PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN A HIGH GROWTH START-UP

IN THIS ARTICLE, JACQUES MARKGRAAFF, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AT LAVO, AND A SPEAKER AT THE 2021 NATIONAL CONFERENCE, EXPLAINS WHY HE ADVOCATES FOR A MORE ADAPTIVE APPROACH TO SOLVING COMPLEX PROBLEMS, WHILE DRIVING BREAKTHROUGH INNOVATION.

We are arguably living in times of unprecedented change driven by major shifts in environmental, regulatory, technology and societal norms. This is all the more real for entrepreneurial enterprises and established incumbents alike faced with disruption.

As a clean-tech start-up, LAVO aims to change the way people live with energy using world-first technology in the new hydrogen economy. In my role as Chief Operating Officer, I work across the value chain from research and development, product design and deployment through to corporate development, commercialisation, and operations. In my time in the business the need to think and act radically different as a small Agile team has become critical to our ongoing success.

FACTORS IN START-UP SUCCESS

Like many start-ups, timing for us is everything. We have significant global market demand and need to urgently commercialise and release our technology. We’ve achieved high technical and commercial readiness levels in under six months which is unprecedented in our industry. However, we need to power through the start-up ‘valley of death’ and not languish too long before we scale up. When it comes to the most important factors for start-up success, just behind Timing in importance is Team – having a high performing team focused on progress over perfection so we cross the valley is critical.

We have a number of highly talented Engineers and Industrial Design Specialists, many of whom have either come from large corporates or academia so the challenge here was to get the team to quickly go from Storming to Forming to Norming and eventually Performing (using Bruce Tuckman’s stages of group development). Hyper collaboration has been essential to us being able to solve complex problems in a multi-disciplinary way. We’ve found managing to a plan is fine but more importantly is the need to stay adaptive, especially when you’re dealing with a highly complex set of variables in unchartered territory.

ADAPTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

As a small team with a flat structure, it became critical for us to break the complexity down into bite size chunks and move away from more traditional and linear approaches to more iterative ways of working. In many ways, the Agile approach is much more of a mindset shift than a set of tools and techniques. Even as a start-up, we’ve certainly had to shift our culture and management practices away from controlbased methods driven by a desire for predictability and engineered perfection to methods centred more around experimentation, trialling and failing fast and rapidly refining/ adapting based on feedback.

Our technology least of all, the hydrogen economy is new to everyone so having a growth mindset of continuous learning and development is essential.

The most important factors for start-up success. (Source: Idealab founder and CEO Bill Gross)

Moving to a more Agile approach has allowed us to drive greater levels of empowerment and focus on those areas that were on our critical path as a business and consequently a more effective way to manage and lead in complexity.

LESSONS LEARNT

There is a common set of ingredients or values to Agile innovation which we’re still learning. These include:

Individuals and interactions above processes and tools:

• Focus on a smaller cross functional, empowered team (<10 is ideal).

• Wherever possible facilitate face-to-face communication and avoid writing lengthy progress reports. Digitise where possible using tools (such as Monday. com, ASANA and Airtable) but go minimal on the tools. Nothing replaces the benefits of a group of talented and engaged staff problem solving face-to-face, particularly complex problems.

• Make the work as visible as possible (such as using KANBAN boards) showing priority actions, in-progress, done and backlog, and monthly/weekly sprint goals. Link these back to your strategic objectives and key result areas as a business so everyone is focused on pulling in the same direction.

Working prototypes over excessive documentation:

• Break complex problems into manageable modules or workstreams with dedicated teams.

• Focus on delivering output, even if only a small part of the overall solution. Have a bias toward action, as time waits for no man in start-up land.

• Dedicate resources to a single task at a time. This can be challenging especially in a startup with limited resources where multitasking is often the name of the game.

Customer collaboration over rigid contracts:

• Get feedback early and often, even mid-sprint if possible. If you don’t have customers yet, get in front of partners or suppliers that can give you honest unbridled feedback.

Responding to change over following a plan:

• Create a vision and plan but allow the answer to emerge. As Mike Tyson once famously said, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”, and in start-up land, facing major challenges that need to be overcome becomes an almost daily occurrence.

• Celebrate learning that improves the team’s direction. Implementing weekly wins has also helped install a results driven culture and one that celebrates success and encourages action.

• Turn more innovations into twoway doors or decisions that are reversible, if they don’t plan out as you had hoped. Don’t go so far down the path that you can’t back out. Trial, experiment and see whether the idea has real merit in a low risk, low-cost manner before betting the farm.

IDEAL CONDITIONS FOR AGILE

Agile is a great tool, but it does not work everywhere. Teams should look to use the appropriate method for the type of problem they are trying to solve. Scrum is best used for adaptive innovation – like breakthrough product development where these conditions exist. Lean is more applicable to routine operations, such as manufacturing and support functions. Waterfall is more applicable to predictive innovation like building a solar farm or developing a new lending product. At times a combination of Agile and Waterfall may make more sense where a more linear process is needed, for example regulatory approvals.

SUMMARY TAKEAWAYS

Uncertainty creates massive opportunities to change traditional ways of working. Agile is as much about shifting mindsets as it is about tools and techniques. Succeeding under heightened uncertainty, project management requires a careful balance between commitment to clear plans and flexibility in approach. Agile has many benefits, but it does not work everywhere and is best used for adaptive innovation, like breakthrough product development rather than routine operations or predictive innovation.

Author: Jacques Markgraaff has held several senior leadership, sales, and commercial roles for some of the world’s leading management consulting, financial services, and consumer goods companies. In his role as Chief Operating Officer at LAVO, he is accountable for developing and delivering crossfunctional business outcomes including: accelerated product development; timely product delivery; corporate development and business operations.