You Cannot Outsource Accountability: Inside a $30B Infrastructure Portfolio with Omer Iqbal

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Welcome to the Major Project Podcast.
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I'm your host, Orion Matthews.
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In this pod, we are learning from the people that work on projects over a billion dollars, trying to tease out lessons and learnings from these big endeavors.
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My guest today is Omer Iqbal, senior portfolio manager in the investment PMO at Sydney Water.
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Omer's career has taken him from project engineering and project controls through portfolio leadership and board level work.
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So today, we are exploring what happens when project success is viewed not from a single project team, but from the perspective of executives responsible for multi-billion dollar capital portfolios.
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Omer, welcome to the podcast.
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Thank you, Orion.
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It's really good to be here, and thanks for the nice, introduction.
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Appreciate that.
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Really appreciate you coming on, and before we get started, maybe you can give us a little history about how you got into major projects to begin with Yeah, basically the background is of civil engineering.
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I've been working about two decades across the breadth of infrastructure projects, oil and gas, mining, telecommunications, defense, rails transport, roads and bridges, and now, uh, water and water sector.
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So that's, that's my background.
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Yeah.
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How did I get into project contr- uh, major projects? That's a good question.
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It was never like this.
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I think my first project was, I think about $20 million, a very small project, uh, working for, within oil and gas space, but it was setting up the site facility.
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But, the sooner the company was awarded about a $500 million project there, and boom, uh, the whole dynamics changed.
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It sounds like a story that is very common, which is starting on a small project and then something kind of balloons and the opportunity hits and you find yourself in a new space.
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Did you love it at that point when you...
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Or was it kind of terrifying being on the $500 million project all of a sudden? Yeah, I think, yeah, the heat is different.
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If a project is less than, say, $50 million, it is very painful.
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It has constraints, it has the devil in details kind of situation.
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But when they go bigger, the conversation is very different.
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When they cross a hundred million dollar mark, suddenly the conversation is all about, uh, the bigger impacts, the stakeholder management and the shareholder interest in there.
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The constraints change.
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The project is not six months or one year, it's about five-year-long project.
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The long-term impacts of this project in the society and the community or part of the infrastructure that it's going to be a part of.
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So it changes significantly and it is daunting.
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It's a bit scary at first, but yeah, as an engineer is what you, well, you, you do what you got to do.
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You understand the impact, you understand the scope, and then sooner or later you realize it's just another project.
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The same principles applicable here.
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Uh, the, the fundamentals are same.
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Uh, the impact is slightly different or more than slightly different, but you just use the same, same rules here Well, this kind of reminds me of something that you said once, which is that portfolio management is a bridge between the boardroom and the people delivering the work.
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So it sounds like you've been on both sides now, delivering the work in the fields on those smaller projects, and then also being in the boardroom.
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Like, when did you sort of make that sort of insight that you're essentially, as these projects get bigger, you're sort of a bridge between these two worlds as a portfolio manager? So started working with contractors, then soon moved towards the client side roles.
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And it was not until about five years ago when I was working on a multi-billion dollar project with Transport for New South Wales, and I got a volunteer board opportunity with PMI Sydney chapter.
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I was sitting on the board, and at the same time I also started, studying MBA.
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Now that was the time where I started to look at my project, and my work was also demanding.
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It was COVID, once in a lifetime kind of challenges we were facing at our work front.
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And I started questioning, why are we doing this project? What is the impact of this project? What kind of organizational risk are the targets of this government or this organization or this infrastructure that we're trying to achieve by delivering this project? Is this end date really an end date that we actually want to work towards? So that bigger piece thinking started to emerge in my mind, and then same time I was studying MBA, sitting on the board, and then I realized, okay, so when you're working on a project, you are trying to deliver a project.
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But when you're thinking as a strategist, as an MBA strategist, you're trying to connect the board with the mission, vision, and objectives.
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But w- if you're sitting on a board, you have a bigger purpose of the project is is it reducing the risk of the organization? Is it creating value to the organization? So yeah, this all started to amalgamate and, uh, lucky enough a couple of years later, I was sitting on a portfolio position and, and making all the decisions or participating in making all those decisions.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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I find, the canvas of thinking, the horizon of thinking really expanded.
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It was never about are we delivering right? It was always are we delivering the right thing? Are we delivering the right value? But when you're working in a project space, you really get to think like that.
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That was the biggest shift I went through That's a really elegant way of describing it.
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I've had someone say it's sort of like, zooming out from the forest, you know? Like how high do you wanna go is almost like the difference.
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Some people get really uncomfortable when they zoom pretty far out because just doesn't work for them.
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They wanna be maybe at a more detailed level, and they're really good at the tree level.
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So to make that transition kind of requires, like you said, the MBA, the board service, all those things kind of come together and it, and it clicks into like, I understand what I'm doing at this viewpoint and how, how I can actually be a contributor.
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It reminds me of the time when I did my PMP exam, right? And we were doing the training, the PMP exam training.
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I was very early in my career, bare minimum meeting the criteria to do the PMP exam.
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I said, "Okay, let's prepare for it.
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Let's get it done."
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There's one concept in PMBOK which was so confusing at that point in my life, was the concept of sponsor, a project sponsor.
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What do you mean a project sponsor? I'm doing a project management course.
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I want to be a project manager, or I want to be a project leader.
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What is a sponsor? What does it mean? What, why is he, he's, or he, he or she is issuing the charter? It was always confusing at that point.
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But anyways, passed through the exams, lived through two decades of my experience, and voila, I'm the sponsor.
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So it is pretty much a full circle of a project life cycle that I'm living through.
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And that was the biggest, biggest change in my thinking.
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Okay, so a sponsor's job is to ensure project has the right amount of budget, right conditions, uh, to deliver, identified constraints that it should deliver within, and the value, the benefit realization, and the as underlying assumptions.
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So in a project space, you would think project sponsor's job ends by just issuing that charter.
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But in reality, there's a lot more going on in the back end, challenging the assumptions, why we're doing these projects.
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Uh, are the, uh, the future growth of the city is aligning with the numbers we're getting from the Ministry of Housing Department, or are we getting the same numbers on the, on the labor shortages? Why are we doing these projects in an innovative way? All those conversations that are happening at the sponsor level, which I was blindsided for a very long part of my career, and it started to open up in the last five years, and portfolio management is the space where it all happened.
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Yeah.
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I think, uh, you know, while we're re- reini- like re-reminiscing about our college days, I wanna take you back 'cause I had a very similar experience, slightly adjacent, where I was I was in a business analysis class, and they had technical requirements and business requirements, and it was like I could not at that point understand the difference.
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I was like, "If they need a button moved on a form, that's a business requirement."
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And, I, I could never really get my head around it.
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I got it enough that I could pass, but at some point it sort of clicked.
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And I guess the interesting thing for people is that when you go through those tests, if, if you're at that point, 'cause I think a lot of people run into it, it's just good to like place mark that it's not just semantic jargon, sort of there is actually something there, and if it doesn't make sense, it will in time perhaps.
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Um- Well, hey, uh, just one last question for you- Yeah Omer, I really wanted to ask.
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But you helped PMI grow tremendously in Australia, uh, I think something like 700%, 600% growth, and you're also, you know, coming on this podcast.
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Thank you so much.
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Is there maybe a story that you could share about contributions to the space that you've been making, because you've been very active, and what it kinda means for you personally to do these things? I'm gonna go reverse on the answering the question.
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Yeah.
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Personally, it is extremely rewarding giving back to the community.
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And I, I was lucky enough when I started my career, I found a mentor.
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He passed away in 2013, Sabir Chauhan, and, uh, he really took me under his wings and, uh, and gave me the, the vision and the insights on how things are done, trusted me, gave me the confidence, and pushed me to achieve more, on my role in, in the past.
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That time I realized that it's not only 9:00 to 5:00 that you have to live.
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You have to do more than that.
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You need to be able to create a space for mentoring.
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You need to be able to create a safe space for professionals to come and have communication and discuss their ideas and bounce back those ideas.
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And that time in Pakistan, a long time ago, uh, PMI Lahore chapter was that space.
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And I would go there, I would meet my seniors, I would listen to their stories idealize that this is the job we should be doing or this is how we should be doing, or this guy works in States, he came back on a vacation and he's delivering a lecture today.
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Would hear those stories, and those stories are Part of my success journey.
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They're, they're big part of who I am.
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The lessons many people...
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Everyone is a teacher for me.
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I learn from everybody, right? And all those interactions I had was really good.
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So when I came to Sydney, I was part of PMS Sydney chapter, and during COVID we realized it has a big challenge I was recently elected as a board director and was given an opportunity to lead the board as a president and, uh, and take the chapter away from its, uh, state of, a bit of a limbo into proper functional organization.
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So yes, we increased membership by about 600%.
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We did, uh, start doing events from 10, 12 a year to 60 a year.
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We created, uh, liaisons with the universities.
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We kickstarted, one of the biggest non-for-profit mentoring program in Australia.
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So those were the journeys, and it gave me tremendous satisfaction.
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It gave me a lot of pleasure to, to know that I was there.
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I could return back to the community that I benefit a lot from myself.
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And coming to this podcast and many other, the reason is to share what I know and give this confidence to other...
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There, there would be very well a kid listening to me and you while doing a long walk or going for a drive right now, and the message to that person is that, yes this is for you to listen and, uh, and give us a feedback as well later on if you can.
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But this is for you to listen and learn and maybe inspire a bit.
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Stay curious.
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So how we grow? By staying curious and by, by being inspired.
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So this is what it is all about That's awesome.
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That's really well said.
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You know, there's something really enjoyable when you convene people and you see them connect with each other and sort of build that, uh, you know, build connections, make deals, find jobs, do all these things.
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It's a very satisfying feeling to be able to convene a space.
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And, um, I think, uh, it- I really appreciate you sharing the backstory on that.
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Yeah.
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I can't wait to talk about Sydney Water.
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I think this might be the biggest program we've had on the show.
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And I was really shocked when you told me how big it was.
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So maybe for those outside of Australia, can you give us a rundown of Sydney Water and kind of the role it plays in the community, the size of...
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that we're talking about here? Thank you very much.
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Sydney Water.
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Sydney Water is 135-year-old entity.
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It is the biggest water infrastructure, I believe, in this region, in the Southern Hemisphere, I believe, if I'm not wrong.
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We deliver, Sydney Water delivers 1.5
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billion liters of water every day to the people of Sydney.
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It is a human- huge infrastructure, about 25,000 kilometers of drinking water pipeline and about 30,000 kilometers of water sewer pipeline, uh, within Sydney.
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That is a very complex asset infrastructure.
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And it- the funny thing is, it's all invisible.
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You don't see any of that You, a- an average consumer just turns on the tap one day or takes a shower or ma- cooks a g- fix themselves a cup of coffee or a tea.
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They don't realize the whole mammoth of a infrastructure and institution behind it.
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So that's Sydney Water.
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We have a desalination plant, we have our reservoirs, we have our water, pre-treatment facilities, water filtration facilities.
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The drinking water codes are changing globally.
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We're impacted by it.
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We are also changing those things.
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So it's about 6 million people here, and they're going to be 10 million apparently.
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Uh, this population's going to be increasing, uh, as per the numbers from government.
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It's a massive infrastructure.
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It's so huge.
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I personally, I myself didn't knew when I joined Sydney Water how big it is, every day, I'm still exploring.
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It's three years now and I'm still exploring new things.
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Can you take us back? Like, when was the moment you, like, walk into this thing, like you said, y- you were kind of surprised.
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When did you get that, "Wow, this is affecting millions of people.
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This is a big deal."
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Did, do, do you have a moment like that you could share when you started? Yeah.
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It's a bit personal here.
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So for me it's, the journey was slightly different.
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So my dad is a mechanical engineer, and he used to work in the desalination plant in Saudi Arabia for Ministry of Water, right? And that's where I was born, that's where I grew up.
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And I used to, you know, being the curious kid, always asking your dad questions.
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"What do you do? What does it mean? Where does this pipe goes? Where does this pipe comes from? What do you mean removing salt from the water?" So I would ask all these questions, and I had fair bit of an understanding that this facility is supplying to the water of, uh, whole city of Riyadh.
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And when I joined Sydney Water, I did have that understanding.
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Even then, realizing how our day-to-day decisions can impact the lives of people in Sydney Water in 30 years' time is huge.
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So when I walked in, I started to look at our portfolio, I started to look at our key investment drivers.
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And usually where in my previous experiences an investment driver or a size of a program or a portfolio will have two, three reasons or two, three key drivers for investment, here it was about 80, 8-0 That had me.
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I was like, "Whoa, what does it mean?" Uh, yes, there's a lot going on.
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So you can imagine an entity that's 135 years old, and the last big capital investment was about 50, 60 years ago.
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Wow.
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All the assets, or majority of the assets, are facing aging issue, and then the growth is, uh, increasing.
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Uh, water guidelines globally are changing.
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That has an impact on our asset productivities, plus this drought or the rainfalls, the extreme weather impacts, that changes a lot of things for us as well.
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So yeah, there's a, there's a lot going on.
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There's a lot going on on a day to day.
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Never a dull moment.
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Like, how, how many programs or projects, like what's the total size would you say? Just any, you know- Okay.
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Let me- I'm sure it varies, but...
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Yeah.
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Let me build that, uh, question.
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Let me build for an audience as well, a bit of a suspense here.
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So the l- last 10 years, on an average, Sydney Water was doing, or this entity was doing about $300 million capital investment a year That, yeah, that's fair.
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No, that's fairly decent.
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Yeah.
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That increased to about currently at $3 billion a year.
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We have projects in the pipeline pretty much clear of about $30 billion, and in the next 10 years- Wow we're going to be delivering about $26 billion-ish of that.
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And in the next immediate five years, we are aiming to deliver about $14 billion worth of projects.
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So that is the size.
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Now, how many projects? That's interesting because a billion-dollar project could be sliced into 100 small projects.
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That's often the case.
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So for billion-dollar projects identified, we have about, you can say six of them, which is like proper almost 600, $700 million meeting the major projects criteria.
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These little renewal jobs of the assets and small growth, uh, components in brownfield or greenfield environments, that is a lot.
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So total active projects are about 1,000 in, uh, in construction space, and if you include opex with maintenance facilities and all of those areas, you're talking about around 2,000 projects at any given moment happening.
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So you can reverse math and evaluate how many project controls people we have, how many project managers we have, how many designers we have, and how many contractors we have engaged in Sydney Water.
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So it is a very busy time for us.
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Okay, just quick question.
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I wanna dive in just on this.
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Like, are you doing, like, classic EVM, earned value management, like applying all the principles at some level for those projects? Do you have some kind of custom-rolled way of managing such a large portfolio? And then concurrent to that question, I'm, I'm sort of curious if you would talk a little bit about maybe some of the differences that might exist between water infrastructure and maybe, like, other mega projects like, uh, oil and gas or nuclear or something like that.
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Evaluating, evaluating the progress of projects in a portfolio space.
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Beautiful question.
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Now, traditionally, you would have earned value, and earned value would-- submission of an earned value at a program level would give you an idea, yes, we were supposed to be planning to burn around $100 million a month.
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We are burning $100 million a month.
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Are we getting the same value out of that, uh, situation or not? So that is your classic earned value.
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But when you have a portfolio of the size of thousand projects, out of thousand projects, 600 are pretty much live on site, 700-ish live on site, contractors working on day in, day out.
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When you look at a portfolio space, in portfolio we are looking at a project from the birth of a project to its business development gates, which is business cases, initiation, options finalization of options.
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And okay, now we are ready to go for delivery.
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After hitting that mark, then we go out in the market, tender the project, contractors hired, contractor board, and then they start delivering and then they finish the job.
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Now the job is handed over to the operator and they start using it, and then they come back, "Ah, the pump was supposed to generate 50 megaliters, but it's generating only 30 megaliters."
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Then you go back, redesign again, add another pump to the whole thing, and then the whole cycle goes back.
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So in a life cycle of a project, the whole idea is, um, delivery component is about 10 to 20%.
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There's a lot more on the outside that's happening, and the conversation is, is the project going to deliver the value that it's aiming for? Yes, earned value helps to track the progress of a project.
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Yes, cost burning numbers are important as well, but way more critical for us is to know that is this project part of the journey of success for the whole organization? Is it going to deliver the value that we are trying to deliver? Is it going to hit the needle of the infrastructure risk status from high risk to low risk or low risk to very low risk? In Sydney Water, we have a delivery system, and delivery contractors are hired through an NEC suit for alliance contractors.
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There's no certain-- no-- You, you would say that earned value is there in action or not is not going to drive my decisions at the portfolio space or for an executives to make a quicker decision or, or a later decision.
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Yes, it does impact to know there's a milestone we need to meet or we need to finish a project by a certain deadline.
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Are we doing it or not? That is it, and how certainty we have.
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For tracking all of this system, we have a, we have a separate ring, which is performance delivery hub.
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They are tracking it by, uh, earned value management.
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And there was, uh...
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We trialed a few years ago a something called O-OMD, Overall Measurement of Delivery.
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It was a concept taken up from, Scottish Waters, uh, in Europe.
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So what it means, at a portfolio level, you just give every activity a certain weightage on all the projects.
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A certain milestone will get certain weightage, and then you take it as one unit and you create a singular S-curve.
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So that is a basically level of effort tracking and seeing if we are pushing projects in the right direction or not.
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That is one tool.
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But again, the bigger purpose is, uh, of portfolio is not to track a project's, uh, earned value management.
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It is essentially to identify the outputs.
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Yep I think it's a critique you can have on earned value is the word value in earned value.
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It's you know, if your ear- if your project is to drive to the store to get some groceries to then come back and cook a meal for your family, as you're...
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Like, the goal of that project is to get dinner on the table.
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If you use an EVM process to track that whole process and the inputs and stuff, like, as you're progressing it, like, nothing about what it's saying is actually kind of relating to that final goal.
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I mean, it is in that you do these things to get to that goal, but in a way, the value that you're wanting is to feed your family, which you're kind of measuring indirectly by measuring progress against scope, schedule, and budget.
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Let's say there's a project that's $100, $200 million and you're, you're at the executive level.
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What kind of information are you gonna take to a committee to decide whether to move that forward or not? What's the key sort of pieces that you need for, to make those go, no-go decisions? One thing we need to understand that organizations, and many organizations are really good in delivering an exceptionally awesome speed for a project that is completely not needed.
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So we can, we can do a wrong project exceptionally well, but that does not necessarily mean we should be doing it or not.
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Now, in a delivery space a project manager has a very simple role, essentially to manage the triple, good old triple constraint.
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But when it comes to a portfolio space, you are identifying the value of this project and how it aligns with the risk appetite of the executives, uh, s- they have set for the environment, for the safety, for the public health, for the regulatory, limitations placed on them by, from various, various bodies.
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There, there's, there's a tendency for us engine- for us en-engineers, we like numbers, and we like lots of them.
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And we have this tendency to create really complex reports and 50, 60, data points, uh, and total different KPIs, and we'll be able to create a very beautiful dashboard or a report for an executive, but that's not what they need usually.
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They really need to carry the stewardship of the business, and they need to identify projects that create the biggest impact on that needle.
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With the needle of organizational risk situation is the-- is this organization operating at the risk? Say, say not for Sydney Water, say it for a retail business or good old Apple.
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It could be anything.
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Is this project going to increase the sales, or is this project going to create a better marketing value in the market? What it's going to do-- trying to achieve or whatever the challenge we are trying to have, uh, resolve in this organization, how this project is going to bring it down.
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Now, the challenge where we sit at the mid-level between the project managers and the executives is evaluating the impacts of those projects and linking them back to those those indicators.
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The biggest challenge is, uh, we need to have a clear and defined benefit framework with a benefit catalog, and each catalog item speaking to the executive needs.
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If we have that cleared out, now that is a perfect value proposition, you can present it to an executive underlying many assumptions.
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In the case of Sydney Water or any water sector globally, you could have a $100 billion plan for a growth project considering the population increase trends provided to you by the departments, relevant departments, but they could be totally wrong.
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You may end up doing all those growth projects way too early, and those, uh, and those growth forecasts are going to materialize only 50 years later than you finish the project.
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So in those 50 years, you could have invested money where ev- something else was needed for the customer, or something else that could have benefited the organization and its, uh, consumers better.
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So as an investment executives or executives that are going to sign off of a business case, the biggest concern from them to, for them to understand on a investment decision or a project is it urgent? Why? What are the assumptions behind it? Did we challenge those assumptions? If we challenge those assumptions, what was the alternative? And why we are not doing the alternative, and why we are doing this project? Now, that is the statement that we have to prepare for an investment decision and to push forward.
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I love it, and just to play it back a little bit, what I heard you talk about is that engineers love quantitative things because math is perfection when it comes to logic, but value is a subjective term, and it has qualitative pieces to it at times.
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And there's this, uh-- there's a complex relationship in terms of how you take the quantitative and qualitative and line those up together to bring that information to an executive, and then executives are going to want to develop confidence in that sort of assessment, which means asking questions like what are the alternatives? Because I, I feel like the greatest fear of many executives is somebody shows up in your office, says, "Let's spend $300 million.
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Here's the plan," bada boom.
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You tell them, uh, you ask a few questions, you interrogate it, they say it's good.
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But they remember the story of their mentor saying, like, "Don't trust anything that comes from this gr- or d- you know, don't trust the facts that you're reading on the paper.
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Like, always be suspicious because they're, because these numbers are so complicated."
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Yeah.
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Confidence is hard.
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It's a currency.
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It's hard to establish.
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I've heard that you've figured out a way around that, so I'm just curious if you could riff a little bit on how you come at these, numbers and presentations, give people the confidence that Yeah That it pieces together.
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Engineers are not economists.
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And when I was studying my MBA, right, when I was studying the economy subject that did really move the gears in my mind.
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Uh, I started thinking very differently, and at that point I was thinking, "Well, economy should be a fundamental course in engineering education."
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Now, going back, how do we articulate? First of all, it's, uh, it's not me, it's the whole team.
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We have a whole function, and there are different different roles and responsibilities in evaluating the values and, uh, and the purpose of certain projects.
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Are they aligning with the greater housing development objectives? Are they aligning with the new water framework? Are they aligning with the assets breaking down situation? Water is so unforgiving, and this is such a necessity.
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You need it every 30 minutes of your day.
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And there's not-- we cannot afford to have a tap run dry, or we cannot have, streets flooding with the sewer lines.
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That cannot happen.
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So there's a, there's a zero tolerance in certain areas that just keeps the, makes the value definition straightforward that it's going to happen.
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We have to do this project for this reason.
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Now, where's...
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The, the fear is that also an engineer versus econo- economist mindset is a certain project or a certain part of a project may be considered as a gold plating for an engineer, but maybe not for an economist.
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For example, building a really big wastewater treatment facility and having a little park next to it so the community is not really scared of that wastewater treatment facility, and they understands how the water works, so it engages the community in the journey.
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An economist will really love that, but an engineer would think that is an absolute gold plating.
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We could use that money into investing more, uh, more advanced sensors or et cetera, et cetera.
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So that always happens.
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And yes, executives do walk in with a prejudice.
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And I think that's their job.
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Uh, when eight people-- Y- y-- There's-- I read this somewhere, the most expensive meeting is where everybody agrees.
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Oh.
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I think one of those situations.
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If everyone is agreeing to everything on, in a meeting room, well, that's the time wasted for everybody.
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So there should be someone to challenge it, and that's the role of an executive.
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If not the executive or it's, it's a challenge for us to challenge e- each other and ourselves in the room that this project is indeed going to deliver the value it's going to deliver.
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And therefore we are gonna have check marks, checkpoints.
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So we're going to say, "Okay, we're gonna deliver this project.
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We're going to go to three, five, six gates, or these two, three milestones, and we are going to stop there."
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There's gonna be hold point, and we're going to reflect what we're going to do.
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The good old plan, do, check, act, philosophy.
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I think it was, uh, Shewhart's, framework of plan, do, check, act.
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It's still relevant.
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It's a, it's a 100-year-old, uh, theory, but still relevant I just wanna tap in on this- Yeah real quick.
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Like you said the the meeting that everyone agrees on is the most expensive meeting.
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I think w- what I'd love to hear from you about how you set culture to prevent that, because oftentimes I think the discipline we're in with engineers and things, people are not people pleasers, but they're doers, and they're...
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They like to avoid conflict and focus on what's working and lean into that.
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What you're talking about is a healthy culture that doesn't shy away from conflict, that can raise issues, things like that.
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Do you have any leadership tricks? Like, how do you foster that in a team? What do you need to do to make it so that people can be disagreeable and don't leave a conversation with someone's feelings hurt? That's, amazing.
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That's...
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but to summarize it, and something that I'm really passionate and I've been trialing at my workplace for the last 10 years, ever since I've had a manager role, is psychological safety.
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Now, what is a psychological safety? Psychological safety is the people around you, or people in the room of the meeting, should feel comfortable enough to speak up without having a fear of, of, of hierarchical, you know, hierarchy fears.
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Hierarchy is real, and when, when you're talking about billion-dollar private sector construction or public sector, that's...
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there are egos involved in there.
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There are very different and very interesting personalities sitting in the room.
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So how do you break that ice with them? It's a two-way street.
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If an executive really wants to have a very detailed and very in-depth, uh, discussion happen in that room, they have to create a very open, psychologically safe environment.
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How do we do is literally fail early theory So you're gonna try something, try it now.
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Don't wait for it to be perfect.
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Progress over perfection.
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If you have a thought and you are not really sure about it, you don't wait for thinking about it in detail.
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You can always flag it.
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Hey, it is a risk that I identify in this, proposition.
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It is a risk that I think this major project is not going to hit the goals or the milestone they're gonna hit because the trend line is low or high.
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Your job is to flag those indicators as a controls or a project professional.
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You should do it with pride and full confidence.
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Now, if you are a leader in a space, you should encourage that in your team but if you are sitting in an, in an environment where you don't have that much of a wiggle room, or you cannot dictate a culture for you because you're a junior resource or you're a junior in the room, all that you can do is understand the personalities and try to connect your point of view and try to align them with one of the leaders in the room.
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For example, so there's a project we know that is going to have a safety concern, and we are rushing too quickly.
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We are going to head on the construction, and this could have a safety concern.
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So I'm going to wait for the moment and see in the executive room if the safety general manager walks in and he's attending this room.
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I'm going to straight away try to flag it with that Individual, number one.
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Uh, "Hey, we're doing this project.
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I have a safety concern in there.
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Do you also re- resonate with me on this point on yes or no?" And then the dialogue starts, and he or she may give you really good pointers, and then you can go and look at that, and that will clarify you either or you'll be, you'll, you'll be right, or you will learn something.
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The other alternative, for example, there's no one in the room, then you connect it with the organizational goals.
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You can say that, "Hey, we are working in this X, Y, Z organization, and one of the key cardinal rules in this organization is the safety of the people, and, uh, we are encouraged to speak about it.
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But yeah, in general, psychological safety is sec- psychological safety is 100% leadership responsibility.
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Leaders, modern-day leaders have to embed that in the marketplace.
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You cannot be a leader anymore if your team is not psychologically safe around you.
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Gone are the days of, uh, military dictator style working in offices.
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I think that's very historic.
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And with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, you can't.
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You need to, you need to create that space for them to experiment things to understand and speak openly.
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And if you have a concern about someone being, not s- switched on with the, with the terminologies or not understanding, uh, the different, s- organizational or cultural boundaries, then you need to have that separate training with those individuals.
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You should not impede or you should not stop the psychological safety culture in your organization.
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It's 100%, 100% required.
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I cannot work without a psychological safe environment.
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That's how.
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00:37:07,28.003 --> 00:37:07,388.003
Yeah.
322
00:37:08,308.002 --> 00:37:24,998.002
I would almost wonder, I, I don't know if there's an index for psychological safety, but if there were one, I would argue that you could have a project with all the right scope, all the right funding, and the right people on deck, but if you don't have psychological safety, I bet the failure rate is extremely high.
323
00:37:25,438.001 --> 00:37:28,978
A phrase I keep saying to my team, is assume positive intent.
324
00:37:29,388 --> 00:37:29,628
Mm.
325
00:37:29,638 --> 00:37:39,098
Which is trying to frame people's, you know, words immediately as a positive thing that's coming from a place of positive energy.
326
00:37:39,427.998 --> 00:37:43,717.998
But I like wrapping that around psychological safety makes a lot of sense to me.
327
00:37:44,87.997 --> 00:37:46,147.995
Indicator wise, I can chime in on this one.
328
00:37:46,547.996 --> 00:37:53,117.994
I think it's the, the King of Brunei, he has come up with this, the alternate of GDP is, indicator of happiness.
329
00:37:53,177.997 --> 00:37:58,557.998
So he said he's not going to report on a national GDP, he's going to report on the national happiness indicator.
330
00:37:59,267.997 --> 00:38:10,137.996
So probably we can cheat from his, uh, from his way of, uh, evaluating the happiness of their people to psycho- psychological safety- Yeah indicator.
331
00:38:10,468.001 --> 00:38:13,498.001
And this is, again, as an, uh, we are thinking as engineers here, Ryan.
332
00:38:13,968.001 --> 00:38:15,117.997
We're coming up with- Mm a number.
333
00:38:15,118.002 --> 00:38:18,718
We're trying to assign a number to to a vibe essentially.
334
00:38:19,397.998 --> 00:38:41,617.996
So if an organization, if you walk into an organization and everyone's there for six months or one year, and there's nobody there for long, it's, it's, their organization is acting as a musical chairs or a revolving door, people are walking in and walking out, so the human resource turnover is really high, that is a dead giveaway they are not doing something right.
335
00:38:42,77.999 --> 00:38:42,97.999
Yeah.
336
00:38:42,817.996 --> 00:38:48,117.997
That organization lacks psychological safety 100%, because i- it's not...
337
00:38:48,617.999 --> 00:38:50,907.998
No one enjoys to go to work.
338
00:38:53,257.999 --> 00:38:53,387.999
Right.
339
00:38:53,458 --> 00:39:06,527.987
There are a few crazy ones out there, they're really passionate to work the rest of their life, but most people, they, they leave their kids, they leave their pets at home or their loved ones, and they go to a workplace.
340
00:39:07,107.982 --> 00:39:08,537.981
They want to do something.
341
00:39:09,467.985 --> 00:39:14,277.996
They have made their way to the office door with an intention to deliver.
342
00:39:14,767.992 --> 00:39:24,627.987
Now it's the job of the leadership and the organizational culture to make sure that the environment is conducive enough so that the person has done his part of the deal.
343
00:39:24,817.995 --> 00:39:26,747.987
They've got the qualification, you hired them.
344
00:39:26,897.997 --> 00:39:28,57.997
They've got the references.
345
00:39:28,367.998 --> 00:39:29,107.993
They have everything.
346
00:39:29,558.001 --> 00:39:33,67.988
Now it's your job to provide them that environment that they deliver.
347
00:39:34,617.997 --> 00:39:39,207.997
And the biggest part is definitely psychological safety, uh, creating that space.
348
00:39:39,257.997 --> 00:39:42,977.997
I always say this to my team, uh, "Your failure is mine 100%.
349
00:39:43,337.997 --> 00:39:45,327.997
Uh, you can always say that it was a direction from me.
350
00:39:45,907.997 --> 00:39:49,337.996
And if we succeed, that success is your title 100%."
351
00:39:49,607.996 --> 00:39:54,217.997
So that's a very simple rule, and that takes away that stress from the people.
352
00:39:55,457.997 --> 00:39:56,647.996
We tried so many things.
353
00:39:56,677.997 --> 00:40:07,463.997
We, uh, believe it or not, in only two and a half years with Sydney Water, we wrote Sydney Water's history's first benefit framework There was a benefit framework.
354
00:40:07,733.997 --> 00:40:24,213.998
And currently, very recently, I authored, or I'm, I'm starting to author a whole value management office concept, because we need to get away from this economic and the numbering campaign and start looking at the projects and their values and some- somehow come up with an indicator as well.
355
00:40:24,623.998 --> 00:40:47,63.996
What is the value of this portfolio, of this program, and how are we going to ensure that the dollar invested is the right dollar invested and we're getting the right return out of it? Because it's a public sector, any project we do is We- Go, let's, So any project that we do or any major project that anyone is doing in the world will have an impact at least 10, 20 years down the line.
356
00:40:47,123.996 --> 00:40:51,730.6623333
So it's no way you can say that this project has generated the value it was.
357
00:40:51,780.6623333 --> 00:41:02,880.6663333
The real value is really long-term, and that's not long enough, uh, that's not short enough for a board to get their promotion or executives to get their bonuses.
358
00:41:02,890.6633333 --> 00:41:02,910.6633333
Yeah.
359
00:41:02,950.6603333 --> 00:41:12,950.6633333
So how do you evaluate that this dollar is invested in, in the project in the right speed, right amount of time? And that's where I'm working on, that's where I'm writing down.
360
00:41:13,450.6633333 --> 00:41:21,510.6663333
I'm exploring so much good work done by many consulting organizations globally, and we are going to be talking with them and, uh, and develop this further.
361
00:41:21,570.6663333 --> 00:41:31,890.6643333
So yeah, psychological safety environment, when we wrote down the benefit framework and now writing down value management office piece, whole team is trying different things.
362
00:41:31,970.6663333 --> 00:41:33,520.6683333
They are bringing in different concepts.
363
00:41:33,520.6693333 --> 00:41:46,120.6643333
They are saying, "Hey, Umar, by the way, you know, we were thinking about, we have 60,000 projects, or six, sorry, 6,000 projects identified, but we don't really know how much of them have a direct impact on our compliance status."
364
00:41:47,170.6713333 --> 00:41:52,860.6723333
Do you think we should create a register where we start tracking them?" I said, "That is a great idea.
365
00:41:52,870.6683333 --> 00:41:58,790.6733333
Let's call it a project attribution exercise, and let's not limit ourselves to those compliance projects.
366
00:41:58,790.6733333 --> 00:42:00,310.6743333
Let's expand it further.
367
00:42:00,800.6763333 --> 00:42:24,710.6673333
What is of public health? What is of, uh, organizational safety? What is for operational safety?" And in six months we got the only register in the organization that maps all these projects to the other collectual reasons for the project, which is very difficult- Yeah to be mapped down to a very boring corporate investment triggers or these words, but they have a different purpose as well.
368
00:42:24,750.6703333 --> 00:42:30,420.6723333
These projects have a life and a soul, and trying to track them down in a, in a different, uh, understanding.
369
00:42:31,10.6653333 --> 00:42:34,340.6763333
And believe it or not, that, uh, the whole conversation piece started.
370
00:42:34,730.6763333 --> 00:42:42,512.6743333
Because of the psychological safe environment, somebody came to me in my team with this idea We take this onward.
371
00:42:42,752.6743333 --> 00:42:46,652.6743333
My manager, my director created psychological safety for me to present it.
372
00:42:47,72.6743333 --> 00:42:58,392.6743333
I presented it, and slowly and slowly it grew so much that it is currently sitting at, at, at a backbone of whole investment decisions, that little piece of work.
373
00:42:59,192.6733333 --> 00:43:03,442.6743333
And it starts, it starts with that safe space for someone to say, "I've got an idea.
374
00:43:03,442.6743333 --> 00:43:04,292.6733333
I wanna try it out.
375
00:43:04,292.6733333 --> 00:43:04,922.6743333
Could fail."
376
00:43:05,202.6733333 --> 00:43:05,382.6733333
Yeah.
377
00:43:05,382.6743333 --> 00:43:07,152.6733333
And you said, "Yeah, go for it, man."
378
00:43:07,422.6733333 --> 00:43:07,732.6733333
Yeah.
379
00:43:08,162.6743333 --> 00:43:08,972.6743333
Take it, take it on."
380
00:43:08,982.6743333 --> 00:43:09,2.6743333
Yeah.
381
00:43:09,122.6733333 --> 00:43:12,992.6733333
And then it, and then that was the seed, and then it grew.
382
00:43:13,562.6733333 --> 00:43:20,112.6713333
I'm so curious, just to loop back on one thing you mentioned that I would love to hear your thoughts on, uh, which is I...
383
00:43:20,162.6733333 --> 00:43:22,982.6723333
let's say I've got a big ego, I'm approving these projects.
384
00:43:23,112.6743333 --> 00:43:26,342.6743333
Uh, maybe I have some political aspirations, I don't know.
385
00:43:26,892.6723333 --> 00:43:32,992.6743333
But, uh, your benefit framework is kinda helping see, like this has 100-year value.
386
00:43:33,372.6713333 --> 00:43:34,692.6713333
And just to kinda, it...
387
00:43:34,922.6703333 --> 00:43:48,432.6673333
Like an example I remember is I saw a startup with a guy, he had invented a sleeve that you put on telephone poles, and this sleeve, you, when you put it in the ground, it made the poles last an extra 50 years.
388
00:43:48,432.6673333 --> 00:43:48,687.6688333
Wow.
389
00:43:48,687.6688333 --> 00:43:54,362.6703333
And so, you know, they last 100 years now, or 80 years, and this would get you to that, like 130.
390
00:43:54,382.6733333 --> 00:44:03,572.6723333
So it had a amazing ROI, but he was having trouble selling it because, you know, everyone's gonna be dead by the time you're capturing that ROI on your telephone pole.
391
00:44:03,962.6703333 --> 00:44:06,982.6703333
And there were other benefits, like it didn't leach chemicals in the ground or whatever.
392
00:44:07,332.6733333 --> 00:44:29,442.6793333
But, I think my question, back to the question did you find a way to give those executives political capital that they could believe in for those long horizon values in your sort of benefit matrix? So when I was working with Australian Defense and Transport for New South Wales, that was the most interesting thing I was exposed to.
393
00:44:30,222.6773333 --> 00:44:39,132.6803333
Definitely our shareholders are, when you're working in a mega major project space, your shareholders are really politicians.
394
00:44:39,632.6813333 --> 00:44:41,902.6803333
They are government officials or bureaucrats.
395
00:44:42,632.6813333 --> 00:44:49,962.6863333
And they have, they love photo- photograph opportunities, and they love things written about them on the newspaper.
396
00:44:50,92.6723333 --> 00:44:50,672.6853333
They love that.
397
00:44:51,662.6793333 --> 00:44:53,562.6793333
We have to create those opportunities.
398
00:44:53,882.6803333 --> 00:44:58,582.6843333
We have to identify the milestones in our, in our program and schedules at that point.
399
00:44:58,692.6833333 --> 00:45:10,682.6733333
Now, sitting in a portfolio space, funny enough, the whole direction of investment is actually, the birthplace of that is the politics need, political need.
400
00:45:11,222.6823333 --> 00:45:18,382.6823333
In a democratic structure, the s- people of Sydney are voting for a clean drinking water.
401
00:45:19,706.6803333 --> 00:45:29,466.6803333
And that is the mandate of the minister, and that minister has passed on the mandate to the board of directors, and the board of directors are talking to the managing director with the same mandate.
402
00:45:29,466.6803333 --> 00:45:37,766.6793333
And managing director is talking to the five EGMs, and five EGMs are talking to my director, and my director is talking to me with the same mandate.
403
00:45:38,466.6793333 --> 00:45:47,798.6803333
So it is the same in trust Some, sometimes yes, um, some projects could be of a very critical nature.
404
00:45:47,808.6803333 --> 00:45:55,318.6803333
For example, there could be one desalination plant we kickstart in Sydney, and I'm sure everybody would like to have a name on that project.
405
00:45:55,318.6803333 --> 00:45:57,178.6803333
It's going to be a $3 billion project.
406
00:45:57,178.6803333 --> 00:46:01,188.6803333
It's going to transform the water, drinking water supply line for us.
407
00:46:01,548.6793333 --> 00:46:01,848.6793333
Yeah.
408
00:46:02,488.6803333 --> 00:46:11,678.6793333
But I think politics, politicians, and the political interest people are smart enough to understand that if the project started to get late, then they are to blame as well.
409
00:46:12,678.6793333 --> 00:46:15,278.6803333
So now they are sticking with the initiatives.
410
00:46:15,428.6793333 --> 00:46:19,358.6773333
They're sticking with, we're going to have a clean drinking initiative, and we're gonna make sure we do that.
411
00:46:19,998.6793333 --> 00:46:24,128.6793333
And it's very easy for us to align ourselves with them, and that's, that's it.
412
00:46:24,138.6783333 --> 00:46:25,68.6773333
We are a very...
413
00:46:25,78.6773333 --> 00:46:37,918.6753333
E- every major project globally, unless it's a private entity, which even I think they are also going to be regulated by someone, every major project is a reg- is operating in a regulated environment.
414
00:46:38,468.6733333 --> 00:46:38,488.6733333
Yeah.
415
00:46:38,498.6723333 --> 00:46:40,328.6793333
There are rules around, uh, labor.
416
00:46:40,388.6793333 --> 00:46:42,418.6733333
There are rules around cost escalation.
417
00:46:42,428.6723333 --> 00:46:46,848.6773333
There are rules around h- how much fast speed you can do this project or not.
418
00:46:47,268.6763333 --> 00:46:51,358.6783333
So we all operate within that framework, and that can, no one can change that.
419
00:46:51,938.6753333 --> 00:46:58,78.6773333
So it's a tough luck if someone is not going to get a, a political credit out of it or not, but yeah, not our job.
420
00:46:58,178.6763333 --> 00:46:59,678.6703333
We, we work on a mandate.
421
00:46:59,778.6693333 --> 00:47:08,268.6703333
Mandate is if I'm in a private sector organization, if I'm in an oil and gas, if I'm working for Microsoft, Apple, my mandate is very different.
422
00:47:08,388.6703333 --> 00:47:11,168.6683333
When I'm sitting in a public office, my mandate is very different.
423
00:47:11,978.6743333 --> 00:47:20,918.6693333
My mandate is to make sure the, the board that they have decided we're going to go in this, direction of investment, or we're going to deliver projects with this speed.
424
00:47:21,398.6713333 --> 00:47:22,138.6723333
We stick with that.
425
00:47:23,558.6743333 --> 00:47:25,928.6753333
Okay, let me shift gears on you a little bit.
426
00:47:25,938.6713333 --> 00:47:34,198.6803333
But given that we probably have a lot of engineers on the podcast, maybe we should throw some quantitative red meat for them.
427
00:47:34,588.6883333 --> 00:47:43,698.6793333
And, uh, it's a good bridge 'cause you're right that every billion-dollar project's unregulated, but I would actually argue there might be one that's an exception, which would be technology.
428
00:47:43,708.6843333 --> 00:47:43,988.6883333
Mm-hmm.
429
00:47:44,38.6773333 --> 00:47:54,778.6593333
I bet you we're spending hundreds if not billions on training the next neural networks, and it is largely unregulated capital project going on right now.
430
00:47:55,48.6603333 --> 00:48:02,536.6703333
So there is this, like, interesting unregulated space probably the only one, which is, like, that high tech- Yeah for mega projects.
431
00:48:02,536.6703333 --> 00:48:13,446.6703333
But my question for you is, you know, just looking at the tech stack, because you are a brilliant mind when it comes to technology, and I really wanna get into learning a little bit from you about that.
432
00:48:13,456.6703333 --> 00:48:23,786.6703333
So what, what do, what does Sydney Water do on a tech level to manage all this? You must have tons of different like SAP and P6, all those things.
433
00:48:23,786.6703333 --> 00:48:37,536.6673333
Like how do you approach technology to make everything kinda click? So we use, uh, Coupler for an asset investment structure, Maximo for our asset data and asset breakdown and asset health conditions.
434
00:48:38,16.6703333 --> 00:48:43,706.6713333
Then we have SAP for our finances, Primavera, the good old Primavera for our scheduling management.
435
00:48:44,286.6703333 --> 00:48:50,896.6703333
So yeah, we have, uh, and then for risk we have a, we have a bunch of other tools for qualitative and quantitative, uh, risk management.
436
00:48:51,856.6703333 --> 00:48:55,116.6673333
Now these, we have all the good tools.
437
00:48:56,76.6673333 --> 00:48:57,46.6703333
We have the best tools.
438
00:48:57,46.6703333 --> 00:49:16,226.6703333
They're, they're churning out so much, uh, so much information, and- They're creating so many reports, but most of them, and mostly what I see is reports don't really provoke a decision.
439
00:49:17,416.6703333 --> 00:49:32,746.6703333
A very beautiful dashboard is a beautiful dashboard, but it's not providing-- if it's not provoking a thinking process, if it's not triggering a question, if it's not giving you a trend insight, it's, in my opinion, not really useful.
440
00:49:33,206.6713333 --> 00:49:38,436.6703333
So in Sydney Water or in my space, in my function, what we do, we pull these data points.
441
00:49:38,606.6713333 --> 00:49:44,86.6723333
We get these at least, uh, from the last count, about 16 different systems and applications.
442
00:49:45,176.6713333 --> 00:49:49,76.6713333
We take them up, and then we start developing every month.
443
00:49:49,426.6713333 --> 00:49:51,6.6693333
We have a monthly reporting structure.
444
00:49:52,326.6683333 --> 00:49:56,946.6703333
We collate all these, all these data points, all these trends, and we build a story.
445
00:49:57,776.6733333 --> 00:50:14,656.6733333
Now, the story is that our all our-- for example, as an example, the story is all our major projects in wastewater are progressing as per the deadline associated by internal or external.
446
00:50:15,616.6723333 --> 00:50:22,846.6733333
Now, if these projects are late, we can say that all of them are progressing as per the deadline with an exception of two or three.
447
00:50:23,456.6683333 --> 00:50:27,576.6663333
These two systems are going to be impacted by the delayed performance, reasons.
448
00:50:27,776.6633333 --> 00:50:30,716.6653333
The trend line is very clear in the history.
449
00:50:31,166.6623333 --> 00:50:37,196.6633333
We have had an inter-intervention discussion with the delivery team, and they have come back with this mitigation.
450
00:50:37,946.6613333 --> 00:50:40,116.6633333
Now, that is the closer.
451
00:50:40,366.6673333 --> 00:50:49,266.6593333
So a beautiful application and a beautiful AI-enabled tools or anything, as someone said long time ago, is, a fool with a tool is still a fool.
452
00:50:49,906.6643333 --> 00:50:56,226.6593333
I add something- on top of it always that now he's a dangerous fool because he's got a fancier tool.
453
00:50:56,336.6653333 --> 00:51:22,816.6643333
And we have this as a human being, we have this tendency to get attracted towards something that is very beautiful, graphically appealing or visually appealing, and we get distracted by that, something shiny But we always need to go back to this fact that a business is driven by a value decision, not by having fancy reports, unless that's your business to produce- Yeah.
454
00:51:23,86.6643333 --> 00:51:32,86.6633333
But in a, in a simple construction environment, in a simple hardcore infrastructure environment, a report should be very clearly provoking a thought decision.
455
00:51:32,396.6633333 --> 00:51:35,196.6633333
It should not be just a, a number diary on a sheet.
456
00:51:35,366.6623333 --> 00:51:37,666.6643333
It should be very clear what it's trying to say.
457
00:51:38,36.6633333 --> 00:51:40,386.6663333
It's not a performance appraisal document.
458
00:51:40,846.6643333 --> 00:51:50,336.6623333
If your team has worked really hard and there are 60 different reports that they produce, you don't have to summarize 60 different reports onto a singular page and submit to an executive.
459
00:51:50,376.6633333 --> 00:51:50,856.6633333
No.
460
00:51:51,736.6643333 --> 00:51:53,136.6643333
Executive does not...
461
00:51:53,366.6653333 --> 00:52:00,266.6623333
At, at an executive level, first of all, they shouldn't be the one integrating the information for themselves.
462
00:52:00,476.6653333 --> 00:52:07,186.6653333
They should be getting- Mm-hmm integrated information, and the information should make what's invisible, visible.
463
00:52:08,636.6653333 --> 00:52:10,416.6653333
That is the most- Ooh, tell me about that.
464
00:52:10,426.6623333 --> 00:52:10,446.6623333
Yeah.
465
00:52:10,476.6653333 --> 00:52:17,286.6673333
What's invisible, visible? Projects tend to stick to their milestone, finish milestone.
466
00:52:17,346.6613333 --> 00:52:26,896.6643333
We all know that, uh, in terms of cost performance, we can see that they have spent literally 20% of, uh, what was the plan, 50%.
467
00:52:26,986.6603333 --> 00:52:28,946.6633333
So there's 30% delay.
468
00:52:29,516.6593333 --> 00:52:41,606.6643333
But since the project is a five-year-long project, everybody's hoping that there's gonna be some other mega change, and under that change, we're going to envelop this extension of time and then extend the whole timeline.
469
00:52:41,956.6613333 --> 00:52:46,886.6683333
No one is ready to make the call that the project is going to have a cost blow and a time delay.
470
00:52:47,926.6623333 --> 00:52:57,406.6713333
Now, this is the job of, uh, of us of engineers and project managers and controls people to understand that and, and bring it to the surface.
471
00:52:57,926.6723333 --> 00:53:00,306.6773333
So we have formed, we have developed something very smart.
472
00:53:00,316.6793333 --> 00:53:05,406.6753333
Again, psychological safe environment, teams start trying innovative ideas.
473
00:53:06,96.6773333 --> 00:53:10,186.6763333
So someone in our team, they came up with this portfolio cost index.
474
00:53:11,96.6773333 --> 00:53:14,766.6733333
So it is the total duration of the project and the total cost.
475
00:53:14,916.6693333 --> 00:53:24,256.6803333
If the projects is less than 80% of its duration, which includes its business case, not only the delivery duration, the whole lifecycle duration of the project.
476
00:53:24,906.6753333 --> 00:53:39,546.6783333
If the project is before its 80% of this duration, and somehow it has spent more than 40%, there's going to be a cost escalation coming in So it's a very s- so we created an indicator out of it.
477
00:53:39,896.6783333 --> 00:53:42,206.6783333
So if it's, if it's one, it's going all right.
478
00:53:42,206.6783333 --> 00:53:43,946.6783333
It's less than one, there's something coming in.
479
00:53:44,996.6783333 --> 00:53:47,986.6793333
And the same way, created one for portfolio schedule index.
480
00:53:48,406.6793333 --> 00:53:50,956.6793333
A, a very simple one-point indicator.
481
00:53:51,356.6783333 --> 00:53:54,216.6793333
Just looking at that number, we can say that this project is going to have delays.
482
00:53:55,566.6793333 --> 00:54:06,626.6793333
So yes hundreds of reports, hundreds of applications, but the one that is useful for anyone is the one that provokes a thoughtful decision.
483
00:54:06,766.6803333 --> 00:54:11,46.6803333
That does not mean that we need to stop producing all those other reports.
484
00:54:12,576.6823333 --> 00:54:18,716.6803333
So if all the other progresses, uh, functions are progressing the way they should be progressing, so there's no news, the bad news.
485
00:54:19,126.6813333 --> 00:54:23,476.6813333
Here's another idea, right? So there was a time in our portfolio, everything was going good.
486
00:54:25,306.6783333 --> 00:54:28,266.6813333
We were hitting the cost, we were hitting the milestones.
487
00:54:29,636.6803333 --> 00:54:34,936.6793333
Then the reports started to pull out something very interesting.
488
00:54:35,816.6803333 --> 00:54:37,526.6793333
They started to look into the efficiency.
489
00:54:38,746.6803333 --> 00:54:52,346.6823333
Then we started to look at, oh, for a very particular project we spend, if a project is about, let's say 10, 10 months, out of this 10 months, we spend about six months or four months in just business cases.
490
00:54:53,206.6803333 --> 00:54:59,26.6793333
How can we fast-track that? So then we started coming up with an intervene, uh, intervention ideas.
491
00:54:59,76.6853333 --> 00:54:59,916.6793333
So then we start...
492
00:54:59,936.6783333 --> 00:55:05,656.6833333
That's where we started pulling in the governance, then we started pulling in, uh, these, uh, approaches.
493
00:55:05,696.6803333 --> 00:55:07,926.6793333
The sys- the processes needs to be broken down.
494
00:55:08,956.6823333 --> 00:55:23,76.6823333
Probably we need to see something smarter, something quicker, an early intervention of a contractor into the table, or having the past lessons learned on the similar business cases, considering that as an anchor point and pushing this business case faster.
495
00:55:23,436.6783333 --> 00:55:48,770.6843333
How can we make it quicker? So when there was no bad news, now the job is, how can you make the process efficient? So there is, that's what the purpose of the reporting structure is That's what our job is one thing you mentioned there too that's really cool, like one is that once you get to a moment of saying all the lights are green, that doesn't mean that the work is done.
496
00:55:48,780.6833333 --> 00:55:48,810.6833333
Yes.
497
00:55:49,210.6843333 --> 00:55:52,280.6843333
It means you get to start looking at making it even better.
498
00:55:52,860.6843333 --> 00:56:01,60.6833333
The other that I like about your indicator that you mentioned is it didn't point out what was wrong, it just said that something's wrong.
499
00:56:01,520.6843333 --> 00:56:12,30.6843333
But what if some indicators tell you that there's going to be a problem- Yeah but the answer is, okay, this might be in trouble, there's some trouble, but it's not necessarily saying what.
500
00:56:12,90.6843333 --> 00:56:13,260.6863333
Kind of like a stethoscope.
501
00:56:13,260.6863333 --> 00:56:20,210.6843333
You listen to someone's heart and you're like, maybe you can identify immediately a problem, or you could just be like, "This heartbeat's kinda wrong."
502
00:56:20,260.6853333 --> 00:56:22,880.6843333
We need to go in and do some tests and sort it out.
503
00:56:22,880.6843333 --> 00:56:36,660.6863333
And I feel like sometimes these dashboards, like kinda what you were saying there with your analytics, is like you're flagging things, not necessarily giving too much information over to the executives, so that they can- Yeah make good decisions basically.
504
00:56:37,260.6883333 --> 00:56:42,190.6823333
So we use those indicators so that we don't miss on a project.
505
00:56:42,980.6843333 --> 00:56:44,430.6843333
We don't pass it on to the executive.
506
00:56:45,300.6833333 --> 00:56:45,560.6833333
Ah.
507
00:56:45,570.6883333 --> 00:56:51,890.6803333
So that indicator is for me to see out of those 2,000 projects which one is the bad news.
508
00:56:53,512.6863333 --> 00:57:14,2.6858333
And I need to start escalating them, but am I going to just escalate them? Do I have enough response consolidated? Am I just a downer betting the organization always giving away bad news or I'm al- so I've identified the six projects, they are horrible, and they are all less than $10 million.
509
00:57:14,2.6858333 --> 00:57:36,42.6873333
So they are minor projects, small projects, right? So if I push this to an executive, it's just a waste of his time, unless one of them is a business critical, license critical, environmental critical project that could create an open court hearing for the executive to appear and defend the infrastructure capability.
510
00:57:36,942.6843333 --> 00:57:46,22.6833333
So that's where I would be straight away escalating it, and coming up with a steer co and coming up with a whole workshop and fixing it.
511
00:57:46,672.6833333 --> 00:57:49,802.6823333
Now, the trick is, you know, we're talking about trick.
512
00:57:50,382.6853333 --> 00:58:05,412.6893333
We have all been to a magician's shows, and magicians are trying to make us look at that red, uh, handkerchief revolving around a a hat or something, while with the other hand he's, uh, he's stealing in a whole pigeon into the hat.
513
00:58:06,82.6903333 --> 00:58:10,602.6863333
In a, in a, in a major project space, everyone is looking at a one big milestone.
514
00:58:10,612.6893333 --> 00:58:12,452.6893333
They're looking at three big projects.
515
00:58:12,462.6873333 --> 00:58:15,692.6873333
They're looking at six big systems or subsystems of delivery.
516
00:58:16,502.6883333 --> 00:58:27,547.6853333
They forget that the reason we are able to achieve, or the only way we are able to achieve those big major projects is because we are, we're really good in doing small jobs on time.
517
00:58:27,597.6903333 --> 00:58:28,917.6878333
It's Success is a pyramid.
518
00:58:28,967.6888333 --> 00:58:35,977.6898333
You need to have small habits as, uh, as the book of, uh, Atomic Habits says, right? It's not your failure, it's a system failure.
519
00:58:36,587.6888333 --> 00:58:39,627.6928333
And the system failure indicators happen at a very low level.
520
00:58:40,367.6958333 --> 00:58:42,897.6928333
That's where we need to p-pick up what's going wrong.
521
00:58:43,247.6928333 --> 00:58:51,377.6858333
So the purpose of those indicas- uh, indicators is for us to early identify the trends where things are going wrong.
522
00:58:51,957.6918333 --> 00:59:13,917.6838333
And if an organization or portfolio has more than, let's say, 20, 30% of their projects delayed or cost over, overspend, or unable to deliver the value they're trying to deliver after post, uh, post project value realization exercises, then the, the conversation is not on an individual, the conversation is on the process.
523
00:59:14,507.6868333 --> 00:59:17,647.6878333
Something is broken in the process, so that needs to be fixed.
524
00:59:18,297.6948333 --> 00:59:20,897.6938333
So that's the purpose, again, the portfolio.
525
00:59:21,227.6878333 --> 00:59:23,197.6818333
And I think you're gonna go into the governance at this point.
526
00:59:24,303.6928333 --> 00:59:39,983.6918333
And so one of my questions for you on this then, just, uh, kind of a governance question is you talked a little bit about building a dashboard and building executive intelligence, right? And then governance is that intelligence layer, but you have some passionate feelings about that.
527
00:59:39,983.6918333 --> 00:59:46,203.6918333
And then I also wanna tease, 'cause I think we're gonna talk a little bit about artificial intelligence since we're using the word, throwing it around.
528
00:59:46,673.6918333 --> 00:59:57,183.6928333
What is the difference for you between a dashboard and executive intelligence? And then you can riff on AI as well if you think there's a difference there or it comes into play somewhere on that.
529
00:59:58,83.6918333 --> 00:59:58,663.6918333
Yeah.
530
00:59:58,733.6898333 --> 01:00:00,873.6898333
I think, a dashboard is...
531
01:00:01,153.6918333 --> 01:00:04,153.6918333
We, in this time and age, information is cheap.
532
01:00:05,613.6908333 --> 01:00:06,763.6908333
It's not telling me anything.
533
01:00:06,823.6908333 --> 01:00:07,743.6928333
That's a dashboard.
534
01:00:07,773.6908333 --> 01:00:16,443.6948333
That's a dashboard for a subject matter expert, just like all those, portfolio cost indicators and, portfolio time indicators we talked about.
535
01:00:16,933.6958333 --> 01:00:20,623.6918333
They are for a subject matter expert to identify the pulse.
536
01:00:21,723.6968333 --> 01:00:29,953.6898333
For an executive, for someone senior in the organization, the, it needs to be a very simple what is happening.
537
01:00:30,783.6938333 --> 01:00:46,145.6948333
Is the portfolio going good or bad? If it's going good or bad- What does it mean? So what? First part is what this organization is, what the portfolio is, is, is going as per plan.
538
01:00:46,405.6948333 --> 01:00:47,395.6938333
Let's say it's not.
539
01:00:48,135.6948333 --> 01:00:54,745.6948333
So X, Y, Z programs or wastewater treatment facilities are not progressing as they should be progressing, as an example.
540
01:00:55,305.6938333 --> 01:01:15,655.6978333
So the so what part is, so what does it mean? Should they be progressing as per the plan? What is the risk appetite on that? What is the asset conditions on those areas? Are there any water overflows? What's-- why we are even doing that project to start with? So that's where you start scratching your head, and then the dashboards go out of the picture.
541
01:01:16,5.6968333 --> 01:01:20,25.6988333
Dashboard only work the first part of the canvas, which is giving you the what.
542
01:01:20,955.6968333 --> 01:01:31,355.6998333
Now for so what, you look at the value proposition, you look at the enterprise objectives, and then you see, okay, so bad news was the projects are not going on time.
543
01:01:31,515.7008333 --> 01:01:34,285.7008333
Well, the good news is we don't need them anytime sooner either.
544
01:01:35,785.7008333 --> 01:01:51,925.7008333
So the deadlines we identified, we have had operational intervention while we kickstarted the project, and those operational interventions are going to hold the whole facility very good for way beyond the delay time.
545
01:01:53,285.6978333 --> 01:01:53,565.6978333
Good.
546
01:01:53,685.6988333 --> 01:01:54,875.6988333
So that is a so what.
547
01:01:54,995.6968333 --> 01:02:08,335.7088333
Now, last part is now what? Now, the direction for an executive or an advice to an executive is, it needs to be written there that no action, standby, only for endorsement.
548
01:02:08,855.7048333 --> 01:02:11,395.7038333
Now, if, if we need an executive to intervene...
549
01:02:12,145.7058333 --> 01:02:20,995.7048333
For example, the operations facilities were not ready, so then we would say the intervention required to discuss and, uh, alert the operational facility.
550
01:02:20,995.7048333 --> 01:02:30,495.7028333
So now this general manager will talk to the other general manager and put-- make sure that this concern is on their list and they are not, uh, waiting for a surprise on their end.
551
01:02:30,835.7088333 --> 01:02:33,935.7068333
So that is a difference between a dashboard and an executive report.
552
01:02:35,445.7018333 --> 01:02:39,305.7028333
So dashboard is a very subject matter expert, very primitive.
553
01:02:39,915.7028333 --> 01:02:45,575.7038333
People will be laughing when I say primitive, but yeah, dashboard could be primitive depending on where you're sitting in the organization.
554
01:02:46,85.7088333 --> 01:02:53,621.7078333
It could be something meaning nothing to someone I have a question on this 'cause I, I absolutely agree.
555
01:02:53,621.7078333 --> 01:03:05,81.7068333
I think what you're pointing out is that, dashboards and executive intelligence are two different things, and the dashboard gets you the first part of the sword, maybe the holster.
556
01:03:05,261.7068333 --> 01:03:05,411.7068333
Yeah.
557
01:03:05,411.7068333 --> 01:03:16,921.7068333
And then to build out the rest, you need to contextualize everything from the executive's point of view to help them understand the impact, and then frame up this piece.
558
01:03:16,981.7068333 --> 01:03:28,681.7088333
So now my question, is AI going to help with governance or not? First we need to go to the governance.
559
01:03:29,491.7078333 --> 01:03:29,781.7078333
Yeah.
560
01:03:30,441.7088333 --> 01:03:32,341.7078333
So I used to be...
561
01:03:32,341.7078333 --> 01:03:37,111.7068333
I'm gonna admit, I used to be the one who always thought governance is an overhead.
562
01:03:38,821.7058333 --> 01:03:40,301.7068333
It's just another template.
563
01:03:40,431.7068333 --> 01:03:43,251.7048333
It's just another meeting or workshop we have to sit in.
564
01:03:44,201.7068333 --> 01:03:55,581.7098333
But as I said, over the last five years where my horizon of expertise expanded and my thinking expanded, man, oh man, I'm in love with governance.
565
01:03:55,581.7098333 --> 01:03:59,811.7058333
Governance is basically the medium in which we operate and we make the right decisions.
566
01:03:59,951.7068333 --> 01:04:06,371.7038333
As, as per the book of Atomic Habits, it talks about the system, and your system defines your success.
567
01:04:06,721.7038333 --> 01:04:08,451.7018333
That is what governance is.
568
01:04:09,431.7028333 --> 01:04:13,181.7008333
It is building that system which is going to define your success or failure.
569
01:04:14,241.7008333 --> 01:04:21,851.7058333
And if in your business you think your governance is not good, well, that is actually, you should be feeling because most likely not good.
570
01:04:22,731.7058333 --> 01:04:29,571.7008333
Bad governance creates a red tape, bureaucratic kind of environment, and a good governance creates clarity.
571
01:04:30,871.7058333 --> 01:04:32,261.7038333
That is number one.
572
01:04:33,131.6998333 --> 01:04:33,311.6998333
The...
573
01:04:33,381.7028333 --> 01:04:39,831.7108333
i'm a recent convert and a firm believer of governance, and I think with the role of AI...
574
01:04:40,511.7038333 --> 01:04:43,711.7098333
Now, machines are machines, right? They are not accountable.
575
01:04:43,901.7108333 --> 01:04:45,361.7058333
They can't be held accountable.
576
01:04:46,431.7088333 --> 01:04:52,1.7042333
AI is, we ha- we all have used, I think it started, uh, how long ago? I think only four years ago, five years ago at least.
577
01:04:52,51.7042333 --> 01:04:58,821.6952333
ChatGPT was launched, and we have seen the miracle of it doing so many things, and now we've gone lazy.
578
01:04:58,871.6962333 --> 01:05:01,491.7052333
We are asking ChatGPT to write our emails even.
579
01:05:02,881.7092333 --> 01:05:05,421.7082333
That's the reality for most of us, but that's...
580
01:05:05,661.7072333 --> 01:05:18,631.7132333
Machine is not accountable, so when you sign an email written by a ChatGPT to someone completely giving away a very different message, well, no one is going to come back and ask ChatGPT why they did that.
581
01:05:18,831.7062333 --> 01:05:21,1.7182333
You are responsible and accountable for it.
582
01:05:21,371.7142333 --> 01:05:46,479.7152333
The same way in an organization Every decision that a governance needs to kick off, every clarity, every bottleneck, every new process, every investment decision, every progress review, anything that needs to be signed off or reviewed by s- any individual that had to be a human because a machine cannot be set accountable.
583
01:05:46,899.7152333 --> 01:06:26,765.7182333
Now, where would AI be helpful in that picture? AI would be helping that person who is going to sign a sign off to, again, as we said, from a plethora of data points Pull out a trend, give that governance, uh, sign-off, manager to identify, yeah, if I'm going ahead with this, what are the possible scenarios that it can go? So it can quickly churn that down, it can quickly develop those, those Monte Carlo scenarios or, uh, now, i- it's so surprising in ChatGPT or in Claude, you can upload a data and run a Monte Carlo analysis with 100 simulations.
584
01:06:26,765.7182333 --> 01:06:30,655.7162333
You don't even have to install those, uh, big softwares- Yeah that we used to do long time ago, remember? Mm-hmm.
585
01:06:31,255.7172333 --> 01:06:33,515.7162333
So those things are becoming easier.
586
01:06:34,75.7172333 --> 01:06:42,55.7172333
But again, we can only do that because we learned how to use the other tool long time ago, so it's easier for us.
587
01:06:42,385.7172333 --> 01:06:45,455.7162333
If you know what you are looking for, it's easier.
588
01:06:46,15.7182333 --> 01:06:59,145.7152333
But if someone is sitting on an AI or at a governance position and have no idea how to use the either of the two, is number one, bad at governance, number two, horrible in using an AI, well, that is a recipe of disaster.
589
01:07:00,375.7152333 --> 01:07:02,155.7162333
So we'll be gone.
590
01:07:04,45.7132333 --> 01:07:09,755.7142333
Well, and you mentioned, so you mentioned that you are, were a recent convert to believing in governance.
591
01:07:09,755.7142333 --> 01:07:09,805.7162333
Yes.
592
01:07:09,805.7162333 --> 01:07:11,125.7192333
I think that's not uncommon.
593
01:07:11,125.7192333 --> 01:07:17,175.7132333
I think many people don't really see it as an important piece of a functioning organization.
594
01:07:17,175.7182333 --> 01:07:39,105.7212333
What changed your mind? Yeah, when I started to see, when I was in the board role, and, uh, I was, working through developing the board, writing up the bylaws, a- and trying to understand how a very well put together governance structure can transform the whole, the operations completely.
595
01:07:39,985.7222333 --> 01:07:42,335.7202333
The reason operations are failing is because of governance.
596
01:07:42,935.7192333 --> 01:07:46,175.7242333
Governance, ensures a clear accountability.
597
01:07:46,425.7182333 --> 01:08:01,295.7242333
It gives an ownership, and it's, uh, believe it or not, it creates that psychological safety in the organization because that, one of the key component of a psychological safety is clarity that who is responsible for it.
598
01:08:02,115.7212333 --> 01:08:08,875.7262333
If, uh, if Orion is responsible to find a solution for a delayed project, Orion is going to figure it out.
599
01:08:09,515.7222333 --> 01:08:18,975.7142333
But if no one is responsible for it, then no one's going to figure it out, or it's just going to be a passing of the, "Oh yeah, we all need to, six of us sit together and discuss how we should resolve this."
600
01:08:19,25.7142333 --> 01:08:36,497.7182333
So- Yeah when the accountabilities are clear, now Orion is going to get six people in the room, and Orion is going to identify an agenda for these people to discuss what the outcome they want to do is going to drive results So that's how governance very simply, simply put, uh, achieves.
601
01:08:36,717.7182333 --> 01:08:39,427.7182333
And I saw it firsthand, implementing in the board.
602
01:08:39,497.7182333 --> 01:08:44,227.7182333
Secondly, when I came to Sydney Water, our governance team, he's my colleague, he's doing amazing job.
603
01:08:44,317.7172333 --> 01:08:48,667.7172333
And whenever I see what we could achieve with the better governance, oh my God, I was...
604
01:08:49,487.7182333 --> 01:09:01,447.7192333
Every, every time I'm shocked by looking at things, all those board reports, how they go, how the state goes, how the decision points coming across, uh, for business cases, how governance is providing this as a filter.
605
01:09:01,667.7172333 --> 01:09:05,87.7172333
It's literally the median the whole organization is progressing in.
606
01:09:05,807.7162333 --> 01:09:13,307.7162333
Previously when I was working in, even in major projects, I was not exposed to governance the way I am exposed to it, and I am, uh...
607
01:09:13,507.7142333 --> 01:09:15,407.7132333
Yeah, so that's, that's my reason for convert.
608
01:09:16,687.7142333 --> 01:09:19,107.7132333
That makes a lot of sense.
609
01:09:19,227.7152333 --> 01:09:21,847.7152333
You call it the median of the organization.
610
01:09:21,847.7152333 --> 01:09:30,357.7102333
It is a truly, I like how you tie it back to psychological safety, because I do think that clarity is necessary because someone gets blame.
611
01:09:30,667.7132333 --> 01:09:34,267.7172333
Like blame is a currency that, that finds people.
612
01:09:34,607.7152333 --> 01:09:45,737.7122333
So if you don't have clear roles and responsibilities, you create this sort of blame debt that seeps into the organization somehow, can be really problematic.
613
01:09:45,757.7102333 --> 01:09:51,777.7062333
True creating that structure that org- that people can pour themselves into can be really helpful.
614
01:09:51,787.7082333 --> 01:09:56,477.7102333
Um- And that's how it links with AI, right? You cannot outsource accountability.
615
01:09:57,667.7102333 --> 01:10:00,557.7082333
You cannot outsource accountability into, particularly to an al- algorithm.
616
01:10:01,557.7082333 --> 01:10:16,127.7082333
So will AI improve decision-making then, do you think, ultimately just by pulling in more information? But the problem is which decisions and how we're going to ask AI to run that analysis, that's not clear.
617
01:10:16,157.7072333 --> 01:10:26,737.7082333
The, the prompt engineering part of a decision-making of or anyone who's using AI, how articulate they are into throwing in a good quality prompt.
618
01:10:27,397.7072333 --> 01:10:31,117.7072333
The use of AI between you and I is very, could be very different.
619
01:10:31,737.7062333 --> 01:10:33,7.7062333
Your AI is going to be...
620
01:10:33,207.7072333 --> 01:10:48,697.7062333
I can already tell it will be very much geared towards how to get a very successful podcast structured, right? Mine is geared towards all about, executive decision-making point and how portfolio management links with, uh, upstream and downstream in an organization.
621
01:10:49,527.7062333 --> 01:10:58,517.7062333
Now, the decisions you're going to be asking for an AI is going to be always skewed towards your interests, and my answers will be towards my interest.
622
01:10:59,57.7052333 --> 01:11:09,337.7112333
So it is now more than before a bigger responsibility on, per se, governance that they identify that framework.
623
01:11:10,127.7042333 --> 01:11:28,747.7132333
So if we are going to use an AI, what parameters are going to be? What is going to be the mirroring that they're going to pick up, AI is going to pick up? What kind of, decisions it's going to outlist and then how we come about choosing what we're going to be doing with those answers that we get from AI.
624
01:11:29,197.7152333 --> 01:11:30,617.7172333
That need to be documented.
625
01:11:30,867.7132333 --> 01:11:32,277.7142333
That need to be clearly recorded.
626
01:11:32,837.7142333 --> 01:11:35,247.7122333
I have already kickstarted this, within my team.
627
01:11:35,397.7122333 --> 01:11:42,207.7162333
If they use AI and they create an artifact, don't save the artifact alone, also save the prompt.
628
01:11:43,337.7152333 --> 01:11:43,817.7172333
Mm-hmm.
629
01:11:44,197.7152333 --> 01:11:50,937.7142333
Because that is going to help you understand in future what you did, because that output is based off that prompt.
630
01:11:50,997.7112333 --> 01:11:53,577.7162333
That prompt is a scope of work for AI.
631
01:11:55,377.7172333 --> 01:12:02,697.7172333
Well, and, and this gets into something you talk a lot about, don't automate a process that's broken with technology.
632
01:12:02,797.7172333 --> 01:12:11,587.7172333
So here's my question: garbage in, garbage out has been the mantra from the tech space for a long time, right? You can't put garbage into a dashboard- Yeah make it pretty.
633
01:12:12,17.7162333 --> 01:12:26,767.7182333
But with AI, it almost turns into like garbage in, super tasty looking cookies out that poison you, right? Because it's so good at convincing people that the presentation it's giving is factual and true.
634
01:12:27,357.7162333 --> 01:12:28,117.7192333
Is it this...
635
01:12:28,227.7192333 --> 01:12:39,747.7172333
Are we looking at some sort of false confidence at scale problem here when AI is starting to work its way into the boardroom and governance layers with bad data feeding it? 100%.
636
01:12:40,837.7202333 --> 01:12:42,247.7172333
That is the biggest risk.
637
01:12:42,977.7192333 --> 01:13:08,517.7162333
So the, I was reading this book, Rapid Transformation by Catriona Wallace, and she's, uh, referring to Toby Ord, a gentleman who wrote this piece that the use of or reliance on AI could result in, uh, catastrophic declines in this, uh, civilization that may result to an extinct of the civilization, one in 12 chances or something like that.
638
01:13:09,287.7212333 --> 01:13:13,727.7192333
For us, of all of us dying from a nuclear attack is about one in 5,000 chances.
639
01:13:14,577.7222333 --> 01:13:17,37.7222333
So that is the biggest fear.
640
01:13:17,297.7152333 --> 01:13:24,755.7202333
And I think you have pointed out very correctly AI produces beautiful data information.
641
01:13:24,905.7202333 --> 01:13:29,375.7202333
It articulates it so well, but it's all sometimes garbage.
642
01:13:30,475.7192333 --> 01:13:42,815.7182333
I think by the time we are-- we release this podcast, maybe everybody has come across that, famous online meme where a gentleman is asking AI, "I'm going to get my car for a car wash.
643
01:13:43,345.7182333 --> 01:13:45,465.7192333
It's only 200 meters from my house.
644
01:13:45,715.7192333 --> 01:13:52,475.7192333
Shall I walk or drive?" AI recommends to drive And provides very good reasoning.
645
01:13:52,545.7192333 --> 01:13:54,35.7202333
"It's only 200 meters.
646
01:13:54,495.7202333 --> 01:13:56,135.7202333
You have a health goal in your life.
647
01:13:56,155.7202333 --> 01:14:00,775.7182333
You were talking to me the other day about taking those pills, about, uh, reducing your cholesterol.
648
01:14:01,295.7192333 --> 01:14:04,435.7192333
So I think it's really good if you, if you walk to the car wash."
649
01:14:04,985.7202333 --> 01:14:09,745.7182333
And very articulate, very sensible- Mm-hmm and very very influential.
650
01:14:09,745.7182333 --> 01:14:10,365.7182333
Very wrong.
651
01:14:10,495.7182333 --> 01:14:10,925.7182333
Yeah.
652
01:14:11,845.7172333 --> 01:14:17,835.7172333
And, uh, but again, we are smart enough to understand what-- and we, we knew what we were trying to chase.
653
01:14:17,865.7172333 --> 01:14:31,65.7222333
Imagine asking a very complex question, which you are yourself not, not so clear about it, asking it to, to solve a mathematical equation or probability of consequences of five million people living in a city.
654
01:14:31,735.7202333 --> 01:14:39,475.7192333
So that's not really an ideal place to put that kind of trust in AI or per se any system.
655
01:14:41,305.7202333 --> 01:14:47,175.7222333
We need to develop a very stronger understanding on how and for what we're going to be using AI.
656
01:14:47,525.7212333 --> 01:14:52,375.7192333
AIs have definitely earned a spot in our workplaces, in our individual lives.
657
01:14:52,725.7182333 --> 01:15:03,545.7192333
We are using everything and anything with AI, but it is heavily dependent on, again, f- fool with a tool is still a fool, but it's a dangerous fool.
658
01:15:04,725.7182333 --> 01:15:15,685.7202333
A decision using-- with garbage data, you're throwing it in AI, it's going to output an absolutely convincing garbage out, which you may be convinced to use.
659
01:15:15,685.7202333 --> 01:15:19,405.7212333
So once again, human in the loop is becoming more important.
660
01:15:19,445.7202333 --> 01:15:21,455.7182333
People think AI is going to steal their job.
661
01:15:21,575.7242333 --> 01:15:24,255.7122333
I think that AI is going to redefine what you do.
662
01:15:25,519.7222333 --> 01:15:28,949.7222333
It's going to take the boring part of your job Yeah.
663
01:15:28,949.7222333 --> 01:15:36,69.7222333
What do you think people are gonna need to do over the next five years to change It's going to be a lot of critical thinking.
664
01:15:36,369.7222333 --> 01:15:39,199.7222333
It's going to be a lot of psychological safe environments.
665
01:15:41,699.7222333 --> 01:15:47,49.7222333
It's going to be a lot more of this, uh, governance, uh, and critical thinking.
666
01:15:47,69.7212333 --> 01:15:48,819.7212333
AI is going to make things easier.
667
01:15:48,949.7212333 --> 01:16:00,359.7212333
I'm pretty sure in a month or a year or two there's going to be a widget from one of those AIs that speaks with SAP, P6, and contract, and churns project reports like an expert.
668
01:16:01,339.7222333 --> 01:16:20,59.7192333
But again, was the contract drafted carefully? Is the schedule, when someone built the schedule, it was built on the site conditions or not? The SAP work breakdown structure and cost breakdown structure is linked appropriately enough so the lender of financier's confidence remains intact.
669
01:16:20,459.7172333 --> 01:16:25,869.7192333
So all those questions is- Going to be very much human dependent to make sure that we do that.
670
01:16:26,309.7162333 --> 01:16:40,116.3819
So the job of a, per se, a project manager, controls manager, is not going to be working on these formats, uh, Excel or, I think Excel will outlive any one of us, but, uh, it's not We've been calling for the death of Excel for a while now.
671
01:16:41,206.3809 --> 01:16:42,466.3839
No, it's never gonna die out.
672
01:16:43,96.3809 --> 01:16:43,236.3809
Yeah.
673
01:16:43,236.3809 --> 01:16:55,676.3799
So the other systems, uh, which we extensively use, and we spend a lot of time in, in loading this information and, and making it presentable or palatable, that will be done by someone else, which is going to be an AI.
674
01:16:56,316.3819 --> 01:17:09,916.3769
How do you- Yeah how do you check it? How do you build your controls around it? For example, I see so many people talking about, "Oh, Claude is going to make all those mobile phone applications, and, uh, all those coders are going to be jobless."
675
01:17:10,46.3779 --> 01:17:11,616.3769
Well, no, excuse me.
676
01:17:12,948.3829 --> 01:17:20,38.3829
So you mean if I need an application, I just go to Claude and create an application? Well, I'm a civil engineer, I'm dumb in that area.
677
01:17:20,628.3829 --> 01:17:27,298.3829
Claude can create anything for me, and I'll be using it and trusting it to produce an outcome that I want it to.
678
01:17:27,588.3819 --> 01:17:27,958.3819
No.
679
01:17:28,218.3819 --> 01:17:32,708.3819
It is going to only help a coder to achieve something quicker.
680
01:17:33,898.3819 --> 01:17:40,218.3819
The same way before the, the biggest transformation we had with letters, construction sites.
681
01:17:40,238.3809 --> 01:17:44,288.3819
My dad used to tell me the story that in his table there used to be two baskets.
682
01:17:44,678.3829 --> 01:17:45,38.3799
That's it.
683
01:17:45,878.3799 --> 01:17:57,88.3809
I said, "What do you mean?" He said one basket had in written on it, and the other basket had out written on it, and that was the inbox and outbox of the email, of the, of the letters.
684
01:17:57,218.3799 --> 01:18:01,338.3799
So before all these different computers and everything, that's how they were communicating.
685
01:18:02,358.3799 --> 01:18:12,288.3819
A letter, he would, he would write a letter response to a letter and put this in an outbox and somebody would come every 30 minutes, collect everything from the outbox and give it away and distribute it to...
686
01:18:12,318.3819 --> 01:18:17,548.3769
And one message will take, I think, six, seven days to be communicated across.
687
01:18:18,258.3839 --> 01:18:26,58.3799
So that communication time has reduced to almost immediate with Teams, with emails- Yeah with everything.
688
01:18:27,18.3789 --> 01:18:28,268.3789
And now look at a Zoom call.
689
01:18:28,278.3809 --> 01:18:34,948.3819
We are sitting continents apart, and we are communicating effectively, and that has made the things faster.
690
01:18:35,618.3769 --> 01:18:38,318.3829
The pace of things are, is way, way, way quicker.
691
01:18:38,998.3819 --> 01:18:41,108.3799
This is what AI is essentially going to do.
692
01:18:41,228.3779 --> 01:18:45,788.3789
It's going to change this perception of time a bit different for us.
693
01:18:45,848.3769 --> 01:18:52,118.3729
So if you and I, we have to develop a schedule from scratch up, we will still go old school.
694
01:18:52,398.3729 --> 01:19:12,648.3749
We would create a work breakdown structure, identify some key milestones, and start connecting dots, look at the resource constraints- Yeah the cost spending constraints, and we build something around that, right? But in the future, control people would be just using, getting that draft output straight away from AI and they will be just fine-tuning it.
695
01:19:13,38.3779 --> 01:19:21,28.3819
And there needs to be a different curriculum that needs to be taught to these kids, which is going to- Mm-hmm make them smart in identifying what's wrong in it.
696
01:19:21,858.3809 --> 01:19:23,258.3829
And I think it's gonna be...
697
01:19:23,348.3709 --> 01:19:29,218.3769
If, if it was going to take you and me 14 days to develop a schedule end to end, new generation is going to take 14 minutes.
698
01:19:30,98.3739 --> 01:19:30,388.3739
Yeah.
699
01:19:30,468.3689 --> 01:19:30,948.3689
Simple.
700
01:19:31,378.3719 --> 01:19:32,768.3809
So that's the biggest impact.
701
01:19:34,28.3839 --> 01:19:45,358.3829
And what's exciting about that is the economic principle that is so counterintuitive that if you bring the the cost of production down, demand goes up.
702
01:19:45,368.3839 --> 01:19:45,388.3839
Yeah.
703
01:19:45,868.3839 --> 01:19:46,678.3839
So people are always...
704
01:19:46,918.3839 --> 01:19:57,558.3829
Sometimes you think if you squeeze something, like you can create sugar cubes, and it used to take hand, putting them together, whatever, and now we can produce them like a billion sugar cubes a second.
705
01:19:57,958.3839 --> 01:20:03,768.3819
But demand for sugar cubes went absolutely through the roof as the per unit cost went down.
706
01:20:03,808.3829 --> 01:20:03,878.3829
Yeah.
707
01:20:03,908.3819 --> 01:20:22,228.3859
So similar with project controls if what we do as a profession gets squeezed so that the value we currently create can be done in 14 minutes rather than 14 days, the demand for that work will actually go up because there's so much more that we need to be doing anyhow.
708
01:20:22,228.3879 --> 01:20:23,218.3879
So I think there is this...
709
01:20:23,678.3849 --> 01:20:45,78.3809
Yeah, I think the fear is unfounded that people won't be involved, and I think you're, I think what we'll see is people sort of elevating the craft- Correct so that we're not stuck in PERT charts and, traditional project management sinkholes of our time in Excel, um, and focusing more on value and planning and thinking through scenarios.
710
01:20:45,158.3829 --> 01:20:50,148.3869
It's gonna be really, it's gonna be a really good time to become a project controller, I think.
711
01:20:50,318.3869 --> 01:20:53,928.3829
Controller and project manager and a project leader is gonna be so interesting.
712
01:20:53,938.3819 --> 01:20:56,88.3859
And this is, I think, where the opportunity is for...
713
01:20:56,168.3849 --> 01:21:05,78.3819
And I, I, believe it or not, for the last six month, this thought has crossed my mind multiple times to kickstart a small startup on this area.
714
01:21:05,748.3869 --> 01:21:26,428.3869
How can we transform and how can, how can we hand hold this transformation of project controls and project management into the AI world? Yeah while we remain, while we keep the existing curriculum intact and creating some, some interim methods and processes and standards that people can utilize.
715
01:21:26,788.3819 --> 01:21:29,238.3819
So that's, uh, yeah, that's I think something going...
716
01:21:29,278.3869 --> 01:21:32,258.3819
If I'm not gonna do it, somebody else will do it 100%.
717
01:21:32,998.3819 --> 01:21:35,228.3819
That is, that is the hour of the need at the moment.
718
01:21:35,318.3829 --> 01:21:39,288.3749
I hope you do it 'cause I will be first to line up for some of that advice, 'cause it is.
719
01:21:39,338.3799 --> 01:21:46,518.3849
We're in a period of transition it there will be an old world and a new world that we're moving through that space right now.
720
01:21:46,688.3849 --> 01:21:48,428.3769
Um, it can be kind of scary.
721
01:21:49,218.3839 --> 01:21:49,848.3859
It can be.
722
01:21:49,888.3819 --> 01:21:50,148.3819
Yeah.
723
01:21:50,328.3849 --> 01:21:57,62.3849
But forewarned is forearmed, right? So if you prepare yourself better, you can face it better.
724
01:21:58,12.3849 --> 01:21:58,692.3849
That's right.
725
01:21:59,732.3849 --> 01:22:03,32.3849
And l- and there are limitations to AI, and that's where your strength is.
726
01:22:03,652.3849 --> 01:22:10,522.3849
And then when all the weaknesses that you had previously, um, we need to exploit them and convert them into an opportunity.
727
01:22:11,412.3839 --> 01:22:12,542.3839
That's what it is all about.
728
01:22:14,192.3839 --> 01:22:14,852.3839
I have this theory.
729
01:22:14,852.3839 --> 01:22:22,562.3849
It's probably totally wrong, but you know that quadrant where it's like you know what you know, you know what you don't know, and you don't know what you don't know.
730
01:22:22,572.3849 --> 01:22:22,932.3849
Mm-hmm.
731
01:22:22,932.3849 --> 01:22:27,682.3879
I think with AI, the people that focus on minimizing the...
732
01:22:27,882.3899 --> 01:22:36,642.3879
Understanding the things that they don't know is, the more that grows, and then they can minimize this don't know bucket, 'cause I think that's where AI can take advantage of you.
733
01:22:36,642.3879 --> 01:22:43,132.3869
Like, da Vinci is maybe, like, the most successful picture of someone I would see in the AI era.
734
01:22:43,232.3879 --> 01:22:52,722.3899
Like, sort of really knows what they don't know, doesn't have this as much of a gap because that's where we, where AI is gonna magnify our troubles.
735
01:22:53,122.3869 --> 01:22:57,622.3829
AI is not a sentient being whereas, as far as I understand, it's not.
736
01:22:57,782.3829 --> 01:23:03,492.3829
It's basically as a librarian of a very big library.
737
01:23:04,362.3779 --> 01:23:06,312.3779
If you ask anything, they're going to go...
738
01:23:06,312.3819 --> 01:23:09,402.3789
this is why they're called LLMs, right? Large language models.
739
01:23:09,942.3789 --> 01:23:18,152.3849
So if you ask anything, they're going to go through and shuffle through 10,000 or a million books and come back and compile an answer in a palatable form and dish it out to you.
740
01:23:18,932.3799 --> 01:23:23,282.3809
But they're not going to be able to know something which they don't know either.
741
01:23:23,462.3809 --> 01:23:36,422.3719
So the creativity part, the innovation part, and I think there's gonna be way more research required in future because AI need to be fed with something to churn out- Yeah better, more intelligent outputs.
742
01:23:37,92.3789 --> 01:23:38,812.3819
So I think they, they...
743
01:23:39,412.3819 --> 01:23:44,142.3729
I have people think that all the research will be, be impaired now because AI can give any answer.
744
01:23:44,242.3719 --> 01:23:44,732.3719
No.
745
01:23:45,22.3709 --> 01:23:46,872.3719
AI is actually looking through the research papers.
746
01:23:47,132.3719 --> 01:23:49,292.3709
AI is not creating their own research.
747
01:23:50,172.3799 --> 01:23:50,462.3799
Yeah.
748
01:23:50,472.3829 --> 01:23:53,992.3749
So I think that's where education needs to happen as well at a mass level.
749
01:23:55,60.3829 --> 01:24:09,650.3829
Well, and I do think this is a valid critique of AI and one that we're going through two transformative moments in, at the same time, which is, in 2000 when the internet came out, people were like, "Oh my God, all of the world's information's gonna be at your fingertips."
750
01:24:09,700.3829 --> 01:24:13,510.3819
But then copyrights came in and said, "No, that's not true."
751
01:24:13,520.3819 --> 01:24:18,280.3829
Like, Google can't spider every known book and give you the answer.
752
01:24:18,300.3819 --> 01:24:23,410.3829
So we ended up kind of never getting that information at your fingertips moment.
753
01:24:23,730.3829 --> 01:24:28,190.3809
But with AI, it's almost like a sneaky end around on copyright.
754
01:24:28,210.3799 --> 01:24:31,980.3809
So it can ingest all these books and actually give you all this information.
755
01:24:31,980.3809 --> 01:24:42,420.3829
So we're having this moment that we thought we would in the 2000s today, along with this sort of odd autonomous agent thinking thing to also go with it.
756
01:24:42,630.3819 --> 01:24:45,760.3809
So it's sort of like two things happening at once.
757
01:24:45,910.3809 --> 01:24:53,470.3829
Access to the Alexandria Library and the sort of autonomous robotic intelligentsias, uh, floating around.
758
01:24:53,470.3829 --> 01:24:58,810.3849
And, and also to give a perspective on the unknowns, right? How much unknowns we have in life.
759
01:25:00,240.3829 --> 01:25:09,750.3819
For the entirety of a human civilization, even before I think we were not human, we were something else, we knew how to run, right? We have been running.
760
01:25:09,760.3839 --> 01:25:09,790.3799
Mm-hmm.
761
01:25:09,800.3849 --> 01:25:19,830.3779
A man has been running for billions of years, and it has been studied, it's been identified how you can learn longer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
762
01:25:20,760.3839 --> 01:25:28,210.3749
So it was in 1982, there was a Westfield, is a, is a developer for shopping malls and other things in Sydney, uh, Australia.
763
01:25:28,710.3819 --> 01:25:33,650.3739
They had this competition, a race between Sydney and Melbourne, about 870 kilometers.
764
01:25:34,900.3759 --> 01:25:38,240.3749
And whoever wins this race, they're going to get this handsome amount of money.
765
01:25:38,570.3739 --> 01:25:40,770.3689
So all the top racers participated.
766
01:25:40,770.3689 --> 01:25:42,350.3679
It was a global marathon situation.
767
01:25:43,20.3709 --> 01:25:50,950.3679
People came up with their, literally entourage and the crew with the doctors and the physiotherapists and running therapists, et cetera.
768
01:25:51,690.3699 --> 01:26:00,630.3679
And there come a 70 or 60-year-old gentleman called Cliff Young, you can look it up, his story, wearing, uh, farmer's gumboots.
769
01:26:01,440.3729 --> 01:26:02,940.3749
To the starting line and started running.
770
01:26:03,0.3739 --> 01:26:12,800.3739
No, sorry, he changed his gumboots to the sneakers, and everybody was looking at him like, "What is he going to do?" And he had no one, no sports system, no doctors, no physiotherapists, no one with him.
771
01:26:14,360.3769 --> 01:26:15,360.3869
And he started running.
772
01:26:15,460.3829 --> 01:26:27,740.3789
So the protocol everybody else was using through a known way of running was we're going to run for certain hours, then we're going to rest for certain nights, and then we run, we drink water, we have this kind of diet, blah, blah, blah.
773
01:26:27,770.3799 --> 01:26:28,980.3799
They were all protocols.
774
01:26:29,610.3769 --> 01:26:36,98.3839
This gentleman had no protocol He just started running in a shuffle manner, a slow run.
775
01:26:36,168.3839 --> 01:26:43,678.3839
Actually, it was called Cliff Young Shuffle, that's the name now, and he finished the race, which was anticipated to be finished in 10 days, in five days.
776
01:26:44,758.3839 --> 01:26:45,378.3839
Wow.
777
01:26:45,388.3839 --> 01:26:53,508.3829
He didn't stop for five days, because the way he was running was not consuming enough of his body's energy, and he had so much energy to keep on running.
778
01:26:53,508.3829 --> 01:26:54,178.3839
So look it up.
779
01:26:54,608.3829 --> 01:26:58,828.3829
It's an amazing YouTube, thing you will find, and that became a whole new...
780
01:26:58,968.3819 --> 01:27:01,18.3819
That was, at that moment, global.
781
01:27:01,178.3809 --> 01:27:03,378.3829
People identify, oh, there's a new way of running.
782
01:27:05,388.3819 --> 01:27:09,978.3809
Although we've been running for billions of years- Yeah we didn't know there was a new way of run.
783
01:27:11,378.3799 --> 01:27:25,518.3819
So taking that example, that's the, that's the miracle of a human being, that we have just so much possibility of endless creativity that AI would never be able to meet, keep up with that.
784
01:27:26,48.3819 --> 01:27:28,148.3799
We're gonna get on a list having this conversation.
785
01:27:28,958.3819 --> 01:27:31,838.3849
So I hope, uh, AI is that good.
786
01:27:31,938.3849 --> 01:27:33,578.3879
It just makes life easier for everybody.
787
01:27:33,588.3869 --> 01:27:47,358.3819
AI should be able to treat cancer, should be able to treat all the babies, should be able to bring in peace and green energy and all those things, and strengthen global economy, elevate property, pro- poverty, trafficking, everything.
788
01:27:47,558.3839 --> 01:27:58,598.3869
So it should be able to do that, I really hope, but at the moment, it just appears to be a very eloquent tool that we use to analyze and do things that some- sometimes we would take months to do.
789
01:27:58,988.3899 --> 01:28:00,458.3889
We just do it in a couple of hours.
790
01:28:00,798.3869 --> 01:28:01,268.3849
That's it.
791
01:28:01,408.3829 --> 01:28:05,588.3819
We'll have to have the 2027 podcast edition where we can come on.
792
01:28:05,588.3819 --> 01:28:11,58.3779
We'll either be recording it in a cave, hiding from, robots, tracking us down or, we'll be able to follow up on this.
793
01:28:11,398.3819 --> 01:28:13,428.3829
But Hopefully we'll do it face to face, sitting together.
794
01:28:13,428.3879 --> 01:28:13,978.3879
Yeah.
795
01:28:15,38.3809 --> 01:28:18,508.3859
I really appreciate you spending so much time taking us through this.