Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the childhood body for
the project profession. My name is Emma DaVita and I'm
the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host.
In this podcast, I'm speaking to Donna Sinnick, Chief Delivery
Officer at Babcock International, a defence,
aerospace and security company, about her rise to the top of the
profession and the valuable career and project management
lessons she's learnt along the way.
Donna shares her advice on everything from creating
simplicity in programmes and projects, being a woman in a
male dominated environment and moving on from impostor
syndrome. Listen on to hear her story.
Welcome, Donna. Thanks so much for your time
today and big congratulations. New job role, Chief Delivery
Officer at Babcock International.
Congratulations. Thank you very, very much.
But why don't we begin with you telling us a bit about what you
do, so your kind of role and responsibilities and what kinds
of projects and programmes you work on?
So Babcock so I cover global Babcock.
So we've got footprint in in many countries across across the
world, quite a strong footprint within the defence of the UK.
So my responsibilities when I first joined Babcock three years
ago, it was to set up a global project management organisation.
We already had around 2000 project programme management
professionals, but kind of no one pulling it all together and
defining the single way for Babcock to move forwards.
Gosh, that's that's a lot of people to be working without a
kind of leader. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely, Yeah, so, so, so they've all got individual
business leaders. Obviously, as we, as we know,
within project and programme management, they tend to go up
through their business lines. But really looking for the
synergies and the frameworks and how we think about competencies
and how we work across the organisation, kind of that free
flow of people and movement. Once you get anywhere near that
number of people, you get an awful lot of mobility and
people, people want to be able to get across the breadth of of
an organisation. So we just weren't capitalising
on it as much. So that was kind of what I came
in to start and do and obviously either done something really
well or really badly because it's expanded and I've now got
quite a few other functions as well.
So quite a quite a number of other functional groups
including kind of procurement, supply chain, IT which is quite
an interesting one, particularly from a project handling
perspective. Quality, which is always
fascinating to kind of get into the real sort of products, the
way that we run the business and also facilities management,
which is again something completely different.
But for me, I think the grounding in project management
is what absolutely sets a foundation for everything.
So as long as you've got that, that ability to understand and
question and pull apart what you're being told and what you
understand and kind of ask hopefully intelligent questions,
sometimes probably not so intelligent after the obvious
questions, I think you can pretty much turn your hand to
most things. Are you able to tell us a bit
about the kinds of projects or programmes you're working on at
the moment? So full range of projects and
programmes. So I spend a lot of time.
So I sponsor one of our major programmes at a dockyard down on
the South Coast. So it's spent get some
fascinating insights. I'm able to really sponsor them
because the project and programme management profession
and the customer are getting much more sort of intelligent
and understanding what a sponsor's really there for.
So that's fascinating because I get to work with the Royal Navy,
with some ship staff, with obviously the Babcock personnel
and a number of other professional industry
organisations. So that's more around the
programme sponsorship side of a major critical national
endeavour and then move into. So sometimes on ships, sometimes
on aircraft, sometimes in the the civil space.
But yeah, it's, it's, but you could probably think of
something and somewhere in the portfolio we'd cover it.
So Met Police training or the London Fire Brigade or some, you
know, there's a whole range of, of projects and programmes and
business areas that we, that we run and, and I'm in a fantastic
place to be able to kind of get involved in all of them.
What attracted you to Babcock when you first joined and what
have you enjoyed doing look forward to when you get up in
the morning? So I grew up in a military
family. Both of my parents were in were
in the services. So it's kind of the way that I
grew up in that way. I grew up moving around the
world with them and sometimes not moving with them when I went
off to off to boarding school for a little while just to
towards the latter part of my school years.
So I've spent my entire career, I'm merely working in the
defence business. So I spent 24 years working on
military aircraft before I made the decision to come over to
Babcock. But again, it's it's kind of all
in the same, along the same vein.
What is it about that world that you enjoy and that you've wanted
to kind of forge your career in? I would describe it a little bit
like project management. I think it's almost literally in
my DNA. So what Why do you know?
I grew up, I knew no different. I grew up moving about.
I grew up in a world where everyone was in service of, of
the, of the country and my kind of same as project management.
It's kind of in your DNA. It's just something that you
that I found that just really falls naturally and I feel
really privileged to be able to work in a defence organisation.
So, yeah, so, so I'm not sure I ever chose to do it.
I think I just kind of continued on from I guess a lot of people
do, don't they, they, you know, they follow in their, in the
footsteps of their, of their parents and their family and,
and mine is, is very different. So I never joined the services
but I do work, you know, within, within the UK defence.
How did you get into project management?
Did you always wanted to be want to become a project manager?
I hear very few people say they that's their dream.
That's kind of what I mean when I say I think it's part of your
DNA. So I joined, I joined a company
and do you know the moment I remember being asked to go into
project management. I don't think project management
was particularly big or sexy at all at the time.
So it was probably it was 25 years plus ago.
If we if we start there. And I just remember having some
challenges between the customer, the contract and the, and the
production, the operations team and I just drew out a fairly
basic flow of work that we needed to do and just trying to
get pull everyone together and say this is the flow of the work
we need to do. Does everyone agree?
And suddenly I was the bee's knees of project management.
So it's that's kind of that's the first moment that I remember
someone saying to me to almost do you want to move into project
management? We don't.
We've kind of got a few people who are project managers, but it
is an area that we really want to grow.
And so I obviously jumped to the chance because the ability to
have a high level view of lots and lots of different complex
projects, programmes, people. So I've always worked in a, in a
big engineering organisations. So the ability to kind of stay
at surface level but understand what it is and how you pull it
all together just always really interested me.
And I think it's just just kind of growing from there.
I wanted to ask you about the challenges that you face and the
work that you do and that you obviously enjoy getting to grips
with, and inevitably one of those things must be complexity.
I think the whole point of project management is to
overcome the complexity. I'm a massive believer in
simplification, so if I can't describe something in the
simplest possible way for whoever I'm talking to to
understand, it probably means I haven't quite unpicked it enough
to be able to describe it. So I probably go the absolute
opposite way to to other people where I look for the simplest
possible version and the simplest way of understanding
something. Because I think you can really
get under the skin of complex problems and stitch things
together. Not not trying to do any
discredit to complex situations, but just trying to say what is
the simplest way that we can think about this?
Because the simpler we can make things, the more people
understand and therefore the more you can get behind the
cause and the more you can get people kind of pointing in the
right direction. Which personally I think is the
biggest challenge of project management is how do you get,
you know, huge projects and programmes where we can be
working on projects and programmes with, you know,
thousands of people. How do you get them to
understand in the simplest possible way?
Sometimes it is by describing things in the simplest possible
way. So, so that's how I have always
addressed things and tried to think about complex issues and
complex programmes whilst respecting and really trying to
unpick the specialisms. Because there's no doubt that
there's huge complexities, but it doesn't mean that everyone in
in the project or programme or the organisation has to
understand them in in a level of detail.
So how do you pull it apart enough that people understand
point in the right direction, but you still allow space for
the specialist to really kind of drive their technical or their
commercial or whatever, whatever specialism it is to allow them
to drive forwards? Have you got any advice to
anyone who might be listening who thinks you know what?
I want to try and make the way I talk about projects to my team
simpler? What have you picked up along
the way? I think honesty and humility is
just really underrated. So to be able to say somewhat to
somebody, I really respect your detailed subject matter
knowledge, but actually that is your role and my role's
different. My role is to be able to stitch
and pull together an organisation or a project or
programme so that we enable you and actually the level of
conversation that we're having or the depth of the conversation
or the acronyms that you're using.
We, I live in a heavy acronym world and you can get to the end
of a presentation and think, if I were an outsider, I'm not sure
I would have understood any of that.
If we can just respect the position of each of the people
in the team, but have them respect kind of what your role
is, I think that's a massive learning point for for the
project. That would be what I would say
to all kind of project management professionals,
respect the SME's. Don't try and be the SME.
You don't have to be the engineer or the commercial
contract manager. You need all of those people,
but you actually need simplification.
You need to get under the skin event.
So being able to say, quite honestly, thank you, but we need
to raise this up a level because this is this is kind of your,
your responsibility rather than mine.
And I'm here to enable you. But that means I have to
understand it and I have to be able to get that message across
to everybody. Are there any other challenges
that you regularly face in your work that you think you've
learned a lot about how to deal with well that you could pass
some advice on? Maybe on the people's side of
things, perhaps. I love getting into an
organisation and finding those secret little ninjas that are in
the organisation that are almost buried.
And I think the ability to step back and recognise not everyone
has to go up a classical kind of hierarchical step by step route.
Sometimes there are people for whatever reason who are buried
in the organisation who are ready to be picked out and and
kind of elevated really quickly. And I, I did that in one of one
of the most complex programmes I've ever worked in and run.
It was an aerospace defence contract with multiple customers
right at the time where the 737 Max incidents were happening.
And obviously, you know, horrendous outcome.
So we were dealing with a couple of organisations who were
directly involved and directly related with that.
So you've got an organisation who are already quite concerned
and quite anxious and obviously dealing with things that none of
us would ever want to deal with. But I, I picked up that
programme when actually, and it's, it's one of my, I think
now pivotal moments in my career.
So my boss at the time had said to me, I'd really like you to
run this programme. And at the time I was running a
portfolio, I was absolutely loving my job had multiple kind
of Tier 1 aerospace customers and I kind of, and everyone
who'd been in this programme had had not finished it very well
and it kind of there, they'd had a really, really tough time.
So I said, thank you for the opportunity, but I'm good, I'm
going to stick here. So he asked me twice and I said
no both times. And now I remember so clearly.
He sat down in my office. He said, I've asked you twice
and now I'm telling you. And I thought, OK, right then
that's what that's what's coming next.
But it's it's probably one of my biggest lessons is sometimes
opportunities come even if you don't see it as an opportunity.
So I didn't want that role. I was in a fantastic world.
I was loving my job. I was loving the team that I was
working with all the way through the customer, the supply chain.
But I was this moment of no, we need you to go and do this.
That I thought at that moment was pretty catastrophic,
actually became one of my proudest moments and one of my
pivotal moments. And to be honest, I wouldn't be
at Babcock now if it wasn't for that because the level of
confidence that it gave me, having said no and then and then
moving into a role and rebuilding basically a
completely fractured team, none of whom wanted to be in that
programme. Really, really tough
relationships internally and with the customer and just being
able to kind of find those superstars that are hidden in in
that organisation, being able to pull them out, restructure and
then drive the programme forwards with that kind of let's
simplify it. Let's all be able to talk in
this in a similar way. Let's be able to point in the
same direction because fundamentally, what do we all
want? We want this programme to end.
So let's drive it to the end. And it was just from a moment of
saying thank you, but I really don't want that to, OK, that's
the direction we're travelling in and, and grabbing hold of it
and saying if this is the direction we're going, that's
what we're going to do. Do you think that was the lesson
in going beyond your comfort zone so someone knew you well
enough to push you and say yes, you can do that?
100 percent, 100% and it all it was also a lesson in I think it
was a lesson in saying no initially, to be honest, because
I'm not sure at any point I had previously said thank you very
much, but I'm I that programme doesn't feel right for me.
I. Mean.
That's a brave thing to do. That's a brave thing to say to
your boss. No, I don't want you to do what
you. Do but so yes, exactly.
I think the point is you can say no, you don't have to take every
opportunity. But if it gets to a point where
the business needs you to take a role or to go in a direction, my
advice would be at that point, go for it because you never
know. All of the reasons I didn't want
to take that role. Actually, I now look back on and
think, wow, they were either confidence building or pivotal
moments in my career to the point where when, when that
programme did end, which which took three years for us to take
that programme over the line. The number of people who still
say today I really miss that programme, but what they miss is
the team spirit of it because we were just able to turn and
direct and really drive it all in the same way.
Yes, I get that. It must have been quite.
I mean, it must have been very daunting, but exciting as well.
So it was daunting, but it also also, I guess, I guess it was
quite flattering if I'm just really honest, because you go
right, OK, Someone has actually actively not not only asked me,
but now told me that this role that I'm going to be doing, so
they must have great confidence in my ability to do it.
So all of that kind of, I actually don't necessarily agree
with imposter syndrome, but all of that kind of concern in your
head, just you're able to switch off and say I wouldn't be doing
this role if this person, this organisation didn't believe I
could do it. I wanted to ask you about the
style of leadership you have as a programme leader.
Have you consciously cultivate the style of leadership, or have
you just found yourself leading in a natural way for you?
What? What?
What way would that be? I think probably more the latter
because do you think you have to be honest to yourself?
I remember quite early in my career, someone said you're not
hard enough, you're not direct enough, You're not, you know,
they would describe it as holding people to account.
I think what they meant when I look back, it's kind of shouty
and direct and everything that I'm not.
So, so I remember for about a month trying to be someone
really different to who I am. And I got to the end of the
month because it was really conscious.
Right. OK, I'll take the advice.
And I was, I was a project manager.
I was managing around about 50 engineers at the time.
I'll take the advice. I'll think about how I show up
every day, and I do remember being this kind of really
direct, really almost forceful, loud person for about for a
month, which was what I'd set myself to really test it.
I got to the end of that month and I just thought, even if this
is working, I am utterly miserable because it's not me.
And from that moment and it was quite an early career learning
for me and and I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but for me
personally, it didn't, it didn't work.
So I've always found that just like if someone shouts at me, if
someone kind of directs me and tells me, tells me what to do
rather than kind of seeks opinion or I've no issue with
being direct. But there's a different way in
style. And I think certainly for
project management, your job is to get the best out of people.
And you don't tend to get the best out of people if, if you
are forceful direct, if you're always telling them what to do,
there's only a certain number of people who like that style.
So I've just, I think I've more naturally moved to what what's
core to me, but I have tested it along the way and found that
certainly other styles don't necessarily suit me.
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Because when projects succeed, society benefits.
I wanted to ask you what have been the biggest lessons around
the actual execution projects, so project management side of
things that you've learned as you've climbed up the ladder
that you wish you'd told a younger version of yourself?
So I think the first would be trust the data, build the data,
trust the data. So I know so through lots of
different psychometric profiles that I've had the pleasure of
doing over the years, I know that in certain situations I, I
can be pretty decisive, I can move very quickly, but in a, in
a really, really difficult situation, I tend to move
straight back to the centre and go into data.
So as long as you're measuring and monitoring and appropriately
and correctly it, it's, it's got no reason to lie, It's not lying
to you. So if something under the
surface is telling you that there is an issue, there's a
problem. You do need to dig into it.
So I'd say trust the data and secondly, don't put it off.
It is, it is not going to get any better by ignoring it or by
putting it off. And sometimes that comes into
the prioritisation. So we do an awful lot with
rocks, pebbles, sand. So we fill our time with sand,
which is kind of the day-to-day stuff that just has to be done.
But if you start with that, you've got no time left really
to drive the rocks. The big strategic changes that
you need to get into your programme, into your project,
into your business. What's your next ambition for
your career? Or do you have a dream job
you're willing to share with us? Do I have a dream job?
So I've maybe controversially, I've always just, I've never had
a career plan as it were like within two years I want to be
this, within five years I want to be that.
I think I've, I've always just believed if you work hard and
you're kind of true to the core of you and you've got great
sponsorship and allyship, then certainly what I've found is
that opportunities come up and they might not, they might not
appear to be opportunities. So I did 24 years at my last
organisation and was probably no doubt classified as a lifer, but
an opportunity came up to move and to move over to over to
Babcock. And I think it, it's, that was
less of a choice at that moment. It was just in that moment in
time, an opportunity came and kind of decide whether or not
that's the right, the right chance to take for you.
So picking up, I mean, person picking up IT and procurement
and supply chain and some of the other kind of aspects and
strings that I've now got within My Portfolio of delivery.
And would they have been on a career plan for me?
No, but what's happened is it it kind of stabilise and and get do
something really, really well and then more, more
opportunities come along. So I think being kind of
flexible and open to take them has been the way that I've kind
of gone through my career as opposed to a quite a set
direction of travel. So do I have the next stream
job? I generally like to think that
my, my job at the moment, whatever it is, if I do it
exceptionally well, if I really drive into it, then the next
dream job will come up. So it's, it's quite a difficult
one to answer without a really direct statement, but that
that's how I found, that's how I found my career kind of
progress. Is there anything else you
wanted to mention before we finish?
Any bits of advice you pass on to maybe people just starting
out in their careers in project management or anything else you
wanted to raise? I think people starting out in
their careers in project management, I think my biggest
piece of advice would be maybe a little cautious here actually in
my advice, don't be so fixated on moving quickly.
Because actually what I don't think people want to do is move
so quickly that they don't learn the lessons along the way.
Because you'll get to a certain level in your career where you
can't backfill that knowledge and that and that level of
experience. So certainly the way project
controls are moving and the and the measures that we put in
place around and around project controls really get under the
skin of that and understand it truly before you, before you
want to drive on and drive forwards.
It's great picking up bigger programmes, but that grounding
is so important. So that would probably be my
cautious but my advice. Listen, dykes.
So it's such a pleasure listening, chatting with you and
getting your advice and understanding a bit about how
you've got to where you, you have.
And you know, it's, it's really important when we get time with
people at your level as well to understand the kind of
challenges you face and how you've overcome them.
And also it's evident to me how much you enjoy your work.
So that's always lovely to hear. It just leads me to say big,
massive thank you for your time. It's been brilliant talking to
you. And you thank you very much for
your time. Thanks again to Donna for
joining us and to you for listening to the APM Podcast.
I hope you'll be able to take something useful from our
conversation that will help you in your own career, whether it's
finding a way to ditch the jargon or feeling like you can
step into a room and own it anyway.
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