The Assumptions Management during Project Execution.

A key activity for timely achievement of the project's key milestones is the proper assumptions management. For instance, proper management of certain assumptions would allow at early project stage to initiate a preliminary layout plan or some preliminary flow chart of a key process or start-up the acquisition of some key long-lead items.
The assumptions management includes the promotion of the appropriate environment for issuing the assumptions and the implementation of a monitoring system to control the assumptions adopted.

In order to provide the project with the appropriate environment for issuing assumptions, it is recommended:

• Clearly identify the client's real needs and requirements.
• Implement the concurrent work team aligned with the client's real needs and requirements.
• Promote the use of reference designs that serve as a basis (prototype), if applicable.
• Identify key assumptions.
• Be aligned with the project reviewer regarding identified assumptions and avoid misunderstandings.
• Implement early contact with suppliers.
• Promote the preference for simple design that provides greater added value.

In order to monitor and control the assumptions, it should be considered the implementation of some of the existing methods to handle assumptions. Among these methods, there is the Assumption-Based Planning ("ABP"), which tries to make project planning aware and sensitive about the uncertainties underlying the assumptions of already developed planning and to be alert for timely decision making.

For an already established planning, assumption-based planning identifies five steps. These steps are:

1. Identification in the planning of the relevant explicit and implicit assumptions.
2. Identification of the assumptions vulnerabilities in the planning horizon of the project.
3. Issuance of Warning Signs (Signpost) of possible breach of an assumption and that serve to monitor the most vulnerable assumptions. In the case of an alert signal, this request requires corrective action.
4. Implementation of Shoring Actions (Shaping Actions) for vulnerable assumptions and to control their vulnerability as much as possible.
5. Implementation of the Hedging Actions to prepare the project for the possibility of a vulnerable assumption failing, despite efforts to shore it up. The Hedging Actions are triggered once the failure of an assumption or a failure warning signal of an assumption is detected.

Reference:
Assumption-Based Planning: A tool for Reducing Avoidable Surprises, James A. Dewar, Cambridge University Press, RAND 2002.

Making Appropriate and Timely Decisions. Avoiding the Extremes: The Premature Analysis and Extreme Analysis.

In the decision-making process, the person responsible for them must go through a thin path between two harmful extremes to arrive on time to the most convenient decision. These extremes are Premature Analysis and Extreme Analysis.

Premature Analysis leads to undue, intuitive, rather unsupported conclusions, and Extreme Analysis does not produce conclusions (Paralysis by Analysis).

Often the presence of one or another extreme scenario in the organizations is due to the own organizational structures and cultures. Therefore, it is advisable to know these scenarios to avoid them or to mitigate their negative effects and thus make the most convenient decision.

Organizational characteristics in decision making:

1. Premature Analysis case:

• Level of staff participation: Restricted.
• Type of hierarchy: Concentrated, Vertical. Centralized decision making, dominant leader presence.
• Class of opinions: In general Convergent. Tendency to unanimity or agreement with the group's decision.
• Type of leadership: Authoritarian. Proposals imposed by leaders or groups at different levels of the organization.
• Type of attitude toward decision making: Intuitive. Decision-making based on basic elements is not well supported.

2. Extreme Analysis case (Paralysis by Analysis):

• Level of staff participation: Wide.
• Type of hierarchy: Wide, Horizontal. Risk: Excess of horizontal procedures.
• Class of opinions: In general Divergent. Risk of conflict. Weak communication between stakeholders.
• Type of leadership: Consensual, Passive.
• Type of attitude towards decision making: Analytical. Little guidance toward the goal or conclusion.

Keys to avoid the extreme scenarios:

1. Premature Analysis case:

• Promote the cross-functional process for ideas and opinions. 
• Tolerance of dissent.
• Promote the positive and proactive questions.
• Equity in the treatment of the opinions from different parts of the organization.
• Make decisions based on mature reflection.

2. Extreme Analysis case or Paralysis by Analysis:

• Efficient arbitration to make fast and rational decisions.
• Promote dissent along with decision-making.
• Promote horizontal and vertical communication. Avoid group isolation and excessive paperwork.

Avoiding the Conformity Trap

The conformity trap is a classic thinking trap: "everybody does it in that way", accordingly: "it's the right thing to do."

It is important to be alert with the conformity trap because it feeds the follower approach, not innovative, encouraging to leave things as they are.

How to avoid it?:
1. Discard the influence of others. When analyzing the information, avoids at first the opinions of the others. This is the best way to decide without being subconsciously influenced by generalized opinions.
2. Beware of the search for "social acceptance". Always be alert when someone tries to convince you to argue about the acceptance that an election would have, rather than on its merit.
3. Be firm. Be willing to overcome obstacles and defend their points of view, despite their unpopularity.

How to overcome mental obstacles in problem-solving

There are a number of different mental obstacles that can interfere with our ability to solve a problem quickly and efficiently, such as:

1. Functional Fixedness: This term refers to the tendency to view problems only in their customary manner. Functional fixedness prevents people from fully seeing all of the different options that might be available to find a solution.
2. Misweighting:  Misunderstanding of available information.
3. Irrelevant or Misleading Information: When you are trying to solve a problem, it is important to distinguish between information that is relevant to the issue and irrelevant data that can lead to faulty solutions. When a problem is very complex, the easier it becomes to focus on misleading or irrelevant information.
4. Wrong Assumptions: When dealing with a problem, people often make assumptions about the constraints and obstacles that prevent certain solutions.
5. Mental Set:  People tendency to only use solutions that have worked in the past rather than looking for alternative ideas.

In order to correctly solve a problem, it is important to follow a series of steps which includes developing strategies and organizing knowledge.

Recommended steps:

1. Identifying the Problem: While it may seem like an obvious step, identifying the problem is not always as simple as it sounds. In some cases, people might mistakenly identify the wrong source of a problem, which will make attempts to solve it inefficient or even useless.
2. Defining the Problem: After the problem has been identified, it is important to fully define the problem so that it can be solved.
3. Forming a Strategy: The next step is to develop a strategy to solve the problem. The approach used will vary depending upon the situation and the individual's unique preferences.
4. Organizing Information: Before coming up with a solution, we need to first organize the available information. What do we know about the problem? What do we not know? The more information that is available, the better prepared we will be to come up with an accurate solution.
5. Allocating Resources: Of course, we don't always have unlimited money, time, and other resources to solve a problem. Before you begin to solve a problem, you need to determine how high priority it is. If it is an important problem, it is probably worth allocating more resources to solving it. If, however, it is a fairly unimportant problem, then you do not want to spend too much of your available resources into coming up with a solution.
6. Monitoring Progress: Effective problem-solvers tend to monitor their progress as they work towards a solution. If they are not making good progress toward reaching their goal, they will reevaluate their approach or look for new strategies.
7. Evaluating the Results: After a solution has been reached, it is important to evaluate the results to determine if it is the best possible solution to the problem. This evaluation might be immediate, such as checking the results of a math problem to ensure the answer is correct, or it can be delayed, such as evaluating the success of a therapy program after several months of treatment.

Paralysis by Analysis in Concurrent and Lean Execution

An important alert in the execution of concurrent and lean engineering is to avoid Paralysis by Analysis, since in case of appearing in the key programming activities, adversely affects the project schedule and produces a serious waste of engineering. As an example of this is the damage that Paralysis by Analysis causes in a key activity that must be of high evolution and therefore it does not adequately inform initiated activities of high sensitivity downstream.

Paralysis by Analysis: Failed progress in an activity due to the continuous refining of its results or due to the iterative analysis of each of the details of a developing problem.

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.” ― John Maynard Keynes

See:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffboss/2015/03/20/how-to-overcome-the-analysis-paralysis-of-decision-making/#7ced720c7cc4

http://www.bsci21.org/9-tips-to-avoid-paralysis-by-analysis/

Integrating Concurrent Engineering & Lean Engineering (CE+LE)

Concurrent Engineering approach aims to prevent potential problems by promoting the incorporation of downstream concerns into the upstream phases of an ongoing process. Lean Engineering approach means eliminating the waste of time and resources caused by the unnecessary generation of knowledge and complex designs not required and also eliminating time spent on non-value-added activities. Mixing both approaches will yield significant improvements in project performance.

Typical issues that produce waste of engineering:

1. Over-production: Implementing analysis, reports and tests not needed.
2. On Hold: Waiting for decisions or waiting for input.
3. Defective Outputs: Rework due to wrong requirements or input. Errors causing the effort to be redone to correct a problem.
4. Unused employee creativity: Not engaging engineers in process improvements for engineering.

Clues to applying Lean Engineering (LE) + Concurrent Engineering (CE):

1. Focusing on Customer needs (LE).
2. Simplicity in design (LE).
3. Design Reuse & Share of features or attributes (LE).
4. Variability Reduction (LE).
5. Deletion of nonvalue-added activities (LE) : 40%-60% of the typical engineer’s or designer’s time is spent on nonvalue-added activities.
6. Focusing on Value activities (LE), which means apply control on:
 • Features and attributes: Satisfy customer needs only.
 • Quality: Lack of defects.
 • Availability on time: Available when it is needed.
 • Cost according to the budget.
7. Enhanced overlapping strategy (CE).
8. Downstream concerns are considered upstream (CE).
9. Implementing Multidisciplinary Concurrent Team (e.g., virtual team) (CE).
10. Implementing early contact with downstream specialists, suppliers and subcontractors (CE).

Overcoming your Own Biases or How to Break Down your Functional Fixedness.

Try out these five steps:
1. Recognize the possibility that Functional Fixedness exists and that you may have some biases on an approach.
2. Check and evaluate each bias.
4. Look for the cause of bias to understand its source and impact on you.
3. Identify a goal, then identify which biases help with this purpose and which biases do not.
5. Monitor your progress and reevaluate your behavior.