PLM & OCM Ch 3: Build Credibility by Enabling Learning
Patrick Hillberg Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor @ Oakland University | Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) | Speaker, Consultant, Expert Witness | Advocate for Workforce Development | Ex-Siemens PLM
Build Credibility by Enabling Learning
Sarah sent a DM: “Hi Prof. Have time to chat? Maybe a Zoom this time?”
“Tomorrow morning? I’m prepping for class.”
“Thanks! See you then.”
…
“Morning Prof, how are you?”
“Good. Are you ready for your meeting?”
“Yes, I think, but I’m always nervous.”
“What’s going on?”
“Last week Dennis, the Spacely pre-sales engineer, and I spent two days in a conference room developing a vision for the project which we could both agree to. It was a good meeting, the kind you’re still thinking about days later. There was a lot of back-and-forth, we did not always agree, and the white boards were covered with scribbles. But in the end, we developed something good, I think. I learned a lot in that meeting.”
“How so?”
“Going in, my own perspective was limited to what the US division of Acme currently wants, but Dennis has a much better sense of the global perspective, and what HQ wants, because he was interacting with the Acme executive council who made the decision to buy from Spacely. But Dennis also realized that features that they had presented in the buy-off, to win against our competitors… these are things that an auto or aerospace company might want… wasn’t appropriate for US Acme.”
“Such as?”
“One is reusable part designs. When building aircraft or automobiles, it can be useful to use say, a bracket, in the next vehicle that was already used in the previous model. The auto plant may consume thousands of those brackets a day, there is already a supplier set up; they have manufacturing lines, distribution channels, etc. There is so much more to using a component than just its design. Dennis said reusable parts was a key value that Spacely pushed on Acme, but when US Acme designs a robot end effector, it’s only a few pieces of steel tube welded together, and it’s never used again. And in the small chance it would be used again, it would be easier to design it than search for it. There’s some nuance that I won’t get in to, but it’s a realization that the functions for one industry may not be right for another. But this is interesting… the US automakers do want Acme and their competitors to standardize on factory parts, like the brackets that hold robots to the floor. There is a standard library called NAAMS parts that everyone uses.”
“Yes. I heard this in Detroit once: the auto manufacturers compete on what they sell but cooperate on what they buy. What else?”
“HQ wants, and Spacely sold, the ability to share designs between the US and Europe, or any other country, but the US uses Imperial units, and everyone else uses metric. The designs aren’t a big deal… it’s the suppliers, and it’s the simple stuff that doesn’t let anything else work. For example, in Europe it’s easy to buy 50mm square tube, while in the US you can buy 2-inch tube, which is 0.8mm larger; those fractions of a millimeter begin to add up. It doesn’t matter that Spacely’s PLM database makes it easy to share CAD files; designs and designers are constrained by the country where the components will be procured.”
“Also interesting. What else?”
“This is more about meeting management. Dennis’ boss insists on a document called a ‘Smart Meeting Plan’, and they are awesome! I will always use one from here on out. It forces the Spacely team to walk through all the important topics that we want to cover in a meeting, in this case with Acme.”
“Such as…?”
“I thought you would never ask! Here we go:
Smart Meeting Plan:
“Sarah, I love it. I especially love the ‘objections and plan to overcome’ line. I need to figure out how to bring that into class homework. You fill that in before every meeting?”
“Every important meeting, but it's good to think about when I'm preparing for any meeting, even if I just have it in my head. But when we do it formally, it gives us a chance to discuss the challenges we’ve heard in the days or weeks leading up to the meeting. We learn to recognize, and even empathize, with opposing views before the meeting occurs. For this upcoming exec meeting, just that bullet will run 8-10 paragraphs.”
“Very good. What else?”
“The chapter you recommended from The Challenger Sale was interesting on two counts. First, the gap analysis we were doing – to find the gaps between Spacely’s technology and Acme’s business needs, was the wrong approach. We should not be filling in gaps! Acme’s processes are based on their current technology, and with new technology we can and should help them adopt new processes.”
“Interesting… and what is the second count?”
“That my role as Lead Architect is not to focus on technology, but rather is to provide strategic insight.”
The Skills of a Lead Architect
“Good! By the way, what is your background? What was your major as an undergrad, and what sort of roles have you taken on in the past, and how did you end up in your current role?”
“My undergrad is in software development, and then I wrote customization software to fill the gaps between our product and customer needs. This started 10 years ago. I would get annual raises like everyone else, but a year ago I received a promotion to Lead Solution Architect. That was the year after I graduated with an M.S. in Engineering Management.”
“Why did you start a degree, and why Engineering Management?”
“I love to learn new things, and I wasn’t learning things that were interesting to me. I was just time for a change. Sometimes it is fun to put my head down for a few days and write code, but I reached a point where I want to interact more with customers than I can when coding. I want to take on a larger vision.”
“And what about your role on this project – is it a change?”
“Oh, my gosh yes! In my old life I would do deep level things like reverse-engineer PLM databases to understand how to write my scripts. But now it’s been months since I’ve even logged into a system we’re selling. I spend all my time in meetings – I mean, ALL my time!”
“As a prof, I watch job postings on LinkedIn for ‘Lead PLM Solution Architect’ and they ask for candidates with skills like:
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"So, Sarah when you say that your role is to emphasize strategy over technology, despite these job descriptions, how did you come to that conclusion?”
“Sometimes I wonder how I got this role. I occasionally look at job postings and think… ‘Wow, I don’t know how to do that’.”
“No kidding! Some of those postings have 20-30 bullet points in the required skills columns, and 2/3’s of the bullets didn’t even exist 5 years ago! Who on earth comes up with these ‘necessary’ qualifications?” Prof took a breath. “Ok, I’m trying not to launch into a rant. But again, as a Lead Architect, why are you saying that technology is less important than strategy?”
“The tech is certainly important, but we’re not there yet. The tech questions are about ‘What’ and ‘How’, but my Acme colleagues are asking ‘Why?’ In fact, usually it’s ‘Why the F...’ and I just won't repeat that word. So, my role as Lead is to help Acme adopt and adapt to the ‘Why’.”
“Whatever they are paying you, it’s not enough. The job postings delve so deeply into technical topics, but what’s missing is an understanding of Organizational Psychology. In my earlier career I worked with two political science majors who were excellent at leading high-tech teams. In my teaching, I emphasize the importance of interpersonal dynamics. Peter Drucker was a management guru in the 1960’s and observed that new employees work hard to be promoted into leadership roles, and when they get those roles, they work even harder than they did before. But they don’t realize that they need to learn new things, not work harder at the old ones.
The skills you needed to be promoted into a leadership role are not the skills you need to excel in it.
“Yes. I see that too.”
Building Credibility
“Good! So, before you present your insights to Acme, how are you building your own credibility?”
“Well, I let them know that I talk to you, Prof,” Sarah said with a sly smile.
“Ha! You’re just trying to butter me up. You may remember from class… don’t compliment me, don’t laugh at my jokes, all I want is for you to properly use in Week 11 a concept that we discussed in Week 3.”
Prof paused, “I take that back… you should definitely laugh at my jokes.”?
“I remember.”
“Oh… and now you’re doing the most excellent thing, which is staying in touch with me after the semester has ended. That, for me, is the sign that I made an impact. But anyway, how are you building credibility within Acme?”
“This was very helpful… US management assigned two points of contact to me. Their new manager on the project, Gary, is new to PLM but very calm, which is a good personality trait for this project. He’s been running the projects that Acme sells to their customers for a few years and understands team building. But this project gets a lot of C-suite visibility from both the US and HQ and can be a little intimidating. The other person, Mitch, has been around for decades, has a deep understanding of how the US division works, and has long-term relationships with the executives.”
“Interesting, so in the same stroke that they assigned a new project manager, they also assigned him a mentor.”
“Yes, that is how I see it. The two spend a lot of time with me, and during this time I walk through high-level PLM concepts, like the phases of the Product Lifecycle: Create, Build, Support, and Dispose.”
“Yes, and there is a similar model which uses five phases. Let me see… yes, here are the two PLM models I use in teaching. There is a lecture on both here." (Lecture 2B).
“I remember both diagrams from class. I went on to tell Gary and Mitch that the phases are influenced by People, Process, Technology,…”
Prof made a face. “Sure, for now, and that is what I taught when you took the class, but my thoughts have evolved, and let's discuss this later. But by putting you with Gary and Mitch, the exec team has created an environment to help the three of you to ideate. So, maybe there is a step even before ideating which is to...
Create a safe space for learning.
“Yes, and Gary and Mitch are learning a larger view of PLM than they expected, and I’ve learned much more about how their business operates. They set me up with 15-20 interviews across the engineering organization, and from this I created what I call ‘The Arrow Diagram’ to describe what I heard.”
“Let’s cover that next time. How did the interviews go?”
“Well, I could get completely lost. Like any company, Acme has their own processes, terminology, and acronyms. Oh, my goodness the acronyms! I couldn’t keep it all straight, but Gary, Mitch or both would lead the meetings and could help me make sense of it. Have you read Products 2019, by John Stark? The lead character, Jane, does very much the same thing that I have been doing at Acme.”
“Yes! I like that book. I reminded a good deal of my own trips to Germany, for Cogswell, right down to his descriptions of the food, and meeting the people. You might try this: My interview of PLM author John Stark about his writing of Products 2019.
“Thanks, I will look at that. But on the other hand, I can’t go too far down the rabbit holes of Acme's current processes, because my general premise is that their current processes are based on old technology, and when we change the tech, we will change the processes.”
“Did you tell them that in the meetings?”
“Oh, my gosh, no! My role is to listen and empathize.”
“Good! You are building credibility, and there are details in their current processes that you will want to extract in the future. Processes allow an organization to accomplish goals without having to think about it too much, but for your to be effective you will need to unwind the processes that they find so comfortable. Let’s circle back on that one too. Have you established the insights that you want to present?”
Sarah said, I’m close, but not quite done, and I have yet another meeting to attend right now. Can we talk next week?”
“Sounds good. Send me an invite.”
Key Points:
Practitioner-Scholar / Research Consultant
1 年Patrick Hillberg Ph.D. — as the students in the class you guest lectured for me could attest, you are a #rolemodel teacher! You #listen, and demonstrate #empathy by applying what you learn when faced with situations such as the evaluation feedback. I am honored to know you and I have confidence your future PLM students will benefit from your new found insights.
Chief Solution Advisor- Sabel Systems/// Owner NFLDraftFanatics
1 年Multiple ways to teach PLM. What does the absence of PLM look like? That’s a good start. I had a pitch I gave at start of my PLM journey in the 1990s which was along lines of, you have data now. PLM wants to know about that data, and create more data on that data (metadata and relationships) which make your original data even more valueable and more intelligent. How the competing technologies and platforms solve this value proposition is both similar and different.
Terminal degree investments in PLM still have not happened. Therefore it remains a subjective concept. Technology? Strategy? Culture? Snake oil? Yes.
PLM | Configuration Management | Product Owner
1 年You highlight here one of the most painful points, the top->down communication and internal sales of any PLM initiative.