garygilliland:

Imagine, your waiting for a meeting. You’re told the person your meeting will be delayed by 15 minutes. Ten minutes later your told to wait another 15 minutes. Then your asked to wait another 15 minutes and so on until you’ve wasted hours.

The project management equivalent is what I call the death by a thousands cuts. That is someone constantly tweaking their budget and timeline upwards. They never ask for anything big. Just another 10%, an extra week, one more person to solve the problem, until the project becomes unrecognisable.

Constant tweaking is caused by one of two things:-

• They are unwilling to present changes as single batch because they’re afraid they will look incompetent.
• They were unable to present changes as a single batch because they are incompetent.

When a project manager does this they damage their reputation,  they hurt other projects in a programme and they strain finance and resources throughout the organisation.

A project manager has to have the ability and courage to prepare and present a plan which encompasses all of the changes within their control. Don’t make people suffer through the death by a thousand cuts, tell them it’s going to cost an arm and leg. You won’t receive a medal but at least you can come out with a reputation for being realistic and honest.

Stuff happens, that’s a fact of life for a project manager. How you react to that stuff is what separates the good from the bad.

Having spent too many years working with consultants from the big firms I can sympathise with the ideas George Orwell presented in his 1946 essay on Politics and the English Language. Swap out politics and replace it with consultant, business or marketing speak and you can see that the trend for poor ideas disguised with fancy writing which Orwell identified sixty years ago is still going strong.

Three quotes in particular have stuck with me

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

“….language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought”

“Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

If you recognise any of these things in your own communications then maybe it’s time to change your writing or examine the ideas behind it.

George Orwell: Politics and the English Language

“You think your users want to use your software. They do not want to use your software. They want to ‘have used’ your software.”

David Platt

If only more developers would learn that this the truth.

Most software is not an experience to be enjoyed but a tool to be used. Make the tool, simple and efficient so that the job can be completed quickly and painlessly.

Experiments by the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen have shown that people who are lost actually do walk in circles. Jan Souman explains that

“People cannot walk in a straight line if they do not have absolute references, such as a tower or a mountain in the distance, or the Sun or Moon, and often end up walking in circles.”

This seems likes a reasonable metaphor for a project that doesn’t start out with clear goals which the team can work towards.

In their own words Project H Design is

“a charitable organization that supports, creates, and delivers life-improving humanitarian product design solutions. We champion industrial design as a tool to address social issues, a vehicle for global life improvement, and a catalyst for individual and community empowerment”

In Adobe’s Inspire E-zine Emily Pilloton founder of Project H Design, outlines her 5 tenet credo for a revolution in design which drives the work of her organisation. Emily is fortunate, in that her work is focused on more noble, humanitarian goals than most of us. Nevertheless the framework she outlines in the articles provides a basis for projects in the commercial world.

There is no chapter without action

In short, stop talking and start doing.

Design with not for

a process of "co-creation" is an absolutely necessary approach that makes clients not just recipients of services, but partners in the development of solutions that are appropriate and sustainable over time

If we’re sitting next to clients, hashing out details of what’s really important to them, we’ll find ourselves pleasantly surprised when our final, co-created designs, are not just good by our own standards, but great solutions for real people.

Start locally, scale globally

… scalability represents a new approach to mass production—by building in adaptability to our single solutions, we ensure replication that is both large in scale and personal to each of our end users

Document, share, and measure

To document, share, and measure means to diligently document every step of your design process (so that it can be improved and replicated), to measure its impact both quantitatively and qualitatively, and to share those solutions (along with the documentation and metrics) with other designers and users. The credo reads: "We keep a record of all work as a means to measure, and ask for feedback as a means to constantly improve. Our designs are never "done." We share practices between chapters so that we never have to start from zero.

Design systems, not stuff

“designing systems that can be adapted, replicated, and implemented, by users, in sustainable and infinitely relevant ways.”

"Systems over stuff" means not designing a bridge, but finding a way to cross a river—looking at the root problem rather than a quick fix, and thinking beyond the material

Take the time to read the full article and see what impact the framework has on your thinking for your next project.

“PowerPoint has clearly decreased the quality of the information provided to the decision-maker, but the damage doesn’t end there. It has also changed the culture of decision-making.”

“Because the PowerPoint culture allows decision-makers to schedule more briefs per day, many type-A personalities seek to do so. Most organizations don’t need more decisions made at higher levels.”

“… it creates a belief that complex issues can, and should, be reduced to bullets.”

“… most of the people who actually see the brief get an incomplete picture of the ideas presented.”

Essay: Dumb-dumb bullets – July 2009 – Armed Forces Journal – Military Strategy, Global Defense Strategy

I was lucky enough to hear the chairman of a large pharma company speak about the company’s innovation strategy. The most important thing he said was that the company was a jumbo jet flying on 4 large engines but those engines were failing. Changes in regulation, markets and limits in science mean that to survive the company needs become a jumbo with 100 smaller engines.

This reflects the changes in the pharmaceutical industry where until recently the mega corps relied on a few blockbuster products for between 80% and 90% of sales. Previously the company rejected smaller potential products as they were considered to be too niche. These products were often sold off to small and medium sized pharma companies who made a very nice living from them but mega corp considered inconsequential.

The change in thinking from a few blockbusters to a portfolio which embraces more niche products across a range of areas is an acknowledgement not only that science has reached limits but that wider portfolio reduces risk. 

There is lesson we could all learn here. How many times have you dropped an idea simply because it wasn’t world changing enough or because it was in the wrong niche for your organisation? This type of thinking is stopping organisations maximising the ideas that exist within the organisation.

• We live a global economy where niches that were impractical because we could only service them locally are now accessible globally.
• Companies with a diverse portfolio are more resilient to political, economic, social and technological changes. Not only does a diverse portfolio improve resiliency but it actually increases opportunities for innovation because of the matrix / network effect of combining ideas from multiple areas.

I know that I’m changing the metaphor from the start but fishing with a single line may occasionally bring you the kudos of landing 600lb marlin but a net will catch 1000 herring everyday. Which would you rely on to feed your family?

I’ve been both a requestor and an approver of ideas so over the years I’ve seen and done good and bad things. Regardless of whether your audience is the internal management team, customers or finance people the basics of getting your idea across are the same. You need to consider and combine four elements: Timing, Positioning, Tactics and  Psychology.

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My current project means that I’ve been researching service / experience design so my radar has been tuned to look out for examples of good and bad service design. Whilst I haven’t come across many stand-out examples of good service, I have found one from the what not to do side.

I pulled into the car park at the DHL Belfast depot to discover it was full. My initial thought was it was full of customers or at least the customer bays were full. So I parked up about fifty yards from the door. When I reached the door I discovered that there were only two other customers, in other words there were no customer parking bays or staff were allowed to park in them. What happened next was so poor I actually wrote out the whole conversation when I got to the car.

Me: “Hello, I’m here to collect a parcel which couldn’t be…”

DHL Man: “Name!”

Me: “Gilliland”

DHL Man: “Docket!”

DHL Man disappears. A few minutes later he returns with a large box.

DHL Man: “ID!”

I hand over my license, he copies down the details and then pushes the form over to me and points.

DHL Man: “Sign and date!”

The Box is lifted on to the counter and the man turns his back to complete his paper work.

The other customer finished with a different assistant at the same and followed me through the door into the car park. As we walked through the car park she turned to me and said only half jokingly ”What did we do wrong?”

Aside from not considering the needs of customers i.e. not having customer parking spaces near the door and then not checking to see whether I was capable of carrying a large box. They add staff who apparently resent customers.

All in all a wonderful experience.

The Institute of Directors and Barclays have released a report on the state of forward thinking / planning in the UK. The report provides an analysis of who’s doing what, what’s stopping them and how the situation can be improved.

Most usefully the report provides advice on how to improve competitiveness by introducing forward thinking into an organisation.

The report’s advice is usefully summarised in the follow 15 point checklist.

1. Take time to think about whether or not your organisation really does examine the future external environment as well as it could.
2. Look back; see if you can identify changes in the external environment which have had significant impact on your organisation. How would you have acted differently if you’d anticipated these changes?
3. Discuss your findings from (1) and (2) with senior management. Expect negativity from colleagues who assume forward thinking to be too difficult. Encourage them to identify potential opportunities lost in the past.
4. Identify the key barriers to forward thinking in your organisation – cost, in-house skills, corporate culture etc.
5. Decide how you can overcome these barriers – commit resources, cooperate with other organisations etc.
6. Consider teaming up with trade associations or group together with other forward thinking enterprises in ‘Forward Thinking Clusters’, hosting events or seminars to discuss the future external environment and its impact on your specific sector. Talking to your peers may suggest solutions or resources that you otherwise would not have considered.
7. Seek partnerships with others, from banks and industry organisations to conferences and think tanks in order to develop forward thinking.
8. Provide incentives for staff and customers to encourage the development of actionable ideas based on their analyses of the future external environment.
9. Adopt on-line tools such as forums for staff and customers to easily contribute to a debate on the future environment and its potential impact. These tools may be internal or external – available to the wider public at large.
10. For SMEs with limited resources, focus on how to exploit freely available material like internet sources. Analyse US websites covering your sector. Economies of scale in the US mean that many sectors have trade bodies and analysis unavailable in the UK. Speak to your bank about obtaining sector reports they produce.
11. Identify academics with expertise in different areas of forward thinking, particularly for those that will have the greatest impact on your market. Consider offering them non-executive directorships, and look to their work for inspiration.
12. Make sure somebody at Board level has ‘ownership’ of forward thinking. Within the executive, delegate a Head of Forward Thinking even if this is only part of their role.
13. Review the process by which forward thinking is absorbed into the creation of a corporate strategy. Check that forward thinking is effectively integrated within strategy.
14. Explore the various forward thinking tools (scenario planning, economic forecasts etc) you wish to use. Question what each provides and then prioritise the most important for early adoption within your strategy.
15. Create a climate where alternative viewpoints challenging received wisdom are encouraged. Make sure that the views of senior management don’t smother ideas from elsewhere in the organisation.

Forward Thinking Report