before you need them.
18:39
So that they are there when you need them and you can cross
18:42
them, you can, you can communicate with the
18:44
stakeholders and you can, you can ask them for help, you know,
18:47
to, to get the project back on track.
18:50
So that's that's the, the stakeholder management.
18:53
Part of things. And it's really important,
18:55
incredibly important. If we find that the many, many
18:58
successful project leaders that we have studied for the book
19:03
included, including interviewing them, but also studying their
19:06
work, you know, directly. They all do this one successful.
19:13
IT project manager who's managing multi-billion dollar
19:16
and multibillion-pound IT projects, you know, said that he
19:22
that when he's He's leading one of these shoot, I'll see
19:25
projects, he's spending more than half his time, on
19:27
stakeholder management. He's like a, he's like
19:32
diplomats, you know, out there trying to make sure that the
19:36
project has good relations with everybody and that's in his
19:40
view, that's what he needs. To spend his time on and then
19:43
he's bringing in people to do the more technical stuff and
19:45
actually running the project. He's just out there way in front
19:48
of the project, making sure that relations are good.
19:51
So that when they hit a bump in the road, They actually have the
19:54
relationship, they need in order to get over it.
19:56
So that's, that's the way you can call it, like you say,
20:00
managing politics because that's the sort of the micro politics
20:03
of the project is, what do the stakeholders think about the
20:06
project? Will they support it, or will
20:07
they be against it? That's very important for the
20:10
project leader, and the Project Lead.
20:12
It seemed to be aware of. Of course, there are many other
20:16
ways that politics can play a part.
20:18
So one way that we talk about in the book is the is the politics
20:22
of manipulating. The business case of France in
20:26
order to get it approved and that's another type of bias we
20:29
call it power buyers. So on one side we had such we
20:32
have psychology that we talked about and there you have the
20:34
cognitive bias is a which optimism bias is the most
20:38
prominent on the power side, you have people deliberately
20:43
manipulating things. So on the psychology size is non
20:46
deliberate, people actually not conscious of their own biases or
20:49
optimists are not conscious. Mostly not conscious, they're
20:52
optimistic when they're making. Decisions.
20:54
They actually think they're making realistic decisions when
20:57
they are making optimistic decisions with political and
21:00
Power Bars. It's different people actually
21:02
know what they're doing. They are manipulate that it's
21:04
called cooking. The numbers in the US they call
21:06
it cooking the number so you cook, you cook the books and you
21:11
cook, you cook the business case.
21:12
So that the project looks cheap, you know it's much easier to get
21:16
a project, proved that health and low budget and the same with
21:20
schedule, you cook the schedule so that it looks short.
21:23
It's much easier to get a project that proved that looks
21:25
like it can be delivered quickly.
21:27
So so that's that's power bias and it has exactly the same
21:32
effect as psychological bias except it's deliberate.
21:36
But these two buyers is the psychology psychological biases.
21:39
And the power buyers is actually reinforce each other and create
21:43
these very unhealthy business cases that we see for the vast
21:47
majority and I cannot emphasize enough.
21:50
How big that? Make sure it's your projects is
21:53
that him Bad Business cases. Well, if you're an experienced,
21:57
project manager project leader, do you become aware?
22:00
Do you think that you'd have this optimism bias at the more
22:03
projects you have under the belt?
22:05
The more you realize that actually you need to be somehow
22:08
turn your optimism dial down so it will it will keep happening
22:12
to some degree but successful product leaders, do get the
22:15
optimism bias and other buyers is under control, their
22:18
anchoring anchoring anchoring in the wrong base rates.
22:22
For instance, That's a classic, you know, that you totally
22:24
Estimate the risks. That's also a type of optimism,
22:27
right? And it's called the base rate
22:29
fallacy, and it's again a very well-established fallacy and
22:33
behavioral economics. And this is the kind of thing
22:37
that said, successful product leaders, get over these big
22:40
pitfalls, but that doesn't mean that nobody, I'm there.
22:43
Nobody's perfect regarding psychological bias.
22:46
It would basically mean that you would have to take your brain
22:48
out and put another brain in there because it's hot.
22:51
It's hot. It's truly hard wired for this.
22:53
You can get rid of I would say about I would say 50 to 70% of
22:58
your biases, if you are very, very good but but you will have
23:01
those 30 to 50 percent bias still, you know, and and
23:05
Kahneman argue something like the same in his book thinking
23:09
fast and slow and other Publications that that he did.
23:12
So I think that's again also a pretty solid thing but it
23:16
doesn't mean that it's not worth the biasing, it really is and
23:19
what I find with with really successful product leaders and
23:23
I've worked, I've been very fortunate.
23:24
We work with many for many, many years.
23:26
And, and some of them we interviewed for the book and new
23:30
ones, we interviewed for the book, and I find they all have
23:32
this really attractive disposition and their
23:37
personalities are being realistic optimists.
23:41
So they extremely rigid, they're really realistic about what are
23:44
the odds in the fields that we are playing in there.
23:47
Like, somebody going to the casino and totally understanding
23:49
the odds, not being optimistic about you win on the roulette,
23:52
you know, if you know what the real odds are But at the same
23:56
time having an optimistic can-do attitude.
23:59
You know of course we can find a way to get this project done.
24:02
If we have this realism at the outset we are not building a pie
24:05
in the sky we're building something real.
24:08
We know what the laws of physics are and the laws of Economics
24:11
Etc loss of organization. We abide by it.
24:15
All we think slow, we really think what we about what we're
24:19
doing. We iterate, as we call it in the
24:21
book. We experiment.
24:22
We do things over and over. And over and over again, in
24:26
order to learn before we start building in the real world, so
24:30
that we don't make the mistake that we mistakes that we do
24:32
during the experimentation on the ground.
24:35
Once we are building and it's expensive.
24:37
That's how the successful project leaders work and it's
24:40
really stimulating to see people working like that.
24:43
So I mean, one of the piece of advice in your book is that if
24:46
you're embarking on a project that you should try and find the
24:49
most experienced people to be on the team and to lead that
24:52
project, What is that? Not common place.
24:58
It doesn't happen that often it happens, but it doesn't happen
25:02
nearly often enough. Unfortunately, people don't
25:04
think enough about it. That's another of these, you
25:07
know, thinking fast things that hey, we have a leader here, he
25:11
or, she can probably do this project.
25:13
Let's get going, you know, and instead of spending the time of
25:16
thinking about what kind of need to do, we need here and we have
25:21
a heuristic for that to we call it higher and master builder.
25:24
So we call these very successful project leaders for Master
25:27
Builders and and the term comes from the Middle Ages, you know,
25:31
where you call the famous Architects and Builders who
25:36
built the cathedrals of Europe. So the famous Cathedrals that we
25:40
have and still admire today were built by people who really knew
25:44
what they were doing mostly and and, and they got the name
25:47
Master Builders. So we decided to use that name
25:49
for today, you know, in the Contemporary world, for people
25:53
who really good at delivering projects, no matter what, type
25:55
of products they don't have to be Cathedrals, you know, they
25:58
don't Have to be buildings. It can be like, we talked about
26:01
Master Builders at Pixar, for instance, to take an example.
26:05
So so that's what we call them and they are not being hired
26:09
enough. I was ours to give you an
26:11
example. I was an expert witness of on a
26:15
big hydroelectric, Dam in Canada, that had gone terribly
26:19
wrong. So, the usual pattern, huge cost
26:22
overruns, huge delays, not delivering what we were supposed
26:25
to deliver and not at the time, it was supposed to do it.
26:28
Etc. Etc.
26:30
So they decided to have, you know, an inquiry headed by
26:35
preeminent judge, you know, to really serious.
26:39
And with, you know, with the Firepower that you get, when you
26:43
can pull people in and question them, and people have to answer
26:48
and I was, I was an expert witness on that and it turned
26:52
out during the inquiry that People who were hired to build
26:57
the dam had never built a dam before.
27:00
Never can you imagine this is a multibillion-dollar,
27:03
hydroelectric Dam and you decide to choose somebody to printed
27:06
who's never built a dam before. And and now this is one thing
27:10
and it's okay. And this is actually what got me
27:12
started? Researching mega-projects was I
27:17
was thinking, is this normal? You have these crazy stories
27:20
like the one I just told you From from you know one off Mega
27:26
projects in different places around the world and I started
27:28
wondering is this normal? Is there a pattern here?
27:31
We had one in Denmark, that similarly went wrong for the
27:34
same reasons, actually. So what they did in Canada was
27:37
they figured, you know, it's actually difficult right now to
27:40
find somebody who can build a dam like this in Canada but we
27:43
are doing a lot of oil and gas projects.
27:45
So we had to have a lot of project leaders who are used to
27:47
building multi-billion dollar, oil, and gas products and
27:50
listen, you know how difficult can It be, if you know how to
27:53
build one, big project, you know, how to build another big
27:55
project. So that's highest hire somebody
27:57
from oil and gas and let them build the dam.
28:01
Now that's what I mean by this is not slow thinking that's for
28:04
sure, that's fast thinking, let's find a quick solution and
28:08
it costs billions of dollars. That's what happens you know
28:10
when you do it like that. So yeah, so it's a kind of
28:14
laziness of not wanting to go through the slow thinking and
28:18
really do everything you can to find the Master Builders.
28:21
But there's also a real problem and that is there's not enough
28:23
Talent around. So the world is building more
28:26
and more big projects at an incredible rate right now.
28:29
So we are just getting More and bigger projects across the
28:32
board, across the panel. So there's a lot of demand for
28:35
people who can do this. So they are not enough as simple
28:38
as that. They demand far outstrips the
28:42
supply of talent in this field. And that means you actually
28:46
might have to grow your own talent, but then you have to be
28:48
aware of it. You can't just assume that
28:50
whoever you hire can build the project if you have, if you are
28:52
hiring people who doesn't have the talent that you need for
28:55
building your product and that assumption is often made and
28:58
that's another heuristic we have don't assume Verify, and we find
29:02
that. You know, big products are
29:05
littered with assumption that that are wrong assumptions that
29:08
are wrong, you know, like one thing after another is assumed
29:11
and nobody bothers to spend the time to verify, whether it's
29:15
actually the case and therefore the products go wrong very
29:18
quickly with because they have built on wrong assumptions.
29:22
What advice would you give to project professionals who are
29:25
just starting out in their career, about what they need to
29:28
focus on what they need to do in order to manage their projects
29:34
successfully and to the government and to become
29:37
successful project leaders in the future.
29:40
So, first of all, it is a great time to be in the project
29:45
management and product leadership field because there's
29:49
a lot of demand and it's very easy to get a job.
29:51
And I also encourage my students, you know, it to choose
29:56
this field and and, of course, choose the areas that are going
29:59
up. So I actually have a lot of
30:00
students who are concerned about being in oil and gas or oil and
30:06
gas is a huge field in major product.
30:08
It's been around forever for decades and decades and decades.
30:13
And now, you know things are not right now.
30:17
They're going well because the prices of oil up again, but if
30:20
you sort of look at it at The last, the last 10 years and the
30:24
next 10, 20 years, it's probably not the field to be in and like
30:29
I tell my students, why do you want to be in an elevator that's
30:31
going down if you can be on one that's going up, you know?
30:34
And they are all the areas and it's it's easy to give jobs in
30:37
other areas. So that's one thing I would say
30:40
this is great feels to get into but to be concerned and think
30:43
about things slow about which of the many different areas.
30:47
Different project types that exist is that you actually want
30:50
to do and I will Right now I would advise against going into
30:54
oil and gas, I would advise against going into nuclear
30:57
unless you are on a team that's trying to develop SMR small
31:00
modular reactors which might have a future but we don't know.
31:03
Nucleus is very unproven technology incredibly as it's
31:08
incredible as it sounds because you've been doing nuclear for 50
31:11
years and at least and but it's still unproven and it doesn't
31:16
work. It's way too expensive.
31:18
That's just the effect of nuclear right now is Only
31:22
economics. Nothing ideological about
31:24
whether nucleus good or bad or dangerous, or not.
31:28
It's, it's about economics and it's too expensive.
31:32
It's that simple. So that's one thing.
31:34
Be careful about what you choose and then after that, you know,
31:40
if you are young and entering the field, make sure you get to
31:43
work on a project where you leaders are not.
31:45
The kind of people that I talked about in Canada.
31:47
They they are people who have never tried to build the project
31:49
before and they're doing it. That's not what you want to
31:51
learn. How to do you want to find a
31:53
master builder? And then you want to work with
31:55
that master builder and watch that master builder work.
31:58
So that you can that you can be a kind of a net princess or just
32:03
watch things and work on a team. You know, that really works
32:06
because it is well lit. That's the kind of team you want
32:08
to get on and not on the majority of teams that are
32:12
learning by making mistakes. You know, I mean, you have to
32:15
make some mistakes but it's much more efficient to be on a team
32:18
that is led by somebody who's successful.
32:21
So that's the The second thing I would do, if I was starting a
32:24
career now and that's what I advise my students to do.
32:29
Now, back to the thing about nuclear, So we started 25
32:35
different product types in the book regarding their performance
32:39
and nuclear comes out at the very bottom with it projects
32:43
actually. And with hydroelectric dams and
32:45
with storage some nuclear wastes, these are the worst
32:48
performing projects in terms of being Black Swan prone, meaning
32:53
that they have extreme outliers in regards, of course, and cost
32:57
overruns and schedule and schedule over on etcetera.
33:02
And they are difficult to manage and they end up being very
33:07
expensive. That's what we can do.
33:09
We can't afford it. And if we're going to solve the
33:10
climate crisis, if we if we right now, we're deciding to
33:15
focus on those projects. We wouldn't be able to do it in
33:17
time, 2030 and 2050, which are the timelines for solving, the
33:21
climate crisis, just would not be made.
33:23
So, you know, there was no way to do it, it's way too slow even
33:26
in China and so we have that, we have something that be called a
33:30
natural experiment in China where Anna has really tried to
33:33
ramp up all forms of power production that don't produce
33:39
CO2, and of course, nuclear is one of them and they just can't
33:43
ramp it up, it's too difficult. Even in China, where you don't
33:46
have the safety and environmental regulations that
33:48
you have in countries like the US and the UK and Europe.
33:53
The Chinese can't do it. And we take that to mean that
33:56
you just can't do it. It's not doable.
33:58
Nobody can do it right now. Luckily, this is actually Where
34:02
the focus is in solving the climate crisis, the focus is on
34:05
Renewables now and especially solar and and wind are the two
34:12
best performing products of the 25 product types.
34:16
That we studied they way out there in terms of good
34:20
performance, they are actually outliers that it's crazy.
34:26
But everage practice in product management is a disaster and
34:30
good practice, good practices and Outlier.
34:33
It's the exact opposite of what you usually say, when you talk
34:36
about these things. But it's a fact, you know, and
34:37
it's document in the book for the first time.
34:39
This is actually a brand new research result that we have is
34:42
comparing these 25, different product type, there's a nice
34:45
diagram, that, that shows it in in one overview, which products
34:50
are performing well and which are not.
34:52
And luckily, you know, the projects that we need in order
34:55
to solve the climate crisis are doing extremely well and they
34:59
perform really well. They are done really fast and we
35:01
also What the reason is, you know, for this, which is the
35:05
modularity is in it. Exactly.
35:08
So that's why, that's why I use the term Lego, so I'm Dana
35:11
Sande. Lego is is a Danish brand is
35:17
the, it's the biggest toy manufacturer in the world now
35:19
and with the test with the popularity of Lego and why are
35:24
they go so important? So, so popular, and an important
35:27
in kids lives, I grew up with him.
35:29
I remember stepping on them as a child and hurting my feet, you
35:32
know. No, all over our house and I
35:35
find that that no matter where I go in the world and talk about
35:38
Lego, people understand what it is and that's why I like to use
35:41
it as a metaphor for what it is. That works in project management
35:44
is exactly the process that you can build.
35:47
Like you build it with Legos and I'm saying the sound of a
35:51
successful product. It is click, click click.
35:54
It's like putting building blocks together like you put
35:57
Legos together. Click click click and if you
36:00
look at it look at what a wind Wind Farm is you know it's a
36:07
bunch of wind turbines and each wind turbine consists of Four
36:10
Legos. So there's one Lego that is the
36:13
foundation, there's one Lego that is the tower.
36:15
There's one Lego that is nestled which is where the where the
36:19
turbine itself is sitting and then they are the wings or the
36:23
blades you know that you Click on the cells so you click the
36:27
tile on the foundation to click the nacelle on the tower.
36:30
You click the the blades on the Nestle and you have a wind
36:33
turbine and it's actually ready to produce electricity
36:36
immediately. And these giant wind turbines
36:41
are put up in less than 24 hours now.
36:44
Multibillion-dollar wind farms used to take years to to do.
36:48
Now they're built in seven months, seven months for a
36:50
multi-billion dollar project is unheard of.
36:53
That's exactly what we need in order to solve the climate
36:56
crisis. And that's exactly thinking,
36:58
slow acting fast. You know, in a nutshell, how
37:01
optimistic do you feel about the way Mega projects or projects
37:06
are going to be delivered in the future?
37:07
Future developed Mystic that there will be greater success.
37:12
I'm pretty optimistic. I mean, this is one of the
37:14
things we discovered while doing the book that I find that
37:17
there's more reason to be optimistic than I thought there
37:20
was. And I was already pretty
37:21
optimistic, you know, because I mean, I've seen a lot of things
37:24
going well on the projects that I've been working on, and I'm
37:28
seeing that spreading, there's more and more interest.
37:30
They didn't used to be much interest about these things.
37:32
Now, there's massive interest, everything everywhere in the
37:35
world for the simple reason that we are doing.
37:38
So many and so large project like we talked about earlier.
37:41
So so yeah I'm optimistic and I'm especially optimistic about
37:45
the discovery that it's actually is already happening it.
37:50
It's amazing to see how fast Renewables are being built out
37:55
and I want to emphasize and people often think when I'm - or
37:58
nuclear, and I'm positive on Renewables that.
38:00
That's something ideological and political.
38:02
It's I'm an economic geographer. I'm looking on the at the
38:05
economics of this and this is pure Early based on the
38:08
economics, solar and wind are dirt cheap and they're getting
38:12
cheaper every year. Nuclear is incredibly expensive
38:16
and it's getting more and more expensive.
38:18
The more we try to build it because we can't figure out how
38:20
to build it right and how to build a cheap, you know, and
38:23
therefore the price is going up, well, any Economist who gets
38:27
that information? Will know that one of these
38:29
things is not going to work and the other is and it's very clear
38:32
which is which here and that's that's a very positive thing
38:35
that we are actually Lucky in the Even that we are in where
38:39
we're solving the energy crisis is probably the most pressing
38:42
problem that we have ever had as a species that we just happen to
38:48
have a technology that is spreading like wildfire right
38:51
now. Even the most optimistic
38:53
organizations like Greenpeace and and you know Green
38:58
organizations for wind and solar and so on.
39:02
Underestimated how fast it would develop that.
39:04
They actually thought it would take much longer than it has
39:07
done even to this date, you know?
39:08
And, and instead of taking a generation to do it, it has
39:13
taken like 19 years to get to where we thought it would take a
39:16
generation. So what we thought would take 25
39:18
years as has taken nine to ten years.
39:20
So that's a really good reason to be optimistic and that's Just
39:23
Energy. There's there are lots of other
39:25
reasons to be optimistic in other areas.
39:28
Thank you so much. I think we've really gotta cross
39:31
what your book is about. So I would recommend this to get
39:35
their hands on a copy how big things get done, and that's
39:37
happened. I'm out now by in McMillan, so
39:41
thank you again for your time. It was it's been a lovely
39:44
speaking to you. My pleasure.
39:46
Thank you for having me again. Thanks again to vent for joining
39:54
us and to you for listening to this episode of the APM
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