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Our guest blogger Zaenab Ilesanmi, a post-graduate Business Analytics student, reflects on her attendance of Project:Hack 19, a hackathon held in the Etihad Stadium in June, and shares her insights and learnings. Introduced by Andy Murray, Executive Director of the Major Projects Association.
We no longer need to make the case for diversity as it’s well proven that diverse teams deliver better results. The Major Projects Association was founded on diversity. The approach back in 1981 was to convene the mix of organisations involved in major projects (from funders, project owners, advisors, contractors and their supply chains) and the mix of disciplines (project management, engineering, commercial etc) to come together to share their different perspectives in order to find ways to deliver major projects better.
It’s been my view for quite some time that there has been a discipline that has been difficult to attract to the world of projects even though they can make a critical impact on project performance – data science. Data science is a discipline that is typically drawn to operational and functional aspects of business, principally due to their repetitive nature and short cycle times. We need to find ways to lure more data professionals to work on projects.
Given Demming’s ‘plan, do, check, act‘ cycle of project management, projects are ripe for data-driven improvements.
This is why the Major Projects Association has supported Project:Hack, a two-day hackathon where mixed teams of data professionals and project professionals tackle a range of project management challenges.
One attendee of Project:Hack was Zaenab Ilesanmi, a post-graduate data science student from Manchester Metropolitan University. Zaenab hadn’t thought about working on projects until she attended the APM North West conference, as a volunteer, which was held at her university. Her curiosity made her want to learn more so she registered for Project:Hack 19 held at the Etihad Stadium in June.
Here are Zaenab’s reflections from her introduction, as a Business Analytics student, to the world of projects.
Andy Murray, Executive Director of the Major Projects Association.
The first thing I learnt about project management was: MANY PROJECTS FAIL.
Now, what if we could handle projects differently using data and get better results? Could project data analytics be a way to really limit project failure? Or is it that path that will lead to better project delivery?
What if we could eradicate scope creep in projects? What about limiting cost overruns and project delays through project data analytics? What if we could manage risks in projects without wasting more time and resources? What if project managers could focus on more intricate aspects of project delivery while artificial intelligence is used to optimise tasks? What if we can utilise lessons learnt from previous projects data to enhance our delivery instead of guessing?
So many what-ifs! These thoughts were triggered in the hack.
How my interest in projects began
Just a few lessons into my optional unit, PPMO (Portfolio and Project Management in Organisations), my lecturer mentioned, “you should check the APM website, they have a lot of useful resources…” I forgot about everything else but the name APM stuck to mind till the end of that day. A few Google searches was what it took to get lost in the wealth of information on the website and this spiked my curiosity. What is project management really? Is it just the pages of literature we read for exams? What’s so special about the APM? Being a postgraduate student of Business Analytics with a background in data, I have been majorly interested in the functional aspects of business where I understand business needs, analyse data, look for trends and patterns and present the insights. I kept surfing the website until I signed up to become a student member of the APM. I began to attend the webinars organised and listen to project professionals. My thirst for learning about projects grew. I actively sought out opportunities to learn more about projects and attended the APM North West conference where I volunteered.
At the event, I learned so much about project management, stakeholder management, emotional intelligence, portfolio management and many more soft skills that are a vital requirement in today’s work force. The more I had conversations with professionals like Liz Bohler, Andy Murray and Neil Horner at the event, the more excited I became about projects, even though I didn’t have a background in project management. I approached Neil Horner in one of the breakout sessions and asked, “I have a data background and now that I am learning about project management, I find it really exciting! Do you perhaps know a way I could utilise my technical skills for project management?” “Artificial intelligence and projects; this is the future! And trust me, you are on the right track!” he said.
I didn’t have a clear understanding of the relationship between both paths yet, and as if he noticed the confusion going on in my head, he started to explain a bit more about how data can actually drive decision-making and optimise the project management process. Wow! This made absolute sense! I thought about data simulations and how using data analytics can really help in making decisions about the best points for cost minimization while delivering optimum project solutions; it sounded exciting!
He recommended an upcoming hackathon, Project:Hack19, organised by Projecting Success. “It’s worth giving it a try; you will find people who have similar interest as you and it is a good place to start,” he said, as he went on to attend to other participants waiting to see him. I went on and researched Projecting Success and found they have a Project Data Analytics Community. Interesting, I thought to myself and registered for the hackathon, even though I had never done one before. There was one thing I was sure of: surely there would be something to learn.
As the days of the hackathon drew closer, I told some of my friends about it and encouraged them to register as well but unfortunately, they preferred to pass it. I didn’t know what to read or how to prepare and just decided I was going to enjoy the learning process. As I was about to leave home on the day of the hackathon, I thought: I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do at this event, I have no special skills to offer, neither do I know anyone there, but, I will go nonetheless. I was nervous! But my thirst for knowledge was greater.
The hackathon: day 1
Getting to Manchester City Football Club – Etihad Stadium, I received my hacker badge that read APM Data Hacker. I smiled and wondered, what do I know! I became even more nervous as I walked through a crowd of unfamiliar faces and settled on a chair, waiting for the start of the event. Shortly after, we were introduced to several projects for the hack and were told to choose whichever we would like to participate in. There were 11 challenges to choose from. I found the project description of Industry Risk Ontology fascinating and challenging so I joined the team Risky Business!
Our task
Our challenge was to produce a new standardised data ontology for risk that ensures the efficient collection of data and ensures the right risks are captured in order to mitigate risk and maximise resource use in the most efficient way. Part of the condition of our solution was that it must be future-proofed (so that each organisation could make changes without disrupting the data), is pragmatic (could be used by any organisation), should integrate properly with organisational datasets (to allow for all forms of analysis) and develop a means by which future data collection can be automated without the existing duplicative method. This is big! I thought to myself.
I was in an amazing team of 6 with two project professionals: Stephen Jones and Craig Bennett. I began to ask questions about risk in their various professions and they generously shared knowledge that I call ‘priceless’ from their experience. I kept asking more questions and they happily answered them and nothing was more satisfying. I understood risk in several projects, departments, organisations and programs right there! We began brainstorming and in a short while, discussed our ideas. They were very broad and at some point, I thought we might never be able to have anything to present given the timeframe, as the hackathon was only for 2 days. The best way to climb any high mountain is by taking the first step!
We divided the tasks amongst ourselves and started working on each bit of solution. As I read about the requirements of each persona, I found the satisfaction of connecting what I had learnt in a workshop organised by HDR UK where we were trained on product management using Agile and Scrum. Collaborating with my teammate who also had a data background, we started working on the products. I continued asking Stephen Jones more questions about risk as it was setting the foundation for a defined relevant risk data collection process. Time went by so fast and the day ended without us having any defined product.
Day 2
In Day 2 of the hackathon, we quickly picked up from where we stopped and continued working on our tasks. We designed a robust risk data collection system that tailors towards the specific risk of interest of the project professional in a way that restructures the database and makes it more organised. We developed what I named Risky Product! A Power BI visualisation of risks that makes use of real-time data and produces intuitive visuals that answer many questions in risk management. We ensured the visuals were user-friendly and easy to navigate and in the overview, depending on the kind of project the professionals were handling – whether at program level or organisational level, whether it was a long or short-term project – one could easily make selections and the visuals interacted accordingly.
We also developed PESTLE analysis in the visual form that makes it a lot easier to categorise risks in a visual format to provide more insights into factors affecting project performance. The first time I had used PESTLE was in one of my assessments to analyse a company and never thought it would come in handy and in this way!
We didn’t stop there. We developed a scatter plot that Stephen prefered to call Risk Profile. It could serve as a benchmark for risks and factors in projects and calculated these using the Net Present Value (NPV) in order to cater for long-term projects that may take years to complete, as our model had to be future-proof. We also considered external factors like inflation which have the potential of affecting project delivery over years. A project professional could look at the scale of their project using this profile and understand how much it was likely to cost, what the potential amount of CO2 emission that could result from this project was and make more informed decisions.
Now to a very interesting product. We understood that different project professionals might define the same risk differently, even when they are trying to find a solution to the same problem. We appreciated the diverse use of language in definitions and understood it needs a solution if our models were to be relevant. We then came up with a ‘Similarity index checker’. It’s funny how ideas could span from different places as this was related to Turnitin, a software used by many universities in the UK to check for similar report/plagiarism. Having a similarity index checker would help project professionals input what risk they are trying to define into the system in order to identify if it is a different risk from the ones already defined or a new one. There were many ideas that could not be explored due to time and resource constraint.
We built our products and created our reports on time. This to me was not just a learning experience but also a massive win! What’s more, my team was invited to explain our ideas and products to the networkers (representatives from different organisations) some of which included Gleeds, Major Projects Association, Association for Project Management, BAE Systems, John Sisk & Son Ltd and many more! I never would have thought I would stand in front of these respected individuals to explain a product from a hack that I just attended for the very first time!
I had the opportunity to learn about the solutions that other teams were working on as well and I thought, this is a room full of brainers! So many amazing solutions were being developed by different teams! In a conversation with one of the industry professionals William Reddaway, he asked many thought-provoking questions on how project delivery could be improved in construction. Every time I suggested a solution, I ended up finding a place where our project model was relevant.
It made me realise the value of our collaborative effort and how much problems could be solved in projects using data analytics.
What were my takeaways?
I learnt the true essence of collaboration. I worked in a team with different people from diverse backgrounds with diverse perspectives and was able to appreciate the meaningful contributions of everyone in solving a problem which affects real-life deliveries. Our ideas and efforts made up the huge whole I never thought would have come to life in such a short period.
As the event came to an end (I wish we had more days of hack), I was excited to meet Andy Murray, the Executive Director of the Major Projects Association, who I had first met at the APM Northwest Conference, and I couldn’t help but talk about how much value participating in this hack had given me; not just in terms of my skills, but as a person. I learned that it is okay to not know something; it is okay to feel strange especially when you are easily identifiable in a crowd due to how different you look; it is okay to ask questions for a better understanding of contexts and clarifications. What is not okay is to not try to learn or to allow self-doubt to overcome what we could possibly achieve.
This event, this day, those people that I met are an intricate part of whatever success or feat I achieve tomorrow as they have taught me, shared their unique experiences and guided me towards paths I never know existed. Even though I am not sure what challenge/opportunity lies next in my path, I am glad to have had this much support from strangers who I never knew and never shut me out because I was different.
What enthuses me about projects?
Curiosity and the drive to learn new things. I came from a home with many female children and many times had to defy the societal notion of how much a girl-child can achieve. I was raised to challenge myself to do the hard things, and this has brought about a continuous thirst for learning.
The future of Project Data Analytics is now and I am incredibly grateful to Martin Paver for organising Project Hack: 19.