March 20, 2024 • 32 mins
Ever wondered why even the most prestigious project management certifications don't always translate into real-world success? Join me, Mounir Ajam, as I unveil the genesis of the Uruk platform and disclose how it's poised to revolutionize the way we manage projects. Our discussion traverses the three transformative principles that underpin the platform, designed to catapult success rates and shatter the industry's resigned acceptance of project failure.
Embark on a journey through the intricate world of project management as we dissect the necessity of an integrated, adaptable approach. I'll walk you through how the Uruk platform reflects my vision of a methodology that's as dynamic as the industries it serves, ensuring that each project aligns with an organization's heartbeat from the get-go. With a focus on the Uruk platform's ability to navigate the complexities of projects, programs, products, and portfolios, this episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to pivot from conventional methods to a path of integration and value delivery.
Finally, we're peeling back the curtain on the Uruk platform to reveal its educational and supportive features. Imagine a tool that manages projects and mentors you through every step. Discover how the 'Oru coach' messages, interactive demos, and a responsive chat system transform Uruk into a relentless ally in your project management odyssey. It's not just a platform; it's a movement, a digital mentor, and a testament to a career dedicated to redefining the norms of project management.
Explore more project management insights at www.urukpm.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the 4pm podcast.
My name is Munir Ajam and I'mthe founder and CEO of Aruq
Project Management.
My core passion is projectmanagement and community
development.
I came to you with decades ofglobal experience.
I have worked on projects invarious industries, countries
(00:29):
and roles.
In this podcast, I aim to helpyou and your organization
transform how to lead yourchange initiatives with the 4pm.
What are the 4pm?
4pm stands for project program,product delivery and portfolio
(00:51):
management.
It is all about integrations todeliver value.
We want to hear from you, soplease share your feedback and
suggestions.
Enjoy your listening.
Good day and welcome to the 4pmpodcast.
(01:14):
My name is Munir Ajam and I willbe talking today about the
three principles that we haveadopted in Aruq Project
Management to implement our Aruqplatform.
I will do a quick introduction,with some background, of why we
created the Aruq platform, andthen I will be talking about the
(01:36):
three principles.
Now let me just say it outfront Obviously, here we're
talking about our product.
We're talking about the Aruqplatform.
This podcast might be perceivedas a marketing podcast.
However, the value of theseprinciples apply independently
of the Aruq platform.
These are the ones that we haveadopted ourselves and obviously
(01:59):
others can use the same conceptin their system.
Whether they want to considerthe Aruq platform or not, it
doesn't really matter.
There is an educationalcomponent and primarily this
podcast episode.
It is educational, so it's nota pure or it is a marketing per
(02:21):
se.
So the three principles, butbefore I even mention them,
let's talk about some background.
I started my previous companyback in 2004, 2005.
And basically initially wewanted to be consultancy, but we
(02:44):
felt a great need for training.
When we were doing training onproject management, including
certification training, we kepthearing feedback from our
customers, from our students andby here we say student meaning
professional people that workingin an environment but they're
(03:04):
taking project managementclasses and certification and
their management and theircompanies.
The same we kept hearing isthat great, we understand.
From from the student, theywould say we understand what
you're talking about, weunderstand these guys and we can
even get certified, and many ofthem do get certified.
(03:26):
However, we still do not knowhow to manage project and in one
time one client basically toldus a, an executive or a senior
manager and a ministry said lookmoney, we've certified 50
people but they still do notknow how to manage project.
Now, just to be clear.
Those people were certified bywith other company that was us
(03:48):
so it wasn't like a reflectionon on the training and even you
know the other training companycould have done a great job.
But basically, even if you takecourses with me, if your
objective is certification right, I'm going to make sure that I
teach you what you need in orderto become certified, whereas
practical training or appliedproject based learning is a
(04:11):
totally different story.
So the challenge was that a lotof organization feeling like you
know, we understand, but westill not sure how to apply, or
we still face problem or wedon't know how to do a
methodology in our organizationthat is related to our context.
These are some of the commentswe were hearing.
So that was one of thechallenges that kept popping in
(04:34):
our minds at what's going on,what can we do?
How can we help the community?
What can we make it?
You know, where can we make adifference?
At the same time, we know andand and that was, you know, 20
years ago, but it was happeningbefore and still happening today
that projects still fail at ahigh rate.
(04:54):
I mean, and when we say projectfailure, it could mean project
management failure or could meanthe actual project fail and we
distinguish between the two.
If you follow and if you watchour four-dimensional project
success or you listen to ourpodcast on those topics, you
will understand that wedifferentiate between project
business objective failureversus a project management
failure or success.
(05:15):
So many people kept telling usthat you know, and we kept
seeing the data from technology,from capital project, large,
small infrastructure project andall industries and domain
projects still have a highdegree of failure, at least in
their project management area.
It's quite common whenever wesay we have a new project,
(05:36):
executives go into a mode thatwe're oh okay, we're gonna
expect that this project isgonna be over budget or behind
schedule.
It's become like we takefailure for granted and that
really bothered us.
That because I've been workingon project, including mega
project, and where I've seensuccess through success, and
(05:56):
I've seen some miserable failure.
So I know success is possibleand I know what caused failure
and I know what are the criticalsuccess factors that can help
us succeed, obviously with, thenmy limitation of knowledge and
experience.
I'm not saying I know it all so, but I've seen it.
I've seen success, even on megaproject, and so when we hear
(06:18):
that there's only one third ofmega project are successful, or
at least 70 percent of theproject suffer project and cost
and schedule problem.
We wonder why and obviously westart to explore and understand
the reason.
So these are the challenges wewere facing and that led us to
(06:39):
think that what can we do aboutit?
So let me pause for a secondhere and close.
This first part of this podcastis basically by highlighting
some of the things that werehappening in our environment and
around the world.
That was a high failure rate,with the lack of understanding
of how to build the methodologyor apply a methodology, or how
(07:00):
can we use certification to helpus improve performance and
organization.
So many of those issues werebasically, you know, being
cooked in our head and that backit was about 2005, 2006, 2007.
At that time mostly I was stillin Dubai in doing training we
(07:22):
started to think about what canwe do?
So we had in mind that in orderto do something, we have
considered or building amethodology.
Basically, that something wasthe idea that how can we launch
a project management innovationprogram focusing on identifying
(07:43):
the root causes of problem andcoming up with solution.
So it's like in our researchand development program that we
started in my previous company,sukad in Dubai, back in 2007.
So with that background, Ishared with you on part one we
wanted to go to to make adifference.
So how do we make a difference?
(08:07):
We felt that is the biggestproblem was that people don't
understand that these guidance,standards and certification they
supposed to be part of anorganization project management
system.
They should help createmethodologies to manage project.
So we had two major problem amethodology that people were
(08:29):
using guide as a methodology,but they're not methodology.
You know, they should have somepeople within the organization.
They should have taken thoseguide and creating the
organizational system andmethodology in the organization
that project manager can use ontheir project.
That wasn't happening, and Imean, obviously that's not the
only reason for project failure,but that was one of the
(08:50):
challenges we were facing.
So we decided to embark on amission to basically create
these methodologies.
Now, when we look at it and welook at what's happening, we
felt like we need to decide someprinciples.
So we come up with manyprinciples related to building
our methodology and I believe,if I remember right, we had
(09:12):
about 11 principles.
However, there are two coreprinciples that I want to
address today.
Now I know this podcast isthree principles, so I'll talk
about the first two and thenI'll bring in the third later.
Back in 2007, we were thinkingabout two principles to be
transparent and honest, and thatled to our methodology
(09:35):
development and the improvementin our methodology.
And we have another video talkabout the history of the Oru
platform as a deep route, deeprooted, basically where we
explain the evolution of the Oruplatform from the idea that we
started with in 2007.
However, basically and todaylet's focus on that okay, now we
(09:58):
need to build the Oru platformor build the methodology.
What are the two coreprinciples we have to comply
with?
And our start was the first one.
The first principle we feltlike project management, and
when we look at projectmanagement and when I explain
the principle, I will explainthe background behind it as well
(10:19):
.
And the first principle wasabout we need to integrate
project management with business.
That's quickly to say what itis.
Now, what does it mean?
Well, what we've noticed is alot of people in practice that
they look at project managementas fragmented, and it is still
fragmented.
Today.
We have people who manage tasksonly, and, of course, we are
(10:40):
totally different, so we need tounderstand and respect our
diversity.
Some people might need tomanage tasks only, that's fine.
Some people might manage astage that's even fine.
Some people might need tomanage technical project
management.
Now you notice here if you havebeen following this episode, we
had an episode a few weeks agoabout the project management
level and respecting ourdiversity.
(11:01):
That will be a useful time togo back and listen to that,
because we talk about fivelevels of practice within the
project management community.
So you have the differentlevels of practice.
However, if you look at taskmanagement or stage management
or technical project management,one thing they miss, especially
(11:21):
if you are an ownerorganization, they miss
integrating project managementwith the rest of the business.
They view project management asa technical domain.
That's why I call it technicalproject.
By technical project managementI don't mean technology, I mean
technical, that mean functional, whatever.
Focusing on project managementbeing a technical domain, its
(11:41):
job is to produce product.
That product could be abuilding, a factory or a new
drug or a software, right.
So technical again, it doesn'tmean technology and software, it
means the focus is on producingproduct.
So technical work right Toproduce the product of the
(12:03):
project.
So we notice there's a lot offocus on that, a lot of focus on
technical project management,but it's missing the idea of
integrating project managementwith the front end, with
business, with the business case, with the feasibility study.
You know guide, like the Pumbakguide and other, they talk
about project starting with acharter, that what's happening
(12:25):
before the charter?
Right, there has to befeasibility study.
Before the feasibility study,there has to be other things.
So that is one part of where wefelt project management was
missing or basically beingfragmented, where the project
management people are nottightly integrated with the
business people that aredeciding on the project and that
(12:45):
they want the product of theproject.
We also notice on the back endthat there is not enough
integration with between thepeople who are executing and
developing the work and thebusiness people who might need
to get ready for operation, so,once they receive the product,
what they're gonna do?
Right, and that led us to thevalue delivery methodology that
we have developed and, of course, that is what we call level
(13:07):
five of when we talk about thePM level.
Now let me summarize this firstprinciple, though the first
principle, again, it is aboutintegrating project management
with the business aspect of theorganization, business and
operation right, and that led toa methodology, a standard model
that we have developed.
That is principle one.
(13:30):
Now let's talk about the secondprinciple and following on the
idea of respecting our diversity.
The second principle was aboutensuring that project management
(13:50):
, or understanding that projectmanagement is not the same
across different domain andindustries and project sites and
complexity and so many otherfactors.
We must respect our diversity Ikeep repeating that term which
mean the methodology must becustomizable and adaptable, and
(14:10):
the value delivery methodologiesthat we have today actually
started out as something calledthe customizable and adaptable
methodology for managing projectCAMP, caa, double MP right.
So that was the origin and mybooks on that on CAMP, version
one, version two and versionthree that was published back in
2017 in the book ProjectManagement Beyond Waterfall and
(14:33):
Agile that become the foundationfor the Rook platform, right?
So principle number two that themethodology, the project
management system, has to betailored to fit the
organizational context.
It has to understand that,whether we are managing project
in industrial project or realestate project or medical
(14:57):
project or technology project ormedia project that they have
some uniqueness.
Yes, there's a lot of theprocesses in common.
There's even the idea of a lifecycle as an idea, it's common.
However, there are somespecialization that we need to
consider and we must consider,otherwise we don't produce a
(15:20):
proper methodological process.
So, to repeat, and theprinciple number one was that we
need to create a methodologicalprocess to cover the project
across the entire life cycle,from idea until operation.
And principle number two isabout that methodological
(15:40):
process must be tailored andcustomized and adapted to fit
multiple variables, such as theorganization type, the project
type, the project size,complexity, degree of innovation
, impact of the project on theorganization.
There are many variables thataffect that.
So, in principle number one, wecreated the methodology.
(16:01):
In principle number two, itlead to creating the tailored
method.
Now, before I go into principlenumber three, I need to step
back and talk about the Rookplatform.
Now, the Rook platform, in away, is not only project
management, because there'sproject management, program
management, product deliverymanagement, portfolio management
.
So it's about the 4 pm.
So it's not only about the PMmethodology.
(16:23):
Yeah, but the projectmanagement methodology is core
and center of the platform andthe foundation of the platform.
So obviously we need to usebasically these principles, we
build them into the platform.
Now, here we have to pause, andor we pause as a company when
(16:45):
we are creating the Rookplatform.
We created the platform, butbasically we never really put
principle three as a focus itemor even use the term principle,
the third principle butindirectly we were building it
and recently, in a discussionwith one of my advisors, it came
to light that, look, we aredoing principle three.
(17:08):
Right, we are building the Rookplatform with three principles,
but we never really talkedabout this.
You know these first twoprinciples I discussed earlier,
we talked about them before, butwe never really talked about
the third principle, right?
So I'm going to keep youanxious for a while to know what
the heck is that thirdprinciple?
I mean, I'll keep you staytuned for one more minute.
So then we?
(17:30):
So what I'm saying is that webuilt the Rook platform with
those three principles in mind.
Although the third principlewas some kind of subliminal,
right, it wasn't explicitly.
Maybe that's a better word, andthe idea that we came back and
we start to look back on ourwork and not our work only in
the Rook platform, it's projectmanagement community, and it's
(17:52):
very common for us in theproject management community to
discuss something is veryimportant.
We always say that competentproject management require three
pillars and I think I'vealready had some an episode on
that also in the past.
It required three pillars andthose are people, processes and
(18:16):
tools or technology.
So here we start to look backat our platform, said, okay, the
platform, obviously it's not atool, it's technology.
Now, why is not a tool?
Because a tool usually is adummy.
You have, they give you atemplate, the algorithm, you do
thing.
But in our case, we have builtthe process into the platform.
So on a way, we combined theidea of technology and processes
(18:40):
together so make the platforminclude a lot of the policies,
the guidelines, the governance,the workflow, the template.
So in a way it's acomprehensive system built into
a software solution.
That's why we call it anintegrated digital solution.
Okay, so with that in mind, weknow for sure that our Rook
(19:02):
platform is extensively coveringtwo of those three pillars.
We are covering the technologypillar and we are covering the
process pillar, process andmethod pillar.
Then we kept thinking but whatabout the people?
Well, obviously, if I'm, youknow, my client, I'm not going
to be managing the project formy client, unless some small
company wants us to hire us asan outsourced service.
(19:23):
We can do that.
However, in most situation, thepeople are going to come from
the client.
We don't manage them, we don'ttrain them.
It's not our responsibility.
It's usually in the hand of thecustomer, right, how they
manage their people, train theirpeople, develop their people.
All of it within their powerwas, supposedly was nothing for
(19:47):
us to do about this, and Icouldn't accept that and my team
couldn't accept that indirectly, again, subliminally.
We were never conscious aboutthat.
So we built into the platform,said what can I do?
Yes, that's what we're talkingabout.
And then it bored them to buildinto a digital solution, into a
technology solution, right,what can we do to help improve
(20:11):
competence, to focus on, toembed or to incorporate or to
address the people side of thosethree pillars, or the people
pillar, right?
And by people for us, we mean,we don't, obviously, we're not
counting people and bodies, weare looking for competent people
.
Now, we've always stronglybelieve in the idea that
competence must be linked to aprocess.
(20:34):
You know most competency-basedorganization.
When they look at competence,obviously they have to define
the standards, the baseline.
Otherwise, what?
How can we define someone iscompetent, right?
So, for example, I am a civilengineer, I have a master degree
in civil engineering, but I'venever practiced civil
engineering after I graduatedbecause I went into project
(20:54):
management right.
So I'm not a competent civilengineer.
Now that's not an insult, Iproudly say it.
I'm not a competent civilengineer and if I go to,
basically if somebody asked meto do some civil engineering
work, it will be an ethical forme to accept that work because,
again, I'm not competent on that.
(21:15):
Why?
Because I've lost my training.
I did not get it.
So competence come was trainingin the process.
So on project management, if Isay somebody is a competent risk
manager, I have to have somekind of a criteria of saying
that.
So we will have to establish acompetency baseline that most
organizations do that.
So when we talk about people,we're talking about competence,
(21:38):
right?
So here the third principlestart to emerge from being
implicit to being explicit isthat although we don't manage
people I mean we don't managethe client people the platform
must do everything possible thatwe can to help increase the
(22:00):
level of competence of ourclient personnel in order for
them to elevate theirperformance.
So principle number three isbasically enhancing competence
to increase performance and as aresult of that, is basically
(22:23):
increasing the level of projectmanagement maturity within an
organization.
So what have we done in the rootplatform to achieve or to
deliver on that principle or ourpromise, right, because to me a
principle is a promise.
What have we done in that?
First, we created a knowledgeportal, and that knowledge
(22:47):
portal have many things in it,including reference document
definition.
For example, how do we view thedefinition of a project or a
program or a portfolio?
What does it mean when we saycaptured lessons learned?
So there are a lot ofeducational content, obviously
reflecting our philosophy ofmanaging project.
I have published 17 ebooks thatI have currently active, 17
(23:11):
ebooks.
They are inside the platform sopeople can go, and some of them
include case studies of howthey use the methodology
pre-ORUG, how they use themethodology on, for example,
writing a book project, right,or organizing an event or
updating a website.
These are projects, so we havecase studies and the interesting
part is that those case studieswere done by employees of my
(23:35):
company who have never been aproject manager.
So basically, they areaccidental project manager.
You know I have an IT guy or abusiness development guy or a
salesperson and I asked him hey,you learn the methodology and
apply it to this project thatyou have Like.
One of them was organizing anevent in a different country, so
establishing a project in adifferent country, so
(23:55):
establishing a partnership withanother organization.
All of those case studiesactually are in the portal right
and the knowledge portal in theplatform.
So we published them.
So that is one part.
Then we also created a communitylibrary, but this is empty,
because this is for customers asthey start to subscribe to the
platform and if there's anythingthey want to share in the
(24:16):
community library, basicallythey can share openly.
So it's what we want to share,we put in the knowledge portal,
in the group guide, and whatmaybe our customer want to share
, they put it in the communitylibrary.
Now, speaking of the communitylibrary, it's open to every user
of a room.
Now, how about if a companywant to create a community
(24:36):
library for their employees only, especially if they are big
company, well, we've createdsomething, a module called
client library, right?
So in this case, the clientpersonnel can save file they
want to share with everybodyelse within that organization
only.
No one else can see it, right?
So in a way, they can shareknowledge.
We are encouraging our customerto share knowledge and
(24:57):
expertise and case studies,either privately, within the
company itself or within theclient itself, because it could
be an NGO, it could be an MPO,it could be a government entity,
and also they can share in thecommunity library with all user
around the world.
So we have knowledge portal, wehave a root guides, we have the
community library, we have theclient library.
(25:19):
What else have we done?
We are recording a lot of them,educational demos, and I call
them education demos becausethese are not like guide or
click here or user guide.
They are educational demos.
So in every section where wefeel we need to explain
something, or at least ourphilosophy, we record a demo and
we will put it on the screen.
(25:40):
So whenever a user will log inand they will be seeing that,
they will see an icon.
If they see an icon for a video, that means there is a video
that describes that section.
Then, with every deliverable andevery section of the platform,
there are places where maybe weneed to explain a question or
explain a field, and we putthere something we call the Oru
(26:03):
coach.
So we put a question mark and amessage where people can go in
and click on it and they canread the text or they can listen
to it as audio.
Those are very narrow focus,basically to the point on this
question.
What does this mean?
For example, the word sector.
What does the sector mean?
Obviously, in our definition,because they need to use it.
(26:24):
In the platform, there will bewhat we call the Oru coach
messages.
Now, one more thing we've doneas well is obviously the chat
ability to chat with them andcreate team chat and create and
basically people can chat withanybody within their
organization or they can createa group for teams to chat with
those groups.
(26:44):
So we've created a lot of thesethings to help increase
knowledge.
So, in a way, the platform is aguide.
Basically, if somebody in youto project management, if it's
somebody novice, a novicegraduate, young person or
somebody who have been in adifferent domain and moving to
(27:04):
project management, they go intothe platform.
If they are willing to take, assoon as they are as a new user,
they log in.
They will see on their homepagea section called onboarding
support and that will give themsome of the quick guide to get
going.
But there was also a knowledgeof information Even, for example
(27:25):
, right now we are working on abook called project management
guide and terminology.
It started as a glossary ofterm and now it's over a hundred
page and that will continue togrow as we continue to build the
platform.
That will be there as well, sothat will be used as a reference
.
Progressive elaboration whatdoes it mean?
Let me go look at the guide andyou can go.
(27:46):
Look at the guide, or BCWS,what does it mean?
You can click and go and youcan see what the BCWS mean.
So we have built extensiveknowledge and in the platform to
guide even the new users andthose who are even experiencing
(28:06):
project management.
They will find the platformvery intuitive and very easy to
use.
However, even for those, westill advise them to scan
through our guide becausehonestly, proudly, humbly, we
say that we are creatingsomething to change the
conventional wisdom, totransform how organization
(28:29):
manage project and program andportfolio and their product
delivery.
Okay, we are not saying weinvented everything Obviously we
, but I believe in the conceptof sitting on the shoulder of
giant.
I've learned great deal in mycareer.
I dedicated my entire career toproject management and I'm 62
years old this month, soobviously I've learned a lot
(28:53):
from people who came from me.
I've learned from my advisor,people like Mark Rosner, sandra
Hoskins, bill Duncan, trevorNelson and Dr Mihail Sedano and
Andrea Nicholas, and these arethe people that I work with and
I've learned from and in theproject management.
(29:14):
There are many, many othersAdrienne Dooley, right and so we
learn from all of these peopleand what we try to do is take
all that knowledge that I haveabsorbed from people literature,
guide, association and workingin the trenches, working on
projects, small and large, anddifferent roles and capture all
(29:36):
that 30 plus years of real lifelearning and working in this
domain, this great domain that Ireally.
It makes me very sad how oftenexecutive don't sees the value
of this domain that is socritical to them to help
organization become basicallylead in their industries right,
(30:01):
and part of that is becausethere's so many failures and we
failed as a community andassociation to basically help
promote project management towhere we make it as
indispensable for business ororganizational success.
That's what we are trying to doas a project management and
through the platform as atechnology.
(30:23):
So we take all that knowledgeand build it into a digital
solution that extremelyintegrated and quite large.
However, it's modularized, soif organization need to use only
a piece of it.
They can, and we're going tocreate version to make sure for
(30:45):
that, and I have an articlecoming up or probably published
by the time you listen to this.
They're talking about theproject management be failed, so
please look for that article.
It might be interesting toexplain how we use the Ouro
platform.
So we are building asignificant integrated digital
(31:07):
solution that is extremelyversatile and comprehensive and
at low cost.
Now the part of it that isimportant is that we want to
make sure that we deliver onthose three principles right.
We need to see project asessential as a change initiative
that are part of theorganization context and they
(31:29):
should not be isolated orsilenced out.
Again.
It has to be tailored andadaptive, customized, scalable
to fit organizational size,organizational culture, industry
, project size, project type.
All of these factors and third,people are core for making and
(31:52):
sustaining the change inorganization.
With this, I will end it hereand I wish you success today,
tomorrow and always.
Welcome to the 4pm podcast.
My name is Munir Ajam and I'mthe founder and CEO of Aruq
Project Management.
My core passion is projectmanagement and community
development.
I came to you with decades ofglobal experience.
I have worked on projects invarious industries, countries
(00:29):
and roles.
In this podcast, I aim to helpyou and your organization
transform how to lead yourchange initiatives with the 4pm.
What are the 4pm?
4pm stands for project program,product delivery and portfolio
(00:51):
management.
It is all about integrations todeliver value.
We want to hear from you, soplease share your feedback and
suggestions.
Enjoy your listening.
Good day and welcome to the 4pmpodcast.
(01:14):
My name is Munir Ajam and I willbe talking today about the
three principles that we haveadopted in Aruq Project
Management to implement our Aruqplatform.
I will do a quick introduction,with some background, of why we
created the Aruq platform, andthen I will be talking about the
(01:36):
three principles.
Now let me just say it outfront Obviously, here we're
talking about our product.
We're talking about the Aruqplatform.
This podcast might be perceivedas a marketing podcast.
However, the value of theseprinciples apply independently
of the Aruq platform.
These are the ones that we haveadopted ourselves and obviously
(01:59):
others can use the same conceptin their system.
Whether they want to considerthe Aruq platform or not, it
doesn't really matter.
There is an educationalcomponent and primarily this
podcast episode.
It is educational, so it's nota pure or it is a marketing per
(02:21):
se.
So the three principles, butbefore I even mention them,
let's talk about some background.
I started my previous companyback in 2004, 2005.
And basically initially wewanted to be consultancy, but we
(02:44):
felt a great need for training.
When we were doing training onproject management, including
certification training, we kepthearing feedback from our
customers, from our students andby here we say student meaning
professional people that workingin an environment but they're
(03:04):
taking project managementclasses and certification and
their management and theircompanies.
The same we kept hearing isthat great, we understand.
From from the student, theywould say we understand what
you're talking about, weunderstand these guys and we can
even get certified, and many ofthem do get certified.
(03:26):
However, we still do not knowhow to manage project and in one
time one client basically toldus a, an executive or a senior
manager and a ministry said lookmoney, we've certified 50
people but they still do notknow how to manage project.
Now, just to be clear.
Those people were certified bywith other company that was us
(03:48):
so it wasn't like a reflectionon on the training and even you
know the other training companycould have done a great job.
But basically, even if you takecourses with me, if your
objective is certification right, I'm going to make sure that I
teach you what you need in orderto become certified, whereas
practical training or appliedproject based learning is a
(04:11):
totally different story.
So the challenge was that a lotof organization feeling like you
know, we understand, but westill not sure how to apply, or
we still face problem or wedon't know how to do a
methodology in our organizationthat is related to our context.
These are some of the commentswe were hearing.
So that was one of thechallenges that kept popping in
(04:34):
our minds at what's going on,what can we do?
How can we help the community?
What can we make it?
You know, where can we make adifference?
At the same time, we know andand and that was, you know, 20
years ago, but it was happeningbefore and still happening today
that projects still fail at ahigh rate.
(04:54):
I mean, and when we say projectfailure, it could mean project
management failure or could meanthe actual project fail and we
distinguish between the two.
If you follow and if you watchour four-dimensional project
success or you listen to ourpodcast on those topics, you
will understand that wedifferentiate between project
business objective failureversus a project management
failure or success.
(05:15):
So many people kept telling usthat you know, and we kept
seeing the data from technology,from capital project, large,
small infrastructure project andall industries and domain
projects still have a highdegree of failure, at least in
their project management area.
It's quite common whenever wesay we have a new project,
(05:36):
executives go into a mode thatwe're oh okay, we're gonna
expect that this project isgonna be over budget or behind
schedule.
It's become like we takefailure for granted and that
really bothered us.
That because I've been workingon project, including mega
project, and where I've seensuccess through success, and
(05:56):
I've seen some miserable failure.
So I know success is possibleand I know what caused failure
and I know what are the criticalsuccess factors that can help
us succeed, obviously with, thenmy limitation of knowledge and
experience.
I'm not saying I know it all so, but I've seen it.
I've seen success, even on megaproject, and so when we hear
(06:18):
that there's only one third ofmega project are successful, or
at least 70 percent of theproject suffer project and cost
and schedule problem.
We wonder why and obviously westart to explore and understand
the reason.
So these are the challenges wewere facing and that led us to
(06:39):
think that what can we do aboutit?
So let me pause for a secondhere and close.
This first part of this podcastis basically by highlighting
some of the things that werehappening in our environment and
around the world.
That was a high failure rate,with the lack of understanding
of how to build the methodologyor apply a methodology, or how
(07:00):
can we use certification to helpus improve performance and
organization.
So many of those issues werebasically, you know, being
cooked in our head and that backit was about 2005, 2006, 2007.
At that time mostly I was stillin Dubai in doing training we
(07:22):
started to think about what canwe do?
So we had in mind that in orderto do something, we have
considered or building amethodology.
Basically, that something wasthe idea that how can we launch
a project management innovationprogram focusing on identifying
(07:43):
the root causes of problem andcoming up with solution.
So it's like in our researchand development program that we
started in my previous company,sukad in Dubai, back in 2007.
So with that background, Ishared with you on part one we
wanted to go to to make adifference.
So how do we make a difference?
(08:07):
We felt that is the biggestproblem was that people don't
understand that these guidance,standards and certification they
supposed to be part of anorganization project management
system.
They should help createmethodologies to manage project.
So we had two major problem amethodology that people were
(08:29):
using guide as a methodology,but they're not methodology.
You know, they should have somepeople within the organization.
They should have taken thoseguide and creating the
organizational system andmethodology in the organization
that project manager can use ontheir project.
That wasn't happening, and Imean, obviously that's not the
only reason for project failure,but that was one of the
(08:50):
challenges we were facing.
So we decided to embark on amission to basically create
these methodologies.
Now, when we look at it and welook at what's happening, we
felt like we need to decide someprinciples.
So we come up with manyprinciples related to building
our methodology and I believe,if I remember right, we had
(09:12):
about 11 principles.
However, there are two coreprinciples that I want to
address today.
Now I know this podcast isthree principles, so I'll talk
about the first two and thenI'll bring in the third later.
Back in 2007, we were thinkingabout two principles to be
transparent and honest, and thatled to our methodology
(09:35):
development and the improvementin our methodology.
And we have another video talkabout the history of the Oru
platform as a deep route, deeprooted, basically where we
explain the evolution of the Oruplatform from the idea that we
started with in 2007.
However, basically and todaylet's focus on that okay, now we
(09:58):
need to build the Oru platformor build the methodology.
What are the two coreprinciples we have to comply
with?
And our start was the first one.
The first principle we feltlike project management, and
when we look at projectmanagement and when I explain
the principle, I will explainthe background behind it as well
(10:19):
.
And the first principle wasabout we need to integrate
project management with business.
That's quickly to say what itis.
Now, what does it mean?
Well, what we've noticed is alot of people in practice that
they look at project managementas fragmented, and it is still
fragmented.
Today.
We have people who manage tasksonly, and, of course, we are
(10:40):
totally different, so we need tounderstand and respect our
diversity.
Some people might need tomanage tasks only, that's fine.
Some people might manage astage that's even fine.
Some people might need tomanage technical project
management.
Now you notice here if you havebeen following this episode, we
had an episode a few weeks agoabout the project management
level and respecting ourdiversity.
(11:01):
That will be a useful time togo back and listen to that,
because we talk about fivelevels of practice within the
project management community.
So you have the differentlevels of practice.
However, if you look at taskmanagement or stage management
or technical project management,one thing they miss, especially
(11:21):
if you are an ownerorganization, they miss
integrating project managementwith the rest of the business.
They view project management asa technical domain.
That's why I call it technicalproject.
By technical project managementI don't mean technology, I mean
technical, that mean functional, whatever.
Focusing on project managementbeing a technical domain, its
(11:41):
job is to produce product.
That product could be abuilding, a factory or a new
drug or a software, right.
So technical again, it doesn'tmean technology and software, it
means the focus is on producingproduct.
So technical work right Toproduce the product of the
(12:03):
project.
So we notice there's a lot offocus on that, a lot of focus on
technical project management,but it's missing the idea of
integrating project managementwith the front end, with
business, with the business case, with the feasibility study.
You know guide, like the Pumbakguide and other, they talk
about project starting with acharter, that what's happening
(12:25):
before the charter?
Right, there has to befeasibility study.
Before the feasibility study,there has to be other things.
So that is one part of where wefelt project management was
missing or basically beingfragmented, where the project
management people are nottightly integrated with the
business people that aredeciding on the project and that
(12:45):
they want the product of theproject.
We also notice on the back endthat there is not enough
integration with between thepeople who are executing and
developing the work and thebusiness people who might need
to get ready for operation, so,once they receive the product,
what they're gonna do?
Right, and that led us to thevalue delivery methodology that
we have developed and, of course, that is what we call level
(13:07):
five of when we talk about thePM level.
Now let me summarize this firstprinciple, though the first
principle, again, it is aboutintegrating project management
with the business aspect of theorganization, business and
operation right, and that led toa methodology, a standard model
that we have developed.
That is principle one.
(13:30):
Now let's talk about the secondprinciple and following on the
idea of respecting our diversity.
The second principle was aboutensuring that project management
(13:50):
, or understanding that projectmanagement is not the same
across different domain andindustries and project sites and
complexity and so many otherfactors.
We must respect our diversity Ikeep repeating that term which
mean the methodology must becustomizable and adaptable, and
(14:10):
the value delivery methodologiesthat we have today actually
started out as something calledthe customizable and adaptable
methodology for managing projectCAMP, caa, double MP right.
So that was the origin and mybooks on that on CAMP, version
one, version two and versionthree that was published back in
2017 in the book ProjectManagement Beyond Waterfall and
(14:33):
Agile that become the foundationfor the Rook platform, right?
So principle number two that themethodology, the project
management system, has to betailored to fit the
organizational context.
It has to understand that,whether we are managing project
in industrial project or realestate project or medical
(14:57):
project or technology project ormedia project that they have
some uniqueness.
Yes, there's a lot of theprocesses in common.
There's even the idea of a lifecycle as an idea, it's common.
However, there are somespecialization that we need to
consider and we must consider,otherwise we don't produce a
(15:20):
proper methodological process.
So, to repeat, and theprinciple number one was that we
need to create a methodologicalprocess to cover the project
across the entire life cycle,from idea until operation.
And principle number two isabout that methodological
(15:40):
process must be tailored andcustomized and adapted to fit
multiple variables, such as theorganization type, the project
type, the project size,complexity, degree of innovation
, impact of the project on theorganization.
There are many variables thataffect that.
So, in principle number one, wecreated the methodology.
(16:01):
In principle number two, itlead to creating the tailored
method.
Now, before I go into principlenumber three, I need to step
back and talk about the Rookplatform.
Now, the Rook platform, in away, is not only project
management, because there'sproject management, program
management, product deliverymanagement, portfolio management
.
So it's about the 4 pm.
So it's not only about the PMmethodology.
(16:23):
Yeah, but the projectmanagement methodology is core
and center of the platform andthe foundation of the platform.
So obviously we need to usebasically these principles, we
build them into the platform.
Now, here we have to pause, andor we pause as a company when
(16:45):
we are creating the Rookplatform.
We created the platform, butbasically we never really put
principle three as a focus itemor even use the term principle,
the third principle butindirectly we were building it
and recently, in a discussionwith one of my advisors, it came
to light that, look, we aredoing principle three.
(17:08):
Right, we are building the Rookplatform with three principles,
but we never really talkedabout this.
You know these first twoprinciples I discussed earlier,
we talked about them before, butwe never really talked about
the third principle, right?
So I'm going to keep youanxious for a while to know what
the heck is that thirdprinciple?
I mean, I'll keep you staytuned for one more minute.
So then we?
(17:30):
So what I'm saying is that webuilt the Rook platform with
those three principles in mind.
Although the third principlewas some kind of subliminal,
right, it wasn't explicitly.
Maybe that's a better word, andthe idea that we came back and
we start to look back on ourwork and not our work only in
the Rook platform, it's projectmanagement community, and it's
(17:52):
very common for us in theproject management community to
discuss something is veryimportant.
We always say that competentproject management require three
pillars and I think I'vealready had some an episode on
that also in the past.
It required three pillars andthose are people, processes and
(18:16):
tools or technology.
So here we start to look backat our platform, said, okay, the
platform, obviously it's not atool, it's technology.
Now, why is not a tool?
Because a tool usually is adummy.
You have, they give you atemplate, the algorithm, you do
thing.
But in our case, we have builtthe process into the platform.
So on a way, we combined theidea of technology and processes
(18:40):
together so make the platforminclude a lot of the policies,
the guidelines, the governance,the workflow, the template.
So in a way it's acomprehensive system built into
a software solution.
That's why we call it anintegrated digital solution.
Okay, so with that in mind, weknow for sure that our Rook
(19:02):
platform is extensively coveringtwo of those three pillars.
We are covering the technologypillar and we are covering the
process pillar, process andmethod pillar.
Then we kept thinking but whatabout the people?
Well, obviously, if I'm, youknow, my client, I'm not going
to be managing the project formy client, unless some small
company wants us to hire us asan outsourced service.
(19:23):
We can do that.
However, in most situation, thepeople are going to come from
the client.
We don't manage them, we don'ttrain them.
It's not our responsibility.
It's usually in the hand of thecustomer, right, how they
manage their people, train theirpeople, develop their people.
All of it within their powerwas, supposedly was nothing for
(19:47):
us to do about this, and Icouldn't accept that and my team
couldn't accept that indirectly, again, subliminally.
We were never conscious aboutthat.
So we built into the platform,said what can I do?
Yes, that's what we're talkingabout.
And then it bored them to buildinto a digital solution, into a
technology solution, right,what can we do to help improve
(20:11):
competence, to focus on, toembed or to incorporate or to
address the people side of thosethree pillars, or the people
pillar, right?
And by people for us, we mean,we don't, obviously, we're not
counting people and bodies, weare looking for competent people
.
Now, we've always stronglybelieve in the idea that
competence must be linked to aprocess.
(20:34):
You know most competency-basedorganization.
When they look at competence,obviously they have to define
the standards, the baseline.
Otherwise, what?
How can we define someone iscompetent, right?
So, for example, I am a civilengineer, I have a master degree
in civil engineering, but I'venever practiced civil
engineering after I graduatedbecause I went into project
(20:54):
management right.
So I'm not a competent civilengineer.
Now that's not an insult, Iproudly say it.
I'm not a competent civilengineer and if I go to,
basically if somebody asked meto do some civil engineering
work, it will be an ethical forme to accept that work because,
again, I'm not competent on that.
(21:15):
Why?
Because I've lost my training.
I did not get it.
So competence come was trainingin the process.
So on project management, if Isay somebody is a competent risk
manager, I have to have somekind of a criteria of saying
that.
So we will have to establish acompetency baseline that most
organizations do that.
So when we talk about people,we're talking about competence,
(21:38):
right?
So here the third principlestart to emerge from being
implicit to being explicit isthat although we don't manage
people I mean we don't managethe client people the platform
must do everything possible thatwe can to help increase the
(22:00):
level of competence of ourclient personnel in order for
them to elevate theirperformance.
So principle number three isbasically enhancing competence
to increase performance and as aresult of that, is basically
(22:23):
increasing the level of projectmanagement maturity within an
organization.
So what have we done in the rootplatform to achieve or to
deliver on that principle or ourpromise, right, because to me a
principle is a promise.
What have we done in that?
First, we created a knowledgeportal, and that knowledge
(22:47):
portal have many things in it,including reference document
definition.
For example, how do we view thedefinition of a project or a
program or a portfolio?
What does it mean when we saycaptured lessons learned?
So there are a lot ofeducational content, obviously
reflecting our philosophy ofmanaging project.
I have published 17 ebooks thatI have currently active, 17
(23:11):
ebooks.
They are inside the platform sopeople can go, and some of them
include case studies of howthey use the methodology
pre-ORUG, how they use themethodology on, for example,
writing a book project, right,or organizing an event or
updating a website.
These are projects, so we havecase studies and the interesting
part is that those case studieswere done by employees of my
(23:35):
company who have never been aproject manager.
So basically, they areaccidental project manager.
You know I have an IT guy or abusiness development guy or a
salesperson and I asked him hey,you learn the methodology and
apply it to this project thatyou have Like.
One of them was organizing anevent in a different country, so
establishing a project in adifferent country, so
(23:55):
establishing a partnership withanother organization.
All of those case studiesactually are in the portal right
and the knowledge portal in theplatform.
So we published them.
So that is one part.
Then we also created a communitylibrary, but this is empty,
because this is for customers asthey start to subscribe to the
platform and if there's anythingthey want to share in the
(24:16):
community library, basicallythey can share openly.
So it's what we want to share,we put in the knowledge portal,
in the group guide, and whatmaybe our customer want to share
, they put it in the communitylibrary.
Now, speaking of the communitylibrary, it's open to every user
of a room.
Now, how about if a companywant to create a community
(24:36):
library for their employees only, especially if they are big
company, well, we've createdsomething, a module called
client library, right?
So in this case, the clientpersonnel can save file they
want to share with everybodyelse within that organization
only.
No one else can see it, right?
So in a way, they can shareknowledge.
We are encouraging our customerto share knowledge and
(24:57):
expertise and case studies,either privately, within the
company itself or within theclient itself, because it could
be an NGO, it could be an MPO,it could be a government entity,
and also they can share in thecommunity library with all user
around the world.
So we have knowledge portal, wehave a root guides, we have the
community library, we have theclient library.
(25:19):
What else have we done?
We are recording a lot of them,educational demos, and I call
them education demos becausethese are not like guide or
click here or user guide.
They are educational demos.
So in every section where wefeel we need to explain
something, or at least ourphilosophy, we record a demo and
we will put it on the screen.
(25:40):
So whenever a user will log inand they will be seeing that,
they will see an icon.
If they see an icon for a video, that means there is a video
that describes that section.
Then, with every deliverable andevery section of the platform,
there are places where maybe weneed to explain a question or
explain a field, and we putthere something we call the Oru
(26:03):
coach.
So we put a question mark and amessage where people can go in
and click on it and they canread the text or they can listen
to it as audio.
Those are very narrow focus,basically to the point on this
question.
What does this mean?
For example, the word sector.
What does the sector mean?
Obviously, in our definition,because they need to use it.
(26:24):
In the platform, there will bewhat we call the Oru coach
messages.
Now, one more thing we've doneas well is obviously the chat
ability to chat with them andcreate team chat and create and
basically people can chat withanybody within their
organization or they can createa group for teams to chat with
those groups.
(26:44):
So we've created a lot of thesethings to help increase
knowledge.
So, in a way, the platform is aguide.
Basically, if somebody in youto project management, if it's
somebody novice, a novicegraduate, young person or
somebody who have been in adifferent domain and moving to
(27:04):
project management, they go intothe platform.
If they are willing to take, assoon as they are as a new user,
they log in.
They will see on their homepagea section called onboarding
support and that will give themsome of the quick guide to get
going.
But there was also a knowledgeof information Even, for example
(27:25):
, right now we are working on abook called project management
guide and terminology.
It started as a glossary ofterm and now it's over a hundred
page and that will continue togrow as we continue to build the
platform.
That will be there as well, sothat will be used as a reference
.
Progressive elaboration whatdoes it mean?
Let me go look at the guide andyou can go.
(27:46):
Look at the guide, or BCWS,what does it mean?
You can click and go and youcan see what the BCWS mean.
So we have built extensiveknowledge and in the platform to
guide even the new users andthose who are even experiencing
(28:06):
project management.
They will find the platformvery intuitive and very easy to
use.
However, even for those, westill advise them to scan
through our guide becausehonestly, proudly, humbly, we
say that we are creatingsomething to change the
conventional wisdom, totransform how organization
(28:29):
manage project and program andportfolio and their product
delivery.
Okay, we are not saying weinvented everything Obviously we
, but I believe in the conceptof sitting on the shoulder of
giant.
I've learned great deal in mycareer.
I dedicated my entire career toproject management and I'm 62
years old this month, soobviously I've learned a lot
(28:53):
from people who came from me.
I've learned from my advisor,people like Mark Rosner, sandra
Hoskins, bill Duncan, trevorNelson and Dr Mihail Sedano and
Andrea Nicholas, and these arethe people that I work with and
I've learned from and in theproject management.
(29:14):
There are many, many othersAdrienne Dooley, right and so we
learn from all of these peopleand what we try to do is take
all that knowledge that I haveabsorbed from people literature,
guide, association and workingin the trenches, working on
projects, small and large, anddifferent roles and capture all
(29:36):
that 30 plus years of real lifelearning and working in this
domain, this great domain that Ireally.
It makes me very sad how oftenexecutive don't sees the value
of this domain that is socritical to them to help
organization become basicallylead in their industries right,
(30:01):
and part of that is becausethere's so many failures and we
failed as a community andassociation to basically help
promote project management towhere we make it as
indispensable for business ororganizational success.
That's what we are trying to doas a project management and
through the platform as atechnology.
(30:23):
So we take all that knowledgeand build it into a digital
solution that extremelyintegrated and quite large.
However, it's modularized, soif organization need to use only
a piece of it.
They can, and we're going tocreate version to make sure for
(30:45):
that, and I have an articlecoming up or probably published
by the time you listen to this.
They're talking about theproject management be failed, so
please look for that article.
It might be interesting toexplain how we use the Ouro
platform.
So we are building asignificant integrated digital
(31:07):
solution that is extremelyversatile and comprehensive and
at low cost.
Now the part of it that isimportant is that we want to
make sure that we deliver onthose three principles right.
We need to see project asessential as a change initiative
that are part of theorganization context and they
(31:29):
should not be isolated orsilenced out.
Again.
It has to be tailored andadaptive, customized, scalable
to fit organizational size,organizational culture, industry
, project size, project type.
All of these factors and third,people are core for making and
(31:52):
sustaining the change inorganization.
With this, I will end it hereand I wish you success today,
tomorrow and always.
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