The seven habits of highly effective projects
“In God we trust. All others must bring data.”
- W. Edwards Deming
When we start working with potential clients at Kraken we often have a business case to build to help understand the value of engineering information to the whole team. Data is abundant, ubiquitous and far more valuable than ever before yet it can still be a real effort to do it well.
Getting good engineering information for any project is hard, fact, if it was easy then the amount of projects that fail wouldn’t be so stark and the costs of poor information wouldn’t be so staggering. Information is a hard sell though, everyone probably gets that poor information is bad for your project but it doesn’t have a handy bottom line associated with it and people just don’t understand what the consequences actually are. If you can get all 7 of the following ducks in a row then you’ve got a fighting chance at least of getting good data to run your plant safely, efficiently and legally.
- Start with the BHAG.
The what now I hear you say? BHAG stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal, the whole point of the BHAG is that it’s out of reach but not out of sight, if you can reach out and meet the goal then it’s not really very audacious now is it? It also shouldn’t be so ambitious that it’s out of reach. The point is that it should be abundantly clear what you are setting out to achieve and you need to be ambitious about it. Start with the end in mind as the saying goes, what’s your vision and scope for your project. So ask yourself what does not just good look like but what does *really* good look like for your information and then make that your mission.
2. Get your leaders on board
Nothing guarantees mission failure more than a lack of alignment in a senior leadership team. Let’s face it can be a hard sell to get your leadership to spend money on something that they maybe don’t “get”. You need to make them get it. The good news is that their is a compelling narrative around information management. The catchiest way I’ve ever heard it described is that it has both “blood and treasure”. Accidents caused by poor information are potential company killers, they do happen and better information means accidents are less likely to happen so we’ve got the blood. As for the treasure, in a recent paper about information handover 90% of respondents suffered unexpected costs at information handover stage. That’s plenty of treasure for you to save. There’s a third angle too, one of reduced risk, good information cuts all sorts of risk, overruns in time and budget as well as safety.
3.Track your benefits
As outlined above there is a compelling business case for good information management so build it and track against it. One frustration about good information management is that when you get it right no one will think you’ve done anything at all. What are the benefits you are trying to bring and how can you measure that. Once you’ve got that in place then start to show these in your reporting so that when things are going well they know why you are there.
4.Break it down
You’ve got a vision and you’ve outlined the benefits and now you need to break it down into detailed requirements that deliver to this end state. What is the expectation of your supply chain for example, is it clear what you’re expecting them to deliver from an information perspective? This is the point where things like software choices and class libraries should be on your mind. The devil really is in the detail by the way but it’s easy to get lost in the weeds too early.
5.Tell Everyone
This step is crucial in my opinion, I really can’t stress this enough. Good information is a joint effort, a true collaboration. The number of operators who have the attitude that information is a contractor’s problem still shocks me. This is more than a road map this is making sure that there is an understanding of what needs doing, when and by who. People often get hung up on contract language, which is important make no mistake but does everyone understand the spirit of what you are asking as well as the words. If you are relying on contract boilerplate then I hate to break it to you, you’re probably not going to get what you need and you may end up with a situation, at best, of malicious compliance.
6. Plan the work, work the plan
This is one of those banal truisms that management consultants love to wheel out. There is a point here though, with the last three steps you’ve effectively planned your work now how do you work that plan? This boils down basically resources, do you have the right people in the right places and enough of them. You do? Great, now are they all going about it the same way? (you remember we had to tell everyone in step 5 don’t you?).
7. Data is the new Oil
Your information is valuable, its an asset like any other and if it is the new oil, how do you refine it to get the most value? Equally as importantly how do you stop it blowing up in your face? What policies, procedures and legislation are in place and how does the way this is managed affect your ability to make decisions. How do you make sure information is available to people who need it. Your governance needs to be both fair and transparent.
