The Contemporary PM in the Digital Age

Edwin DandoAssurity

@edwindando

GMPMPAgile since 2002Scrum.org trainerEvidence Based Management consultant

Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • © 2016

Project M

anagement

Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015

The 4th Industrial Revolution

• Frederick Taylor – an engineer• Taylorism

> Workers work less than they could> Management fails to structure work effectively and provide incentives.

• Taylors solution> Sub-divide the work into tasks> Analyse each task & schedule for optimal efficiency> Management arrange work & pay for tasks completed

The Roots of Management

Taylor promised to reconcile labour and capital. Shop Management (1903), is considered the first book on management

• Ford, Gantt, McKinsey

• Plan to execute, execute the plan

• Objective:

• Utilise a low skilled workforce

• Eliminate variability

• Result

• Efficient mass production

• Very “us-centric ” view of world

• Long lead time & inability to change

• Business becomes very predictable

20th century management

• In warfare predictability = death• Flee – will get you killed

• Freeze – will get you killed

• Fight – best chance

• It does in business too

• Adaptive thinking is essential for basic

survival

Complexity

“The species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself” – Charles Darwin

How manoeuvrable is your business?

DisruptionGlobally, 72 percent of CEOs believe that the next 3 years will be more critical for their industry than the last 50. CEOs believe it’s now or never.

Source: KPMG 2016 Global CEO Outlook

Remember these guys?

And what about these guys?Uber -> worlds largest taxi company -> owns no vehiclesAirbnb -> worlds largest accommodation provider -> no real estateFacebook -> worlds largest media owner -> creates no contentAlibaba -> worlds most valuable retailer -> no inventory

Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • © 2016

Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015

“More than one-third of businesses today will not survive the next 10 years. Companies should not miss the market transition or business

model nor underestimate your competitor of the future —not your competitor of the past“

- Gartner

Who’s next?

Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015

1. Stakeholders know what they want2. Nothing/little will change3. Work can be decomposed & estimated

The Three Flaws of Traditional PM

•Cynefin

Obvious Known knowns• Assumption: order exists• Clear cause-and-effect• Relationships evident to everyone• Strongly causality based - Y is caused by XManagement Approach:• Reductionism • Remove variability• Fail-safe design

Complex

Unknown unknowns• Flux & unpredictability• Minor changes = disproportionate consequences• Problem is dynamic. Solutions cannot be imposed.Management Approach:• Accept variability, apply emergence • Manage risk via empiricism• Safe to fail experimentation

Chaotic Unknowables• No cause & effect, no point looking for right answers• Many decisions to make and no time to thinkManagement Approach:• Unintentional chaos - apply patterns• Intentional chaos

o the domain of innovationo Plan constraints to limit extent

OrderUnorder Disorder

Complicated

Known unknowns• Assumption: order exists• Cause-and-effect relationships discoverable • Expert diagnosis required Management Approach:• Reductionism• Reduce variability & risk via analysis

Obvious

Complex

Chaotic

OrderUnorder Disorder

Complicated Stakeholders - IWKIWISINeeds change, especially once they see it!

Stakeholder knows what they wantBreak work down into stagesEstimate based on known knowns

Plan to executeSign off. Execute planLittle/no change

Stakeholder knows what they want and doesn’t changeWork harder than Obvious, but possible with expert helpCan still be decomposed into steps and estimated

Possible contingency for increased risk/challenge

Lots of change.Execution: we don’t know what we don’t knowWork not predictable Work approach tends to emerge

UnpredictableTime critical

Our world is rapidly decentralising

• Easier• Robust• Control based• Fragile• Vulnerable - shocks, attacks & failures

• Resilient• Participative• Diverse• Require connectivity• Difficult to standardise• Loss of economise of scale

• Highly responsive• Naturally resilient and adaptive• Intelligent

• Cannot be controlled

Examples• Nature• The Internet• Etherum & Bitcoin • Terror cells • Crowd economics• Future business?

Knowledge WorkTask workINDUSTRIAL AGE

MENTALITY

Coordination and Controlto realize the outcome

Inspect and Adapt to realize an outcome

Exact outcome is knowable in advance

Exact outcome is not knowable in advance

High cost of change leading to less change

Low cost of change leading to more change

KNOWLEDGE AGE MENTALITY

Work is changingThis is being automated

•In 5 years, 35% of skills considered important in today will have changed.

•Creativity will be one of the top three skills workers will need.

•Emotional intelligence will become the top skills needed by all

*World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs study

Social skills

Poorly paid as large supply of workers

Future roles in demand

AUTOMATED

Engineers

Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015

From management of work to • Team work• Emotional Intelligence, • Facilitation

From the poster child of Digital Transformation.

Digital by DefaultAgile by Default

Yes, this is government.

The craft of delivery is booming

FacilitationLeadership

CoachingTeams

Large, upfront business plan

Fixed requirementsFixed project budgets

Don’t trust Delivery

Break-fix cultureCost centre culture

Process in large batches (releases)

Business

Customer

Delivery

OperationsITIL/

WaterfallScrum

Waterfall batc

h

Scrum-a-fall (aka the Scrum Sandwich - fail)

An agile business

Concept/VisionAccept ambiguity

Strong customer focusIncremental budgetSafe-to-fail culture

DevOps infrastructureAutomation

Value centre Flow driven delivery

Customer focus

Business CustomerDelivery OperationsContinuous

Delivery/DevOpsAgileLean PlanningDeliver increment to reduce risk &

validate assumptions

Validated learning: reduced business risk, validate business case assumptions, stronger customer focus

measureEvidence based decisions

Letting goMove away from Move toward

Coordinating individuals and individual contributions

Coaching people in agile techniques & positive team behavior by embodying agile values.

Providing answers Enabling self-organization

Budget and Deadlines Flow and Value

Prescribing solutions Facilitating teams

Fixing problems Guiding teams to discover what works best for them

From projects to teams

Project XYZ

Team ABCWork

See #noprojects

Fixed Mindset approach to delivery (Assembly Line)

Agile Mindset approach to delivery (Knowledge Work)Discover and learn through valuable output and welcoming change (Circular Thinking – IKIWISI)

DiscoverThen Build

LOCK-DOWN

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

A contemporary PM roadmap

freely available

The Economics of Agile Project Management• Data from Standish Group shows move to agile saves 20-60%• Assume project portfolio = $5M• 20% = $942,000, 60% = $3M• On average $2M or 40%• Upskilling to Agile Project Management is a no brainer• Why majority software projects use agile

See Standish Group Chaos Report https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/white-papers/chaos-report.pdf

HPE report: Agile is the New Normal

Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015

Come and have a chat about the future of project management at our stand.

edwin.dando@assurity.co.nz agileforeveryone.com@edwindando