Innovation Power

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Did you know your project might be at the nexus of geopolitical power, military power, and economic power? Wow! That's a big menu for the project office.

Eric Schmidt, formerly a top executive at Google, puts it this way in an essay in "Foreign Affairs", not your usual project read. He calls is INNOVATION POWER.

Innovation power is the ability to invent, adopt, and adapt new technologies. It contributes to both hard and soft power. High-tech weapons systems increase military might, new platforms and the standards that govern them provide economic leverage, and cutting-edge research and technologies enhance global appeal

He goes on: "There is a long tradition of states harnessing innovation to project power abroad, but what has changed is the self-perpetuating nature of scientific advances. Developments in artificial intelligence in particular not only unlock new areas of scientific discovery; they also speed up that very process"

In effect, Schmidt is saying that what's different is that whereas in the past there were plateaus of innovation: Bronze, steel, steam, electricity, telecomm, stored-program stored-data computing. Once you mastered the technology of those plateaus, there was a long period of technological stability.

No more. AI has properties of "positive feedback". Its possibilities just keep on growing. There doesn't seem to be a plateau or stability. And everything is driven by a need to be first .... speed! 

OODA loops
Remember the OODA loops: Observe, orient, decide, act? Well we are just on the cusp of doing that autonomously  self-driving vehicles; autonomous drones; pick-pack-and ship robots; and a myriad of other tasks where speed and accuracy are key.

Quantum Computing
And then comes quantum computing which, when in the positive feedback loop, will drive innovative breakthroughs that are almost unimaginable. 

One wonders if the usual project rails are up to the tasks ahead

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AI F-16 Dogfight

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Now here's an interesting project: Designing the code for a real F-16 fighter aircraft dog fight. 

As reported in "Breaking Defense", DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- "In a ‘world first,’ DARPA project demonstrates AI dogfighting in real jet"

In late 2023 at Edwards AFB in California we learn: "In the span of a couple weeks, a series of trials witnessed a manned F-16 face off against a bespoke Fighting Falcon known as the Variable In-flight Simulator Aircraft, or VISTA. A human pilot sat in the VISTA’s cockpit for safety reasons, but an AI agent did the flying, with results officials described as impressive — though they declined to provide specific detail, like the win/loss ratio of the AI pilot, due to “national security” reasons."

This stuff just keeps on coming, changing the face of warfare in near-real time.

 

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Work 4, Take 3 off

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Could your project handle a 4-day workweek? 

The principle of "get it done, no matter what it takes" would have to step aside I think. 

But during more routine periods, productivity might actually go up with no additional cost.

Obviously, there's lot to debate.

Here's what 'Management 3.0' thinks are the advantages (paraphrased from a recent newsletter)

Improved Well-being

Evidence shows a shorter workweek leads to reduced stress, lowered risk of burnout, and a significant boost in work-life balance.

Environmental Benefits

Less commuting translates directly to a reduction in carbon emissions. 

Enhanced Productivity

When time is compressed, focus intensifies. Studies, including those by 4 Day Week Global, indicate that employees become more efficient, prioritize effectively, and streamline their workflows, often maintaining or even exceeding previous productivity levels.

Economic Advantages

Improved well-being leads to reduced absenteeism and staff turnover

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By the rules, or not?

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A lot of great outcomes are directly from emergent innovation

• Emergent meaning the properties were not predictable from analyzing the constituents; they surprise us all when the integrated constituents all came together and something new appears!
• Innovation meaning that risks to norms were deliberately taken; a form of destruction-construction

But not everybody is comfortable for destruction-construction; and indeed, there are many industries where the rules and regulations prohibit departure from the norms.

And so if you are managing a rules-based rules-driven project, what's the profile of the staff you need?

The question begs the answer: people who have been successful obtaining quality outcomes while still following the rules ... staying between the hedges, as it were.

So, who are 'they' that can get it done within the rules?

Look here first for the "rules" people:

• Former military and police
• Former government agencies staff
• Former very large corporate leaders
• Former staff from major 'safety' projects (where the stakes were life-threatening)
• People who value discipline, even if not one of the 'formers'
• Athletes from team sports, particularly if not the star of the team
• Socially moderate, and so likely to fit well into a heterogeneous team

Now, of course, there are a lot of 'formers' from rules-based organizations that are 'former' because they can't follow the rules. It's likely they have been invited to leave and apply their spirits elsewhere. Your job is to filter these rules-misfits out of your hiring plan.

Rules don't necessarily quash innovation

Rules generally go to methods and limits. Rarely do you find a rule about an outcome.

So, within the allowable methods, and within the allowable limits of disturbance, sustainability, availability, and quality in the large sense, any innovative outcome is possible.

You just need to hire the 'rules people' to get there!

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Risk Management: Chains and funnels

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What to make of chains and funnels? And, if I also stick in anchors, does it help?

What I'm actually talking about is conjunctive events, disjunctive events, and anchor bias:

• Conjunctive events are chains of event for which every link in the chain must be a success or the chain fails. Success of the chain is the product of each link's success metric. In other words, the chain's success probability degrades geometrically (example: chain of 'n' links, each with probability 'p', has an overall probability of p*p*p* .... for 'n' p's.)
    
• Disjunctive events are independent events, all more or less in parallel, somewhat like falling in a funnel, such that if one falls through (i.e, failure) and it's part of a system, then the system may fail as a whole. In other words, if A or B or C goes wrong, then the project goes wrong.
  
  
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The general tendency to overestimate the probability of conjunctive events leads to unwarranted optimism in the evaluation of the likelihood that a plan will succeed or that a project will be completed on time. Conversely, disjunctive structures are typically encountered in the evaluation of risks. A complex system, such as a nuclear reactor or a human body, will malfunction if any of its essential components fails.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky

"Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases"

Fair enough. Where does the anchor come in?

Anchoring refers to the bias introduced into our thinking or perception by suggesting a starting value (the anchor) but then not adjusting far enough from the anchor for our estimate to be correct. Now in the sales and marketing game, we see this all the time. 

Marketing sets an anchor, looking for a deal in the business case; the sales guy sets an anchor, hoping not to have to give too much away post-project. The sponsor sets an anchor top down on the project balance sheet, hoping the project manager will accept the risk; and the customer sets anchors of expectations.

But in project planning, here's the anchor bias:

• The likely success of a conjunctive chain is always less than the success of any link
• The likely failure of a disjunctive funnel is always greater than the failure of any element.

Conjunctive chains are products of numbers less than 1.0.

• How many of us  would look at a 7 link chain of 90% successes in each link and realize that there's less than one 1 chance in 2 that the chain will be successful? (probability = 0.48)

Disjunctive funnels are more complex.
They are the combinations (union) of independent outcomes net of any conjunctive overlaps (All combinations of OR less all AND). In general the rules of combinations and factorials apply.

• How many of us would look at a funnel of 7 objects, each with likely 90% success (10% failure) and realize that there's better than 1 chance in 3 that there will be 1 failure among 7 objects in the funnel? (probability = 0.37 of exactly 1 failure)*

 The fact is, in the conjunctive case we fail to adjust downward enough from 90%; in the disjunctive case we fail to adjust upward from the 10% case.  Is it any wonder that project estimates go awry?

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*This is a binomial combination of selecting exactly 1 from 7, where there are 6 conjunctive successes and 1 conjunctive failures: factorial (7 take 1) *conjunctive failure * conjunctive success

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Flat organization, or Not?

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The world was flat, but perhaps no more.

Leadership-Risk linkage

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When applying the principle of "calculated risk", leaders should pick subordinates with the intellectual subtlety to evalutate strategic and operational problems in their full context.

They should be given the latitude to judge just how much risk is appropriate given the value of the objective and the balance of resources.

Paraphrased from the writings of historian
Craig L. Symonds

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