David Ferrucci, leader of the Watson artificial intelligence project , has just written an article for the New York Times in which he describes how he pulled together the multidisciplinary research team behind this great achievement. He had to overcome the researchers’ natural inclinations to stick with their own individual projects and to foster an environment in which they collaborated intensively and shared ideas. He won them over with the vision of how they together could achieve something grand that none of them alone would ever manage. He reinforced the team collaboration with what he terms the “war room”, where the researchers from all the different disciplines worked together in the same big office.

The grand result was due to many insignificant breakthroughs, as if each researcher was delivering one tessera for the overall mosaic.

While winning a quiz show is impressive, it’s just a milestone. IBM is already investigating how Watson’s ability to understand language and crunch data can be put to good use to suggest diagnoses and treatment options to doctors. If you would like to know more about this research, visit IBM’s own site about Watson.
Ferrucci has the last word: “In the end, the hero was the team, not any individual member or algorithm.”

The search for a more appropriate form of project management is on! Therefore, this year’s interPM conference in Glashütten, near Frankfurt, will explore this dilemma for two days with a mixture of keynotes, presentations, open space workshop and fishbowl sessions. In the first keynote, Prof. Juergen Tautz will show us what the honey bees can teach us about effectiveness. In the second, Prof. Werner Mellis will explore the “Mission Impossible” of how to resolve the dilemma in IT projects. Klaus Wagenhals and I (as metisleadership) will again facilitate the interdisciplinary workshops and hold the Open Space.

If you would like to participate in this project management conference, you can register here. If you have any questions regarding this interdisciplinary conference, which I am helping to organize, please get in touch.

Link:

Projects have their own rhythm. The classical instruments of project management only take you so far. Last year, the interPM conference focused on the role that culture plays in shaping a project’s rhythm. The GPM (German Project Management Association) has just released a video of the conference, Projekte als Kulturerlebnis (Projects as Cultural Experiences). This video (language alert: it’s in German!) is full of helpful insights from experienced project managers on the role that cultural differences play in shaping a project.

The video also heavily features an interdisciplinary workshopthat Klaus Wagenhals and I (as metisleadership)  facilitated  to warm up the conference participants. We also held the Open Space part of the conference. The workshop had two purposes: first, to warm up the participants, so that they would work well and openly together. Second, to help people experience the range of different perspectives and experiences (and prejudices!) present in the room. The resulting conversations were deep and the Open Space livelier than ever.

The keys to success outlined in the talk were:

• a definition of success. Presidential math is simple: you need 270 electoral votes; however, figuring out from which states those votes will come is not so easy. They had a clear idea on this. And also a clear idea about why Barack Obama was running for president.
• a clear strategy for achieving that success. This contrasted with both he Clinton and McCain campaigns, where strategy changed frequently. This led to confusion in the campaign and reduced effectiveness.
• making sure that all staff and volunteers understood the goal and the strategy, so that they didn’t get thrown by media turbulence. He was worried that he was sending too much information to the volunteers via mail; it turned out they wanted more. In the presidential phase of the campaign, they sent about four mails a day, on average.
• flexibility in local implementation (Colorado is not the same as Florida).
• clear metrics and targets for people and giving them the necessary authority to reach their targets.  People regularly received clear feedback, the discussion being based on the targets and support to get back on track, if people weren’t reaching their targets; a readiness to replace people, if they showed no improvement after being supported.
• Listening to your people, not just talking to them. They can deliver great ideas, you just need to listen.
• They also decided it was vital to have a high-quality web presence. It wasn’t enough that the site be better than those of the other candidates; they wanted to be able to stand comparison with google, amazon, cnn or yahoo. The site was the hub of the campaign and allowed the staff and volunteers to coordinate local activities on a stae and community level.
• A consistent message across all platforms. People pick up their information in fractured ways these days; just accept it and make sure you send the same message on all channels at the same time. People will piece it together and it gets across.

He also spoke openly about some of their mistakes, e.g. the mishandling of the Ohio and Texas primaries. If they’d picked up wither one, they’d have been able to close out the primary season much earlier. They also spent too little time on internal communication in the early stages of the campaign. They realized the importance of this and corrected this problem later on. David stressed the importance of not getting sucked into devoting all your energies on reaching the goal: it’s important to make sure you reserve time in your schedule for  communicating with staff – keeping them up-to-date with your thinking and listening to their ideas. Indeed, almost all the improvements to the campaign came from listening.

During the question and answer session, the value of the campaign web site to the presidency became clear: the President can get his message out to 13 million people by email; something he does on a regular basis. David also said the decisive moment in the campaign was when Obama spoke to 200,000 people in Berlin. Although this was mocked by the US media at the time, it delivered a string message to potential voters that the US had a politician who could reach out to the world and repair America’s standing in the international community.

The part I found most fascinating was his body language and gestures during the speech: blend out the skin color, and it was really as if  President Obama himself was delivering it!

Prof. Sackmann’s (U Bundeswehr, Munich) keynote is on the cultural dynamics in projects, while Prof. Schulze (FH Northwest Switzerland) is talking about success factors for global and virtual project teams. The full program is available here (in German) and registration details are here (also in German). If you want more information, just get in touch with me. Early bird prices run until 20 April.

I look forward to seeing you there!

I focus on leadership sculpting, helping people strip away the non-essential so that their own leadership can shine through to the world. Knowing themselves better helps with the shining process. I use the Enneagram as a model of personality to get to know myself better. My own Archetype in this system, the Nine, has a deep-seated belief that nobody is really interested in what they have to say. So, although I enjoy writing, the idea that people are interested in my opinions takes getting used to.

Another aspect of this is that I underestimate the power of my opinions. I attended a project management conference near Frankfurt last week. A discussion on how to help virtual teams work better together had veered onto its usual path of “if only we had better technology and more high-tech support for telephone conferences…”. After listening for a while, I just said, “the best technology in the world will just help you to a higher class of suffering – you need more to focus on the dynamics in the team itself” (it sounds pithier in German!). It turned the conversation.

Blog entries don’t need to be plentiful, just have something to say. And not always be important; some days we’re all grateful for something kooky and light and fun. Like Barack Obama speaking in Swabian (a local dialect) at his local residents’ association meeting.

I confess to being allergic to chain letters in any form, so I appreciated it, when Sandy asked me if she might tag me for this post. However, I won’t be tagging onward. With one exception. If you read German and like like to read about feeling better and being in contact with yourself and your body, head over to Nora Rauch’s wohlerleben blog.

If you would like to submit an abstract for a talk or workshop, here is a copy of the
InterPM 2009 Call for Papers (in German). If you want more information, just get in contact with me. I look forward to seeing you there!

We also facilitated an interdisciplinary warm-up workshop in which participants experienced the different perspectives on innovation that different professions hold. Of 80 participants, only four had a sociology or psychology background. Yet, by the end of the workshop, almost all present wanted to learn more about their perspective. More sociologists and psychologists next year, please!

The highlight of this year’s conference was Prof. Gerd Gigerenzer’s talk on gut feelings, or how we really take decisions. He succeeded in communicating a rich and challenging topic in a lucid and engaging manner. His research shows how – in many cases – less information leads to better and faster decisions.

Another take-away from the conference was the increased interest project managers are showing in learning how organisational psychology can help them, in particular for managing change projects.

Klaus and I will be reporting on InterPM at the annual organisational psychologists conference in Fellbach, near Stuttgart, on Wednesday. Maybe we can encourage a few more to attend next year’s InterPM.

I heard a couple of the keynotes. Prof. Osterhoff left us with his checklist for leadership

• Responsibility
• Discipline
• Punctuality
• Respect for otherness

The first three are standard, the fourth is worth taking some time to reflect on. How well do I do this in my working day? An example: we’ve appointed a new architect to see the building through to the finish. His style of running the project and dealing with the craftsmen is very “old school”. His way of writing to the craftsmen is very “I’m running the show”. I would tackle the job differently. However, I haven’t said anything. He does it differently, he’s a different personality. I respect that. Twenty years ago, I would have told him how to do it “the right way”. Now I’ve learned there is more than one right way. And it’s good to respect the otherness of other people.

1. the ability to reflect is essential to sift through and learn from experience, both what is working well and what could be improved.
2. willingness to learn new approaches and methods, in order to expand and improve one’s leadership repertoire, and
3. make a decision to take responsibility for what one does or neglects to do.

Any additions to or deletions from this short list?