Marko Gasic - The Skills the Engineer Needs Dealing with Ambiguity

Summary

In this engaging discussion, Marko Gasic delves into the essential skills engineers require when dealing with ambiguity in complex projects. He highlights that while technical knowledge forms a solid foundation, soft skills such as communication and change management are critical for translating technical solutions into successful real-world applications. The conversation emphasizes the need for adaptability and learning to be comfortable with uncertainty, especially during digital transformation projects. Gasic advises focusing on desired business outcomes and assembling the right team to effectively tackle challenges, alongside a flexible, agile approach to project planning.

Highlights

• Marko started his career strong with an engineering background, setting a structured approach to problem-solving. 🚀
• He emphasizes the need for engineers to develop communication skills to effectively reach diverse stakeholders. 🔄
• Being comfortable with ambiguity and change is a vital skill for tackling real-world problems. 🔄
• Understanding change management and stakeholder buy-in is crucial for project success. ✅
• Defining business outcomes early in project planning helps guide technical decisions. 🎯
• The interview advises on assembling the right team and adopting an agile, adaptive project management style. 🏗️

Key Takeaways

• Being an engineer means loving the logic but also embracing the chaos! 🛠️
• Translating tech-speak into business talk is crucial for success. 📢
• Ambiguity? More like an opportunity to shine with adaptability! 🌟
• Change management can make or break your engineering project. 💥
• In the world of digital transformation, being a jack-of-all-trades is invaluable. 🤹‍♂️

Overview

Marko Gasic shares his journey from being an engineer to managing complex projects involving multiple disciplines. He underscores the importance of a solid engineering education as a foundation for structured, logical problem-solving but points out that technical knowledge alone isn't enough. Engineers must hone additional skills, particularly communication, to translate complex ideas into understandable concepts for diverse stakeholders.

A key component discussed by Gasic is dealing with ambiguity, a skill he confesses didn't come naturally to him. Real-world problems are messy, he notes, and tackling these requires engineers to be comfortable with changing plans and uncertain outcomes. He also highlights the prominence of change management and stakeholder engagement for a project's success, indicating that technical solutions need widespread organizational buy-in to truly succeed.

The conversation also touches on practical strategies for managing projects under uncertain conditions, such as establishing clear business outcomes and working iteratively through agile methodologies. Gasic stresses collaboration by assembling skilled teams to navigate the unpredictable paths of a project, ultimately creating adaptive, successful project outcomes.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Engineering Foundation The chapter titled 'Engineering Foundation' discusses the speaker's transition from an engineering career to project management. The speaker reflects on how their engineering education and background have been instrumental in preparing them for managing projects. Additionally, the chapter delves into the capabilities needed beyond engineering knowledge for effective project management.
• 01:30 - 03:30: Essential Soft Skills The chapter titled 'Essential Soft Skills' highlights the impact of engineering education on career development, emphasizing the structured and logical approach to problem-solving. It explains how these skills are transferable across various disciplines, especially in business management. The chapter also discusses project management by comparing it to a 'system of systems', stressing the importance of compartmentalizing and breaking down tasks.
• 03:30 - 05:00: Handling Ambiguity in Projects The chapter titled 'Handling Ambiguity in Projects' discusses the importance of defining boundaries and breaking down problems into manageable subsystems from a technical perspective. It highlights the necessity of learning additional skills beyond engineering, which are crucial for the current role and project. A key focus is on effectively communicating complex concepts to a diverse range of stakeholders.
• 05:00 - 07:30: Importance of Change Management The chapter discusses the critical importance of change management within organizations. It emphasizes the need to adapt communication styles to effectively engage with a diverse range of stakeholders, highlighting that not everyone approaches problems like an engineer. Additionally, it touches on the skill of being comfortable with ambiguity, a challenge for many engineers when working on complex projects.
• 07:30 - 09:30: Defining Business Outcomes This chapter focuses on the complexities of real-world problems and the significance of managing ambiguity. It emphasizes the need for adaptability and change management once one steps beyond a technical role. Even the most technically sound solutions require effective change management to be successful.
• 09:30 - 12:00: Building the Right Team This chapter discusses the critical importance of having stakeholder buy-in for successful digital transformation projects. The text emphasizes that without the support of various stakeholders across an organization, projects are likely to fail. It also highlights change management as a crucial and challenging aspect of these projects. The chapter concludes by stating the necessity for teams to build consensus and support beyond just technical roles to achieve real-world success.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Agile Approach to Project Planning The chapter discusses the necessary qualities and skills needed for successful digital transformation projects, emphasizing the importance of being well-rounded with soft skills like communication, influencing, leadership, and business knowledge. It highlights the necessity to be a 'jack-of-all-trades' and points out that such projects often come with ambiguity and uncertainty.

Marko Gasic - The Skills the Engineer Needs Dealing with Ambiguity Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 uh so you started your career as an engineer uh how would you describe how that prepared you uh to manage the project and what capabilities did you need beyond your engineering knowledge yeah i mean i've i've always been um you know very very fond of my engineering education and background i think it's uh
• 00:30 - 01:00 it's been a great foundation throughout my career and uh you know the structured and logical approach to problem solving that that you get through engineering education instills you know certainly portable to a number of other disciplines business management definitely being one of those a project such as the one we're working on can really be described as a system of systems so the ability to compartmentalize and break down the
• 01:00 - 01:30 problem into manageable subsystems while defining the boundaries has been critical from a technical perspective here but as much as engineering is a great foundation i certainly had to learn a lot of additional skills along the way uh that are just as if not more critical in my current role and for this project in particular so you know there's a number of those but i'll just hit on the highlights here so certainly the ability to communicate complex concept to a wide range of stakeholders
• 01:30 - 02:00 in an organization is critical it's important to recognize that not everyone is or thinks like an engineer and you have to adapt your communication style to get through to uh to all the people that are your stakeholders that you need to talk to when you are working on a complex project another skill set that you know certainly didn't come naturally to me as an engineer and frankly it still doesn't come naturally is uh the ability to be comfortable with ambiguity
• 02:00 - 02:30 um you know the the reality is that real world problems are messy and learning to deal with ambiguity is a critical skill and you know you need to be able to adapt and change course and you can't figure everything out up front it's also really important to understand the importance of change management once you move beyond a technical role really you can have the most elegant engineering solution to a problem but if
• 02:30 - 03:00 you don't have buy-in from various stakeholders across an organization it may not translate into successful outcome in fact it likely won't and that's been probably you know one of the most challenging parts about various digital transformation projects i've been involved with is the change management a really really important aspect of it and really you know at the end of the day the bottom line is that in order to succeed in the real world beyond technical roles and in particular with
• 03:00 - 03:30 digital transformation projects you need to be well-rounded uh includes soft skills such as communication influencing leading people business knowledge and various other sort of you know domain specific knowledge it's uh you really do need to be a little bit of a jack-of-all-trades absolutely and and you mentioned uh ambiguity your project has some uncertainty associated with it uh the
• 03:30 - 04:00 technology you'd use the way you might apply it uh perhaps the issues you'd face as the project proceeded uh could you talk about that and how you dealt with it yeah well you know in our project we really focused on uh defining the desired business outcomes first you know getting clarity and alignment around what it is we're trying to do and and why was more important than focusing on the how we're going to do it
• 04:00 - 04:30 you know you're always applying your your technical judgment and a reasonableness filter throughout the scoping process and you know at some point it becomes relatively straightforward i guess develop an intuition about what's feasible and what isn't what isn't feasible and uh you know i found that in my role it was playing that the you know the part of translating the business needs and helping the business stakeholders understand
• 04:30 - 05:00 what technology can do for them and translating those business needs to the technical people working in the technology so that they understand sort of the intent of what we're trying to accomplish here and that's an ongoing process really another important element was putting together the right team even though we knew that there was going to be challenges in multiple domains software hardware operational issues that we didn't know how to solve up front uh really we brought together a team
• 05:00 - 05:30 that had the right skills to solve these problems and then you just really have to have confidence that your team is going to be there to help figure out the various uh forks in the road that you have to take throughout a project absolutely yeah one other point i was going to make is just uh you know the project planning had to be iterative and adaptable you know we really in in the software part of this project we follow an agile approach you know you you basically iterate
• 05:30 - 06:00 do small chunks and uh you know quickly decide what works and what doesn't work it's it's really difficult in a project like this to sort of you know lay it all out and and follow a waterfall approach great thank you and and in the program that this is for uh we do talk about the different approaches to managing projects of which of course agile is a is a valuable one