PMINZ conference keynote

1. The Contemporary PM in the Digital Age
Edwin Dando
Assurity
@edwindando

2. GM
PMP
Agile since 2002
Scrum.org trainer
Evidence Based Management consultant

3. Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • © 2016

4. Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015
The 4th Industrial Revolution

5. • Frederick Taylor – an engineer
• Taylorism
> Workers work less than they could
> Management fails to structure work effectively and
provide incentives.
• Taylors solution
> Sub-divide the work into tasks
> Analyse each task & schedule for optimal efficiency
> Management arrange work & pay for tasks completed
The Roots of Management
Taylor promised to
reconcile labour
and capital. Shop
Management
(1903), is
considered the
first book on
management

6. • Ford, Gantt, McKinsey
• Plan to execute, execute the plan
• Objective:
• Utilise a low skilled workforce
• Eliminate variability
• Result
• Efficient mass production
• Very “us-centric ” view of world
• Long lead time & inability to change
• Business becomes very predictable
20th century management

7. • In warfare predictability = death
• Flee – will get you killed
• Freeze – will get you killed
• Fight – best chance
• It does in business too
• Adaptive thinking is essential for basic
survival
Complexity
“The species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the
changing environment in which it finds itself” – Charles Darwin

8. How manoeuvrable is your business?

9. Disruption
Globally, 72 percent of CEOs believe that the next 3 years
will be more critical for their industry than the last 50.
CEOs believe it’s now or never.
Source: KPMG 2016
Global CEO Outlook

10. Remember these guys?

11. And what about these guys?
Uber -> worlds largest taxi company -> owns no vehicles
Airbnb -> worlds largest accommodation provider -> no real estate
Facebook -> worlds largest media owner -> creates no content
Alibaba -> worlds most valuable retailer -> no inventory

12. Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • © 2016

13. Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015
“More than one-third of businesses today will not survive the next 10
years. Companies should not miss the market transition or business
model nor underestimate your competitor of the future —not your
competitor of the past“
- Gartner

14. Who’s next?

15. Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015

16. 1. Stakeholders know what they want
2. Nothing/little will change
3. Work can be decomposed & estimated
The Three Flaws of Traditional PM

17. Cynefin
Obvious
Known knowns
• Assumption: order exists
• Clear cause-and-effect
• Relationships evident to everyone
• Strongly causality based - Y is caused by X
Management Approach:
• Reductionism
• Remove variability
• Fail-safe design
Complex
Unknown unknowns
• Flux & unpredictability
• Minor changes = disproportionate consequences
• Problem is dynamic. Solutions cannot be imposed.
Management Approach:
• Accept variability, apply emergence
• Manage risk via empiricism
• Safe to fail experimentation
Chaotic
Unknowables
• No cause & effect, no point looking for right answers
• Many decisions to make and no time to think
Management Approach:
• Unintentional chaos - apply patterns
• Intentional chaos
o the domain of innovation
o Plan constraints to limit extent
OrderUnorder Disorder
Complicated
Known unknowns
• Assumption: order exists
• Cause-and-effect relationships discoverable
• Expert diagnosis required
Management Approach:
• Reductionism
• Reduce variability & risk via analysis

18. Obvious
Complex
Chaotic
OrderUnorder Disorder
Complicated
Stakeholders - IWKIWISI
Needs change, especially once they see it!
Stakeholder knows what they want
Break work down into stages
Estimate based on known knowns
Plan to execute
Sign off.
Execute plan
Little/no change
Stakeholder knows what they want and doesn’t change
Work harder than Obvious, but possible with expert help
Can still be decomposed into steps and estimated
Possible contingency
for increased
risk/challenge
Lots of change.
Execution: we don’t know what we
don’t know
Work not predictable
Work approach tends to emerge
Unpredictable
Time critical

19. Our world is rapidly decentralising
• Easier
• Robust
• Control based
• Fragile
• Vulnerable - shocks, attacks & failures
• Resilient
• Participative
• Diverse
• Require connectivity
• Difficult to standardise
• Loss of economise of scale
• Highly responsive
• Naturally resilient and adaptive
• Intelligent
• Cannot be controlled
Examples
• Nature
• The Internet
• Etherum & Bitcoin
• Terror cells
• Crowd economics
• Future business?

20. Knowledge WorkTask work
INDUSTRIAL AGE
MENTALITY
Coordination and Control
to realize the outcome
Inspect and Adapt
to realize an outcome
Exact outcome is
knowable in advance
Exact outcome is
not knowable in advance
High cost of change
leading to less change
Low cost of change
leading to more change
KNOWLEDGE
AGE MENTALITY
Work is changingThis is being
automated

21. •In 5 years, 35% of skills
considered important in
today will have changed.
•Creativity will be one of
the top three skills
workers will need.
•Emotional intelligence
will become the top skills
needed by all
*World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs study
Social skills
Poorly paid as
large supply of
workers
Future roles in demand
AUTOMATED
Engineers

22. Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015
From management of work to
• Team work
• Emotional Intelligence,
• Facilitation

23. From the poster child of
Digital Transformation.
Digital by Default
Agile by Default
Yes, this is government.

25. The craft of
delivery is
booming
Facilitation
Leadership
Coaching
Teams

26. Large, upfront business
plan
Fixed requirements
Fixed project budgets
Don’t trust Delivery
Break-fix culture
Cost centre culture
Process in large
batches (releases)
Business CustomerDelivery Operations
ITIL/WaterfallScrumWaterfall
batch
Scrum-a-fall (aka the Scrum Sandwich - fail)

27. An agile business
Concept/Vision
Accept ambiguity
Strong customer focus
Incremental budget
Safe-to-fail culture
DevOps infrastructure
Automation
Value centre
Flow driven delivery
Customer focus
Business CustomerDelivery Operations
Continuous
Delivery/DevOps
AgileLean Planning
Deliver increment
to reduce risk &
validate
assumptions
Validated learning: reduced business risk,
validate business case assumptions, stronger customer focus
measureEvidence based decisions

28. Letting go
Move away from Move toward
Coordinating individuals and individual
contributions
Coaching people in agile techniques & positive
team behavior by embodying agile values.
Providing answers Enabling self-organization
Budget and Deadlines Flow and Value
Prescribing solutions Facilitating teams
Fixing problems Guiding teams to discover what works best for
them

29. From projects to teams
Project XYZ
Team ABCWork
See #noprojects

30. Fixed Mindset approach to delivery (Assembly Line)
Agile Mindset approach to delivery (Knowledge Work)
Discover and learn through valuable output and welcoming change (Circular Thinking – IKIWISI)
Discover
Then Build
LOCK-
DOWN
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5

31. A contemporary PM roadmap
freely
available

32. The Economics of Agile Project Management
• Data from Standish Group shows move to agile saves 20-60%
• Assume project portfolio = $5M
• 20% = $942,000, 60% = $3M
• On average $2M or 40%
• Upskilling to Agile Project Management
is a no brainer
• Why majority software projects use agile
See Standish Group Chaos Report
https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/white-papers/chaos-report.pdf
HPE report: Agile is the New Normal

33. Assurity Consulting Limited • Commercial in Confidence • Company Presentation Nov 2015

34. Come and have a chat about
the future of project
management at our stand.
edwin.dando@assurity.co.nz
agileforeveryone.com
@edwindando