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Extreme Project Managment
- 1. Xtreme Management of Projects -- another 12-step program? Jack Ring Innovation Management jring@amug.org Xtreme Project Management Seminar Province of Manitoba, CA March 20, 2000
- 3. 1. The Winner is the one who FINISHES first.
- 4. 2. Get clear on what kind of project you must manage Construction Expedition Exploratory Outcome Path Resources Manage Project: a means of applying knowledge and enthusiasm to ideas and materials in a way that creates useful outputs. idealized generated as needed learning described fixed provided attendance specified adapted prepared risk
- 5. •A Goal •Action Triggers •Energy •Competency •Statusing •Feedback, G-S GS System OUTPUTS Response Status Reports Learning Goal Attainment Sensitivity to Disturbance Stability Limits Achievement Measures Culture Business Climate Competing Goals Context INPUTS Request Resources Time Disturbances 3. Establish a Goal-seeking System
- 6. 4. Transform Project Energy We all FEAR being: • insignificant • irrelevant • unlovable Enthusiasm! Quality Improvement Meaning
- 7. 5. Caution -- Great Project, Wrong Result. A system must be built • not for the situation that exists • but for the situation that the system will cause • when it is eventually activated.
- 8. 6. Mission System <> Project System The ideal project is instantaneous and costs zero dollars. Your customers want the output -- the mission system. The System Manager is concerned about the deliverables. The Project Manager is concerned about the people, process, schedules, budgets and vigilance that it takes to build whatever the SM wants to build. Xtreme projects need both a PM and an SM -- working in a dyadic manner.
- 9. 7. How much are you willing to lose?
- 10. 8. First, write the Acceptance Spec.
- 11. machine 320 Macro Assem 213 C 128 FORTRAN 77 105 COBOL 91 ADA 71 QTurboBasic 64 APL 32 O-O 29 Icon O-O 4 Source: IFPUG as reported in Datamation, 11/1/92, pg 85. 9. Know Objects and Six Sigma. If Maturity level is: Expected Relative Cost is: (approximately) Six Sigma 1X* CMM V 5X* CMM IV 12X* CMM III 31X* CMM II 140X* CMM I 480X* *Warning: Due to non-linear factors this example may not be accurate for your organization. A calculation specific to your organization can be produced. Source: Quantitative Software Management.
- 12. 25% 50% 75% 100% 5 10 15 20 Number of Workgroup Members 10. It's the PEOPLE p e r c e n t a c h i e v e m e n t adapted from Friends In High Places, Livingston, W. L., FES Ltd. Publishing, Stuart, FL Workgroup size limit Interpersonal style is dominant factor with 5X leverage on effectiveness Encouraging, Admonishing Anxious, Insincere Critical, Destructive Unexplored Territory
- 13. 11. Knowledge, Courage, ---and Grace Billy Mills and Crazy Horse
- 14. I Can Win! I Can Win! I Can Win!
Editor's Notes
- Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you this evening. Although Project Management is the focus of this conference I propose that the facet that needs to be most Xtreme is the Management of projects. This is more than a play on words. Project Management implies the person who is head of the project. Management of projects implies letting everyone help make the project successful. Further, I propose a twelve step process toward Xtreme Management of Projects because I think we all have to recover from some bad habits. Most of these habits are not our fault – they were adopted in good faith from seemingly well meaning teachers – but they must be shed.
- The money collection basket is next to the door. And don’t try to avoid paying the money by acting as if you are only going to the bathroom. For those of you who are staying ----- feel free to ask questions or challenge what I am saying at any time. And enjoy yourselves.
- Billy Mills was a 26-year-old Marine lieutenant and seven sixteenths Oglala Lakota who grew up on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was in Japan one night -- crouched at the starting line of the 10,000 meter run at the 1964 Olympics. He barely qualified as the US representative. He had never won a major race nor come close to a record time. But in his mind that night he was representing his whole North American aboriginal heritage as well as The Brave, The Proud, The US Marines. Bang! --- Only 10,000 meters to go. After setting the pace throughout the exhausting distance Billy finds himself bumped off stride, passed and boxed in by the expected front runners on the last lap. Australian Ronald Clarke seemed to be in excellent position since neither Mills nor Tunisian Mohamed Gammoudi, running with Clarke, had ever broken 29 minutes. After the jostling and shoving Billy dropped back about eight strides --- seemingly out of contention. Then, while Clarke and Gammoudi dueled -- out in front --- something happened to Mills. Later he would tell us that he was impossibly behind and fighting fear. "Then," he said, "Coming off the last turn, my thoughts changed from 'One more try, one more try, one more try to 'I can win!’ He says he actually saw himself winning. ‘ I can win!’ 'I can win!’
- With his focus on the finish he was barely aware of kicking his way, in a spectacular, unexpected surge, to beat Clarke by a full second and nip Gammoudi by three meters. Unknown Billy Mills won the 10,000 meter gold medal by setting an Olympic record of 28 minutes, 24 point 04 seconds, a time that was a phenomenal 46 seconds faster than his previous best. The next year Mills broke Clarke's world record, proving that he wasn't a one-race runner. He was Billy Mills, the 10,000-meter man responsible for one of the greatest Olympic upsets ever. What has this to do with managing projects? For one thing we should clearly note that the first to start a project doesn't necessarily win. Also, note that maximizing the staffing may win prestige but not the race. Fred Brooks told us this in his book, The Mythical Man-month over 30 years ago and the lesson still holds. Larry Putnam captured this and more in his equations underlying his project management tools. I have seen many project managers ignore his predictions only to find out how foolish they were to do so. Also, the project situation is only part of the story. How you envision your finish is the real story. The Xtreme Manager knows when to start, what pace to use at various stages and how to kick to the finish.
- Let’s be clear about what we mean by project. A Project is a means of applying knowledge and enthusiasm to ideas and materials in a way that creates useful outputs. Not all projects are the same. I classify projects into three kinds based on their inherent characteristics. Most projects involve laying bricks or pouring concrete. I call these construction projects. The finish line is described in detail at the beginning of the race and doesn't move. The path through the project is confidently prescribed and the resources are provided and sufficient. The Manager's job is to manage attendance and productivity while suppressing new, potentially distracting ideas. The second kind I call expedition projects. This is the kind of project Admiral Byrd managed when he discovered the location of the North Pole. The finish line is specified at the beginning but not otherwise detailed. The path is only partly known and partly "TBD." In this kind of project the goal is not to finish first but to be the first to finish -- that is, to survive until the finish line. This takes a different strategy than in the construction kind. You make decisions not to maximize convergence on an end point nor to minimize the use of resources. Instead, you make the decisions that maximize your latitude to make a subsequent decision. Formula One race teams conduct such expeditions.
- The third kind I call exploratory projects. In these the finish line is a rather vague ideal and you know it will move around while you are in-process. The path through the project is discovered as time passes and knowledge accumulates. Your strategy here is to learn --- faster than things are changing. This is the type of project most current companies must manage in the age of hypercompetition. He Twho learns fastest, wins. This is the situation. The problem is that the relative incidence of projects is 5% Construction, 35% Expedition and 60% Exploration whereas the PM methods are about the opposite and I know of zero tools for Expedition or Exploration projects although Todd Hearn may have discovered some as he related to us this morning.
- The kind of project you must manage is determined by the type of therapy appropriate for the patient. Does the therapy call for "Two Aspirins and a nights sleep," a Research Laboratory or an Emergency Room? In other words, to what degree is innovation required? The Xtreme manager; must have excellent acuity -- an ability to discern – is alert for instability -- the rate of change the project will encounter. and is aware of indeterminancy -- the nasty unpredictables that seem to arise when people are part of the project. The Xtreme Manager organizes the project as a goal-seeking system. A GSS has inputs such as Demands, Resources and Time and produces outputs such as Deliverables or Responses and, in the interim, Status Reports. These inform the sponsors and avoid them pulling up the flowers to see if the roots are growing. A third output is Learning. Any project that does not surprise its participants and give them the opportunity to learn is best left to others. In order to be goal-seeking the project must have six ingredients: A Goal, Action Triggers, Energy, Competency, Statusing and Feedback. Each project is conducted in an environment of Culture, Business Climate and Competing Goals. These may be helpful or toxic. And Disturbances of all kinds also occur. A GSS is measured by Goal Attainment, Sensitivity to Disturbance and Stability Limits. To successfully cope with expeditionary or exploratory situations a project must be organized as a goal-seeking system. This does not guarantee success because there is still the people ingredient but it is a necessary condition for success.
- The energy in a Goal-seeking System is partly electrical, mechanical and chemical but is mostly people-based. Every participating person brings a great deal of energy in the form of FEAR to a project. This is negative energy. Negative energy will bring a project down to a heartbeart of thirty six or even lower. The Xtreme Manager transforms this energy into Enthusiasm through a process of helping each individual exercise his or her three levels of natural being. The fundamental level is doing work and the enthusiasm feedback is Quality . At the next level is continuous improvement -- getting better -- the source of self respect . At the top level every human wants meaning in their lives. Every project is an ideal opportunity to let each participant experience all three levels of being. And to garner great amounts of enthusiasm. Projects involving software are especially hazardous. Software is the other 90% of the project iceberg. You are the Titanic. Software people love what I call the Bathysphere method of software development. They want to take the requirements specification, lots of junk food and a few friends while they submerge more than twenty fathoms so that the sea state whipped up by Sponsors changing their minds will not perturb them. They want you to wait patiently for several months while they do "never mind" at which time they gleefully deliver something that is largely unrecognizable. The Xtreme PM always knows how to kink their air hose. It may take a while for them to surface. And it may take time for their eyes to adjust to the light when they do surface. But if you kink their air hose they will come up for air. Then remember that they are fearful. Help them get started up the Meaning Ladder and they will never want to submerge again.
- To decide about therapy one must be clear about the prescription. A number of years ago the General Electric Company made Large, Steam-powered Turbines in Schenectady, New York. The had a design engineering group that produced great big size E drawings and a machine shop that was thousands of feet away. The shop used these drawings to set up the milling machines that made airfoil-shaped turbine blades, actually called buckets. The buckets, ranged from about 2 X 8 inches up to 6 X 36 inches. In order to improve the response time to customer orders GE decided to discontinue hauling big drawings around by installing a high resolution video system. One side had a camera in the print cage while the other side had high-resolution monitors at the milling machine locations. This multi-million dollar system was impressive. The milling machine operators could set their micrometers from the displayed image. Then they would transform the micrometer readings into control dial settings on their new, computer-controlled milling machines. However, during the several months it took to get this new system specified, built, installed and operational the machine operators came to understand that each buckets could be described by only 23 parameters. They made charts and placed them on the computer control consoles with the 23 settings for each type of bucket. They no longer needed the size E drawings nor the high resolution video system. The moral of this story is: A system must be designed and built not for the situation that exists but for the situation that the system will cause when it is eventually activated. But wait, we are not talking about Project Management anymore, are we? We are talking about the artifacts that the project must produce. A well managed project that produces the wrong product is not a good project. A well managed project needs more than Project Management
- What does this mean? Your customers think the ideal project is instantaneous and costs zero dollars. They only tolerate the project in order to get their Mission System. There are two systems here. The Mission System is one. The Project System which gestates the Mission System is the other. If there are two systems to be managed we would be well advised to have two managers, especially if we are in expeditionary or exploratory projects. We need a Project Manager and a System Manager. The System Manager is concerned about the deliverables – the mission system—from its Sponsor’s Needs to its Operational Acceptance. The PM is concerned about the people, process, schedules, budgets and vigilance that it takes to build whatever the System Manager wants to build. In automotive industry terminology, the System Manager is responsible for the car. The Project Manager is responsible for building and operating the factory that materializes the car. Xtreme projects need both roles -- Project Manager and System Manager -- and needs them to work in a dyadic manner. More about dyads when we get to Step Ten..
- Xtreme Management is still measured in terms of money, elapsed time and quality. The good managers know that managing by percentage doesn't scale. On a ten thousand dollar project you can manage to the nearest 1% which is equivalent to $100 dollars or one day or 10 latent errors. But as the project gets 10X larger you cannot continue to manage to the nearest 1%. Because that would permit variances of $1,000, 10 days or 100 bugs and such variances would not be acceptable. Rather, as the project gets bigger the acceptable margin of error often gets smaller. So an Xtreme Manager, when entering the gambling hall of big projects decides how much he is willing to lose and manages at that granularity.
- Knowledge guru's tell us that there are · things we know and · things we don't know and · things that we don't know we don't know. What hurts us is not what we don't know nor even what we don't know we don't know. What hurts us most is what we know that ain't so . The biggest problem with most projects is that they start with REQUIREMENTS. I have never been able to determine the source of the notion of starting with requirements but this notion is everywhere. Worse than Manitoba mosquitoes in June. And it just ain’t so. If you want to run an Xtreme project -- successfully --- start by writing the Acceptance Spec. Why? The answer is simple. You can't be first to finish or finish first if you don't know what the finish line looks like and where it is. The Acceptance Spec is the description of the finish line.
- In the late '70's Prof. Halstead's book, Software Physics, introduced the notion of Level of Language. He showed that certain programs could be expressed in one language with less human effort than in another language. Nobody paid much attention. In the early '80's Fedsim, a small bureau in the US federal government, selected a broad set of programs typical of DoD systems, coded them in various languages and counted the human expressions required for each. The results were significant. Nobody paid much attention. In the early '90's Motorola asked Larry Putnam to describe what a software development project would look like if it was doing Six Sigma work. Six Sigma means only one error in every 3.4 million opportunities for error. Considering that current software exhibits about one error per one thousand source lines of code the Six Sigma standard is quite challenging. Larry had to do some extrapolation to get to six sigma but his results indicated that a typical project, today, with nine month cycle time and a peak staffing of 40 would, if done at six sigma quality level, take less than three months by one person. My extrapolation of his extrapolation indicates that the Level of Language will have to be about 20X the FedSim example or about zero point two. This is feasible. Nobody pays much attention. Incidentally, during this study Larry showed that if anyone reached the SEI CMM™ Level 5 they would be doing only about 2.5 sigma work. Hardly world class. Where is Level 6 and Level 7? Why don't people pay attention? I think it is because they are focused on programming and making programming better instead of focusing on making programming unnecessary. An Xtreme Manager finds work that can be deleted. That is innovation. So I agree with Colin when he cautions against relying on bleeding edge technology if you don’t have to. However, the other side of the coin is that you must make sure the technology you are going to use is sufficient for the problem you are trying to solve. We could not have put a man on the moon with propeller-driven craft.
- Knowledge and enthusiasm come only in those strange packages called people. Not all people have what is needed but you can''t get these ingredients anywhere else. So the Xtreme Manager knows how to get knowledgeable, enthusiastic people and how to let them flourish. Most Project Managers are simply wardens of Adult Detention Fa cilities. But the Xtreme PM knows that It’s the People . This is not a mysterious art. Prof. Rudolph Starkermann reduced it to a repeatable practice several years ago while at the University of Nova Scotia. Nobody paid much attention. Watch this. In computer systems, for example, when another processor is added to a system only about 0.8 relative processor power is gained. In the case of humans the characteristic curve is more non-linear. But the central phenom is that a workgroup size of more than 4 is the point of diminishing marginal utility. Another factor is more dramatic. That is the effect of interpersonal style within the group. Excellent style can outperform poor style by over five fold. The intriguing part of these curves is the area denoted as Unexplored Knowledge Management territory. Perhaps a ten-fold improvement in output could be obtained.
- At any rate, as the systemic control mode is instilled in participants they acquire the ability to collaborate in smaller groups which seems to simultaneously avoid corrosive interpersonal style conflicts. As a result, increasingly difficult pursuit challenges are met with relatively less cost of the controller. This is change proficiency. So stop working at 10% efficiency and start en- joy -ing your projects. Clearly you can have a five-fold advantage on others and perhaps a twenty-fold advantage. This strange hump at the two person point is indicative of the dyadic relationship between a sympatico couple. We have all experienced it. What would your projects be like if the whole project operated at SQRT 2? That would be fourteen to twenty times better than most current projects.
- In closing [Yes, This is the last step. Only eleven. Remember, Xtreme Projects always finish early.] I would like to return once more to Billy Mills who is now an author, mentor, youth teacher and lecturer. In one of his many talks he said, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I want to share with you that Crazy Horse is my hero, and I want to tell you why. When I was a nine-year-old youngster on the reservation on Pine Ridge my dad told me of this great war chief, the spiritual leader among the Lakota. Crazy Horse challenged me to follow my dreams. He set a pattern to help us follow our dream. Crazy Horse was a warrior. I want to explain the concept of a warrior to you. I’ve traveled to eighty different countries, roughly half a dozen times around the world, and through sports I had the opportunity to meet athletes throughout the world who are warriors. They fit the pattern of Crazy Horse.
- A warrior leads his or her life in four areas. Number one, the warrior assumes self-responsibility . And as the warrior becomes responsible for himself or others the warrior never forgets humility . That we are no better nor no less than one another. So the warrior assumes self-responsibility, then the warrior reaches out and helps other people become responsible. The third thing a warrior learns is the power of giving . And the first thing you learn to give is respect for yourself so you will respect one another. And a warrior takes responsibility, humility, the power of giving and centers that around his or her core of spirituality . Therein lies a warrior. The warrior has four desires to meet in his or her life: The warrior wants to be unique . The warrior wants to belong . The warrior wants to make a creative difference to society. The warrior wants to understand and to promote understanding . Those concepts were given to me by my dad as he explained Crazy Horse to me. They have served me well and I strive to serve them well."
- As each of us takes on new projects, on behalf of Billy Mills I challenge you to go beyond Project Management into Xtreme Management of Projects. And take with you not only the mastery of technology but also the spirit of Crazy Horse . It’s not about workflow or maturity. It is about intent, desire and decision flow. Above all, it is really about people. Let every one of them help win . Thank you