good afternoon everybody um I
I have gotten from Stuart that we have
people from all around the world I
myself I'm based in Dubai so it's the
start of the evening right here um but
it's it's a great pleasure for me to be
here with you guys and to talk about my
one of my favorite subjects closing the
gap between strategy and
execution and uh as as Stuart was
mentioned last time I gave a keynote on
this subject it was in the largest
project management conference this side
of the Atlantic Ocean in Saudi Arabia
last
June and I was really extremely
surprised by the reception to be honest
and I've had a conversation with him
right before going on stage we talked
about the impostor
syndrome and I could not understand why
people were interesting in in listening
to us because those concept that are
laid out in my slides today they are so
simple it's just common sense but hey
here we are it seems like closing that
strategy to execution Gap is really the
holy grail for organizations in today's
hyper competitive
world so I'd like to start with a study
in 2019 the Harvard Business Review
published a report in association with
the bright light initiative it was
called testing organizational boundaries
to improve strategy
execution they've surveyed more than
1600 Executives worldwide and they found
out that only one out of five
organization achieved more than 80% of
their strategic
targets I'm just going to let that sink
a bit because mind you those numbers
were pre in a world that was much much
less complex to navigate and the bad
news nothing has changed since
then I mentioned earlier how simple
those Concepts were and I was not
exaggerating together we're going to go
through three simple steps that will
help you and your organization to
understand where you may be going wrong
are you
ready first we will need to understand
the problem statement
I hear you asking why is that important
well let me answer you with a quote I
love quotes Abraham Lincoln once said
give me six hours to chop down a tree
and I will spend the first hour
sharpening the
AE and if that Parable is not explicit
enough let me quote Albert
Einstein if I were given one hour to
save the planet I would spend 59 minutes
defining the problem and one minute
resolving it do you see where I'm going
with
this how often have you seen resources
wasted in your organization trying to
solve the wrong problem I'm pretty sure
everybody here today has one or more
examples of
that so once you're reasonably show that
you've narrowed down your problem
statement to something that is accurate
or
correct you will like most
organization invoke project
management and project management is
what it's preparing the solution for the
organization but where most
organizations struggle it's in the third
and last concept we'll go through
today preparing the organization for the
solution with the help of the change
management
discipline you see project management
and change management are two sides of
the same coin and the organizations that
are the most successful at executing the
strategy are the ones that Master those
two disciplines and perform them
seamlessly
together
so let's dig a little bit deeper into
those three concepts will you we will
look at the capabil of our organization
in relation to project
management to program management and to
portfolio
management but first we will look at the
capability of the organization in
relation to strategic
planning this pyramid here on the left
is what a standard strategic
architecture looks like in most models
and in most
organizations this is where the Journey
of the strategy formulation starts
stars and I want you to look at that
triangle here at the top of the
pyramid it will be labeled your mission
statement your vision or your purpose
semantics don't really matter every
system every individual and every
organization in the universe have that
in common they exist for a
reason every subsequent layer in the
pyram
is a manifestation of what I call a why
how
relationship you decompose or break down
each layer by asking yourself how you
will deliver the above layer and
similarly you can justify each layer by
asking yourself why it exists in
relation to the above layer that simple
relation enables you to constant L check
the validity of your formulated
strategy so as you can see your
questioning
techniques or more precisely your
ability to ask the right questions will
ensure that your definition of the
problem statement is as close as
possible to the
truth another super powerful
tool so Fred just before you leave that
so one one one interesting thing here is
um I'll do it in the form of a question
how how often do you see that the
leadership team at each level in that
hierarchy actually know what the
strategy is and can articulate it and
and crucially do they agree on what that
strategy is across the whole
organization um well to be to be honest
with you I very rarely have seen a
complete alignment from the top to the
bottom of the pyramid right so mostly
everybody will be align on what the
mission statement what the vision of the
organization is and what the Strategic
objectives are but as soon as you start
prompting those questions the why
how very few people in the organization
will be able to articulate that
relationship between the different
layers and that really is
indicative of of of a huge challenge I
would say in that when it comes to
defining a portfolio of projects that
will sustain that strategy Executives
will be unable to really formulate that
that portfolio in a meaningful
way and this is one of the big
challenges right is that um you know
very often people will jump straight
into what projects should we do how
should we do them are we going to be
waterfall or agile are we going to be do
that right and they're asking the wrong
questions because if you haven't
sharpened your
axe right so you so you don't know what
that you how that Vision translates into
the next layer down and how they the
goals at that layer down translate to
the next layer down and if you if your
leadership team at each level don't
agree that then it's really really hard
to formulate the right
solution absolutely you're absolutely
hitting the nail on the head there and
and this is where you will see you know
most most probably an existing portfolio
of
projects um some of them may be Loosely
aligned to some strategic objectives but
mostly they have absolutely no relation
it's just that they're here and you know
we've been working on that for the past
five years and we spend that many
million pounds on those projects we
can't just kill them so we just need to
continue delivering them until they're
completed because we're like 85% or 9%
complete and the people who are working
on the Strategic alignment so I'm here
I'm talking about the the the pmo people
mostly they will be asked to arbitrarily
or artificially hook those projects onto
elements of the strategy to to somehow
justify them um which is absolutely the
the wrong idea and the the wrong
approach there you know I've had some
fights in my previous organization with
some executive um sponsors and they were
like you know we spent like 10 million
dollars on this
project yeah okay fine but um what
purpose does it
serve um no we don't really know because
the guy who initiated it left the
company three years ago there you fine
where's the project manager yeah he left
the organization two years ago okay but
uh so what do we do with it well you
know with we're 90% complete we may as
well just finish it there you go but
what it means with with a $10
million cost Baseline 10% to complete is
$1 million so you've wasted $9 million
on something that is not align to your
strategy but you prefer to waste another
10th rather than saving one million by
killing the
project and this is this is why I'm just
going to wave the flag for a minute so
so this is what transparent Choice does
better probably than anyone else in the
world is this prioritization piece and
the alignment piece and uh you I see a
couple of people on here from from from
Dubai which is where I spent the weekend
and I can't believe Fred and I were
probably within about about 10
kilometers of each other and we didn't
actually get a chance to meet up this
weekend which was very frustrating but
never mind um but we we spent we spent a
couple hours talking about how to do
this right and it's hard it's hard to
get this kind of alignment um but it's
and and it's so hard that you know the
PMI did some research and and found that
20% of a typical portfolio is so badly
aligned with the goals of the
organization that it should be stopped
20% so you know coming back Fred to your
to your um your $10 million Baseline
that means $2 million of that is is
allocated on stuff that's not moving you
forward and that's and it's worse than
wasting 2 million because you should
been spending that 2 million on
something that drove a a strong Roi
right so so maybe let's say it was a 3X
Roi you should have got six million
instead of wasting two million um so
it's a huge it's a huge thing it's a
huge it's a huge challenge so so if this
is something if you recognize that come
come talk to me afterwards and we'll
sort you out um uh but Fred sorry don't
let me interrupt too much no it's not an
interruption it's just it's just adding
more emphasis is on my points and and
where you're absolutely right is that I
haven't seen a single organization and
I've been doing this for a very long
time in probably 20 26 years now I
haven't seen any single organization in
any industry in any continent I've
worked on that is doing this right and
there is always the the reason is very
simple actually it's always
ego that is going in the way because
there is one individual at some point in
time who beted the organization's
resources on a
project and for them to decide to kill
this project means oh maybe it's an
admission of failure maybe I was wrong
in deciding this project should go
ahead but it's it's absolutely not true
because the
relevance of a strategic portfolio of
projects is extremely time bound and
what is what is relevant to your
organization today may not be relevant
to your organization in a year's time so
you need to keep this
agility and I'm not big on on agile
project management for every type of
project but you need to keep this
agility in acknowledging when the
circumstances of your organization are
changing that
maybe the
make of the build of your strategic
portfol folio needs also to be revised
and that may imply waste that may imply
some projects to be killed or
potentially just postponed to a later
stage if they become relevant again um
but but overall I would say it requires
executive
courage yeah and and and you know I
think this is all tied up blaner asked a
question a few minutes ago uh which is
how do you handle resistance from the
team to adopt project management SL pmo
processes and I think you know at the
end of the day you can give them
whatever arguments you like but
fundamentally it comes down to the fact
that most
Executives Executives don't care about
projects right they don't care about
project methodologies and all that kind
of good stuff all they care about is can
I execute my business are you giving me
the business results that get me there
and I think and I think what you so if
you want them to adopt pmo if you want
them to adopt project management then
you have to start here by understanding
and and and working with the the
leadership team to join the dots between
the vision at the top and how that
vision gets executed through projects
right and then project management and
pmo is all about increasing the
return and reducing the risk to make
sure that you are able to execute your
your strategy effectively it's not about
executing projects it's about executing
strategy which is Frederick if I if I
can put words in your mouth that's kind
of why you named the the talk the way
you did right yeah absolutely you know
um and if you look at the disciplines
that are involved into into that uh that
that work project management is
about executing things
right but portfolio management is about
executing the right things
but they're not mutually exclusive any
organization that aims at being
successful needs to be good at both the
disciplines you need to do the right
projects the right
way exactly that exactly that and and
you know that covers actually the
question from a shock which is about
what happens when you get an urgent
parachuted project and and the answer to
that is if you have a really good
framework that to align projects with
your strategy then when that very often
these urgent parachuted projects
actually they might be urgent but
they're not important and so when you
have a good framework for doing for for
mapping out this triangle right when
then you can very quickly answer the
question where does this new project
fit is it more important how good is it
really how good is it really right is it
more important than the stuff that's
already in the plate or less and if it's
more important then what are we going to
take off the plate and and it's not your
job as a pmo to make that decision it's
your job to help the leadership team
understand the consequences so yes we
can do this
project and the consequences of that is
that we'll have to stop these three
projects over here would you like to go
ahead right yeah yeah absolutely and and
this is what so portfolio management is
all about that portfolio management is
about starting stopping accelerating or
deferring
projects because there
is there are very limited organizations
in the world that work with infinite
resources almost every organization if
not all will have a finite amount of
resources they can expand on Project
work which means that if you can execute
10 large projects within a year
with the resources that you have and you
have an 11th project that comes in that
means one has to drop
out right and it's very easy in most
organizations I've seen it's whoever
shouts the
loudest right because again the the the
pmo Personnel will most likely not have
the relevant authority to go at the
right level of the organization and
discuss about the real stuff so they
will just take one project out the one
that where the stakeholders are the
least um I would say aggressive or
assertive where the right answer to that
is really to take it to the boardroom
and and and as you as you rightly
mentioned Stuart explain what the
consequences are what we do in our world
is we enable decision makers to make
inform decisions nothing more nothing
nothing less we are not decision makers
in the pmo space we are not decision
makers couldn't agree more beautifully
put so yeah at this stage I just wanted
to to mention a second tool that I found
extremely
powerful uh in terms of understanding
the problem statement and validating the
problem statement and some of you you
may already be familiar with that it's
called the five
wise um so the five wise is a technique
that has been created by a Japanese
engineer K taiichi
Ono that guy was considered as the
father of the Toyota production system
he inspired Lean Manufacturing in the US
he inspired Lan 6 Sigma and the Seven
Wast and let me just give you one
example of the questioning technique
here right
so on the production line there is a
robot that
stops why did the robot
stop well the circuit overloaded and
caused a fuse to
blow now if you remember what I said at
the very beginning we are here in the
first stage that is validating the
problem statement so my problem
statement after asking the first
question is the circuit overloaded and
caused the fuse to blow
but if you start defining a solution for
this problem how confident are you that
you're actually addressing the right
problem so his concept is to ask a
second time the question why but why did
the circuit
overload well there was insufficient
lubrication of the bearings so they
locked
up why was there insufficient
lubrication on the bearings the oil pump
on the robot is not circulating
sufficient oil why why did the pump not
circulate sufficient oil the pump intake
was clogged with metal
shavings why was the intake clogged with
metal shavings because there was no
filter on the
pump so you could go on and on right but
after some point in devising his method
he defined that five layers of
questioning was the adequate level to
get to a reasonable root cause for a
problem so in that example asking why
five times in the sequence allowed us to
get to the root cause of a problem being
there was no filter on the
pump of course real life examples in
your own organization might be more
complex but conceptually this is as
close as you would get to your real
problem statement there is no filter on
the
pump now had you stopped earlier in the
process you would have get a float
version of the problem statement leading
you to implement the solution to the
wrong problem you may have improved the
lubrication
system added liquid cooling to the
Circuit or increase the pump capacity
where all you needed was
a filter on the
pump so one of the biggest challenges
that you will face in your
organization in addition to
understanding really what the problem
statement here is is that typically the
people who will work on formulating a
winning strategy that's triangle on the
left hand side they will usually work in
isolation from the people who are
experts at the execution the pmo people
on the right hand side
and because these two category of
peoples don't usually work well together
the formulation and the execution may be
extremely disconnected we talked earlier
about artificial links and I'm pretty
sure that everybody here in the room
will have had examples of that you have
an existing portfolio of projects you
have a change in the strategy you have
to arbitrarily decide where do those
projects
hook on the
strategy see you have to understand that
the skill sets involved in being a
subject matter expert in formulating a
strategy and being a subject matter
expert in executing a strategy are
extremely different so unless those two
categories of individual are in constant
contact they mentor and advise each
other they Challenge and question each
other and they involve all the relevant
resources to make sure the content of
the strategy formulated is accurate and
supports the purpose of the
organization you're really not off to a
good
start so at this stage I want to quote a
second study that really marked my mind
in
2017 The Economist published a report
titled closing the Gap designing and
delivering a strategy that works in this
study they surveyed 500 senior
Executives from companies with annual
revenues of more than1 billion
do
90% of the respondents admitted that
they fail to reach all the Strategic
goals because they don't Implement
wealth and 53% of them even agreed that
in inadequate delivery capability leaves
them unnecessarily exposed to
competitors so what does that
mean that means that most companies
struggle to bridge the gap between
strategy and
execution but also most of them will
blame it on the execution and try to fix
their project management practice when
this is not the real problem they're
facing in reality most companies that
are successful at implementing the
strategies are the ones that are the
most Adept at tring
transforming and
adapt and Fred if I can jump in just for
a second so to quote another couple of
bits of research so a couple of uh bits
of academic research this time um that
that looked at this link between
performance and strategy execution
specifically alignment of um uh
alignment with
strategy and the performance of
organizations in in these studies was
very strongly explained by the degree of
alignment between the execution and the
strategy right so so I'm pushing it a
little bit I'm interpret I'm reading
into it a little bit but it almost feels
like the execution it's the link between
strategy and execution that's more
important than the actual strategy right
it's linking the two together because
you can have the best strategy in the
world if you don't link it to execution
you're not going to get the results if
you have an okay strategy but you
execute it really well you're GNA get
results you're gonna get more results
yeah definitely so so it's that link
between the strategy and the execution
that's absolutely critical that you were
talking about there so I I I just wanted
to hammer that home that this isn't
something Frederick's made up right this
is this is real there's research that
validates this stuff uh independent
academic research so you know the the
stuff done by The Economist was
sponsored by the PMI uh which is great
that's that's pretty independent as well
so that's Fairly reliable so there
there's a bunch of research behind this
that that that tells us that this isn't
just a bunch of highly paid Consultants
trying to make more money right this is
real this is a real
effect yeah and and also you know I I
don't really have visibility at this
stage on the chat and the questions that
could be asked but how many many of you
today have faced something similar to
that I mean how many of you can relate
to what we're talking
about you have a strategy that may be
absolutely wonderfully formulated on the
paper but then the portfolio of project
that executes it is absolutely not
aligned to it or you know in in in my
previous organization as well I mean
some of the Strategic objectives had
literally zero projects attached to them
I faced in one of my past
organizations um
82% of the
organizational strategic objectives had
zero projects attached to
them 82 person that means 18% of the
strategy is delivered through the
portfolio of projects and
82% is delivered through business as
usual I mean it's not rocket science but
that does not make a lot of sense to
me
great so so I'm just digging out some of
the references guys I'll I'll paste them
into the chat people are asking about
the references Fred so I've got I've got
the PMI one that you used and I'll I'll
dig out mine as
well so so yeah you know if if you look
at the semantics transforming
adapting the answer was right in front
of my of my face right
change and change management literally
is the third pillar I wanted to talk
about
today every strategy impos a change in
some degree and that change needs to be
managed so in in
1909 a scientist called van Gip
introduced a definition of change as the
action of going from
from a current state to a future State
while passing through a
transition okay so in our case the
organization before the strategy gets
implemented the organization after the
new strategy is
implementing and that transition phase
while you're actually implementing the
uh new strategy
but this is this is where one of the
biggest challenges of our era lies and
if you're already familiar with this
subject of change management you will
know what I'm talking about but for the
others this might be a a
revelation organizations do not
change people
do so what you may consider as a very
simple change from a current state of
the organization to a future state of
the organization is in
reality a collective of dozens hundreds
thousands maybe
more individuals each going from their
own current state to their own future
State passing through their own
transition and when all of that change
all of that collection of individual
changes
is successfully managed your
organization will reach
success um
unfortunately this is not how things
happen naturally because individuals
naturally resist to change meaning that
when you start implementing something
new you will start losing people on the
way and that will start minimizing your
success and
in the absence of a proper change
management process you will lose so many
people on the way that you will
completely negate your
success and this is really what I mean
by preparing the organization for the
solution you may have the perfect
problem
statement your strategy well formulated
well defined you may have a perfectly
aligned portfolio of project to deliver
this
strategy you're preparing the solution
for the
organization but at the end you're not
preparing the organization for the
solution you may saturate your people
with unnecessary change you may lose
them through resistance and and um
denial and in that way
completely uh
anihilate your ability to deliver your
strategy
now in as as part of that Fred there's
there's a couple of questions floating
around in the chat um we don't have time
to do them all but that there's kind of
a there's kind of a theme with a couple
of them that's around um how do you get
Executives to step up and do their job
right so within a project that your
exact sponsor the owner call what they
will um they're there to make decisions
to make sure you get resources to and
and they're one of the key resources
have to do this change management right
to to drive it because they they have
the power to convene and to set goals
and all kinds of wonderful things so so
how do you as part how do you take not
just the organization at
the at the operational level but how do
you take your Executives on this journey
to to really engage in this this
transformation and manage it yeah it's
uh that's the that's the million dooll
question
steart um the unfortunately the answer
is different in every organization
because it's it's very largely related
to
people there are some commonalities that
I've seen over the years and one of
those commonality is that people don't
care about change management I literally
like two days ago I had a conversation
in my current organization with one of
the vice presidents and I was like well
how do you manage change oh you know you
have change control we have impact
assessments we have this we have that no
no no no no how do you manage change how
do you manage the impact on people how
do you manage the
adoption oh no we don't care about
that and and this and this is related to
what uh I don't know if anyone on the
session knows Laura Barnard um do do you
know Laura Frederick yeah I I remember
Laura very well yeah okay so this is
what Laura talks about as kind of the
the strategy execution gap which is
where you know lots of
pmos spend a lot of their time thinking
about you know spend 80% of the time
thinking about project management and
project process and project execution
but actually the Gap isn't at the
project level you've got project
managers that can do that the Gap is at
the portfolio level and the change kind
of very closely related to change
management is benefit realization and
execution of the benefit right yeah
they're sort of the same you can't you
can't separate those two um and um so so
this is again just I'm raising this not
to take the wind out of Frederick's sale
but to but to kind of hammer home this
isn't just something Fred's made up this
is this is something that the the the
people right at the top of the
profession hammering as hard as as they
can to to try and get a to change the
way we think about this stuff right as
As pmo Leaders our job isn't to execute
projects better our job is to do the
portfolio stuff and to make sure that
the the the mindset and the tools and
the capabilities are there to allow
people to manage that that change and
change management benefits realization
again that's it's kind of the same glued
together those two ideas you you you
that's an area that that pmos can often
had a lot of value because there is
precisely because there's resistance
right it needs someone to focus on it
and figure out how to break that
resistance um abely so you know answers
on a postcard please anyone who can
answer the million dollar
question yeah you know I mean we we're
laughing at that but this is really the
million dollar question and and people
who are Adept at answering that question
are actually much better positioned in
our industry than than
others but um um I would say that it is
not something that is very
natural and you need to engage with the
the the top layers of your
management um I'm currently working very
hard on my on my chief executive officer
I'm working very hard on my executive
directors so that they understand that
they are the change
agents and if they do not drive change
management from the top down there is
very little that we can do from the
bottom
up right so it's not that a framework
that only works top down will deliver
results but it's this combination of the
top down coming from the executives and
the bottom up coming from tactical
changes and and pmo
processes but both of those need really
to work in
conjunction so I I actually do have a
framework that I wanted to offer there
and and some of you who are familiar
with the change management may have
heard of that it's called the Adar model
so the Adar model has been um developed
by prai which is one of the leading or
organizations in change
management
and you you start by preparing the
approach then you manage the change and
then you sustain the outcomes and what I
really like about the atar model is
that
it's
sorry so the atar model is an
acronym it stands for
awareness desire knowledge ability and
reinforcement and this is really based
on psychological studies on human beings
and those are the successive steps each
and every human being will go through
when facing a change so the first
question will be steuart are you aware
that this change is
coming there is no point starting to
work on your ability to change if you're
not aware about the
change the second stage after the
awareness is built up is steart do you
want to
change so once I have strategies that
are put in place to raise your
awareness only then I can start working
on your
desire in the desire phase this is where
we are removing
resistance once we build your awareness
and your desire we're going to work on
your ability on your knowledge and then
your ability the knowledge is the
theoretical tools that are available to
you to actually implement the
change they in
turn become abilities so how do you turn
this theoretical knowledge into a
physical ability to embed the change and
once the change is
implemented how do we reinforce it how
do I stop you from going back into your
old ways and negate the benefit of the
change so it's it's theoretically very
simple right those
are sequences of steps every single
human being will go through so in theory
it's simple to
address I would say the complexity lies
in the fact that not everybody will go
through them at the same pace and for
the same amount of time which means
that depending on the complexity or the
size of your organization you will need
a lot more effort in understanding who
the people impacted are how they break
down into groups how those groups will
react to the change and how you can
actually U push them forward through the
atka model so that the ultimate of
objective of the atar model is really to
streamline the transition from the
current
phase to the Future
phase and it's extremely difficult to
put in place so I would say really a
world of ction change management is an
extremely challenging
implementation I would agree with that
so in the so
so there's a bit of a debate going on in
the chat Fred there's a bunch of people
on one side and I'm on the other so you
could you get to be judge so the the the
prevailing wind is how do you get exec
to care change because they don't care
they don't want to change they don't
they're not interested in change and and
I I think that's too simplistic I think
what they're interested in is getting
the results and they're not getting the
results they want today and what they
but they don't understand the link
between their behaviors the way the
organization set up the way incentives
are built they don't understand how
that's getting in the way of get them
getting results right so so when they
come in and they say you need more
templates and more process
right that's because they don't know
what works and why should they because
they're Executives they're not project
professionals so so what do you think do
do you think they do you think they
don't care or do you think it's more
that they
just think that you know they don't
appreciate what the what the route to
success looks
like so I
think look I I think there is not a
single individual that goes to work not
caring or wanting to do a bad job so as
much as we may be as project
professionals disgruntled with our
Executives uh we have to give them that
credit they genuinely want to to
succeed otherwise they would not be
sitting where they they sit right
but I I think they genuinely do
not
understand their own their own place in
the problem
statement and because they have a
preconceived visualization of the world
which is you know what my strategy is is
perfect if we don't succeed in
implementing it it is because of the
project management
method so so I think it's more it's more
a matter of ego and it's more a matter
of refusing to acknowledge their own
limitations um that that that really
goes in the way and unfortunately unless
you're an extremely skilled
professional at those three concepts
that I outlined the problem statement
project management and change management
you will struggle to describe how they
should be addressing the
problem and um there is no easy way for
that
um I would
say the right way of approaching it is
to really invite them to conversation
with people of different backgrounds of
different industries of different
organizations so that they do understand
that it's not them every organization
goes through the same
challenges but the way for those
organizations to address those
challenges is to accept that you know
there is more to it than what they
believe there
is and and really yeah go ahead yeah
sorry Fred so one one approach that I've
seen work really well is
to um start the pro you again this is a
change management process like any other
change management process yeah and so
you got so so a really good place to
start is is to engage the the your
executive team in in a conversation
about you know what do they
think is what's causing pain for them
right so is it the fact that we just
don't know how many projects we're doing
or is it the fact that you know nobody
can get
projects initiated or we never finish
projects or they take too long or
they're always have a budget whatever it
is but try to understand what the
biggest problem is for them and then
just focus on having a discussion about
what's the root cause just pick one or
two don't try and do them all don't try
and fix everything because you can't
right but pick one thing that the execs
that's really bothering them and then
and then do do the root cause analysis
on on that you know the five y's and
then present that root cause analysis
with a solution right so you say great
we've done the root cause analysis and
and actually projects aren't over over
over budget because or they're not being
delivered late because we've got
incompetent project managers we did the
five y's and we discovered that you know
the the actually the root cause is that
we have too many projects and our PR and
so the root cause of that is is that
we've got a weak prioritization process
let's fix the prioritization process
right and show you know get get
commitment around one thing show success
and and what that then does is it builds
confidence in
you as a leader it builds confidence in
you as someone that gets stuff done it
builds confidence in the pmo
organization and that lets you take the
next step right to pick the next thing
to fix so so I wouldn't try and fix
everything I would pick you know
prioritize pick pick one or two things
that that's that are bugging the execs
and just try and fix that but go through
they're grown-ups right the leadership
team are grown-ups they're smart people
they're not idiots I know we it's like
you said it's fun to Grumble right yes
but they're not idiots they're actually
really really smart people and if you
give them the information if you give
them that that structure and say okay
guys here's here are the options that
we've got what do you want to do to fix
it they will typically bite on that
right but but be really clear with them
that you can't fix everything super
quickly we've got to go step by step
because we've got to carry the whole
organization and you know again my I've
seen that work well many times
um uh but it's as Fred as you said it's
not easy right it's not easy but you you
you have to you have to start on that
Journey because if you don't um it's
it's the old story about you know two
guys I'm taking I've taken over now look
at this two guys standing on the river
bank and you they see this guy floating
down the river going help help I'm
drowning right so one of them jumps in
the river swims out pulls him
in and looking at him going well that's
strange and another one comes down help
help so the other guy jumps in pulls him
out two more bodies come down help help
they swim out and pull them in at which
point one of the guys on the
bank runs off upstream and the the the
you another body comes down and the guy
go help guy jumps in pulls him out pulls
him out pulls him out eventually the one
who ran up stream comes back and you
know his friend says where did you go I
I was really busy pulling out bodies and
you left me and and I had to pull out
all the bodies on my own where did you
go he said well I went upstream and I
managed to stop them throwing IES
in right that's what we're trying to do
we're trying to go upstream and stop
people throwing throwing bodies into the
river that you then have to rescue
Downstream and and the problem is I
think in this industry we sometimes get
so busy trying to pull the bodies out of
the river that we forget to send someone
Upstream to stop people throwing them in
the river in the first place yeah and um
love that that
metaphor because that's exactly it you
know and and unfortunately when when you
have Executives shouting at you and your
pmo professional and you have to do the
reporting and and
everything you don't you will not
allocate time to go
Upstream you will just jump in the water
pull out the bodies and try to
extinguish the the the the fire the
alert right
now
exactly that and and and the key thing
is that you cannot you
know it's a crazy thing but you you
cannot execute yourself out of a
situation that's impossible right so if
you're Executives have given
you twice as many projects as you can
deliver you can't execute your way out
of
that um or or if you've been given a
project that's so complex that it should
never been taken on in the first place
you can't execute your way out of that
right that's not a it's not a project
management problem that's a governance
problem up front right it's the problem
is the more skilled you are at your job
the longer you can cope with the problem
so you will execute your way out of it a
month three month six month ultimately
you will
drown but because you've coped so long
with the problem people will think it's
a pro project management problem when
it's
not exactly um
so we've sort of got to the top of the
hour somehow Frederick I don't know
we've done that I can't believe that I
know do you have more slides or should
we just see if everybody's got a couple
of questions before we close well I just
wanted to wrap it up you know I mean I
promised something when I started I
promised three things I promised that we
would look at strategy
formulation and really if I can leave
you with one golden nuggets guys it's
those three stages Define the problem
statement of your
organization Define the solution for the
organization and then prepare the
organization for the
solution and and before we move into the
last stage Steward of of having an open
conversation uh I just wanted to thank
everybody for their time and attendance
and
participation and if you want to stay in
touch and keep the conversation going
here on the slide you have my LinkedIn
profile and my email address so thank
you again
everybody