A view of the week, written on the basis of the industry news collected on the news page that week.
Selection, pilot, training: in the projects I know, each has a plan and an owner. For operations afterwards I have rarely seen anyone responsible. The articles this week show me the same pattern in different places, and on one point I am certain: what decides whether a project pays off is not the start, it is what follows.
AI in operations: the benefit disappears without an alarm
In a survey among banking executives the institutions report productivity gains, while staff keep correcting what the systems produce, because the process was not set up correctly. Whether anyone measures again after the start is not stated in the summaries available to me. A second article describes a case where the model and the prompt changed and it stays open whether the agent works better or worse afterwards. To me that is the unpleasant version of the problem: nothing crashes, it gets less accurate. Wear of this kind, in my experience, shows up only once it has become expensive.
The bottleneck moves from production to control
A pattern I know: when more is produced than can be reviewed, the bottleneck moves from production to control. The article describes exactly this case, review capacity and delivery can no longer keep up with the volume. In automation projects I see the same: the bottleneck sits at the end of the chain, where nobody looks closely any more. So anyone standardising a process should decide upfront who checks the results once they no longer see them first hand.
Leadership: the effect sits behind the programme
A leadership programme can be successful and still change nothing about behaviour. A second article names the reason in the relationship: leadership and followership shape each other. Developing only the leadership side leaves the part without an owner that carries the benefit, as I see it. So when you move a manager into a new role, plan the start and the time that follows. That time needs an owner.
What I take from it for projects
An operations plan needs three things: a measurement point weeks after the start, a named person for that point, and a criterion that triggers correction. It is the difference between a project that works and one that gets ticked off.
How would you notice that your last project has stopped working in operations?
Berthold Plenter, Mindset Consulting. Making technical projects successful.
Related services: Technical project management · Leadership & team development · Change & transformation · Organisation & processes
This issue is also available in German: Wochenblick: Geplant wird der Start. Für den Betrieb danach fehlt der Verantwortliche..