Welcome back for a very interesting interview. In these units, we discussed about the topic of overbudget and delay. And we learned that many major projects end up late and overbudget, and we briefly discussed the reasons and what we can do about it. This week, we are very lucky to have with us an expert: she's very experienced in this topic. So, we have Ms Lorraine. Thank you Lorraine for coming today, we really appreciate your time and taking your time out of your busy schedule to come here and share your experience with our students. Firstly, I would like to ask you to introduce yourself and what you do in your professional life. Thank you very much. My name is Lorraine McDermott. I'm a project manager. I've been formally in the role for two and a half years now, but I managed my very first project over 10 years ago now: which was my PhD, and I thoroughly love the role. I think as a researcher that has gone from doing, kind of, material science and things like that, never quite suited me and project management - and actually the career found me rather than I found project management - was exactly fitting for the person that I am. Good. So, you have a technical background I understand that comes from the nuclear science. You got a PhD that is very technical and later you became a project manager. How did the change happen? Well, it happened very organically in the organisations that I worked for. So, within [within] that particular industry, having a technical background gives you real insight into not only what things people are doing, but how difficult they are and how technically complex the challenges are. And I found that my strengths were in organising, prioritisation of key tasks and also in engagement and customer relations. So, as a result of that, through the roles that I had in industry, I found myself doing more and more project management work and less technical. So, Lorraine I understand that in your daily life, you are in a position where you have to manage major projects. And I was wondering, how do you manage the performance of projects in your sector? Well, there's always, kind of, the three key elements: which is time, cost and quality. But if you take those a bit further and unpack what they actually mean, you start to pull out the real metrics of project performance. So, in terms of cost, for me, it is quite key: what is the value to the customer? If they're paying a certain amount of money for a key activity to be done or something to be developed, what is their real value to them? What is the real priority? And from that, you get a far better idea about why the project has been funded, what the customer is really wanting. That is, kind of, closely linked with the quality aspects. Sometimes, projects exist because of a problem or an issue that needs to be resolved. Sometimes, a project exists in terms of a key technical resource or independence of a person, is quite key to know what those quality measures are and to ensure that you deliver the right thing for the customer. And then, time. Depending on the project, I think time is one of the strongest allies you will have. It can make certain tasks a priority, it can make your projects a priority. And sometimes, if you're delivering lots of packages of work for a customer, they will have a preference about which is the priority project: which projects can be given more time. So, I'm not afraid to freeze a project if something has happened, or we've had to change control, or, kind of, a resource has changed, or a contractor or some materials aren't available, The best way to maintain the project control is to freeze the projects and cease all activities until you have agreed what should be done next with your customer and then to restart it. So, time, I think is a really strong part of a project. If you also bring the customer, make them informed about changes to delivery in regards to time. It could be that you can't deliver on a particular time scale that suits the customer so they actually close the project down. I'm not afraid of basically doing that. I'm not afraid of saying that if the customer isn't going to be happy, maybe we should stop this project now, allow the customer to re-evaluate the situation now that they're more informed and potentially restart it at a later date or take a different direction altogether. Okay. So, the customer is truly a key stakeholder in your sector, in your daily job. In our units, we learned that most of major projects are delivered over budget and late. I was wondering, what's your experience with this? In the sector that I work in, projects unfortunately, are about three times longer than expected and about three times over budget. It's in relation to the complex and challenging environments that I actually work in, so it's, kind of, unfortunate that it does happen. And for me, I also work in the mid technology readiness levels of science. So, if you work from, which I typically take things from a concept so you have an idea, and you need to actually make it a reality and deliver it. And quite often through that process of taking somebody's very wonderful idea, there will be things that are unknown within there and changes that have to be made to the design, and they can be significant design changes that will impact on that delivery. And as a result of that, it's kind of, well, change control again, is your biggest element there in terms of the customer buy-in but as a result of the concept and the design changing, that's where you get the impact on time and the impact on budget. It's quite key for me that you engage with the customer and that they are bought in and understand the impacts of those changes, and then, kind of, as a partnership that they then understand why it's taken longer, why it's cost more money, and again, if it's something that they don't want to pursue any further, that's fine as well. Often, things that are taken as a concept idea look fantastic on paper, when it comes to doing the reality, it's just not the same: and I think when we budget for projects and when we do our estimates, we obviously need to have risk in there, but if we are doing a construction activity or decommission activity, we need to be taking those things into account more. Okay. You told us that complexity is a key aspect in your job and in your sector, but there are many people working in your sector that are experienced people, engineers, intelligent people, and they know that there is complexity. So, why [does] complexity comeback as almost an unexpected element? Why is it not factored in since the beginning? It's your sector, you know your sector. I think it's just the unknowns that are there. So, if we have a task to decommission some material, and we actually start to analyse it, and it becomes very clear that some assumptions were made very early on in terms of the chemical, the materials, the complexes that are there, when we realise that that may not be the case, and the situation is significantly different, often in my industry, its potentially more hazardous. So you have the issues there about additional safety constraints. The prioritisation then in terms of how quickly we need to decommission it, make the area safe, and also then the customer buy-in. And sometimes, waiting a little bit longer can actually be an advantage to you. Very recently, I worked on a project where the process that we could apply was expensive. And science moves on at an incredible rate, and the research continued into this area, and now, there is a new option on the table, which costs a third of what the previous option did. So, there were some times when actually engaging with the customer and telling them that we can do that task, but if we use the process we currently have available to us, it will cost this amount of money, the customer says I haven't got that, so we don't do it. And then you can go back two, three years later as the research has progressed, and say, "Well, we've done some more research and we now have another option on the table, which costs a third of what the previous one did." Okay. That's very interesting. Connected to this topic, there is the topic of scope management, scope change. I understand that this is very important in your sector. So, could you please elaborate a bit more on the scope management, and scope change, please? Change control is the biggest tool. When you have a project and it starts, and you discuss your customer's requirements and their priorities, as soon as you realise that there is a significant change to their kind of scope, you to put formally, in writing, what that is, and what the options are, so the customer can consider them and buy-in to those changes. So almost like hitting somebody with an unexpected bill: no one's going to like you for that, and also you could lose future business as well. And for project management as well, it's the one time where you really get, so, or you should write down all of your options on the table, and you should evaluate what could be done for the customer. Okay. I'm very happy to listen that scope management is important. We are going to have a big part of one unit on scope management in our module. So, I'm very happy to hear that it is relevant in your sector. So, in your daily life, you are a project manager. And as a project manager, you deal with budgets. What's the freedom of the project manager to identify the budget of a project? Well, it depends on your involvement from the start of the project. So, in some cases, I am involved at the start of the proposal side of things, where we are putting an offering forward to the customer. So then, I would look at the prioritisation of what I think needs to be delivered, the resource that's available, and the materials, the facilities that's available, and then the project management and the team, and the supporting requirements that are needed within a project. And it depends on your organisation. Within my organisation, I have quite a lot of freedom to put forward what I think is a realistic budget to deliver the project. And that's based on years of experience of building complex rigs, which are kind of pilot scale experiments, and also working with the team for a long time as well. So I know the certain key technical leads, can do things very efficiently, very quickly. Whereas, if we have younger technology, so graduates, they may need more time. So, it should be done in partnership with the technical lead in the team that you have in-house, so that are all bought-in to that as well. And also, you, kind of, take it as an approach to the deliverables for the customer. So, if the deliverable is to build a capability, you will have a lead engineer: So, it's very key that they have reviewed your... your budget, your estimate, your risk, and that they agree that it's realistic. If you're delivering a report from an expert, again, they would then need to review and make sure that what you've put together is correct. And so, I think it's taken on if you're a project manager, and you have over two years' experience in the job, and you've had over two years' experience in the company that you work for, its seen on you often to take the lead in that environment because you're the person that's held accountable to those budgets. And if you don't meet your budgets, you have to explain why. For me, I think it's very key to get involved early on, and to understand why you have assigned things to key people, when things should be delivered, and where your critical path is as well. If you are delivering a construction job, and for me, you'll find electrical and maybe design changes will be your critical parts often in those roles. Sometimes, aswell with electrical installations, they can take longer than expected and cost significantly more. So, again, you need to think about your risk, and your budget, and your time there. I don't make them open-ended because I don't think it's realistic. Again, using time as your ally rather than against you. I like to get engagement from the engineers, get buy-in, and then really hold them accountable as well as myself, to the budgets that were agreed. Thank you for the very comprehensive answer. I really like the idea that you pointed out about the project manager as a point of responsibility and accountability. And this is a topic we took up this topic in our first units, and I really like also the reference to the importance of managing risk. We say that managing projects is mostly about managing risk, and the known and unknown. And we are going to discuss these later in the units. So I'm very happy to see your interview as a bridge between all these topics. Based on your experience, what's the biggest challenge managing a major project? I think it's the unknowns within the concept. And the things that, sometimes, you come to a project, and you will have no experience of that particular construction activity or that scientific piece of research. So within that, is your biggest risk. Because you are unfamiliar with the topic, you may be unfamiliar with your team, and you may also be unfamiliar with the customer. And those are kind of my biggest risks as a project manager. So, when I start a project, so when I'm starting to pull together a proposal, I like to ask all of, you know, the basic questions because there is probably the detail that you may be missing. So, such as your availability of somebody. If they're going to take the lead on a project, how available are they? Because it could be that you might have to take lead in key customer engagement activities. And then also sometimes, I think one of the major factors is the budget to what the customer actually wants. Sometimes I feel that I might not be in a position as a project manager to say, we could not...we term no bid situation. So, if we see an opportunity, and we have the skills and capabilities to deliver that opportunity, but what the customer has put a value on that that isn't aligned to the value that we think it should be worth, and that can be quite a difficult situation to manage because your company may wish, for lots of reasons, to pursue that work. So, it could be for reputational, it could be academic impact, it could be alignment to capabilities, and developments within your company. So, there could be lots of reasons why you pursue a piece of work but it does put you in a high risk situation because you may have undersold yourself because you had other drivers for pursuing that piece of work, which can lead you into quite a complex situation in terms of delivering a project and managing the customer's expectations. So, I think the strongest thing for me there is to say, if you don't feel that the budget matches the kind of the project aims and the deliverables, you speak up, and say to the managers internally that you work for, straight away, do you think this is something that you maybe shouldn't pursue? Or you should maybe write a letter of kind of comments and feedback to the customer and things like that. And sometimes as well, you could have just simply missed the point. In some opportunities, when it actually comes to the start of the project and you engage with the customer from what you saw in terms of what they would like, which is their tender, and their opportunity that you've pursued, it could be you start the kickoff meeting and you've gone down the wrong way entirely. This has happened to me before, where we started a project and what the customer has wanted is something completely different from what they advertised as their opportunity. And one of the things here is, understanding your contractual requirements. Again, the project manager sees everything from the start of the opportunity right the way through to the delivery. So, you need to understand legally and contractually what you have agreed to do. One of the things that customers do, is they link in with the resource that has been linked to a project, and if that resource is named in the contract, often when you start a project, if they have chosen you to deliver the piece of work for them, you make your idea or suggestion for that delivery may be not what the customer wanted, but the customer may have really liked your team. And may think that you have the right skills internally to deliver this project for them. Right there, is where you will go into a major change control situation and then you need to be brave enough to halt the project, to reassign and maybe start from scratch, right back at the beginning in terms of what you are delivering and why. Thank you very much for this answer. That is very much aligned to what we are discussing in our module. In our module, we discussed that there is asymmetry of information between the customer and the company that is making the work. The customer is asking someone to make the work, because they cannot do it by itself, otherwise they will do by itself. So, there is an asymmetry of information that creates a dichotomy that somehow can lead later to conflict if it's not carefully managed. And I really like the idea of your emphasis on the beginning of the project. We saw in our module that this is where you have the lowest cost for the scope change because you have a piece of paper only, you have nobody working on it, so, everything is just on paper, and in the early phase of the project is where you can create most of the value in your project: the value for your customer because you have less constraint than later when you already did some construction, you already have the design and the cost and the change are achieved with much cost. So, I'm very happy for your answer. Thank you. And so, we said at the beginning that you have a technical background. You've got a PhD in a materials, I think, but in a very short time, you managed to get an amazing career in your sector as a project manager, particularly because your sector is a male dominated sector: you did so well. So, what would be your top suggestions for someone willing to have a career in project management like you did? I think because I came from a research background, and project management found me and I have, since becoming a project manager, actually gone back and got project management qualifications. For me, I think the biggest advice I could give somebody is if you are starting this career, you would probably come in a junior role. Find within your organisation the most respected project manager and ask them to mentor you and to provide you some tutoring, and really shadow them in their role because, from that person, you will pick up their, kind of, a toolkit of options and problem-solving techniques in terms of the role that they do. So, it's about that kind of experience and learning from others. Within my organisation, I work very closely with senior project managers to, kind of, engage with them in terms of how they are solving their problems and how they're approaching it and put that in terms of my selection of options. Learning from others who've been in the role longer than I have, is a real key part of my development and I consider myself a great problem-solver. So, I'm always looking for how other people have approached a situation differently to me. How they resolved the situation and what were the positives and negatives of the situation, because I think it's one of my biggest strengths and it's something that I'm constantly trying to develop. So, it would be to see somebody in the role that you think is obviously really good at what they do, you've heard feedback from others that they're excellent in that role, and ask them to mentor you and ask if you can shadow them. I think it takes about, from not knowing anything about project management, I think it takes about two years to really understand all of the tools available to you. And often in project management as well, those people who are considered within an organisation experts, often are delivering complex projects but also projects where things haven't gone well and that's where you really learn how to be a really good project manager. About 50 percent of my time is on complex projects or projects where things haven't worked out and have gone wrong and often the budget is spent and you need to recover. So, in distressed projects where recovery is happening, that's where you really do learn the impacts and the role and how to deliver it. And it's also where you learn the lessons of starting off right and doing it well first time, because once you've felt the pain and suffering of having to fix a situation when the budget is spent, the customer is unhappy, things haven't been delivered, when you then start a new project, all of those key things we talked about, kickoff meetings, change control, engagement with all parties, getting buying from everybody across your organisation, really do matter because you've seen what happens when things aren't managed effectively. Thank you. I think that the idea to be mentored by someone with more expertise is great advice. So, thank you for this advice. And we are now at the end of our interview. So, thank you very much for your time today. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your experience with me and my students. And we are surely looking forward to having you again. So, thank you for your time. Thank you very much.
