The Red Pill Executive. Tony Gruebl
Only half of survey responders said their PMO includes Business Value in any reports. Less than a third had objective analysis to quantify their Business Value.22
“Each project has an additional objective besides completing the task: adding value to the business.”
According to “The State of the PMO 2010”:
In our experience, not everyone measures business value. But of those in this research that do, 31% report a decrease in failed projects, 30% report projects delivered under budget; 21% report improvements in productivity; 19% report projects delivered ahead of schedule and 17% report cost savings … an average of US $567,000 per project.23
Red pill Operations Executives consistently keep Business Value in front of their teams. Success involves much more than meeting the requirements of The Triple Constraint Model—time, budget, and performance (also known as “The Iron Triangle” because of its rigidity). However, only those who swallow the red pill can see that.
To meet both goals—completing the task and adding value to the business—Red Pill operators take ownership to a new level. They view each new project as an entrepreneurial endeavor, and they are in it to win it.
They fill their team with people who can fix problems, improve their business at many levels, and get projects done effectively. No more wasted time and money on initiatives that should never happen or that fail because they weren’t properly developed or executed.
They get clear on every objective, take charge, and create a plan that gets the job done with real world results. They lead their team into battle fully loaded and hyper-ready.
No more ticking off check boxes and idling, waiting for 5:00.
No more passing the buck or saying, “It’s not my problem.”
No more jaded apathy.
When they take the red pill, their eyes open wide. These leaders aren’t in this position to fill a cubicle. They’re here to get stuff done. Initiatives exist to produce Business Value.
These operators go into Value Capture Mode and make decisions with value as their primary criteria. They understand the project’s strategic implications for reaching the company’s mission and help everyone involved to keep their eye on the ball. As new information comes in, the scope and constraints of the project shift like an underwater plant, rooted in the ground but swaying with the currents.
“Initiatives exist to produce Business Value.”
Now the project aligns with broader company goals. That’s the sweet spot where success happens. It’s quantifiable and repeatable. It’s a game changer and career maker.
However, make no mistake. Taking the red pill is not for the fainthearted.
Taking the red pill means full out commitment. Taking the red pill means you pull off the gloves and get your hands dirty. Taking the red pill means you kick butt and take names.
We’re here to show you how.
CHAPTER 1
Why Project Management Fails a Whopping 70% of the Time
“It’s a new day, people. Destiny Calls. The world expects only one thing from us. That we will win.”
~Master Sergeant Farell in Edge of Tomorrow24
Edge of Tomorrow25
Starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt Warner Bros Pictures (2014)
When attacked by an alien force, the best military units in the world working together can’t seem to beat them. Tom Cruise plays Major William Cage, a Public Relations officer with no combat experience who finds himself on a suicide mission.
The enemy came in the form of black shape-shifting Mimics that hide under the sand, an octopus-type thing that rolls like a tumbleweed. It had claws on each of its many legs and a gaping dragon mouth. These Mimics had two forms: the orange warrior and the powerful blue Alpha. The blue Alpha monitored battlefield events to learn the opponent’s strategy, then reset time while preserving memory. This gave the aliens an unstoppable advantage.
Within minutes of landing on a beach battlefront resembling WWII’s Normandy invasion, Cage blows up a blue Alpha as it attacks him. Covered with Alpha blood, Cage dies. He then enters a time loop, living out the same brutal day, fighting and dying again and again.
This time loop gives Cage the chance to improve his combat skills and his understanding of the enemy. He soon teams up with Special Forces warrior Sergeant Rita Vrtaski (Emily Blunt). Working together, they learn what it means to win at something that seems unbeatable.
Watching patterns of human behavior, we often see the human response of “doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”26 This is so common it has become a cliché in folklore, music, books, and movies—essentially anything that embodies culture. Managing this response and creating a new outcome is at the core of almost every business book and methodology ever developed.
Edge of Tomorrow is a marvelous example of this repetition-response situation very similar to the 70% project failure rate. Many before us have tried to win using cool tools and new plans. They’ve spent millions on developing highly specialized software and intensive training. Yet the failure rate continues to creep upward. What was a 68% fail rate in 2015, has now climbed to 70%.
In the movie, after hundreds of attempts Cage always had the same result. He died, and the armies of Earth went down in defeat. According to McKinsey.com, “17% of IT projects go so bad that they can threaten the very existence of the company.”
“17% of IT projects go so bad that they can threaten the very existence of the company.101”
In our own quest, we refused to sit back with the blue-pill attitude of “that’s just the way things are.” Bit by bit, over time, we tried various tactics and strategies, found what worked, and pressed ahead to the next challenge eager to learn more.
Some of our clients welcomed our new approach with open arms. They allowed us to test our mettle in the field. Others resisted. Their pushback shocked us into reality when we were inadvertently drinking our own Kool-Aid®.
Cool Tools but Worse Results
Over the past 20 years, project management tools have improved every year with promises of more productivity, faster, and better than ever before. We’d have a hard time keeping up with the increasing complexity without these advances. Nobody is disputing that.
We have the Project Management Institute (PMI®) with their PM Book of Knowledge (PMBOK). We have thousands of certified Project Management professionals.
We have Microsoft® SharePoint for central documentation, Microsoft® Project, SmartSheet® and hundreds of other online tools.
We have Jira®, VersionOne®, and CA Agile Central® for technical teams, Microsoft® Excel with embedded Business Intelligence tools for analysis and active management.
We have collaboration tools like WebEx®, GoToMeeting®, Zoom®, and Teams® (formerly Skype for Business®) to keep teams in sync because now we often work virtually.
We have agile development philosophy and frameworks, scrum, SAFe, and others.
Every year PMI® brilliantly updates the PM Book of Knowledge. Every year updated tools with better features appear on the market. We are gloriously awash in tools and science with so much more going for us than 10 years ago.
All we have to do is learn the science, and we can turn the odds to our favor, right?
Uhh,