Transcript - Niels Ahrengot, Managing Partner of Implement Consulting Group
[00:00:03] Welcome, everybody. What a pleasure. My role is to try to to talk you through the the way I treat. So. I'll start with the with this, I think, you know, very few times in your in a long career, you face a really big idea. One, that that potentially, if nurtured right, can actually become bigger than yourself. Honestly, I have that feeling right now, and the idea is called half double and and I simply think we have a huge potential here with a relatively simple idea.
[00:01:00] So thank you all for coming here. But I would like to actually to take you a little bit back in time, I was I was raised and born in Olympia, which is about five kilometres north west of here.
[00:01:17] And and that was in a classical suburb with Villers from the 1920s, mixed up with industrial areas.
[00:01:29] So that was where I my life started and.
[00:01:37] This is the big is on the picture there, that's actually me and and we we we played football on on the lawn in front of the porcelain factory.
[00:01:52] In Libya every afternoon, and I would like to to, you know, follow me on this journey, so could you please close your eyes and go back in time with me?
[00:02:09] Because now you are standing outside the factory and you are about eight years old. And and you can feel the heat from from the ovens. You can smell the scent of medicine, you can you can listen to the noise from the conveyance and you can see the dust all over the place. This is the factory whistle, and you can actually also you can see the big crowd of men and women in dressed in blue running out of the main gate.
[00:02:58] And you can smell the dog shit on you and you bring new sneakers that your mom told you not to play football in and buy what you can, open your eyes, because this is actually my brother at that point in time.
[00:03:15] Um.
[00:03:20] This is this Olympe today, the porcelain factory is long gone. But even though all the factories are gone, they're actually more workplaces now than they used to be.
[00:03:39] But they're very few people in bluegill walls.
[00:03:45] And this dramatic change in the workforce.
[00:03:50] Has actually happened all over the Western world for the past 50 years. And as you can see here, there are actually more workplaces, but it's very, very different jobs. That the people that go to work in Olympia or anywhere else in the Western world today do a completely different type of work, they do admin, they do logistics, they do R&D, they do I.T., they do management
[00:04:28] Also called. White collar work and.
[00:04:36] And this type of work that these people do and that you do and I do.
[00:04:44] Is to a very, very large extent one of assignments, and that actually has a name. Because that's called project. It's actually a project factory.
[00:05:04] In a project society. It's actually the fact is that that we are twenty two percent of the world's GDP are actually delivered in project.
[00:05:22] And in the western world, the number 35 percent in 2010 of the GDP was delivered in projects and that number is going to be 40 percent in 2020.
[00:05:39] Welcome to the Project Society.
[00:05:45] And we actually need more products delivered, there are actually some big ones in front of us hindering climate change is protg. Reducing poverty is protg. Creating a radically more innovative and digital business world is protg.
[00:06:10] So the good news is. You guys, uh, have never been more important. Then you are today.
[00:06:23] It's it's. An outstanding opportunity for people like you and me.
[00:06:32] But however but. We have this problem, which is this No. Because you can make a lot of studies at. You you somehow come to the same number. About one third of the projects delivered. Are successful runs when it's judged by the key stakeholders. And and, of course, I know that the nature of the approaches that they contain uncertainty, so this number is never going to be 100, but. But honestly, this is not good enough, but I. Think about it, 33 percent. It's probably the biggest waste ever seen on Earth, knowing that we spent 22 trillions of dollars each year on project.
[00:07:45] Maybe I can I can use this table here, this table here.
[00:07:53] In this in this 50 years period has become. Two to three percent cheaper or better every year for the past 50 years.
[00:08:11] If you do the math, that means it it's four times two times cheaper or four times better or two times cheaper and two times better.
[00:08:23] Uh, choose your numbers. The fact is that that number has not really changed at all. So we hadn't seen any substantial productivity improvement in the same period. So we really have to honor these. Dilatant men and women in dressed in blue for this fantastic achievement. If and I, I say, if we had had the same productivity improvement, we would actually already do projects and half the same time with the impact.
[00:09:12] If we can improve the. Productivity by one percent per year in the next coming 20 years, one percent, not two to three percent. One percent. Then we will. Save hundred trillions of dollars or exactly the amount that Wharton Business School predicts it will cost to transform the whole global energy sector into. Solar, wind and renewable energy.
[00:09:55] We have a job to be done.
[00:09:59] And imagine what we can achieve. And I would actually like you to just spend three minutes to think about the project.
[00:10:15] But what would actually happen in your organization if you could do or if you could do? Projects in half the time without the impact. Could you just just spend two or three minutes? Go, thank you.
[00:10:51] We need an approach. We simply need another approach. The classic management. Approach is inherited from the days of the porcelain factory.
[00:11:09] A period where it was quite a lot of stability and where success in a project was to deliver on time, cost and quality.
[00:11:27] In a turbulent world. Successes to deliver impact. And that's that's something we have to deal with. We need to rethink how we do projects in our project factories. And this idea of rethinking product management is actually not new at all. It has been around in the academic world for 20 years.
[00:11:59] We have seen agile methodologies in software development.
[00:12:04] We see you working efforts in the tech companies. We see all kinds of things happening.
[00:12:14] But we need a radically different approach to the discipline of party management. And it's a surprise we actually we actually know the ingredients. Because there's so many great projects to study out there.
[00:12:41] And it is a second surprise or. Nobody has really done that before, which is very strange in terms of developing a methodology.
[00:12:56] So we we actually set out to do that together with you guys. Thank you very much. And. Ten leading global organizations. Helping with this, we have more than fifteen hundred practitioners helping with this. Thank you very much.
[00:13:19] And, uh, and have to apply methodology is actually the result of that.
[00:13:27] Putting an extreme focus on three core elements impact flow and leadership to make it very simple.
[00:13:45] We have we have, Don. Any half of her projects now? And we have reduced time to impact radically. It's extremely powerful in my mind.
[00:14:07] I will comment on a few of the of the elements I don't have time to cover it all to continue to take the whole morning and you will get really bored. So so I will comment on a few of the of the key messages. And then there will be enough time during the day to talk about the different aspects. And I would start with with IMPAC.
[00:14:34] I mean, a project without impact is simply waste. I think we can all agree on that.
[00:14:45] And you as project sponsor and Project Lead. I'm responsible for delivering, Pat.
[00:14:56] When I did my PhD thesis many years ago. I spent a lot of time conducting experiments. I wrote papers. I even wrote a hundred and thirty three pages report.
[00:15:19] And the only one.
[00:15:24] But ever read that report? Was my introverted Swedish professor. It was a complete waste.
[00:15:37] I passed, so it was a success. I have so many examples of waste in projects. And I would actually like to share that experience with you guys. So could you please just in silence, spend? One minute to think about. Waste in a project you have been part of Europe because you were simply. Simply bored or wasting your time or because there was no impact coming out of it, could you just spend one minute, please? I think most of us.
[00:16:31] Can identify a project where we have seen waste and and I actually think we can learn a lot from the guys, from the product pictures. Because they have been reducing waste for the last 50 years.
[00:16:48] We need to do something.
[00:16:51] We need relentless focus on impact from day one and and as we talked about, success is not to deliver what you promised. Also deliver their own contract. Successes to deliver impact.
[00:17:12] And of course, that doesn't mean you don't have to deliver what you promise, but it's not the ultimate goal.
[00:17:21] And the secrets of half double to is really simple. It is to create impact as you go along. As you build the solution to that, that's in essence what it's all about. If you want to write a book. At the audience, read the book before it's printed. We did that, it's actually possible interesting if you want to implement the new CRM system.
[00:17:55] To improve top line.
[00:18:00] Then start by insisting on impact on the top line in two months instead of in two years, because you will learn as you go along.
[00:18:16] The way to do that in half double is to start with the impact case. And insist on shortest time to impact.
[00:18:30] Because you will learn as you go along.
[00:18:35] And remember, in a in a constantly changing world, the real measure for impact. Is actually stakeholder satisfaction. That's why you need a high frequency feedback mechanism. From the key stakeholders. And. All checks. But that's the detail.
[00:19:06] So that's that's that's the impact side then then we come to there to the flip side, I guess we all know that the simplest trick in this world is to gain productivity improvements is to locate people.
[00:19:21] That's that's an old trick. It still works.
[00:19:27] And and that's that's something we have to do a lot more. And I know the world is global and we need to work it virtually, etc. But still, there's a huge, huge potential and actually echolocate Kapil that doesn't go along very well with a classical hierarchy.
[00:19:53] Somehow.
[00:19:57] Leaders tend to like to have their own people around them. And set them free.
[00:20:09] Numerous studies have shown that colocation is. Super efficient in actually creating productivity. And when you combine it with the agile methodology like we saw planning. You create flow and you create energy, which is actually what is needed, and there are tons of examples, not only from half the people from from the scrum world, from from safe world, from anywhere around this works. So why don't we do it more? And I know a lot of you do it a lot. So all of that. Then we come to the to the last element or the final element or whatever, which is leadership.
[00:21:11] When you do studies, and I guess that I can confirm that when you look at failures in project.
[00:21:19] Seventy five percent of the failures are due to the lack of leadership or bad leadership. Seven seventy five percent. And why is that? That's because the Protec Factory's key resource is actually human engagement.
[00:21:47] Human engagement, what does that? That is the amount of time that you.
[00:21:55] Put into the project. And talent. And energy. That's human engagement, that's what that's what it all about. Can I get.
[00:22:07] Can I ask you to stand up? Thank you. Would you try?
[00:22:14] Yeah, yeah, nice, this is this is a human being. Yeah, uh.
[00:22:25] It has it has feelings.
[00:22:30] It has emotions.
[00:22:35] It has to be motivated. To do something to engage it hates. Being an activity in a process diagram.
[00:22:51] Simply because it's a human being. Thank you very much.
[00:23:01] And and the incredible thing here is that fully engaged human beings. Can do incredible things, you know that because you've been there on one of you, you have been in flow. You know it. Why does this happen? Because fully engage people, they can create a more digital and innovative business world.
[00:23:36] They can reduce poverty, you know, and, you know, on our global. They can actually.
[00:23:49] Transform the energy sector.
[00:23:53] But it requires fully engaged people, so why do we have on this hierarchy to destroy?
[00:24:03] It's a really strange. And we simply have to turn leadership upside down.
[00:24:14] The role of the sponsor and the project leader is to help create a fully engaged project factory. Imagine what we can achieve.
[00:24:29] Sixteen percent of the people on average going to work each day in the western world are fully engaged.
[00:24:40] 16 percent. This is knowledge work.
[00:24:49] The role of the sponsor is not. To be a heroic decision maker. In a steering committee meeting every six weeks. That's why in order to create impact flow leadership, we need sponsors who spend their time on a few very important projects. And when we say spend their time, we mean it.
[00:25:29] These people are brilliant people. We need that time.
[00:25:37] This was, uh, this was a very short introduction to Half double And and but it's also an invitation to you.
[00:25:52] It's an invitation to to let's do this together. Let's unleash this guy, DenTek potential together. And the development of half double, even though the budget is out, is not finished at all. It has just started. Because this is difficult, but this is an invitation to all of you to actually take part of this development, we need to do something. And we already have more than 1500. Enthusiastic precociousness. Doing half the evil things out there. This is great. So we are on to something. And remember. We have a job to be done. And it's done in projects. Thank you very much for your patience. I'll end up with a little assignment for you and it's a little more complicated.
[0027:10] It's we're going to try to do this. So could you please wrap your your smartphone and go to binti dot com?
[00:27:38] Because I would really ask for you to I'm sorry. Oh, sorry.
[00:27:50] Oh, sorry.
[00:28:00] You got it, everybody got it, fantastic. And here's his assignment, what does your organization need to work on in order to work smarter in your project factory? That could be on any topic related to have double or impactful leadership, please, you know, start do something something on the on the smartphone just for a couple of minutes and then and then. Thank you very much for your for your attention. Thank you very much.
