Hello and welcome to the APM Podcast, brought to you by The Chartered Body for the Project Profession here at the APM Podcast. It's become something of an annual tradition to finish the year with an episode that compiles some of our highlights of the past 12 months. In this episode we're continuing that tradition with a look back at our favourite moments from the podcast in 2023.
It's been another action-packed year in which we've welcomed guests from across the international project management community. We kicked off 2023 with an episode on Bringing Empathy into the workplace, and since then we've covered topics ranging from the rise of artificial intelligence to the can do mindset of Icelandic project managers. But there have been a few episodes that really stood out to us, and which performed particularly well with listeners.
Over the next 25 minutes, we'll share our top five lessons from the year in the form of short extracts from these episodes. So listen on to hear regular podcast host Emma Devita, editor of Project Journal, interviewing experts on everything from supporting introverts at work to why risks aren't necessarily always bad. Professor Bent Flubia is a world
leading expert on mega projects. In March, he made his second appearance on the APM podcast in an episode called How Big Things Get Done, which is also the title of a book he published this year exploring the surprising factors behind every successful project. Here he is talking to Emma about the importance of thinking slow and acting fast. One of the messages that really stuck with me is this the central idea of think slow, act fast.
Could you explain to listeners what this actually means? Some people would rebel against things slow because they think it means take a long time, and it doesn't necessarily mean that. It means that you need to slow down your thinking in accordance with the findings in behavioural economics. So you know Daniel Kahneman's book called Thinking Fast and Slow. It's about you have these two ways of thinking and one is our spontaneous, uh, way that we use as a fall back position, which
is the the fast way. So we think fast and that gets us into a lot of trouble. So there's probably a good reason in evolutionary terms that we have this ability to think really fast, you know, but some things are not suited for that. And I would say that a big project is the kind of thing that is not suited for fast thinking, that you actually need to carefully consider what you're doing because the fact that it's big means that it has
big consequences. And we've studied products very carefully and many people actually think the bigger the project you do, the more risky and difficult it is. And we find that's actually not, that's not the main problem. There's a bit of truth to that, but not much actually. The main thing is the longer it takes, the more risky it is and the higher risk of going terribly wrong. So it's actually time that is the killer for projects, not size. So that's why we say egg fest.
So by adding fast you can actually reduce your risks enormously, especially you have been thinking slow first. So that's why we say the rhythm of success in projects is think slow, act fast. Why does thinking slow and acting fast not usually happen? Because we are programmed to not do this. We are hardwired from nature for whatever reason, probably very good revolutionary reasons.
We have something called availability bias, that whatever pops into our brain 1st and makes itself available as a thought, and this could be a thought about a project or an idea for the project. We tend to take onto that and then disregard all sorts of other things. We actually kind of lose perspective because we already have a perspective, namely the first thought that came into our
mind. This is very well documented again in behavioural science and behavioural economics that we have this and this is something to watch out for. And that's why we think first we just jump to the first thing, then we assume that this is all there is. That's an extremely strong cognitive bias we have. So that's what's happening in projects is that we quickly latch onto some idea, maybe even a specific technology that we're going to use for this project. And then that's all we see.
What we see is all there is and we run with that. Instead of stepping back and saying, OK, now I have one idea. Now let me start to think about some other ideas. And we give very clear guidance in the book and and and and take the reader's hand and walk the reader through processes that you can use to step back and think more systematically about what are the alternatives here, What are the many other ways that we could do this? And then decide which of these
ways are you going to use? One of our main means is to to ask why. We encourage anybody who's doing a project to 1st sit down and ask themselves or whoever is doing this project, why are you doing the project? Why? And you need to have a very good answer to that question before you start, so you actually know precisely and very well thought out what the reasons are that you are doing the project. Then after you know that you can start thinking backwards from that, that's really the end
product you want to end up with. Then you work backwards through the Cans diagram to the left side of the diagram. And then you start thinking about how do I deliver the why and what's the best way to do that. That's a way to avoid falling into this trap of committing to a bad idea up front, which is very common. And if you do that, then you get the opposite of thinking slow, acting fast. You get think fast, act slow
because you have. If you haven't thought out what you are going to do, then all sorts of problems are going to pop up when you can least afford it and when it's really going to slow you down, which is in the delivery phase. For our second lesson learned of the year, we turn to the topic of inclusivity. One less explored theme is how to make workplaces welcoming to introverts as well as
extroverts. There is a misconception that project and programme managers are always extroverts, happy to speak up and assert themselves in meetings and comfortable presenting to large groups. The reality, however, is that there are many introverts working in the project profession who struggle with these preconceptions and have different, quieter methods of getting the job done. Emma spoke to a panel of introverts in May to find out
more. What needs to change about the project profession and the way project teams work in order to allow introverts to thrive? Because our preference is to engage people in smaller groups or 1:00 to 1:00, that creates a really strong foundation for building trust with stakeholders because trust is built between individuals.
And I think we are very good at that naturally of kind of creating that, that relationship, that more more intimate relationship with stakeholders, with clients, customers and so on. But I also think that if you're always that person who leads from the front, you might not always be aware of what happens behind you.
And you know, if you're kind of the person that doesn't need to lead from default and you, you maybe have to kind of observation skills to pick up certain things that others may not. So you know, I think you know, we observe and see things, understand and kind of digest dynamics, understand the dynamics and then can kind of adapt ourselves, teams and others to to, you know, to take advantage of those dynamics. What needs to change to allow you to capitalise on your strengths at work?
What advice or thoughts would you give to other project leaders or project managers about having introverts on their teams and giving them what they need to do the best job they can? Even though you know, extrovert versus introvert is not part necessarily of the being inclusive organisations and discussion right.
Being inclusive organisation does not necessarily limit you to being inclusive to different genders or or neurodiverse people or whoever else it it simply means that you're creating environments where no matter what kind of person you are, you can be at your best. So, so you know continuing to invest into that and amplifying that you know will definitely help everyone including introverts.
Claire what what? What strengths do you feel introverts bring to her team and how can there be better supported? I guess it's that that that diversity. So in terms of, you know, if you've got experts on the team or you've got, you know, male females, it's it's having that that balance and that diversity
of thought, diversity of view. I guess the problem you sometimes get is that the introverts don't manage to get their points across and therefore you don't end up with that diversity of thought because you know the introvert isn't isn't putting that point across. Should it be that the person who's running that meeting be, you know, knowing of that and should therefore invite people they know to be kind of quieter than others to contribute?
Would that help I? Think I think it's everybody's responsibility actually. I think, I think, you know, we we should all be be able to read the room and to understand what other people are doing, what their preferences are, you know, what they've got to contribute. And you know, if you've got people in a meeting or or in a workshop, they're there for a reason. And if they're not there for a reason, then they shouldn't be there at all because we've all
got better things to be doing. I think it's upon everybody to make sure that everybody else is contributing. And you know it's it's upon me as an introvert to know when I'm being introverted but but equally I don't necessarily want somebody to go what do you have to say on the matter because then it's you know it's everybody head turning to stare at me which you know I will just go nothing thanks. So it's it's allowing allowing the introvert the time to think.
Next, we turn to the topic of risk management. Risk is a word that is usually seen to have an exclusively negative meaning. And while it's essential that roject Rofessionals pay attention to the eventualities that could derail their projects, there is a growing school of thought that argues that opportunities as well as risks need to be a greater part of the risk management conversation. Peter Simon of AP, Ms Risk SIG
was on hand to explain more. Are you suggesting that on a project as much attention should be given to the opportunities, and I'm thinking of those as the positive side of things, as to the risks and the threats, And if and if so, would that then shift the mindset or the energy on a project towards some more positive? I don't want to just think of projects as purely as costing money and and taking time, but all projects do have a budget. When things go wrong, they can
go very very wrong. So something can cost twice as much as you anticipated or take twice as long. It's very unlikely for something to cost half as much as you thought it was going to be. I'll take half as long. So what that's what I mean by that is the it's a skew the term we'd use, it's a skewed distribution. Things can get a lot worse than they can get them. On the contrary, they can get a lot better.
So that's one of the dilemmas. Do we spend time trying to find the little things that might happen when there's a lot more bigger things out there that if they happen, could destroy the project? So there is that dilemma. So should you put as much effort in? And the answer therefore is probably not. But don't ignore it because there might be using a metaphor, some low hanging fruit somewhere that you can pick and get, but but putting the same amount of effort in, Probably not.
But also what tends to happen in projects. And you will be aware that projects go through a life cycle and a certain point in that life cycle the project gets signed off. And it doesn't matter if this is a an agile or an iterative life cycle. There's a point where we can decide to spend some money because we've got something we're going to do. What tends to happen is psychologically, and that you might have heard the term optimism bias.
The good things that might happen tend to be put into our baseline. It's like saying it's going to be a sunny day every day. We assume that it's not on all the good things. We might be able to get that a little bit cheaper. So we put that in a base case and that happens a lot, especially when people want to get their project to go ahead for some reason. They've got to meet a hurdle of it's got to cost less than this. So it's got to be done in a shorter time than that or
something. Which means if you've built in all those opportunities, and this is born out in the research that people do opportunity management right at the beginning, then things can only get worse. You know, if you put a plan together and it doesn't matter what it is, the schedule together and it's and it's based on 8 hours productivity every day doesn't matter what you're
doing. It's been a sunny day every day, all the equipment arriving on time, all IT code working first time and people do that then it can. It can't get better than and that's what the dynamics would opportunity management. We grasp it too early. So what's your advice about mitigating that kind of optimism bias or unnatural proclivity towards opportunities? Understanding that you're doing it is one thing.
What also then can overcome that if you do end up doing, and again you might have heard the term quantitative risk analysis where you do simulation models, then that exposes that. That will expose the fact that everything is very optimistic, but be aware you're doing it and maybe thinking just think it might not be a sunny day every day. A lot of that also comes down to and another word that gets used in risk management even though it's a commonly used term is is
assumptions. Then what are we assuming? And you know you could say we it might be sunny every day or that's fine, but are you assuming it's going to be sunny every day? And if you are then it can only get worse. So sometimes think of what what are you assuming and whether you're over assuming things because it's the assumptions of the good things in that sense. The debate around agile versus waterfall methodologies is an Evergreen topic in project management.
But not everyone agrees that project approaches can be neatly divided into these two camps. And others contend that agile, or rather agility, has been in evidence on projects for decades, if not centuries, rather than being a modern innovation. Picking up the debate on the APM podcast this year was veteran project manager Adrian Dooley. Agile came about at the turn of the Millennium.
How has the concept of Agile changed since then since the Agile Manifesto came out, and how has that morphed into something for the world of project management to use? There's a perception that Agile started with the manifesto.
If if we drop the word Agile for a moment and talk about agility, you know the ability to flex and be adaptable on your projects, that there are numerous examples and case studies going back to the the Pantheon in Rome in the 1st century through Christopher Renz and Paul's Cathedral, where people have had to stop, rethink, look again at the scope and head off in a slightly different direction. That that's nothing new. So I think agility has all always been there.
The only thing that started in 2001 was the hype. The Agile Manifesto crystallised that, perhaps, as I suggested, as a reaction to how the software industry had somewhat unthinkingly adopted so much stuff from construction which wasn't necessarily relevant. But it was that manifesto that started in 2001 and rapidly became something that I believe it wasn't intended to be because of the hype. What did it become then? Almost like a cult. I'd agree with you and I probably would drop the word
almost. I think yes, it's it has become a cult. One example of that is that agile has become binary. You know when I talked about agility and flexibility, you're talking about something which is a continuum. There are different degrees of agility, different degrees of flexibility, whereas agile has
become binary. Sadly something I I do quite a bit is monitor all the conversations on social media about this and you keep getting these debates amongst people who are in the agile community saying, well that's agile, that's not agile, particularly when it comes to trying to scale agile across an organisation. If if you look at this stuff on social media, for example on LinkedIn, you will find there is quite a battle between the camps that say safe the scale agile
framework. Safe is not Agile and other people will say, well yes, this is it's scaled out of agile. You'll get people debating whether Scrum is Agile or not. That's a slightly different kind of argument, but there are these quite heated debates about what is Agile what is not Agile. It's become binary. And one of my observations is that because people can't quite pin down what Agile is, they resort to the easier thing of defining what it isn't. And that's where waterfall comes from.
Because if we can't agree what Agile is, let's talk about what it isn't. We don't have a name for what? It isn't in the way that we have a name for Agile. So we need to create something an antonym for Agile and that's where the term waterfall comes from. And you will see some quite prominent and respected people will quote things about waterfall or the other term that they they commonly use is traditional project management.
So there's this idea that there is this traditional project management, IE every project previous to 2001 followed this traditional approach and typically that is colloquially called waterfall. Which is you sit down, you define everything, you produce an immutable plan which can't change, and then you start delivering according to that plan. Is, I say, a creation of people who want to promote what they perceive as the opposite to
that? Our final lesson learned comes from a podcast in which Emma was joined by a panel of women who shared experience and advice on how best to deal with menopausal symptoms at work and how to support colleagues going through menopause. The guests explored why project work can present additional challenges to women going through menopause and also considered practical tips for
team leaders who want to help. Is there anything specifically about project work that is trickier to manage when it comes to sort of also living with menopausal symptoms? I think the confidence issue is is a challenge and I think another thing with project work is certainly sort of where I am guess I do get to work flexibly, but I'm on the client side.
I know if I was not on the client side, I would probably be expected to be in the office much more on site particularly because it's a construction project there would be that, but also projects are not often that long in nature. You may be moving on. So therefore you're then going back and if you know symptoms can go on for you know seven years on average. So you're then having to say all
against somebody else. So it's it's that that you with projects and and the churn of people on projects, a lot of people don't stay on big projects more than a couple of years. So you are often having to have the same conversation 18 months later. And I said if you're expected to go on site which a lot of people are unless you speak up and then it's like well the spotlight's on you, why are you not doing that? Why do you get off the hook? And that's not a comfortable
conversation to have, is it? Sometimes? Because you don't want to be the one standing out in the crowd of everyone else that's going on site. But actually, sometimes you're far too hot to put on all that high vis. Is it then just a matter of being brave and doing it and having that conversation? It's also individual. I felt at times when I was going through it, a lack of confidence and a poor night's sleep.
Everything else. I was probably the worst person to advocate for myself because I probably would have chewed the head off and you know, just have pure tiredness. So I think that's why it's not just menopausal or postmenopausal women. We all have to advocate because you know, we're all going to go through it collectively because
it's it's not. You're not always in the best position with the greatest amount of confidence to speak up for yourself in that moment when you're challenged and you've got, you know, 12 men looking at you and the only person in the room or any woman in the room, it's a little bit like, oh, I don't really want to tell you all of that right now.
What advice would you give to if you're in a project and project manager, as a team leader, wants to do the right thing and is perhaps thinking about these issues for the first time? Rachel. I've asked them to think about it. What is helpful for them to do? What is it about creating particular kind of culture? Is it about the practical things? Is it about the language you use when talking about it?
I think it's down to company culture and about talking about all sorts of medical health issues from mental well-being. So if we keep bringing all of these up, I think it's about culture. There's practical things here on the mine in every lady's toilet, says sanitaryware available a variety to you. So if you have an accident, you don't have to worry and go searching for another female to ask if she's got anything. It's there.
Simple little hacks like that from a practical perspective, but ultimately it's culture so that you've you've feel you can speak up without been embarrassed about something that actually is very normal. That's it for our roundup of the year's highlights. There were many more insights we didn't have time to feature here, so why not go back and delve into our back catalogue from 2020 all the way up to the present? We also want to hear your views.
What did you learn on the APM Podcast in 2023, and is there a topic you'd like to hear a tackle in 2024? We're always keen to hear your thoughts at 8:00 PM Podcast at thinkpublishing.co.uk. If you've enjoyed the content we've put out this year, please leave us a review wherever you
get your podcasts. Thanks to all our listeners for your continued support and we look forward to bringing you more episodes in the new Year. This podcast has been brought to you by APM, the Chartered Body for the project profession. Find out more at Amorg UK.