The podcast by project managers for project managers. Transformations fail because we are failing to transform our people. In a successful transformation project, it is crucial to manage human behavior and pay attention to aligning culture and strategy. To lead a successful transformation project cultivate a healthy environment that inspires people to follow.
Table of Contents
02:06 … Ricardo’s Story04:40 … Transforming Passion into Profession06:20 … Brightline Initiative10:44 … The Failure Rate on Digital Transformations15:54 … When Strong Leadership is a Liability20:18 … Effective Team Collaboration24:32 … Kevin and Kyle25:37 … Aligning Culture and Strategy30:39 … Diversity is More Effective33:26 … Cultivate a Healthy Culture36:17 … Getting Stakeholders Onboard41:33 … Contact Ricardo44:16 … Closing
RICARDO VARGAS: So what happens on digital transformation? The company say, “We are doing this. We are transformed.” And the employee that is there saying, “And so what? What is in there for me? What is in there for me?” And if I don’t see that, what I do? I will say, you know, “I don’t want to be part of that.”
WENDY GROUNDS: Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. I’m Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer. We love having you join us twice a month to hear about project stories and leadership lessons, as well as advice from industry experts from all around the world. And we want to bring you some support as you navigate your projects. We have one such leadership expert with us today.
BILL YATES: We are fortunate to have Ricardo giving us the time and sharing his experience and knowledge with us. It’s going to be phenomenal.
WENDY GROUNDS: I’m sure many of you have heard of Ricardo Vargas. He’s an experienced leader in global operations, project management, business transformation, as well as crisis management. He’s the founder and managing director of Macro Solutions. And he’s also a former chairman of the Project Management Institute, as well as a PMI fellow. He also tells us a little bit about being the director of project management and infrastructure of the United Nations, leading more than 1,000 projects in humanitarian development projects. And we talk to him about the Brightline Initiative. Ricardo created and led this initiative from 2016 to 2020. He has the Five Minutes podcast, and he gives some excellent project management advice on his podcast.
BILL YATES: Wendy, it’s going to be great to talk with Ricardo and get his input on the human side on digital transformation projects, complex projects, where sometimes we get a bit fascinated with the technology. And as Ricardo points out, it’s all about the people.
WENDY GROUNDS: Hi, Ricardo. Welcome to Manage This.
RICARDO VARGAS: Thank you very much. I’m very glad to be here with you today.
Ricardo’s Story
WENDY GROUNDS: We are really honored to have you. I think it’s been a long time coming that we wanted to talk with you, so we’re honored to have you with us today. Can you look back and tell me how you got into project management? What’s your story?
RICARDO VARGAS: No, that’s very interesting because you know my background, I’m a chemical engineer. And when I was a student of chemical engineering, this was in the early ‘90s. One of the disciplines I was studying was operational research. So how do you put things in order, you know, on the production line, on the project. And that was the first time I met the concept of critical path, of you know, resource leveling.
And coincidentally, at that exact time I was working with Microsoft. I was owner of a partner of Microsoft in Brazil. And Microsoft was putting an effort on a new tool that they want to roll out in Brazil that was called Microsoft Project. And they didn’t want anyone to say, “Okay, who can help us to leverage that?” Because, Excel has mathematics, Word has the language, but Project is something different. It’s not mathematics. It’s something like planning. And at that time, I was fascinated about that at the school. And I said, “Look, do you want me to step in and try to study?” At that time, Microsoft was not the size of Microsoft today. Microsoft Brazil was tiny, tiny, tiny organization at that time.
So what I did, I started studying the Microsoft Project, and I started going to clients with Microsoft to explain what was this new tool. And this was how I got into that. And then I said, “Wow, this is fascinating. Microsoft is investing a lot on that. So I think I can benefit with my engineering background.” And with that, I looked on the Internet, and I found PMI. I became a member. Yeah, and then everything, I always tell that I start through, I would say, the back door; you know? I start to use the software, then to see the potentiality of the discipline. This is how I started, long time ago.
BILL YATES: That’s amazing. Yeah, that’s a long time ago. And it’s so interesting. Fast-forward in 2022, you’ve been recognized as a PMI Fellow. And that’s just, that’s fantastic. It’s amazing, you go from, dabbling with Microsoft Project and introducing that and influencing that in Brazil. And then fast-forward to where you are today. That’s phenomenal.
Transforming Passion into Profession
RICARDO VARGAS: Sometimes when I try to look back, everything that happened with me was, of course, I had a very strong direction of travel because I like, since I was very young, to build things, to transform ideas into reality. For example, I remember when I was a child. And I come from a simple family in Brazil, and we did not have resources to buy things, to buy toys. So I used to build the toy. And most of the time, I spent most of the time having the idea to build a new car with, you know, cans, and doing this. But when the car was ready, I didn’t have too much fun on playing. For me, the fun was to build the car and not to play with the car. And this is how things start.
So I am fascinated about getting things done. And I transformed this passion into a profession. And this is how things were, I would say, a little bit easier for me on my journey. I also love to help people also to move forward, you know, this collective sense. And this is why, for example, I’m doing this podcast. This is why, for example, I struggle to say no when people invite me to talk because maybe out of hundreds of people that may listen, you know, you can touch on one person, and we can make something different to him or to her. This is what is my passion about.
BILL YATES: That’s terrific. And we’re definitely aligned with that. Just the thought of, if just one project manager takes away something from this conversation today that improves their work or their work-life balance, then that’s success.
Brightline Initiative
You know, one of the career stops that you made that we wanted to ask you about involved Brightline Initiative. You launched that, and you worked with that for four years. Just for our listeners, can you give a description of the Brightline Initiative, and then what your role was in that?
RICARDO VARGAS: Yeah, the PMI Board of Directors between 2013 and 2000, I would say ‘15, was trying to understand why project management was so powerful, so strong on the mid-level management, but very much disconnected from the top management. So the senior, the C-level executive, the CEO, he or she did not think that project management was something to think about. They think about, “Oh, I need to envision the future. I need to see how the future will be.” And then I just put this on a piece of paper, and I throw to someone and say, “Now just deliver it.” And what companies start seeing is that, “Oh, this is not working very well, you know. This is not working.”
So what was the idea? The best way I want to explain this, and I will explain extremely informal, imagine that you have one mountain in one side with the project managers, and this group has awareness of the value, has awareness of the profession. I would say PMI and other associates have a good influence on that. On the other side of that mountain is the senior exec, the leadership that does not necessarily recognize the other side of the mountain the way it is.
And PMI tried for many times to build this bridge through one side, going from the project management and trying to build this bridge. But as far as you go away from the initial mountain, your bridge does not have too much strength to be kept. So what I tell everybody, Brightline Initiative was like a special force, you know, operation. So what we did, we suddenly appeared in the middle of that mountain with a name that was different and why it was different, to reduce the resistance. When people say project management, “Oh, then it’s the other mountain. It’s not with me that you talk.”
So we create Brightline, and we connected in a coalition with other institutions. And what was the aim of Brightline? It’s to convince these people to help us to bridge this gap from the other side so we can connect. It means this will increase the power of the profession. So project manager, most of the time the profession has a ceiling. It means you go project manager, senior project manager, then you go maybe to program, program director, and that’s it. For you to go up, then you need to shift a little bit, then you can go up. So why not have a Chief Project Officer, something like that.
And this is exactly what we did. This is why, for example, the circles that Brightline was navigating were different. And this was why at the beginning this was not very much disclosed because we want to build that relationship with the World Economic Forum. And this was basically my task because I have experience as, for example, the company in Brazil that I told you that was the partner,
