IMD Consultancy Ltd
The project manager’s conscience
Graham Joyce
March 2017
Overview
The project manager’s conscience:
The challenges to implementing robust project controls discipline
•
Some project controls influences:
– Management of uncertainty
– Decision support
– Hindsight to foresight
•
Overcoming the barriers
Management of uncertainty
“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an
absurd one”
- Voltaire
Management of uncertainty
Management of uncertainty
Management of uncertainty
Management of uncertainty
Management of uncertainty
•
The pressures of ‘entryism’ and optimism bias are well established,
long-standing realities that are likely to endure within the project
environment
•
•
Project Controls provides:
–
The language and tools to calculate and communicate uncertainty
–
The independence to be ‘custodian of the truth’
Where uncertainty has been underestimated, the real world insight
offered by Project Controls professionals can continue to inform robust
analysis and decision support as reality starts to bite!
•
The challenge is to maintain rigor and consistency in the approaches
taken; do not become seduced by the analysis when the raw data may
be flawed!
Decision support
“It’s better to be approximately right than precisely wrong”
- Warren Buffet
Decision support
• Consider the decision making process and delays therein:
Situation
Decision support
• Consider to decision making process and delays therein:
Situation
Information
Delay
Decision
Maker
Decision support
• Consider to decision making process and delays therein:
Situation
Information
Delay
Decision
Maker
Decision
Delay
Decision
Made
Decision support
• Consider to decision making process and delays therein:
Situation
Information
Delay
Decision
Maker
Team
Responds
Decision
Delay
Communication
Delay
Decision
Made
Decision support
• Consider to decision making process and delays therein:
Situation
Impact
Delay
Information
Delay
Decision
Maker
Team
Responds
Decision
Delay
Communication
Delay
Decision
Made
Decision support
• Consider to decision making process and delays therein:
Situation
Impact
Delay
Information
Delay
Decision
Maker
More
Information
Decision
Delay
Team
Responds
Communication
Delay
Decision
Made
Decision support
•
Project controls can positively impact the decision making process by minimising
delays:
•
•
•
Information delay:
•
Provision of timely, accurate information
•
Getting information to the person/people that need it
Decision delay:
•
Achieving trust in the information
•
Presenting options and supporting analysis
•
Assist the decision maker with engagement of stakeholders
Communication delay:
•
•
Effective reporting
Potential barriers include:
•
Team may respond before the
decision is taken
•
Some take comfort in the
delays and requests for more
information
Hindsight to foresight
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”
- Benjamin Franklin
Hindsight to foresight
•
In some organisations / teams Project Controls can suffer a bit of an image
crisis:
•
–
Primarily a policing function
–
Always demanding reports that detract from delivery
–
Talking in acronyms and jargon, obsessed with data and analysis tools
These negative opinions often dominate when Project Controls is operating in
hindsight – which can be the tendency when things are not going well:
•
–
What went wrong?
–
What should have happened?
–
What did they commit to?
For a project team striving to deliver / recover under pressure, this can prove to
be very unwelcome ‘help’
Hindsight to foresight
•
This image crisis can be addressed by seeking to move Project Controls
processes, deliverables and behaviours to a more ‘helpful’ footing:
Hindsight
Insight
Foresight
Measuring the problem
Diagnosing the problem
Preventing the problem
Checking progress
Monitoring commitments
Driving delivery
Challenging the PM
Supporting the PM
Advising the PM
Asking questions
Proposing answers
Exploring options
Ask yourself – what kind of support are you providing?
Reactive
•
Proactive
It is much harder to stay proactive in time of crisis, but this is when it is most
important to do so
Overcoming the barriers
“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead
anywhere”
- Anon
Overcoming the barriers
•
As the conscience of the Project Manager, the Project Controls team
needs to confront and overcome difficult situations in a constructive,
supportive way – often as a lone voice
•
This can be enabled by:
– The rigor and consistency of Project Controls standards and
approaches
– Creating the environment to focus on, “what is the data telling us?”
and not “is the data correct?”
– Supplement the analysis and tools with experience and confidence
in order to facilitate effective decision making
– Working on those softer skills:
Empathy
Integrity
Pragmatism
Communication
Closing thoughts
•
Consider organisational maturity and functional standardisation
– Change will only be sustainable if implementation is designed and
delivered appropriately
– Common approaches exist;
• Don’t re-invent the wheel
• But do tailor to your organisation / project
•
Continuously strive to present project controls as
complimentary to delivery, and practice what you preach
– Match tools to processes (not the other way around)
– Use tools that position Project Controls within the fabric of project
delivery, not as a ‘bolt on’
– Less data, more information
– Measure what is important, do not make importance of what can
be measured
Questions?
“Go ahead, make a fool of yourself, and then maybe you’ll listen to
your conscience”
- Jiminy Cricket