Results tagged “Dan Goldfischer” from Voices on Project Management

Some observations by speakers at the now-concluded 2^nd Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum:

 

On Africa:

"There is lots of money available for African investment but not many competent groups to put together good projects and attractive deals. Having a project make money is a foreign concept for public funding companies."--Presenter representing a proposed power generation project in Ghana.

 

Creativity brings financial promise:

A hydropower project proposed for Georgia, the country with the largest hydropower resources in Europe, might not get off the ground if the electricity only was used locally. Georgia has low electric rates. The creative solution--sell power to neighboring Turkey, a high-rate country with growing demand. Plus an international transmission line to Turkey is under construction and will be ready in 2012--the same year the hydro plant would be ready if construction begins in 2009.

 

Money from customers--and the need for good stakeholder relations:

PA Consulting Group's David Keith said more equity for major infrastructure projects must come from developers and others, but ultimately revenues need to come from customers (the projects' beneficiaries) via higher tariffs and demand-side management. He said you need to be able to make profits on these types of projects in order to put money back into operations and maintenance. To make this sort of business case, project leaders must have excellent stakeholder relations.

 

Not as "sexy" as roads, bridges, trains or dams:

Several speakers on a water/wastewater projects panel reminded the audience that while water projects are not as attention-grabbing as other projects presented at the conference, they are socially necessary. Despite that necessity, the speakers agreed that water projects are not as advanced as other types of projects in their proposal cycles.

 

A project was presented to improve water service in a rural area of Gabon. The project included rehabilitation of manual village pumps. The goal is to reduce water-born diseases. Another project proposed building irrigation projects in a semi-arid region of Brazil to grow agriculture there and fight poverty. The speaker noted laws recently passed to encourage public-private partnerships. Finally, a representative of the engineering company Acea described a project for the Dominican Republic that will ultimately reduce consumption through metering, higher tariffs and reducing leakage.

 

An interesting note is that Acea is owned 51 percent by the city of Rome, a part of the world that has millennia of experience with aqueducts.

 

Mexico believes in infrastructure spending:

Dr. Luis Téllez Kuenzler, Mexico's secretary of transportation and communication, spoke at lunch. His country believes in infrastructure to counter the effects of the world economic crisis. Mexico will spend 1% of its GDP in 2009 on highways, rail, ports and airports, including its biggest project, a new Mexico City airport. 40% of this funding will come from public-private partnerships. The goal is to double the distance covered by motorways and raise port capacity by 85%, as well as speed up railroads. Dr. Téllez says crisis is an opportunity.

The first thing I heard at today's session of the 2^nd Annual Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum in Washington, DC, USA was a challenge--well, two challenges, really, to "getting the big things done": Identifying good major infrastructure projects and getting them financed. What exactly are "good" infrastructure projects? They are ones with solid project management, of course, but also ones that offer a return on investment. Many speakers said governments will have to share the risks, not just private concessionaires.

    Enrique Garcia, the president of the Andean Development Corporation, a major development bank serving all of Latin America, said it was interesting to hear that in the midst of the economic meltdown this forum was discussing infrastructure projects in the medium and long term. He happily reported a very recent trip to Panama where his and other development banks signed a $2.3 billion funding deal for the Panama Canal expansion. To make infrastructure projects possible, Mr. Garcia said, financial institutions have to be partners, not competitors.

    More "good news" came from Masaki Omura, managing director of the Japanese Finance Corporation. He said his institution was proposing major contributions toward infrastructure to cope with difficulties in the private financing sector, including $2 billion in recapitalization of projects in developing countries. Mr. Omura noted that there is still, by World Bank estimates, $165 billion in annual infrastructure demand through 2010 in eastern Asia alone.

    Judge Quentin Kopp of the California High Speed Rail Authority reminded the audience that two great infrastructure projects were built in his state during the Great Depression--the Golden Gate and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridges. A number of dams were built then as well.

    Many interesting projects were presented on today's panels. A number of them involved sustainable energy, such as Multiner Energy's efforts to build wind-driven power plants and waste-to-energy plants in Brazil. Another wind project on Cape Verde (an island nation off Africa with the best trade winds in the world) was discussed. And Israel is looking to take advantage of its most abundant renewable resource by building multiple solar energy plants in the southern part of the country.

    CG/LA Infrastructure, the firm running this event, bestowed awards on the "global champions" who are making large projects that improve our world even in extraordinary economic times. And by the end of the day, it seems that one answer emerged to the challenges posed at the beginning of the day--cooperation and sustainability are what will keep these projects going.
 

I am attending the 2^nd Annual Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum in Washington, DC, USA, an event that might be described as a mating ritual among sponsors of enormous infrastructure projects around the world, consultants who might find financing for these projects and engineers and equipment makers who can serve these projects once they get going. Ordinarily there would be an enthusiastic atmosphere at a meeting like this, but these are not ordinary times.

    The first session had a panel full of long-time experts on major infrastructure building and each member outdid each other in saying that never in their long careers had they seen a financial situation like the one we're in now: "There is no money;" "no private capital;" "the syndication market is closed;" "public equity is closed and private equity is circling like sharks. Blood is in the water and they are waiting for corpses."

    James Bond, the COO of the World Bank Group's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency said there are three crises going now, nested into each other "like Russian dolls": a financial sector crisis, a credit crisis and a deep recession. But the World Bank is in good shape financially, he said, because it is a conservative organization. And he predicted that investor confidence will be rebuilt as bond markets come back more regulated.

    But there is light at the end of the tunnel--or maybe even in the tunnel right now. While Mr. Bond said we will get out of the crisis in six months to a year, projects will go on--good, solid projects with good debt-equity ratios and no "bridges to nowhere." Projects should be financially viable, however--not always the case with infrastructure.

    Hezi Kugler, Director-General of Israel's Ministry of National Infrastructure, said performance-based projects are the way to go, ones with guaranteed benefits. He repeated Mr. Bond's call for well-structured projects. And he also is optimistic that in 2009 there will be more confidence and more capital.

    The next session included a panelist that had reason for optimism: Judge Quentin Kopp is the chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The voters in his state approved an almost-$10 billion bond issue to get this $45 billion project under way. It will be the first high-speed rail network built in the United States. And voters defied contrary public opinion polls to pass the referendum despite the economy.

    At an evening reception, attendees questioned the speaker, Eugene Robinson, a Washington Post columnist and political analyst, on whether the incoming Obama administration will support infrastructure. "There's a rare consensus in Washington now," said Mr. Robinson. "We're all Keynesian. Any recovery will be accompanied by government spending, and the best way is through infrastructure. 2009 will be an economic opportunity."

When you have to walk to a convention center in the dark and start your day with a stiff dose of caffeine before the sun reflects off the Front Range to the west, you need a laugh ... and some inspirational learning. Monday's breakfast speaker at global congress provided both.
    Connie Podesta had attendees rolling in the aisles as she divided the audience into squares, triangles, circles and squiggles--and proceeded to tell everyone their negative characteristics. Circles never stop talking and are too perky in the morning, triangles are obsessive-compulsive ... you get the idea.
    The point was that as project leaders, you have to be able to understand all different types of people. And we all need to make choices. Being happy is your job, Podesta said, not your boss's or parent's concern. If your organization provides a respectful, positive environment and listens to people, team members will choose to be happy ... or not.
    In the hotel elevator, Podesta heard some PMI folks complaining about the congress (the size of the convention center, the food, etc., etc.). "Did you ever stop to think what an unbelievable project it is to put on an event fro 4,000 people? How many think PMI did a good job?" I'm happy to report a loud round of applause greeted this question, because it has been an incredible amount of work for my PMI colleagues and the Mile-Hi Chapter volunteers. Always acknowledge good work was that lesson.

The first full day of global congress sessions is over in Denver. Seems that one common theme is the elevation of the status of project managers. They are getting respect.
    At lunch yesterday, I met Kyle A. Mabin, program manager, consumer electronics for Intel Corp., based in Chandler, Arizona, USA. He told me that he "thinks it's wonderful to see that most industries realize the importance of focusing on program and project managers as key to their organizational succcess, and not just as a role."
    Listening to presenters and their audiences, he thought that a movement was starting--that in this economy, organizations are realizing that project managers are the ones who can do it better, faster, cheaper.
    Mabin is a first-time congress attendee and a new PMI member. He has been managing international programs since 1993 and plans to study for his PMP credential. When he gets back to work after Denver, he plans to ask his executives what his company is doing to advance project management as a career, not a role. Great action plan!
    The focus of federal government project work is changing from just doing work to getting results, according to a session on identifying future trends in U.S. public sector and program management. Another trend is that the role of programs/project manager is no longer being seen as a collateral duty.
    Gary Heerkens, PMP, discussed this theme in his presentation yesterday on strategic project management maturity. As project managers become more in tune with making project decisions based on sound business judgment, and as they learn the strategic alignment of their projects and educate their team on it, executives will see that projects are the way to gain positive financial return and reach long-term goals.

Gen. Powell's keynote speech at congress knocked my socks off. Judging from the incredible spontaneous and thunderous standing ovations at the beginning and end of his talk he knocked off a whole lot of socks. His amazing stories of military and diplomatic life and leadership lessons resonated with everyone.

But it turns out not quite everyone had the same total reaction. Walking out of the Wells Fargo Theater, I made a few observations that reminded me that people come from different places in this world, literally and figuratively. One gentleman from the United Kingdom was heard telling his U.S. friend that he didn't like the speech because some aspects of it (particularly stories about the invasion of Panama) reminded him of the United States as, in his view, an overbearing military presence in the world.

After hearing that I looked around and noticed that attendees appearing to come from Latin America were not nearly as "juiced up" as others in the audience.

In the reception afterwards, someone told me that their friend from Europe felt that the general did not have it right when he said Europe is safer now than it had ever been.

I'm a native-born U.S. citizen, I thought Gen. Powell's presence was one fo the best I had ever heard. It gave me hope; it ramped up the excitement for the congress. But I can definitely see where the feelings of non-U.S. citizens are coming from.

Even among U.S. citizens, it appeared that Gen. Powell's presence was controversial. The general had appeared on television this morning to endorse a presidential candidate; several attendees unveiled a red sign at the beginning of his talk that said, "We've lost an American hero." The attendee who told me this served in the military and was very upset by this sign, all politics aside.

Gen. Powell, however, was not fazed. He told the audience that some people may strongly agree while others may disagree with his politics, but he wanted people to weigh the options and make up their own minds.

No one can contest Gen. Powell's leadership skills and charisma. His speaking style is fabulous--he was funny and personable. But the reactions I saw afterward that were different than mine reminded me of the importance of remembering that people come from different places. For project leaders of global teams, it is always key to keep this top-of-mind and be sensitive to differences. With respect, we can all work together and learn. 

The 2008 North America Leadership Institute (LI) Meeting has just wrapped up, and a major theme of this gathering of chapter and Specific Interest Group (SIG) leaders was "change." PMI president and CEO, Gregory Balestrero, reminded attendees time and time again that the organization is going through significant changes and change can be difficult. His advice was to be on the solution side of change management and keep focused on the project management "prize," the amazing amount of value the profession can add to organizations and the world.
    If you are reading this from outside the Colorado Convention Center you might wonder what changes are in store. That depends on your role in PMI. If you are a SIG leader, the Virtual Communities Project means SIGs will transition (that is, change) to Communities of Practice or Forums. PMI will run the infrastructure and the new electronic platform--now being piloted--will allow for much more two-way communication. SIG leaders will no longer need to be concerned with administrative details and can concentrate on providing knowledge within their specialties.
    Those who can benefit from knowledge from all areas of project management, whether it be risk management or the like, or areas that use project management, like IT, government, pharmaceuticals, etc., will find it easier after VCP is fully completed. A decision is pending that will allow members for one nominal fee to access information from all Communities of Practice Forums. They will not have to join every virtual community to benefit from those communities' expertise. In other words, we come closer to being "One PMI."
    On the chapter front, leaders are gearing up to use the new Catalog of Core and Extended Services, Strategic Alignment Scorecard and Multi-Year Business Plan. This will mean a bit of work for chapter volunteers but the "prize" at the end will mean "One PMI"--a "normalized" experience for members, and strategic alignment across the Institute, around the world. This change means that a member living in one part of the world will be able to enjoy much of the same chapter member benefits if he or she moves to another part of the world--and that all chapters will be following the PMI Strategic Plan.
    One thing that did not change in this LI meeting was the positive reaction of leaders attending. Whether they were new to LI meetings or veterans, all were impressed by the insights they will be able to take to their home chapters, finding ways to add value to members, connect with organizations in their communities and spread the word on the benefits of project management.

In the days following the release of the preliminary results from Researching the Value of Project Management, conference-goers weighed in on the importance of the study. Here is a snapshot of some of their thoughts:

 "It's a landmark study that we all have been looking forward to. ... The results will be felt for many years to come."
--Frank Anbari, Ph.D., United States

"They've gathered a huge quality of very valuable data, the analysis of which will probably take a couple of years. So the presentation that Janice [Thomas] and Mark [Mullaly] gave just gives us the tip of the iceberg. I think they did a very good job presenting how rich that data is, but one thing became very clear out of it. There's a bit of a paradox here. Companies are asking for ROI, but even when they have the opportunity they're not measuring the cost of the benefits."
--Brian Hobbs, PMP, University of Quebec, Quebec, Montreal, Canada

"It was a huge study. ...I can see some very interesting case study work coming out of that and I'd be very keen to read it."
--Derek Walker, Australia

"One thing that struck me in the results of the Researching the Value of Project Management is that there were no companies that were at the [higher] maturity levels. To me, that might be an indication that companies stop at certain points. They see value in project management and they invest in getting common models, common training for their project managers, common terminology, but after a certain level of maturity they stop. So that's probably something that needs to be further investigated to understand ..."
--Yven Petit, PMP, Canada

Come back for more interviews.

Terry Cooke-Davies is a veteran of all five PMI research conferences as well as one of the team leads on Researching the Value of Project Management. And he liked what he has experienced at the conference.

"I'm enjoying it hugely," Terry said. "There hasn't been a timeslot yet where there is nothing I want to go to."

"We're maintaining the high standards we've come to expect of PMI research conferences," he went on. "Project management research has become more self-confident since the first conference." This conference has greater breadth, he thinks, and Terry really appreciates that the meeting includes "engaging with other management disciplines in academic discourse."

Terry also told me that one of the case-study companies from the Value study e-mailed him this morning and said they are now realizing how far they've come in project management over the last two years. To show how much this particular company valued the study and project management, Terry said they made 21 people in two continents available to him for interviews, including some "very senior managers."

Another plenary session of that first day of the conference got equally rave reviews as the first from the audience members I spoke with at lunch. Dr. Martin Hoegl, a well-known expert in teaming, talked about optimum team size and how well remote teams do versus localized teams.

Did you know someone did a teaming study using tug-of-war? It turns out in this sport, and in project teams, less is more. After a tug-of-war team gets more than four members, the amount of effort put out by each team member goes down. "It's just human nature," Dr. Hoegl said. "People think there are lots of others on the team, so they can work less."

And stairs make a difference. Dr. Hoegl's research has shown that teams on the same floor do better than those with members separated by even one story in a building!

Dr. Hoegl's study showed dispersed teams have better outcomes (higher quality and more efficiency) than local teams if their quality of teamwork is high, but dispersed teams do much worse than co-located teams if their teamwork quality is low.

The take-aways from this research for organizations: Office layout matters (keep teams on the same floor); and for virutal team members, recruit and develop those who have good intercultural skills, great self-leadership skills, and consistent skills with other team members to enable shared leadership. And try to foster a global culture.

The first plenary presenter at the PMI Research Conference was Dr. Andrew Pettigrew. He is a globally known figure in management academia, the dean of the management school at University of Bath, England. Not project management, just management. But despite this, his stature, topic and talk were all very exciting to the audience. Ed Andrews, in charge of organizing the conference, said it took several attempts to convince Dr. Pettigrew to come.

He talked about seeming conflicts in corporate management that came about in the late 1990s--things like companies both standardizing and customizing at the same time, trends such as centralizing strategy while decentralizing operations. These were among trends that "took some getting use to."

Dr. Pettigrew used 1990s BP as an example for a company making wholesale changes that improved the firm's fortunes in that era of relatively flat oil prices. It cost the head of the CEO who first proposed the changes, he said, but later that CEO (Mr. Horton) got a bonus--posthumously, you might say. The speaker then sidetracked a bit on revolving-door CEOs, saying the average tenure of three years each couldn't be good for companies.

One bit of advice for attendees: Watch out for the J-curve. For non-researchers amongst us like myself, this roughly means things get worse before they get better.

I recently received these comments from Olivier Lazar, Ph.D., student, ESC Lille, France, about the GAC Academic Forum, held prior to the Research Conference and thought they were worth sharing:

  The economic situation is putting organizations under high pressure to secure their investments, foster controls and meanwhile be more and more reactive to a constantly changing and more competitive environment.

This is the challenge that has to be undertaken by all the educational programs in project management, by raising the number of degrees, the number of graduates and ensuring their competence between academe and practice.

During the forum, we have seen some very interesting and promising initiatives. Shell, for example, has developed a whole training program with Cranfield University, immersing the academic experts in the pragmatic contrains of the business pace. Their success in this project demonstrates clearly that this is a way where we all should look. This point has also been illustrated by the University of Manchester and the Rolls-Royce Center for Project Management.

The partnership between industry/business and academe is a necessary win-win relationship, feeding the education by the field experience and the real-time connection with business contraints, academe giving the outcome of its research and providing industry with high-level professionals, with a tremendous knowledge of standards and already prepared to the expectation of their future operational practice.

There are other events taking place at the same venue as the PMI Research Conference. One was the PMI Academic Forum. As project management grows, so does the need for qualified degreed graduates from universities worldwide. A record turnout of 75 came to this event to share ideas on promoting project management education and making sure it meets the needs of the industry, corporations and governments.

PMI president and CEO Gregory Balestrero kicked off the forum with a passionate appeal on the urgency to fill the project management talent shortage and how academia can help.

Here's more from William Moylan, Ph.D., PMP, a member of the PMI Board of Directors and a project management  educator:

The forum provided a catalyst for forging strong partnerships between academic and business communities. The active dialogues among the participants, informative presentations and interactive Q&A sessions, along with the fun networking receptions all helped in deepening established friendships and kindling new associations. The sense of urgency, as noted by Mr. Balestrero in his opening remarks, set the tone for the day-long program. As the entire world becomes project-focused, the exciting challenges of the project management profession are mounting, and the need to educate the cadre of professional project managers is inherent to the solution.

Building partnerships between industry practitioners and academia seems to be a workable solution. The forum presentations encouraged attendees to continue the learning journey through technology transfer, professional development and active interaction with the intention to serve the needs of all stakeholders, especially the students of project management. As life-long learning is the norm for leading in a world of change, partnering is essential to gain the advantages and benefits of a disciplined approach to managing projects and programs. Let us all keep in touch as we partner together in this quest.

And PMI's Oxana Ahern weighed in with some other thoughts I've included below:

As part of the forum, Bill Wilson, Ph.D., professor from Cranfield University, and John Sharples, Shell learning officer, shed light on training programs designed by universities that teach project management at the program level at corporations such as Shell.

Klaus Brockoff with WHU in Germany, who happened to be sitting next to me in the audience, told me his university faced the same challenges (different priorities of academia and the corporate world; estimating the real costs associated with the endeavor) in their joint collaborative programs.

A presentation by Andrew Gale, Ph.D., professor from the University of Manchester, and Mike Brown, head of the Center for Project Management Rolls-Royce, discussed their partnership, which emphasizes not so much the development of hands-on project management skills but mainly critical reflective thinking about everyday project management practices.

One thing that struck me as principal investigators Janice Thomas, Ph.D., and Mark Mullaly, PMP, spoke at their overview presentation on Researching the Value of Project Management was their pride in their team and the team's work in collecting a massive amount of data from 65 organizations around the world, conducting 417 interviews and 344 surveys, and then analyzing all that information.

Trying to imagine what it would be like to stand in front of an audience of your peers at the near-completion of an incredible effort five years in the making, the only analogy that came to mind was graduation. Only, in this case, instead of a person moving on and growing following completion of a degree program, an entire profession with millions of members around the world is graduating to the next level of maturity ... one in which organizations and the world in general will now know the value they create.

To put the power of Researching the Value of Project Management into perspective, Blaize Horner, Ph.D., a professor at Simon Fraser University, told me Dr. Thomas made an "amazingly strong statement for a researcher when she said unequivocally that project management delivers value." Dr. Blaize said researchers rarely use that word unequivocal because research generally brings up more questions than answers. She also said the finding that even at low levels of maturity project management demonstrated value was "very encouraging."

While in Warsaw for the Research Conference, I had the pleasure to meet with Piotr Plewinski, PMP, yesterday morning. Piotr, who is with the Gdansk Branch of the PMI Poland Chapter, was going to take me to see the summer camp the chapter has run for five years for Polish orphans, a camp where they take classes in English as a second language. Since I have published several articles about this camp in PMI Today, I was very excited to go and these plans were long in the making. Unfortunately (but fortunately for Poland), road projects tied to the Euro 2012 championship to be hosted by Poland and Ukraine interfered with our plans.

It seems that normally it would take about 2 and one-half hours for a fast native Polish driver like Piotr to get from Warsaw to the camp near Gdansk, but he said that unpredicable weekend traffic jams from road construction would probably increase that time to about 5 hours each way--too difficult to make as a one-day round trip.

So Piotr and I chatted in a cafe about the  camp, how much he has seen the program and the orphans grow in the five years the chapter has run it, the great benefit the campers will see from this education (being more able to get high-paying jobs in construction and other fields), and the challenges of running a volunteer project like this for a chapter that just recently completed the conversion to chapter with branches. One challenge involves the departure of the program manager, who is scheduled to have a baby in August.

I am privileged to know people in the PMI world like Piotr who take project management into the social responsibility realm and really make a difference. Now that's a value of project management! 

Here's a brief look at the principal researchers behind PMI's Researching the Value of Project Management study:

 Janice Thomas, Ph.D.: Dr. Thomas serves as associate professor of project management and program director for the Executive MBA in Project Management program at Athabasca University in Athabasca, Alberta, Canada. A veteran of the field for almost 25 years, she was recognzied by PM Network as one of the most influential women in project management in 2006.
Mark Mullaly, PMP: President of Interthink Consulting in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Mr. Mullaly works to integrate expertise in project management, strategy, organizational theory and psychology. He has more than 20 years of experience and his research interests include value of organizational project management, strategic decision-making, and exploration of personal preferences and psychological types.

    My bags are packed and I'm leaving for the airport headed to Warsaw for PMI's Research Conference. I arrive on Saturday and will be making regular posts throughout the event. Check back for a behind-the-scenes look at the conference from me and my fellow bloggers. Gregory Balestrero, president and CEO of PMI, will also be providing his take on the study and project management at large.
    The early buzz around the conference is that researchers Janice Thomas, Ph.D., and Mark Mullaly, PMP, have some pretty significant results to present from PMI's multimillion-dollar study on Researching the Value of Project Management.
    Til now, researchers have been unable to collect and analyze the relevant data to demonstrate the value of project management with sufficient scope and statistical validity. There have been other survey-based studies on the subject. But this is hardcore evidence--apparently a gigabyte of data has been analyzed--and that makes it hard for anyone to ignore. The study will look at more than 60 cases (I've heard closer to 70) from small and large companies across a variety of industries and around the world.
    Stay tuned ...