Latest / Project Podcast / The hidden side of projects: Why they fail and what you can do about it
Transcript
- 0:08Welcome to the IPM. Podcast, OPM is the childhood
- 0:11body for the project profession. My name is Emma divita, I'm the
- 0:14editor of project opm's quarterly journal, and your
- 0:17host. And this podcast, I'm speaking
- 0:20with VIP fires, co-author with strategy and performance expert,
- 0:23dr. Thomas fifl of a new book called
- 0:26gorilla in the cockpit, breaking the hidden patterns of project
- 0:29failure in the system. System for Success.
- 0:31This is founder of a company that specializes in
- 0:34breakthrough, performance and large projects.
- 0:36He's been a visiting consultant at the London, Business School
- 0:39and an executive consultant at side business school, at the
- 0:42University of Oxford his book. He says is the products of over
- 0:46a quarter of a century is investment in tackling and
- 0:49turning around, Heidi complex projects across many sectors,
- 0:52including banking fmcg, government digital technology
- 0:55and Renewables. He's here today to share what he
- 0:59has learnt about wine. Most projects fail, what makes
- 1:01some projects to success and how you can become a better project
- 1:05leader. Welcome VIP.
- 1:11Congratulations on your book. Thanks for sparing, the time and
- 1:14talking to us today. Yeah, real pleasure.
- 1:17Emma, why did you want to write the book now?
- 1:20And can you tell us briefly what it's about what you cover?
- 1:24It's about looking at organizations and projects and
- 1:29change from a different and you could even call it a unique
- 1:33perspective and it's a perspective that isn't found in
- 1:37traditional project management Mo, which is why I wanted to
- 1:40Write it and it's also more importance of perspective that
- 1:43that's not really included in the development of professionals
- 1:47within the industry. And I think the second part of
- 1:50your question is why don't why did we write it?
- 1:53I think Tom said I basically wrote it because if you look at
- 1:56it statistically you know everybody knows that 65% of
- 2:00projects in change fail failing the sense of hitting the you
- 2:04know the the sort of expectations and project and
- 2:07cost. So this is something that we've
- 2:09known for decades. It's not something that's new.
- 2:13And also, neither is the fact that there's been an absolute
- 2:15tons of analysis, probably thousands, if not millions of
- 2:19reports, all of that, sort of gives you a sort of explanations
- 2:22and reasons and justifications as to why projects fail.
- 2:26But, you know, despite all of that and all the recommendations
- 2:29that have come out of all that analysis, the fact of the matter
- 2:32is that projects are still failing today.
- 2:35So I kind of use the analogy that, you know, of losing
- 2:38weight, you know, which is something.
- 2:40I My I'm struggling with, you know.
- 2:41And and and, you know, we all know, the two things you need to
- 2:45do to lose weight, right? I need to eat less and I need to
- 2:48exercise more, but somehow knowing those answers makes very
- 2:52little difference. So, when I look at project, it
- 2:55has kind of a question of what, cleans?
- 2:57There's something. There's something must be off,
- 2:59right? We've got all these
- 3:00explanations, but we're not producing results.
- 3:02So something must be off something.
- 3:04That we must collectively be blind too.
- 3:08And that's really why we wrote the book.
- 3:11From everything you've learned about working on big large
- 3:14projects around the world. What would you say that?
- 3:18The reason is why most projects fail because this is the
- 3:22dimension. Really?
- 3:23That your book, the perspective, your book takes, I mean it comes
- 3:28down to the people side of things, doesn't it?
- 3:31Yeah, it does cut. It does come down to the people
- 3:34side of things and it's strange enough.
- 3:37We're not actually attacking the people.
- 3:40You know, it's not that's not the business that we're in but
- 3:43and quite frankly. And then, you know, if I look at
- 3:45most of the projects, I've been on the vast majority of people
- 3:49come come to work every day, wanting to do a good job.
- 3:52You know, there's very, very few occasions.
- 3:54I can think of that someone came into deliberately undermine
- 3:58something. So you know, we're not we're not
- 4:01attacking, you know, people what we are attacking I guess is the,
- 4:06is the construct of thinking that project leaders and
- 4:10Leadership have been trained inside of and in the book you
- 4:13know, we you know we highlight how much of that arises from a
- 4:18very mechanical view of looking at project leadership and
- 4:23project delivery. So so that's really what we're
- 4:26sort of pointing at my channels that I've been working on Mega
- 4:31projects for over five decades combined, right.
- 4:34And one of the questions I asked very often is, you know, what do
- 4:37you find is the most challenging aspect of the Project.
- 4:40Is it the technical issues or is it people in capability?
- 4:44And if I look at it, the ratio is sort of, you know, almost 80%
- 4:48of the time. People say, the biggest issue is
- 4:50people in capability and the technical issues are about 20%.
- 4:54But if you look at traditional project management, it tends to
- 4:57focus mostly on that 20 percent rather than the 80%.
- 5:01So, what's happening, what why is the kind of thinking side of
- 5:07things letting projects down? What are we doing wrong?
- 5:10In the book, we will use the metaphor of a plane fly to
- 5:14illustrate what happens on most projects.
- 5:16So as a simple example, imagine that you're in New York and you
- 5:20know some crisis has happened and you've got to get on a plane
- 5:23and you got to rush out to London to fix it and you know,
- 5:27and so you rush over to the airport you get on the plane and
- 5:30and like most people, you know, fall asleep.
- 5:32And, you know, sometime later the plane lands and, you know,
- 5:37the doors open you expecting to be in London, but you actually
- 5:39find Off in the middle of Tokyo. And, you know, those kinds of
- 5:43deviations are very, very rare in aviation.
- 5:46I mean they do happen sometimes but that that, that sort of
- 5:49storyline seems to happen a lot in project.
- 5:52So you know, they start off at their some location.
- 5:55A the intention is to get to be. But in practice they end up in C
- 5:59and and see isn't what they wanted and it cost a lot more
- 6:03and you know, and and it takes a lot longer.
- 6:06So so the so we don't that's that's Like what are the
- 6:10Frameworks that we have? You know, there's something
- 6:12going on and the thing about the framework is that we build on
- 6:17this idea of a plane flight by saying, well, let's imagine that
- 6:22an organization has both a white box and a black box and in a
- 6:28white box is basically everything that you already know
- 6:31about the project. So, you know, this is a, this
- 6:34includes this works, the risks the, you know, the Ocean.
- 6:40The the budget, all those things, you know, and then
- 6:44there's this other part of the, the organization, which is the
- 6:48black box, which is what the the leadership team is not aware of
- 6:54and it's not aware that it's not aware of it.
- 6:57So it's literally, you know, like the hidden dimension of
- 7:01the, of the entire organization. So so, you know, so why you know
- 7:05why do projects fail? Because I think a lot of it is
- 7:07because there's this Machinery in the background of you Of
- 7:10biases and limiting, beliefs, and distorted beliefs, and
- 7:15there's all of that in the background, which the, which
- 7:17very often the leadership team can't see.
- 7:20And it's actually the Machinery that's actually running the
- 7:23entire project. I mean, there was a kind of
- 7:26paragraph in the book, which I thought some this out really
- 7:30well, and I haven't read anywhere else.
- 7:32And it was, it was what you said.
- 7:34It's about the stuff in the background in the shadows, it
- 7:38was in what people did not say. Could you elaborate on that?
- 7:42Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, you know,
- 7:44if I take an example, I mean we were working on a very large
- 7:49Rail Project out in Asia, and we were brought into this
- 7:54particular project after the fifth Project Director had just
- 7:59been appointed. And this particular project
- 8:02wasn't doing wasn't doing well, it was in the media.
- 8:05And when we came in and we started to look at the Black
- 8:08Box, what? Came apparent to the leadership,
- 8:11team in the intervention was they had something like, 3 to 4
- 8:15thousand people coming to the project every day, but in the
- 8:19background, there was a conversation.
- 8:22We call it background conversation, which was some
- 8:25version of, there's nothing we can do.
- 8:28You know, there was a, there was almost like a state of
- 8:30resignation, so people would come in.
- 8:32A lot of people were actually didn't want the project to be on
- 8:36their bio, because it wouldn't look good.
- 8:38And a number of, Them would actually be spending time, you
- 8:41know, Finding up recruiters to see what other project they
- 8:43could get on. So so basically it's a when the
- 8:46leadership seems started to see that what was actually in, you
- 8:50know, running the entire show was this, you know, just this
- 8:53sense of there's nothing that we can do to impact the future and
- 8:59and that you know, and and and when you looked at the
- 9:01behaviors, you know, when he went to the porter, cabins, you
- 9:04a pin drop silence, you know, nobody was talking about
- 9:06anything and, you know, this had been going on for a long time.
- 9:10And and in fact in that, you know, when, when the leadership
- 9:13team actually saw both, what was going on and the impact of that,
- 9:19and the trajectory that was creating for the project that
- 9:22actually provided an opening for the actual project and, you
- 9:26know, and one of the conversation we fundamentally
- 9:28had inside the project was okay, we not may not be able to impact
- 9:31the past, but there is a certain amount of future that's still
- 9:35left there and there's something we can bring to that.
- 9:38And and and and we did. I mean No, with the what was
- 9:41remaining in the project. There was a significant uptick
- 9:43on on performance. But, you know and and really
- 9:49what was driving the show for a long, long time, was some
- 9:52version of you know, the resignation.
- 9:55There was a lot of upset on the project, you know, decisions
- 9:59weren't being made the governance structure was getting
- 10:02more and more ownerís. So, there's all these things
- 10:05coming together, creating a perfect storm.
- 10:07And, and, and the leadership team really did.
- 10:10Have a read on that. To ask an obvious question.
- 10:13Many came into the project. How do you go about opening the
- 10:18lid, on the black box? So, how do you actually go in
- 10:21and take a measure? A kind of litmus test of how
- 10:24people are feeling about the project.
- 10:27It depends on the size of the project.
- 10:28So if I mean, there is a diagnostic phase, right?
- 10:32Where we will interview key leaders and it could be right
- 10:37across the supply chain. If it's a joint venture be the
- 10:41joint venture Partners could be the investors as well.
- 10:44So there's a science of that diagnostic will depend on the
- 10:47project and the phase that it's at.
- 10:51And the type of challenges have got and the, the questions that
- 10:55we've got a been prepared in such a way that they're designed
- 10:59to reveal, what's in the back in the black box.
- 11:02So, the first part is the, is that diagnostic?
- 11:05Then the, the second key thing is, is how the way in which we
- 11:11go about setting up the, the, if you like the social environment
- 11:15in the room. So we use that Diagnostic and
- 11:18bring it straight into the Either it's an executive work
- 11:21session or whether it's a you know going directly into their
- 11:25project itself. The key thing is creating a
- 11:29space with the people in the room where there's a willingness
- 11:34to really listen to both the good and the Bad and the Ugly.
- 11:38How do you actually do that in practice because that's easier
- 11:40said than done. How do you make that happen for
- 11:42real? Yeah.
- 11:44So how we make it happen for real is but you know one of the
- 11:46conversation we have is that most projects have an invisible.
- 11:50Three, most organizations have an invisible trajectory.
- 11:53So so the, you know, so when we are, when we're getting into the
- 11:57black box and revealing, what's there, you know, whatever's in
- 12:02there, is there anyway, right? It's already there.
- 12:05So, the question is, you know, the people that we've got in the
- 12:09room that they're there because they're leaders, and they're
- 12:12there, because they're in a position where they can, they
- 12:15have a say about how the future goes.
- 12:18So, now, in order to have that kind, Kind of conversation.
- 12:21What we need to have is a certain level of agreement with
- 12:24each other around, what's going to be, you know, what's coming?
- 12:28What's going to be revealed and how we're going to relate to
- 12:29that because you know, for some people it could be a degree of
- 12:33upset, right? Or some people could be
- 12:35surprised for some people. They may be listening to what's
- 12:39their from whether they agree with it or disagree with it or
- 12:42whether they like it or dislike it and one of the things I say
- 12:45is look, you know, all of those places to listen from will make
- 12:49no difference. They're make zero difference
- 12:52because you can either sit in you know in the next three to
- 12:56four hours disagreeing you're agreeing and and walk away with
- 13:00just that or we have a conversation where we start to
- 13:05reveal what's actually in the background.
- 13:08That's pulling the future and start to unhook, whatever's
- 13:12going on. So that we've actually we're
- 13:14creating the possibility of something new to arise.
- 13:18And so that you know so there's the one of the fundamental
- 13:21conversations we have is about being in the room about being in
- 13:24the conversation. The nature of the conversation,
- 13:27we're going to have their willingness to have that kind of
- 13:30conversation and fundamentally. Can we count on them to
- 13:33participate at the level of being a leader of this
- 13:36conversation? Because this is what's going on?
- 13:38What is going to take and contextually a very often Emma.
- 13:43That conversation is got billions of dollars if not
- 13:46hundreds of millions of dollars or even more, At stake.
- 13:49So so so you know so we make it and if people don't participate
- 13:53in that they're, you know, they don't have to.
- 13:55But we have the all of that pre work done up front.
- 13:57So that by the time they come into the meeting and while
- 14:02they're in the meeting, they know the the nature of the work
- 14:05that we're going to be doing. How do people respond normally?
- 14:09I mean, I'm assuming you have to deliver some bad news about the
- 14:12way the project has seen. It is a very it's a great
- 14:15question Edge and my because for the you know, for the most part
- 14:19people are really relieved. People are really the.
- 14:23It's almost like it's almost like God.
- 14:25Thank God. Someone's actually saying what's
- 14:27really going on. So it's, you know, it's so and
- 14:30by the time we know we'd get into the report and and rather
- 14:35than just telling them what the report is Actually get different
- 14:39people to actually read elements.
- 14:41The report said becomes very, very real for them and and and
- 14:45the report is designed and the whole process is designed in the
- 14:48way they can actually see their entire project in operation.
- 14:53So it's not like a some kind of sanitized clinical report.
- 14:57It's more a sort of report there where they can add when they
- 15:01read it. When I when when they digested
- 15:03they get a sense of. Hey, this is really what's going
- 15:05on. And for the most part, it's just
- 15:08relief because some of those issues have been at Play hidden
- 15:14or or, you know, or are affecting the Dynamics and the
- 15:19kind of thinking all the project they've been there for some
- 15:21time. Okay, everyone is relieved and
- 15:25then you have to turn it around. So how on Earth do you do that?
- 15:29How do you do try and make a clean break with the past and
- 15:33what has been? How do you re motivate people
- 15:36who are there on the project knowingly looking for jobs
- 15:39elsewhere? Well I mean the third the first
- 15:43part of it is actually to work with the team so they can see
- 15:49the predictable trajectory of the project.
- 15:52If He's done. Right?
- 15:54So if they if you know with what with what gets revealed you know
- 15:59and we sort of just a map it out a few few quarters or even the
- 16:03remainder of the project they'll stop to see that there is a
- 16:06certain predictable future that that what's in the black box is
- 16:10giving them and and you know and then we have a number of
- 16:15conversations. One is about what the nature of
- 16:17leadership is and you know and sometimes I ask a very
- 16:21provocative question which is Why are you paid so much more
- 16:27money than the people who actually delivered the job,
- 16:31right? And so, you know, and it's a and
- 16:34and people and this, you know, this is the top leadership teams
- 16:36and they really sometimes struggle with that question
- 16:39because very often, they'll say, well, I'm being paid for my
- 16:42expertise or my my technical knowledge.
- 16:47And actually, that's not the reason why organizations paid
- 16:51top leaders to so much more money.
- 16:53The reason why they pay them so much more money is because
- 16:57they've got to make a future happen that wasn't going to
- 17:01happen. Anyhow.
- 17:03See that. So to so this is actually why
- 17:05they're in the room because that whatever is there in the black
- 17:08box is exactly what they're being paid to deliver to to work
- 17:13with and that's why they get the big bucks.
- 17:16So it's a very, very simple view of leadership.
- 17:18And I know there's hundreds and thousands of books about it by
- 17:21sometimes like to really simplify.
- 17:23So people in the room, have a very clear picture of what it is
- 17:27that they're being paid for. And, and they do and that is
- 17:31actually, it's not like a threat, it's just like that.
- 17:34Just that just is the case if, you know, if that's what the
- 17:36shareholders are expecting. So, I think, you know, that that
- 17:40in itself, kind of clarifies that rather than trying to avoid
- 17:43what's in the Black Box. This is the nature of what comes
- 17:47with the leadership parole that they have and, and they know and
- 17:50then we start to look at. Well, you know, the question of
- 17:52given where we've got to, you know, what is possible in say,
- 17:56the remaining time that's left or are available.
- 18:01So, so, you know, so we can meet up, we move the conversation for
- 18:04into a very, very different space, and that's from that
- 18:07space, you know, be a whole new set of ideas and opportunities
- 18:12and all those sort of things arise and how to use.
- 18:15And Take that down to the people delivering the project.
- 18:19And to show to them that. Yes, changes are going to
- 18:22happen. Yeah.
- 18:24And that made this is actually a big struggle for a lot of real
- 18:28leaders. I'd say it's not just about
- 18:30creating a new destination if you like on their project or
- 18:35even reorienting, the project to the original destination.
- 18:39It's more they need to shift the context.
- 18:43Of the entire project. And as part of that, what you
- 18:47know, it's not just any old context, there's got to be a
- 18:49context that engages and inspires those people that are
- 18:53reporting into them. So actually that that that that,
- 18:57you know, crafting the communication, the messaging,
- 19:00and getting picked their inner all the key Champions involved
- 19:04and that know that in itself is quite a significant piece of
- 19:08work because very often the, you know, the rest of the
- 19:12organization. Maybe stuck in a set of opinions
- 19:17and views of how the project has been and and you know you need
- 19:21to create a break from that past so that you know so that you've
- 19:25got a new possibility in the future for how that produce
- 19:29going to go. Have you got any advice to
- 19:33project managers or project leaders working on for smaller
- 19:36projects in? You're used to doing with about
- 19:38how to do that because that could apply to any project to
- 19:40project to people are losing motivation.
- 19:43Things aren't going well, yeah. Well I mean a simple one is to
- 19:48me, there's no number of things you can do but one is, you know,
- 19:52we're a very much a future driven species, you know, the
- 19:56how the future looks is is constantly on our mind.
- 20:02And it what, you know, one piece is how is crafting or designing
- 20:07a future with the leadership team that both compelling and at
- 20:12the same time it's authentic. So that?
- 20:15No. So if you know the rest when
- 20:18the, when the rest of the organization listen to that
- 20:20future. There's been created.
- 20:22They can hear it as inlets. That's actually achievable, it
- 20:25might be a stretch, but we could actually achieve that rather
- 20:27than it's pie-in-the-sky. So I think that they know the
- 20:31Way that's crafted and the way that's put together is is is is
- 20:37important. Just to give an example from
- 20:39many, many years ago, there was a, this is actually a colleague
- 20:45of mine who I worked with in. It's an example from him, but he
- 20:49was working in a pharmaceutical company and, you know, and in
- 20:51that particular industry, it takes quite a long time.
- 20:56For drugs, to go from origin, the idea to the marketplace.
- 21:01And this particular company is working on drugs for you, for
- 21:07infants, right? And so the, you know, it's a,
- 21:10how do you motivate people where, you know, when they're
- 21:13coming into the lab and they could be spending years, just
- 21:15testing various compounds and they created a slogan or of or
- 21:22future which was the patient is waiting.
- 21:25And then they had a couple of pictures of young babies, right?
- 21:29Newborn babies. So when you walked into the lab,
- 21:33he became very clear, what your what, you know, what you're
- 21:36there for. And if that hadn't been there,
- 21:40you know, would be just case of coming into the lab and do
- 21:42another day's work. So there's a, there's a massive
- 21:46shift in the context. So it's about presenting that
- 21:49Future Vision would be real one day, making sure that everyone
- 21:54seeing that, that's what you're working together to create.
- 21:58Yeah. And it's and there's, and
- 21:59there's a subtlety to that as well.
- 22:00They're Moritz. I'm not like a vision that
- 22:03you're just driving for. It's actually standing in that
- 22:08Vision being fulfilled and then looking into the present as to
- 22:14what's needed in a required and the intensity of that.
- 22:19So it's a very it's a basically it's not like you're trying to
- 22:23stretch for something. It's like you're standing in its
- 22:26fulfillment and then you're looking at, okay.
- 22:31So what's required now inside of that and then you know very
- 22:37often there's huge gaps in the organization, in terms of you
- 22:41know the initiatives that people are focusing on where the
- 22:43resources are so becomes a becomes a very real exercise.
- 22:48If you like, what advice would you give to project leaders or
- 22:52want to be project leaders who are have set their sights on
- 22:56working on a major project or a large project about what they
- 22:59should be doing? Right?
- 23:01From the start to get a project going along the right lines?
- 23:07Yeah. That what I'd say to at least
- 23:09two things immediately that the first is, the first one is don't
- 23:13ignore. What's happening in the black
- 23:14box, right? That's the first thing, the
- 23:17second thing in the book, we have, we call them the 10
- 23:22anti-cat, crash instruments. And they're actually really a
- 23:29toolbox of practices. So, so they're not just merely
- 23:33checklist. So, what I would do is, is go to
- 23:36that chapter because they're what we've got, there are a set
- 23:40of tools that project leaders can use in different situations.
- 23:46So so, for example, if you're in pre-flight mode, which is to say
- 23:50you're at the design phase, you know, the type of challenges and
- 23:54issues and concerns are very different to say you are when
- 23:58you're in flight. And one of the engines catches
- 24:01Fire, right? So the the those those
- 24:04instruments are a set of practices and you know if we
- 24:11take a physical example, right? So if you've got a tube, got
- 24:14boxed the situations where you use a screwdriver are very
- 24:18different to the situations where you use a hammer, right?
- 24:20And and a lot of the work that we actually do on Mega projects
- 24:23is is actually using that that toolbox and developing that
- 24:28capability from within the the projects.
- 24:30So that That that people can immediately see, which tool is
- 24:34the right one to use. So that's one thing I would
- 24:36Point people to and just as an example, a simple example of one
- 24:41of those tools in the book, you know, we have the introduced the
- 24:46the, this practice called working in versus working on.
- 24:51So you know, when you're working in a project that's very
- 24:54different to the practice of working on the project.
- 24:58And so if you take for example, say a ninja Hearing team that's
- 25:03facing like, you know, it's got a list of 50 problems that
- 25:06they're working on and totally working in the project and in
- 25:12and everyone's overwhelmed and they know they're not getting
- 25:14the traction. They want, it's really very
- 25:17useful to press the pause button and get out of the, you know,
- 25:21get out the cockpit and get into the air traffic control.
- 25:24And actually, you know, and start working on the project and
- 25:27what that simply means is asking a different set of questions.
- 25:30So the first set of questions, This could be around.
- 25:31Well what is the nature of the problem?
- 25:34So, is the nature of the problem at your technical issue or is
- 25:38the nature of the problem of a system or process that slowing
- 25:42things down or is it a mindset issue of key individuals?
- 25:46Or is it a fact that we've actually got tools and
- 25:49processes? But somehow this, it's a
- 25:51behavioral issue because people are not doing what they said
- 25:54they would do, right? So we say no way you can
- 25:57actually start to ask different questions and if, you know,
- 26:00historically. So you've got 50 problems and
- 26:03you only ever saw Really solve 30 of them, you might even want
- 26:07to ask yourself and say, well their likelihood of we're not
- 26:09going to get around to all of these so which are the most
- 26:12pressing ones that we need to focus our resources on.
- 26:14So so it's an example of a practice that that would make an
- 26:18enormous difference. But in terms of coordinating the
- 26:21activities and resources of a large group of people, what is
- 26:26the most common error problem, that arises, that could have
- 26:29been avoided. If the project leader or
- 26:32director or project manager, Had focus focus on it.
- 26:36I don't think there is just one, I think it's more like a perfect
- 26:41storm in the book. We've got, we look at the black
- 26:45box in a bit more detail where you have three types of biases.
- 26:50You know, there's you know, there's hundreds of different
- 26:52types of biases and we've sort of categorized them to make them
- 26:55more easier to work on. And so, one place I would look
- 27:01at is your own personal leadership.
- 27:04Chip because very often project. Managers and project leaders are
- 27:09unaware of the type of condition they're creating in the
- 27:12environment around them. So that is now that's one place.
- 27:16I would look at a second place would be to look at.
- 27:19You know, what are the social and Collective Agreement.
- 27:22So these would be what we call the we biases which are
- 27:26sometimes you can have teams of people start to get into
- 27:32groupthink and and the Type of decisions where the, you know,
- 27:35the the Agreements are coming up with may be totally out of whack
- 27:38with reality. So, so that's the second thing
- 27:42is to be, this is to try to detect what agreements and and
- 27:47that are there that may be actually counterproductive,
- 27:51right? So, that's another place.
- 27:52I'd look at. And the third set of biases is
- 27:55what we call. The, it type of biases, which is
- 27:58the type of decisions that are actually being made in that we
- 28:01do, you know, where the decisions are coming from.
- 28:02So, for instance, you know, We just had a conversation
- 28:06yesterday with someone that's got a massive portfolio of
- 28:10projects. And what we discovered in that
- 28:14conversation was most of the project managers were just
- 28:18working on their own project. The what was missing was
- 28:24decision-making around the whole portfolio, delivering an outcome
- 28:28to the to the country. If you're an individual and you
- 28:33aspire to be a project leader of a mega project, one day would
- 28:37have a good piece of advice be for you to try and work on teams
- 28:42alongside project leaders who get things right?
- 28:46So you see in the real world. What works what doesn't Yeah, I
- 28:53think that's absolutely. I think that's absolutely
- 28:56accurate because you pick up a lot from just the way they're
- 28:59being the way. They are operating the practices
- 29:01they have though the way they think about problems.
- 29:04I think I think one of the the most valuable things is to
- 29:08actually get into how it is that they're seeing the situation.
- 29:12You know, one of the I mean this is our thing that we have in the
- 29:15book where people are novices. They you know they tend to look
- 29:20at the problem and try and find an answer straight away.
- 29:24Whereas people have been facing those problems, they tend to
- 29:29step back a bit and watch and ask questions about you know,
- 29:32what's the context? What's really going on here?
- 29:35You know what are the interrelations between different
- 29:37aspects of the problem so you get a much richer picture of
- 29:41what you're actually dealing with.
- 29:42And I think, and I think there's a lot to learn from from people
- 29:46who've got that, you know, that experience, especially, you
- 29:49know, those people who've got a track record of being able to
- 29:53deliver projects on time or manage stakeholder relationships
- 29:57in a particularly effective and productive manner.
- 30:00So I think there's a huge amount that you can learn from each
- 30:02other. Are there any other practical
- 30:04resources you could Point listeners to any other books?
- 30:08Actually might be good for project leaders to read.
- 30:11Actually, I'm a The the biggest thing I've found from because we
- 30:14had quite a lot of people buying the book and a lot of people
- 30:17reaching out the most the most frequent question.
- 30:22I'm being asked, is how do we bring the book to life?
- 30:26You know, how visito people are really interested in the ideas?
- 30:28But how can we start to realize it?
- 30:31So so one of the things that we have actually developed recently
- 30:35is a masterclass around the book and the intention of that is to
- 30:40bring all those Concepts to life.
- 30:42It's a kind of Master Class where they can actually take the
- 30:45concepts and apply it directly on life projects that they're
- 30:49working on. So so I think that, you know,
- 30:51people are interested in that, I think you can provide the, the
- 30:54email address to this podcast and they can reach out to us.
- 30:58That sounds great. We'll put that in the episode
- 31:00description. It just leaves me to say, well,
- 31:03thanks again for your time. Real pleasure.
- 31:06Thanks Emma. Thanks again to have it for
- 31:14joining us. If you want to get in touch with
- 31:15him, email him director connect, at VIP via space.com.
- 31:21Don't forget to look out for more episodes of the APM podcast
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