Management skills for a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous WorldFacilitated by:

Ian J Seath

Workshop Aims

As a result of this workshop, you will be able to: Explain how planning needs to be adapted to cope

with a VUCA world Identify the key components of good planning and

prioritising Use a variety of practical tools and techniques to

improve work plans Identify personal actions to improve time management Apply a simple behavioural skills model to improve

face-to-face interactions

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Workshop Agenda

Morning Introductions It’s a VUCA World! Planning and the

Management Cycle Short-term Plans How long will it take? Who’s responsible?

Afternoon Weekly and Daily

Planning Overcoming the Time

Stealers Win-win Communications

and Influencing Dealing with difficult

situations Personal Action Plans

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IT’S A VUCA WORLD!“We are moving from a world of problems, to a world of dilemmas”

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VUCA

Volatility

Uncertainty

Complexity

Ambiguity

Increasing rate of change

Less clarity about the future

Multiplicity of decision factors

There may be no “right answer”

A term originated by a US Military College to describe the new challenges facing leaders.

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What do you want from today? Identify some specific examples of VUCA

situations that impact on you and your day-job

What challenges or issues do you face as a consequence?

What will make today a success for you? Your Learning Objectives

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The 4 management environments

Simple• Change a wheel

on a car

• Build a wall

• Prune a tree

Complicated• Build a car

• Build an office

• Re-plant a fruit farm with new trees

Complex• Design a new

car

• Design a new office

• Manage an area of outstanding natural beauty

Chaotic• Deal with a

multiple car crash on a motorway

• Deal with a fire in an office

• Deal with the aftermath of a major earthquake

Ordered Unordered

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The 4 management environments

Simple• Known knowns• Facts• Right answer• Domain of best

practice & rules

Complicated• Known

unknowns• Facts• May be more

than one right answer

• Domain of experts

Complex• Unknown

unknowns• Patterns (not

facts)• Many

competing ideas

• Domain of emergence

Chaotic• Unknowables• High

turbulence• No right

answers• No time to think• Patterns• Domain of

rapid response

Ordered Unordered

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The Manager’s role

Simple• Sense, categorise,

respond• Delegate• Standardise

processes• Adopt best

practices• Communicate

directly and clearly

Complicated• Sense, analyse,

respond• Set up panels of

experts• Listen to conflicting

advice• Encourage

challenge• Identify good

practices

Complex• Probe, sense,

respond• Generate ideas• Experiment: try

hard, fail fast• Increase

interactions and communication

• Encourage dissent and diversity

Chaotic• Act, sense, respond• Look for what works• Command and

control to re-establish order

• Communicate directly and clearly

Ordered Unordered

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PLANNING AND THE MANAGEMENT CYCLE

“Plans are nothing, planning is everything”

[Dwight D Eisenhower]

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The FPOC management cycle

Forecast

Plan

Organise

Control

What might happen?

What do we want to

achieve?

Who is working on

it?

Are we succeeding?

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A forecast…

Is made with a particular

decision in mind

Is a statement of expected future circumstances

Should be made at the last

possible moment

Should be for the shortest

possible period

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All plans should start with “why?”

Why: Set objectives

How: Decide activities

What: Assess/ allocate resources

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Bringing plans to life

Daily Plan

Weekly Work Plan

Look-ahead Plan

Master Plan

Overallprojectschedule

4-6weekview

Nextweek’splan

Today’splan

What should happen

What can happen

What will happen

The right people, collaborating on the right level of plan, at the right time

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The Master Plan/Schedule

The aims of Master Schedules are to: Give us confidence that the end-date and

milestone dates are feasible Develop and display overall execution strategies,

based on known, current facts Identify and schedule long lead-time items

i.e. anything that cannot be planned within the look-ahead window

Divide the work into phases, identifying any special milestones of importance to the client or other stakeholders

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Tools to use

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The Look-ahead Plan

Shapes the workflow sequence and rate Might range from 3-12 weeks depending on the overall

timeline A 5 or 6 week look-ahead is typical, where “Week 1” is next week

Used to ensure all thenecessary resources will bein place in time for theplanned activities to start

Begins to develop detailedplans for how the work willbe done weekly and daily

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CREATING SHORT-TERM PLANS

“Man cannot control the current of events; he can only float with them and steer” [Otto von Bismarck]

Put first things first

Schedule your priorities,don’t prioritise your schedule

If something is reallyimportant, make the time for it

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What’s the priority of each quadrant and what proportion of your time you should allocate to each?

HIGH

LOW

LOW HIGH

IMPORTANCE

URGENCY

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What’s the priority of each quadrant?

3Distraction?

2Plan

4Waste!

1Manage

HIGH

LOW

LOW HIGH

IMPORTANCE

URGENCY

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What’s your current workload in each quadrant?

Identify 10-15 “things to do” from your current work

Write each one on the Urgency / Importance grid

Do them in the sequence you suggested!

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ESTIMATING HOW LONG TASKS WILL TAKE

Hofstadter's Law: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.”

Estimating: scenarios…

1. You have been asked to help a team in the early stages of a project to build a new production facility in the UK which will use some emerging technology that has only been used at pilot scale, so far

2. You have been asked to help a new manager who has to create a 45 minute e-learning course, to be delivered via the intranet

3. A Senior Manager, preparing a Business Case, needs help thinking through the likely costs and times for an organisational re-structuring project for a Department of 150 people, to achieve a 25% cost saving

How would you go about creating an estimate of the likely costs and timescales?

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Some possible approaches

Create a WBS or PBS Use this to build bottom-up costs

Analyse the historical cost and time data from a series of previous projects and use average data

Find an example of a similar project and adjust the times/costs to allow for the difference in technology/scale/objectives

Ask some experts

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5 Estimating methods

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Expert Judge-ment

3-point Estimate

Comparative Estimate

Parametric Estimate

Bottom-up Estimate

Perception Fact

HighAccuracy& Detail

“Quick &Dirty”

Which estimating method is being used?

Expert 3-Point

Compa-rative

Para-metric

Bottom-up

The team identifies a best, worst and most likely case and averages them

The team asks two suppliers who have done similar work before

The team uses a spreadsheet of data from previous projects and it calculates cost and time estimates for them

Members of the team have been involved in 4 previous projects and know exactly how long each one took and what they cost

There’s so much work to be done that the team breaks the project down into 150 work packages

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Estimating methods in your day-job

With a colleague, choose a current project or work activity and decide which method(s) would be most appropriate for creating the best estimates or choose a past project and identify which

estimating method(s) you should have used

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ALLOCATING RESPONSIBILITY

“All organisations are perfectly designed to achieve the results that they do”

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The RACI Matrix Who is Responsible for doing

that task Who is Accountable for

ensuring it is done to the required standard, on time

Who should be Consulted about the task, or be involved in decisions about it (2-way communication)

Who should be Informed about the task, its progress and its completion (1-way communication)

Tasks

Ann

Bill

Carol

HR Dir.

Trg. Admin

Ops. Dept.

Finance

Develop Objectives for Service

AR

R C I

Agree Budget R A I C

Create first draft of Specification

AR

C I

etc.

R = Responsible, A = Accountable, C = ConsultI = Inform

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WEEKLY AND DAILY PLANNING

“Eventually, all plans must degenerate into hard work” [Peter Drucker]

The 80:20 Rule

20% of the time leads to 80% of the results.

20% 80%

TIME RESULTS

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Scrum Board for Weekly/Daily Plans

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Percent Plan Complete

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A key metric for your WWP is the “per-cent plan complete” (PPC) value

It is calculated as the number of activities that are completed as planned, divided by the total number of planned activities

It is a measure of the accuracy and reliability of your WWP

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DEALING WITH THE TIME STEALERS

“Events my dear boy, events”[Harold Macmillan]

Scenario – where are the time stealers? Ian gets into his office, starts his computer and logs on to

check his e-mails. After 10 minutes he has a quick look through his Twitter stream and checks his Facebook page. He then spends 30 minutes preparing the first part of a report which is due tomorrow. After attending a 45 minute meeting he grabs a cup of coffee and chats with some colleagues. Back at his desk he notices he has 5 new e-mails which he decides to read and he replies to 2 of them. Returning to his report he spends 10 minutes collecting his thoughts and another 30 minutes writing before deciding it’s nearly time to break for lunch. He makes a couple of quick ‘phone calls, then goes off for lunch.

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Time stealers

1. Procrastination/indecision

2. Ineffective meetings

3. Interruptions - visitors, telephone, e-mail

4. “Never say no”

5. Lack of delegation

6. Lack of planning before starting tasks

7. Waiting time - between meetings

8. Starting too many things and not finishing them

9. Changing priorities

10. Communication failures

11. Unclear responsibilities

12. Unnecessary Travelling

etc.

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Dealing with your time stealers

• Step 1 - Individually, select the top 3 time stealers that affect you, day-in and day-out

• Step 2 - Share your thoughts with the group

• Step 3 - As a group, identify and share some possible solutions

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What is “quality time”?

• A person’s average uninterrupted time at work is usually less than 10 minutes

• Respect your colleagues’ quality time by not interrupting them unnecessarily

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The four Ds…

Do it

Delegate it

Delay it

Dump it

Does it require action?

No action?

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The 2 minute rule:

Less than 2 minutes? Do it

More than 2 minutes? Delegate it Delay it

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Delegate it…

“Tell me what you want me to do and why,

then let me get

on with it.

If I make a mess of it, coach me so I know

where I went wrong.

But, don’t fuss !!!”

A Subordinate’s Prayer

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If it doesn’t require you to DO something…

Dump it “I might need this later”File it

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WIN-WIN COMMUNICATION

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” [George Bernard Shaw]

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4 Communication styles

• Question• Listen• Summarise

• Withdraw• Silent• Apologise

• Inform• Persuade• Direct

• Attack• Dominate• Threaten

Aggressive Assertive

ResponsivePassive

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Communication in a VUCA World

Vision

Under-standing

Clarity

Agility

Clear intent and direction

Listening, empathy and

sensingOptions and

recommendations

Try hard, fail fast, learn [JFDI]

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Seek first to understand… Open Questions

– What, Where, When, Who, Why, How

– To get the candidate talking and open up discussion

Closed Questions– Did, Can, Was, Were, Is– To confirm facts and close

down discussion Probe Questions

– “Why did that happen?”– “How did that affect you?”– To get behind the first answer

Reflective Questions– “You mentioned training, in

what way was...”– “Challenging, how was

that...?”– Reflects back the candidate’s

answer and leads to a further question

– Demonstrates active listening Leading Questions

– “Do you prefer X or Y?”– “You agree, don’t you?”– Should not be used

Multiple Questions– “What... & was...?”– Should not be used

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DEALING WITH DIFFICULT SITUATIONS

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” [Henry Ford]

PERSONAL ACTION PLANS

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Say it, see it, write it…

Identify from all of today’s inputs and colleagues’ ideas, what you plan to do differently

Be specific and ensure the improvements are measurable

Be prepared to share your plan with the group

Do it…50

Facilitated by Ian J Seath(2014)

ian.seath@improvement-skills.co.uk

07850 728506

@ianjseath

uk.linkedin.com/in/ianjseath