The Inevitable Collapse of Agile - David Stackleather

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VoiceAmerica  0:04  
One problem facing people at many levels of business is how to make time for a work life and a personal life. Do you find that one seems to keep getting in the way of the other? This is the work life balance with Rick Morris. Even if you're not involved in the business world, you'll have a lot to gain by tuning into today's show. Now, here's your host, Rick Morris.

Rick A. Morris  0:26  
And welcome to another edition of the work life balance. Very excited to have everybody along. You know, I think it's still just really, really crazy times. I know a lot of the states in the United States are starting to kind of think about reopening and reintegration and you know, it's it's just been a crazy moment, but I had a moment of reflection this morning. I had a chance to join a mastermind with several of the john Maxwell team members. And really, you know, I think the the entire part of us being quarantine for that matter is that we really It's allowed me to focus more on connection versus distraction. Right, this is kind of the key thing that came out, I think, because I was traveling so much and because I was going all over the world and, and literally would lose two days a week to travel, there was just tons of distraction that I wouldn't allow that connection piece to always go and now that I'm kind of forced to stay in one spot, it's really been something to focus more on connection with people and so I challenge you to reach out and connect call three or four people today and just you know, maybe past clients or people that you haven't gotten, gotten in touch with recently and just have an opportunity to reach out to them. You know, I've got some some very special people in my life that that provides that connection that really just amplifies my energy and so I urge you to find the same. We also want to announce if you haven't had a chance to come join us at the pm tribe calm please do as for my project managers that are listening out there my agile lists that are listening out there. We wanted to create a community that did more than just deliver content, we wanted to deliver direct mentorship. So it's led by six of the brightest minds that we know in project management and agile and each one of us have lanes in which we have calls every week, the calls are recorded, but you have the ability to call into to the mentor and ask anything you want to ask and deal with any issue that you want to deal with. And we've got some phenomenal mentors, john Steinbeck, Colin Ellis, Peter Taylor, Elizabeth Heron, Elena Hill, and myself. And so it's just a great community of people that are really driven to watch you grow in and master your influence to be able to really do the job that we were intended to do. So that's at the pm tribe calm come join us over there. So we're going to get to our guests today. Our guest is is I'm really excited about this. He's an independent management consultant. And he's focused on unraveling track troubled large scale projects and helping organizations transformation into high performing and adaptable companies. In short, his mission is to help teams and organizations become better, better in the sense of increased teamwork, increased flow, increased learning and increased passion about their mission. Most companies today are run based on flawed and outdated assumptions about how people work their best. These assumptions around the structure work methods and management got us far during the Industrial Revolution. But those same approaches no longer work. The good news is we know what works now. And the challenge is that it's not easy or intuitive to get there and so we're going to talk to this gentleman who brings us this this great knowledge His name's David stack leather, David, how you doing, sir?

David Stackleather  3:37  
I'm good. Rick, how are you doing?

Rick A. Morris  3:38  
Doing fantastic. And you know, when I asked for a topic for the show, you know, the inevitable collapse of agile and so boy already I can feel the Agile is just, you know, just breathing heavy. Like, don't don't mess with my method. Don't you touch my standup right. Don't mess with my sprint. But let's talk about that. Right agile is is such a big buzzword and It's It's, you know something I looking at you on the screen here. I'm not going to guess age or judge age. But we've been through the ITIL. We've been through the Six Sigma craze. We've been through all the latest fads and things and, and so when when I first heard of agile, I thought it was a fad. I was like, man, they may even be around in two years, but right, it's hanging on. So talk to me. But why did you come up with that as a title? Why do you see it as an inevitable collapse of Agile?

David Stackleather  4:25  
Well, I, my early career, my first professional job was in when TQM was coming into the

Rick A. Morris  4:34  
TQM I'm certified baby.

David Stackleather  4:36  
Yeah, and process reengineering. And Mike hammer. And there was an executive at the company I worked for who was big into process reengineering. And I was kind of picked from the bowels of the organization as maybe I had an interest in that skill there. And so those things I was really passionate about that did a lot of work within the company I worked for with our clients, kind of an internal consulting company learned a lot traveled the world. And I still believe in all that stuff. I still believe in TPM. And I still believe in process reengineering in the in the right context. But it became clearer and clearer to me that there's a more fundamental issue that even if you have the recipe, even if you have the quote unquote, solution, there's a bigger issue and trying to accomplish that in larger organizations. And my most recent experience in a large scale agile transformation, were a very old school organization in the insurance space, which is famous for not wanting to change for some good reasons and some bad and looking at even an organization that wanted to go through the transformation and needed to go through a transformation. How much kind of nonsense there was within that structure and nonsense internally generated but a lot of nonsense externally generated from consulting firms. A lot of people who really had no idea really what they were talking about, but they had a certification over weekend and suddenly they felt they could suggest how an organization that is a multi billion dollar, billion dollar organization is going to operate and appreciating the complexities of that, you know, because it's not a machine that we're dealing with. And I've dealt in manufacturing environments, and those are also extremely complicated. But when you get humans involved in the situation, it's really complicated and the context is key. And so the more that I look at specifically agile, which I'm a big believer in the foundational principles of agile, I think this is the right direction, but the industry around it and what's being sold is is doesn't kind of hue to those standards. I don't believe and just like frankly, if we're speaking, you know, honestly, the T QM days, the process reengineering days, the Six Sigma days, whatever fad, you can mention the outcomes, I think we're generally disappointing to the various Businesses that implemented them not that there weren't successes. And I think we're seeing that now in the Agile space as well.

Rick A. Morris  7:06  
Well, so let's back that up and deconstruct it a little bit first, whether it's t qm ITIL, agile, Six Sigma, it's all plan, do check act. I mean, Pim Bach is doing that, is doing that. I mean, it's, it's all we're gonna plan, we're going to do it, then we've got a measure, and then we're going to act upon those measurements and deviations right there. Right? Plan, do check act. So that's why I always considered a fad. But I think my biggest determining factor of whether or not I really believe in what's going on, is whether is the first step that suggested and if the first step is suggested is we got to train everybody in the organization in new in new words and a new lingo. Right, then you're selling training, you're not selling a product because honestly, if you do it well, you don't really have to put anybody through training. It's just you just change the underlying structure and say, This is the way it's going to be done here.

David Stackleather  7:53  
Is that fair to say? No, I think the way that I I look at these I question, especially with the Large scale frameworks and I use safe as an example not because I have any particular issue with safe, but that's the most popular one. And I asked myself, what's being sold there? What's the business model and the business model is a certification business model. And it's a consulting, business model implementation business model, but really from the the large scale frameworks being sold. It's really the revenue stream is certification, which is why you pick just about any of the frameworks, or any of the organizations providing certification. And when I first got involved in the Agile space, there were a couple you know, you had your product owner and your Scrum Master certification, you know, there was a handful. Now, there's a dozen or more for most of these. Yeah, I mean, it's just it which is is kind of crazy in a lot of ways. And so just like any other business, they're coming out with new models all the time because they want to create new features and new models they can sell and that's really exciting. It's not fundamentally about improving an organization, it's about selling the training and all the kind of add on processes. And I think you're right in the executive or a leader will see that as you know, I call it installing the agile, you know, I want to buy the agile and install the Agile as if they're buying a printer or something. Right. And because of the way it's structured and sold, it kind of looks like that. And it seems very scientific, and it seems very official, and it's very expensive, and very time consuming. And by the time you get through all this certification and relabeling and all this process, a couple of things happen either it fizzles out, and people just still use the same terms but they're not really acting in that way. or an organization will try to fool itself because once you've spent millions of dollars implementing something, you can't really admit that it didn't. It didn't work. And so now you're you're, you're kind of forced to set to say that it did work or move on and Forget about it because you don't want to admit that you spent a huge amount of money doing something that didn't work.

Rick A. Morris  10:04  
Now Dean leffingwell is is a friend of the show and he's endorsed books that we've done. We wrote a book called agile Almanac, which was scaling all the different types of agile methodologies to the to the bigger scale. he endorsed that book, wonderful person, but the certifications coming out too fast. I mean, I was certified I think in four Dotto, and it's already up to five. And that was just a few years right and your certifications no longer valid because I decided I wanted to change the model. And the reason why I changed the model is because I'm getting feedback that it doesn't work right. So it's it's, it's this constant thing, but to be fair, one of the things that you said was was Tiki and and all these things were six sigma t qm, although they seem not to work in what I think happens is I think they do work I think, I think in their purest form when when, you know, the Toyota way, right, that was the big thing. Everybody wouldn't read that book and try to implement it like Toyota did. But it did work for Toyota. It was it was amazing what they did, but I love the way that you said the install methodology. So just go get me that no, that was a whole culture built and we've got a top down and everybody was no knowing what was happening. And so I want to get some of your feedback we're about to go to break here and I want to start talking about what you call the Agile industrial complex but to leave the listeners with something here as well as one of the biggest things that I see in failures of Agile is that we don't change the methodology the executives and I see this I have a lot of coaches on the line as well that a lot of john Maxwell team coaches and when when you approach an executive they go Okay, yeah, my team needs coaching. They're like no, no, we're starting with you. Oh, no, I'm fine. I'm good. I'd you know that my team needs that I'm you don't have to talk to me. And so I'm watching you know, a team base agile get started, but still being requested waterfall reports. So when is it going to be done? how much it's going to cost, which means the organization hasn't bought in, right? And so now you've spent all this money on training, you've got this agile team running and now when you're trying to then quantify it back up to the executives They don't, they don't that coach has never done it in a large scale like that insurance company there's the person that got sort of certification hasn't led anything on a large scale where the less transform a business right So, lots to talk about lots to unpack we'll get into the Agile industrial complex you're listening to David stack leather and Rick Moore's and the work life balance.

VoiceAmerica  12:27  
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency and project delivery? Our squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes in realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes. r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com Are you getting the most out of your project management software. In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment visit r squared consulting.com today from the boardroom to you, voice America business network.

You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1866 For 725790 if you'd rather send an email, Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.

Rick A. Morris  14:12  
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon visiting with David stack leather. David is talking about the inevitable collapse of agile. So that obviously piqued my interest. And I'm excited to have you aboard the show. One of the things that you brought up in in some of the pre interviews is you talked about the Agile industrial complex, can you can you describe what that is and what you're talking about there.

David Stackleather  14:33  
So this is the most visible aspect of this are the certification organizations, you know, the scrum.org and the scrum Alliance, and then some of the framework vendors safe and less than those kind of things. And that's even in the past couple of years that's kind of exploded. Even from a framework perspective. We have Nexus and others that have popped up and you know, I think as we talked about Before the break, a lot of this stuff is based on the same set of principles. It's just kind of a re mixing of it doesn't really bring anything new. And so this creates this process where there's an industry that's selling something to people. And there are multiple customers in the industry, which is kind of the complexity of it. The certification is one component of it. And those customers are employees, and folks who want to get into a job or a career. And the certification is just like in you know, the project management space, you had PMP certification, this is like that, but just worse than that, there's so many more. And the employees and the workers feel they have to become certified so you have a ready made audience. Hiring managers are part of this as a customer of this complex because hiring managers are looking to hire a fairly complicated skill set and a lot of these roles are Scrum masters and amazingly complicated skill set to hire for. And so as a hiring manager, it's much easier for me to simply Do you have a CSM and then I'll hire a CSM. And then, you know, just like in the old days where nobody got fired for buying IBM, you could say, well, nobody gets fired because you hired a CSM, they were certified, but nobody knows really what that means being certified. And you have executives who are for various reasons, some of them real, the performance of their organization isn't where it should be. And they're looking to change or they just want to be in on the latest fad to tell their friends that, hey, I'm an agile organization now. And so they want something to buy and install. And a lot of these large frameworks that come along with the certifications is something they can buy and feel that they can install. And what's what's fascinating, you said something before the break about, you know, it does work in certain contexts and stuff. And you mentioned Toyota and I totally agree. Now, the interesting thing is there's only one Toyota in the universe, right? And so the you know, the context is key there and in Toyota the, you know, executives were really bought in and continue to be really bought into the concepts and the philosophy behind it and the culture and that organization has built up over time. But you can't simply say to a, you know, a financial services firm be like Toyota, that just doesn't really work. And so a lot of this, this industrial complex is really about selling pieces of this to different customers. But it's not about fundamental transformation, because you can't, you can't just buy that in a box and install it.

Rick A. Morris  17:29  
Now, they, but they're sold it, that they're sold, what they they're sold a bill of goods, you write this, you will get this

David Stackleather  17:36  
there sold this as a bot and the more you know, kind of the more complicated it looks, the more pieces the more titles, all that stuff, the more it kind of makes sense to the existing narrative, which is really a false narrative, but they you know, they think there's just some tweak and it from an executive standpoint, they're really saying I want somebody else to change, I'm not going to change so give me something that I can install that will have these other people change. I think there's also something that's happened recently, a couple things that's happened recently. And by recently, maybe in the last decade. One is that you have a lot of executives and organizations that have found themselves in a position where they have to understand technology. Because their business, everybody relies on technology. You know, when I was in the financial services space, you would have executives talk about, I don't really care what happens in the technology department. And you know, I tried to tell them, if the technology stops working, this organization dies in 24 hours, right. And so there's no distinction between the business and the technology nowadays, but you have a lot of executives who this is new for them, and a lot of them don't really want to be involved in to the degree that they need to be. And so this this kind of scratches an itch to say I can, instead of understanding really what's going on there and be a part of that solution in the context of my organization and change myself and change how my my leadership team operates. I'll just buy this box of gizmos and have you guys install it. And it'll just it'll change the organization. But it fundamentally is an impossible ask. The other thing that's happened, you know, in the past maybe three or four years, I would guess is the very large consulting houses have come into this, they see this, the buzz generate, and large organizations, you know, on the kind of late adopters. And so that's an opportunity for them to just kind of, here's all the people, we're going to sell you thousands of hours of very expensive consulting folks to go in and transform your organization. And all they're doing is implementing the box of gizmos that you buy from the framework, implementing it without context within the organization. And they'll spend several years doing that. But fundamentally, your organization won't change because the culture didn't change the way the leadership operated, didn't change. And unfortunately, eventually all the employees will figure that out much quicker than the leadership And they'll become kind of upset that this is another fake change, which is probably one in a long series of fake changes within most organizations not all I mean, I want to be careful that there are there are definitely organizations out there that are trying to change and leaders that are trying to change but if you look at a percentage of organizations, I think that's a pretty small percentage.

Rick A. Morris  20:21  
And so so it's some it's important for us then to focus on the why of the change the one of the big things and misconceptions of Agile is if I install it will be faster. It's just it's it's, it's no different than saying I'm going to hire a personal trainers so that I can run faster, or that the day that you hire the trainer, you're running faster, right? That's Yeah, months of hard work and months of transformation in changing. And so I think the other thing is, is if if you're going to agile because you're having delivery problems and a lack of trust in the team and a lack of leadership, agile is only going to exacerbate that it's only going to make it worse because It requires more trust and more cohesive team units and stuff to be really effective. Right. But I recently had a client that that was sold the safe bill of goods essentially they wouldn't say but almost every single one of their projects is commercial off the shelf installations. Hmm. So now you're at the mercy of the vendor, and they're trying to be agile, and they're trying to do pies and it wasn't working for them. And I always said, so just don't do that ceremony. Right? Oh, well, you know, it's prescribed is what moves. But we have to recognize that these are just like the Pim Bock if you look at PMI in the pen back then that was a methodology but that doesn't mean I do every single one of those processes for every single project methodology. This isn't a doctor prescribing a treatment. If you don't do the treatment, you're gonna die. Right? This is this is somebody going you know, you may want to eat a couple less potatoes a rake, just gotta lay off the potatoes like a little bit there. Right? That's more of what it is. So So why, why is that difficult though for executive To just comprehend why we see it because we've been through it all. Yeah. Why? Why are these executives just buying it?

David Stackleather  22:08  
Well, I think part of it is that, especially in large organizations with a big hierarchy, most executives don't interact with the people who are at the interface to their customers. So I read somewhere, I wish I knew who had written it. But they said, there's a developer, a programmer has more in common with this with the CEO than any kind of mid manager does, right? Because they both just want to get something done at the end of the day. But most CEOs don't talk with the developers who are writing the software for their customers. And don't sit down and listen to what their problems are. And therefore, they have all this middle layer, this information that's being kind of squeezed the value before it gets into a PowerPoint and it gets into the boardroom. And the middle layers that are squeezing that information out are not doing it maliciously. They're been trained through the culture to do that. To what to expect, how to communicate. The one that I always kind of laugh at is I'm always admonished for providing too much detail to executives. You know, they don't want to go into that detail and say, Well, I understand they don't want to have a five hour long, you know, speech about something. But these are smart people. I mean, these are these are not dummies, why are we dumbing down everything? Why don't we have real conversations about real problems at the interface of the customers, which is the only relevant interface in an organization. And so I think that, because the executives and leaders have separated themselves, they don't go and sit down with developers and customer service people and the guy at the dock, unloading the boxes. All these folks know exactly where the problems are. And they'll tell you now, they may not tell you in the you know, most flowery language, they may not be polite about it, but they'll tell you what the issue is and you should be thankful if that's the case, but too many executive Don't do that. And I've seen in my career, a couple who are really good at that, and would know what was going on and could could interface with the organization at all levels in a way that made sense. But most are just kind of trapped in their daily meeting structure and PowerPoint decks, which there's no info. There's no valid information coming from that process.

Rick A. Morris  24:21  
yet. Carly Fiorina actually attributes a lot of her success, who first female CEO of a tech giant HP, to the fact that she would, she talked to everybody, she'd sit down with anybody and hear them out and got her best ideas from the lower level. There's the thing that I've done, I've dubbed it the fuzzy middle layer, you're talking about the middle layers, I call them fuzzy because that's where stuff just gets fuzzy. Right? But it's interesting, I was part of a project at at CAA, where we were developing an application on top of clarity ppm. So your total project portfolio management's got all of your statuses. And we built an app for an iPad, where you could do your strategy, but then you could tie your Strategy directly to the project. So you could see in a dashboard, how it was beautiful, but it bombed because it bypassed the middle layer, because it was getting the project managers were inputting data directly into the system. And that was feeding right up to the strategic plan, right. And there was no context being given by the fuzzy middle layer. And so it caused a lot of concern. Right. And so the project managers loved it. The executives loved it. The fuzzy middle layer, hated it. Really interesting to watch. Yeah, but why do we Why do we think executives stay so far removed? I've met with CIOs that literally just they're like, they like us. They like us, these consultants who will give them that level of data because we're the only people giving them real actionable data in the system. How do you How can they not see that culture getting for?

David Stackleather  25:52  
Well, they, you know, a part of it and happens over time. And so it's it's the old boiling frog problem. It's not a quick thing these cultures are generated over time. And it makes sense. It's logical that as, especially as an organization grows, you're like, Well, when I have, you know, 10 people in a room, and we're a little 10 person company, we don't have a lot of hierarchy. We're just in a room, we're talking, everything's flowing. If we have 1000 people in the organization, as the leader of the organization, I think, well, just mathematically, I can't deal with 2000 people. So it makes sense for me to create a hierarchy, rather than creating kind of a network process, which is a structure that you might want to look at, rather than a hierarchy. But the default is, well, I have a problem. So I need to hire a role. I need to have somebody to manage these people. And before long, you have all these structures. And there are a couple of things that happen, I think, to most executives, one is they get into a cadence, it's the you know, the old maker versus manager proc process where you know, managers can split their time in half hour increments, but if you actually build anything for a living, that's not possible you need to have long periods of time, financially. interrupted, you know, programmers don't develop software and half hour increments, right. And so they get into this cadence where it kind of makes sense you're having these meetings, you're think you're getting the information, it's very quick to fool yourself, that you have some line on what's really happening because that data is all being translated based on what the middle layer thinks you want to hear. And that middle layer is watching the executives reaction really, really closely. And so I think what a lot of executives don't realize is when they have a reaction, that's maybe a poor reaction, or they push back against something or they complain about something that that almost has a 10 x effect on the reaction of the middle layer, and it just makes the situation worse. And I've seen that time and time again, with like executive reaction in a meeting where somebody's presenting some data, which is valid and it's not good data. It's not good information. We'd rather not to be that way. And the executive reacts and I don't like this And the reaction is kind of a 10 x effect to the middle managers, and therefore the next meeting is even more watered down. For sure. And, you know, one of the things that has amazed me, especially in large, very large, like financial services organizations is the disconnect in, in opinion between the executives on what they think the worker level in the organization is, how good they are, versus how good they really are. And so they have an opinion that will our programmers aren't very good. That's why our software kind of goes down or whatever. And if you sit down and talk to the developers, you know, you're like, these are really smart people. These guys know what's going on. And you're lucky to have this kind of staff but the executives have never really talked to them and interacted with them and understand how many of their decisions which they don't even understand the impact of their decisions, kind of causes problems within the systems of the organization. They kind of they kind of lay the groundwork for their own torture in the future, but they just don't realize it. Because fundamentally, they're talking to people because they think that as an executive, my job is to sit in meetings and listen to PowerPoints and issue directives and that sort of thing rather than get lazy, right? You get lazy and you get used to that process. You know, we're all human. We get used to that this is kind of nice coming into the office, having my coffee, having somebody come and you know, give me a PowerPoint deck me making some kind of pontificating on it. The other thing that's dangerous let's let's pause right there because what I'd like to do is give some tips and tricks around kind of preventing this happen, but we do need to get to a break really quickly and we'll get it right on the other side of these commercials listening to Rick Morrison the work life balance.

VoiceAmerica  29:44  
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency and project delivery? Our squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes in realizing and improving the value You have project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes. r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com. Are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment visit r squared consulting.com today it comes to business you'll find the experts here voice America Business Network.

You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.

Rick A. Morris  31:31  
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon. Afternoon. We're visiting with David stack leather and talking about agile and how you what we may see as the inevitable collapse of agile and right before break. We were talking about 10 executives being removed. And you made a really good point, Dave, in talking saying that. There's opinions that are that are different in the opinion of the developers, the executives are is really based on that fuzzy middle layer that we're talking about. I always like that as executives when I go When I say well, who's who do you think makes the strategic decisions of this company? And you know, of course, well, I do, you know, this is what I get paid for, and I go, so do you have a prioritized list of projects? And are you resourced against those? And they go, No, I go, well, then you're not making the strategic, you may make the strategic direction, you're not making the strategic decisions, because the person that is that DBA in the corner that just got asked for things to do. And because there's no clear direction on what I should do, first, they're making the strategic decisions of what they're doing. And I've got 884 different strategic decisions being made a day. So that's, that's, it's an interesting concept, but how do we what are some tips and tricks to kind of help that or how do you deal with those opinions?

David Stackleather  32:44  
So So one, and you know, agile really helps in this way, which if if executives and leaders would accept this is the idea that if you operate off a prioritized backlog of things that you're working and whatever the granularity of the backlog is, you know, But certainly at a higher level about what the outcomes are you need for your business. And the idea of forcing that prioritization. So you don't have 10 number ones, which is usually in large enterprise, everything is important, we need to have 10 number ones. And, you know, the way that I describe it to them is Look, when you when you come into work in the morning, you have to get dressed, and you have to get your your set appearance to show up at work. All that stuff's important, your pants are important, your shirts important, everything's important, but you have to have a priority to get it done. You can't do it all at the same time. And so that's fundamentally the same way that we have to operate in these these projects on these efforts. One is to to the one decision is what is the most important thing at this moment in time and if you can, as a leader make that decision, then you need to figure out what information who do I need to talk to, because I think a lot of organizations kind of outsource that work just like you're describing to the to the layers the programmers and the DBAs in the to mid level managers to make those decisions, and there's 1000 decisions happening. And probably with most organizations 60% of the work is not really relevant to the success of the organization. It's kind of busy work, it'll be thrown away, or it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, but leaders are not making those decisions, because they're not having a hard discussion about prioritization, which is hard. I mean, I admit it, you have to make decisions about what you won't do, and what you will do. And that list should be fairly small, and it can change over time. But too many love to pass that

Rick A. Morris  34:33  
it's there.

David Stackleather  34:34  
Right? But that's the you know, as you just described, that somebody is making a decision. And they're making that decision for you. And you've just outsourced that decision to somebody you don't know. And you don't know why they're making that decision. And most likely, the decisions are not going to be consistent for delivery of some value that the organization needs, which is why you have so many organizations spending what seems like more and more money. Especially on technology efforts, but they see what they get more or less and less value out of the other end. And there's lots of reasons for that. But one, I think, is because of this lack of really, if you're an executive, the one thing you need to do is prioritize what's important to the organization, what what really needs to happen? And what are the goals of the organization and have a feedback loop to understand if you've if you need to change your decision, and very, very few leaders have that process. But the Agile kind of guides the way if you if you just take the kind of baseline agile of a prioritized backlog that concept and approach can help quite a bit, but too many don't want to have those difficult discussions because it is difficult. But let's Yeah,

Rick A. Morris  35:42  
let's talk about that first and prioritize backlog and I'll give you an example working with an executive recently. It first of all, the term agile coach, I hate that it's so why because I am an agile coach. But I don't, I don't install teams and I don't do whatever do is I work with executives to teach them how to think in an agile format? So for instance, you build me a data warehouse. Okay, well, that's fine. But what are we going to do with it? Well, you know, I don't know, I just need all my data in one place. And I'll tell you, no, that's not what we're going to build. And so I was doing this with an organization. And it's like, so what are we trying to get at? Well, we feel like we need to do local market plans. Okay, great. So how's the local market plan work? Well, we get our 50 accounts, and we get information. So great, let's, let's take six people, we'll do 300 accounts, we'll clean them up. We'll do this all manually to see if we're going to get a benefit. Before we go by Big Data Warehouse. I just kept asking questions. So I was like, so why can't we just take the 50 accounts and finally got the executive to go, Well, how do I know those are the best 50 accounts? And I was like, there's your first agile question, right? How do we know? And what are we going to use? So what are we going to use to determine it comes back? I don't know. That's why I needed their data warehouse to give me all the data and I was like, even if you have all the data, you're not going to know so Let's start here. And that's what an agile coach should really do is really force you to the value conversation and asking really good questions to be answered versus, well, I want to build a data warehouse and we're agile, so I should get it in six months instead of a year.

David Stackleather  37:14  
Right? Yeah. And I think it's, it's interesting, because as you're describing that, you know, if you take, take it out of the Agile coach or an external party, like yourself having that conversation and put an employee in that chair, they wouldn't get past the third question, right? What you know, they would just kind of be like, Okay, I'm done talking about this, just do what I told you to do. I have another meeting to go to. And so, you know, I think too many. I give you an example, a personal example, I've had somebody who's worked for me three companies over my career. And this individual will tell me when he thinks I'm going loopy, in a nanosecond, a very straightforward and sometimes it can be a frustrating conversation. You know, it's like he keeps pushing, pushing, pushing I've always valued that you have to have have to have people in the organization or people that you trust to be able to push back on the process or ask the 20 questions until you get to something that makes sense. And too often, executives or even mid level managers don't want to allow that. They have a very short fuse for that. And I think because it's part of it is because of the internal PR machine in your head that a lot of managers have when they're not involved in the day to day, and occasionally they'll come up on a situation. And they'll say, they'll make a comment, oh, you should do it this way. Or have you thought about that? And they're right, and the employee says, Oh, we didn't think about that. Sorry. And what people don't realize is the manager or the executive in their head, the PR machine in their head is saying, oh, you're a genius. Look, you just figured something out. You're a genius. You're a genius. And it plays in their head continuously and then they they end up believing their own internal PR when it's not just because you don't not involved and you just showed up and you saw it from a different angle and you made it statement and it seemed like you're a genius, but it's just the context of where you're coming from. It's not that you have any greater knowledge than your employees. And so I think they train, you know, and we all do this get trained over time, if we're not actively pushing back against this process, where we're shutting down the conversation that is so critical. But But oddly enough, we'll let an external party do it. If you bring in an external consultant, you'll let them get away with all kinds of stuff. Not always. There's always Oh,

Rick A. Morris  39:29  
yeah, I've been I've been escorted out a building. Yeah.

David Stackleather  39:32  
I mean, you have to kind of judge the context. But you can get away with a lot more as an external party and ask more uncomfortable questions and just about any employee in the organization, and that shouldn't be that way. Right? I mean, from because there's a lot of good knowledge in organizations that they're missing.

Rick A. Morris  39:50  
So we've got a couple of minutes left about two to three minutes left in this segment, what should executives really be focused on if agile is not going to work? What What should work what should they be? focused on.

David Stackleather  40:00  
So I think they shouldn't be focused on, you know, implementing a framework or having everybody get certified. They need to not that these things are not useful. These components of what we call agile are very useful. But executives to understand what's the context of their organization? What's the culture of their organization? What is the the goal, the optimizing goal of the structure of the organization? What do they need? What problem do they need to solve in the next several years, five years, and look at maybe tactics or structures that they can implement and test and have a feedback process but not to buy something that they're going to install? A large framework, starting to change titles, get people certified, really until you as a leader say, what are we trying to accomplish? And how should we change our work and there's a lot in Agile that'll inform on that and it's very valuable, but you shouldn't be your first step should not be to call up a consulting firm and say I want to buy the agile and to install the agile, because that's all that's inevitably going to fail. And most organizations, that's what they're doing. But the hard work is to understand your organization, go talk to the developers, figure out really what you really want to accomplish as an organization, maybe you don't have a problem as an organization, frankly, you might be working just fine. And agile is not the right thing to implement. And so that's the real process is to have those discussions and questions at all levels, not just in the boardroom.

Rick A. Morris  41:33  
I think I think one of my biggest suggestions I gave when we start talking about agile as if we're going to deploy agile, you need to start deploying agile yourself as an executive even in the way that you're bringing in people. So what's the value that you're going to negotiate in versus, you know, and that's my frustration with some of the big firms and in Look, they some of the big firms do a lot of great work. They do, to be fair, but then, you know, we have our run ins as consultants. I you know, I was an expert of this software for 20 years I was there when it was built. And I'm working with the lady that actually wrote the financial calculation portion. We're trying to solve something for a client and it's not working the way we want. And this guy comes in, sits down with the software for two minutes, and it gets a meeting with the CIO. And now I'm having to sit with the CIO, because this guy thinks he solved the problem. It's taking a Nic. Again, this is not I wouldn't suggest this. But again, I was an external consultant was frustrated. Plus, I'm Italian. I said, Look, I read all about your business on Wikipedia last night, I know how to solve all your problems. And the guy goes, What are you talking about? I said, that's what this joker just did here. I mean, you've got the people who wrote the software in the building. Let us finish this out. Right. He has no idea what he's talking about. But unfortunately, that's what we deal with in the consultant game. Right?

Unknown Speaker  42:44  
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Rick A. Morris  42:47  
So we're going to go ahead and take our final break right here. We're going to come back with David's deck later, we're going to find out how to get in touch with them, as well as what are some of the best advice he's ever received. Stay tuned right here. You're listening to Rick Morris and the work life balance.

VoiceAmerica  43:04  
When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here, voice America business network. Are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment visit r squared consulting.com today. Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency and project delivery? r squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes in realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes, r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com.

You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com Now back to the work life balance.

Rick A. Morris  44:50  
And we're back to the work life balance our final segment this Friday afternoon still visiting with David stack leather David what company did your own consultant you have your own firm Yeah, I have my own, you know, one man operation called scale frameworks kind of as a joke about the Agile frameworks. Well done. I like that.

Unknown Speaker  45:11  
I was I was available

Rick A. Morris  45:14  
right out of people get in touch with you, how do they find you?

David Stackleather  45:18  
So the easiest way to get in touch with me is either at David at scaled framework comm if you want to shoot me an email or I'm on LinkedIn, at LinkedIn slash stack leather linkedin.com slash stack leather. I'm only one of two David stack leather so you'll quickly find out which one it is the other ones my dad, he works for the federal government, that's not me.

Rick A. Morris  45:39  
Well, what would you say is your your ideal client?

David Stackleather  45:42  
My ideal client is someone, a leader in an organization who really wants to make change. Who sees that the situation is changing maybe in their industry, they're not delivering as they they used to. They're not satisfying their customers. They don't really know What the what the gears are how the thing needs to change, but are open to anything and open to dealing directly with people who do the work open to changing hope and open to being in very uncomfortable situations. And those are the best, like if we can just have a real conversation and maybe it gets a little heated but we're okay at the end of the day, we're moving forward and trying to do the best thing for the organization and and the folks that rely on that organization, both employees and customers. That's the best situation I really get energized by those kind of situations. I'm not really big on politics and hierarchy and let's talk about the org charts and that sort of thing. That's, that's not really something that I was interested in.

Rick A. Morris  46:46  
So what some of the best advice you've ever received.

David Stackleather  46:48  
So probably the you know, as similar to the kind of the internal PR machine I as I mentioned before the break I had an executive that I worked for for quite some time and he Told me during a dinner or something, always remember, you're not a genius, which is shocking to have somebody about seven rungs above you on the org chart. And we talked quite a bit about that. And what he had said was that there's so much information there's the world is so complicated in a lot of ways you can't possibly know everything, you have to rely on other people. You have to be open to new information. And no matter how smart you are, how smart you think you are, you have to know and believe that you're not a genius. And you're not always going to have the answer. And for two reasons, one is because you're not always going to have the answer. The second is even if you have the answer, other people have an ability to kind of mess that up for you. And so you have to make sure that everybody's on board and nobody likes to work or deal with somebody who thinks they're a genius. It's annoying. And so I think I'm very smart. I have an ego like anyone else, but I try to actively tamp that down. I think it's important especially the highest You are up in a hierarchy, the more kind of good luck you've had in your life about moving into a position, having the right education, having the right parents, whatever the situation is, is having a little humility and understanding that the world is very complex. And you don't have all the answers. But if you get enough people together and have a good conversation, you can probably find a good solution. And that's the best advice. And I've tried to increasingly improve on that over the years, this probably was 20 years ago when I heard this message. And that's, you know, led me down a good path. I think over time, where I can I can at least be proud of what I've done. And I'm not ashamed of anything that I've done in my my career.

Rick A. Morris  48:46  
Do you have any final thoughts or things that you'd like to share with the audience?

David Stackleather  48:50  
Well, I would just say that especially if you're involved in an agile transformation, if you've got your CSM, if you're in an organization that uses is kind of struggling is to kind of throw away the idea about the certifications and go back to the the actual underlying data. And what I mean by the underlying data or the underlying information is the the old stuff like Deming, the number of times that I'm in a room of executives and ask them if anybody know who Edwards Deming is. And I get maybe one hand at a 40 cola. You know, it makes me really sad. And this is what I mean about this. We know what to do in these organizations. We know how people work we know how leaders and people on the factory floor or the call center floor ideas that really operate but we need to go back to this information so kind of throw away the new website stuff and go back to the lemmings and McGregor it's not hard to find all these people. And and you'll be surprised when you read the kind of the old knowledge that we've known about this for quite some time. We have a lot of ideas, but I think focus needs to really go back and read that stuff and understand it the intent behind it, rather than kind of taking a, you know, pre written, pre installed framework or set of tactics, and try to shove them in the context of your organization, because it's just, it's just going to be frustrating. All the way around.

Rick A. Morris  50:18  
Yeah, and, again, there's gonna be something else that comes behind agile, it's gonna be the, in fact, I already heard of one friend of mine just went to Rome to get certified in this thing. And but essentially, when he described it to me, I was like, so tell me how that's different from my toe. Right? Well, this one's different because you're, there's chargebacks they're really trying to use a cost center. And I was like, right, that's exactly what I was doing. And everybody, everybody froze at the time that you were trying to do that configuration to the CMDB. Right. There was always the, the one piece of thing and there always seems to be one piece of thing and in this case, it's it's agile is the right level development of when you throw something into poi. That's always the one thing that people seem to miss. That's And strategy over versus functionality or requests or business questions, right? In this one, right, it was a CMDB. So now they've tried to figure out how to do it without a CMDB. And therefore, it's Yeah, it's it's frustrating.

David Stackleather  51:14  
Yeah, well, that goes to it's, it's a business model, and they're not realize this, they're constructing a product to sell, which means you have to change something, and you've got to have something to sell. And now you're just re, for the most part, you're rehashing old stuff in a new format with new fonts and, you know, fancy website, but fundamentally, you're not really selling anything new. And fundamentally, people can't buy something and install it and change their organizations and that that deep giveaway just is not really possible.

Rick A. Morris  51:45  
So I've had to I've had to learn how to develop analogies that I do a lot of stuff on resource management, understanding the utilization of our people and it doesn't have to be hard takes five minutes a week per person, you know, per manager really to do. But I always love We don't have time to do resource management. I'm like, well, that's like saying you're too fat to diet. It just there's nothing there. That makes sense. It's Yeah, it is what it is. Right? Well, David, I've appreciated your time partner, I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your expertise with us. And we wish you luck in the future. Thank you very much. I've enjoyed it. And so for everybody else hanging on, we're going to have West bush on the show next week. Wes is a best selling author of product lead growth, these renowned product lead growth pioneer, it says in his bio, he's ridiculously tall, so we're gonna have to figure out what that means. But looking forward to have Wes on the show. We've got some great guests lined up. We're actually I think, booked out into July now for the show. So we've got a lot of great information coming up. We'd love for you guys to give us feedback. You can do so at Rick A. Morris on Twitter. You can find me on LinkedIn and Facebook at Rick A. Morris, and you can always send an email to our Morris at r squared consulting comm or Rick at Rick A. Morris calm and until next Friday. We hope that you live your own work life balance and stay tuned right here to voice them. America business for our next fantastic show.

VoiceAmerica  53:06  
Thank you for joining us this week. The work life balance with Rick Morris can be heard live every Friday at 2pm pacific time and 5pm eastern time on The Voice America business channel. Now that the weekend is here, it's time to rethink your priorities and enjoy it. We'll see you on our next show.

Net Operating Value - A New Way to Look at Project Costs

Let’s take a step back and look at the historically most common path of projects.  During the budgeting process usually the year before an idea for a project is suggested.  Then this idea goes through some cycles and an estimated budget gets placed on the project list for the coming year.  When the project is kicked off, the budget is set to the estimated budget.  Few organizations go through a true project costing and just artificially constrain themselves to the suggested budget.

However, let’s say we are a forward-thinking organization that does a full project estimate and sets the budget.  Most projects run into delays, issues, and missed assumptions that inevitably puts a strain on the budget.  There is a fear to go over budget.  The project team compresses training, testing, or both to come in on the budget suggested.  This then leads to rework and enormous costs to repair something in production instead of fixing it right the first time. 

An additional issue is how the project is pitched in the first place.  It is pitched with a 5-year savings, ROI, NPV, IRR, or a payback period.  However, many companies do not validate if the project did in fact deliver the numbers suggested.  Does your company validate project savings for 5 years and report back? 

These are all antiquated problems and have been the way projects are done since I have been in the industry (over 25 years).  Yet we rinse and repeat.  Then comes Agile which throws organizations for a loop in how to track and report costs.  So far, I have not suggested anything new.

The business suggests numbers and does not always measure results and the project team suggests costs and must constrain something or blow the budget.  What if we applied a different mindset to tell the story?  What if there is a single number that could govern the decisions?  Enter Net Operating Value.

Net Operating Value makes budgeting a project a little more ancillary.  All the budgeting methodologies and controls still apply; however, the question becomes framed a bit differently.  Net Operating Value (NOV) is simply 12-month project benefit subtracted by project costs.  From a business context, what are we gaining for 12 months (revenue, cost savings, etc) minus the cost of the project?  If a project takes longer than a year than expand the benefit.

Taking this concept through a case study, let’s say there is a project that the business feels could generate $1M of revenue in the first 12 months, however, do not have the resources necessary to complete the project .  They could hire a vendor to complete the work for $100,000.  It can be painful to have to suggest the added cost of $100,000 to the budget if it was not planned for.  However, if we frame the conversation differently, then NOV comes into play.  Instead of what it would cost to do the project, we ask what is the net gain in the next 12 months of the project?  In this case, the net gain is $900,000.  The question becomes what are we willing to risk for $1M rather than what will it cost?  The answer could be $200,000 for a NOV of $800,000.  This aligns business and the project team.  The project team is signing up for getting the $1M of revenue and the project team is signing up for $200,000 in cost.  This changes how we approach change requests, scope creep, etc.  If the NOV is known and widely displayed, then decisions would be represented in the NOV instead of over budget.

For example, if an unknown was uncovered that would cost $50,000.  The question becomes is $250,000 acceptable to spend to get $750,000 of NOV?

What do you think?

Believe in people.....

The greatest asset any organization has is it's people.  Without fantastic employees, no company can survive.  This is always intriguing to me when organizations make decisions thinking that there is a "silver bullet" that can solve organizational or leadership issues.  One of the most popular shifts right now is Agile.  When I first heard of Agile, I was skeptical.  I thought it would go by the wayside like ISO or Six Sigma.  When it started to gain steam, I devoted my full resources to understanding it.  Especially as I saw some of my favorite clients become derailed during the implementation of Agile.  Just like any methodology, software, or project, you have to trust your people.  The magic formula in business is people, then process, then technology.

Agile is fantastic as a methodology.  However, it is the people that can deliver results.  It actually requires more trust in teams and people than some of the other methodologies on the market.  So if an executive is having organizational issues, why do they think adopting a new methodology will solve it?  A successful Agile transformation requires a strong foundation of leadership and the ability to trust the team to make decisions.  I am seeing so many Agile transformations in progress right now that baffle me.  I was just talking with my good friend John Stenbeck as we were taping the next episode of the Web series AgilityCast about this.  In many of the Agile transformations, it is being suggested to take the entire organization through a transformation instead of incremental gain.  Alf Abuhajleh said it best that people are implementing Agile in a Waterfall way!  John suggests an incremental implementation of transformation so that experimentation and results can be understood and tweaked while expansion of what works can be rolled out to the rest of the organization.  I concur.  

What I have noticed in the most successful Agile implementations is the secure leadership and the profound trust that they instill in the structure and teams.  Agile is actually more disciplined than many of the methodologies if implemented properly.  If an executive already does not trust the team or staff, then Agile will not be the fix.  It will only create more confusion and miscommunications.  So many organizations are diving in to the Agile world thinking that it will just make everything faster.  It can, but with the right trust and leadership.

No Day But Today,

Rick

Radio Show Transcript - The Man Who Changed My Career - Rob Thomsett - Recorded March 23, 2018

The Man Who Changed My Career - Rob Thomsett - Recorded March 23, 2018

To get to the web page of the radio show, click here.

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Please remember this is a transcript of a radio show that airs live every Friday and is also podcasted.  Spelling and punctuation may be affected.

FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)

00:00:27;06 - 00:04:54;12

Rick A. Morris: And welcome to another Friday edition of the work life balance. I'm Rick Maher is your host and you know this was a supremely hyped show. I was super hyped super ready because we were going to have The Legend Rob Thomsett on the line with us. And we for some reason haven't connected. So maybe he'll dial in maybe he won't. If so we'll get him reconnected. But you know Rob is somebody that I look up to and absolutely 100 percent changed my career. So we're going to be watching out for him. He's in Australia. Time zones. We've been exchanging information. We were we were all set to go. But you know what. We're in project management things happen. We should be ready to go if it pops and that's great. If not no worries. But I'm back from Costa Rica which you know I wasn't on the show last week. We did a replay because I was in Costa Rica with John Maxwell and 250 of now people that I call family and friends on a transformation trip. And so we will actually devote this hour then to the Costa Rica trip and what an incredible trip it was. What an incredible experience it was for us. And I I just can't I can't even describe how incredible this whole thing was for us. The whole point of the trip itself right is transformation. And when you hear somebody say something like that they're going to go transform a country. And that was the vision that John had. What does that mean. What does it really mean to go transform a country. So let's explain kind of the statistics and things that we're talking about. So first what it really means is what we were doing was training facilitators and in training those facilitators we were trying to make sure that they were ready and prepared to train other facilitators for transformation in using Mac. Malcolm Gladwell the tipping point. We want to get 10 percent of the population of Costa Rica sitting down and discussing values we want to make sure that they can sit down and discuss values and have open conversations about values to essentially usher in the next generation. That's what we mean by transformation. And so we trained 15000 people in the course of a week through roundtable methods of values. And we we sat down and did attitude and forgiveness and train these facilitators and now for the next 16 weeks those 15000 people will be working with 65000 people that are already signed up and working and will go through a 16 week program talking about 10 universal laws and then six laws of intentional living. And talking about how small actions can lead to great change. And at the end of every roundtable. So in a roundtable you discuss one of the values for instance we talk about attitude. They read a lesson on attitude they discuss what is the lesson spoke to them and then they rate themselves on their current feelings about attitude. So from one to ten how do you feel then they go through and start to talk about what benefits would you get from raising your value from forward six or six to eight. Who do you admire that has that attitude has a great attitude. And why do you admire them. And then finally what small action are you going to take to improve for the next week and then when they come back the next week they'll talk about how did that action go and what was the result and then they'll take a new value. And so that's essentially what we were doing and training and it was absolutely phenomenal experience to be a part of to to be just first of all welcomed as we were welcomed in Costa Rica. You know I was talking to another John Maxwell coach today. And what we were just kind of talking about the difference between you know organizations that we work with here in the states and organizations that we were working there in Costa Rica.

00:04:54;12 - 00:05:01;18

Rick A. Morris: Now I'll explain. So first was give you an example here in the United States.

00:05:01;19 - 00:06:18;22

Rick A. Morris: So this just literally happened this week that I got back from Costa Rica. So I was working with an executive team and the executive that I was working with was telling me that he was dealing with a lot of attitude issues with his leadership team and they were having a lot of communication breakdowns and I'm a certified behavior consultant and we have a tool called disk profiling that helps teams communicate with each other and helps identify what my communications style is and what your communication style is and helps us kind of build common ground. And it's a really cool tool and I've talked about it on the show in the past. So I suggested Hey let's do this. And you know I said we can even do it in the sense that you know we've got this tool that we're rolling out and I can use it to say you know to understand what kind of reports we need to build whether they need to be highly detailed or whether they need to be more graphical that it will help us understand what type of information we need to give you as a leadership team to make sure that we're communicating effectively. So it's not so much about you know hey we want to find out who you are it was more about how do we communicate effectively with you. And so he thought it was a great idea.

00:06:18;24 - 00:06:30;22

Rick A. Morris: We went and got codes and we went and start to roll this out to the team and the team went to H.R. and blocked even taken the survey.

00:06:30;25 - 00:06:54;06

Rick A. Morris: They were so concerned that somebody might find out that they're tough to deal with. They were so concerned about their own internal growth there. I don't know what they were concerned about to be honest with you though they wouldn't even sit down and take a little 24 question thing so that they could figure out what their communication style is and how to communicate with other people.

00:06:54;27 - 00:06:57;24

Rick A. Morris: And I was blown away by that right.

00:06:57;24 - 00:09:41;15

Rick A. Morris: I mean especially when you're when you should be constantly looking for opportunities to grow and constantly looking inside yourself to find ways to become better especially if you're a leader. Right. Leaders need to be servant leaders and leaders need to be looking inside themselves. And so I'm coming off of this incredible week where a transformation is within me and I'm watching these people you know just absolutely 100 percent breakdown So contrast that to Costa Rica where we give them these values and immediately when we give them these values they sit down and as soon as they see one of these things as soon as they see one the first thing they want to do is sign up their entire company. And so they're coming back to the hotel that we're working in and signing up company after company. I had one lady that was working with us who was our interpreter she was working at the U.S. embassy and as soon as we were done she was like wow my entire company needs to be involved in this and came back and signed up her entire company and we had story after story after story after story of how the Costa Rican people were embracing this so much and wanted to grow so quickly. It was absolutely insane. And so when we look at this and compare and contrast what an incredible incredible opportunity it was for us to really witness a an organization a group of people that really wanted to grow and really want to change. And that's why it's it's going like wildfire through Costa Rica since being back. I've gotten countless you know e-mails and Facebook messages and texts and all that kind of stuff from people that we worked with who are thanking us for coming over and sharing this information with them. And at the same time I'm watching people I'm working with here in the states who are just like I don't need that stuff. Who needs though. Who needs to work on an attitude. Why. Why. Why do I need to work on my listening and just to compare and contrast was was breathtaking to me. So Costa Rica when we talk about transformation it was transformational for me just to see it to be a part of it. I think I learned more from them than they learned from me. I can promise you that. And it's a trip that I absolutely want 100 percent will never ever ever forget. So we're going to take our first break right here. I actually think I saw a phone call come through. We'll see if we can connect with Rob if not we'll continue the story with Costa Rica. You're listening to the work life balance with Rick Morris.

00:13:42;25 - 00:16:18;22

Rick A. Morris: And we are back to the work life balance that we are managing all kinds of things right here we're actually trying to work some magic and get Rob on the line. I talked to him on the break as we're trying to do things overseas and I think we're going to get him on the line here in just a second. But coming back just to wrap up the Costa Rica trip so that was brought together by Mejeremos Costa Rica the John Maxwell leadership Foundation and the John Maxwell team. So there were 250 coaches that that actually paid their own way to go over there and be a part of that trip. It was organized chaos is exactly what it was is we actually ended up joining in and would stand in a line and they would just tell us you know four coaches and you jump in a car you have no idea where you would go. So I ended up in a school. I ended up at a church. I ended up at a hardware store like a Home Depot. Worked at the embassy. We worked all over the place and had an opportunity to just train these people. Which again was was just a life changing experience. So if we ever have ever have an opportunity to do something like that let's do it. So I'm going to transition into a story here really quickly and we're going to do our best here with the connections that we have. But for me there was a point early in my career really around 2002 where I decided or was thinking of quitting project management it was just you know I was frustrated. Weren't meeting for me. I was frustrated I was done. And so I actually walked through a bookstore and was trying to figure out you know maybe a job title would jump off the page for me or you know maybe I'd see a book or something that would inspire me. And so as I was walking through I found this book called Radical Project Management. And you know that the title itself by that was cool I picked it up started to flip through it and it's the first project management book in my life that ever made me laugh number one but number two spoke to me in a different way than any other project management book ever had. And so I ended up buying the book read it cover to cover and started to put the things in motion a lot of the ideas in motion. And I credit that night in that book for saving my career and putting a lot of the early seeds of my success and project management into practice. And that book was written by Rob Thomsett. Which was why I was so excited to finally get them on the line. So let's see if Rob's There Rob you there.

00:16:20;13 - 00:16:21;26

Rob Thomsett: Can you hear me ok?.

00:16:21;28 - 00:16:24;08

Rick A. Morris: I can hear you. Hi how are you my friend.

00:16:24;08 - 00:16:32;02

Rob Thomsett: I'm just. I'm just as excited as you are and I really really appreciate that feedback.

00:16:32;02 - 00:16:47;09

Rob Thomsett: It means something incredible when something you write actually connects to another person thousands of miles away. So I'm really looking forward to this Rick for sure and we lost this segment so I want to make up for time.

00:16:47;12 - 00:17:09;18

Rick A. Morris: And I'll tell you when you weren't on the line when we got started I was getting texts left and right from my friends. Where's Rob. So we're so excited that we got a chance to connect. Politics. Oh no worries at all. We said you know this is project management 101. This is what we do. Man Yeah we're risk ready is what we are.

00:17:10;09 - 00:17:12;12

Rob Thomsett: Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:17:12;26 - 00:17:43;14

Rick A. Morris: But I want to get into the meat because we've only got so much time with you and I feel like I could fill 12 shows with you and so we're going to have to have you back that's just a no brainer but it'll be a pleasure. The quote that I feel changed my entire outlook and you and I haven't had a chance to prep. We barely even had a chance to talk but the quote that I think changed my entire career was when you wrote that projects fail because of context. Not content would you. Would you explain that to the audience for a show.

00:17:43;14 - 00:19:20;14

Rob Thomsett: Sure. So no projects especially in you know what I call now traditional project manager which has its roots back in construction engineering project management people and tree projects as a system which was you know let's get right let's get the estimates right and let's sort of hunker down and execute and just deliver. But when you actually look at what projects they are in effect very open systems. They're part of a much broader either organizational context or a business context. So when I started looking and observing and being part of very complex projects what was happening in the past I would say but rather that interactions with stakeholders interactions with other approaches interactions with sponsors for example that interactions basically outside the project in its armaments which was the cause of the problem prior to that. So that idea. Halakhic is the lack of space around the project. And that's where you project managers or project ventures have to shift the focus because that's where this all of disruption tends to come from. Not always but in most cases that was the sort of idea that context versus content content what the projects will bring on takes and go with the practical needs.

00:19:21;17 - 00:19:28;06

Rick A. Morris: Yeah I think you're on a cell phone. So we're getting some good feedback here but I'm so sorry.

00:19:28;20 - 00:19:56;12

Rick A. Morris: Yeah yeah. I don't know if you're pacing but the the where we take that to what what. I took that to mean as well as is also contacts to be you know the main data date the mandated budgets the things that just tended not matter whereas you know where we're going to deliver the content. But it made me shift my focus to begin to manage up versus manage down. Does that does that make sense.

00:19:56;20 - 00:20:26;24

Rob Thomsett: Absolutely absolutely. I mean there's there's overwhelming evidence that you know for example the relationship between a project manager or sponsor and I believe this for decades is the single most important relationship are going to Johanes. So in that context of managing up with Rick how he spun to build this trusting relationship is critical to the success of any project.

00:20:30;11 - 00:20:46;07

Rick A. Morris: So with what you wrote with context and content you also just broadened my eyes beyond the the iron triangle with the research you did with Cutter Consortium and so tell the other  listeners a little bit about that.

00:20:46;07 - 00:21:02;09

Rob Thomsett: Sure. And again just to interrupt if I don't come through clearly we are at the age of automation and digital and we've still got still can't get Scott to work on this.

00:21:02;10 - 00:21:06;11

Rob Thomsett: I'm a Mac user if that helps people understand my technical capability.

00:21:06;12 - 00:22:00;25

Rob Thomsett: So what I'm get when you look at what's called the iron triangle which is you know a scope budget and time and you actually start seeing that project in this more broader idea. This is an old lives in this big old world. There are lots of other ways of measuring success. The classic example is that that old joke Rick that the operation was a success and the patient died that people people were looking at the wrong images of sick how a project succeeds because the really interesting out of a project is what happens after those lives and what you know what we're doing as project managers delivering a change in isolation and enter the project successful.

00:22:00;25 - 00:24:09;02

Rob Thomsett: That change has to be sustained and accepted by the stakeholders. Guadalupe would that change so that immediately thinking about you know looking at success from seven different dimensions and I'll come to WA from three to seven. But the first one was you know how are the stakeholders in terms of their relationship to what the projects are doing and what it's delivering. So if the stakeholders are on board it doesn't matter if you Sprite's that the project can succeed longer term and then taking that same view of projects is something that matters beyond the day it goes live. That is the projects are about delivering a sustained change. Then you suddenly realize that project's also about benefits. In other words you know again you're on time and on budget but you don't realize the benefits. So that was a quality issue was always one. And pay them on other people. Now sort of picked that up which is great. You know really the low quality then that can kind of tie the projects successful and that's okay. The car industry in the 70s and 80s is a good example of that. And finally the thing that most people find controversial Rick is I added teams is a consideration. In other words if we look at teams as a group of creative people how they how they feel about the product is equally as important. I've seen projects where the entire team is left after the project went live and the organizations was told that all IP and all that credible creative energy. So again that to me that projects not successful so we end up with this 7 7 dimensions of success stakeholder engagement requirements or scope budget time quality benefits and teams. That's where that came from. And now since I read that book and came up with that model I've seen very few projects successful almost full seven dimensions.

00:24:10;05 - 00:24:42;04

Rick A. Morris: Yeah. And you say that it's controversial right to include the teams but as I've grown as a leader really in the last two or three years in trying to do my personal development that the team satisfaction has been you know number one right. It's all about developing the leaders within the people around you and servant leadership. And really I do want to dive into this with you because you know I've got a lot of friends that are in charge.

00:24:42;04 - 00:24:49;21

Rick A. Morris: I've now become certified in Agile. And everybody thinks Agile is brand new. As of 2001 you were writing about it.

00:24:49;22 - 00:25:07;28

Rick A. Morris: I mean your book was published 2002 which means you know this was back in the day when we really had to work to publish a book right so that means you were writing this in 99 in 2000. So you know you are the first person ever to speak out to meet

00:25:09;16 - 00:26:49;23

Rob Thomsett: And look at one stage they're interconnected Rick because what this has been an ongoing news specifically dramatic turn there's been this cultural war between this view which was evidence probably the best way by things like the Sci. where if you just got the mechanics of project management right then you were doing a good job. And this more let's call it systems approach to project management which said that project management was about the management not the management of artifacts but the management of creativity. And that came to me way way earlier than Radikal project mentioned. I wrote a book which Jordan Press published in and print and print us all in nineteen eighty called people in project management which is long out of print a very small book but it reflected the learning side had from 10 years in the federal government here in Australia are trying project managers. The second sentence in the book says having taught 800 project managers over the last decade. The most important lesson this project mentions all about people and so disputed that this is that especially in projects these plug compatible compounds she just plugging in and that's being really evidenced by some of the social okay.

00:26:50;19 - 00:26:58;22

Rick A. Morris: So I think we've got a caller on the line. Let's go and take the caller and then we'll we'll introduce the question to Rob when we get them back who's on the line.

00:26:58;24 - 00:27:09;02

John Stenbeck: Rick that's John's longtime listener and friend what's up brother. How are you. Good. You're doing good. I think was right I was going to sorry go ahead.

00:27:09;14 - 00:27:12;15

John Stenbeck: I was just saying I think we're trying to re-establish that connection there with Rob.

00:27:13;09 - 00:27:14;15

Rick A. Morris: OK. Yes.

00:27:15;05 - 00:27:34;07

Rick A. Morris: There's Rob and and midsentence I pivoted to a call. I do want to introduce you rob to a dear friend of mine. He's the creator of The Agile Almanac Book One and book to the person that I learned a tremendous amount of Agile too. His name is John Stenbeck so Rob me John John me Rob.

00:27:34;07 - 00:27:34;24

Rob Thomsett: Hey John.

00:27:34;24 - 00:28:21;22

John Stenbeck: Hey Rob nice you I've got to tell you I heard Rick speak so eloquently from a keynote stage about radical project management that I felt compelled to acquire copy and then I acquired a copy. I was blown away as he was starting to say just before you guys dropped off the call about the way back in 2001 you're writing about the free agent army the global economy and the four waves of product management. I mean radical project management was a book written by a prophet as far as I'm concerned. So got to hear your thoughts on the update. Clearly you were correct with free agent and global economy and foodways just would love to hear your thoughts about how that's been sold or what's coming that and then I'll take a look at mine.

00:28:22;19 - 00:30:18;28

Rob Thomsett: John again I thank you for that feedback. It means a lot to me. I think we're right now we're in a really interesting space because Agil now has become as it should of a mainstream idea. And let's switch we'll be happy that that's happened. The question that at all. No matter what variation of that whether it's place or know it covens more or just pure scrum is it is a credibly incredibly aligned way of building creative product. However my concern now is that it's become the silver bullet it's got this almost religious fervor around it and use that that term that yeah that sort of hides the fact that it's fundamentally a major cultural journey. And many traditional organizations are not up to that journey. So I have a concern that some organizations in there's tons of evidence already say we're going to go agile and find out that they're actually not culturally ready for it and abandon what is a really valid approach to doing projects. So I think we're almost like a not a crisis point with some guys to radically rethink how they approach their people how they approach how they source project teams you know cause you've got to have kind of occasional as things so I don't think the battles won yet would be I view John I think we've got a long way to go still before Agile becomes the way most people would and I love that she said that because you know there's two terms that I use on the show all the time.

00:30:18;28 - 00:31:08;07

Rick A. Morris: Rob one is Agile theater which is people who are pretending to be Agile but not doing it right. So they're yeah they're playing out theater and the other is the clown which is you know the tons of consultants out there that have no basis no experience that are that are trying to lead these transformations and producing results like we can't tell you when we're going to be done because we're Agile. I can't tell you how much it's going to cost because we're Agile, all these wonderful new things that are providing great material for books but the horrible results for our organizations in just like software in the Great is like CA PPM Primavera Planview those out there people are saying that software doesn't work. No it works just fine. It's just that just as you said you weren't culturally ready

00:31:08;07 - 00:32:35;06

Rob Thomsett: yeah general audience in your view but you know a lot here in Australia where I'm currently based a lot to the biggest banks and now in American terms that talking organisations of 40000 people have publicly stated from the CEO that they are going to go agile and investing substantial amount of effort into doing that. And you know we're sort of really aware of what's happening internally at both these places and see exactly what you say. They've they've hired consultants who who never worked at the scale it is required that they're not looking through any of the second six. So what happens when you go to jail is where you embed inches. How do you transition all your support systems. Yeah it is really interesting and it brings out what I unfortunately believe is that with this application which is the fact that there are still people who see it that way.

00:32:36;28 - 00:32:49;05

Rick A. Morris: Yeah and again so we're going to make this huge announcement but then we're going to go to the lowest cost providers terms of consultant because you know we don't want to spend that much correct.

00:32:49;06 - 00:33:04;06

Rob Thomsett: Look you know that if you if you go back long enough and unfortunately all I can do that easily you know I want to tell a quick story I've got a minute. Yes please do.

00:33:04;18 - 00:33:39;19

Rob Thomsett: Yes I'm sure you both would love it. The Life of Brian it is a multipart talk. Of course yeah of course yeah. So I use this metaphor a lot. Mindlin Brian is mistaken for the Messiah and he's trying to get away from the soldiers he he gets Gulotta play hard and was and in about four minutes later the saddle falls off and some of us always say that it was so a true symbol of the Messiah had this big fight about what's the true symbol of the Messiah.

00:33:39;24 - 00:33:45;15

Rick A. Morris: Remember that saying yes yeah yeah yeah.

00:33:45;22 - 00:34:57;23

Rob Thomsett: So you were having. I've got clients who are fighting right now with a space you know sky. Their job is better than scrum. And this this happened way back in the late 70s early 80s when structural analysis was the big thing you know doing data fly diagrams Ed Gordon and Tom Dimarco and Gaynor's Sasso and they were actual culprits is about whether that gang of assassins rectangles representation of process was better than Tom DaMarcus circle representation you know and I love this stuff. But what it was underneath it was the fact that whosever you know agile religion was going to make more money and that's the sad thing that is that keeps worrying me about where radicals got to it's now become mainstream which means is now owned by the large consulting companies instead of a group of creative individuals which is where it came from. So it's become institutionalized and that can be the seeds of its failure frankly.

00:34:58;02 - 00:35:18;18

Rob Thomsett: You know one of the things I've seen your your whole model of context and content and I've seen this when is addressing you know the agile thing and like you talk about Agile theatre and those other islands and stuff because organisations simply forget the context.

00:35:18;20 - 00:35:47;06

Rob Thomsett: This is really what's going to have to happen then so hopefully you know cooler heads smarter minds something's going to prevail and we're going to realise that again I'm come back to you know your your free agent army and the global economy context is going to force it but you have to treat human beings as human beings not as cogs in a wheel and so your influence on the way he sees the world and speaks to project management has been profound and so on.

00:35:47;09 - 00:37:09;24

Rob Thomsett: And I don't really care about that but I'm grateful it to me so that got to the real essence here. You've got to the real essence of what our job is about. I was with a client and I've done this a couple of times when we were looking at bringing more agility into the organization. And you guys would have faced this all the time and you would have and you've got this traditional PMO which I'm sure you're familiar with that that has gates and has processes where you've got to insert forms and conform to certain rules before you can move on. And the debate becomes underneath that is a much bigger question which which Agil directly addresses and no one talk about and it comes down to trust us to ultimately what Agil saying is do you trust a group of people who have open flows of information to them to their key business clients to do the right stuff or do you need to still put controls around people because fundamentally you don't trust people and the thing that agile is fundamentally built on to make is this inherent belief that people will do the right thing if you give them the right context.

00:37:09;25 - 00:37:31;02

Rick A. Morris: And to me there are too many organisations who believe that yes so it's theory x theory y and that's my favorite conversation to get into with companies. You know I do a lot of software implementation and so you have the people there like take everything off the screen lock it all down because if they can click it they will and they'll mess it up right.

00:37:31;02 - 00:37:53;12

Rick A. Morris: Or allow them to explore. Allow them to become better allow them to learn. Right. Yet it is so frustrating to watch that super locked down. My favorite is like where can you lock down these dates and it's like well who's going to log in at 3:00 in the morning and go change a bunch of scheduled dates. Like I don't want to look at the project schedule anyway. Come on. Yeah.

00:37:53;20 - 00:38:46;03

Rob Thomsett: Yeah. You know it's it's you know it's interesting and you know the number of times I've said this to executives and watch them watch them struggle. Right. You can see it in their eyes. I say look you got a simple choice to make. You either punish the majority for the behavior of the minority or you accept that the majority of good and deal with the minority by exception and that that fundamental truth is something most organizations. Yeah we look at a Netflix or some of the Spotify they solve that problem. You know they've gone to the assumption that everyone's basically good intent and will deal with what doesn't work on an exception basis but logic corporations can pick that cultural view.

00:38:46;05 - 00:38:51;29

Rick A. Morris: In my experience you design to the 95 percent not for the five correct.

00:38:52;04 - 00:38:58;11

Rick A. Morris: And the more that you and I talk the more I think we need to have some sort of DNA test because you actually maybe my dad.

00:38:58;12 - 00:39:23;21

Rob Thomsett: I'm not sure that milk is going to tell you when in the old days when there was conferences that talked about this sort of stuff rather than you know had a run down shot. There was a very small group of people Rick and I was privileged to be part of it that all felt the same way. And you know welcome to the club.

00:39:24;06 - 00:39:26;18

Rob Thomsett: And what does that represent. Right.

00:39:27;08 - 00:39:49;16

Rob Thomsett: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you say you talk about the edge or clad in all this stuff. The thing I like to talk about is the ceremonies. Everyone thinks that our job is about the ceremonies to stand up their retrospectives. We're getting some we have been down Chow's blah blah blah. It isn't. It's about a fundamentally different way of working.

00:39:51;06 - 00:40:08;27

Rick A. Morris: I love it. Well unfortunately for the first time ever. Just so you know I've been doing this show for two years Rob. And for the first time ever I was offered to skip a full commercial break just to keep the conversation going and I took that opportunity with you but unfortunately we have to take a commercial break here so we're going to do so.

00:43:16;18 - 00:43:28;14

Rick A. Morris: And we're back to the final segment of the work life balance on this Friday and we're visiting with Rob Thomsett now with seven consulting he's from Australia and he's just been delighting us with stories.

00:43:28;14 - 00:44:11;12

Rick A. Morris: And you know Rob you know how I feel about you buddy. It's been such a delight to talk to you. You know I was flipping through radical project management again just preparing and I'm trying to find the spot again and I don't think I will. But you know I teach an elevator speech to our project managers because I hate to hear project managers try to describe what they do for a living because it sounds like a scene from Office Space right. It's horrible. And so I teach them to say you know that we make dreams come true and that it's a simple thing but you know what. I think that was influenced by you as well. I don't know if it was in my psyche or subconscious but that you had something like that in Radical project management as well correct.

00:44:12;03 - 00:44:34;06

Rob Thomsett: Yes yes in fact it was in both Radical and third wave and it was also in people in project management project management making dreams come true. Yeah. It's it's the management creativity and it's the focusing of creativity on helping people get to a better space. Absolutely wonderful job here.

00:44:34;06 - 00:44:48;17

Rick A. Morris: Here I think I thought I came up with that and I think you're the one that just threw it into my subconscious so I'm going to have to start crediting you with that again. So anybody who's ever heard me say that that came from Rob for me and thrown that out as well.

00:44:48;17 - 00:44:54;17

Rob Thomsett: But I so Rick ideas are like children. If you let them go.

00:44:54;19 - 00:45:02;03

Rick A. Morris: Exactly right. Right. That's our job. And I'll tell you what if that if there's one that we can spread all over the place. That's the one that needs to spread.

00:45:02;17 - 00:45:23;02

Rob Thomsett: Yeah. Yep. You know I'm 70 now and I've done this for over 40 years and I wouldn't I wouldn't do another job. You know the stuff that the creativity and the brilliance of people I've worked with is just inspirational to treasure.

00:45:23;03 - 00:45:35;16

Rick A. Morris: It really is and once you in and that's what I do love about this career is we get to do some of the coolest things and see some of the coolest things ever I mean ever.

00:45:36;09 - 00:46:13;24

Rob Thomsett: Yeah. And energy. And you know in most cases you get to see people at their best which is aligned together working together to achieve some something bigger than themselves. You know one of the things I've always believe rakers is when computing started and I.T. project manager we chose the role the all made metaphor for we chose buildings rather than movies. To me a much better analogy to what we do and especially in the age our world is like movies except these movies changed people's lives.

00:46:14;03 - 00:46:23;10

Rick A. Morris: Wow. So one of the questions we'd like to ask all of our guests that come on the show is what some of the best advice you would say you've ever received.

00:46:24;17 - 00:46:33;03

Rob Thomsett: Oh that's very interesting. Is this advice about project management or a broader broader in general tech.

00:46:33;06 - 00:46:42;16

Rob Thomsett: So without a doubt the most significant thing I've ever left is no one ever pays you enough not to be yourself.

00:46:43;08 - 00:46:46;17

Rick A. Morris: I like that you help you want to tell the story behind it.

00:46:47;06 - 00:48:05;02

Rob Thomsett: Yeah. Look you know especially if you go back 20 30 years. It was this sort of idea that you came to work and you hung up your real self on a rack and did some sort of corporate persona. I remember they all stories about the IBM way the suits and all that sort of stuff. And now as you know of being a musician all my life and I've had a rage a sense of humor. I used to sort of hide that from people I worked with and one day someone said to me why are you doing that. You don't get paid enough. There's a guy called Pete Alonso a wonderful man. And I started being who I am at work with clients as I as I am at heart. And to the last part. I have to really like that because I was described recently by a c c c as as a passionate eccentric. And he said we need more of this. So you know you got to be true to yourself you've got to be authentic. And people see respond to it. Yeah that really really mattered to me that listen you know I love it I love it.

00:48:05;18 - 00:48:40;07

Rick A. Morris: And yeah and quite frankly it's your humor. So again I was at a very vulnerable time in my career. I found that you know nobody was listening nobody was doing anything and it was your humor that allowed my humor to come out. You know the whole dark side of project management which I found hilarious by the way in Radikal project management. But it was it was your humor in being able to describe things that I actually took the stage in and just kind of let my wit lose a little bit which is where I feel like my speaking career took off.

00:48:40;25 - 00:49:16;17

Rob Thomsett: Yeah I can I can hear it in your voice. Rick I can actually hear your voice. I can see and hear the smile you know Stephen Colbert you know who I really love once said if you're laughing you can't be afraid. You know I'm deeply suspicious of people who don't have a sense of humor. But then having said that I'm also aware that sometimes my sense of humor does it does throw some people out but the answer is I just had to learn to live with that.

00:49:17;09 - 00:49:25;24

Rick A. Morris: Well that's just not our kind of client right. And we probably wouldn't have any fun doing work for them anyway. That's the beauty of us being our own our own consultants.

00:49:27;02 - 00:49:40;15

Rob Thomsett: That's it. That's correct. I mean you know the other thing I'd like to say you asked me that question. That's a big one. That is the biggest one but the second thing is is asking for help.

00:49:41;06 - 00:50:28;15

Rob Thomsett: I just you know this film's about it of course but I don't want to get into gender. But you know I find admitting you know something and asking people to explain it to you is a really really important thing. You know I'm having a debate with seven consulting at the moment that you know we really do take a really smart organization. We only hire the top 10 percent project managers of Australia. But the danger of that is because you've had the best. I think they know everything that makes sense. Absolutely. And so the I guess to summarize that to me a good day even at age 70 a really good day is a day you learn something. And you know Rick and John are still learning stuff which is that it's the best that's the best for me

00:50:28;27 - 00:50:50;25

Rick A. Morris: like I've I've gotten involved with the John Maxwell team is the big thing that I've done and John says you know he's he's got fewer certainties. The older he gets but he's more certain about those things than he ever has been. And I think that's a beautiful statement.

00:50:50;28 - 00:50:56;11

Rick A. Morris: He should have met me when I was 20 because I thought I was awesome.

00:50:56;19 - 00:51:36;18

Rob Thomsett: Yeah. And you know if you're a project manager and you fall into that trap and I talk about it. If you remember Rick the last page of radical I talk about crossing the line where the most important project management along the alert which is where the project managers ego becomes entangled with the project and they start owning the project on behalf of the sponsor and on behalf of the stakeholders. And once they cross that line that their last project manager exists to make other people's dreams happen not. Does that make sense.

00:51:36;27 - 00:51:46;04

Rick A. Morris: Absolutely yeah. We don't own any things down our budget on our scope on our people. So what is it want. We only own the blame for when it goes wrong.

00:51:46;05 - 00:52:26;28

Rob Thomsett: That's all we are don't tell any of the listeners want to have a look at that. Just put up a series. I'm going to do a lot more of this because you know Rick as you know people don't tend to read books sorry John. I just don't anymore. Studies linked in this as a voice for some of my writing so there's a series up there I just put up recently on LinkedIn on LinkedIn profile on change and the one point I'm saying to PMS is you don't have to live with the change that you deliver. So you have a moral responsibility to understand what you're doing impacts other people. And some PMs don't get that still that makes sense.

00:52:27;22 - 00:52:38;05

Rick A. Morris: Absolutely. Well Rob listen it's been a pleasure. The time has flown by. Unfortunately we are out of time which just means we have got to have you back. You get that.

00:52:38;10 - 00:52:44;29

Rob Thomsett: Absolutely. And I'll get the technology working better next time we can. John please accept my apologies for being a bit late.

00:52:45;02 - 00:53:12;09

Rick A. Morris: Not at all. Not at all. But any time any way out I'll hook it up with you again we'll get it back. But that's been robbed time said the legend himself to me and I can't thank you enough for being just you man I appreciate you're in we'll have you back but that's our edition of the work life balance. This week we'll talk to you guys next Friday when I've got Coach Beckler coming back and we'll talk about leadership and motivation. But that's it for this Friday. We'll see you guys next week.

00:53:12;09 - 00:53:15;05

Rick A. Morris: You've been listening to Rick Morris.