AI Driven PM: At last! A Monte Carlo Analysis Made Possible with AI!

A Monte Carlo analysis stands as one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of project management, renowned for its ability to provide detailed risk assessments and predictions. However, this incredible potential often remains untapped, reserved for high-risk, long-term projects. The reason? The sheer volume of detailed information required to execute Monte Carlo simulations effectively. Yet, in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), we stand on the cusp of a revolution that could democratize this tool, making it accessible and practical for a wider array of projects. 

The Complexity of Monte Carlo Analysis 

Monte Carlo analysis involves running simulations to predict the probability of various outcomes in a project. It demands comprehensive data for every task: 

Task Details: The foundational elements of tasks, including their descriptions, predecessors, successors, and assigned resources. 

Estimates: For each task, we need the best-case, most likely, and worst-case time estimates. 

Risks: A detailed understanding of the risks associated with each task, including their likelihood and impact. 

Risk Information: Further, we need a full spectrum of risk data, from historical risk occurrences to the effectiveness of mitigation strategies. 

Given these requirements, Monte Carlo analysis has traditionally been limited to projects where the stakes justify the effort—think large-scale infrastructure projects or complex software developments with significant uncertainties and potential impacts. 

Bridging the Gap with AI 

Artificial intelligence is poised to transform this landscape. Here’s how AI can address the hurdles of Monte Carlo analysis: 

Data Mining and Integration: AI can scour historical project data to identify patterns and fill gaps. By analyzing past projects, AI can generate realistic estimates for new tasks, even when explicit data is unavailable. This reduces the burden on project managers to provide exhaustive detail upfront. 

Risk Prediction and Assessment: Machine learning algorithms excel at recognizing patterns. AI can predict risks based on historical data and similar projects, providing a more comprehensive risk profile than a human might achieve alone. 

Automating Estimates: Through continuous learning, AI can improve its estimation accuracy over time. Initial uncertainties can be progressively replaced with data-driven insights, making the Monte Carlo simulations more reliable and less speculative. 

A Practical Example: Building a Mobile App 

Consider a mid-sized project: developing a new mobile application. Traditionally, Monte Carlo analysis might seem excessive for such a project due to its perceived complexity and data demands. However, with AI integration, this changes: 

Task Breakdown: AI can assist in creating a detailed work breakdown structure, identifying task dependencies, and assigning resources based on historical data. 

Estimation: AI algorithms analyze previous app development projects to provide best-case, most likely, and worst-case estimates for each task. 

Risk Analysis: AI evaluates potential risks by comparing the current project’s parameters with past projects, predicting issues like delays due to resource constraints or unforeseen technical challenges. 

The Benefits 

Implementing Monte Carlo analysis with AI in our mobile app project offers tangible benefits: 

Improved Accuracy: AI-enhanced estimates and risk assessments lead to more reliable project timelines and resource allocation. 

Proactive Risk Management: By predicting risks early, the project team can implement mitigation strategies before issues arise, reducing the likelihood of costly delays. 

Informed Decision-Making: Project managers receive data-driven insights, enabling better decision-making and more efficient project execution. 

Conclusion 

Monte Carlo analysis, once the realm of large-scale, high-risk projects, is becoming increasingly accessible thanks to AI. By automating data collection, enhancing risk prediction, and refining estimates, AI transforms Monte Carlo analysis from a complex, data-intensive process into a practical tool for a wider range of projects. This democratization empowers project managers to leverage sophisticated risk management techniques, ultimately driving project success in our increasingly complex and uncertain world. 

As we continue to integrate AI into project management, the future holds exciting possibilities where the power of Monte Carlo analysis is just a click away, making every project more predictable, manageable, and successful. 

Boosting Value Performance Per Day (VPD) with AI

In project management, timely and effective decisions are critical to success. However, the traditional approach is filled with time-consuming tasks that prevent project managers from focusing on what truly matters—creating value. This is where the concept of Value Performance per Day (VPD) comes into play. VPD measures the amount of value a project manager can deliver in a day, directly impacting the project's success.

Typically, a project manager spends too much time on manual tasks to understand what happened in the previous week. This includes compiling status reports from team members, attending numerous status meetings, updating project plans, and manually entering data into various systems. After gathering all the necessary information, the project manager must then analyze it to identify variances and deviations from the plan. Only then can they begin to make informed decisions on how to realign the project and mitigate risks. As Albert Einstein once said, "The only source of knowledge is experience." In this context, the experience comes from meticulously sifting through data, a process that can consume 75-85% of a typical work week.

The true value of project management lies in the ability to identify issues, anticipate risks, and implement corrective actions swiftly. However, with most of the project manager's time spent gathering and reporting data, only a few hours are left for making meaningful decisions. This imbalance delays critical decisions and limits the project manager's ability to add value proactively. Winston Churchill aptly noted, "To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." The current state of project management demands a change that allows project managers to spend more time on decision-making and less on administrative tasks.

This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) can significantly enhance VPD. By automating routine tasks such as data collection, report generation, and status updates, AI frees up a substantial amount of the project manager's time. For example, AI can integrate data from multiple systems like Jira, time-tracking tools, and project management software, providing a real-time, unified view of the project's status. This automation can reduce the time spent on status and reporting tasks to just 15-25% of the week, allowing project managers to devote 75-85% of their time to anticipating issues, mitigating risks, and creating value for the project.

Consider the story of Sarah, a project manager at a large tech firm. Before implementing AI, Sarah spent 65% of her week gathering data from Jira, updating her project plans in Microsoft Project, and preparing detailed status reports for her team and stakeholders. This left her with only 35% of her time to make critical decisions. After integrating an AI solution, Sarah's project management tools were seamlessly connected, and she received real-time updates. The AI analyzed project data, flagged potential risks, and even suggested corrective actions. With these tasks automated, Sarah now spends only 15% of her week on administrative duties. This allows her to dedicate 85% of her time to strategic decision-making, greatly increasing her VPD. As a result, Sarah identified and mitigated a significant risk early in the project, preventing a major delay and saving her company substantial resources.

Another example is John, a project manager in the healthcare industry. John used to spend 50% of every week manually tracking project progress and consolidating data from different departments, such as patient care, IT, and logistics. This left him with limited time to focus on high-value activities. After implementing AI, John's project management system automatically pulled data from various sources, provided real-time progress updates, and generated comprehensive reports. With these tasks automated, John now spends just 15% of his week on data gathering and reporting. The remaining 85% is spent optimizing patient care processes and improving resource allocation. This increased VPD resulted in faster project delivery and better patient outcomes.

To calculate VPD, consider the total value-added activities completed by the project manager in a day. This can be quantified by evaluating the impact of decisions made, issues resolved, and improvements implemented. For instance, if a project manager resolves three critical issues, makes two strategic decisions, and implements one process improvement in a day, each with a quantifiable value, these can be summed up to measure the total value delivered per day. By tracking this metric over time, organizations can gauge the effectiveness of their project managers and the impact of AI in enhancing their performance.

In conclusion, AI has the potential to revolutionize project management by maximizing VPD. By automating the time-consuming tasks of data gathering and reporting, AI allows project managers to focus on strategic decision-making. This shift not only improves project outcomes but also enables project managers to add greater value through proactive risk management and issue resolution. As we embrace this technology, we move closer to achieving the perfect balance in project management, where value is delivered swiftly and effectively.

 

AI Driven PM: Fulfilling the Promise of Lessons Learned

In the realm of project management, the perennial challenge has been not just to navigate the present but to learn from the past in a way that illuminates the path forward. Chapter 12 of my book "Project Management That Works" presents a narrative on risk assessment, a process traditionally encumbered by subjective judgments and cumbersome methodologies.  I presented a way to turn lessons learned into a risk assessment that could provide actionable insights.  It is here, at the intersection of aspiration and reality, that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) emerge not just as tools but as transformative forces, making the ideal of learning from past lessons a tangible, impactful reality.

AI and ML: The Vanguard of Realizing Lessons Learned

The essence of AI and ML in project risk management is their unparalleled ability to digest and synthesize vast datasets, encompassing both the successes and missteps of past projects, to offer actionable insights rather than mere classifications of risks. This marks a paradigm shift from the conventional practice of categorizing risks as high, medium, or low, towards a dynamic model where risks are not just identified but understood in the context of their historical outcomes and mitigated with precision.

Proof of Concept

In my book, I delve into how my project management team undertook the meticulous task of gathering, organizing, and analyzing insights gained from the past three years. The crucial element we sought was the impact of each lesson, be it in terms of time delays, costs, or other significant effects. To leverage these insights, we crafted questions aimed at new project managers embarking on projects, designed to identify potential risks early on. A positive response triggers a report with actionable advice for the project manager.

For example, a common issue is "vaporware," where a vendor offers a not-yet-complete solution, seeking customer investment for development. The risk assessment process includes questions like, "Have you seen a demo of the product?" Followed by, "Was the demo live, recorded, or a PowerPoint?" If "PowerPoint" is chosen, the report suggests the project manager verify the product's completion and user base directly with the vendor. A positive vendor response mitigates the risk; a negative prompts discussion with the project sponsor.

This method illustrates the power of applying past lessons to new projects. However, its effectiveness is tempered by the labor-intensive nature of maintaining and aligning the risk assessment tool with the organization's needs, requiring constant diligence and discipline.

Transforming Lessons Learned into Proactive Risk Management Strategies

1. Automated Compilation of Lessons Learned: Through AI, the exhaustive process of gathering and categorizing lessons from past projects is automated, ensuring a comprehensive repository of knowledge. This database becomes the bedrock upon which AI and ML build to forecast risks and recommend mitigation strategies.
2. Contextual Analysis and Prediction: ML algorithms, trained on historical project data, can predict the likelihood and impact of potential risks with a nuanced understanding of context. This approach transcends the binary nature of traditional risk analysis, offering a spectrum of insights that reflect the complex interplay of various project factors.
3. Customized Risk Mitigation Actions: By integrating lessons learned, AI-driven systems provide tailored risk response strategies that are both specific and actionable. Unlike the generic responses of yesteryear, these strategies are grounded in the empirical evidence of what has worked (or not) in the past.
4. Dynamic Adaptation to New Information: As projects progress, AI and ML continuously refine their predictions and recommendations based on real-time data, ensuring that the risk assessment is not a one-time exercise but a living process that evolves with the project.

Key Takeaways for Embracing AI and ML in Project Risk Management:

• From Reactive to Proactive: Leveraging AI and ML enables a shift from reacting to risks as they arise to anticipating and neutralizing them before they impact the project.
• Precision in Planning: The depth of analysis provided by AI and ML allows for more precise contingency planning, moving beyond arbitrary allocations of time and resources.
• Empirical Foundations for Decision Making: Decisions on risk mitigation are made with the confidence of empirical data, ensuring that the actions taken are proven most effective.

A Vision Realized Through Technology 

The integration of AI and ML into project risk management is not just an upgrade; it's a fulfillment of the long-held vision of truly learning from past projects. By turning the abstract into the actionable, AI and ML actualize the potential of lessons learned, offering a roadmap that is both informed by history and tailored to the unique contours of each new project.

In this new era, the words of George Santayana resonate with renewed significance: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." With AI and ML, the past is not just remembered but becomes a guiding light, transforming risk management into a strategic advantage that propels projects towards success with the wisdom of experience as its compass.

Radio Show Transcript - Agile Almanac Vol. 2 - Nichole Tubiolo - Recorded January, 26, 2018

Agile Almanac Vol. 2 - Nichole Tubiolo - Recorded January, 26, 2018

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FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)

00:00:05;00 - 00:00:27;01

00:00:27;03 - 00:00:38;26

Rick Morris: And welcome to another Friday edition of The Work/Life Balance we're so excited to have you guys along with us as we've got a very special show planned for you today. Very excited about our guests that we have with us. It's been another crazy week.

00:00:38;28 - 00:02:18;13

Rick Morris: As always, we started actually Sunday this week with a couple of keynote presentations to Civitan International. They had a group of governors coming in that is a service organization. We were the keynote speaker to their planning sessions as they are planning some fantastic service projects for their different organizations in their communities. We had a great time being able to spend some time with them Sunday doing some fellowship and some leadership training and with them we are their keynote speaker Monday night. So they were a fantastic organization. We had a great time with them and we value their patronage and was very happy that we had an opportunity to spend some time with them. We were in Memphis on Tuesday spending some time with some clients and some community leader organizations there and finally back home for a short time before we spend all week next week in Nashville. So for our listeners in Nashville, reach out to us because we're going to be there in Nashville Tennessee all week next week before we head out back to Memphis the following week and then leading right into the big international Maxwell certification in Orlando Florida which is happening the 16th through the 22nd. We will be there. We'll be excited. We'll be welcoming all of our new people into the John Maxwell team as we always do. And then right after that, we alluded to this a little bit, but for those of you that have been following the show, John Maxwell's passion has been transforming countries and we have accepted an invitation as part of the John Maxwell team from the president of Costa Rica.

00:02:18;28 - 00:02:37;12

Rick Morris: And I have accepted invitation from John to participate in some Leadership Roundtable trainings in Costa Rica which is happening in March as we go to transform that country through leadership and leadership training. So there will be a lot more to come about that. But let's get into today's show.

00:02:37;24 - 00:03:04;22

Rick Morris: We have an incredible guest, fast friend of mine, somebody who I was introduced through a project that we were working on which was the almanac book too as you guys know I've been talking about that my great friend John Steinbeck. He runs greatpm.com and he and I have talked quite a bit about Agile, Agile transformations hybrid project management.

00:03:04;22 - 00:05:39;29

Rick Morris: He's a great friend to the show's been on the show many times and he had spearheaded this project to bring out Agile Almanac book to which I had accepted an opportunity to collaborate. And so it became what we called the Dirty Dozen, that was kind of our inside joke, of 12 different authors who collaborated in producing that book and really trying to you know try to take Agile and really scale that to the program an enterprise level. And so it was a great collaboration of 12 incredible people to really lend next level thinking into this into this book. And so when I went out to Las Vegas as part of CAWorld, we did a large book signing and for those of you that follow me on Twitter we posted a video about the book signing in about the speech that John and I did out there and this person was in that video with us and she's currently a project manager for Willis Towers Watson in Buffalo New York. She leads an operational support team with the main focus on CRM customer relationship management and Confluence data management and previously she was a project manager for MNC Bank in Buffalo New York leading a digital banking program team with a main focus on mobile application development. She has led enterprise level projects for over eight years that spanned from back end upgrades to customer facing applications and she started working as a freelance writer trainer and Agile coach in her spare time. She's a member of the PMI Buffalo chapter in New York and previously held the director of community outreach position within the chapter. And as a director of community outreach she was responsible for running a project management for nonprofits program which was a program of training mentoring and in each toolbox of forums and templates designed to bring project management best practices to western New York charitable organizations. She's a member of the buffalo Junior League which is a philanthropic organization committed to volunteerism developing the potential of women and of course improving the community through effective action and leadership. She's certified by PMI as a project management professional which is PMP and Agile Certified Practitioner which is the PMI ACP and she also holds the certified Scrum Master designation from the scrum alliance. She graduated from Empire State College with a B.A. in administration economics and she now also holds the distinction of being an Amazon number one best seller along with the rest of us. Let's welcome to the show Nichole Tubiolo. How are you?

00:05:40;02 - 00:05:51;15

Nichole Tubiolo: OK read Rick thank you. I'm doing well. I'm extremely grateful to be a guest on your show today and to be reconnecting. So thank you very much for having me.

00:05:51;16 - 00:06:03;29

Rick Morris: It has been a little while since we've seen each other in Vegas and again that was a video that we posted out on Twitter or what. What a fantastic time that was. The book signing the excitement around the launch of the book talked to the audience a little bit about that.

00:06:04;22 - 00:06:06;13

Nichole Tubiolo: Yes they were an excellent experience.

00:06:06;14 - 00:06:29;13

Nichole Tubiolo: And you know being at CA World were all than having so much interaction with everyone there. The book signing the launch itself it was really just a great weekend. A couple of days there CA World for you when John had a great talk there and we also had the book signing which was excellent.

00:06:30;05 - 00:06:45;03

Rick Morris: And so you know this has been a culmination of a lot of work. And of course John spearheaded that. But you took a couple of these chapters within the book and made them your own. Why didn't you tell the audience which chapters you wrote. Just describe those for a little bit.

00:06:45;25 - 00:06:47;03

Nichole Tubiolo: Absolutely. Yes I did.

00:06:47;03 - 00:07:59;26

Nichole Tubiolo: I had the extreme fortune of working with this brilliant team of coauthors led by John and I did contribute to two of the 17 chapters one being risk management said the main focus there is talking about various risk management approaches used by Agile program teams ranging from the do nothing and let it become an issue approach to you know various tools and techniques to identify and mitigate risk. So a lot went into that that risk management chapter and the other chapter that I wrote was around budget management and exploring various thoughts and tools and different methodologies used to manage Agile program budgets. Certainly there's the traditional earned value management used for the traditional waterfall project and you know certain to seed teams and talk about having teams leverage more of an incremental cost management or looking at lean budgets and empowering teams with decision making and already. So there's a there's a lot there and there was a quick summary of both of those chapters but I was very fortunate to work with everyone and make those contributions to the Agile Almanac.

00:07:59;17 - 00:08:34;06

Rick Morris: And so we're going to deep dive on a couple of those topics but I always like to start broad with you know anybody that I have on in Agile. I'll hit them with a couple of things that I always got to hear and kind of the reason why I jumped into Agile in the first place. So when Agile started really hitting the marketplace I was running into Agile analysts that were saying things to me like, we can't tell you where we're going to be done because we're Agile and then specifically to your chapter. We can't tell you how much it's going to cost because we're Agile. What would you say to somebody who's trying to lead an Agile transformation and saying things like that?

00:08:34;20 - 00:08:43;14

Nichole Tubiolo: Those are great points and are actually right. I've heard those as well. And I think that there are there those sound to me to be Agile myths.

00:08:43;14 - 00:10:22;20

Nichole Tubiolo: That a project manager is not needed as a leader of a group but not be needed or that you don't necessarily know how much it costs because you're running Agile. It sounds to me that there are definitely practices and tools to be used to work with teams and really if you think about Agile and you think about this scrum master and that scrum master is really just another way of saying project manager. So maybe it's that you don't need the term project manager but you're replacing that with a scrum master who's more taking on that role of servant leader as opposed to perhaps you know in a traditional perspective on project management would be commanding control versus servant leaders. There might be some subtle differences there but there's still leadership in a leadership role from a project management perspective. Just taking a slight different view on that and then from the funding perspective you had made mention of we don't know how much it's going to cost. You know if you fund an Agile team you can determine how much a period of time would cost and then determine the value that would be brought forth in that period of time. And so you may not define how much a feature function or capability would cost in a certain period of time but you would be able to directionally provide that information or an estimate to that..

00:10:22;23 - 00:11:43;02

Rick Morris: I think that that really makes Agile what it is. If we look at what we've done traditionally as project managers that thought pattern that we actually could you know take an initiative and then we would try to plan out over the next two years. Everything that we were going to do up front and then turn around say it was going to cost this the fact that we were bold enough to think that we actually could plan that well. Of course you know we always get in to scope change like crazy and we always miss her budgets and time frames and that and that's what happened that's why people get frustrated. The other thing is by looking at it but an initiative by initiative by initiative we were overloading our teams and that is you know I think the issue that every company has in America is that you have too many initiatives not enough people and so therefore you have no idea what they're working on. And so they just keep approving new initiatives without understanding what is doing to their team. Thus I have a radio show called The Work/Life Balance. And so when we really start to look at Agile and you start looking at funding teams that really becomes a point that is not only a point of struggle but then you are starting to reverse that flow. You're basically saying here's a group of people we're going to fund them for a certain period of time and then we're going to start looking at the maximum they can produce. And I think it's reversing that funnel. Would you agree with that?

00:11:44;29 - 00:12:00;13

Nichole Tubiolo: Absolutely yes. I I would agree with that because that makes it such that the cost of the team is fairly consistent over time and the variable there is the amount of features functions or capabilities that that team can produce.

00:12:00;29 - 00:13:10;25

Nichole Tubiolo: And you know that team will in some sprints or some months or some quarters that team may produce a higher output or higher quality based on the team members and where they are in their cycle of being a team and it allows the organization to know how much that team will cost and the unknown then becomes the deliverable and how many how much you know the quantity of the delivery that will be produced in that time period. So it is it’s taking that thought and kind of flipping it on its side upside down as opposed to saying this is how much money this will cost. And then you know taking those change requests as you said you know how would we possibly know over the period of two years how much it will cost us to produce a feature or a function over time. So instead we would take that and baseline the cost at a flat rate if you will assuming you have the same number of dedicated individuals on a team and you change the amount that's produced each sprint or in any given time box.

00:13:11;12 - 00:13:13;09

Rick Morris: And I think that that's the biggest struggle.

00:13:13;09 - 00:13:37;16

Rick Morris: So we're actually going to dive into that right after we take our first break here and start talking about the concept of funding value versus and teams versus funding initiative. So we're going to talk about that right here when we come back. You're listening to The Work/Life Balance with Rick Morris..

00:16:26;16 - 00:16:41;29

Rick Morris: Now back to The Work/Life Balance. And we're back to The Work/Life Balance and you did hear the dial in number, we do welcome phone calls and questions and I actually have an over under bet going with how long it might actually take John Steinbech to dial in.

00:16:42;02 - 00:17:31;12

Rick Morris: So we're coming back with Nichole and talking the Agile Almanac right. Before break we were talking about funding of Agile teams. And this is something I'm actually going to Nashville next week and we're taking a client live in Agile and you know they're still struggling to cope with this whole thought pattern of yeah but don't we have to track time don't we have to allocate you know percentages to support projects and all of this other stuff? And you know really still they say they want to be Agile but they just can't pull themselves out of the hamster wheel and you know you have to really start walking them through truly funding Agile teams. So what really is a benefit of funding Agile teams over projects?

00:17:31;19 - 00:17:46;19

Nichole Tubiolo: Well Rick I would say that funding Agile teams at the team level provides the team some stability so that they can continue forward movement in providing value and producing those features and functions and capabilities.

00:17:46;20 - 00:18:14;16

Nichole Tubiolo: And really leave their focus there. I've seen teams that have not had that and you know the backlog then becomes anytime something that comes up new to go on the back lot of features functions and capabilities. Is there's a pause or there's you know take some time to put together a thought process around putting in and change your quest in order to receive funding for that particular feature.

00:18:14;17 - 00:18:29;29

Nichole Tubiolo: And really the value there is that we want our teams to be focused on producing value and focused on really just moving forward on what's the next best function.

00:18:29;29 - 00:19:51;26

Nichole Tubiolo: So let's empower our teams to make decisions on what feature function or what capability is the best next item on that backlog or next set of items on that backlog to pick up and put into the sprint and fund those teams and they can move forward accordingly. It allows for that team to feel empowered and to feel more ownership around what they're producing. But it also allows for less overhead. And my perspective and opinion there's less overhead there if a team is given say you know a quarter's worth of funding or even a month to test it out or two months to test it out and determine that it it's working well so the organizations that are having are challenged and really focused on that need to check time or the need to track the percent allocation. You know they can go hand and check time and present allocation. But it should be pretty flat. Assuming you have teams that are 100 percent dedicated efforts that you know you kind of move I would move one step at a time towards towards making that transition. You know by by saying you can you can check time but it will be the same flat lined across all of these months because we're going to dedicate you know X amount of dollars to fund this team and allow them to move forward.

00:19:53;21 - 00:19:55;10

Rick Morris: And that's exactly right.

00:19:55;12 - 00:20:38;16

Rick Morris: And I mean when you when you look at that and start to look at when we're talking about funding there's it's still a different mindset right because what you have to start to walk through with an organization is if you look at it the way they do things now is initiatives pop up you're pulling teams away from work. You're making him attend meetings you're making him do all these planning all this stuff. And you know I've laughed with several people but you know I want to make t shirts that you say don't touch my sprint right now because that's really what it comes down to. Don't touch my sprint and then really quickly I'm going to go ahead and say that I took the under bed and won a because we've got John Stenbeck on the phone. And let's welcome John to The Work/Life Balance. John how are you doing brother.

00:20:39;00 - 00:20:43;04

John Stenbeck: Hey Rick are you did you guys hear me. Oh great. Just fine.

00:20:43;06 - 00:20:50;21

John Stenbeck: So I heard the last word to call me out with the over/under bet because you know I always listen to your show and especially Nihcole.

00:20:50;21 - 00:22:06;10

John Stenbeck: So glad you're on the show. Good. Couldn't resist giving her a shout out there.

Nichole Tubiolo: Hi how are you?

 John Stenbeck: I'm good. So if I can interrupt the flow of the conversation there's two things I think that you guys really should talk about with the audience that are really important. One is that the common Agile myth now that I've said the word miss our co-author Joe Montalbano who's our myth mastro might be able to resist calling in too. But one of the myths is that a company is either you know needs to or wants to or must become 100 percent Agile or not. And yet our experience with most our Fortune 2000 and larger clients and agencies and military commands and stuff suggest that only about a third maybe 30 percent of what they're doing has the required amount of complexity and uncertainty right and very ability to justify the overhead that Agile causes. Whereas the other 70 percent is stable enough to not need it. And I think that was really you know Nichole and Rick when we all started talking about if you're scaling Agile how do you do budgeting and how does the whole factor in that was really a big breakthrough.

00:22:07;29 - 00:22:55;24

Rick Morris: That's a huge breakthrough. And so coming you know coming to that point you're not completely Agile you're not completely waterfall so the hybrid approach is where it's at. But I think that still changes the focus with introduction of Agile and the biggest shift I think I've made certainly in my consulting and my career over the last two years is still the shift of funding value and stop funding initiatives and started looking at things as in terms of the output of value that we're going to bring versus the amount of money we're going to spend. And I think that that Agile level of thinking also applying Agile principles across the board is something that's really been exciting for us to watch.

00:22:56;24 - 00:23:31;15

John Stenbeck:  And Rick I know in one of our conversations you'll probably remember you completely rocked my world when we started talking about them. I'm not sure if I'm going to get that name exactly correct. So help me out on the non-project investment objectives that you can do in the CAPPM app and how much flexibility that saves how much overhead it reduces how gives the AGilel folks the ability to be Agile and the management to get the reporting they need to do that without drive a lot of overhead. Have you shared that much with your audience?

00:23:31;22 - 00:26:27;29

Rick Morris:  Yeah we we've definitely done some shows on that. But I do want to give you an update and since we're going to take this topic for just a second. We actually applied this thinking just recently to pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical development and so we're very very excited. We won’t say the client but we've got a client that deals in wet labs and testing in pharmaceutical development. So what they do is receive samples and those samples come in and they do daily runs those daily runs are essentially basically sprints there daily. And you know every day we're going to do. We're going to run these instruments and these instruments are going to output. And however the lab are getting samples that can be generated by 10 or 15 maybe even 20 different projects. So the management and billing and invoicing and all that stuff is very difficult for them to track and there's a lot of you know potentially lost revenue and everything else. So by applying the same thinking where you have waterfall style projects that are generating the tasks or features which are being then fired into an Agile methodology where they can do their runs. So from a lab it just they have work. It doesn't matter which project is generating it. It's just a queue. And so now we have a whole queue and a combine style board that's generating the lab work. And as it completes its automatically updating the appropriate project so invoicing can be done. It's kind of revolutionizing that business and it's being done in the very same way. So it's very exciting to see that. So it's the same style. When you're looking at that from an I.T. perspective it is even if you're not 100 percent Agile you can still allow your teams to stay in and Agile methodology while multiple waterfall projects are just simply generating work multiple defects are coming in from your support staff and it's just generating work. They just complete their work and it's updating the appropriate systems. That's essentially the same theory but we're applying that same level of thinking across industries and outside of I.T. using the tool sets which is why when we've gone through writing the book we all thought that it was possible that Mikkola taking on two of the hardest chapters in the whole book because how do you come back then and budget still at that level. And that NPR show that you talked about the Nahm project investment objects was the ability for us to shave a slice of our budget to Agile teams. Right so I can say 60 percent of the budget is going to be to funding teams 40 percent of the budgets to funding initiatives or strategic projects and then still be able to report and roll that out because at the end of the day the CFO doesn't care that we're doing story points. They want to know we paid X amount of dollars and we generated x amount of revenue. Fair yeah right.

00:26:27;29 - 00:26:51;11

John Stenbeck: That just makes so much sense because you know the other myth I was going to bring up is this idea that somehow an internal or external either one other customer can give you imperfect specifications and somehow expect perfect schedules or budget kinds of forecasts. I mean who could actually believe that that's possible.

00:26:52;23 - 00:27:00;26

Rick Morris: And there's no way for us to do that. So coming back to the other other than Agile.

00:27:00;28 - 00:27:11;18

Rick Morris: And I think the two favorite words I ever saw come out in the PMBOK was progressive collaboration which is that so Nichole coming back to that.

00:27:12;04 - 00:27:26;19

Rick Morris: You know when we start talking about funding and you know how we're funding in that portion if funding is provided to teams and not to projects or scope then how do people then measure value.

00:27:28;02 - 00:28:53;02

Nichole Tubiolo: That's a great question. There are variables here when teams are funded it is what's being produced. So we have teams that have a backlog and that backlog story pointed and you can see the trends of how much is produced in any given sprint. And from there you can determine the value of that time period. As for what's been delivered. See you had measured almost in reverse as opposed to measuring how much money you're spending you're measuring the value of what is being produced from a feature function capability perspective. So again just kind of taking that traditional model and thinking of it a little differently and thinking of the variable there being what we know from a story you can use a story point perspective to roll that into what the value is. And Rick you made a great point that you know the CFO doesn't necessarily care about story points right and having the ability to measure and show the value versus the cost for that value is still there because you do know how much your team costs when you fund it from a team perspective. And then once the value is produced you know how what what's been produced for that money so it's just that you are showing the value after those features functions and capabilities are produced.

00:28:54;08 - 00:30:11;23

Rick Morris: Yeah and I think the biggest point in that too is a course correction. And so I think in the book and I believe it's John's graphic that does it when we start talking about going through the cone of uncertainty. And John just alluded to this as well is when we get imperfect requirements expect perfect results when we go through that cone of uncertainty in a standard project where at the end of the project already expended all of our funds before we've actually realized that we've missed the mark and that's generally you know 60 percent of the development projects that go that go on in a development world or is in an Agile methodology that when you're starting to release every two weeks and trying to release value and features and capabilities every two weeks then that feedback loop is so important where you can course correct. And so you're hopefully developing and coming out of that cone of uncertainty a lot faster and that's why that methodology seems to be taking off so well. We've got to take a break right here we're going to do that. We're going to let CA pay some of our bills in one of those checks should go to John Stenbeck for mentioning them first on the show this this week and we'll be right back on The Work/Life Balance here with Rick Morris.

00:33:21;04 - 00:33:24;24

Rick Morris: And we're back to The Work/Life Balance on this Friday afternoon.

00:33:24;24 - 00:33:39;20

Rick Morris: I hope everybody's doing well and wanted to say hello to John Watson who's also a longtime listener our great friend and shout out to him. Thank you for the text brother love you always. So coming back I to again.

00:33:39;24 - 00:34:38;20

Rick Morris: You we're still diving into this whole funding thing and since Nichole wrote the chapter on scaling Agile in as you know into budget management wanted to keep going down that topic and so what I see a lot of clients struggle with Nichole is again coming out still with that traditional we've got X amount of money to spend and we want to pick other projects that we're going to do and I think one of the biggest issues that most companies run into is that they pick projects based on what they can spend but now what they can reasonably accomplish and in this in this aspect if they are going to be switching to an Agile methodology as John just pointed out you know only 30 percent of their their budget could be going to Agile teams. So what is your suggestion or how do how do we start to look at teaching portfolio management program management and an Agile methodology to be able to divide those budgets.

00:34:38;20 - 00:35:56;02

Nichole Tubiolo: That's a great question. You know and and how are we dividing those budgets. Really it depends how many of those projects in the portfolio really require the Agile methodology. And you know John's made a good point that maybe 30 percent will go with an example 30 percent for the company. So you know that 30 percent of the budget is set aside and lets you know continue on with the theory that this 30 percent would go to funding Agile teams and not initiatives the Agile teams would then have a roadmap of features and capabilities that they're looking to produce that they would be focused on it wouldn't be that the funding will go directly to their functions but they would directionally be towards those functions that 30 percent of the budget for Agile and then the remainder of the budget towards those traditional projects that are really based on the scope and funding scope and funding you know what they have detailed in their requirements plans so that 30 percent goes towards Agile would would be managed a little differently in that.

00:35:56;03 - 00:36:25;22

Nichole Tubiolo: You know they would that the dollar amount would be net steady 30 percent. They've broken up into the four quarters and provided the funding to a team for the first quarter and they would take their roadmap and work towards achieving the functions on that road map. And then you would would certainly need to measure how much that was spent. And then you know roll that out to reporting on a regular basis be it weekly or monthly depending on what the governance structure required of the company required.

00:36:26;23 - 00:37:02;15

Rick Morris: Yeah I like to say you don't what I'm working with clients I kind of go let's just cut let's just cut through the red tape where he lead. Let's cut the jargon and crud and describe how it's being done today. And so how it gets done today is you define you know Project X and you say these are all the things that I want I want you know 150 things to be developed. So we say Great we sit down and estimate how long it's going to take to do those 150 things and we come back when we say it's going to take us two and a half years to do this and it's going to cost X amount of money they're going to come back and go we don't have that amount of money. You got six months right.

00:37:02;15 - 00:38:17;06

Rick Morris: So then the discussion is what do you want to cut and generally the answer. And again I'm being a bit facetious here but they're like well we're not cutting anything. You got six months. And so then we become the people that covertly degrade quality or whatever else. But that's general project management right. Right. Impossible timeframes impossible budgets that kind of stuff. What is what I keep telling everybody Agile is is just a better Covenant's a better contract. What we're saying here is we're giving an expectation upfront of what can be produced. Here's the team. You make your wish list and every two weeks you get to adjust your wish list and at the end of the quarter we'll know that we spent X amount of dollars and we'll show you what we delivered and will adjust from there. What I love about that is people get uneasy but at the same time I also said we also just now cut out the two months of haggling that we would have done if we approach this as a huge project. We just got to work and we just started doing it which saved you two months of non-productive time trying to figure out if we could do this in the first place in which you would have just told us to do it in the way. Is that fair. I mean is that a fair representation.

00:38:17;29 - 00:39:13;27

Nichole Tubiolo: Absolutely. And not only that saved the two months are you know planning an initiation where there isn't anything produced. It's also saved you know in that third or fourth month where execution is going on. And then the initial delivery takes place maybe six months out before a product owner or a business manager is seeing anything functional and providing feedback on it at which point it may not their requirement provided may not actually be what needed to solve the problem. The problem the business problem could have changed given that it's taken so long or you know maybe there you know once you see it once you see what's been built sometimes you have a different thought or a different way of building it. So it's saving so much more than those two months. By using that methodology you’re  getting producing value and putting it in your customers hands within potentially two weeks for feedback.

00:39:15;07 - 00:39:30;27

Rick Morris: Yeah. If you do it right you're tackling the hardest parts first. And we're finding out maybe six weeks into it we can't even do this thing so we scrap it after six weeks versus finding that out a year and a half into it and you save so much by finding out in six weeks.

00:39:30;28 - 00:39:35;27

Rick Morris: You say that that year and a half of maybe year and four months of work.

00:39:37;05 - 00:39:56;28

Rick Morris: So I want to I want to hire Jon Gruden just to follow me around with clients just so they can go. Come on man. Every time you know you have these conversations with clients are you just he just go. Come on man. Because I mean I don't like to oversimplify but that's somewhat of an oversimplification but that is the contract.

00:39:56;28 - 00:40:07;04

Rick Morris: That is what we're talking about. So right so when we start talking about funding teams we keep saying two weeks.

00:40:07;04 - 00:40:36;08

Rick Morris: But does it have to be two weeks

Nichole Tubiolo: no no it doesn't have to be two weeks and you know it's whatever the team has agreed upon as far as how frequently they're going to release it can be it could be a week it could be a day. I think that you earlier in the show you had an example of a company that has daily rounds that could be a daily sprint if you're producing something daily. So it really depends on what it is you're building and what your team makeup is and how quickly you can put something out.

00:40:36;15 - 00:40:44;18

Nichole Tubiolo: Could be weekly

Rick Morris: Now is Agile something that is something you're doing at your organization right now.

00:40:44;18 - 00:41:10;05

Nichole2: I'm not personally doing that.

And in my current role my previous role I did manage an Agile program. And we had a number of different teams that were working on various parts of producing an application. And so we've run into a lot of a lot of the challenges that we talk about in the book and had the ability to experience a lot of different things firsthand.

00:41:11;05 - 00:41:15;03

Rick Morris: Yeah. I mean again it's it's an incredible run.

00:41:15;03 - 00:41:37;29

Rick Morris: If you see it done properly but when you start to see people use that as the excuse and you know John I think as the person said it to me that you're used for cowboy coding or used to say that we don't need to document because we're Agile or things of that sort. It just becomes another methodology you can blame for things going wrong.

00:41:38;03 - 00:43:18;06

Nichole Tubiolo: Absolutely. And it's just it's unfortunate that in some instances it has been used as the excuse or the reason not to do things I think you never even take a look at. You know some of the some of the things that Agile is really kind of trying to draw forth it's not necessarily that you wouldn't document. It's just that we're we're saying we're favoring right. The Agile methodology favors working technology working features over documentation. So there really to me what that says is let let's get it working and then let's get it working right. And then let's document it where nothing the documentation is something that the documentation isn't important. Really more about you know getting your hands dirty getting in there making making some changes seeing what this changes look like and then providing the documentation and it's really and how the spirit of some of the Agile methodology is interpreted. And unfortunately in some cases I have heard that to be an excuse but it's really you know the spirit of that is let's produce some work and then and then we'll worry about documenting and that's really just taking that traditional methodology and really looking at it in a different way as opposed to let's write every every requirement and let's write every specification down and get all the documentation perfectly written to a team before we even write one line of code. You know it's just taking that and going and writing the code first and then documenting it.

00:43:19;05 - 00:43:52;25

Rick Morris: Yeah I think that stems from you know poor PMO practices where you know you've got these thousands of documents that you fill out that nobody ever reads. Nobody ever goes back and then they get under change control and you've got to change document first and you sit there and you go you're documenting for the sake of documenting because it's a checkbox on a process somewhere but is not providing any value to the business you know. So I think that that spirit of that you know we value working software over documentation comes from that. But he didn't say we value working software over it no documentation.

00:43:53;02 - 00:44:17;22

Nichole Tubiolo: So it really probably stems from those projects that are really documentation projects re the documentation itself becomes the project and that's unfortunate as well that's the that's the other extreme right but full agreement with you there Rick

Rick Morris: to me is always lessons learned as like we are we don't know what we learns these lessons and it's only going to go on SharePoint.

00:44:17;22 - 00:44:28;21

Rick Morris: Nobody's ever going to read it again. So why are we doing this being dead. That was mine as a project manager. Like am I the only one learning this lesson. Why am I having this meeting. All right.

00:44:28;25 - 00:44:34;15

Nichole Tubiolo: So we got an archive it, soo we can archive it and have it available.

00:44:34;18 - 00:45:00;11

Rick Morris: Sure nobody will ever open it again. I used to put all kinds of fun stuff in my lessons learned just to see if anybody would ever date me. And there are some doozies out there past organizations that's just why companies ever for. Go back there some nice nice tidbits of information in there. We're going to take our final break here on this Friday afternoon. The Work/Life Balance will be right back with the goal after this break us in The Work/Life Balance with Rick Morris.

00:48:02;06 - 00:48:37;27

Rick Morris: And we're back to The Work/Life Balance as you guys know that that music lead in music lead out music comes from The Party; it's a group that I've been involved with and managed over the last 20 years or so and got the sweetest call a couple of days ago from Damon Pampeluna. Part of that group I know heedlessness and the shows I wanted to shout out Damon tell him thank you for the call. Lifted my spirits as always brother and you'll always be a brother to me man. So coming back to the show. Nichole do you have anything you know website anything like that that you're participating in or that you'd like to promote.

00:48:38;13 - 00:48:45;29

Nichole Yes. Thanks Rick the part of the Agile Almanac book too we've also put together an Agile integration forum.

00:48:46;09 - 00:49:25;23

Nichole Tubiolo: You can get to that at great PM G.R. are the number 8 p.m. dot com. And really what that is. The forum provides in-depth discussion points on all of the chapters within the book. And so it's really a great tool if you're working through starting working with moving into Agile programs within your organization or if you're reading through the book and really just have some points that you want to discuss or just want to read what's out there on the forum. It's really a great tool and support for for anyone that that's working in Agile program management.

00:49:25;23 - 00:49:25;22

Rick Morris: That's fantastic.

00:49:25;22 - 00:49:48;09

Rick In fact I moderate the tools chapter are the tools portion of that. You're doing a budget risk and of course there's the other 16 chapters that are out there that are being moderated by those coauthors. And then you guys are doing a lot of exciting stuff too in terms of training and video development things like that would John talk a little bit about that.

00:49:48;28 - 00:50:34;26

Nichole Tubiolo: Absolutely yes. I'm actually coming up in February will be involved in coach teaching with John and ECP PMI ACP class and so that that's something that's provided by a great PM and then also we will be recording and have PD use available for each of the chapters starting with the first several chapters of the book. So there's a lot of recording going on of training related to each of those topics so if you're interested in some additional information after having read the book or have to having read some of the different chapters of the book those will be forthcoming we don't have a timeline quite yet but that those items are being recorded over the next couple of months here.

00:50:35;10 - 00:50:37;13

Rick Morris: And then how do people get in touch with you.

00:50:38;15 - 00:50:57;19

Nichole Tubiolo: You can reach me at my email address nichole.tubiolo@gr8pm.com. I don't know maybe correctly can have that spelled out somewhere but it's nichole.tubiolo @ gr8pm dot come are the number 8 p.m. dot com.

00:50:58;05 - 00:51:40;19

Rick Morris: And of course as a new service we announced this last week we did our first posting we're going to be a little bit behind so we caught up but as a new service to our listeners we are posting transcriptions of the show at my blog now pmthatworks.com. So when we do announce websites or do announce contact information like that you'll be able to find it there at the transcription. Just look for the person on the show we also link to back to the podcast and we timecode it. So if there is something that you wanted to hear within the podcast you'll be able to advance directly to that and hear that portion of the show. Nichole we always ask all of our guests what is some of the best advice you've ever been given.

00:51:40;19 - 00:51:59;23

Nichole Tubiolo: First Beth that's a good question. I would say some of the best advice I've been giving is to really be outside of my comfort zone right. I've been you know just taught that if there's something that is uncomfortable it's probably where you need to be to grow.

00:51:59;29 - 00:52:20;19

Nichole Tubiolo: And so growing and learning and change even and a lot of the topics that we talked about today were around change and change management moving from traditional to Agile. That that's very outside of the comfort zone. And so I think that a lot of success can be found if you move outside of your comfort zone and just kind of kind of get used to being uncomfortable.

00:52:20;19 - 00:52:23;06

Rick Morris: I think that's great advice.

00:52:23;06 - 00:53:52;03

Rick Morris: One of the pieces of advice I'd like to give the listening audience as well something that I completed today but they brought me a lot of joy was volunteering with Junior Achievement so you can contact your local Junior Achievement wherever you guys are. But I taught I taught my sons class over the last several years I decided to teach a senior class here at Hoover High School in the entrepreneurial program and it was fantastic. Now you get all the materials. There's guided lessons but then you can infuse whatever you want to infuse with those lessons. And it literally just is one hour per week for six weeks. And so you actually work out the schedule with the teachers. It wasn't six consecutive weeks for me because of my schedule but I had a fantastic time. I learned a ton about those students have actually scheduled some follow on sessions because I want to stay involved with that class and just really you know got to know these kids. And it was a great way to give back. And so I challenge the audience to get involved. It's a great way to involve their community and you'll learn just as much as you give those kids and they need it. They need to hear from business leaders in our community. They need to hear from leaders in our community. And at the same time it was just it was a blast it was a ton of fun. I wanted to shout out my Hoover High Finance Academy students that I have had and a great opportunity to spend some time with.

00:53:52;03 - 00:53:56;05

Rick Morris: So Nichole thank you so much for being on the show. We loved having you.

00:53:56;25 - 00:54:00;27

Rick Morris: And I'm sure our paths are going across again here real soon.

00:54:00;27 - 00:54:09;22

Nichole Tubiolo: Excellent thank you so much. I really appreciate and extremely grateful for being a part of this show today and having a great discussion with you and John.

00:54:09;29 - 00:54:27;29

Rick Morris: Any time we may do a show where we get a bunch of us a bunch of the Agile Almanac and just have a free for all. So we'll see how that goes. Mainly just to drive Matt crazy but that will be fun just to see what happens. But be great. So next week gaing we have got Scott Ambler he's going to be joining us.

00:54:28;02 - 00:55:50;05

Rick Morris: If you guys don't know who Scott Ambler is he actually is a co-founder of the Disciplined Agile Delivery system and was really instrumental in helping IBM go down that Agile delivery path and is just an incredible person in the Agile world. We're so excited that he's going to take an hour of his very busy schedule to spend his time with us and The Work/Life Balance. The week after that we're going to have a revisit from Todd Nesloney. And if you guys haven't heard the first show with Todd Nesloney the need you need go back and listen to that because if we had more educators like Todd nestle in our in our environment everywhere we would be just fine. But Todd's going to be coming back he just released a new book called Stories from the Web. And he's going to be sharing those stories with us in just talking about what's been happening with him since he was on our show the last time he was on our show. Hurricane Harvey had just happened in Houston and he was sharing a lot of those stories with us but he's fantastic. You're not going to want to miss that show either. So please join us in the next coming weeks here on The Work/Life Balance as always we love spending our Fridays with you. Please stay tuned right here to the voice of America business channel. You can reach me at The Work/Live Balance. Find me on LinkedIn Facebook or anywhere else or at rickamorris.com; we'll talk to you next Friday right here in The Work/Life Balance. We'll talk to you next Friday.