Change Management: Science Fiction or Fantasy

Prof. Tim Brady University of Brighton The Great Change Debate APM Enabling Change SIG March 5th 2015

Marine installations at Brighton Marina

Renovating Georgian buildings on Marine Parade

Retail developments in Newhaven Town Centre

The Early Academic Research (1980 – 1988 )

implications of technological change for skills and employment and training policy

microelectronics, new materials

The ICT Years (1988-1994) the structure and dynamics of software activities

doctoral research on

make or buy decisions

for business software

the strategic use of information systems

The CoPS Years (1994-2006) EPSRC and ESRC funded research on innovation in firms producing complex products and systems

Member of EPSRC “Rethinking Project Management” network

The Complex Project Years (2006 - )

Heathrow Terminal 5

Biodiesel plant development projects

London Olympics programmes

Innovation or change?

Innovation?

the Latin word

innovare

means

‘to make something new’

“Essentially, we are talking about

change”

“the process of turning new

ideas into reality and

gaining value from them”

Organizational Change?

“the movement over time from an ongoing present to an emerging and uncertain future that is sometimes planned and managed with the intention of securing anticipated and sometimes unplanned for and unforeseen objectives”

What is a project?

“a combination of human and non-human resources pulled together into a temporary organization to achieve a specified purpose”

Cleland and Kerner, 1985

the Latin word Projectio

pro - from a place iacio – to throw

‘throwing forward’

Projects are the vehicle for a whole range of tasks

achieving organizational change development of new products and

services process improvement

implementation of IT and production technologies

mergers and acquisitions

But…..

projects remain poorly understood and are bedevilled by poor

performance

Why do projects fail?

“Projects exhibit high failure rates because senior managers and project teams underestimate, up front, the extent of uncertainty and complexity involved in their projects and fail to adapt their management style to the situation.” Source: Shenhar and Dvir, 2007 Reinventing Project Management, Harvard Business School, Boston MA.)

“Science fiction involves that which general opinion regards as possible under the right circumstances.

Fantasy involves that which general opinion regards as impossible.”

Source: The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings by Philip K. Dick (edited and with an Introduction by Lawrence Sutin), Vantage, 1995

The fantasy of project management

• Project management textbooks suggest once the client has handed over their well-defined problem, projects simply manifest means-end reasoning through a staged process from project initiation, through planning and design, then execution and finally completion.

• Project management tools and techniques have tended to assume that project managers deal with quantifiable risks, or when they deal with uncertainties the “risks” involved are somehow out there, waiting to be discovered

The reality of project management practice

In the real world, high quality project managers are men and women who have judgement and experience to manage conflicting stakeholders’ aims and objectives and act effectively in the face of a constant stream of problems some predictable, some unpredictable

i.e. they have to deal with a rather messy reality that becomes increasingly messy as projects become larger, more software intensive and more political

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” Albert Einstein

Atlas launch 1958 Polaris test launch 1959

Back to the 1950s

Engineers created systems engineering

Managers created project management

Dealing with complexity

the design and development of systems

engineers, physicists and ‘rocket scientists’ worked together in a multi-disciplinary design team

emphasis on meeting technical specifications

Systems Engineering

development of new tools and techniques and new organisations to manage the system development process and to deal with external stakeholders

emphasis on meeting cost and schedule constraints

Project Management

Two approaches to complex

development projects

Page 39

See Klein, B.H. and Meckling, W. (1958), “Application of operations research to development decisions”, Operations Research, Vol. 6, pp. 352-63

Mr Optimizer systematically analyses and compares all the alternative promising final systems

makes estimates about the performance all the subsystems and components might achieve by the target date

matches these alternatives to a detailed model of the future operating environment

then,according to some criteria for choosing the most efficient system among the alternatives, a choice is made which end-product is best

Mr Skeptic refuses to define what is optimal at an early stage

contracts for several prototypes to be developed in the overall programme

maintains flexibility by committing resources to the development in stages, constantly reviewing

enables learning to take place which allow better decision-making at later stages

Klein & Meckling’s findings

If Mr Optimizer’s assumptions (guess) about performance of the single choice prove correct then certainly that solution will be more efficient

But if they turn out wrong then there are serious consequences in terms of inferior quality, major cost escalation and schedule overruns

Mr Skeptic’s strategy is often the most efficient

In the 1960s the focus gradually changed to one of optimizing the

cost/performance ratio.

Page 43

Page 44

Back to the 2000s

Into the future

• the world is not predictable • plans will need to be changed • budgets need to be realistic • flexibility needs to be built in • collaboration is required

Reality rather than fantasy

Demands an innovative approach

The hybrid skeptic/optimiser model

Strong Client leadership and involvement

Strong governance – assurance and reporting

Collaborative working – integrated teams

Flexibility – ability to have different contracting approaches in sub-projects according to the situation

Adaptability – ability to respond to changes

Learning

The Optic Model of Project Success

Strong Client

Strong gover-nance

Collab-orative working

Flexi-bility

Adapt-ability

Learn- ing

“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things……. ..…. because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and luke warm defenders among those who may do well under the new." Machievelli

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