Introducing a comprehensive approach to invigorate project leadership, this book provides a framework – the OUtCoMES Cycle – for developing, managing, advancing, and optimizing engineering and analytics projects.
All too often, issues of moral hazard and completion bias prevent engineering and analytics managers and team leaders from asking the critical question 'What’s the problem?', before committing time, energy, and resources to solve it. This book draws attention to the definition, structuring, option consideration and ultimately the addressing of the right problems, exploring the OUtCoMES Cycle framework that facilitates and energizes systematic thinking, knowledge sharing, and on-the-fly adjustment with an explicit focus on the maximization of value and ROI. Each chapter includes discussions and lessons in analytical and engineering problem identification, problem structuring, iterative problem development (mental and computational) and problem resolution, at least three embedded real-world case studies, and a closing 'Practitioner’s Recap' to contextualize key chapter takeaways.
Written by a team of established academic scholars and practicing analysts and engineers, this is an accessible and culture-shifting action guide for instructors interested in training the next generation of project and analytics leaders, students of analytics and engineering, as well as practicing project leaders and principals.
Author(s): Elliot Bendoly, Daniel G. Bachrach, Kathy Koontz, Porter Schermerhorn
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2024
Language: English
Pages: 183
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Foreword
Foreword
Author's Overview
Introduction: "What's the Problem?"
Part I: Virtuosity
Chapter 1: The Value of Structure and Alternatives
1.1 The Best Kinds of Problems to Have
1.2 The OUtCoMES Cycle: An Overview
1.3 Valuing Your Toolbox, Not Just the Hammer
1.4 Documenting Structure and Alternatives
Notes
Chapter 2: Picking the Right Problems
2.1 Forms of Objectives
2.1.1 Managerial versus Analytical Objectives
2.1.2 Fundamental versus Means Objectives
2.2 Formulating Candidate Objectives
2.3 Evaluating and Prioritizing
2.3.1 Transparency as an Objective Criterion
2.3.2 Plasticity as an Objective Criterion
2.3.3 Fit as an Objective Criterion
2.4 Plan Bs and Alternative Hypotheses
Note
Chapter 3: The Shape of Causes and Correlates
3.1 Utilities: Levers to Impact and Advance Objectives
3.2 Connections: The Nature and Course of Impact
3.3 The Virtues of Structured Documentation
Chapter 4: Systematic Mental and Analytical Models
4.1 Manifest
4.2 Explicate
4.3 Scrutinize
4.4 Documentation and Alignment
4.5 Looking Back on the Process
Part II: Orchestration
Chapter 5: Synergies in Numerical and Visual Tactics
5.1 Coordinating Analytical Methods
5.1.1 Tactics Used in Descriptive Analysis
5.1.2 Tactics Used in Predictive Analysis
5.1.3 Tactics Used in Prescriptive Analysis
5.2 Visually Augmenting Analytical Communication
Chapter 6: Leading Discovery in Projects and Programs
6.1 The Five Phases of Team Development
6.1.1 Forming
6.1.2 Storming
6.1.3 Norming
6.1.4 Performing
6.1.5 Adjourning
6.2 The Role of Project Leaders
6.2.1 Focusing on Conflict
6.2.2 Focusing on Knowledge
6.2.3 Focusing on Communication
6.2.4 Focusing on Learning
6.2.5 Fostering Psychological Safety
6.2.6 Collective Knowledge
6.3 Project Team Member Roles
Chapter 7: Organizational Memory and Learning
7.1 Project Leadership at Its Best
7.1.1 Shared Leadership
7.1.2 Empowering Leadership
7.1.3 Collective Leadership
7.2 Collective Responsibility
7.3 Memory and Learning
7.3.1 Transactive Memory Systems
7.3.2 TMS and Project-Critical Action
7.4 Driving Transactive Memory in Project Teams
Conclusion: Discovery Mastered
Glossary of Key Terms
References
Appendix A: A Packing Exercise (Chapter 1)
Appendix B: About the Authors
Index
