we're really honored pleased to have Dr
James Brown with us today he's the
author of the hamburger program
management
um from McGraw-Hill one of the best
selling items in in you know the program
management category I'm sure you can
probably find it on Amazon get it on
your Kindle and uh you know learn more
after this podcast
um but not just an author and an
academic uh James has also worked with a
load of big companies so uh John Deere
Adobe
Michelin Siemens
um have worked with James had him in a
leadership capacity training capacity
providing kind of project management
best practice to support their their
Endeavors so um
and obviously Stuart says a few kind
words about him but even greater
importance we have a sort of advocacy
here from a NASA chief engineer who
describes James as a basically brilliant
at leading people and getting results
um and a leader in Training Systems
analysis facilitation
um so without further Ado I'll hand over
to James uh who is going to take us on
this webinar
all right very good and thank you very
much I'm glad uh to see everybody today
and we are going to start out with a
polling question today and so
you should see the poll now and the
question is simply this the question is
simply this my organizational leaders
say everything is top priority
my organizational leaders say everything
is top priority the choices are
all the time
when it suits them
sometimes and never
all the time when it suits them
sometimes and never
so I'll give you a moment to do that
some of you may have been set told this
very recently maybe even this morning
before you got on this webinar I don't
know so uh we shall see
all right
I will
share the results
but
alrighty so we have 37 to say all the
time we have 48 that say when it suits
them and 15 that says sometimes and
nobody is really happy with the never
here so uh this is something that when
we say everything is top priority is
something that really does not basically
exist there is no such thing as
everything is top priority no such thing
because I can do children's math and if
children's math will tell you if
everything is top priority it's equal
and if everything is equal priority then
there's no difference between the
statement everything is top priority and
everything is bottom prior it's the same
statement mathematically and so
therefore if somebody out there might
need to be muted but if your boss tells
you this then they're really telling you
that I don't want to be the leader
that's what they're saying and whenever
you hear everything is top priority in
your mind you should say slacker
Unworthy of the position you are in do
not say it out wow all right so but if
you've ever said this before I forgive
you but if you say this any point in
time in the future I want you to toss
and turn at night I want you to to your
significant other to say what's wrong
dear and you say well I said everything
is top priority today uh so this is not
something that we do we have to
prioritize leaders put things in
priority order that's what they do that
is the role of the leader and that deals
with projects and it deals with every
other aspect of project management so
leadership and prioritization uh great
organizations know and communicate their
values I watch a lot of business
programming and whenever you see a
company in trouble the CEO or some high
level leader is on TV and they make this
statement
we got away from our core values all
right they say we got away from our core
value so this is one of the things we
have to do so uh we select projects and
allocate resources based on those values
without exceeding Workforce capacity we
establish priority order for the project
and activity so the workforce knows
what's most important this provides a
sense of direction and when I say
priority order I don't know why I have
to say this if you're on this webinar I
probably don't have to say to you but
when I deal with companies they think
priority order is this we've got 44
Priority One projects and we've got 16
priority two projects and that is not
priority order priority order is one two
three four five six that means we put
one in front of the other so this is
this requires discipline and integrity
project management itself portfolio
management itself is not difficult all
right it does require discipline and
integrity it is not something that is
ultra complicated and what we're going
to talk about today analytic argue
process has a complicated name but it's
not complicated either all right but do
we have the discipline and integrity
this chart can be very depressing I take
no responsibility if you have to drink
an Amber liquid after you digest this uh
chart that is up to you but
uh many organizations put their P
Personnel in a position where they fail
at a project and they do that because
they overload the workforce
on this chart waiting time is system
utilization as system utilization
approaches 100 percent
uh waiting time or interference in the
system
grows exponentially
and let me say it a different way
your organization will get more projects
done at 90 capacity than you will at 100
capacity
you will get more projects done and if
you don't believe me let's just take an
example here if you're a computer if
your memory gets above 90 full what
happens it slows down if your hard drive
gets above 90 full it slows down and so
these are things that that happen in any
system it cannot be escaped so the role
of the leader here is to assure that we
are operating around 90 capacity there
doesn't it doesn't matter if you Peak
over 90 for short windows of time but if
you live above 90 percent
uh your organization is characterized by
this some of you may may feel this it is
characterized by a lot of starting and
stopping starting and stopping starting
and stopping where we start this
activity and you think you're working on
this project and then the next thing you
know somebody Taps you on the shoulder
and says hey we need to go Vector over
here we need the vector over there and
it becomes very inefficient and so this
is one of the things that we that we
have to do uh there was a launch
director that worked for NASA launch
more space shuttles than anybody and he
was famous for getting the space shuttle
off the ground he was famous for uh
just being able to expedite things and
so much so that if it was a cloudy day
in Florida the launch Team would say
this they would say uh don't worry seek
will find a hole in the clouds all right
that he would find a hole in the clouds
to get the space shuttle off and I
interviewed him uh for my book research
and one of the things he told me was
this he says people think that I'm the
expediter people think that I'm trying
to to get everything off the ground but
he says my role as the leader is to slow
things down
my role is the leaders to make sure
everything is done right my role as the
leader is to stop the launch if it's not
all right and sometimes leaders mistake
their role as expeditors when often
everybody's trying to get stuff done in
a hurry the leader's role is to make
sure it's being done right to put people
in the position where you maximize your
their success and that cannot be done
unless uh we don't operate in this
excess capacity region so we have to
make sure that we slow it down to that
degree and you can do that unless you're
doing good portfolio management and so
we have another poll in question here
for you
and I will be interested in the results
of this one
very simple my organization has its
projects in priority order one two three
four priority order oh we're voting fast
on this no no need to no need to
hesitate on this posing question all
right so one two three four
all right I will share the results here
we had 70 or 71 to say false and 29 true
this is so critical because most of us
have more work than we can do in a week
most of us have more work that we can do
in a day and when we have that we have
to make a choice on what work do we work
on and we should be able to go and look
at the priority list and say this is
what I should be working on in the
absence of a priority list do you know
what people work on
they work on what they like
they work on what somebody is screaming
about
and they work on what is the short term
all right that doesn't mean they work on
what's most important so from this point
of view we have to make sure that we
work on what is most important if I have
a team of 14 people I want them working
on what's most important imagine if I
have a team of 14 people and I don't
have a priority list what is the
likelihood that all 14 people are
working on the most important thing
close to zero and so this is just one of
the things that we sometimes leaders
build inefficiency into a system when
they when they don't take care of this
stuff and this is in part the reason I
wrote a book on program management and
not project management it's my opinion
that project managers are often put in
positions that does not maximize their
success by the people above them
all right so this means that if we're
going to put things in priority order uh
that we've got to select projects and
this is one of the things that we have
to do so when we talk about project
selection it should be credible
credible something that is easy to use
easily understood defensible logical
traceable and this last one here says
link to the organizational
values okay link to the organizational
values and buy-in from the stakeholder
Community it shouldn't be something that
is a black box it shouldn't be something
that is so complicated that you have you
have to you have to have a deep
scientific background to understand it
it has to be something that is simple
right now
you're gonna have to forgive me here
because I'm going to be very direct
all of these Financial measures where
people like to say what's the irr tell
me the irr on this project and all of
that kind of stuff
uh the reason we use that is because
people are taught up in school and they
get their mbas and often they're taught
by people that did not work in the work
environment that have no experience
outside of Academia all right these
methods are something that you can
calculate but they are very real world
challenged Real World Challenge and I'm
not just saying that you see the quote
here I have from uh Robert G Cooper here
where it says these methods are
extremely popular selection approaches
but don't be fooled the businesses with
the poorest forms performing portfolios
rely almost exclusively on financial
approaches Financial selection approach
according to our research all right so
it's not just me it says this but and
this is a really easy challenge to
explain look at the speed of technology
today look at how fast it changes look
at the upset we have now with AI and
when you use any of these methods you're
doing a forecast of Revenue and cost and
who can forecast that well in today's
environment
very few and if you can't if you use
these methods you use them at your
apparel is what I would say
and James just jumping into this right
one of those things I talk about on that
is is that you know when you use these
Financial metrics they don't have a
direction it's just money but your
strategy has a Direction
so so if you're if you're if you're
working for Rolls-Royce right the best
car maker on them in the world you can
come up with a really cool project to
save you 10 million bucks right yeah
Roi is off the chart
but if that project reduces the quality
of the product
that's taking you in exactly the wrong
direction as a business right and so
these Financial measures don't have any
concept of the direction of the business
those organizational values the drivers
that you were you were talking about
earlier so um so 100 with that one
really big big deal now you're going on
to my favorite topic of all what is what
is hey James what is ahp yeah
that is true what is HP ASP deals with
values that takes you beyond the
financial measures that Stuart just
mentioned and it is true if you do
everything on a financial measure then
the companies will get in trouble I see
companies that
somebody from the accounting background
gets in charge and then all of a sudden
things start to go downhill over a
period of years because they are paying
attention to those things so uh analytic
hierarchy process I I actually hate that
the Creator named it this because it
drives people away that that term right
there you say it sounds like okay I
don't want to learn about that and then
the second bullet here makes it worse a
multi-priteria decision making Method
All right so yes that's true but the
basically here basically it's an easily
understood
incredible method to select projects
based on organizational leadership
values I've used it many times with
success uh this is from this quote here
is from an article where the Creator
Saudi talked about how he created it and
it says it dawned on Saturday that what
he needed and what Grandma had come up
with in a rudimentary way was a process
that captured intensities of human
feeling and assigned to numerical values
he looked at the way his grandmother
prioritized things around the house and
he came up with this mathematical
construct for prioritizing projects
past a few years ago a couple of months
ago and I asked there was this story
true for the story that it came from his
grandma
it was absolutely cheap
awesome absolutely
yeah and so you know things don't have
to be complicated but some people try to
make things complicated but they do not
and so this is not a complicated process
per se and it is it is worth doing it so
it uses pairwise comparisons as a basis
and basically that means you can't let
people talk out of both sides of your
mouth there are leaders and hopefully
you don't work for people that they like
to say everything is important this is
important customer satisfaction is
important cost saving is important they
all well with pairwise comparisons you
have to say one thing is more important
than another thing all right and that is
what what we do so as a result of the
pairwise comparisons and the weighty we
create a value structure
and then the projects are selected head
to head against the prioritized values
I've also done checklist scoring against
the values uh or I've also done
checklist scoring against a gold
standard project so uh every project
doesn't always have to be compared Head
to Head it can be but it doesn't have to
be
here are the advantages
the squeaky wheel in some companies they
play what I call the yelling game where
he who yells the loudest is the person
that gets the resources and then this is
a this is a game that just feeds upon
itself so uh once you have the priority
structure it estabs cooperation among
the leaders and stakeholders uh and this
last bullet here
it allows comparison of quantitative and
qualitative factors
quantitative and qualitative factors and
so when someone tells you you're
comparing apples and oranges you know
what you say yes I am and I'm going to
compare cucumbers and grapes later so
you just get ready for it all right I
can do that with ahp I can compare
quantitative and qualitative factors
against each other
all right uh this hierarchical structure
effectively manages complexity
uh I can do complete analysis of the
decision I can do all the what if I want
that would change the decision I can
separate the individuals from the group
I can tell if somebody's playing
political games by the consistency score
that they have so if I have a leader
that's playing politics I can find that
out and uh has a history of success in
government and Industry and I would say
that these bullets do not do just if you
if you facilitated this before these
bullets do not do justice to the power
of it because what this tool allows you
to do is to drill down to the specific
areas and factors where people disagree
so I can Wade through a bunch of garbage
and crap that that you might have four
hours of discussion about where people
are arguing about I can wave through
that four hours and then five minutes or
less get right to the specific aspects
of the decision process where people may
disagree and have a focused discussion
and after that focused discussion
there's understanding of I understand
why you feel that way and we understand
why we feel that way uh we had an
incident where I was working with NASA
and
one of the factors uh was uh to
basically to do some things uh to save
the vehicle and one of the panelists was
an astronaut and the astronaut voted
against saving the vehicle he voted all
the money to be spent I mean voted
against saving the crew in the event of
a catastrophic failure he voted all his
resources for saving the vehicle whereas
most of the bureaucrats voted to save
the astronauts and he says I don't want
you to try to save me after it goes
Kaboom I want you to try to save me
before it goes kaboop I don't want to
spend any money on a scheme that's going
to do that but that didn't come out
until We examined the voting of the
individuals and we got to focus on the
discussion which this allows you to do
so
when we do analytic hierarchy process
when you start out it's important to
have definitions on what you say you
value all right so I had this question
here what is safety that's that's to
trigger uh me to tell you that uh NASA
was trying to prioritize some projects
based on safety after one of their uh
shuttle tragedies after the second
tragedy and a team had been working for
months and they hadn't made any progress
and they called me in to uh help them
they were not happy about it uh but I
was called in to help them and so I
started the Consulting day out and I
asked this simple question what is
safety
and it was an interesting answer because
one person said oh you know I'm dealing
with an answer so it's always funny oh
safely Define the nsds
700 paragraph 3.2.4.7 says this all
right and then somebody else says safety
is this and somebody else says safety is
that and a day and a half later I had a
definition of safety they could all
agree on a day and a half I had a
definition of safety they could all
agree on and that's the reason they had
not been making progress for months it
was because everybody's talking like
they all all have uh an understanding of
safety and they all do have an
understanding of safety it's the
understanding that they have in their
mind it's not the understanding that
they have agreed upon as a group and so
when we I'm gonna let you jump in here
Stuart and and so when I start this
process out and I say what is the value
what is cost of what is scheduled costs
can mean many things they're many
different people in an organization or a
company and if you don't write it down
you don't understand it go ahead Stuart
yeah I was just gonna say the the one
where we'll see this all the time James
is the word risk right because risk can
mean the risk of the project going on
being the risk to the business if we
don't do this project it could be the
risk of something exploding it could be
anything so if if you ever seen a
Criterion or if if one of your leaders
uses that word risk right remember the
story about the day and a half to get to
the definition of safe Google and just
asked them what do you mean by risk and
does everybody agree that that is the
meaning and the definition of versatile
it is so risk is is the one that we see
all the time in just about every model
right Ben yeah and the sad thing is you
often see it in a spreadsheet in a cell
and it's just like you know you get this
much room to Define it no one and and
just once you see you see what you want
to see so you just impose your own
interpretation on the words in the
little box so ambiguity is our enemy we
need to work together to kind of make
things clearly defined right
agreed and so when I create definitions
in a model there's I might have a half a
page or a full page definition of what
it means but once I had that I am ready
to rock and roll okay and so that's the
thing but uh for organizations that have
never done that it's often shocking when
they find out that the other
stakeholders have a different view or a
different caveat on what something means
and that will
hang things up later so we're going to
take a polling question here uh just to
see where you uh are on this definition
my organization has common definitions
document and writing for important
organizational terms
my organization has common definitions
documented in writing for important
organizational terms one 100 True to 75
percent true three fifty percent true
four we have long unproductive meetings
all right so
interesting results here
and I will share
so we see here that we have one very
happy person that says 100 true so
whoever you are uh congratulations uh we
have uh two that are 75 percent true uh
51 that are 50 true and 41 they say they
have long unproductive meanings and
that's the beauty of the definitions not
only does it help with uh
decision making but all of the
misunderstandings that go on in meetings
gets resolved when you can have those
definitions so uh how analytic hierarchy
process can be used
I can compare projects Head to Head
okay so this these are some scores from
uh NASA model NASA is a government
agency I can share these scores uh
private clients I don't do that all
right uh so if you look at these things
for each one of these factors uh safety
of the public safety of the crew
Workforce Capital assets and all the
factors below that there's exists a half
page or more definition on what that
means all right and so that was created
to make sure that we we had that
understanding and you can see that if
something scored well for safety of the
public then almost automatically it was
going to get funded that was the top
priority uh I love the kid my NASA
colleagues about cost savings look at
where car showed up three percent no
they don't care about costs when it
comes to these other factors and just
two things I wanna
share here a benefit of published values
like this these values were created and
published a benefit of that is that
people don't bring you projects that
they know that are not going to score
well
all right and so that saves time right
there the other benefit is that then
people are looking for projects that
line up with the values all right so
that that is also a benefit and the
first time I did this with this team
when we created these values it was real
funny for me as a facilitator because
when the value showed up
they didn't like them
they did not like the values and they
went so far as to demand as a group that
they vote again
and I said okay so we'll vote again and
we went through the entire voting
process again and it was all I could do
to stand up straight because I could
tell by as the votes came in that the
value showed up essentially the same at
the second time
and that's when they said we need to
understand why these are our values and
they spend about a couple of hours
getting that understand and then and
they were their bags and then they
understood it and values are often I
don't want to call them
counter-intuitive but when you see the
scores that show up with it with them
then it makes people think and
understand about why those were those
value and once they thought about the
numbers then they really understood that
yes these are our values and that's kind
of standard so in this scenario here we
compared projects head to head but you
know we also had what we called a gold
standard project a gold standard project
was a project that that we considered it
was almost a perfect project and when
new projects came along in the next
fiscal year we didn't compare projects
Head to Head anymore we compared them to
the gold standard all right and so every
project I compared to the gold standard
and then we were able to establish a
baseline score this basically said we'll
never fund a project that scores less
than this all right we would go back to
previous projects that we didn't line
and say we're going to score that we're
going to fund that project because just
because this project is new we had one
we didn't fund last year based on the
budget requirements and we're going to
do it from this point of view so
any comments on this
actually yeah so so one quick story
actually from from my point of view
David One customer European utility
company and
um about four years before we got
involved with them they've gone through
a big change they've gone from being a
government department for being a
government-owned private company right
so suddenly they have the profit and
loss accountability rather than just
doing saying the double Department
and to make that change the CEO had put
in place this real regime where you kind
of really hammered interest you know
business value first business value
first business value first business
value Goods anyway fast forward four
years and they adopted ahp through
privatization they went through it where
the business now you come
that's it on the list right now wait a
minute let's run right suited again
exactly what you described right the
results came out exactly the same
business value today and it was that
moment they all realized that they kind
of got into this this sort of group
thing meta where they've said it so
often that they just said it they didn't
really believe it it didn't really
reflect the values that they had as an
organization
but but it was the right message to get
them through that transition into going
from the government Department right but
but they'd moved on from now so it's not
it's not enough to do this once and then
say yeah we've done it right they're
gonna move this at this period because
you know typically every year or so
um so I mean your strategy should be
changing
so quickly you need to review this every
six weeks but but typically every year
or so you should you should repeat this
process and I need to make sure your
your values are still the same values or
the business drivers are still the same
business rather than as before
and it's true in the absence of priority
people get distracted they focus on
different things I have very similar
experience where uh I was called in the
consult and they had a brand new leader
and a brand new leader said he wanted to
do the first couple of days because he
was new and I was only going to do day
three and I said you're paying me for
all three days he said yes and I said
I'll sit here the first two days no
problem all right and so the first two
days they argued all about issue a uh
for two days on day three I prioritize
the issue and issue a was at the bottom
and so they spent two days wasting on
that issue a was very irritating it just
wasn't important all right and so this
is one thing we have to focus on what's
important uh this example here checklist
for priorities for quick screening ahp
was used to create this this product
list this was an organization that has
a global organization that has equipment
all over the world all right and when
you replace equipment then that's a mini
project and so how can they prioritize
all of that and what they did is they
created a checklist for the technicians
where they would go and rate it on a
scale on each one of these factors all
right and when they would rate it on the
scale then they didn't necessarily see
the waiting then the waiting was used to
decide where what Machinery they were
going to upgrade or replace and that is
the way they chose to do it I
highlighted collateral damage here
because collateral damage meant that if
it breaks it breaks something else with
it all right and so this is something
that not only this doesn't you lose this
function it may lose something else as a
function but and I highlighted equipment
age and journal condition because in
most cases when people talk about
replacing equipment what's the first
thing they look what is old what's in
bad shape but look at where it came on
the rating scale last all right and this
is why sometimes when you prioritize
things based on values it can be
counter-intuitive to the quick judgment
that people normally make and so the
second one there was skills availability
was do we have somebody with the skills
does somebody exist on the planet with
the skills that can actually fix it if
there's nobody that can fix it because
it's that old then it's something that
should be higher priority all right and
so this was something that they used
with great success to prioritize what
equipment they should replace Because
unless your organization is unique
odds are very high you're not spending
as much on maintenance as you would like
to do and then it becomes even more
critical that you focus on that area and
even if you're in an I.T Arena this same
kind of thing can be done to talk about
what things need to get upgraded and
replaced or what what programs need to
get upgraded and replaced
all right so on ways to address cost of
alternatives
uh three basic ways I've used the first
two normalization prioritization within
cost groups and I'll explain uh
normalization with an example uh yes you
can get a copy of the slide deck it will
be posted all right so this is something
that I did with a client and I'll
explain the normalization in the First
Column there uh the raw ahp score all
right that is what the projects actually
scored all right so uh but there is a
budget for the project and so with
normalization
normalization I can involve a stat a
reference cost
I can have a reference cost at 100 or
whatever once I have that reference cost
then I can do a benefit cost ratio and
so that's what I've done here so this
particular score 31 is actually ranked
24th based on ahp scores but it only
costs 700 000 so compared to the
reference costs we stayed this
organization had a budget of 32 million
for this fiscal year
this was its benefits cost ratio so it
turned out to be the number one project
that they would do if you look at the
number one scoring project
number one scoring project from an ahp
point of view scored 65 on the on the
values however it costs 13 million
dollars and therefore when we did the
benefit cost ratio that's what the
benefit cost ratio was from a
normalization point of view so they also
went through just because something is
high they cut set a threshold of 30 in
other words we're not going to fund it
if it scores less than 30 on the value
chain because it's not providing enough
value and so this was out
this was out this was out and this was
out and so therefore they were able to
take that money and look at what they
could fund beyond that and so all I'm
saying is ahp gives you a score but then
you have to look at how much budget do
we have how do we get the most bang for
the buck and from this point of view
this is what they did and this made them
very happy uh
it's just very interesting
a lot of interesting things show up in
the prioritization process but I can't
share their business here but uh yes
interesting things happen but this is
just a very good way to to make sure
that you're getting the most value
overall for the dollars that you had
and I can't I can't underscore that last
Point enough change but
um you know many people think that once
you've got a score that's it you use
that score right but no it's the value
for money Bank to the Box Call It
Whatever You Like right it's that
efficiency of using your most critical
resources it's not always money by the
way if you have a if your key
constraints is uh uh your Architects
right if you're if you're running an IC
organization if you're I.T uh Architects
are your key constraint then work out
value divided by the amount of architect
time that that project would say right
and that'll give you another way of
optimizing it both oh yeah so it's value
for whatever you know usually it's money
99 of retirement smoke but sometimes
it's something else
let's go I agree wholeheartedly with
that story because I'm a big believer in
theory of constraints and the goal and
if you know what your most constrained
resource is then that is what you need
to make sure you maximize the value of
that because all the other stuff
uh won't matter as much if you don't
take care of that you gotta 100
all right I can also prioritize problems
within logical cross groups all right
because sometimes it's unfair to compare
a project that costs six hundred
thousand dollars with a project costs 35
million dollars and so I like to to look
at it like this whatever my logical cost
groups are in this case the example I'm
showing you here is what are we going to
find what are the top 10 projects under
a million what are the top 10 projects
from a million to 10 million what are
the top ten that are greater than 10
million so whatever those are then
that's what we want to make sure we do
and then I prioritize these I still do
the benefit and not cost benefit cost
analysis within the cost groups all
right and so and then I think about how
much money should we spend on small
projects all right because soft small
projects can often provide a lot of
value uh but uh in large organizations
especially
people sometimes don't bring forward
very small projects just because uh they
don't want to go through the process and
the overhead whereas if we set aside
money specifically for that then we can
allocate that to it
and similarly similarly you may you
might create different brackets not just
by the size of the project but by the
intent so BAU or run the business type
projects could be in a different bucket
to your grow the business or transform
the business projects because the values
in those different areas are different
right and run the business it tends to
be about reducing operational risk
reducing cost to personal efficiency
those kind of bones then grow the
business it tends to be about focus more
on customer and product and things like
that so so you might use different
criteria and different types of
portfolio and that's okay you then have
an allocation challenge to make sure
that our reporting resource between
those different above us
um so you know it's not just the size it
could be it could be you know different
different intent that you you have been
approach all years as well
we started borrowing a little bit from
the world of econometrics in this in
terms of looking at the the efficient
Frontier the kind of the Pareto
distribution where you're kind of asking
yourself if you've got three different
portfolios which which one's going to
spend the next dollar best
so you're looking at who's going to
deliver you that best bang for your buck
in terms of the next best project
I agree with that wholeheartedly because
I think that that's something that you
have to set from a strategic point of
view because if you don't set it then
you'll err on one side of the other too
much because there are people that they
want to hold the organization wants to
hold on to doing a lot of Maintenance or
they want to hold on to doing a lot of
new work without doing maintenance and
it's something that should be
strategically set by the leadership and
then prioritize within those groups so I
I agree wholeheartedly with that
all right so uh with the pitfalls here
uh
number one for me is failure to keep it
simple I don't know if that's because
I've done a lot of work with technical
people and they want to make everything
Ultra complicated sometimes and it
doesn't have to be all right so when
poor communication this gets where do we
take the time to do the definitions and
sometimes there's predetermined outcomes
it's happened to me I'm sure it's
probably happened to Steward of Dan
where somebody tells you this is the
decision I want please justify it all
right and so sometimes that happens and
the other aspect here is lack of buying
where you want to exclude people from
the process or you want to rush the
process or poor facilitation skills
there is some digestion even though the
the process itself is not complicated
but there is some digestion that people
have to have where they just they have
to digest it the results and the process
and then that's what helps you get
acceptance because otherwise if you
don't allow for digestion then it's
going to do uh sometimes people want to
also be secret I did some work with the
school system
and the school board members they they
loved it they wanted to vote but they
didn't want their their priorities to be
public so I got secret balance from the
school system board members because they
were politicians and they did not want
any public Vote or any public person to
know what they actually valued so they
wanted to be it to operate on both sides
of the the issue
uh
we'll do this final poll here
see where we are
my organization primarily selects
projects based on One Financial measures
like Roi
two value-based assessments three
leadership discussions four moon phase
all right the choices again Financial
measures like Roi two value-based
assessments three leadership discussions
four moon phase hey Stu where are we on
that uh that module to bring moon phase
into our uh into the software I like
that because yeah I think that's a
that's a new one for Dalek to build
all right I'll share the results here
so we have 27 to say Financial measures
like Roi I'm very pleased to say that we
have 18 that say value-based assessments
uh 50 say leadership discussions there's
nothing wrong with leadership
discussions but I would say there's a
lot of risk there because often certain
leaders bias the discussion certain
points are made there's many roads that
there's many opportunities to end up in
the wrong direction without the
structure of ahp HP is like a leadership
discussion it's just structured to make
sure everything is done in a forthright
manner is what I would say
I'm sure and and James one of the things
that you know you talked about with the
ahp helping get the leaders to buy in
right that's really really important
because Irish uh just mentioned I'll
just read this out so so one of the
reasons this great disengagement is that
some Executives has worked with are just
eager to work on projects now if people
really buy into the process and they
really buy into
the model that you've used to score them
and your project turns out to be a dog
right it turns out to be really poor
value for money
what we usually see and I'd be
interested if you've seen this as well
is that historically people would go and
defend their project but because there's
a value-based model the opposite happens
right they can't run away fast enough on
those bad projects because they know
they'll be trying to defend something
that's indefensible and nobody wants to
do that right so I don't know if you've
seen that but we've seen that a bunch of
times
uh not only have I seen it I've I've had
people say to me I never would have
thought my leadership could come to
agreement on these kinds of things
before that they were shocked at how the
leaders were able to respond with regard
to that and the other thing I would say
one of the people that can benefit from
the most organizations I've seen benefit
the most are the I.T organizations that
are I.T service organizations if I was
CIO of an organization that provided I.T
Services I would never prioritize my own
projects I bring in the customers and
the customers establish the value
structure and prioritize the projects
and then that way I don't always have
whining customers coming to me about
when am I going to get their thing done
because hey you were part of the value
structure you created we prioritized the
products based on the value structure
and this this is what it is and so this
is one of the things we want to make
sure that that you want to do so
the bottom line here
uh once the value structure is defined
the selection process is fast this is
where I would disagree with something
Stuart said earlier I've had clients
that use value structures four or five
years but I must say that it it wasn't
high-tech clients but that the values
once that value structure was created a
particular pmo I dealt with their
company used that value structure to do
things well beyond the scope that it was
initially defined for to go out and
establish other things uh
that are out there all right uh
the amount of time politicking we just
did with that people stopped politicking
once once they they had the input into
the device structure they saw the
results it was understandable and you
get the three C's of a good decision
consistency credibility consensus uh
with that uh I am all done with the
prepared slides I'll be happy to address
any questions that anybody may have at
this point in time
so James what what would you say is the
biggest challenge that you've faced by
the Implement an ahp based
prioritization process
uh the biggest challenge is to sometimes
get a leader to participate that doesn't
want to participate or they want to send
a very junior staff member to represent
them not recognizing the significance of
what's going to transpire once these
values are established and then they
want to try to get a hiccup later so I
work very hard to make sure that I get
the leadership at the right level to
participate in the creation of the value
structure I might have lower level
people help me create the definitions
and all of that but for the actual
voting of the values I want the higher
level people uh as high as I can get to
participate because once they do it and
that's it then they buy in I don't have
to go and defend the results to them
later
yeah and to that point I mean we've seen
they've seen people take all the same
scoring data yeah that have a really
fancy scoring spreadsheet you take all
the same scoring broker and they also
make a good decision you end up with
with you know 20 resources of
publication projects and all the rest of
it and then literally take the same
criteria in the same same scoring data
for the projects but do it through ahp
and just going through that otherwise
comparison process lettings so it means
that the executives have a chance to
understand where that model comes from
buy into it where where literally in the
course of an hour they weren't from
having no agreement to having a complete
agreement on what they should be doing
and it can be that that's fine that
you're talking about really matters but
we've got to get those same with people
under there
we've got a question from Christine
um is it helpful to spend time
expectations setting ahead of PHP ahp
discussions with leaders and provide
prep materials for their review so is
there a sort of best practice you can
talk us through in terms of warming
people up for that discussion uh James
uh yes it is very helpful I like to uh
explain the process to them uh I don't
want to overwhelm them because often
they're very busy but I make I give them
what I would call a cheat sheet there's
these are the basics that you need to
know this is how it's going to work this
is how it's going to transpire and these
are the results that we're going to
expect when we're done I make myself
available if they're going to have
questions because you know my experience
has been if I've got five different
leaders one or two of those may have
lots of questions the others they
they'll accept your credibility on faith
and they're going to show up and do
their job but I can't shortchange any of
them so I will deal with the people that
demand more and I will not bother the
people that demand less all right but I
do provide everybody the Baseline of
experience I you know just like when I
take my little kid to school for the
first time in kindergarten I the day the
night before I say hey we're gonna your
teacher is nice I'm gonna show them the
room and all that so when I drop them
off they're good to go it's the same
thing with these leaders I don't hit
them cold with this I get them all ready
and set and then let them yesterday
I'm sorry the first time you do this
right
yeah when you're doing these paywise
comparison the first one is going to
take a while while they get the head
around right the second one will be a
bit quickly
Stephen
so it takes people a little while just
to get their heads around this new way
of working but typically I mean we've
had we had the CEO of one family who
does insurance companies walk out in
between they're doing the powerwise
compassion to say well finally you know
what we're having a discussion we should
have had years ago
because we've got this this ahp
structure sorry Dan you're going to say
something well I've got the next
question coming in so I'm going to say
how
to cross different kid else that are
competing for the same Central resource
so the model of models question I love
this question
um I'm going to head it to James though
before we throw in our answer and I can
tell you yeah
I'll be brief uh first I would say this
is the exact criteria where ahp is
required where you have shared resources
among different P L's that is where you
really need to have it under and what
you have to do is you have to get the
leaders of the different P L's together
to establish the value structure in my
opinion and then once they establish
that value structure and the criteria
then you go from there because it's not
going to end up being fair once you put
the value structures whereas if you have
if you have different PNF somebody's
going to feel like they're cheated if
you don't go through ahp but if you go
through HP somebody's gonna not get the
resources that they think they were
going to get but they will understand
why and my experience has always been if
they have that understanding they can go
along with the program but if they don't
have that under standing then they'll
fight to them now
yeah absolutely I think you have to show
people that the process is fair that
it's analytical I think in our
experience people are okay with hearing
no if they know that the guy next to
them hasn't done something kind of
sneaky to get his projects in in the in
their place so they need to know the
process of reliable and then yeah in
terms of the criteria you can't compare
everything with everything in one model
so it's having those buckets and that
structure but knowing that each one has
its own efficient Frontier its own
ranking so you're you're using your
resources where you get the best bang
for your buck
absolutely
and we've got specific tools to do there
yeah we could dig we could spend the
next 20 minutes on that Dan but let's
keep going so we've got a couple other
questions yeah um one one is about risk
how do we incorporate risk into the into
the model thanks Asha good to see you
again
James how would you hand how would you
incorporate risk
um and I guess the first question
obviously whenever somebody says risk is
how do you define race
yeah sure let's just let's assume it's
execution risk of the project okay thank
you thank you so much
you may recall uh uh and I don't know if
I can go back there but in one of the
slides I I had uh for this
for this one there was something called
ease of implementation ease of
implementation was basically execution
risk you know if it's something easy to
do then we want to do it if it's
something that's very execution risk
challenge then that's where it would get
evaluated so depending upon how you
define risk as Stuart mentioned we would
include it in the model once we had that
definition then we can we can include it
and from this point of view some people
have very good ideas but if we couldn't
implement it in three years because of
the execution challenges or the risk
challenges then it was something they
wouldn't score well from that point of
view
right questions coming thick and fast
um how to smoothly present the values
and benefits of HP to top management to
get their buy-in on ahp decision uh and
purchase of transparent Choice tool I
love that question uh Francois we didn't
place it ourselves
um but uh maybe uh James you could uh
you can you can rotate the lead on on
the best way to present ahp and and we
can we can follow up a little bit about
the tool uh one of the things I'm guilty
of then is I I'm not a good salesperson
I mean I I'm an engineer I tell them
these are the facts that works it's
simple it's used by government and
private sector and hopefully they they
buy into it the pushback that I see more
is because
that when you have leaders that don't
want to be accountable because HP drives
accountability that you're going to
suddenly get results and they just can't
have something for nothing anymore and
that's more of the pushback than than
not necessarily to
that they don't want to do it because it
is a good tool yeah yeah so that that
you can see you can sort of sell the
dream if you like in a number of
different ways I was just looking at a a
piece we did recently with Laura Barnard
on the pmo and he goes
the pmo if you're the current pmo the
role if the role's not delivering what
leadership wants then the way you're
doing it now doesn't work
so if you if there's a leadership team
if you want your strategy to be executed
better you've got to be prepared to
change and you know ahp is an enabler
for that change
um in terms of presenting things we
believe in making all this amazing math
psychology
capability associated with HP as simple
as possible to the end user so just a
silly example really we've taken the
inconsistency ratio which is a
relatively complex mathematical thing
involving eigenvectors and we've turned
it into an emoji so if you've got an
inconsistent score as a as a participant
you get a big red grumpy face
and we explain that by saying you don't
agree with yourself
so you need to go back and and look at
your work again but trying to keep it
really human and simple because at the
end of the day we're here to help humans
make better decisions
um and so we want to make in the
software what we try and do is make all
this good stuff really easy for normal
humans to consume
perfect I think so um so
transferon anybody else who would like
to know how to sell the idea to their
attacks but we actually have a bunch of
materials that we can share with you
afterwards
um I I pasted a link where you can
actually go ahead and schedule time and
uh my calendar and if that if you can't
wait it's a week in a couple of days
because I'm on vacation this week and
next week
um you can uh just drop down my notes
um there's email address then
um drop it down a footnote and he'll
point you in the right direction to
download those materials
um so so on that I think I think we're
right at the top of the hour uh so I
want to just thank you James for
agreeing to come on and again after
let's not let's not wait another six or
seven years before doing this again
uh really appreciate your time you've
got a a a great way of very clearly and
simply getting across why this stuff
matters and and how to get it done in
the real world
um and I can tell from the comments
um
in the comments that um
that uh that everybody else has really
enjoyed it as well so uh thank you very
much for for uh coming um being our
speaker today
um uh everybody who joined thank you
very much uh for coming if you want to
learn more about how to get started with
ahp uh do you head over to our website
um in the resources section there's a
bunch of materials to get you going
um we even have the ability to access a
trial of the software
um uh we we do ask you to stand up at a
time with Dan first there's just a torch
if you really know what it is
um but we we do ask you to spend a bit
of time and we're Dan first just to make
sure you know which buttons to press
stuff and then we're happy to set you up
with a with a Channel of the software uh
so you can see if they are actually in
thank you everybody for joining Dan
never miss anything no it's great so
guys when you signed up to the webinar
there were a bunch of little handy links
um I think we've shared a couple of them
on this um on the chat but actually
there's a link should be sitting there I
think on on the thank you page we just
so it doesn't know this but we just put
some new slides up to kind of like help
you sell ahp to your um to your leaders
we do these kind of things when he's not
looking
um
so use those use us
um because ultimately we believe in this
stuff
um we're very grateful that you know
James is here to help us learn more
about it and uh we want to help it make
become a real thing uh where you are