Do your project controls miss the pivotal moments?
Have you considered the possibility your project controls miss pivotal moments? Ask a project leader what they find most demanding in project delivery and they’re likely to tell you it’s the people rather than technical issues.
The authors of Gorilla in the Cockpit, Vip Vyas & Thomas Zweifel, put numbers on it
people, capability, and culture issues dwarf technical issues by a factor of 6 to 1: people issues, 84.8%, technical project issues 15.2 %.
Is this ratio reflected in your project controls? I suspect not.
Most project controls miss pivotal moments
Your project controls are far more likely to be focused on tangible, objective measures: performance against budget, on-time delivery, quality of output etc. These are lag indicators – they tell you what happened in the past and invite you to dissect what went wrong (what caused the budget to overrun for example).
I’m not saying these measures are unimportant.
I am saying they focus on the symptoms that something is wrong. They miss a huge chunk of what’s driving these symptoms.
We need to complement them with other measures, lead indicators, which improve our ability to sense when things are beginning to go wrong and provide data that informs how we should intervene, at a human level.
The authors of Transformation leadership: navigating turning points a recent white paper from Said Business School and EY, explore the idea of lead indicators in depth.
Whilst their research focused on transformations, I believe it has plenty to say for many other types of projects.
In this article, I focus on two of their key ideas a) the notion of a turning point or pivotal moment and b) the signals that help anticipate them.
If this all sounds rather academic, just look at one of the white paper’s key conclusions
almost every transformation (96%) has at least one pivotal moment when the programme veers off track. This is a turning point, where leaders can choose to intervene, with the intent of improving its performance or outcomes (or not).
The need to navigate turning points well
Look at what the authors say about the need to navigate these moments well,
The impact of navigating turning points well cannot be emphasized enough. Not only can they address the near-term issues compromising performance, but they also lead to mid- term and long-term benefits.
They go on to say, successful turning points are:
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- 2.1 times more likely to improve the speed of execution of the transformation.
- 1.9 times more likely to lead the whole programme overperforming its target Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).
Contrast this with the consequences of failing to navigate a turning point successfully.
the consequences of failing to navigate a turning point successfully or ignoring one completely are continued stagnation or, potentially derailing the programme…turning points are a win or lose situation.
These findings really got me thinking.
I’ve come across plenty of stagnating projects over the years, and some that seemed to have derailed. Could these be explained by missed turning points?
I suspect the notion of pivotal moments is relevant beyond the confines of transformation programmes. Do you think it might be too?
If so what does it imply for our measurement systems? Before answering this question let’s spend a moment on terminology.
Clarifying Terminolgy
In the project world we’re used to talking about risks and issues. The list below shows how the white paper’s authors relate them to the ideas of signals and pivotal moments or turning points.
Risk: something could go wrong.
Issue or problem: something has gone wrong.
Signal: how the issue manifests.
Turning point: the moment a leader intervenes and changes course.
What measures should we focus on?
The white paper draws on multi-method research and predictive modelling to explore what measures should be used to create an early warning system capable of flagging when something significant is going on (i.e. we are potentially approaching a turning point).
The conclusions are striking
One of the overarching findings in our data shows that the signals to pay attention to are behavioral rather than process related. Six of the top ten, and five of the top six signals relate to a shift in the behaviors or emotional energy of an individual or a group.
Behavioral signals
The list below shows in ranked order the top ten signals that a significant issue had emerged (behavioral signals in bold.)
- lack of clarity on how to proceed.
- delays or missed milestones
- ineffective collaboration.
- increase in negative emotions.
- mistakes or misunderstandings.
- decreased engagement.
- questions from external groups.
- missing targets on KPI’s.
- budget overages or shortfalls.
- excessive interpersonal conflict.
I’m curious. Which of the signals listed here are missing from your project controls?
Am I taking a step too far in suggesting we need to include KBI’s (key behavioral indicators) in the list of KPI’s – for all project types?
Further Reading
Osterweil, Carole, Neuroscience for Project Success, why people behave as they do, APM (2022)
Said Business School and EY, (2024) Transformation leadership: Navigating turning points
Vyas,V and Zweifel, T, Gorilla in the Cockpit, Breaking the Hidden Patterns of Project Failure and the System for Success, (2022)
Osterweil, Carole, Project controls that name the elephant before it reaps havoc
Photo: Roger Bradshaw on Unsplash
Carole Osterweil
Carole Osterweil is a project troubleshooter and coach who’s on a mission – to bring an understanding of how the human brain works to the world of project management and business transformation.
You can read about her pioneering approach in the book Neuroscience for Project Success: why people behave as they do, published by the Association for Project Management