Episode 153 – Simplicity and Restraint: Reshaping Project Innovation  

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Hear about the three attributes of restraint: speed, thrift, and simplicity – and how these traits can add to project innovation. Dan Ward describes using a restrained approach of short schedules, tight budgets, small teams, and deep commitments to simplicity to deliver best-in-class technology that is operationally relevant. He highlights how unnecessary complexity adds complications which can reduce innovation. Table of Contents 01:40 … Dan’s Book LIFT02:46 … High-Speed, Low Cost Programs in the U.S. Air Force04:28 … MITRE Innovation Toolkit06:12 … When it’s Not All About The Bass08:25 … Project Success on a Shoestring Budget13:33 … Speed, Thrift, and Simplicity16:03 … Unnecessary Complexity Reduces Innovation22:00 … Innovation Requires Diversity25:06 … Stay on Track with Innovation28:03 … Status Reporting32:19 … Eating the Failure Cake36:09 … Get in Touch with Dan37:09 … Closing Dan Ward: ...it turns out we get better results, more innovative results, more impactful results, when we move in the direction of speed, thrift, and simplicity, rather than moving in the direction of spending more time, more money, making things more complicated.  WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  And we’re so glad you joined us today. We have a special guest.  His name is Dan Ward.  And he’s an innovation catalyst at the MITRE Corporation.  Dan previously served for more than 20 years as an acquisition officer in the U.S. Air Force, where he specialized in leading high-speed, low-cost technology development programs.  Dan retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  While he was on active duty he helped establish the Air Force Research Laboratory’s rapid innovation process. BILL YATES:  Dan Ward is also the author of three books.  We’ll talk about “LIFT” specifically in the podcast that he released in 2019; “The Simplicity Cycle,” 2015; and “F.I.R.E.” in 2014. WENDY GROUNDS:  In our conversation with Dan we have a particular theme of innovation and managing complexity. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  So Dan has researched, of course his career was dedicated to this as well, and he’s written books on this idea of innovation and applying innovation to various environments.  Certainly for project managers we can look at this, and we’re going to share some advice and learn some lessons from this man as we talk about innovation and how to apply it to our projects. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Dan.  Welcome to Manage This. DAN WARD:  Wendy, thanks so much for having me.  I’m looking forward to this chat. Dan’s Book LIFT WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, no, we are happy to have you.  And first thing we want to talk to you about is your books.  You’ve written a few books.  And your latest one is called “LIFT.”  Can you tell us a little bit about that? DAN WARD:  Yeah, absolutely.  So “LIFT” was such a fun book to write.  And it takes a close look at what I think is a really interesting part of history, the late 1800s, and then specifically the people who were trying to build airplanes in the decades immediately prior to the Wrights.  So all of these people failed.  None of their airplanes actually flew.  That wasn’t until 1903 when the Wrights had their first successful airplane. But these experiences, these experiments, and the way they handled their failures have a lot of really interesting applications for challenges people are working on today.  So in terms of like solving hard problems, managing intellectual property, collaboration, diversity, equity, and inclusion.  You know, we think we invented that.  No.  They were dealing with those types of issues in the late 1800s.  So really, anyone who’s trying to solve an unsolved problem or just even just a really hard problem, we can learn a lot from these aviation pioneers in the late 1800s.  And it was so much fun to tell their stories. High-Speed, Low Cost Programs in the U.S. Air Force BILL YATES:  Our understanding is you had a long career with the U.S. Air Force.  And through that there are a lot of lessons learned.  So we’d like for you to talk to us about some of your experience in the U.S. Air Force and leading high-speed, low-cost technology development programs. DAN WARD:  Yeah, absolutely.  So I spent about 20 years in uniform as an active duty officer, an engineer, and a program manager.  And, you know, pretty early on I noticed an interesting pattern, that most of my frustrations and failures were when I was part of a cast of thousands, and we were spending decades and billions to develop some new shiny piece of wonder tech.  And then all my biggest successes and my proudest moments in my career were when I had a small team and a tight budget and a short schedule.  So I kind of leaned into that.  I studied it.  I experimented with my own career.  And I wrote some books then about how to use this restrained approach of small schedules, tight budgets, small teams, deep commitments to simplicity; how we use this to help us deliver best-in-class, first-in-class technology that really is operationally relevant. So, for example, the last program I led while I was in uniform was actually the smallest program in my department.  We had the smallest team, the smallest budget.  The team was actually already shrinking before I took over.  The budget had already been cut.  And when they asked if I’d like to lead that team I was like, oh, heck, yeah.  This is a great chance to put my money where my mouth is.  And at the end of the day we delivered ahead of schedule.  Our first test flight – it was an airborne radar system.  We did our first test flight a month ahead of schedule.  We collected twice as much data as originally planned or promised.  And we came in $7 million under budget.  It was a great program to kind of cap off my time in uniform. MITRE Innovation Toolkit WENDY GROUNDS:  Dan, we want to move on to what you’ve done next.  You’re currently working for the MITRE Corporation.  Can you explain to us what your role is there, and also something called the MITRE Innovation Toolkit that you’ve been part of. DAN WARD:  So MITRE is a really cool place to work.  I love it here.  We are a not-for-profit company, and we are chartered to work in the public interest.  So we bring deep technical expertise to some of the government’s biggest problems and challenges, and that’s on everything from public health, things like the equitable distribution of vaccines, to cybersecurity, to improving the user experience for the IRS.  So my unofficial job title is innovation catalyst.  And I think my formal job title is system engineer of some kind.  There’s a bunch of other words in there.  But innovation catalyst is what I put on my business card. So I’m part of this team at MITRE called the Innovation Toolkit team.  And our mission on this team is pretty simple.  It’s to help people understand what innovation is and then how to do it.  So we’ve developed a set of tools.  We help people figure out which tool to use.  We’ve got about two dozen on our website.  And then when to use the tool, and why to use the tool.  We help them go through the process of applying these tools to their projects, their programs, their departments, their processes, their technology. And one cool thing about being a not-for-profit working in the public interest, our tools are all free to use.  So anybody can go to itk.mitre.org.  MITRE is spelled M-I-T-R-E, and ITK stands for Innovation Toolkit.  So that’s itk.mitre.org.  And you can download the full set, you know, all 26 of them.  There’s 26 tools there.  And for each one there’s a description of what is it, when would you use it, why would you use it, how would you use it, and then templates and downloads and enablers to help you put that into practice. When it’s Not All About The Bass BILL YATES:  That’s fantastic.  We’ve had some really interesting conversations on past podcasts about innovation.  I think about our conversation with John Carter.  John and Dr. Bose, they have the patent on the first noise-cancelling headphones.  And I remember, what was so fascinating was John described to us, he said, we started out on this project thinking that the bass was going to be the key.  We thought if we could make headphones that have really rich bass, that’d be the best, you know, the customers would love it.  But then some of the early feedback they received it was not about the bass. WENDY GROUNDS:  See what you did there. BILL YATES:  Yeah, yeah.  Stepped into that nicely; right?  It was not about the bass.  It was about the noise cancelling, a feature that they had included that to amplify the bass, and not realizing that was going to be one of the keys.  So this idea of innovation is so interesting. DAN WARD:  So that reminds me of something actually from the book “LIFT.”  A German engineer named Otto Lilienthal, he was literally an engineer, like he developed engines.  And the engines that he had designed were lighter weight and more powerful than anything else on the market, so much so that he retired at like 40.  He retired fairly young and just dedicated the rest of his life to building airplanes.  Now, we would think that to build a successful airplane you need a lightweight powerful engine.  Oh my gosh, that’s his expertise.  What he discovered pretty quickly, though, is that it’s not about the bass. But it turns out that the engine wasn’t the next problem to be solved.  He spent most of his time building gliders, flying structures that do not have engines, because what he realized in just an amazing moment of humility, of just professional humility, was that, hey, he has good engines, but the engines aren’t the next part of the problem to be solved.  Until you manage stability,