Pre-Mortem: an Approach to Risk Identification

originally posted to the PMI NYC LinkedIn group, about March 2018

Among several other fascinating ideas in Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow”, he cites Gary Klein’s idea of a pre-mortem as a means of compensating for possible overconfidence. As a tool, it goes further, enabling additional identification of possible risks and threats to a successful outcome of a proposed endeavor.

The basic concept is that before an organization is committed to a project, the team, or a group of knowledgeable experts projects one year into the future; from that future perspective, presume the project has been a disaster. Now, analyze the reasons for that negative outcome.

the next step is for the team to come up with some risk management approaches to deal with those, with traditional tactics of avoidance, mitigation or contingency.

Gary Klein’s article on this:
https://hbr.org/2007/09/performing-a-project-premortem

Challenges of Managing Projects Involving New Technology

Projects involving use of new technology present some distinct challenges for the project manager.

As part of project initiation, explicitly distinguish between technology that is only new to your enterprise versus that which is truly new technology, perhaps bleeding edge. As an example of truly new technology, consider Hadoop about 2009: high risk, limited knowledge base, unclear path to solution, lots of unknowns. Especially for those cases, one needs to evaluate up front the tolerance for risk and for failure in the organization.

If mainstream culture in the organization is not well suited for such endeavors, a possible approach is to isolate them, moving them to an entity with a more appropriate culture, that of a Lab or Skunkworks.

Be aware of cognitive biases, and impact on decisions, especially of those in the C-suite, such as hindsight bias:”I knew all along that….”. This may surface as the project progresses, particularly as it encounters significant obstacles.

The business value should be clear, both for complete success and for partial success. How does this effort fit within the company’s strategic direction, both overall and in terms of technology. Estimate what degree of expertise will be needed for this to bring value. What is the impact of failure, and if there is still some return of business value from that failure.

Determine what’s in scope, and where possible, explicitly note what is not in scope, while allowing for discoveries along the journey. Agile forms with their iterative approach may have an advantage over more traditional (waterfall) methods. Waterfall tries to capture all requirements up front, so may have difficulty when faced with lack of clear solution and high number of unknowns.

As features to be implemented emerge, acceptance criteria need to be defined, including definitions of partial success, or of minimum viable product (MVP).

In both project layout and architectural design, try for modularity. Consider use of prototypes where feasible; in software, consider approaches as Test Driven Development (TDD). Try to minimize external dependencies. New tech has enough risk built-in, without adding to it from external sources.

Risk management is always key to project success, but more so when new technology is involved. Include the people element in risk, e.g., staff turnover as well as burnout. Note that as subject is new, that the knowledge base will change during the life of the project.

Watch out for regulatory risk and environmental impact, depending upon the nature of the technology involved. E.g., wind farms and migrating birds.

Depending upon the criticality of the project, try using the pre-mortem technique to better identify potential obstacles.

Communications planning needs to include review of that plan when significant obstacles are encountered. Ensure that stakeholders are all identified, and that they receive appropriate levels of communication, Special documents may be needed for stakeholders, to deal with team turnover, and to ensure that what is being discussed is agreed upon Use FAQ’s, glossaries, visual representations. For example, clear and consistent vocabulary used in drone technology, or in cybersecurity work.

Part of the project plan needs to have a means of bringing this effort into the mainstream of the enterprise; not just ongoing support of this product, but of the potential use of the new technology.

There are many more areas to consider, but this should be a good starting point for project management of new technology.

Paired Project Management

You probably have seen some of the statistics on project success rates, or more aptly, the rate of the lack of success. The Standish Group’s Chaos report is often cited as one source. There are numerous causes, but one suspects the statistics are even worse for projects of greater complexity.

There are multiple factors to project complexity: the impact strategically or financially to the enterprise; the overall stability of the environment; degree of uncertainty (in multiple dimensions and constraints – from, “is this definitely the right path?” to “will key resources remain”); the number of different disciplines involved; severity of social or legal impact; etc. Far too often, project managers don’t evaluate complexity at project initiation, only realizing the project is of significantly more complexity when difficulties are encountered.

Rule of thumb in planning:
the more complex an undertaking, the more likely any one individual will miss some key element.

One of the interesting practices in the Extreme Programming (XP) movement has been use of pair programming. Two programmers sharing a keyboard and monitor, working together. The typical dynamic is that of driver and navigator; periodically, they switch. Necessary conditions include compatible temperaments as well as cultural support in the team and organization. There are other factors, well discussed, as the use of this practice is about two decades old. Numerous articles discuss paired programming, its benefits (e.g., knowledge sharing), difficulties, and variations.

One of the results of this has been a significant decrease in defects. This is key towards the suggestion: for projects of greater complexity (starting at the upper range of medium), to better ensure project success, use a pair of project managers.

In addition to the need for compatible temperaments, the working environment needs to be supportive, with management not hostile to the idea.

During the initiation phase, having a 2nd knowledgeable viewpoint helps minimize likelihood of anything being overlooked in creation of a work breakdown structure (WBS); better communication planning; more inclusive and clearer risk identification and management strategies.

During project execution, .having two different people allows for more tailored stakeholder management, more bandwidth for individualized communication. In meetings, one can lead the meeting, with the other having the focus on analyzing the meeting dynamics, better able to avoid conflicts or facilitate their resolution if such arise, or even just taking better notes than one person trying to handle both.

If things start to really go badly, it is advantageous to have two perspectives, two sets of experiences upon which to draw, to turn the situation around.

Evaluate project complexity and success rates in your environment. If those rates are not satisfactory for projects of greater complexity, try paired project management.

Innovation and the Octopus

To create something innovative, one needs to look at things in a new way, going a quantum leap away from the well-trodden paths of the usual. To help stimulate creativity, try examining something unusual, something very different from our familiar world view.

Our way of viewing the world is that of an upright two legged, with two upper limbs and a hand at the end of each, having prehensile fingers.

Our companion animals usually are 4-legged, mostly with more acute sensory abilities than us, but overall, not too unlike ourselves and our view.

Our robotic creations tend to follow those structures and patterns, remaining close to the familiar.
For a very different perspective, consider the octopus and their marvelous abilities; a species millions of years older than our own.

Invertebrate: a large octopus can still squeeze through a 2 inch opening (or even smaller), presenting a challenge to keeping curious octopuses inside man-made containers or tanks. To date our robotic designs are vertebrate-centric; one might consider a soft robot, modeled after the octopus.

While almost all our cognitive neural capacity is centrally located in our brain, the octopus uses a more distributed model, with only about half centrally located, with the rest distributed to its limbs.

A user of tools and toys, one might contemplate what an octopus considers amusing or beautiful. What are the means and media of beauty and harmony for an octopus? How might that intersect with our own aesthetic concepts? Does the geometric pleasure of a Bach fugue resonate for an octopus?

Octopuses exhibit a wide range of behavioral patterns, perhaps falling into categories: are some more extroverted? How can one design a Meyers-Briggs type personality test for an octopus? For robots, how does one differentiate an introvert versus extrovert?

One might not readily associate the octopus with fashion and design, but some creative ideas might arise from contemplation of how a color-blind creature superbly camouflages more quickly than a chameleon. Could a chair be adaptive to the color or pattern of clothes worn by the person adorning it? Or have jewels adapt to nearby attire? (e.g., a modernized, Tiffany-class mood ring).

So much difference from our own way of being, our perceptions, should lead to some inspirations for innovation.

For those curious about the wonders of the octopus, try Sy Montgomery’s “Soul of an Octopus”. It’s a rich, clear and easy read, with the author’s tinge of wonder about the world.

Innovation and Cognitive Diversity

 When we form a team, we tend to populate it with people whose thought processes are similar to our own. It’s natural, in part because it’s easier on us. People whose priorities and thought processes are distinctly different from our own are potential sources of friction within the group.

 But when there’s a need to address complex issues, come up with innovation, combine components in new and value-enhancing ways, then having a team that is cognitively diverse is of benefit. Cognitive diversity means diversity in how we think, in how we perceive and prioritize those perceptions.

 There are some necessary conditions for cognitive diversity to have benefit: team members have to be able to get along with each other, and to work together towards a goal commonly agreed upon.

 Cognitive diversity implies that some members of the group will perceive the world differently, and have distinct mental toolsets associating those perceptions. The interaction between cohesive yet distinct viewpoints allows for fresh solutions, perhaps combining existing processes or elements in new ways.