The Titanic and the Five Deadly sins of the project manager

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The Titanic and the Five Deadly
Sins of the Project Manager
• Luis Alberto Cáceres Villota, PMP©, Change Manager©, Coach©, Agile PM©
• Jan 24 / 2017 1

Luis Cáceres
Associate Partner LATAM, Global PMI Partners
Author of the book "Murphy on projects: 101 frequent
causes of failure in projects", speaker, specialist in
project management who combines strategic planning
skills with coaching and change management
techniques to scale up results. Executed US$6 billion in
M&A post-merger integrations. Leadership of startups
from scratch until product launching. Management of
international PMOs. Seven international certifications
and fluency in three languages. Experience in
companies like KPMG, EXPERIAN, CHUBB, SIEMENS, HP
About the speaker

Why the RMS Titanic sank?
 Qual é seu objetivo?
 Qual o prazo? O custo?
 Por que isso é importante?
 Do que depende?
 Quais os próximos passos? Quais
as datas de cada passo?

The unexpected iceberg
4
• The region where the ship sank
was known as "valley of the
Icebergs"
• Olympic and other ships not only
crossed the region, but alerted
the Titanic
• Why the RMS Titanic fail in
avoiding the iceberg?

The business case at a glance
5
• European Emigration to America
• White star: urgency in overcoming
competition
• Modernity was the zeitgeist
• Technological advances allow bigger,
fasters ships
• Company in difficulties, bet on
building the most luxurious and
modern ship of the time as
competitive differentiator
• Maximizing first-class experience,
would increase revenue

Great strategy. What went wrong?
6

Analyzing failure in well managed projects
7

A different approach
Knowledge
Skills
Attitudes
Competence
Source: The three dimensions of the professional competence, KSA from Thomas Durand. This model is broadly used in
management by competences and applied on the ISO 100015:2001. The mind, heart and hand comes from H. Pestalozzi.

The five deadly sins
FRAUDULENCE ABSTINENCEOVER AMBITION ARROGANCE IGNORANCE
?
Source: Chaos report 2010 by Standish Group. The five sins belongs to the project key success factor “emotional
maturity of the project manager”

EXECUTING THE STRATEGY

Deadly sin: OVERAMBITION
11
 Luxury was the project mantra
 The voyage was an important
social event
 Two lifts, Turkish baths, two coffee
salons, the largest dining room
ever seen in the sea
 Overconfidence: the ship was
considered unsinkable
 The telegraph (allowing people to
sent “tweets” from the ocean)

Deadly sin: ARROGANCE
12
 Presidents prioritized excessive luxury,
sacrificing performance and safety
 Reducing the number of lifeboats to allow
a better panoramic view form the highest
deck
 The chief architect, Alexander Carlisle,
quit in protest.
 Arrogance and the team dynamics: the
binocular case

Deadly sin: IGNORANCE
13
 Decisions were made ignoring the
technical requirements
 The largest dining room ever in the sea
forced to reduce the bulkhead walls
that protect in case of flooding.
 Decisions were made believing
everything will be fine, without
having evidence supporting that
thinking, and underestimating the
consequences.

Deadly sin: FRAUDULENCE
14
 The Titanic had four smokestacks
but only three engines.
 The tests in open sea that should
have took one (1) month were
done in only (guess how long!)
 half a day!!

Deadly sin: ABSTINENCE
15
 The team omitted their opinions.
 They were afraid of contradict
the powerful boss
 Some were happy by their
promotions.
 Some refrained of reporting or
solving problems. Example: the
rope not long enough to collect
seawater

HOW FAILURE DODGE THE
MANAGEMENT?

How do failure dodge skilled managers?
• Planning
• Risk management
• Resources management
• Stakeholders management
• ......
• Overambition
• Arrogance
• Ignorance
• Abstinence
• Fraudulence
• Superficial planning
• Underestimating complexity
• Unbalanced requirements
• Disastrous decision making
• Strategic misalignment
• 101 frequent causes of failure
Cognitive Biases
(wishful thinking, confirmation bias, normalcy bias)
They have the knowledge but some attitudes...
... leads to mismanagement

Five sins in the daily life
18
• Prophets of the past: "I knew it was going
to fail”
• (Abstinence)
• Green Light: communicate only good news,
hiding problems.
• (Fraudulence)
• “Rule of the thumb” decisions
• (Ignorance)
• Gold platting: proposing a more
complicated solution than necessary
• (Overambition)
• Optimistic promises: promising a result in a
date, just to please a client or boss.
• (Fraudulence)

Cognitive biases and the five deadly sins
Confirmation bias
• We don't need lifeboats, the
Titanic is a life boat for other
ships!
Normalcy bias
• 16 min to accept the problem
• One hour to lower the
lifeboats

Normalcy bias and project execution

Corporate silos & professional myopia
Sales Marketing Operations
Silos??
where?

RECOMMENDATIONS

Communications skills

Acquiring new tools
Soft skills
(communication, influence, leadership,
team building)
Professional Coaching
Change Management
PMOs should have a coaches and change managers

Lessons from Napoleon
 Rely only in accurate data
 Do not relay on conventional
wisdom, rule of the thumb, neither
back-of-the-envelope calculations.
 Check you assumptions and desires
 Resist the temptation in jumping
into conclusions
 Adopt this as a mantra!

Conclusions: do the Titanic sank because
a unexpected iceberg?
IDENTIFY THE PATOLOGIES
• Better understanding, better
management
• Be aware of behavioral issues
• Understand the five deadly
sins
• Overambitious planning
• Abstinent execution
• Professional myopia
• Poor decisions
• 101 common causes
• Communication skills
• Influence perceptions
• Balancing power
• PMO tendency:
coaching and change
management
DEVELOP COMPETENCIESAWARNESS

THANK YOU!
Let's stay in touch and share experiences!
www.ProjectManagement.com/profile/luiscaceres
www.linkedin.com/in/caceres

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