Charles Villanyi Bokor
Leading Enormous and Complex Projects
Presentation Synopsis: In the last two decades, the size of some projects grew and exceeded all upper bounds. These enormous and complex projects (programs) have unmanageably large number of: functions and resulting lines of code; development teams comprised of people with different skills; stakeholders; different and changing requirements that have corresponding outputs; cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take many years to develop and deploy. They impact the organization in such a fundamental way that most operational people resist them. We will call these totally overwhelming, all consuming, centers of the organization’s focus, Black Hole Projects (BHP) [3- Villanyi Bokor, 2017] because they are analogous to the most exciting concept in the universe.
Developing BHPs with a standard development methodology that is focused on producing outputs that are based on requested requirements, under a governance structure that is slow and mostly administrative, has proven to result in outcomes that are less successful than desired. BHPs take significantly longer, than planned in the initial project schedule, cost more than initially estimated and do not deliver the critical success criteria of the vision set at the start. “According to a 2013 Strategy&/Katzenbach Center survey of global senior executives… the success rate of major change initiatives [BHPs] is only 54 percent”. [A- Katzenbach, 2014] While according to this, only 54% of the BHPs deliver their expected outcome, based on empirical evidence, only the exceptional BHP is successful, often due to luck.
In short, most organizations do not know how to develop enormously large and complex systems, but as they think they know, they attempt them and hence fail them by design. The worldwide cost of failing very, very large projects is between $3 and $6.2 trillion per year. This is unconscionable.
The most significant cause of such poor results (we suspect) includes: our tolerance for even smart people, to do stupid things; the (enormously large) size, resulting complexity and long development time of the project; inadequate pre-development problem and business requirements definition; an output focused requirements management process; and a project management plan that overlooks the organizational capacity (due to the portfolio of projects already underway) and capability (limited by the available skill sets) to undertake such projects. In other words, we fail projects by using a methodology that was not designed for BHPs, in its standard (i.e. not unique to the organization and the project) form, and developing under a project governance structure that does not support the project’s needs.
As BHPs are built to enable a new paradigm, and as projects’ probability of success varies inversely with their size, we need to limit projects’ non-vital functionality hence, reduce their size, complexity and length of time used to develop them, and assemble them out of sub-projects rather than subdividing them into sub-projects. We must use a customized, unique and iterative BHP development methodology, project specific governance structure, empower and responsibilize Business Analysts and replace the Project Manager with a Project Leader.
Speaker’s Bio: Charles Villanyi Bokor, is a Strategic Management Consultant focused on Transforming Business Processes, Leading [the Recovery of Problem] Projects, Strategic Planning, Education, and Leading to Better Decisions. Charles works mostly in Ottawa but has worked in Florida, Wales, Malaysia, Sweden and Australia.
Charles was the Program Director of the Professional Corporate Performance Management Certificate Program at Sprott, U. of Carleton, where he taught Problem Project Management, Logic in Business Decisions and Total Cost of Services. He has also taught at U. de Montréal, U. de Chicoutimi, Lasalle College, was the speaker on several occasions and published several White Papers.
Charles has a Diploma in Management from McGill U., an Executive Development Certificate, a M.Sc. Mathematics from U. de Grenoble and one from U. de Montréal and a B. Sc. Mathematics from Sir George Williams U.. He was Certified Management Consultant (CMC), ITIL Certified, was Governor for International Council for Computer Communications (ICCC), Member, Business Process Management Professionals BPM Institute and Member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Leading Enormous and Complex Projects
Presentation Synopsis: In the last two decades, the size of some projects grew and exceeded all upper bounds. These enormous and complex projects (programs) have unmanageably large number of: functions and resulting lines of code; development teams comprised of people with different skills; stakeholders; different and changing requirements that have corresponding outputs; cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take many years to develop and deploy. They impact the organization in such a fundamental way that most operational people resist them. We will call these totally overwhelming, all consuming, centers of the organization’s focus, Black Hole Projects (BHP) [3- Villanyi Bokor, 2017] because they are analogous to the most exciting concept in the universe.
Developing BHPs with a standard development methodology that is focused on producing outputs that are based on requested requirements, under a governance structure that is slow and mostly administrative, has proven to result in outcomes that are less successful than desired. BHPs take significantly longer, than planned in the initial project schedule, cost more than initially estimated and do not deliver the critical success criteria of the vision set at the start. “According to a 2013 Strategy&/Katzenbach Center survey of global senior executives… the success rate of major change initiatives [BHPs] is only 54 percent”. [A- Katzenbach, 2014] While according to this, only 54% of the BHPs deliver their expected outcome, based on empirical evidence, only the exceptional BHP is successful, often due to luck.
In short, most organizations do not know how to develop enormously large and complex systems, but as they think they know, they attempt them and hence fail them by design. The worldwide cost of failing very, very large projects is between $3 and $6.2 trillion per year. This is unconscionable.
The most significant cause of such poor results (we suspect) includes: our tolerance for even smart people, to do stupid things; the (enormously large) size, resulting complexity and long development time of the project; inadequate pre-development problem and business requirements definition; an output focused requirements management process; and a project management plan that overlooks the organizational capacity (due to the portfolio of projects already underway) and capability (limited by the available skill sets) to undertake such projects. In other words, we fail projects by using a methodology that was not designed for BHPs, in its standard (i.e. not unique to the organization and the project) form, and developing under a project governance structure that does not support the project’s needs.
As BHPs are built to enable a new paradigm, and as projects’ probability of success varies inversely with their size, we need to limit projects’ non-vital functionality hence, reduce their size, complexity and length of time used to develop them, and assemble them out of sub-projects rather than subdividing them into sub-projects. We must use a customized, unique and iterative BHP development methodology, project specific governance structure, empower and responsibilize Business Analysts and replace the Project Manager with a Project Leader.
Speaker’s Bio: Charles Villanyi Bokor, is a Strategic Management Consultant focused on Transforming Business Processes, Leading [the Recovery of Problem] Projects, Strategic Planning, Education, and Leading to Better Decisions. Charles works mostly in Ottawa but has worked in Florida, Wales, Malaysia, Sweden and Australia.
Charles was the Program Director of the Professional Corporate Performance Management Certificate Program at Sprott, U. of Carleton, where he taught Problem Project Management, Logic in Business Decisions and Total Cost of Services. He has also taught at U. de Montréal, U. de Chicoutimi, Lasalle College, was the speaker on several occasions and published several White Papers.
Charles has a Diploma in Management from McGill U., an Executive Development Certificate, a M.Sc. Mathematics from U. de Grenoble and one from U. de Montréal and a B. Sc. Mathematics from Sir George Williams U.. He was Certified Management Consultant (CMC), ITIL Certified, was Governor for International Council for Computer Communications (ICCC), Member, Business Process Management Professionals BPM Institute and Member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
