Interviewer (Alison Beard) (3:54)

And how has project work changed over the past few decades?

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (3:58)

Well, project work has changed in two big areas. One is on a macro level. I've been doing research and of course we all talk about the Marshall plan after the Second World War and all the projects that came from US funding to develop Europe, reconstruct Europe, that was about 13 billion. Then we talk about the financial crisis in 2008, 2009, we were talking about $3 trillion of projects. And now after the pandemic, we're talking about 15, 20 trillion of projects. I think the world will never see as many projects as what we're going to see in the next decade. We need to reconstruct countries, health care systems, economies. So that's from a macro perspective, from a micro perspective, from the way work is organized in companies, in businesses. It has evolved significantly in the sense that so far operations have been prime in most of the organizations over the past 80 years. That's what I say. They were driven by efficiency where most of the activities were around doing things cheaper, faster, more automated, more volumes. Companies have been organized for that. That's why you have hierarchies. That's where cultures like command and control have been in place and so on. But since like a few years when artificial intelligence and robots are taking over a big chunk of operations, the type of work is shifted to project based. So I think the biggest, biggest disruption that happens in the world of projects is what we're experiencing now, A radical shift from operations to project based work.

Interviewer (Alison Beard) (5:40)

And that's because projects are about sort of discovering the new innovating and the pace of change is such in every industry now that every company needs to learn how to do this.

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (5:52)

Well, absolutely. And one of the challenges, I have to admit, Alison, I'm a big, of course expert in project, a big advocate of project management. But our performance, like you mentioned in the introduction, has been poor or appalling. I think project management has not delivered the expected results. We need to find better ways to addressing the change. The future, 10 years ago maybe was five years from now. Right. So you would have a project that would last for three years expecting to get some benefits maybe in three, four years. A digital transformation, a new MA activity, a new business unit. But today the future is so fast. So your future is tomorrow. Right. So that means the acceleration of project based work has to go faster. Let me give you a quick example. Here in Brussels they were establishing a hospital from scratch. Greenfield start of the construction in 2016, completion of the hospital in 2020. So four years of construction, state of the art. But to my surprise, the hospital was opened in 2018 before it was completed. I think there's no company in the world can wait four years to to get any benefits from their projects. The future is now and we need to address that. That's why you see exploding the number of projects in organizations. I come across companies where they have more projects than people and I do.

Interviewer (Alison Beard) (7:26)

Want to get to how to do it better. But first, that failure rate is so high. What are some of the most common challenges or problems that projects run into? Why are we getting it so wrong right now?

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (7:41)

Let me highlight just three. First, I think senior leaders, they don't have the competencies to be effective sponsorship over the years.

Alison Beard (7:50)

I'm not going to like hearing that.

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (7:52)

I'm sure, I'm sure. But I'm sorry, I always. I'm 100% honest and bold on my thinking. But I think sponsors have not realized that the role is crucial in sponsoring projects. It's not about how many projects you sponsor. That has been the kind of I sponsor 20 projects, I'm the most important person in this company. Well, no, it's about less is more. And it has been proven when you are an executive, the CEO, the VP and you dedicate time to your project. Time means not just one hour per month, but a half a day per week. If this is the future of your business, I don't understand why senior leaders don't dedicate so much time. They're all driven by operations and day to day urgency. So very few leaders make this space. And second, they don't understand the fundamentals of projects. Most of the executives come from a path marketing, finance, operations, strategy. And it requires for them to understand that projects are different, that you work in projects in a matrix that is not so much the hierarchical approach, but this team working and collaboration. So it's hard to give you a number, Alison, but I would say 30 to 40% of the success of the project is if the senior leaders is engaged and understands and drives the project. Alice, on the second point I realized that in the area of change and projects, we are always running with all methods. It happened in the past with IT projects. I started implementing big ERP systems. We were trying to apply some very traditional project management. It didn't work. Then Agile came and said, well, now we are going to use Agile for every project and that we see today with digital transformations, AI implementations. That doesn't work. The failure keeps there. The third reason, I think the role of the project manager. The project management profession has not taken ownership of the results. It has been very focused on process, very focused on documentation. It did make a lot of sense in the 60s, in the 50s, where you would do a lot of public sector projects where you want to document everything. But I think the third reason for me is that project management didn't evolve to embrace the new reality. And second, project managers have been more a delivered type of role. In project management. We always said, well, who's accountable for, for delivering the projects? Who's accountable for delivering the benefits? Right, it's the sponsor. We project managers were responsible of delivering the project on time, on budget, on scope. And that has been the credo for project management for the last 40 years. And we've missed to focus on the outcomes, we've missed to focus on the benefits, we've missed to take accountability of the results. It's easy to make a project charter, but what companies are looking for is delivering value, either financial, either social, either sustainability. So I'm asking my community of project managers to step up, to take ownership, to say, no, it's not just the plan, it's not just delivery on time. What matters actually even more is delivering the benefits whatever they are, and faster, please.

Interviewer (Alison Beard) (11:18)

So for an organization that does have existing operations that need to be managed, but then also wants to pursue change and innovation through project work, how does that company change its structure or culture to be able to do both?

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (11:35)

Well, yeah, well, great question, Alison. I've seen so many companies struggling because I'm not saying let's forget about what you're doing right today, let's forget about that organization that you've built so successfully for that world, driven by efficiency, with hierarchies, with yearly plans, with deep expertise, deep technical expertise. But how can we address change and a change that's going very fast and our products are just lasting less and less in the past we last five years, now five weeks or maybe five months. So how can we mix that? And it's a struggle. You cannot say, let's forget my hierarchy and let's move everything into flat Teams and agile structures and, and project based in that doesn't work. So I think the challenge for the leaders, the senior leaders, the executives is finding that balance. And I always say you need to experiment. You cannot just go and say well half of the organization is working without job descriptions. They're all working project based. I think my approach, my suggestion is what are your top five projects? What are the five most important projects that your organization has to deliver? Extract those projects from your daily operations. Extract them. They should not be done by people working in operations. They should have a different structure, they should have a different culture. Put them aside, put them like independent, they are on entities and of course strong sponsorship executives. You need to spend time on them by extracting for those five top projects already and moving out from that hierarchical structure that operational activities that you can see already quite a lot of acceleration in the way you deliver projects.

Interviewer (Alison Beard) (13:25)

So often though it seems as if particularly project leaders do have operational responsibilities as well and then sort of they're expected to tack the project on top of that. So how are companies that you work with navigating that balance? Are they giving the executives that time to take away for the project work?

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (13:46)

Great, great question. This is really the core, one of the core problems I always raise when I do workshops with senior leaders is how come you cannot extract people from your day to day job and put them in a project. It's one of the biggest challenges that I see. Even companies which have 10,000 people, they are not able to free up 50 people to carry out the project. The best projects I've seen in a research, one of them, of course the iPhone, the first one which I research very much in detail at that time they were able to take the day to day people, the senior leader, the best people of Apple at that time and extract them for two years and a half to develop. And people who were in the operations all side, well, I'd love to join this project but who's going to do my day to day activities? And we're saying don't bother. Anybody can do your day to day activities. You have a deputy when you go, we'll put those people, we'll promote them, we'll create more talent. But you are the best person in these companies. How come you're not working in the most strategic project in the future of your work? It doesn't make sense. But companies struggle so much and there's nothing worse that you can do Alison, than have half time people working in your projects. I work one hour per week, then I Work two days per week, then it's a mess. It's not how you deliver great projects, it's at least try to get the best people around.

Interviewer (Alison Beard) (15:16)

I think that makes sense when you have a clear idea of what the future is going to look like and you know exactly which five projects are the most important. But isn't the issue in many cases that organizations sort of have 30 projects on the go and aren't really sure what's going to pan out and they can't take all of those people away from their day to day activities. So how do companies prioritize?

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (15:40)

I'm sure everybody that listening this, they can relate to that point. Companies have way too many projects. I think if there's a core skill for leaders in current times is focus and prioritization, knowing what is the big bet. And unfortunately it's just very hard to see when you see more projects than employees. And like you're saying how can they do their day to day job plus three, four time projects? That's where people get overwhelmed. I am sure that the big reset is linked to this. So many projects plus day to day activities, it's just stressing everybody out. And I think that when you work with companies where the priorities are clear, where people know these are our top three, there's top five and we know where we're going, this is the focus. That's where I think executives need to work on really making the tough decisions.

Interviewer (Alison Beard) (16:38)

What are some best practices for putting project teams together?

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (16:42)

Well, Alison, the formula for engagement is super simple. So the most engaged people in a project, you know which one is it? Volunteers. Let me put you an example. Maybe in HBR you are launching a new project. Why don't you ask who wants to join?

Interviewer (Alison Beard) (17:02)

Makes sense. It's so simple, but it makes so.

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (17:05)

Much sense because there's different things that happen here. First, if nobody wants to volunteer in the project, that project is terrible. Don't start it. Don't start it. Because it's just people are going to be forced to do it. So ask for volunteers, nobody shows up, don't start it. You don't need a business case of three months hiring consultants to make you. Yes, this is if nobody jumps on it, terrible. Don't even start it. It's just a five minutes test and you save three months of work. Second, if the project talks about business case, very few people get excited. Yeah. Who wants to work in a project that delivers 10% return on investment? Yes. Nobody. Right? 10, 15%. Nobody. Who wants to work in a project? Which is going to make a more sustainable world. Who's going to work in a project? Who's going to increase the customer experience and make customers more happy and deliver better value to a customer? Who wants to work in a project? Who's going to create our employees or make our employees more happy and make us a top company? Lots of people. So we have been, when we were talking about some of the issues, I think project management has been focused on talking about things that don't matter to most of the stakeholders. Like a business case. Business case is super important. It's the return on investment for sure. But that's not what engages people. The purpose engages people. When you have volunteers, they will dream about your project. They will do whatever they can to make it happen. And it can be because of the purpose. It can be because they like to work with you. They see a big opportunity to learn. Of course as a project leader you need to balance that. But as simple as that. Alison, who wants to volunteer?

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Interviewer (Alison Beard) (19:30)

How does the rise of project driven work relate to the gig economy? Is your sense that companies are hiring contractors and freelancers to get a lot of this done? Is it a balance or are they trying to handle most of it in house?

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (19:49)

I think when we started to hear about the gig economy, I think yes, one of the reasons was let's hire external resources to work in our projects because we're so rigid internally. Like I cannot free my from my 10,000 people. I cannot free 10 of them because they're so busy in day to day operations plus other projects. So it started like that. What I see now is that companies are finally taking the step of shifting resources to more project based work. Again, when I use the word project, I include agile teams, self directed, so very flat project driven teams. So that's happening to the point that I talk about it is that companies are canceling job descriptions. We all had job descriptions like Alison, most of the people listening, probably they had the job description which Tried to describe like where do you fit in this box, right? And just do those activities in this box in that operational field. That's your box. If you do it right in two, three years, you just go up in this structure. But many large companies and small companies are realizing that people don't work in boxes anymore and, and job descriptions are not needed anymore. It's a thing from that world driven by efficiency that together with the chief operating officer in these roles, I think they will not last very long. So I think the project driven world is now being embraced by organization where companies like Alibaba or other major players are really embracing this type of work, where they're looking for people who can have an idea or who can develop the idea, who can implement the project and who can run the idea or the product or the business and generate value for the companies. This is what I call end to end players or strategy implementation professionals. We want this type of end to end players who can work transversally in organizations.

Interviewer (Alison Beard) (21:46)

Are there lessons from your project management world that might be helpful for people doing more traditional ongoing work?

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (21:55)

I think project managers have been a bit not very proud about their work. They've been seeing like, okay, you are not very modern, agile teams are better or innovation people. So I think as a project manager you need to believe on what you're doing. Second, I think we need to take more ownership. I've been working 25 years in this space and managing large transformation M and A and I always was waiting for the sponsor. I know the sponsor was very important for my projects, but I was kind of waiting and hoping that the sponsor will learn and follow training on how to do it or make some times for my projects. And I've learned the lesson is that the first thing I do in my projects is I go to the sponsor and talk frankly with the sponsor. Listen, are you ready to put time on this project? It's very important. I need you and I'm happy to coach you, I'm happy to tell you how projects work and what do we need to focus on. But I need your time and I need a couple of hours per month, let's say an hour every two weeks. I need to talk to you, I need decisions from you. So I'm very much proactive because I know that role is very important and these people are, are really busy. So that's one of the biggest lesson learned was being proactive with my project. The second maybe is I talk to many project managers and we are very technical to the point of sometimes Difficult to understand, slash boring, right? Who wants to talk to a project manager? Come on. Do you have something more interesting? No, but that's more interesting than I.

Interviewer (Alison Beard) (23:36)

Imagine, than my sort of vision of.

Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (23:38)

What a project manager is, you see? And because I don't talk about project management, I don't talk about Gantt charts. I don't think that's my kitchen. That's what I do when I need to think about making a plan. But you are interested on the bigger picture. You are interested on how my ideas will contribute to our needs as an organization. So I do this exercise with project manager. Tell your partner what you do without mentioning the words projects and project management. And they say, oh, I'm struggling. What do I do? And then they start talking about the value they bring. And that's what people want to hear. So you cover this topic broadly in hbr, but talking, adapting, understanding the language of your stakeholders, using it, that's how you get their engagement. That's how you get their attention. That's how they appreciate your value. And that's the second big learning. When I did that, things changed for me. Senior leaders wanted to talk to me when I forced them to prioritize and kill projects. They were saying, antonio, we want another meeting with you. Was the CEO of the bank. Because I forced them to create value. I forced them to have strategic dialogue. So I would say, if you're listening, you're working in this space, move on into that space, move up on the value creation on your stakeholders, and things will change very fast.

Amanda Kersey (25:06)

That was Antonio Nieto Rodriguez speaking with HBR IdeaCast host Alison Beard. Antonio is the CEO of the consultancy, projects and company. His new book is Powered by Leading youg Organization in the Transformation Age. HBR on Leadership will be back next Wednesday with another handpicked conversation from Harvard Business Review. If this episode helped, you, share it with your friends and colleagues and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. While you're there, consider leaving us a review. And when you're ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books and videos with the world's top business and management experts, find it all@hbr.org this episode was produced by Mary Dew and me. Amanda Kersey. On Leadership's team includes Maureen Hoch, Rob Eckhart, Erica Trexler, Ramsey Kabaz, Anne Bartholomew and Nicole Smith. Music is by Coma Media.

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