Imagine turning uncertainty into your biggest advantage. That’s the power of risk. In this episode, we’re joined by Susan Schramm to uncover why risks so often get overlooked early in projects, the blind spots that trip up teams, and how a clear “why” can keep you steady when challenges hit. Susan also reveals the costly mistake of waiting until things go wrong to talk about risk—and what smart organizations do instead.
Chapters
00:00 … Intro
01:05 … Project Management Master Quest
01:59 … Meet Susan
03:08 … Navigating Risk Early
05:44 … What is Risk and Why it is missed?
07:58 … The Right Time to Talk About Risk
09:16 … Risk Blind Spots
13:29 … Visible and Invisible Risks
15:34 … The Language We Use to Talk about Risk
18:29 … The People Side
20:24 … From Reactive to Proactive
22:13 … Who to Invite when Assessing Risks
26:26 … Ren Love’s Projects from The Past
28:58 … The Planning Phase
31:59 … Document Assumptions
34:24 … A Real-Life Example
37:01 … Giving Confidence
38:02 … De-Risk System for Impact
41:04 … Susan’s Advice to PMs
42:39 … Find Out More
44:29 … Closing
Intro
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Your job isn’t just managing tasks. It’s to create space for what’s not being said. So never confuse silence with alignment. Right? Just because no one raises their hand doesn’t mean everyone’s on the same page. And so, by creating space, you’re the steward of trust. The project lead is a steward of trust.
WENDY GROUNDS: Hello and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers, and anyone else out there trying to keep their projects on track. We’re so excited to have you join us today. I am Wendy Grounds, and Bill Yates is in the studio with me. If you are enjoying the show, we would love to hear from you. If it’s on our website Velociteach.com, on social media, or your favorite podcast app, your feedback helps us to keep inspiring and supporting project managers just like you. And if you’ve got questions about our podcast or project management certifications, please reach out to us.
Project Management Master Quest
If you’re looking for an engaging way to earn PDUs and sharpen your PM skills, I would like to recommend checking out Project Management Master Quest. This opportunity runs every day throughout September. It’s a free daily challenge where you’ll follow two rising stars, Victoria and Halldór, as they rotate through different companies in a global project management exchange program. Your job is to help them navigate tough project calls that could make or break their careers.
Each day brings a new, scenario inspired by real project situations. Just a few minutes a day is all it takes, and it’s a smart way to stay sharp, build confidence, and pick up a few insights along the way.
No sign-up is needed. Just head over to http://www.pmmasterquest.com/, select a username and password, and your quest begins.
Meet Susan
And so, today’s guest is someone who knows how to turn bold ideas into real-world impact. We’re talking to Susan Schramm. She’s the founder of Go to Market Impact, where she helps leaders accelerate results on high-stakes strategies by planning for what’s often overlooked, the people side of risk. With decades of experience launching initiatives across Fortune 500 companies and nonprofits, Susan developed the De-Risk System for Impact to empower organizations to move forward with clarity and confidence. She currently advises companies in 5G tech and risk analytics. Susan is also the author of “Fast Track Your Big Idea,” which is soon to be published, and she will tell you a little bit more about that in the show. She brings energy, experience and a fresh perspective to every conversation, and we’re so excited to welcome her to the show.
Hi, Susan. Welcome to Manage This. Thank you so much for joining us today.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Well, thanks for allowing me to be part of this amazing community.
Navigating Risk Early
WENDY GROUNDS: Could you give us some details about your background, how you focus on helping organizations and managing risk more effectively?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Well, I spent a lot of years launching things, whether I was with Fortune 500 companies, in startups, nonprofits, industry associations, and as a consultant to other organizations. And I absolutely know the sweaty palms and sleepless nights of leading a program, a product, or a new process, or an IT project. And I worked in mergers and acquisitions and industry ecosystems. So, as you can imagine, I got the opportunity to project lead a lot of different scenarios, and I started to notice a pattern. Brilliant ideas get stuck, not because the strategy was necessarily wrong, but because people were unclear or hesitant or working at cross purposes, and they weren’t taking action. And I even started doing research into this about what makes a strategy successful and what causes them to fail.
And there are a lot of different reasons, but over time I realized that even a great strategy will fail when people don’t take action because they’re confused, skeptical, or not aligned. And so that led me, I mean, that led me today to a point where that is the focus of my business, helping people uncover and navigate those hidden risks before their strategy gets off course or even after it gets back on course.
BILL YATES: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Managing risk is so important. And hearing you phrase it the way you are, I love that. Because for many project managers, these are some of the things that they have to face. They have a team that’s confused, or they have a client that’s confused. You know, they’re looking at the contract going, “I thought you guys were going to deliver this.” You’re like, no, no, no. This is what we do. You know, so there’s confusion there. There’s skepticism. The team is skeptical that, “Hey, this technology is not going to work for us.” Or the client is skeptical, or other vendor partners are skeptical. So, digging into this, you’ve got the attention of our listeners for sure because this is what they deal with.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Their life every day, I know.
BILL YATES: Yeah. Yes.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: And it’s interesting because so many strategies, whether it’s the timeline you take on. Many times, if you were brought in after someone said, “I got this great idea, you do it,” right, and you’re brought in to be the person to drive it, there’s a lot of assumptions about people taking action. And it affects the revenue stream forecast. It affects the timelines of resources and everything. And yet that element of assuming people will take action is really the critical element.
What is Risk and Why it is missed?
BILL YATES: Yeah, it requires so much communication. One of the things that we wanted to get into is what actions to take early on. And I think you and Wendy were talking through these questions. One of them is, “Why do you think risks often get missed or ignored early on?” Talk a bit about that.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Why don’t we start with the question, “What is risk?”
BILL YATES: Hey, that’s a good idea.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: No, I’m going to give you guys a little interactive…
BILL YATES: They can be confusing on that, yes.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: When I say the word “risk” – this is an interactive one.
BILL YATES: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: I say the word “risk,” what word comes to mind?
BILL YATES: Uncertainty.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Okay. Wendy?
WENDY GROUNDS: Probably something a little scary that you don’t want happening.
BILL YATES: Yeah, and I usually go negative first.
WENDY GROUNDS: Mm-hmm, yeah, negative.
BILL YATES: I usually think scary first. So, for me, kind of a learning aspect of projects was risk can be positive or negative.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: True. And interestingly enough, when I do that a lot, most people end up coming down the negative side; right? Recognize there’s a risk reward, right, in your investments. People say, “What’s your risk profile?” because you want to know how much were you willing to give up to get a return. Where I’ve come in the whole spectrum of risk, because I’ve had scenarios where, buckle up, Buttercup, you might get a really, really exciting opportunity, and suddenly you’ve got more demand than you can be prepared for, and customer service goes to heck, all that kind of stuff. So, risk can be upside risk, windows of risk, and it can be of course downsides where your job is to protect something.
But what I’ve landed on is risk is simply, as you say, an unknown that can be upside or downside. The question is how you manage it. So why do they get ignored? Because a lot of times the leaders in culture organizations don’t like to talk about the things they don’t know whether it’s the hard-charging startup leader or innovative person who says anybody who talks is a downer, Debbie Downer; right? Or it’s a scenario where you’re not loyal, like are you onboard or not? Also, it sometimes feels like a distraction. We have a timeline. We’re doing this. You’re slowing us down. So, I think so many times the reason it’s ignored is simply because people tend to not feel confident. It’s an environment that doesn’t encourage an open conversation about risk.
The Right Time to Talk About Risk
BILL YATES: That’s good. I want to get into that later, for sure. I know we’ve got a milestone on that one. But just following along with this, the concept of timing, when is the right time to start doing risk management and talking about risk?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: You’re going to tell me that. What do you think?
BILL YATES: Yeah, as soon as possible.
WENDY GROUNDS: Sooner the better?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Right, the earlier the better; right?
BILL YATES: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: So, what’s interesting is this idea I love about the beginning of a project is at that moment you have this wonderful moment where everything’s possible; right? In that moment, if you can bring it up, it’s a little less – people are less defensive. And so, you can talk about risk quite openly and bring up issues that, as you go further down, and you’re in execution mode, and you talk about risk, we’ll talk about ways to deal with it then.
But if you set up the environment at the beginning, then the rhythm of talking about it is part of how you do it here, and you don’t really get into this and talk of how will we be talking about risk. Then you’ve lost a little opportunity as a project leader to set the dialogue and the rhythm of not being defensive. And I think that’s the biggest problem is people think about talking about risk only when things have gone off the rails. Right?
BILL YATES: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: So that talking about it openly in the beginning is quite helpful.
BILL YATES: Mmm. That’s such a healthy habit, too.
Risk Blind Spots
WENDY GROUNDS: What are some of the blind spots that people have when it comes to identifying risks, things they’re not seeing?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Well, it’s interesting because I ended up writing a book about this because I found that there were so many common mistakes as I did all my research. I’m like, let’s just not do those. If you’re how can we make things better? Don’t do what they…
BILL YATES: Don’t do this.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: But I will say for project managers specifically that the biggest blind spot I see is that the risks relate to defined issues, like technology or financing or market windows. You know, PMs sometimes do say scope creep, time delays, or whatever. But everybody seems to have a blind spot about the underlying reasons for it. Like, what’s scope creep? Well, why did that happen? What’s a delay? What is the underlying people issue that’s causing it?
And so things like, and I think if there’s one thing people take away from this, it’s if you fail to clearly define the why and the why now, you know, the problem you’re solving, why it’s important to solve it now, what’s the consequence of not solving it, what’s the reason that if it’s solved it will change the world, if you don’t have that clear so that everybody really gets it, you won’t have people aligning to work with you. You have missed the opportunity to enlist people. And when things go badly, you also miss the opportunity to go back to the basics when your “how” doesn’t work.
BILL YATES: Yeah, that’s so good. And I completely agree. Knowing the why behind the project, that’s like the North Star. Right? So then when something bad happens, the team rallies around it because they know what’s at stake.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: We all listen to Simon Sinek who talks about, you know, why, and at that why level it’s in our brains, that if we don’t understand why we get confused, in fact it’s interesting because all the brain science that I’ve learned as a result of this says the fundamentals is you’re working with machines, these humans, whose brain needs the why to take action, to feel safe; right? And I think we skip that sometimes because it’s evident, especially if the why is defined at a really high level. We need this to be competitive. Yeah, well, that’s at a high level. The why now issue, that’s nice to do, but I’ve got a full plate today. I have a regular job. And you, Mr. Project Manager, coming in and giving me more work than I had, why do I have to do this now?
And I think when you challenge the leadership on the project, why is this now so urgent, it really forces us to get more clear about tradeoffs on capacity of your organization.
One more thing, another blind spot I think we have, and a project manager knows this in spades, but senior leaders don’t, assuming people will take action to do something new when you tell them to. A program or project leader, they get this because they know they have to be that follow-up person. But sometimes I think senior leaders go, heck, I’m the CIO. Or I’m the general manager. Or I’m the executive director of this nonprofit. Just do it.
And if it is new, you have risk. If somebody has to do something new, you have created risk for them. It could be I could be embarrassed. I could be wasting my time. I could be inefficient. I could embarrass my reputation. The assumption that people will do something new is probably a blind spot because, if you have really thought about it, if you take an organization a transformation, and suddenly “we’re going to do everything, you know, in a whole new way with AI and everything”, two things. If the leaders don’t all credibility and the whole thing falls apart, and if you are actually asking people to do something new, if you don’t make the investment to help them know, understand, believe, and trust, they will slow down your project.
So that’s one that I think people especially, I think this is really a problem with boards and leadership teams, you’re that person whose been tasked with taking this big wonderful idea and actually translating that to all the execution, that issue of clarifying who is doing something new becomes really an important action, but it’s a blind spot many senior leaders miss.
Visible and Invisible Risks
WENDY GROUNDS: In projects there are often the risks that are visible and that everybody’s aware of, but there are also those invisible risks. And they can be so much more dangerous. Can you explain the difference between the two and just give us kind of an example of what we mean by an invisible risk?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Well, let’s just talk about one invisible risk sometimes is your assumptions. If you think about it, let’s just take a launch of a new product. I’ve got this idea. We’re going to bring this wonderful product to market, and we’re going to seize the window; right? There are budgets and timelines and price, you know, points. But a lot of that is embedded in spreadsheets. And a lot of times the assumptions as to what are the critical elements that are not proving true are invisible. Like which one of those assumptions have we not proven true? Which ones of them are just – are assumptions? And I think sometimes that becomes invisible because later on, later on it becomes evident. But right upfront you’re making hundreds of assumptions without clarifying sometimes which ones are really the ones that will mean success or not.
Another one, then, if you go deeper, which one of those assumptions or risks stops people from taking action? Right? And that is the people side. That’s where my focus is. What are the invisible risks that live in how people interact, that causes them to not speak up, to become misaligned, to be confused. And that’s dangerous because it doesn’t trigger alarms until it’s too late. So essentially these are slow leaks that drain momentum. And my work and my focus is to help teams spot those early. And that’s why one of the key principles I teach is how to create a plan to address the people assumptions you’re making that would make a set of salespeople go into a new market that they’ve never been in before, or would make a customer set, who never thought of you in this space, move into that direction.
The Language We Use to Talk about Risk
WENDY GROUNDS: Sometimes we have leaders on projects that give this impression that they don’t want to hear about the problems, yeah. And sometimes project managers have their managers who don’t want to hear of our problems. How can leadership behaviors help to create that culture where people are free to speak up, and they want to raise a risk if they see something? What’s your advice on that?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: It is true, as we said earlier, that it’s important to have set this up. But at any point in time the question is, what language are we using to talk about risk? Do we have a way in this organization to talk about things that aren’t going well? And it’s one of the reasons why I created a system to help people do that because I found that a lot of times, again, back to the point that risk is bad, didn’t have a way to do that objectively.
And many times, when a leader sees risk or people’s concern as pushback, it’s one of the common mistakes people make. Any time people start bringing up negatives, especially after you’ve already made the decision to lock and load, it’s considered pushback, or not being loyal. And what happens is, if in those moments when people bring up concerns, what happens over time, people stop flagging them. And then afterwards, and everything goes wrong, and you do a postmortem, they go, oh, I knew that. I knew that.
BILL YATES: Yeah, right.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Tell me…
BILL YATES: And everybody goes crazy; right? It’s like why didn’t you say something?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Tell me it’s not supposed to happen.
BILL YATES: Yeah.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: So, what little things could we start doing? Leaders could instead say, “Thank you for expressing your concern. Tell me more.” Now, I’ve had a huge discussion about Debbie Downer, or Dave Downer, because when I run programs called “Strategy Reboot,” where I talk about how to get your strategy back on track, people will say, but what do you do about a whiner? Or what do you do about that skeptic who’s in the corner, who’s always sitting there with her arms crossed going yeah, yeah, yeah? And I said, well, here’s the deal. Either you’re engaging them now, or they’re not acting later, and your whole project’s delayed. So, when do you want to have that conversation?
Now, how do you help them? By simply taking that next step and say “Tell me more.” We’ve had this discussion a hundred years. What about this moment specifically are you concerned about? And what could we do to fix it? Right? So, if you can take that negative information and turn that into the onus on that person to get more specific, they’ve been heard, and they have to be more specific, not just whine. So, here’s a thing you could do regularly.
In addition to that sort of tone, all leaders could do is “Thank you for that. Tell me more.” The other thing you could do is, as a part of every meeting, what risk are we not talking about that we should? It’s simply a framing of a discussion, just opening the air for people because the risks aren’t all inside the company. The risks are a marketplace that’s changing. What are they seeing that’s changing?
The People Side
BILL YATES: That’s so good. And Susan, I love the idea of, you know, so practically speaking you’ve got your risk register, risk log, whatever. So, you know, you can have that open at the time we’re looking it through. And then Dave brings up his, eh, that’s never going to work, you know, whatever. And instead of brushing it off, you do engage Dave. I think many times for a project leader, you know, maybe they’ve got history with Dave. There’s frustration there. So, they just, like, oh, man, I don’t have time for that. We’ve already got all these items in the risk register.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: So human, yeah.
BILL YATES: Right, we’re all human. So, we tend to say how quickly can I politely dismiss Dave and instead pause: “Tell me more about that, Dave.” And to your point, okay, as we start to add this to the risk register, “Dave, would you mind, you know, you recruit a couple of team members. You guys go deeper into qualifying this.” You know, let’s make sure, and we’ll see what is the likelihood this will happen?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Yeah.
BILL YATES: What is the impact if it happens?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: You take accountability for Dave Whiner…
BILL YATES: Right.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: …to actually take it from that high level “Yeah, yeah, it’s not going to work,” to a very specific “if then.” Right?
BILL YATES: Right, right.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: And if it happens, what would we do, what could we do now, yup.
BILL YATES: Mm-hmm. And so here – and I’m going to just go ahead and confess. To that point, Bill, the project manager, was doing good. What Bill has to fight with himself is this. Hands on hips. “Dave? Why don’t you just throw it in the risk register? Figure it out yourself.”
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Yeah.
BILL YATES: You know, so the people side of this is how do I keep people continuing to bring up legitimate risks and involving the team and helping sort those out, without personalizing or remembering, you know, something from three months ago or whatever. Yeah, that’s good advice. Because you want a safe place; right? You want the team to bring these things up.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Because how you handle that is how Donna over here sees how you’re going to handle it if she brings up a risk…
BILL YATES: Exactly.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: …that you actually hadn’t ever talked about before; right?
BILL YATES: Yeah, yeah. You’re setting the tone.
From Reactive to Proactive
WENDY GROUNDS: I think that speaks exactly into our next question about strategy for helping your team shift from being reactive to being proactive in dealing with risk.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: So, if I define risk, you know, as this uncertainty, because your strategy is a guess, then I have a strong belief in de-risking. And in fact, that’s why I developed a system because having an approach to regulate de-risk, I can share with your audience a De-Risk Quick Check. It’s essentially – and you can apply it to yourself, or you can bring a team along, which is appropriate. And that, as we just said, in from the beginning create a rhythm of de-risking, but in addition this idea of what-if. Inviting an organization, knowing that it’s a guess, let’s be honest, this is a complete guess as to how the product will work or the program will work, how our people will line up, how the people will receive it. We’re making a lot of assumptions here.
The question becomes, let’s take all the what-ifs and make that a part of how we do things here. So, inviting people to be scouts for what is changing around you. What is changing in the marketplace? What is changing in our customer set? What is changing inside the organization? What’s changing with our suppliers? And having this risk scanning scheduled, say quarterly risk scanning session. So, they know it’s coming, so they all know, they’re all scouts for it. And I think that, again, you know, everybody plays a role because someone who’s on the front line and someone who’s in manufacturing, they have different perspectives. They’ve seen different trends. And just inviting organizational comfort level by creating a scheduled discussion of what-if is a very helpful discipline.
Who to Invite when Assessing Risks
BILL YATES: There’s one question I really want to ask, Susan. And this brings up so many memories. So, what is your advice when it comes to assessing risks? Who should be in the room? From a project team perspective, who should be in the room and who should not be in the room? Who to invite and who to not invite?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: And there are some political issues here. And there are some time issues here.
BILL YATES: Yes. Yes. Efficiency.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: And there are some personality issues.
BILL YATES: Mm-hmm, all that. Yes. Just go ahead and manage all that for us, Susan.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Right. And of course it’s depending on the stage. But here is my guidance, is diversity of perspectives is critical. So, if you get everybody who thinks this is perfect in the room, you’re in la la land. Diversity of perspectives, in terms of their understanding of the goals, how will we accomplish this goal if you have people from the front line, from the back office, from the strategy? You know who I often found people, when I worked with senior leaders in turning around a strategy, they’ll often leave R&D out. And it’s because, you know, they’re busy. They’re building products.
And what was interesting to me, and you can be time effective in when you bring them into the discussion, but R&D often is the person fulfilling a dream. And if they’re not clear on the problems of the market they’re going after, or the issues that are being brought up as far as stumbling for implementation, they often don’t have that loop to allow them to make the offering better. And that applies whether it’s a process, whatever, is the back office versus the front office. I would actually do an assessment of who must take new action for this strategy to succeed, and who is at the table representing that audience. And the closer they are to the front line, the more likely they can articulate it, recognizing you can’t have every salesperson.
But if you don’t have customer service, if you don’t have the people in contracts, I mean, there’s a tendency to really focus on, and I’m thinking product-oriented things, to focus on the product manager and the revenue creator. Right? That’s fine. But the customer support person better be in the room. Yeah, and a person who’s going to make sure that the system’s supported. So, I would say just who has to take new action. It’s a slam dunk. They don’t necessarily have to be in the room. But they do need to be informed. You know, they can’t be mushrooms kept in the dark.
BILL YATES: Yeah, you want to follow up with those who did not get the invite to let them know.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Here’s when you will be informed.
BILL YATES: Exactly.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: What we’re doing now is fleshing it out. And your role will be to look it over and see what we missed. Just for time, you know, you can say it that way. And again, if you make the mistake of putting everybody in the room who thinks this is a perfect idea, and you don’t have any people who might be concerned, you just delay execution.
BILL YATES: Yeah. I think this is one of those classic areas. It’s very ripe for benefits of lessons learned. So, you know, for that project manager to think, okay, on past projects…
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Right.
BILL YATES: …while we’re wrapping up, who were the people who said, man, I wish I had known about that earlier? I wish I’d have been a part of that risk meeting that you guys had, or somebody from our department should have been here.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Right.
BILL YATES: That’s – I want that playing in my head so I can think about who to invite to this meeting so I’m not hearing that at the end of my project.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: That’s excellent.
BILL YATES: But to your point, it doesn’t have to be the whole team; right? I don’t need all the – I don’t need the CTO and all of his minions or her minions in there with us, you know. Just send a representative so that we can get their perspective.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Right. And as long as they know they will be informed and they will have an opportunity to put their thumbprint on it, you’re giving them a calm. You know, because what we’ve learned, you ever heard of the IKEA effect, where if people build a product, like a couch or a table, and if they – research shows that if they built it, they’ll say it’s worth high value. If they didn’t, it’s worth low. Well, in this same effect, if you have a new initiative going on in the organization, people have heard about it, this big idea project. They just want to know that they get to understand it. They get to weigh in on it at the right time.
Ren Love’s Projects from The Past
REN LOVE: Ren Love here with a glimpse into Projects of the Past; where we take a look at historical projects through the modern lens.
Today is a historical project I had never heard of before – but has now moved to the top of my sight-seeing bucket list: the Kasubi Tombs in Uganda. The Kasubi Tombs are both architectural marvels and symbols of spiritual significance for the Buganda Kingdom. Situated in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, these tombs are both a UNESCO World Heritage site and a central spiritual site for the Baganda people. As you could guess from the name, the site hosts multiple buildings, the first and most notable of which was built in the early 1880’s and is known as the ‘Great Hut’.
The ‘Great Hut’ is both architecturally and spiritually significant. Physically, it’s the largest building on the site and built by teams of skilled craftsmen out of local materials. These workers utilized wattle (which are types of branches that are found in the region), mud, and thatch applied using traditional techniques passed down through generations. These techniques are still used today by the ‘Basita,’ the group who maintains the site. Spiritually, the ‘Great Hut’ is a large, circular structure that is deeply symbolic, representing the continuity of life and the eternal connection between the living and the dead.
The construction of the Kasubi Tombs was a significant cultural and architectural achievement for the Buganda kingdom. As with many of the historical projects we feature, it is nearly impossible to calculate the cost of construction in contemporary terms. That being said, historians agree that the building of the tombs was a considerable financial undertaking for the Buganda Kingdom – with resources being gathered from both the royal families and Buganda peoples alike. The Buganda kingdom was well known for its meticulous planning and adherence to traditional practices, which were integral to the scheduling and completion of the tombs.
So, what this project a success? Absolutely. The dedication to traditional craftsmanship ensured the creation of a site that still stands as a profound symbol of Bugandan heritage and royalty today, attracting both reverence and admiration from visitors and historians alike. In addition to the architectural and spiritual significance, the Kasubi Tombs are also a vibrant center for cultural activities like traditional dances, ceremonies, and festivals.
Thank you for joining me for this look into projects of the past. I’m Ren Love, see ya next time!
The Planning Phase
WENDY GROUNDS: During the early planning phase, what are some of the questions that a project manager should be asking?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Well, and it’s interesting. So, the De-Risk System for Impact that I laid out is specifically designed for this kind of thing. It’s probably because I spent so much time in tech. It has nothing to do with acronyms. I’m just going to hit the ones that come to mind and then go into the ones I’ve specifically faced. So, the principles are why, and why now? This is what we talked about earlier. Validate why you, meaning are you the right people to do this work. Do you have the competency to pull this off? Clarify who needs to take action, I mentioned that before.
Rethink how, meaning what about the way you’re doing is going from and to. And what if there are potholes along the way? And then anticipate what-if; right? And then the last thing is making sure that you have a strong group of people who are adapting.
So how did that turn into some questions that I’d want to make sure you nailed down? So, this issue of what problem are we solving, what’s the outcome when we’ve achieved it, why does it have to be solved now, and if we don’t solve it, what’s the consequence? This will help you right from the front enlist the right people who feel urgent about the same problem. And it will also allow you to clarify options when you get stuck.
The second thing is, what assumptions are we making, and how will we know if they’re wrong? Who will need to do something new for this to work? What will it look like if this fails? These are the ones that I would, again, ask early. And when you’re not taking the finger and going, “It’s failing,” you know, and everybody’s like, agh. And we know what that’s like. We know what that’s like when it’s struggling. But if early questions can be what would it look like, in fact, what I strongly suggest is doing pre-mortems, not post-mortems. Have you guys talked about that?
WENDY GROUNDS: Talked about mid-mortems, too.
BILL YATES: Yeah. Pre, mid, and post.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Well, I like to do them as if they were a movie, a disaster movie. So, I make it fun. And I, you know, pass the popcorn and do your Titanic story. And it’s something about the psychology of a pre-mortem; people are more likely to tell you what will go wrong than they will what has to go right. It’s more comfortable. It’s actually more fun.
You can even introduce in your exercise aliens invade. I mean, you know, you can do anything you want to say, let’s just talk about all the things could go wrong. And I feel like that it’s not as personal. It’s not like you’re saying, “You won’t do your job. You’ve never done your job in the past, the last five years I’ve been here.” Right? That does not lead to warm fuzzies.
But if you make it more objective, and you’re all sitting there, and you make it fun, that exercise as a pre-mortem can really help bring this to light. And then you can, as you say, which one of these things do we know from our own experience, and what do we know works? But also, I’d say that issue of what assumptions did we make that made us think that was good? What assumptions are we making now that need to be validated?
Document Assumptions
BILL YATES: I’m such a fan of that point, which is to document those assumptions. Get them out there. Because they’re in people’s heads.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Right.
BILL YATES: You know, from the very top, the sponsor of the project, all the way down to the team that’s doing the work. And the client, they have assumptions, too, whether it’s an internal or external client. Vendors, you know, contractors that you’re counting on have assumptions. So, let’s try to get all those down because that’s where your risks like to hang out. So, let’s get them out there.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Yeah. And they’re often so buried that you didn’t even know. Like I see a lot with revenue forecasts. A lot of people then sign up for quotas and everything as a result of revenue forecasts that had an assumption on a time to market that was just unrealistic in light of who has to do something new for this to work? If it’s the customer who has to do something new for it to work, that’s a biggie.
BILL YATES: Yeah, I don’t have a lot of control over that.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Right, right. So, and your suppliers, if they have to do something new. So, the thing that used to frustrate me, because my job always was the, I’ve got a big idea, let’s make it work, let’s bid the revenue now. Why is the revenue behind? And so that issue I think is a lot of pulling the thread and a systematic approach to the assumptions and a systematic approach to how could we prove this to – how will we know it’s true?
BILL YATES: Yes, right. Those kinds of metrics are so important. And the role of the project manager is a lot of art and a lot of science. And the science side of us, we love it if we have a metric we can hang a hat on. You know, okay, we have proof. This is working. Whether it’s a really small piece of the project or an overall effect. Yeah, the more tangible we can see those results and the quicker we can prove it out, the more comfort we have and our team has.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: With all those assumptions, you do need to clarify which ones are complete critical success factors. I was just talking to a CEO of a nonprofit, and he was all proud because his whole new strategy was being put into ClickUp and with all these systems and stuff. And I said, okay, I’m just going to warn you. You’re going to get annoyed because there’s going to be all these follow-up emails going, you’re behind on this. You’re behind on this. Where are you on that?
And the one thing I would flag is “strategic assumptions” because those are the big bets. When you do this assessment, the next round of it is step back and say, so which ones are really going to drown us if we don’t work, and which ones we just adapt?
A Real-Life Example
WENDY GROUNDS: So, we love to share stories. We love to hear real-life examples. Do you have any examples where failing to surface risks really had major consequences?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: I’ll share one where I still have the scars of it. So, I was the project lead. I was on a group. Many, many projects have group projects; right? I was the representative revenue on a big product launch. And it became evident on our status reviews that the product was not going to come out having a functionality that we had planned. And I raised my hand and brought up, said, “Okay, we know it’s going to be missing functionality. There’s consequences to that.” And the message I got from the R&D guy was “The train has left the station. Get on the work.” And silence in the room. He was very tense. And he goes, “I am doing everything I can. The train has left the station. There is no change we can do.”
So, what was the result? Well, the result was I had to go in to the board and delay a launch because we realized we had told the whole world the product was coming out. And we had forecasts and sales revenue and expectations set. And the end result was revenue was held up; our company was embarrassed; the people who had made commitments were embarrassed. And I realized, you know, why am I here writing books about why to de-risk it? Because if we had done a risk scan ahead, if we had done a pre-mortem, what would we do if the product doesn’t have the functionality?
Here’s a few things that I realized. Even in that meeting I said, “We don’t have to launch it to every customer. We can launch it to just a subset.” We don’t have to build in all this dramatic ta-da, the product’s here. We can have proven it in small steps of customers who can use the product functionality that we have.
And so, I had a whole list of things we could have done, and had to end up saying that’s what we’re going to do. But it has made me bolder. And I think as a project lead it’s very hard to be the person who has to walk in and give bad news to anybody; right? But I think this is where we all learned the value of setting the tone, to say hey, this is a guess. What if it doesn’t work out as we plan? What are the consequences?
If we had had a culture at that table that we’d already discussed, what would we do if the product functionality wasn’t there? Oh, we’d narrow the target audience; right? Those are the kind of things that sort of help a project lead become more confident of walking in to senior management by setting these kind of expectations early and saying, as we had discussed, if this happened, here’s what we’re going to do. So, here’s what Plan B will be.
Giving Confidence
BILL YATES: Mm-hmm. It gives you so much confidence, and it gives your sponsor or your executive sponsor or the client, it gives them confidence. You know, my team, the project leader, they’re thinking ahead. They’re looking out for us. If things don’t go per the plan, they’ve identified those risks, and they’ve got a good fallback. They’ve got a strategy.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Right. And you actually, you’d feel the tension in the room when you have to say it’s behind schedule; right? But if we have set up ahead of time, when we run into roadblocks, here is the kind of process I’m going to use to evaluate options, and you’ve already surfaced that, yes, the confidence in the room is much higher. And their ability to look at Plan B and Plan C is better. They’re not too married to Plan A. Plan B and C will be possible. It just might mean we’ll use less resources to waste it.
BILL YATES: Sorry about the scars, but thank you for sharing them with us.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Yeah, we all have them. I’d love to hear yours. Right.
BILL YATES: Yeah, yeah. Well, you’re just as…
SUSAN SCHRAMM: We can spend a whole evening just doing that.
BILL YATES: I know, I know. You took the step of actually taking those scars and writing a book about it. So, well done.
De-Risk System for Impact
WENDY GROUNDS: Yeah, you mentioned earlier the De-Risk Quick Check. But something also that we want to ask you about is your De-Risk System for Impact. Can you tell the audience what that is?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: So, what I realized as I started seeing this risk conversation being missed, especially the people side of risk, is we often didn’t have a language for it. A lot of risk assessments are financial. And there are tools and metrics for risk in the risk community. But the general conversation across functions and across levels in an organization didn’t have a language to talk about it. And that’s what I’ve simply put in place. It’s a simple, almost deceivingly simple system to allow you to think through the risks of your initiative in languages that go across cultures and across roles so that everyone can be invited to speak openly.
And so, what I’ve done in the book I wrote called “Fast Track Your Big Idea,” which is really how to apply this kind of approach to a systematic way to talk about risk. And I include tools.
These are the principles I mentioned earlier. Reconfirm why, why now. Validate why you. Clarify who. Rethink how so that you have options, Plan B and C. Anticipate what-if on a regular basis. And optimize to lead so that the organization can adapt. And what I ended up doing was taking these, when I did the research, and when I did my own reflection, I realized we were applying these when it worked well. So why don’t we make that a normal part of the rhythm?
And when I decided to write a book, it was because I was using this with clients, and they’re saying “You should write a book.” So, I put that into one book, and it’s coming out shortly. And I think at the end of the day, the way people can apply this is, first of all, with themselves as leaders. Because a lot of this is in the mind of the leader who’s going through it, who’s asking other people to take action. And these are challenging your own strategy.
And then as you invite other people into your organization, and the book takes you through ways to do team exercises and hold these sessions in a way that either you do virtually or in person, it allows you to start creating that rhythm of language so people would say, okay, I’ve got a what-if. Or we have a group that has to take new action we haven’t trained. Or is it gives people words that don’t sound accusatory because they’re framed objectively upfront.
BILL YATES: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s powerful. And thank you for sharing the teaser of the book. And I know it’s going to be great resource for project managers and leaders who want to think about this area. It’s an area of uncertainty. You know, risk is uncertainty, and it’s – it’s a scary area for some project managers. So, they are hungry to read more about, okay, what are strategies that we can use as a team? To just have open and frank conversations about risk, about uncertainty, about the unknowns at the beginning of the project and then a healthy rhythm throughout the project. So, this is great. Thank you for adding that to the toolset that we have to be better leaders.
Susan’s Advice to PMs
WENDY GROUNDS: Definitely. And also, I’d like to know if you could give one piece of advice to project managers who are starting their careers, what would you say to them?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Your job isn’t just manage tasks. It’s to create space for what’s not being said. So never confuse silence with alignment. Right? Just because no one raises their hand doesn’t mean everyone’s on the same page. And so, by creating space, you’re the steward of trust. The project lead is a steward of trust.
So, when you’re in that role, it’s a sacred role. You’re bringing people who are investing energy into doing something, and this idea that it’s just as important to talk about what’s not being said as what’s being said; right? It’s a really important role, and I think sometimes by the nature of the spreadsheets and the certifications and all this kind of stuff, and the acronyms of project management – which drive me crazy, to be honest – sometimes we lose the fact that you’re working with humans, and that your job is actually – it’s just as important to talk about the task, but to talk about what’s not being said in the room and giving visibility to that.
BILL YATES: Sometimes that requires follow-up conversations, one-offs.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Right. And it isn’t easy. But I think just letting people know that you hear them, or they didn’t bring up a point, they didn’t talk in a while, and check in with them on that. You’re really tuned in to the heartbeat of the, not just the conversation, but the mindset behind people who are hesitant. And that will turn into them not taking action, and that will turn into a project that gets derailed.
Find out More
WENDY GROUNDS: Susan, before we say goodbye, if our audience wants to find out more about what you do, or if they can find out where to get your book when it gets launched, where should they go?
SUSAN SCHRAMM: So, the first is I’d love to connect in LinkedIn. I have a passion for this audience that you serve, so I’m Susan Bailey Schramm on LinkedIn. You can always check out my website, GoToMarketImpact. But if you’d like to know more specifically about this topic of de-risking, we have two options. As the book comes out you can go to FastTrackYourBigIdea.com. And if it’s not out yet because we’re right on the cusp of it, you could register to be the first to get the book when it does. Or if you specifically would like this De-Risk Quick Check, then send me an email to susan.schramm@gotomarketimpact.com, and I’ll send you a tool that you can apply immediately.
WENDY GROUNDS: That’s wonderful. We’ll put links in the transcript so our audience can go there and take a look, as well, if they want to get in touch. Thank you.
BILL YATES: Mm-hmm. Susan, thank you so much for sharing this. This is right down Main Street for project managers. This is just what we need to hear.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: Well, I would look forward to their feedback because I feel like at the end of the day they were on my mind as I did all this work. And so, I’m hoping that they’ll feel and– here’s an interesting point. It is the classic case. You could buy the book and share it with a team, and again see what they say. And it’s not like you lecturing them; but it’s a way to say, hey, we’ve got to navigate risk together. Here’s a tool we can use. And there’s enough funny stories and real-world challenge that I think everybody, no matter what their role, might feel comfortable saying, “I have a story about risk going off the rails,” you know, that kind of stuff.
BILL YATES: Right, mm-hmm. Yeah. Book club. Book club idea for project managers.
SUSAN SCHRAMM: A book club. New idea. Thank you so much for the time.
Closing
WENDY GROUNDS: That’s it for us here on Manage This. Thank you for joining us. You can visit us at Velociteach.com, where you can subscribe to this podcast and see a complete transcript of the show.
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