white water pm 2016 march

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Whitewater Project Management: Surviving and Succeeding in the High-Stakes Rapids of Complex, Accelerated Projects

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Today’s adventure begins at noon, Central

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Welcome to UW-Madison Engineering Professional Development (EPD)

Online Graduate Degrees

Professional Development

Courses

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Thanks for Letting Me be Your Guide on Today’s White Water Journey

Project management background Industry experience

• Consulting: environmental design• R&D: Argonne National Laboratory• Govt: Army Corps of Engineers

UW-Madison• Online Graduate Engineering Programs• Teach graduate project management

courses

Education B.S., Carnegie-Mellon U. M.S., Northwestern U. P.E.

You Can Help Make Today’s Adventure Interesting and Enjoyable

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Please do offer comments and questions in chat box

Your active participation will make this session more valuable to all.

Thanks!

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Our Goal: Make Today as Valuable as Possible for You

Explore reasons why projects most commonly fail

Present successful strategies for addressing those challenges

Engage your related questions and suggestions

Enable one practical take-awayfor each participant

We Learn Best When We All Add Insights and IdeasTodays’ Challenge Identify one practical take-away you plan

to use or explore further

Type yours into Chat Box

• Add * before take-away to distinguish from questions & comments

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Project Failure: Root Causes Lack of shared understanding and

commitment to project value

Inability to adapt to “project whitewater”

Wastes built into accepted project delivery practices

Ineffective communication and alignment among partners

Today’s Session Draws from Many Real PM White Water Journeys

Practicing engineers who live it daily 450 UW Master of Engineering

Management graduates Industry-experienced faculty Related project mgt. research

Our approach to meaningful, authentic education Collaborative, project-based learning with

immediate real-world application

Let’s learn with and from each other!

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Let’s Start by Clarifing a Few Definitions and Context

Projects: Unique, temporary efforts Deliverables & outcomes Schedule Resources

Are the means by which organizations implement strategy

Live in a context beyond control of project team

Consistent Project Success Remains Elusive

Source: PMI, The High Cost of Low performance, 2016

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Project Failure: Root Causes Lack of shared understanding and

commitment to project value

Inability to adapt to “project whitewater”

Wastes built into accepted project delivery practices

Ineffective communication and alignment among partners

“…all projects aim to reach a perfectly functioning product with geometric order. At the start, they may face great uncertainty – living order – that does not completely disappear … in an era of ‘permanent white water,’ the project as a whole does not assume geometric order until late in its life.”

Projects Live in “Permanent White Water”

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- Alexander Laufer, Mastering The Leadership Role in Project Management, p. 214.

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Modern, Fast-Paced Project Teams Must be able to Successfully Navigate White Water

Threatens survival of boat and team

Dangers can be hard to read

Always changing Requires agility Survival requires

effective teamwork

“The Martian” confronted white water on the arid plains of Mars

“At some point, everything’s going to go south on you. … Now, you can either accept that, or you can get to work. You have to solve one problem, and then solve the next problem, and then solve the next problem, and if you solve enough problems, you get to go home.”

- Mark Watney, Astronaut and Biologist

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Projects Implement Strategy

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Credit: Morgan, Levitt, & Malek, Executing Your Strategy

Who Are You?

What is the context?

Where are you going?

How will you operate it?

How will you build it?

What needs to be created?

Projects Translate Strategy into Action

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What do you invest in?

Credit: Morgan, Levitt, & Malek, Executing Your Strategy

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Developing a Project Strategy is like Planning a Route through Challenging Rapids

Developing a Project Strategy is like Planning a Route through Challenging Rapids

Start at the end Identify last

required moveWork upstream to

beginning Identify key transitions Identify options Prepare team

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Keys to Navigating Project White WaterBuild and plan for agilityPlan and pull from the endExpect midstream adjustmentsProject value: the goal and

guiding principleAlign partner interests and

performance



performance

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Foundational Practices Build Organizational Agility

Credit: Capturing the Value of Project Management through Organizational Agility, PMI, 2015

A Lesson from HistoryAnyone know who Roald Amundsen is?

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Amundsen’s Strategy of Agility is Historic Success

Agility and the Northwest Passage The Challenge

Route unknown; challenging climate Constantly changing ice, shallow water

Failure by John Franklin, 1845-1848 Two large ships, 3-years’ provisions, crew of

128 Philosophy: Prepare, confront, conquer

Success by Roald Amundsen, 1903-1905 Smaller ship (70 ft, shallow draft, crew of 6),

limited provisions Engaged with Intuit culture, adopted caribou

fur clothing, learned to hunt seals and use sled dogs

Strategy emphasized and built agility of team

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Organizational Agility Produces Results

Source: Capturing the Value of Project Management through Organizational Agility, PMI, 2015



performance

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Value-Pulled Scheduling Increases Team Efficiency

Attention is a scarce resource

Your schedule should be worthy of the attention of team members

Design schedule process, communication, and use around needs of project team to enable project success

Critical path analysis can provide a measure of relative pull for competing project tasks

Strategic Compression Tackles Schedule Compression

Focus on tasks that reduce project duration Critical path analysis identifies targets

Narrow to opportunities with largest time per $ impact

Strategies Meaningfully engage entire team in

identifying opportunities Increase concurrency Increase assigned resources Incentives for early completion

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Keys to Navigating Project White WaterBuild and plan for agilityPlan and pull from the endExpect midstream

adjustmentsProject value: the goal and


performance

Phased Scheduling Facilitates Mid-Project Adjustments to Course Start with Master Plan with Major Milestones

Phase Window (typ. 3 months) Starts from completed set of work and moves backward to lay

out what needs to be done to get there

Look-Ahead Plan (typ. 3 weeks) Planning for materials, pre-work

Weekly Work Plan Each week commits to what should be done and can be done. Success measured in terms of meeting weekly commitments

Each level governed by reliable promising

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Agile Project Management Expects and Supports Change

Key Principles

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

“ … while there is value in items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”

Source: Beck et al., Manifesto for Agile Software Development, 2001.



performance

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Understanding Value in Design:Output Value v. First Cost

Credit: Mossman, Ballard, & Pasquire, 2010

Target Value Design Redefines Derivation & Application of Budget Traditional

Budget based on initial cost Design-based cost estimates determine budget

Target Value Design: Budget based on value (worth) Budget determines design

More than value engineering Latter is typically reactive scope reduction

Integrated design Collaborative design with early engagement of all partners Frequent estimating cycles to enable team to “own” the budget

from beginning to end of project

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Target Value Design: Target Values Drive Each Phase of Project

From Ballard, 2008



performance

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Align Partner Interests and Performance

Early, meaningful engagement by all

Shared vision of project value and success

Shared incentives

Build culture of reliable promising

Enabling and Supporting Clear Communication and Commitments

Reliable Promising

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Copyright 2014 CannonDesign and University of Wisconsin-Madison

What is your one practical take-away from today?

More than one is allowed

Let’s Discuss Your Ideas and Questions …

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Learn through world-class connections.

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World renowned facultyWorld renowned facultyWorld renowned faculty

Global colleaguesGlobal colleaguesGlobal colleagues

Real‐world projectsReal‐world projectsReal‐world projects

Earn a rigorous degree that is respected everywhere.

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Find your fit in UW-Madison’s online master of engineering programs.

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We Invite You to Begin Your “What’s Next”

• Application Deadlines for UW Online Graduate Engineering Programs

– Engineering Management

• April 1; courses begin in June

– All other programs

• June 1; studies begin September

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Let us know how we can help you explore your “What’s Next”

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• [email protected]

• Call 608‐262‐0468

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Thank you!

You are welcome to contact me for follow-up questions and comments

Wayne [email protected]

white water pm 2016 march

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