BREXIT: A great project management case study
Firstly, I would like to make very clear that this is not a political blog post. I am not in favour or against BREXIT; in fact I’m not interested at all since it does not affect my status.
In reality, I do sympathize both sides since things have gone so complicated & bad that “we are all Brexiteers now”. No matter the side you are with, you just want it to end & get over it :-P
I am not sure what the outcome of this turbulence will be, but from my PoV BREXIT has been such a useful & powerful learning tool. In fact, it is a case study for all businesses on “how not to manage a Project”. And this is what this blog post is all about.
There are 6 key pillars that a Project Management Team needs to safeguard & establish in order to deliver a successful project.
1. Set clear Project Objectives:
This is the fundamental pillar to kick start a project.
It is tremendously important for the project owners (=government),
the project members(=parliament) & target audience (=British citizens) to
have an aligned clarity in two topics:
- What is the Business Problem We Are Trying To Solve (BPWATTS)
- What is the project's Objective
In all fairness, 18 months after the historical referendum, the BREXIT
problem lacks of clarity in both. In fact, there is not a specific
BPWATTS, but more of a “spaggeti” of everything and anything:
BREXIT is happening to take back “our” laws (whatever that means), stop
spending money for EU regulations or other countries (“bring back 350mio in
NHS”), stop unmonitored immigration or even grasp the trade opportunities
with the rest of the world. There is absence of a unique, fundamental, clear
BPWATTS aligning all parties & therefore, there is no specific objective
of what the BREXIT project is all about and what is trying to achieve.
2. Define Job Roles
In a project with many stakeholders & members involvement, it is vital to
have clarity on:
- Who does What: Project Job Roles
- Secure the right amount of members involved (Manpower resources)
- Set these Job Roles within a planning milestone where each individual
needs to deliver against dates.
BREXIT Project owners somehow managed to lose all three.
Looking from the outside the 1st thing you naturally wonder is
"WHO IS MANAGING THIS PROJECT"?
Is it the Prime Minister?
Is it the Secretary of State?
In addition, there are no specific milestones towards:
WHEN the project decisions are taken, HOW the decisions are taken
& WHO is deciding for the Project. In reality, what you see
is a lot of different teams interfering/interconnecting to the
project (Parliament / House of Common), various misaligned project
owners negotiating with EU (Prime Minister, Secretary of State) & as
a cherry on the top the foreign secretary is completely out of line with the
project ,manifesting his own BREXIT vision, while negotiations are taking
place. Fab.
Last but not least it is more than obvious that there are not
enough people to do the job, especially when it comes negotiating
with other nations on new Trade deals, while
exiting the EU Trade Club.
3. Run a competitive market research
In this case, it seems that the Project owners failed to realise the basic
asymmetry of the project relationship: There are 37 “of them” and one of
“us”. They have a single market that want to protect in all cost & the project
owners were expecting that “they can have their cake and eat it”.
In addition, they failed to take into consideration the Irish boarder issue –
which now is THE most important project’s barrier – and failed to foresee
the “BREXIT Bill”. Long story short, if a basic Competitive Market research was
established prior kicking off theproject, the UK project team would be in
a much better position.
4. Secure internal & external Buy-in
I think by now we can all agree that there is no such a thing of
Project Buy-in by anyone. Keeping the stakeholders & target audience
engaged via tactical consistent updates is the fuel that keeps the project
vehicle going through turns & up ways.
Unfortunately, the project team failed to keep the target audience (=British
citizens) engaged from the beginning:
a) It took ages to provide a single, clear, tangible update on the project
(Famous “BREXIT IS BREXIT” 4 months post Referendum)
b) It is somehow impossible to build a unified proposition of what the
expected project outcome is (Canada model, then Norway model, then
“Canada plus plus” model, then “Norway minus” model)
c) Key project members are withdrawing as we are coming closer to the
delivery deadline (David Davis, Boris Johnson)
5. Name how success looks like (SMART KPIs)
Any project team responsible for the deliverables of a complex
project is expected –by default – to provide SMART KPIs at the very
beginning of the project that can be measured against at the very end:
Specific:
The KPI is clear & focused towards performance target. In BREXIT
project there is not such a thing like a specific objective, it is more of a “let’s
see where the negotiations will take us as we go along”.
Measurable:
The KPI can be expressed quantitatively. 18 months post
referendum we still do not know what BREXIT means for the British economy.
Achievable:
The KPI is realistic and can be achieved. It is clear in the BREXIT
case that the promised deliverables were not realistic.
Realistic:
The KPI is directly pertinent to the work being done. To date, 9 months
prior to deadline we are not sure of WHAT is the work being done on
BREXIT.
Time-based:
The KPI can be measured in a given time period. In BREXIT case,
timings are changing all the time & the amount of time needed to measure
Brexit success (10 years) is non-realistic to measure the project (might be too
late for the damage of the country).
6. Project ROI
I do believe that the biggest paradox of BREXIT project is the fact that the
entire mentality behind it is not how to leave EU in order to make things
better, but “how to minimize the damage from the outcome of a project
that we have kick started on our own”.
Sounds a bit suicidal, but the reality is that no one is really aware of the ROI
that BREXIT project is expected to bring in the country. All we really have are
negative indications:
- The pound weakened sharply, and remains substantially below its
pre-referendum level.
- One effect of this reduction is higher shop prices, which are now
starting to show. A more significant effect for investors is
that the falling pound has buoyed stock markets.
- Although the Bank of England cut its Bank Rate in August, rate
rises are now on the horizon too
- Business investors seem reluctant to put their money in UK
and big multinationals raise the “I’m gonna leave” flag.
Conclusion:
I’m not sure what BREXIT project holds for the future. The reality is, the way things are now it might not happen at all. I’m pretty much confident thought that in the near & long future governments & corporate multinationals will use BREXIT as a great case study of “how not to manage a project”.
At least something good will come out of it, I guess ;)
