1 00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:13,160 Welcome to the Everyday PM Podcast, the podcast where we 2 00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:16,079 discuss project management principles for your everyday 3 00:00:16,079 --> 00:00:18,320 life. My name is Anne Campia, I'm the 4 00:00:18,320 --> 00:00:21,560 host and founder of The Everyday PM, and I'm excited to connect 5 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:25,480 with all of you about Lost in Translation, Communications, 6 00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:28,240 Pitfalls and Solutions from The Big Dig. 7 00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:32,880 I have with us a regular guest actually, that some of you may 8 00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:38,160 be familiar with Donna Gregorio, who has graced our podcast in 9 00:00:38,160 --> 00:00:40,760 the past talking about various topics, project management 10 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:42,960 related. So Donna, I'm so excited to 11 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:45,440 welcome you back to the podcast. You actually came to me with 12 00:00:45,440 --> 00:00:48,160 this topic and it's a very interesting topic and we'll get 13 00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:50,800 into that in just a minute. But for folks who haven't met 14 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:53,280 you through some of the other episodes you've guested on, 15 00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:55,960 please take a brief moment to introduce yourself to the 16 00:00:55,960 --> 00:00:57,960 audience. All right, great. 17 00:00:57,960 --> 00:00:59,560 Well, Ian, it's a pleasure to be back. 18 00:00:59,560 --> 00:01:03,040 Thanks so much for having me. My name is Donna Gregorio. 19 00:01:03,040 --> 00:01:07,760 I am an experienced IT department head and a seasoned 20 00:01:07,760 --> 00:01:11,560 project manager, project manager, published author on the 21 00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:14,800 topic. Right now I'm an adjunct adjunct 22 00:01:14,800 --> 00:01:17,160 professor teaching project management at Northeastern 23 00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:19,920 University. And I'm also the vice president 24 00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:24,240 of professional development at the PMI Mass Bay chapter. 25 00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:27,400 So all kinds of project management related activities 26 00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:32,120 going on and, and I'm happy to be here to talk about this, this 27 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:35,360 new topic that I've recently been researching that's really 28 00:01:35,520 --> 00:01:37,920 been rather interesting for me to learn about. 29 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:40,080 Me too, me too. I'm super excited. 30 00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:42,480 I do know about this project, which we'll get into in just a 31 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:44,960 second. But what I will highlight is 32 00:01:45,080 --> 00:01:48,320 Donna, you are like my life Peg, in that I don't know if you ever 33 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:50,920 heard that term life Peg, but you're no, I haven't. 34 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:53,040 OK. Your professional journey is 35 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:54,680 something that I would want to emulate. 36 00:01:54,680 --> 00:01:56,840 And I think I've told you that time and time again, the times 37 00:01:56,840 --> 00:02:00,160 that we have gotten to meet is that it feels like you've got 38 00:02:00,160 --> 00:02:04,240 the career a few steps ahead of me that I kind of eventually 39 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:06,840 want to get into myself. And so for the years of 40 00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:09,240 experience you've spent in project management and 41 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:13,120 technology, as well as the years that you've spent in the project 42 00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:15,680 management community, I just want to commend you and thank 43 00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:18,360 you again for taking time to talk to our audience today. 44 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:23,320 So let's dig in to the Big Dig, no pun, maybe pun intended here, 45 00:02:23,600 --> 00:02:25,760 but let's start with what's the Big Dig. 46 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:30,000 Now I know what it is just because it's been used countless 47 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:34,640 times in my project management upbringing as a example of a 48 00:02:34,640 --> 00:02:37,480 project that we can use as a use case. 49 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:41,000 But why don't you explain to our audience what the Big Dig is? 50 00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:42,720 Yes. So thanks. 51 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:47,320 I I think that using the Big Dig as a backdrop for this 52 00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:52,320 discussion on project management techniques and modern project 53 00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:55,440 management techniques is a great way for us to really see what 54 00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:59,960 can happen, both positive and negative, if we don't succeed. 55 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:01,960 And that's really why we're here. 56 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:05,160 We really want to be irreplaceable as project 57 00:03:05,160 --> 00:03:07,920 managers. And I believe that the Big Dig 58 00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:12,360 did have some successes, but experienced A tremendous number 59 00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:15,640 of failures as well. So this is not intended to be a 60 00:03:15,640 --> 00:03:18,920 history lesson. It's really a lens to really see 61 00:03:18,920 --> 00:03:22,320 the power of good project management and the danger of 62 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:25,200 getting it wrong. So the Big Dig was the most 63 00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,600 complex and controversial infrastructure project in U.S. 64 00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:31,840 history. There was a Central Artery that 65 00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:37,160 and a elevated Hwy. that ran through Boston back in the 66 00:03:37,160 --> 00:03:41,280 1950s. It was built and in the 1990s 67 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:44,520 there was a decision that it needed to either be upgraded or, 68 00:03:44,760 --> 00:03:47,960 or or replaced with a series of tunnels and bridges. 69 00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:50,000 And that's in fact what the Big Dig was. 70 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:55,080 And the idea to to get rid of that central artery that ran 71 00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:57,920 right through the middle of Boston and really was such an 72 00:03:57,920 --> 00:04:00,880 eyesore. I again, I remember it being 73 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:06,400 born and raised in Boston, started in 1991, ended in 2006. 74 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:12,000 So it was a 15 year project that cost $14.8 billion. 75 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:15,560 That's a huge number. The project was seven years late 76 00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:21,200 and $12 billion over budget. So you can see the schedule and 77 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:25,800 the and the cost factors and the public was very upset about it 78 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,200 at the time because there were some significant failures. 79 00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:33,680 In particular, a woman died going through the through one of 80 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:36,320 the tunnels when the ceiling panel collapsed on her car. 81 00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:39,600 And certainly there was significant project 82 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:42,000 mismanagement that came out around that time. 83 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:46,280 But the good part that came from it was that there is now, for 84 00:04:46,280 --> 00:04:49,480 those of you who are familiar with Boston, the Rose Kennedy 85 00:04:49,480 --> 00:04:53,320 Greenway is a beautiful replacement for the space that 86 00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:56,720 was taken up by the Central Artery and it really did 87 00:04:56,720 --> 00:05:01,240 transform the Boston cityscape. The Zakim Bridge is also part of 88 00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:06,080 the Big Dig, beautiful bridge that is really iconic now in the 89 00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:09,120 Boston landscape that was never there before. 90 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:13,680 So lots of good things came about the Seaport, South Boston, 91 00:05:13,880 --> 00:05:18,280 areas of the city that were never even considered to be part 92 00:05:18,280 --> 00:05:21,880 of the vibrant city that Boston was, because it really broke 93 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:24,080 that Central Artery, broke the city in half. 94 00:05:24,680 --> 00:05:29,120 So we're here really today to talk about what went wrong and 95 00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:32,600 really, was the project a failure or a success or, or was 96 00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:35,120 it both? I, I don't really know, but I 97 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:38,720 think that with the backdrop of the Big Dig, we could talk about 98 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:42,000 a lot of these positive things that we could have done had we 99 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:45,600 been in their shoes. And I want to put a little 100 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:49,520 personal touch on this. I listened to a podcast recently 101 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:52,600 that really got me revved up about the Big Dig. 102 00:05:52,840 --> 00:05:55,440 And for those of you who are podcast listeners, check out 103 00:05:55,840 --> 00:06:00,240 WGBH was it, which is a local TV station in Boston that created 104 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:02,920 this podcast. It's a six episode podcast all 105 00:06:02,920 --> 00:06:06,440 about the Big Dig and very interesting, very, very well 106 00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:09,920 done and really jazzed me up about the whole topic. 107 00:06:09,920 --> 00:06:13,280 And that's why I'm here today. I love, I love this for so many 108 00:06:13,280 --> 00:06:15,320 reasons. I love that we're going to give 109 00:06:15,320 --> 00:06:18,800 our audience an opportunity to think through whether or not 110 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:20,960 this was a success or failure as well. 111 00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:24,280 And just to ground us before I get to my first question with 112 00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:26,640 you, Donna, it's interesting that that you called out right 113 00:06:26,640 --> 00:06:30,520 at the beginning, it was over budget and it was overtime. 114 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:34,920 And so traditional project management foundational thinking 115 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:38,480 is that we're built around, but the Iron Triangle, right of are 116 00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:42,680 we on time? Are we on cost and of quality or 117 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:45,440 resources, whichever 1 you want to swap out for that third 118 00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:50,960 element here. And as we get into 2025, the 119 00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:56,280 idea of how project management value is assessed now has 120 00:06:56,280 --> 00:06:58,440 evolved as well. And I think it's important to 121 00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:00,960 call that out for project managers and those that aren't 122 00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:05,520 close to the profession to understand there's metrics that 123 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:08,160 we have to be accountable to in this position. 124 00:07:08,480 --> 00:07:11,520 And I think during that time frame, obviously things like 125 00:07:11,520 --> 00:07:16,920 cost, things like time are all going to spin your project out a 126 00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:21,680 side of that scope outside of that delivery and that value. 127 00:07:22,280 --> 00:07:26,280 But now bringing this conversation into this light, 128 00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:29,400 into this current environment where Project Management 129 00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:33,440 Institute Institute has come out and said value is realized a 130 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:36,600 different way now. It's not necessarily just all of 131 00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:39,600 the iron triangle elements. There's a little bit more around 132 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:42,680 how that value comes back to the organization. 133 00:07:43,080 --> 00:07:45,840 I think it's interesting to consider what you're about to 134 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:49,120 present to us today in the context of what were we being 135 00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:53,160 measured upon as project managers back then versus how do 136 00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:57,560 we see value and the benefit realization of projects in 137 00:07:57,560 --> 00:08:01,160 today's landscape and how does the Big Dig fit into that? 138 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:04,920 So all of that to say, I think my first question to you is 139 00:08:04,920 --> 00:08:07,600 around, I think we want to talk about what the potential 140 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:11,080 pitfalls are of the project. So if you could walk us through 141 00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:14,440 the most critical communication failures that occurred during 142 00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:17,840 the project and how they specifically contributed to the 143 00:08:17,840 --> 00:08:23,720 delays and cost overruns? So I think there was a major 144 00:08:23,880 --> 00:08:27,400 player in this, and that was the Bechtel Parsons Brinkerhoff 145 00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:33,520 organization that was contracted to run the project, and they 146 00:08:33,520 --> 00:08:35,760 were the project managers. They did not have a lot of 147 00:08:35,760 --> 00:08:38,880 oversight by the government entities in Massachusetts at the 148 00:08:38,880 --> 00:08:42,240 time, the Mass Turnpike Authority and the Mass Highway 149 00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:45,440 that were really running this project and coordinating with 150 00:08:45,440 --> 00:08:48,320 the federal government to get funding for this project. 151 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:51,840 So basically they got the funding and then they handed it 152 00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:55,960 off to Bechtel Parsons, Brinkerhoff to run the project. 153 00:08:56,200 --> 00:08:58,480 And they, they kept their fingers crossed and hoped that 154 00:08:58,480 --> 00:09:03,880 all would go well. Many times the, the, the various 155 00:09:03,880 --> 00:09:07,440 government entities would present about the project and 156 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:10,200 they'd say, oh, everything's great and we're on schedule and 157 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:12,960 this project is going to cost us X amount of money, which was 158 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:14,760 always less than what it ended up costing. 159 00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:18,000 They're very positive and always, always trying to shine a 160 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:21,440 bright light on the project as being a great project for 161 00:09:21,440 --> 00:09:24,240 Boston. And at the same time, Bechtel 162 00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:27,120 was cycling project managers through every six months. 163 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:30,560 So they never had a consistent project manager running on the 164 00:09:30,560 --> 00:09:33,080 projects throughout. And, and we didn't find out 165 00:09:33,080 --> 00:09:36,720 about this until when there was some investigation done. 166 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:39,360 There was a lawsuit brought against Bechtel Process 167 00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:43,000 Brinkerhoff at the end of the project in 2006, because when 168 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:48,200 the woman died, someone had to be blamed and they turned to 169 00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:53,080 Bechtel and sued them not only for the ceiling tile falling on 170 00:09:53,080 --> 00:09:55,840 the car, but also there were tunnel leaks. 171 00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:58,920 Right after the tunnel opened, one of the tunnels opened, there 172 00:09:58,920 --> 00:10:03,680 was a major leak that there was a flood in the tunnel that that 173 00:10:03,680 --> 00:10:09,560 was caused by in incorrect and insufficient concrete that was 174 00:10:09,560 --> 00:10:13,440 poured to to form the tunnel. So they were sued for both of 175 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:18,040 those things and they settled for $458,000,000. 176 00:10:18,400 --> 00:10:21,240 So you can imagine how much money we're talking about. 177 00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:24,680 This is a huge project. As I said, billions of dollars 178 00:10:24,680 --> 00:10:30,240 were being spent, taxpayer money and for them to settle for 458, 179 00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:32,320 they didn't want to have to get dragged through any sort of 180 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:36,720 lawsuit that would expect audit and look at all the materials 181 00:10:36,720 --> 00:10:38,920 that they had put together. So they just settled. 182 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:44,120 But you know, really, why did this happen and why, why these 183 00:10:44,120 --> 00:10:47,200 problems occurred? So first of all, I think there 184 00:10:47,200 --> 00:10:50,000 was significantly poor stakeholder communication. 185 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:53,280 There were so many stakeholders involved, so complex, so many 186 00:10:53,280 --> 00:10:57,040 contractors, mass highway, mass Turnpike authority, government, 187 00:10:57,160 --> 00:11:00,600 the governor changed so many times throughout the time that 188 00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:04,120 this project was running, you know, and, and the governor was 189 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:05,600 very involved in what was happening. 190 00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:09,560 The reporting, I'm I mentioned the reporting, everything was 191 00:11:09,560 --> 00:11:12,920 always try to be positive and, and especially with the public 192 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:16,360 who was living this every every day, the construction right 193 00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:19,520 under their feet. There was minimal oversight. 194 00:11:19,520 --> 00:11:23,480 As I said, there were no, no performance metrics at all that 195 00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:26,120 were created and I don't think there was there was even a thing 196 00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:31,640 back then with the Institute of PMI, introduction of PMI and all 197 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:35,080 of the and people say, oh, we have to follow all these things. 198 00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:37,760 But you know, there's a reason why all these things are put in 199 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:41,120 place, metrics and objectives and key results and all that. 200 00:11:41,120 --> 00:11:44,120 So I think the objectives and key results are really the first 201 00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:46,160 key piece that we'll talk about today. 202 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:49,440 What could they have done in terms of that to make things 203 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:50,640 better? So that's number one. 204 00:11:50,880 --> 00:11:54,040 The second piece is when they had technical issues, they had 205 00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:57,800 problems resolving them largely because they didn't have a, a 206 00:11:57,920 --> 00:11:59,840 very good organizational structure. 207 00:11:59,840 --> 00:12:04,200 So there was no place, one place to go if there was a problem. 208 00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:06,560 Who do I, who do I talk to? Do I go to the governor? 209 00:12:06,800 --> 00:12:09,200 Do I go to the mass highway? Do I go to mass Turnpike or who 210 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:11,520 do I talk to? And, and, and there's 211 00:12:11,520 --> 00:12:14,360 construction engineers and there's inspectors that are out 212 00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:16,880 at the field. And so there's so many people 213 00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:19,960 involved, it's almost hard to get through all that red tape to 214 00:12:19,960 --> 00:12:23,680 figure out who to speak to. They also had inconsistent 215 00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:26,120 status reporting, again, saying, oh, yeah, everything's going 216 00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:27,680 well, when in reality, it wasn't. 217 00:12:28,040 --> 00:12:29,800 And how many times have you experienced that? 218 00:12:29,800 --> 00:12:32,600 I know I have. When I hear in the hallway a 219 00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:35,840 project is going South. Yet when I'm in a status 220 00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:38,640 reporting management meeting, everyone says, oh, it's green, 221 00:12:38,640 --> 00:12:40,520 everything is green, and all is well. 222 00:12:40,880 --> 00:12:44,120 And you know, that is not the way that we want to be as 223 00:12:44,120 --> 00:12:46,320 project managers. We need to be transparent. 224 00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:49,960 We need to have this project charter in place that says this 225 00:12:49,960 --> 00:12:53,080 is what we're building and why this is the reason we're 226 00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:54,880 building it. And if there are problems, we'll 227 00:12:54,880 --> 00:12:59,480 raise those up at at whenever we can at these gates, what that we 228 00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:02,520 put in place, these milestones that we put in place, I don't 229 00:13:02,520 --> 00:13:04,880 think they had milestones of any kind. 230 00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:07,640 I think they didn't have any gates that they had to go 231 00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:09,720 through to make sure that things were going well. 232 00:13:10,200 --> 00:13:14,240 So that the second piece of this is around problem framing and 233 00:13:14,240 --> 00:13:18,360 what do you do when you run into a problem and, and there are 234 00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:21,680 quite a few people involved that need to solve that problem, but 235 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:24,760 you're in charge. You need to make that, you need 236 00:13:24,760 --> 00:13:27,880 to make that decision that some sort of brainstorming session 237 00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:30,760 needs to take place and you need to run that meeting. 238 00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:32,800 And how do you do that? So we'll talk about that. 239 00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:37,520 And then the third thing is the overly optimistic schedules, not 240 00:13:37,520 --> 00:13:40,080 just the status reports, but the schedules that people put 241 00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:42,240 together. And so when you, when you have a 242 00:13:42,240 --> 00:13:46,000 problem framing activity that that results in actions, those 243 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:47,920 actions need to be put in a plan. 244 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:51,840 And that's really why we're, we're here as project managers 245 00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:54,840 is to develop a plan that can be executed. 246 00:13:55,160 --> 00:13:59,560 And if you can't develop a plan that can be executed, then then 247 00:13:59,560 --> 00:14:02,840 you're, you become irrelevant. You become just part of the 248 00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:05,400 landscape and, and not the leader that you really, really 249 00:14:05,400 --> 00:14:08,280 should be. So I think in general that that 250 00:14:08,280 --> 00:14:11,640 there's so many issues and I tried, I'm trying to simplify 251 00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:15,520 things because there's so much to talk about with this topic. 252 00:14:15,520 --> 00:14:19,480 But I think that's where we'll really focus our energies on 253 00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:23,440 objectives and key results, problem framing and then also 254 00:14:23,440 --> 00:14:26,840 the road mapping that is the result of the actions that we 255 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:28,960 developed. It sounds good to me, Donna. 256 00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:30,880 I mean, let's let's get into the first one. 257 00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:34,280 So object objectives and key results. 258 00:14:34,280 --> 00:14:39,400 So for those project managers who may not understand what that 259 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:43,320 means for an organization, can you just briefly describe how 260 00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:49,360 you've used OK Rs in the past? So, OK, Rs in my organization 261 00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:52,840 were critical when you're proposing and starting a 262 00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:56,960 project, it's part of the project planning activity. 263 00:14:57,160 --> 00:15:01,560 So we put these objectives together that says here's what 264 00:15:01,560 --> 00:15:06,240 we're planning to build and and here's here is how we will 265 00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:09,480 measure our progress. So these are not tasks. 266 00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:12,600 This is really a key point I want to make is that objectives 267 00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:16,440 and key results are not tasks to be placed on a schedule. 268 00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:21,440 They are measurements that you're putting in place to track 269 00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:24,960 your progress. So for example, in the case of 270 00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:29,160 building a huge tunnel that's miles and miles long, imagine 271 00:15:29,160 --> 00:15:32,000 that you're building a tunnel of, of, let's just say that's 5 272 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:35,000 miles long. Did you finish the first mile? 273 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:37,600 Did you finish the second mile? Did you finish the third mile? 274 00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:41,800 Did you finish, et cetera. That's a very, very basic, very, 275 00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:44,760 very basic metric to track your progress. 276 00:15:44,760 --> 00:15:46,480 Well, where are we? Are we, are we done? 277 00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:49,040 Have we finished the fifth mile or are we still on mile one? 278 00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:52,720 Because when you're building a tunnel, especially at this this 279 00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:57,280 kind, you're not digging the whole trench and then you're not 280 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:01,000 laying the whole thing and you're not putting in the pieces 281 00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:05,040 once you know you're doing it a little at the time, one mile at 282 00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:07,280 a time, one half a mile at a time or whatever. 283 00:16:07,960 --> 00:16:11,000 So I think that that's an example of, you know, extreme 284 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:15,920 example of a metric that gives you an idea of some transparency 285 00:16:15,920 --> 00:16:18,040 into the progress of the project. 286 00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:19,600 If you're building an application and you're 287 00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:22,400 developing it, you know, writing code, how many lines of code 288 00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:25,920 have you written? Did you do 5 or did you do 500? 289 00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:28,840 And how many tests have you run? If you're doing 25 tests, have 290 00:16:28,840 --> 00:16:32,680 you done 2 or have you done 20 and you're almost done, You 291 00:16:32,680 --> 00:16:34,680 know, so these are the metrics that we're talking about. 292 00:16:34,680 --> 00:16:38,480 This is not tasks that we're putting on a schedule, and 293 00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:41,720 they're the most effective when you're at the initiative or the 294 00:16:41,720 --> 00:16:44,960 work breakdown structure level. So if you said in this an 295 00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:47,360 example of the Big Dig, oh, we're going to take the Central 296 00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:49,200 Artery, we're going to knock it down, we're going to build the 297 00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:51,960 tunnel to replace it. That is way too big of an 298 00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:54,560 objective. That's not measurable. 299 00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:58,920 There's so many pieces to that. So you need to talk about how to 300 00:16:58,920 --> 00:17:01,640 build the tunnel, the various parts, pieces and parts of 301 00:17:01,640 --> 00:17:04,200 building the tunnel. And then once the tunnel is 302 00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:07,359 completed, how do you connect that tunnel to other roadways? 303 00:17:07,599 --> 00:17:10,839 And then once that's completed, how do you actually dismantle 304 00:17:11,079 --> 00:17:12,720 the essential artery that's existing? 305 00:17:13,240 --> 00:17:15,520 And there's so many parts within each of that. 306 00:17:15,520 --> 00:17:20,200 So it's really the important part of an OK R is that it needs 307 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:22,800 to be developed at the initiative level so that it 308 00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:26,400 makes sense to the people that you're working with. 309 00:17:26,400 --> 00:17:30,920 So you need to be quantifiable numbers, especially important, 310 00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:34,720 you need to stretch the team so you know as quickly as you can 311 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:37,640 complete these 25 tests. Did you do them in a month? 312 00:17:37,640 --> 00:17:39,640 Did you do them in two months? Did you do them in six months? 313 00:17:39,640 --> 00:17:43,440 That should be part of your OK R And then they can be used as 314 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:46,120 early warning signals, which there were no early warning 315 00:17:46,120 --> 00:17:48,560 signals in the Big Dig. Everything was good. 316 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:51,720 We're all good, everything's fine, you know, leave us alone. 317 00:17:51,720 --> 00:17:54,720 We're doing just great. And then all these problems come 318 00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:58,520 out at the end, and unfortunately someone has to die 319 00:17:58,840 --> 00:18:04,040 because of it to really make us pay attention and say, you know, 320 00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:05,480 something really went wrong here. 321 00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:10,240 So you, you, I I know you've done a lot of thinking around OK 322 00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:13,920 Rs and how effective an OK R would have been for the Big Dig. 323 00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:19,840 Do you have a specific OK R you would have written in hindsight? 324 00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:21,720 Yes, you do. I knew you would. 325 00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:22,720 OK. So two. 326 00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:24,280 OK, go for it. Yeah. 327 00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:29,000 So the first one is objective. The objective would be to ensure 328 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:32,600 the structural integrity and safety of all tunnel components 329 00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:36,600 to prevent failures and ensure public confidence. 330 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:39,520 And public confidence was a piece that was really lacking. 331 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:43,640 And that that was definitely proven true many times 332 00:18:43,640 --> 00:18:45,680 throughout. But you know, imagine if they 333 00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:49,040 had a key result that said, inspect 100% of the ceiling 334 00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:52,440 panels, the anchor systems that are holding those ceiling panels 335 00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:55,560 in place, and the critical hardware across all tunnel 336 00:18:55,560 --> 00:19:01,120 segments within within 90 days, miles of tunnels, thousands of 337 00:19:01,120 --> 00:19:02,960 ceiling tiles that are being installed. 338 00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:04,600 How many tiles have been installed? 339 00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:07,120 Where are we with respect to percentage? 340 00:19:07,120 --> 00:19:10,080 Or if we have 100% of tiles, are we 30% done? 341 00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:13,760 Are we 75% done? All of those things around 342 00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:17,280 integrity and safety, a communications plan, maybe a 343 00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:20,200 website, which of course that didn't exist in the 90s, but 344 00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:23,920 could there have been a website for public consumption that kept 345 00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:27,040 people up to date on regular basis of what significant 346 00:19:27,040 --> 00:19:29,440 actions were happening? All of those things could have 347 00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:33,120 helped in tracking and, and you notice those things are not 348 00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:35,480 activities. Those things are measures. 349 00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:39,800 Those things are ways to be transparent and ways to keep 350 00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:43,200 track of the progress. And these can be used, you know, 351 00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:47,520 as gates as you go through. So imagine they said, you know, 352 00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:50,560 when we're when we're at 50% of the ceiling tiles, we're going 353 00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:52,600 to get together, we're going to have a meeting and we're going 354 00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:54,960 to walk through lessons learned. We're going to have a 355 00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:57,360 retrospective, right? We do those today 356 00:19:57,360 --> 00:19:59,760 retrospectives. What have we learned? 357 00:19:59,760 --> 00:20:02,960 How, what can we apply going forward to the remaining 50% of 358 00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:05,000 the tiles? What could we, what should we 359 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:07,400 fix? What's what's worked well, what 360 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:09,080 didn't work well? You know, all those things that 361 00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:13,520 we've learned in the last 20 years and we've gotten very good 362 00:20:13,520 --> 00:20:16,360 at. You can see on a project of this 363 00:20:16,360 --> 00:20:21,080 size how important those kinds of questions would be if we had 364 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:24,840 those questions at the time. And maybe Bechtel, Parsons, 365 00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:28,240 Brinkerhoff did some of that. But they certainly didn't 366 00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:31,640 communicate it well with their government entities and didn't 367 00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:36,960 want to, you know, raise any red flags for fear of of people 368 00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:39,040 panicking. And then they didn't want the 369 00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:42,160 public certainly to panic over what was being built. 370 00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:45,840 So I think that was one example. A second example is around the 371 00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:49,400 leaky tunnels. I mentioned that part of the the 372 00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:52,040 lawsuit involved the tunnel leaks. 373 00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:56,040 The second objective could be eliminate water infiltration in 374 00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:59,120 all tunnel systems by improving construction quality assurance 375 00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:02,840 and material integrity. And the material integrity 376 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:05,800 specifically that was a problem here was around the concrete 377 00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:09,440 that they were using to pour the tunnel walls. 378 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:12,920 Some of the some of the concrete was dirty. 379 00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:16,240 In other words, it was mixed in with concrete not on purpose, 380 00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:20,040 but by accident because of the way the soil was and the way 381 00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:23,360 they pour the concrete. It wasn't clean in many cases. 382 00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:27,320 The other integrity problem was that you can't imagine how much 383 00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:29,600 concrete was used to build these tunnels. 384 00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:34,760 And they often couldn't get enough concrete at the time that 385 00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:37,760 they needed to. So they just used old concrete 386 00:21:38,440 --> 00:21:41,040 that was leftover from a previous job. 387 00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:44,800 And they, again, they found this out later, there was a 388 00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:47,840 whistleblower. And again, I, I, you know, I've 389 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:49,840 had whistleblowers on my projects. 390 00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:54,680 And because I'm approachable and I'm empathetic and people come 391 00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:58,200 to me and say, look, this person isn't doing or that person isn't 392 00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:01,280 doing or this isn't working or that test failed or whatever, 393 00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:05,080 which wouldn't necessarily come up in a big meeting with all of 394 00:22:05,080 --> 00:22:10,000 these managers and VPS and CIOs, you know, in a meeting, it 395 00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:12,520 wouldn't come up. But they're willing to come to 396 00:22:12,520 --> 00:22:15,560 me because they know that I'm part of that management chain, 397 00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:17,800 right? So if there is no management 398 00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:21,080 chain that's really well documented, people don't really 399 00:22:21,080 --> 00:22:24,480 know who to go to. There was a whistleblower, but 400 00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:27,640 they couldn't, they didn't know who to, who to really go to in 401 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,400 in this case. And, and so I think that that 402 00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:33,680 can be a problem as well. The key result in that case, a 403 00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:37,680 real time materials tracking and verification system for all the 404 00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:39,880 concrete pours. Again, miles of tunnels, 405 00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:43,040 thousands of concrete pours. How many, how many trucks did 406 00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:45,440 they have delivered? And I'm not a construction 407 00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:47,520 expert, I'm not an infrastructure expert. 408 00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:51,880 My background is in IT, but I still found this fascinating 409 00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:55,480 the, the size of the project, the complexity of the project. 410 00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:59,000 I have never worked on anything even close to this level of 411 00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:01,640 complexity. And, and I'm, I'm sure that many 412 00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:05,000 of your listeners also have not worked on a project of this 413 00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:09,440 complexity, but, you know, take it down to your level and say, 414 00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:13,320 where, where can I apply these to my project? 415 00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,360 And how can I make these key results and metrics that we 416 00:23:16,360 --> 00:23:18,760 know, we keep talking, we talk about metrics, we talk about, 417 00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:21,760 you know, can we make the user happier? 418 00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,040 How much happier can we make them? 419 00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:29,720 How much can we improve our reaction time, our, our, 420 00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,920 whatever it is we're building? I think that there's, sometimes 421 00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:35,480 it's hard to measure those things, those kinds of things 422 00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:38,120 almost, you almost think in a construction project, it's 423 00:23:38,120 --> 00:23:40,360 easier to measure those, those kinds of things. 424 00:23:40,360 --> 00:23:43,440 How many miles have we finished? How many concrete pours have we 425 00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:48,960 done in a software development activity in an IT organization? 426 00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:52,320 It's, it's harder to measure, but still we have to, we have to 427 00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:56,120 dig, dig deep and find out how we can measure those things and 428 00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:58,560 it can be done. So I mean, in general, I think I 429 00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:02,080 would say that OK, ours are very powerful, helping to make your 430 00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:06,840 goals measurable and making them, using them as early 431 00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:11,400 warning signals to really help you in managing your project and 432 00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,040 measuring your, your, your progress as you go along. 433 00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:16,480 It definitely takes. Oh, go ahead, Donna. 434 00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:17,480 I. Was going to say it. 435 00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:19,680 I think that, you know, as you go along and you run into 436 00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,720 problems and your, your, your metrics are not coming out the 437 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:25,560 way that you expect them to, then you maybe have a problem. 438 00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:28,280 And that's our next, the next, that's the segue into the next 439 00:24:28,360 --> 00:24:30,240 section. Yeah, absolutely. 440 00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:33,640 I know we're going to get into problem framing, but I, I, I 441 00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:37,080 appreciate your summary of OK Rs for those project managers or 442 00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:40,080 those, again, casual listeners of the podcast who may not be 443 00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:43,040 familiar with it. And the one thing you said that 444 00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:46,360 I want to call out is all of this what Donna shared, even 445 00:24:46,360 --> 00:24:49,720 though the Big Dig is such a big project, this is certainly 446 00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:51,440 scalable. I'm just going to reiterate that 447 00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:54,400 part of what Donna just mentioned, all of the things 448 00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:59,440 that surround clear OK, Rs, you can create those for a project 449 00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:03,840 as big as the Big Dig and as small as a daily project that 450 00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,560 you might be working on. So just remember that this is 451 00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,080 all scalable. So hopefully you're finding some 452 00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:14,520 value in understanding why even as difficult as it may be, as 453 00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:18,440 Donna called out in her previous profession of technology and 454 00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:22,520 trying to put metrics around something as agile as like a 455 00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:26,000 software or platform, it's still all doable. 456 00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:29,600 So you have to consider how that applies to something that you 457 00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:33,600 might be working on today. So let it let us transition 458 00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:36,760 though to problem framing because this is actually a new 459 00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:40,200 term for me as well. So I'll be learning alongside 460 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:42,880 our audience here. So, Donna, why don't you walk us 461 00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,880 through what problem problem framing is and how this could 462 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,640 have been useful in the Big Dig project? 463 00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:53,360 Yes. So I had a project recently that 464 00:25:53,360 --> 00:25:58,200 I worked on where we had a big problem and we had to pivot. 465 00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:01,000 And how many of in your listening audience have probably 466 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,480 had a similar situation where they've they've been on a 467 00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:06,960 project? And you know, the project I was 468 00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,760 on, we, I was working on it for a year and there were people on 469 00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,440 it before that. So it, this project had gone on, 470 00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:17,360 we were moving our, our, our identity management system from 471 00:26:17,360 --> 00:26:20,000 one technology to another. And I won't bore you with the 472 00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,640 details of what we were going from one to another. 473 00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:26,000 The fact of the matter is part way through, we decided we were 474 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,880 having too many issues and we needed to shift to a different 475 00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,360 technology. And I'm not an expert in this 476 00:26:32,360 --> 00:26:37,840 cybersecurity in logging in and, and how to, how to make sure 477 00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,680 people are, are getting identified correctly, multi 478 00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:43,840 factor authentication. I, I'm not an expert in that at 479 00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:46,360 all. So what I had to do was partner 480 00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:51,000 with the technology experts and they look to me to run the 481 00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:56,240 project and I look to them for their tech technology expertise 482 00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:59,880 because how can I put a schedule together or plan together if I 483 00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:01,480 don't really know the technology? 484 00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:04,320 I and I think that obviously in the big situation of the Big 485 00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,160 Dig, I don't know anything about construction, I don't know 486 00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:10,520 anything about cybersecurity, but I'm supposed to be in charge 487 00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:13,880 and I'm supposed to be making decisions and people are looking 488 00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:18,120 to me to make those decisions. And so I feel very responsible 489 00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,400 for my team to make sure they're, they're gainfully 490 00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:25,200 employed and they're actively working on something every day. 491 00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,160 And we're we're, we're working towards the same goals. 492 00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:32,320 So problem framing is really a technique that people can use to 493 00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:35,440 ask the right questions so that you better understand the 494 00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:37,640 problem before you jump to a solution. 495 00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,800 And in the case of the Big Dig, for example, we can talk about 496 00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:48,080 the issues that came about as a result of the ceiling panel 497 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,480 failure. So that's really where I want to 498 00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,880 give give you an example there. But we want to have a 499 00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,400 brainstorming session that includes all the stakeholder 500 00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:59,560 groups. And I did this in, in, in my, 501 00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:01,920 when we had my problem that we talked about. 502 00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,480 And you need to take responsibility and schedule this 503 00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,240 meeting yourself. And then you need to run the 504 00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:11,760 meeting yourself. You can't sit back and expect 505 00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:17,080 magic to happen without being a part of that magic and, and, and 506 00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:20,360 really stimulating that magic to get it underway. 507 00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,680 And, you know, a lot of project managers I've worked with over 508 00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:26,440 the years, they, they wait for someone else to do it. 509 00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,560 They think someone else will take the responsibility. 510 00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:34,520 And, you know, I, I just want to stress more, as more much as I 511 00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:38,080 can, the fact that if you want to be irreplaceable as a project 512 00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,480 manager, then you need to make sure that you're doing these 513 00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,240 kinds of things. You're setting up these meetings 514 00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,120 and you're, you're running them and making sure that you're 515 00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:50,760 understanding, you know, and you're, you're evaluating any 516 00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,000 issues and you're documenting it all. 517 00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,800 Otherwise, it's a missed opportunity and the actions 518 00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,160 should be coming out of this problem framing situation. 519 00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,600 So let's just talk about the ceiling panels for a moment. 520 00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:04,760 You know, they were needed for air ventilation. 521 00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:08,640 Imagine a big tunnel. They all have the ceiling that's 522 00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:10,000 on the top. Next time you go through a 523 00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,720 tunnel, check it out. You'll see it. 524 00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:15,400 It's for air ventilation. It's for fire safety. 525 00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:17,560 So if there's a fire in the tunnel, then there's air that 526 00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:20,000 comes in into the tunnel from outside. 527 00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:24,280 It's for for sound dampening. So it could be really loud in a 528 00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,360 tunnel. So that's that's also why it was 529 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,440 there. The issues came about because of 530 00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:32,400 the ceiling tiles were really heavy. 531 00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:37,640 They were 3 tons each and they knew that when they put them in, 532 00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:39,840 they said, why are these tunnels, Why are these panels so 533 00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:41,960 heavy? We can we do this with lighter 534 00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,000 panels? And they said, well, they've all 535 00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,000 been ordered. So you know, that's going to 536 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,680 delay the project if we have to reorder new tiles. 537 00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:52,960 So let's just put these up. OK, we'll just put these up. 538 00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:57,800 And then they use this epoxy that they tested and it held, 539 00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:02,040 but over a period of time, the epoxy dried out and cracked and 540 00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,920 it didn't hold. So that was what caused the the 541 00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:08,400 problem. But so there were red flags, 542 00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:12,160 there were warning signs, vectors saw that there were 543 00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:14,960 problems. The construction people said 544 00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,520 this is kind of stupid. Why are we doing it this way? 545 00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:22,960 But yet they proceeded and there were no, no whistleblowers 546 00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,280 around at the time that could really, you know, raise a red 547 00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,200 flag. And again, Vectel Parsons was 548 00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:31,480 kind of running the show and they were left to their own 549 00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,680 devices and they weren't raising any red flags either. 550 00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:38,240 So imagine that they did have some sort of a problem framing 551 00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:40,560 activity. The kinds of questions that they 552 00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:43,760 would ask include things like what's the problem that we have? 553 00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:48,440 Well, the heavy panels, they've got these epoxy anchor problems. 554 00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,600 There's not great oversight. So that's really what the 555 00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,800 problem is. And how can we address that? 556 00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,680 So why haven't we solved it yet? That would be the second 557 00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,840 question that you could ask. Well, we've, we've got 558 00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:04,320 fragmented project ownership. We have resistance to revisiting 559 00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:08,160 core issues because we're under a stringent schedule and there's 560 00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:10,520 a lot of people paying attention to our schedule. 561 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:15,200 Imagine the ceiling, the ceiling panels went in last, of course, 562 00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:18,600 after the tunnel was built. So now you're already over 563 00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:20,200 schedule, you're already over budget. 564 00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,840 And you really want to add more schedule and more budget to an 565 00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:28,360 already troubled project so that that you know, the chances of 566 00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:32,440 that happening were unlikely. Who else has this problem? 567 00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:34,880 So who else has a ceiling panel problem? 568 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:36,440 So we should look at other states. 569 00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,560 Who else is building tunnels? It turned out that at one point 570 00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:43,160 the team flew to Japan because there was a tunnel being built 571 00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,920 in Japan similar to the one in Boston because it was on the 572 00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:49,080 water on the waterfront in the harbour. 573 00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,600 And they had similar problems. So they, they got some, some, 574 00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:54,400 some tips from the people in Japan. 575 00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:57,080 But that, you know, why didn't they do that earlier? 576 00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:58,480 They should have done it earlier. 577 00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:01,480 This was something that they should have done sooner. 578 00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,440 How are we part of the problem? Well, we trust the contractors 579 00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,920 to do the right thing. We also underestimate the risks. 580 00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:11,840 Are we doing risk management? Probably not with 581 00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,320 deprioritizing, quality assurance and testing. 582 00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:18,440 And there was not a lot of testing done on the epoxy. 583 00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:20,640 I mentioned that they tested it immediately. 584 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:22,440 Yeah, it looks like it holds it. It's good. 585 00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:26,280 But they didn't do any long term testing, especially for these 586 00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:30,280 three ton ceiling tiles. What assumptions are we making? 587 00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:33,360 We're assuming that the inspectors will catch problems 588 00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:35,160 and they'll let us know about the problems. 589 00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,480 Well, the inspectors probably did catch problems, but they 590 00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:39,680 weren't speaking up for whatever reason. 591 00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:43,280 Oh, and once it's built, it's safe unless proven otherwise. 592 00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:46,280 And why wouldn't you think that? You spent billions of dollars to 593 00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,920 build these tunnels? Why wouldn't you think that? 594 00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:51,720 Well, it must be OK, right? It's done. 595 00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:53,120 Why do we need to? Why? 596 00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,520 Right. And who's been left out? 597 00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:59,080 Well, the public has been left out because they have no voice 598 00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,920 in safety concerns. They're just recipients of 599 00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,160 whatever they're being told. And then who benefits if the 600 00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:07,200 problem is solved? Well, the public benefits 601 00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:09,520 because they get a safer infrastructure system. 602 00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:13,720 Taxpayers benefit because you're spending less money if you're 603 00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:17,800 doing it right the first time. So that's what that would be a 604 00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,720 step by step process to go through a problem framing 605 00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:22,960 exercise. And as you walk through these 606 00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:26,040 questions and imagine you have them on the board somewhere and 607 00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:28,440 you're filling out, you're you're filling out a template 608 00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:31,800 maybe online or you're doing it, you know, with yellow stickies 609 00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,240 or however you decide to choose, choose to do it. 610 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,520 You do breakout sessions, you have one group talk about each 611 00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:40,040 problem and figure out, and we've done it different ways 612 00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:44,480 whenever we have these storming sessions and you come out of it 613 00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:48,280 with a set of actions. So we need more training. 614 00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,360 We need to establish better governance. 615 00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:52,960 We need a pet public statement and make sure we're 616 00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,600 communicating with the public. We need to new tunnel safety 617 00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:00,000 protocols or maintenance. Whatever the actions are, you 618 00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,200 need to collect those actions and fold them back into the plan 619 00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:05,720 because that's a real missed opportunity. 620 00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,400 If you skip that step, and I've been in meetings with that step 621 00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:13,280 is skipped and, and that's, that's, that's kind of too bad. 622 00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:16,120 We talk about it after the fact that say, did we come up with 623 00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:19,760 any action items from that meeting or do we, do we document 624 00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:23,120 what we decided we wanted to do as a result of that session? 625 00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,800 So and, and, and in fact, you may want to have these on your 626 00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:30,080 calendar as you're going through a big project like this. 627 00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:33,960 So you say, where are the checkpoints along the way? 628 00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:36,159 We're going to bring in a red team. 629 00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,880 And we've done this. We'll bring in a red team to 630 00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:44,199 examine the projects process and how successful are we at this 631 00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,960 checkpoint, especially for a project that's multi year, 632 00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:51,639 that's the multi, you know, multi millions, millions of 633 00:34:51,639 --> 00:34:54,320 dollars and even Bill this one is billions. 634 00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,480 But even if it's a multi $1,000,000 project, you know, 635 00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:01,240 let's let's put in some gates so that we can check on ourselves. 636 00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:05,240 I think an agile development process has those gates kind of 637 00:35:05,240 --> 00:35:08,280 built in. But some of these projects that 638 00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,920 this certainly wasn't an agile project, that's for sure back in 639 00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:14,720 the 90s. But imagine a big project that 640 00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:19,040 is not an agile project because many big projects really cannot 641 00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:22,360 be done using agile. It's just imagine a government 642 00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:24,680 contract where you're building a radar or you're building an 643 00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,240 aircraft carrier or you're building a drone. 644 00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:32,000 These are huge projects and the government has spending, you 645 00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,880 know, millions of dollars to build these things and agile 646 00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:38,400 doesn't work. And, you know, not in all cases. 647 00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:41,640 I mean, so now you have to build those, those checkpoints in 648 00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:43,200 yourself. You're the project manager, 649 00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:45,960 you're in charge. You have to be putting these 650 00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,360 things in place. No one else will. 651 00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:54,320 And if you don't do that, you know, you could be replaced. 652 00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:57,360 And I've, again, I've been on projects where project managers 653 00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:00,000 have been replaced. That's happened to me, that's 654 00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:04,120 happened to colleagues of mine where they don't feel the 655 00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:08,400 project is being managed carefully enough, with enough 656 00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:12,240 rigor, with sometimes they put a team of project managers in 657 00:36:12,240 --> 00:36:14,280 place instead of just one person. 658 00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:17,880 They put a group of people in place and, and they have a 659 00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:21,640 Direct Line to, you know, the VP that's in charge because it's a 660 00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:24,960 high priority project. You know, imagine there's some 661 00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:29,160 sort of a cyber event and you've got to get your systems back up 662 00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:34,360 and running and, and the CIO is being questioned by the CEO. 663 00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:36,840 What's going on? Where are we, you know, that 664 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,840 might be a project where, you know, there's a daily meeting 665 00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:43,080 and there's there's all kinds of criticality and it's critical 666 00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:45,760 issues and people are really scurrying around. 667 00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,440 You could that's similar kind of project to what we're talking 668 00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:51,960 about here where it's like serious stuff. 669 00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,920 If it doesn't, if it's not right, then there's a problem. 670 00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:57,440 I imagine something in the healthcare industry, same thing 671 00:36:57,680 --> 00:37:00,520 if it's not right that there could be a serious problem. 672 00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:04,680 So these are the things that we're talking about that that 673 00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,560 you really need to get outside of your comfort zone. 674 00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:13,160 You really need to be looking at yourself critically and how how 675 00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:16,320 well you can, you know, run these projects. 676 00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,160 Are you collaborating well enough? 677 00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:20,680 Are you coordinating with all the players? 678 00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,240 I mean, all the players, not just your favorites, all of 679 00:37:24,240 --> 00:37:27,000 them. Are you, are you inviting third 680 00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,800 party people in to critically examine what's happening? 681 00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,080 And do you respect those people? Not you're not just bringing 682 00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,960 your buddy in who's gonna say, yeah, you're doing a great job. 683 00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,480 You know, you're looking for real criticism from people you 684 00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:41,760 respect to come in and take a look at what you're doing. 685 00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,800 And how well are you communicating with not only your 686 00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:48,840 team, 'cause I'm really good at communicating with my team. 687 00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:51,000 I'm a team builder. That's kind of my strength. 688 00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:56,280 But how well am I communicating up to my management team and how 689 00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,920 well am I communicating with other parts of the project? 690 00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:02,160 Because often there's more than one part of the project. 691 00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:05,120 I know on the project I mentioned earlier where we were 692 00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,440 doing multi factor authentication and all that, 693 00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,960 there were multiple players and Infosec was one of them. 694 00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,600 And I was really good with them and not as good with the 695 00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:19,320 Microsoft Azure people of the cloud people, although I needed 696 00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:22,000 to talk to them too because that was part of what we were doing. 697 00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:24,920 I wasn't as good at talking with them, but I was really good with 698 00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:27,160 Infosec. I was in, you know, in good with 699 00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:29,200 them. So you know, how well are you 700 00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:32,440 and be critical of yourself. Like how, how, how am I doing 701 00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:34,640 here? We're in a, we have a problem 702 00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:36,200 situation. We need to solve it. 703 00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:40,840 And it's that's, I always say, you know, when things are good, 704 00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:43,200 things are good. But when the chips are down and 705 00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:47,600 the chips are down, we really see who's the good player and 706 00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:51,160 who's, who falls aside or who falls apart or who falls to the 707 00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:53,640 wayside. And it goes in the background. 708 00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:57,920 Who really comes to the front and says we need to fix this? 709 00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:00,280 And how do we fix it? And I'm here to help and I'm 710 00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,240 here and I can be a critical resource here. 711 00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:07,040 And that should be you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 712 00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:12,000 I can't help but go back to when we started the conversation and 713 00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:16,600 how you mentioned that project management on this particular 714 00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:20,640 project turned over multiple times throughout the course of 715 00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,920 the project. And how a lot of these potential 716 00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:28,560 solutions you brought forth, communication, clarity, the OK 717 00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:33,080 Rs, the problem framing and sprinkling that throughout your 718 00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:37,760 process flow, having those often, those conversations often 719 00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:42,320 and understanding who your stakeholders are, all of that. 720 00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:51,200 I feel like the turnover of the PMS also carries weight into all 721 00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:54,880 of those potential solutions that you brought forward into 722 00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:57,320 how this project could have been executed a little bit 723 00:39:57,320 --> 00:39:59,880 differently and maybe more successfully. 724 00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,160 But have you had any thought as we kind of get to the main 725 00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:07,440 takeaways of of what could have been better avoided or successes 726 00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,040 of the Big Dig? Have you had any thought, Donna, 727 00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:13,120 on how much of that played into it? 728 00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:15,440 Was it A? Was it the perspective of the 729 00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:18,440 companies that they just didn't understand the role of project 730 00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,160 management and the value that it was supposed to bring to this 731 00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:24,800 project is I think that's what I'm more curious about and if 732 00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:29,200 you've had any thoughts on that. So, so Bechtel Parsons 733 00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:32,720 Brinkerhoff is an organization that has built many huge 734 00:40:32,720 --> 00:40:34,880 infrastructure projects for the government. 735 00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:39,960 They built embassies, for example, and part of the lawsuit 736 00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:44,240 that they had against them was to disbar, disband the company. 737 00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,040 And the government said that's that's a non starter. 738 00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,920 We, we can't, we can't do without Bechtel. 739 00:40:51,240 --> 00:40:55,920 They have too much history, too much knowledge of how to build 740 00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:57,880 these huge infrastructure projects. 741 00:40:58,240 --> 00:40:59,920 We can't, we can't live without them. 742 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:05,280 So I, I don't think that I don't know that they took the big Dig 743 00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,720 as seriously as they should have. 744 00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:13,440 I, I think the, the original, so the very first tunnel that was 745 00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:15,000 built was the Ted Williams Tunnel. 746 00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:19,760 And that is a tunnel that that connects South, southern, the 747 00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:23,600 southern part of Massachusetts, Quincy, Braintree, the parts 748 00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:28,320 South of Boston to the airport, which is in, in East Boston. 749 00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:31,600 So the Ted Williams tunnel was the first tunnel that they 750 00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:33,640 built. And it was the easiest, absolute 751 00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:35,520 easiest tunnel that they built because why? 752 00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,400 There's nothing in the water between those two places. 753 00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:43,080 Not there's no, no subway, subway tunnels. 754 00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:48,200 There was no sewer, sewer pipes. There was no electricity or 755 00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:53,800 cable or, or any other infrastructure items underneath 756 00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:57,520 that water at all. They built the tubes somewhere 757 00:41:57,520 --> 00:41:58,880 else, They sunk them in the water. 758 00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:01,320 They connected them together and they had a big party because it 759 00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,720 was on time, on schedule, and everybody was happy. 760 00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:05,880 Problem was it wasn't connected to anything. 761 00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:11,200 It was just laying in the bottom of the of the water there and 762 00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,400 you could drive in it, but you, it was not easy to get to like 763 00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:16,480 you cut, you had to. I don't even know how they drove 764 00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:18,600 in it, to be honest. I think they probably put a car 765 00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:19,800 in the water somehow. I don't know. 766 00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:24,840 Anyway, it was building the connectors through these weird 767 00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:29,200 spots that was the hard part. And I think when they saw how 768 00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:31,600 easy it was to build the Ted Williams tunnel, I guess they 769 00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:33,360 probably thought, oh, this is going to be easy. 770 00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:38,720 But it was not interesting. One part of the tunnel. 771 00:42:38,720 --> 00:42:42,120 And again, I could talk for hours about the Big Dig, but 772 00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:44,640 there was one part of the tunnel that was so hard. 773 00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:47,120 It took, I think, five years to build this one stretch. 774 00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,800 It takes you 10 minutes to drive through that one particular part 775 00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:51,960 of the tunnel. It's a 10 minute thing that 776 00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:55,360 caught, it's the most expensive tunnel in the United States, 777 00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,960 that one little chunk, because it was so complicated because 778 00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,040 there was a subway tunnel under it and there was another tunnel 779 00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:03,760 somewhere. It was just very complex. 780 00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:06,880 So anyway, the fact of the matter is, I think the fact that 781 00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:10,200 they turned over project managers over and over again is 782 00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:13,440 largely because they probably said, well, we need someone who 783 00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,920 has this, this domain expertise. We need this, this domain 784 00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:19,000 expertise. We need that domain expertise. 785 00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:20,680 Oh, we now we need that domain expertise. 786 00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:22,320 Do you know how to build a bridge? 787 00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:25,880 OK, now we need a bridge person. Oh, now we need a tunnel person. 788 00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:28,720 Oh, now we need a, a cement person. 789 00:43:28,720 --> 00:43:31,680 So they maybe they were, they're switching that around and, and 790 00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:33,880 that I've seen that happen where I work. 791 00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:36,880 So you, we need someone who knows a lot about HR, for 792 00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:38,920 example, we're putting an HR system together. 793 00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:41,960 We need that domain. Oh, we're doing in, we're doing 794 00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:44,120 a networking system. Who knows about net? 795 00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:47,400 What project management has manager has done a networking 796 00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:49,480 project before. Let's put that person on there. 797 00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:52,960 And so we, we start to develop like you start to develop some 798 00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:55,760 domain expertise and then you're known for that. 799 00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,520 And so they put you on that until things don't go well and 800 00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:01,760 they put somebody else on it. So I, I do think it's a problem 801 00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:04,680 of turnover. But again, if you think about an 802 00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:07,120 agile project, you've got a scrum master, you have a 803 00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:10,720 project, you have a product owner and you have, you know, a 804 00:44:10,720 --> 00:44:13,600 lot of team members and you've kind of got each other's backs, 805 00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,280 right. But in this case, you know, when 806 00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,560 you you're in charge of the whole thing, it's one what 807 00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:22,680 person responsible for the success or failure. 808 00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:27,360 It's a it's a heavy load and you've got to be up to the 809 00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:33,280 challenge on it. I think this subject alone, 810 00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,880 because you said there's a podcast that that's six episodes 811 00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:40,000 long. I agree with you, Donna. 812 00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:43,640 I think this is fascinating for so many reasons, in particular 813 00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:47,560 for project managers to listen to and learn from. 814 00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:51,480 So do you have any other key takeaways that you want to share 815 00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:54,520 with the group before we say goodbye to everybody today? 816 00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,080 Yeah, I mean, I just, if I were to summarize, I think the you, 817 00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:00,760 you did a nice job of summarizing just a moment ago. 818 00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,120 And you know, you've got the OK Rs to really define what success 819 00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:07,200 looks like. The problem framing techniques 820 00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:11,440 that really should be put in place to uncover root causes and 821 00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:14,120 and establish some new actions as a result. 822 00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:18,400 Those are almost a, a form of retrospectives, a form of 823 00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:21,920 lessons learned. We are really digging into one 824 00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:25,520 particular area and not doing those kinds of things can be a 825 00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:28,920 missed opportunity. And then using Rd. maps and and 826 00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,000 plans to put in place to really track all of those solutions and 827 00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:36,240 make it relatable and scalable. But you know, again, putting 828 00:45:36,240 --> 00:45:39,560 myself in your shoes of the shoes of your audience members 829 00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:44,360 and really trying to relate this to their own work, what can we 830 00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:47,200 learn? It's to be proactive and not 831 00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:49,240 reactive. And, and you've heard that 832 00:45:49,240 --> 00:45:53,080 before, but with the backdrop of the big dig, it really it 833 00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:57,000 really, you know, it really, it really is true that you really 834 00:45:57,000 --> 00:45:59,680 do need to be proactive. You need to build systems of 835 00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:02,680 transparency and accountability. So when you get that phone call 836 00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:06,640 from your VP and he says where are we with this project, you 837 00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:10,240 can make data-driven decisions based on the fact that you're 838 00:46:10,240 --> 00:46:13,160 collecting metrics, you're collecting data and you have 839 00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:18,200 some, some, you have some sense of where you're at because as 840 00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:21,120 the project manager, you're responsible and you're the one 841 00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:23,840 who knows a little bit about what everyone's doing. 842 00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:26,960 You don't know everything. You're not the cyber expert, 843 00:46:27,240 --> 00:46:29,840 you're not the infosec expert, you're not the construction or 844 00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:33,360 concrete expert, but you know a little bit about what everything 845 00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:36,800 everybody is doing and where we are with respect to percent 846 00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,720 complete and where we are with respect to the schedule. 847 00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:43,920 And then focus not just on delivering the project, but how 848 00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:46,520 you deliver it. And the public is very 849 00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:50,240 interested in that in this case. And I think that makes a big 850 00:46:50,240 --> 00:46:53,840 difference as well. I think ask better questions, 851 00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:57,800 plan for quality and never assume success without 852 00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:01,120 verification from someone that it's successful. 853 00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:05,040 So I think that that's really the the real lesson from the Big 854 00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:09,560 Dig is do better with clarity, honesty and real structure 855 00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:13,120 around your projects. This has been extremely 856 00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:16,240 insightful, Donna, that was such a great summary and can be 857 00:47:16,240 --> 00:47:18,880 applied to almost any project, right? 858 00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:22,040 So thank you for that. If folks want to continue the 859 00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:25,560 conversation, I am itching to keep talking to you about this, 860 00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:27,520 but I know we have limited time today. 861 00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,760 If folks want to continue the conversation with you about the 862 00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:34,040 Big Dig or just learn more about what Donna's up to these days, 863 00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:37,480 where can they find you online? Yeah, I have a great website, 864 00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:42,520 itsdonnagregorio.com and reached out to me and LinkedIn as well. 865 00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:46,280 I'd be happy to continue the conversation with with anybody 866 00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:49,400 that has any sort of project management questions at all. 867 00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:54,120 And I want to say thank you to you Ann for continuing with your 868 00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:57,680 everyday PM podcast. It's a, it's a great resource 869 00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:00,960 and I hope your audience recognizes it's a, it's a lot of 870 00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:05,400 effort to keep it going and I'm proud of you for all you do. 871 00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:07,720 So thank you. Well, thank you so much, Donna. 872 00:48:07,720 --> 00:48:10,400 I appreciate it. So definitely reach out to Donna 873 00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:12,120 if you want to chat with her further. 874 00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:16,200 You can follow me on LinkedIn as well at and Campia. 875 00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:19,880 And I look forward to hearing your theories on how the Big Dig 876 00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:23,120 could have been more successful or maybe you found that it is 877 00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:25,640 successful. I mean, it's, it's your take 878 00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:27,280 based on what you've learned today. 879 00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:30,720 So that will do it for Donna and I for this installment of the 880 00:48:30,720 --> 00:48:33,720 Everyday PM podcast. Thank you all for joining us and 881 00:48:33,720 --> 00:48:37,120 listening in. And until next time, take care.