The Inner CEO – how to take control of you
Project Management in SMEs – get it right!
Does project management require a project manager?
Seems to be a regular enough assumption in small and medium size enterprises that a business or line manager has the skills to deliver project management. And, from what I have seen, this assumption has often proved costly.
What are the skills of a project manager and why it it so often assumed that any manager can manage a project?
Project manager activities
Generally a good project manager will:
- Understand the principles of project management e.g. PMI
- Understand where you are (A)
- Understand where you are trying to get to (B)
- Work out the jobs to be completed to get from A to B
- Allocate the jobs to competent people
- Track progress – managing the critical path
- Communicate with all relevant stakeholders
- Ensure project is closed out
And use his/ her experience to deal with issues as they arise and manage them within the original scope, timeline and budget – including agreeing any changes to scope/ timeline/ budget with the project sponsor.
There are lots of reasons a business/ line manager may struggle to do all of this.
Issues for the business/ line manager acting as Project Manager
- Too busy managing his/ her area of the business
- Struggle to manage resources within the business outside direct control
- Not familiar with tools of project management – resource plans, budgets, gantt charts, etc
- Unable to secure additional resource as may be required
- Inexperienced in managing multiple vendors – likely to include IT vendors (applications, implementation, infrastructure/ cloud
- Inexperienced in testing – systems testing, user acceptance testing
- May not have required communication skills
- Inexperienced in change management
- Inexperienced in addressing interdependent issues as they arise – resulting in scope/ time/ budget changes – tracking these and staying on control of the project
The time commitment (which varies as the project prgresses or stalls) – is probably the single biggest issue. There will be line managers who would make excellent project managers – but only if they have time. And whereas a PM is focused 100% on delivery, a line manager’s first concern is with his/her department and the department’ responsibilities and personnel.
The Vendor Project Manager
Another even more risky strategy is relying on the PM from the vendor to perform the PM role. This ignores the fact that the client and the vendor have different commercial objectives. The client needs their own PM assessing the performance, inter alia, of the vendor (and the vendor’s PM activities as they relate to the overall delivery of the project).
The preferred option
The project manager should have experience in the discipline of project management. If the PM role is to be played by a line manager – then this person should have the appropriate experience, skills and available time. Lots of things may occur during the life time of the project, including:
- Realisation that original analysis has missed something – or led to an unworkable design
- Key people leave – within the company or within one of the vendors
- Unexpected delays – resourcing challenges, delays in software modifications, unanticipated issues with data migration
- End users change their requirements/ expectations as they see the capability of the new system
- Requirements to reduce expectations where evolving timelines and budgets prove problematic
- Increased supervision by senior execs and/or board – where there are issues impacting delivery
- Potential required to switch to a phased delivery – or changes in phases and or scope of what is delivered in each phase
- Commercial changes in the contract arising from scope changes
Often the administrative effort is underestimated:
- Managing internal resources from several departments – multiple meetings/ workshops through the week – tracking the outcome of these
- Reporting to a project Office, CIO, COO or CEO
- Managing multiple vendors
- Preparation for USer Acceptance Testing (Strategy, resourcing, training, scripting)
- Scheduling of User Acceptance Testing and Ebd User Training
If the company does not have internal PM resources – then there are many options for contracting in PM resources. But the company is missing a real opportunity to develop skillls and knowledge inhouse by not dedicating appropriately trained, internal resources. Which ever option is pursued – either is better than thinking the vendor will PM or that a ‘light touch’ from a line manager will suffice. So many failed and late projects to prove this. Even when you structure and run a project ‘according to the book’ there will be issues and risks to be managed. Critical to have experienced people in charge – witht the time to resolve issues and achieve successful outcomes,
Thinking Digital and AI Transformation – Rewired by McKinsey
Digital and AI Transformation
‘A digital and AI transformation is the process of developing organizational and technology-based capabilities that allow a company to continuously improve its customer experience and lower its unit costs and over time sustain a competitive advantage’ – great opening definition from McKinsey in ‘Rewired’.
Are you serious about digital and AI transformation?
AI and Digital Transformation seem to be on every corporate agenda. AI has caught the ‘corporate imagination’ with all of the recent GPT development. But AI only relevant when you have digital – so another driver for digital transformation.
We seem to have been talking Digital Transformation for at least a decade. And those who are succeeding have vision, commitment, dedicate resourcing. The 6 Considerations oppostie need to be examined before engaging ina ny meaningful transformation.
Considerations in contemplating Digital and AI Transformation
- Roadmap for a digital transformation? Can you, the leaders of the business, impagine the technology driven business – as against the current business
- Do you have the inhouse digital talent to drive the digital and AI transformation?
- Is your business operating model customer-centric and focused on speedy delivery?
- Are you ready to/ capable of adopting the required software engineering practices to drive development speed, quality and operational performance?
- Will your data architecture and data governance framework enable you to embed data everywhere – to drive quality, ease of consumption, ease of reuse?
- Do you understand what will be required to drive adoption and scaling across the business – are you committed to this?
So where do we start – what should we be transforming?
Big enough to make a difference, small enough to get it done – seems a good guide for kicking off with meanigful digital and/or AI transformation. McKinsey descibe this as assessing projects in terms of value against feasibility.
Value potential
So, in looking at potential value of a transformation project, McKinsey suggest:
- Improving customer experience
- Financial benefits – customer growth, reduced customer churn, improved yields, reduced costs
- Time to realise this value e.g. 6 to 36 months
- Synergy – can this transformation be leveraged in other parts of the business e.g. data, techanology, change management
The guide itself
This is a well put together book taking you through the elements of Digital and AI Tranformation – and what is required in each element to drive success. It is also backed up by controbutions form a number of clients – and, finally, a number of good case studies.
As a more technical example, Section 5 deals with the concept of Embedding Data Everywhere. Inter alia this requires a suitable Data Architecture. In Chapter 26, headed ‘Data architecture and or the the system of data pipes’ they review different architecture archetypes, including: cloud-native datalake, cloud-native data warehouse, lakehouse, data mesh and data fabric.
Section 6 addresses the key area of Adoption – and is less technical in nature, but equally if not more important. In Chapter 28 they talk about the four elements of the influence model – in the context of successful change management:
- Leadership engagement
- A compelling change story
- Measurement and performance metrics
- Role based training
The book offers plenty to the experienced Digital Transformation consultant. But it is also a very good read and guide for anyone in an executive management role looking to kick off significant Digital and AI Transformation
Artificial General Intelligence – are we seeing it now?
Artificial General Intelligence (‘AGI’) yet?
Are there any signs of Artificial General Intelligence in what we are seeing now in Generative AI, LLMs etc? Any emerging signs of the holy grail? Or do we need to rethink or confirm what we mean by AGI?
AGI not yet – it seems
Interesting piece in Techcentral last week (13 Oct 2023) – featuring an interview with Prof. Barry O’Sullivan, one of Ireland’s leading AI experts. He is quoted as saying: ‘These systems are still extremely limited. The primary challenges of AI still stand. While it has been a great year, it’s not a solved problem, most certainly. Far from it. These systems can’t reason, they can’t really do mathematics, and they don’t really have an understanding of the world’. And the discussion leads on to some of the irresposnsible argument about existential threats arising from a lack of understanding of the current tools and their capacity. I posted previously with respect to the contracting views of Hinton and Lecun on existential treats re AI.
AGI now? – or what does it mean?
Almost the same day I read an interesting paper published by the Berggruen Institute, authored by Blaise Aguera y Arcas of Google and Peter Norvig of Stanford University. And their headline:
‘Artificial General Intelligence Is Already Here – Today’s most advanced AI models have many flaws, but decades from now, they will be recognized as the first true examples of artificial general intelligence’.
They argue that the new ‘frontier’ models ‘have achieved artificial general intelligence in five important ways: topics, tasks, modalities, languages, instructability – and flesh out each of these in the paper.
They attrubute the reluctance of many commenters to acknowledge this to any/all of four reasons:
- A healthy skepticism about metrics for AGI
- An ideological commitment to alternative AI theories or techniques
- A devotion to human (or biological) exceptionalism
- A concern about the economic implications of AGI
So – what does this mean for society and/or users of these tools?
I have a sense that we are now using tools which, even with their limitations, are offering huge opportunties for progress and change . The reality of most technological change to date will continue, I suspect: there will be winners and losers. Will we come to another hiatus, another ‘AI winter’. I don’t think so this time. And we need the likes of Prof Barry O’Sullivan, Blaise Aguera y Arcas and Peter Norvig – and many others – looking down the road to see where we are headed.
Loving the public library – learning to love 1,000s of books
Nice piece in today’s Sunday Times ‘The library is so much more than just books’ by Sarah Breen. Reminded me of so much of my growing up and fascination with public libraries – and their content: BOOKS: loving the public library
Every other Saturday morning Dad (sometimes Mum) took us (the older siblings) to the Drumcondra Public library. Each of us could take out two books – and had two weeks to read them. feeling we were missing out on something in the adult section. And we had to take our books from the children’s section of the libary – already thinking we were missing out on something. And cof course Dad also took out books (and eventually music tapes also).
I graduated to the adult library in Phibsborough (always liked that building) and the mobile library which used to visit the shopping centre in Cabra weekly.
Fascination with libraries continued: the school library in Belvedere College (where Ulysses was kept behind the counter). Spent many hours there – always potentially distracted from the core subjects by the variety of the well stacked shelves.
In Trinity there were multiple libraries: 1937 Reading Room, Arts Block, Law library, Science Library. And apart from some study and books – the social element was also critical (engineers meeting students from other callings).
And with my own children, certainly as parents, we both looked to instill a love in/ appreciation of libraries (and their BOOKS) with all of our children – with varying success. But all of them would have spent significant time studying in libraries – and I suspect there has always been a social side also.
As Sarah Breen says: ‘For adults, you can use your library card to access newspapers and magazines, listen to audiobooks, learn a language and join a club. It’s a place to meet people or avoid them, connect or disconnect entirely’. The service has moved on with the times – and can be of great benefit to all ages.
In his recent book ‘Knowing what we know – the transmission of knowledge: from ancient wisdom to modern magic’ Simon Winchester dedicates Section 2 (‘Gathering the Harvest’) to a review of the great libararies of world history – and the attempts to destroy them by various invaders. If you read this you may think of your local library with a great deal more respect.
Psychological safety at work – 3 musts to achieve the baiscs
Just came across this piece by McKinsey: ‘What is psychological safety?’ Rang a few bells for me – in the context of change, post COVID, business reorg, major projects. And also in the context of pursuits outside work e.g. finding your level in a cycling group, coaching a football team, building new relationships. Psychologicial safety at work is just a sine qua non.
Definition
‘Psychological safety means feeling safe to take interpersonal risks, to speak up, to disagree openly, to surface concerns without fear of negative repercussions or pressure to sugarcoat bad news‘. Seems a reasonable definition for many different settings. I think often overlooked is the responsibility of the manager or supervisor to be available to facilitate ‘speaking up’ – in different situations. Maintaining a very busy status all the time is tantamount to killing the safe psychological space.
What is the reality?
Per McKinsey: ‘Psychological safety is not a given and it is not the norm in most teams’. If you believe that psychological safety is important for the individual and important to the development and sustainability of the organisation then this assessment should be of great concern to any organisation finding itself in this status.
Leadership development
I have always thought the first basic requirement for any effective manager is to take an interest in team members. There should be time to ask how are things going, how was the weekend, how are the family – or whatever works for some genuine interaction and listening. Think McKinsey right on the requirement for ongoing leadership development:
- Go beyond one-off training programs and deploy a scaled system of leadership development.
- Invest in leadership development experiences that are emotional, sensory, and create moments of realisation.
- Build mechanisms to make development a part of leaders’ day-to-day work.
Again, if people are your number one asset, if providing a psychologically safe environment/ experience is a priority, then failing to invest in development of these skills across the leadership team is, simply, failure.
Mental health
Now seems to be on everyone’s agenda. Some of the stigma associated with talking about mental health challenges seems to be dissipating (but far from gone). McKinsey identify a number of practical steps – and I think ongoing changes post Covid, change in hybrid work and impact of AI will all drive greater requirements to understand and manage mental health.
Lower earners
Lots of good sense in this paper from McKinsey. But this last piece really caught my attention. Work is made up of people of different abilities, education, age, career direction and earnings. But all need psychological safety – all are needed to make the business work. And perhaps in the lower earning group there are greater challenges and insecurities – need to be aware of this and act accordingly. In a different environment the backs may not be making the money the forwards make but you need the whole team. In fact when the backs let you down the cookie crumbles pretty quickly.