From Management to Optimization

Capital Projects can be transformed into Super Projects through a more agile and dynamic paradigm that considers leadership and personal relationships as important as schedules, milestones, and budgets. Super Projects are defined by their outcomes – and their cultures.

Who Should Attend?

This seminar series is designed to equip project managers, business managers, project communities, and PMO office process owners with a revolutionary new paradigm and approach that can be applied to transform project outcomes. It is also appropriate for inexperienced project managers, business managers, project executives who seek to measurably transform capital project performance.

The effective deployment of large-scale capital projects has reached critical importance in every industry. Due to the world’s increasing infrastructure needs and investments, extraordinary marketplace economics, elevated risk, dynamic and increasingly uncertain operating environments, the incentives for project success have never been greater. The cost of capital projects in some industries has risen more than 50% in the last two to three years alone. Yet against this critical backdrop, and with the cost of capital projects soaring, the failure rate has never been more pronounced. According to numerous studies, at least 40% of major projects are plagued by problems, with less than 50% of project executives reporting satisfaction with overall project performance.

This may seem an execution problem but it is not. It is actually a paradigm problem. The thinking that is driving most of this lackluster performance is rooted in an outdated frame of reference. It is based on a purely mechanical understanding of capital projects and the factors that drive their success. The approach that is required is one that can account for the both the technical and complex adaptive nature of capital projects and their environments.

It is not project management we should be shooting for, it is project optimization. Corpus Optima’s Super Projects Boot Camp is a next generation capability development experience designed to equip capital project managers, engineers, contractors, analysts, consultants and project communities with a scientifically-based approach and eminently practical toolset for operating large-scale capital projects into the 21st century. It is based on careful research into the behaviors and methods that actually drive capital project outperformance, turning much of conventional wisdom on its head.

It includes hands-on learning of the core fundamentals of Superperformance including the Superperformance Formula, 8 Simple Rules, and Ten Habits of Superperforming Management and Leadership. It also incorporates use of Agile principles and methods. Agile is an exciting new family of project optimization methods which include SCRUM, Lean Methods, Rapid Cycle Process Improvement, Complex Adaptive System (CAS) based team approaches, and other highly innovative methods. Agile methods emphasize:

In Agile philosophy, the items on the right are important, but not higher in priority then the items on the left. Agile is an orientation. It requires a culture of intense trust, communication and collaboration. It values the ability to rapidly respond to change and new learning, and never forgets the goal is to deliver value to the customer.

Corpus Optima’s Super Projects Boot Camp includes Coaching for Superperformance, an interaction-based model for unleashing intrinsic motivation and desired right action. It also includes the Ten Habits Index, a tool for discovering Management and Leadership Habit Strengths and Critical Gaps, and a method for driving sustainable transformation strategies in desired Ten Habit areas. Finally, the series includes case histories and collaborative investigation of real Super Projects and the conditions that led to their stunning successes.

Corpus Optima’s Super Projects Boot Camp delivers a balanced set of process management and cultural leadership practices, the integration of Agile philosophy and methods, and the introduction of a new optimization paradigm to equip participants to catalyze and facilitate unprecedented project results—based on a new scientific basis for understanding and operating projects and organizations.

The concepts taught in the session are based on the groundbreaking business book Superperformance: New Profound Knowledge for Corporate Leaders, by Dave Guerra, cofounder and managing partner of Corpus Optima, and author of the new monograph Super Projects: From Management to Optimization, brought to life in this special series.

What Participants Will Discover

• Simple rules for transforming the performance of any project or project portfolio
• Concept of the Project Optimization Office (POO)
• The Superperformance Formula (Process x Culture = Superperformance)
• Agile philosophy and methods for increasing adaptability and accelerating performance
• A New Science of Optimization that reframes Management and Leadership
• New Coaching Skills for Superperformance
• Simple Rules for the Emergence of Superperformance
• A Blueprint for Transformation to Superperformance
• The Superpower of the Ten Habits
• How to use the Ten Habits to Revolutionize Performance
• Why Servant Leadership is Super Leadership

After project leaders reframe the world they inhabit, they will act differently. And those actions will produce new, super results. This new knowledge is the key to turning organizations and projects into places where systems surge and people soar.

What Participants Will Receive

1. The book Superperformance: New Profound Knowledge for Corporate Leaders by Dave Guerra so participants can familiarize themselves with the principles presented in the series
2. The monograph Super Projects: From Management to Optimization by Dave Guerra so participants can familiarize themselves with the principles presented in the series.
3. The Handbook of Super, a self-directed discovery of the Ten Habits and the complementary relationship that is harnessed in Superperformance.
4. The Corpus Optima Super Projects Courseware including all practice fields, instruction sets, tools and job aids used in the series.
5. The Ten Habits Profile to determine Habits Orientation and Strength and provide a baseline from which to undertake desired and ongoing habit acquisition.
6. A complementarity-based new coaching model (desire/action) based on this knowledge, for application to direct reports, internal and external customers, and others.
7. All Super Projects materials, tools, and exercises.
8. All Practice Field Materials used in the seminar.

Agenda

Day 1: Introduction to Superperformance

• What is Superperformance?
• The Superperformance Formula
• The 8 Simple Rules
• The 10 Habits of Superperforming Leadership & Management
• The Superperformance Formula and the Research
• Superperformance has a Scientific Basis
• Coaching for Superperformance
• The Ten Habits Strength Instrument

Day 2: Understanding Super Projects

• Super Projects: Three Case Studies
• What is Project Optimization and how does it increase value?
• The Superperforming CEO and the Superperforming Project Manager
• Project authorization and self-managed teams
• Project administration versus project empowerment
• Simplicity and Lean
• Uncertainty and project adaptability
• Conducting Super Retrospectives
• Collective intelligence of the project community
• Concept of the Project Optimization Office

Day 3: Leveraging Agile Principles

• Agile manifesto
• Individuals and Interactions
• Customer collaboration
• The Agile practices
• Not always fixing things that are broken
• Incremental / Iterative development
• Integrating Agile into Waterfall Approaches
• Being quick but not hurrying
• Stripping away overhead and non-value producing activities
• Doing “just enough” – maximizing work not done
• Who will do What by When ( PM = X person times Y task times Z date)
• MELT your project (Manage Execution and Lead the Team)
• Linking to Business Objectives
• Managing the Interfaces
• “Rolling wave” Planning

Day 4: The Management Habits of Superperformance

• Control: Province of Superperforming Management
• Super Project Charter (Chartering for Optimization)
• Airplane Game (Instill Rapid Cycle Continual Improvement)
• Model for Improvement
• PDSA (Leveraging Small Scale Tests of Change)
• Project Management vs Project Leadership
• Principles of Lean and Value Engineering
• Understanding Systems and Statistical Thinking
• Understand a System of Work

Day 5: The Leadership Habits of Superperformance

• Liberation: Province of Superperforming Leadership
• Servant Leadership is Super Leadership (How Servant Leadership Unlocks Intrinsic Motivation)
• A Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) View of Projects
• The Superperformng Project Team
• Am I a Servant Leader? (Servant Leadership Exercise)
• Talent Show (Understanding Self-Organization, Innovation and Emergence)
• Understanding (and Leveraging) Intrinsic Motivation
• Everybody Win: Project Stakeholder Engagement and Ownership
• Diversity Optimization: Diversity and Unity
• Passion and Best in Class
• Integrity and Superperformance

Adjourn