Managing the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industry: 2025

Monday, July 14, 2025

Digital PMO Innovation at GSK’s Global Regulatory Office

In early 2025, GSK’s global regulatory project management office (PMO) led by Director Rahman Ahrar piloted an enhanced project-management framework using Smartsheet to streamline and standardize regulatory submission workflows across multiple global markets. Their core challenge was managing regulatory filings for new HIV, oncology, and infectious‑disease treatments simultaneously across multiple jurisdictions posed coordination, transparency, and timing challenges. The need to balance confidentiality with cross-team visibility was especially demanding. This blog article highlights some interesting aspects of the enhancements as drawn from public statements and write ups.

🔍 PM Enhancements & Innovative Practices

Unified Dashboards + Real‑Time Tracking
Centralized views of every submission’s stage, progress, and blocker status enhanced transparency and oversight.
Automated Workflows
Notifications, reminders, and escalations triggered automatically reducing manual follow-up and attention to detail errors.
Selective Data Sharing Modules
Tools like Smartsheet’s Dynamic View and Control Center enabled secure, filtered access for external stakeholders (consultants, CROs) without exposing full project details.
Seamless Financial Coordination
Smartsheet’s Data Shuttle linked budget and expense data with GSK’s ERP, enabling real‑time budget tracking tied directly to regulatory activities.
External Partner Collaboration
GSK onboarded four consulting firms onto the same platform in an 18‑week intensive rollout during COVID‑19—demonstrating ease of adoption, speed, and efficiency.

Lessons & Takeaways for Biotech PMs

Practice	Benefit
Central PM Tool Adoption	Reduces siloed data; establishes single source of truth.
Automated Notifications	Mitigates timeline drift and manual follow-up.
Controlled External Access	Enhances collaboration securely without jeopardizing confidentiality.
Integration with Financial Systems	Ties project activities to cost control—improves forecasting and accountability.
Scalable Rollouts with Stakeholders	Demonstrates platform adaptability and cultivates trust early.

Why This Is Broader Than GSK

Regulated Industries—including biotech, medtech, and pharma can adopt this digital PMO model to manage regulated product submissions and compliance projects.
Platform Selection Matters—choose PM tools that not only handle tasks but also integrate data streams, control access layers, and automate workflows.
Process Repeatability—a systemized, codified PMO approach scales better than one-off solutions.

In summary

GSK’s PMO story shows that modern project‑management platforms such as Smartsheets, when thoughtfully configured (automation + dynamic access + financial linkages), can transform complex regulatory projects into efficient, scalable operations. For biotech teams managing cross-functional, multi-region submissions, this model provides an actionable blueprint with both technological and organizational enhancements.

How to Run Smarter Meetings with Lean Coffee

Meetings often fail because they are built backward: the agenda is set in advance usually by one person and participants passively follow along. Time is wasted on low-priority items, while the most valuable conversations are sometimes at the end of the meeting or never happen.

Lean Coffee flips that script. It’s a structured but agenda-less format where participants decide what to discuss, on the spot, using timeboxing and consensus to guide the flow. If you are a project manager, team lead, or facilitator looking to make meetings more engaging, focused, and adaptive, this blog post breaks down what Lean Coffee is, why it works, and how to run one effectively.

What Is Lean Coffee?

Lean Coffee is a facilitated, participant-driven meeting format that combines two principles:

Lean thinking – Focus on what delivers the most value, eliminate waste.
Coffee shop structure – Conversations are informal, yet purposeful.

Despite its name, it’s used in all kinds of contexts: retrospectives, daily standups, cross-functional syncs, knowledge sharing, and even executive strategy sessions.

Tagline: “Structured conversations without a pre-set agenda.”

When to Use Lean Coffee

Lean Coffee works best when:

The group has multiple topics of interest but limited time.
You want distributed participation and ownership.
You don’t know in advance what topics will be most important.
You want to improve team engagement and psychological safety.

Core Mechanics

Here’s how a typical Lean Coffee session works:

1. Set Up Three Columns

On a physical board or digital whiteboard, create three columns:

To Discuss
Discussing
Discussed
Those familiar with Kanban will recognize the format as similar to a Kanban board's 3 columns of Backlog, Work In Progress, and Completed

2. Brainstorm Topics

Each participant writes down 1–3 discussion topics (one per sticky note). These go into the “To Discuss” column. No filtering. Just whatever feels relevant.

Examples:

“We need a clearer code review policy”
“How do we prioritize incoming support tickets?”
“What’s our stance on returning to the office?”

3. Vote

Each person gets a fixed number of votes (e.g., 3). They vote on the topics they most want to discuss. Multiple votes on a single topic are allowed.

This creates a prioritized agenda democratically.

4. Discuss One Topic at a Time

Move the top-voted item into the “Discussing” column. Set a timebox (typically 5–8 minutes).

When time’s up, ask:

“Should we continue this topic for another 3–5 minutes?”

Vote: thumbs-up (continue), sideways (undecided), thumbs-down (move on). Majority rules.

When done, move the topic to “Discussed”, and repeat with the next-highest item.

What Makes Lean Coffee Powerful

Agenda Emerges from the Group

The format respects what participants actually care about, not what was assumed in advance.

Timeboxed by Default

Discussions are focused and cut off when they lose momentum.

Prioritized by Consensus

You always work on the most valued topics first. No more wasted airtime on fringe issues.

Equalizes Participation

Everyone gets a voice. No need to interrupt or push your issue onto an existing agenda.

Low-Prep, High Impact

It takes <10 minutes to prep and scales easily from 3 to 30+ participants.

Pro Tips for Facilitating Lean Coffee

1. Clarify the Scope at the Start

“Today’s Lean Coffee is focused on improving our sprint process.”
“Let’s use this session to raise blockers or improvements across teams.”

This prevents topic sprawl.

2. Use Silent Brainstorming

Give 2–3 minutes for everyone to write ideas without discussion—this gives quieter voices space.

3. Track Action Items Separately

If decisions or actions emerge, capture them outside the discussion board—e.g., in Jira, Notion, or a Google Doc.

4. Use Digital Boards for Remote Teams

Miro, MURAL, MetroRetro, or Google Jamboard work well. For in-person, use sticky notes and a whiteboard.

5. Don’t Force Consensus

The goal is not to decide everything. It’s to surface shared priorities and enable meaningful dialogue.

Variations

Time Budgeting: Let the group allocate a fixed total time (e.g., 60 minutes) across top topics instead of timeboxing every topic equally.
Themed Coffee: Narrow the focus—e.g., “DevOps Lean Coffee,” “Retrospective Lean Coffee,” “Customer Feedback Coffee.”
Reverse Lean Coffee: Start with one known topic and use Lean Coffee for breakout discussions.

Sample Use Cases

Scenario	Why Lean Coffee Works
Team Retrospective	Surfaces real team concerns, not just canned agenda items
Cross-functional sync	Highlights shared blockers across teams quickly
Leadership roundtable	Lets executives explore what’s top-of-mind without overplanning
Internal knowledge share	Prioritizes learning needs organically

In Summary: Meetings Can Be Adaptive, Not Prescriptive

Lean Coffee brings structure without rigidity, and autonomy without chaos. It’s a format that encourages honesty, speed, and shared ownership. When meetings start to feel stale, hierarchical, or low-impact, try changing the format and using the Lean Coffee approach. Start with a whiteboard, some sticky notes, and a timer and let the group lead itself.

Sunday, July 13, 2025

Neutral but Assertive: The Facilitator’s Guide to Leading Without Dominating

Facilitators walk a delicate line...intervene too much and you dominate the group...hold back too far and discussion derails into tangents, indecision, or silence. The skill of neutral but assertive facilitation lies in helping a group progress toward clarity and action without hijacking content, biasing decisions, or becoming the loudest voice in the room. Whether you are leading project retrospectives, strategy sessions, stakeholder workshops, or executive offsites, this blog post breaks down the techniques, mindset, and structure behind effective neutral-but-assertive facilitation.

What Does It Mean to Be “Neutral but Assertive”?

Neutral: You don’t take sides. You don’t solve the problem. You guide the process so the group can do it themselves.
Assertive: You don’t sit back passively. You actively manage time, participation, scope, and energy to protect the process.

This balance builds trust and psychological safety while also driving momentum.

Why It Matters

Unstructured meetings stall. People speak in circles, dominate airtime, or leave without alignment.
Over-structured meetings feel rigid. The facilitator bulldozes the room and shuts down ideas.
Groups need both containment and autonomy. The facilitator provides the scaffolding; the group builds the outcome.

Key Skills and Techniques

1. Define Process Ownership Early

“I’m here to guide the process, not to dictate content. You all bring the expertise. I’ll help us stay focused and get to outcomes.”

Clarifying this upfront gives you the license to intervene assertively without seeming controlling.

2. Use Structure to Reduce Bias

Use neutral formats like:

Round-robins (everyone speaks once before discussion)
1-2-4-All (Liberating Structures; see my blog post on these)
Sticky-note clustering (to equalize input before synthesis)

Structure ensures participation is distributed by design, not personality.

3. Time-Box Aggressively with Kindness

“Let’s take 5 minutes for silent brainstorming.”
“I’m going to call time here to make sure we move to the next step.”
“I’ll park this for now and we can return if there’s time.”

Assertive time management respects everyone's time and attention.

4. Intervene with Process Language, Not Judgment

When things go off-track:

Say: “Let’s pause—what’s the question we’re trying to answer here?”
Not: “You’re off-topic.”
Say: “It sounds like we have multiple threads—can I capture that and move on?”
Not: “Let’s move on, that’s not important.”

You guide how the group interacts, not what they decide.

5. Surface and Name Group Dynamics Neutrally

When the energy drops or tension rises:

“I’m noticing fewer voices in the room—anyone who hasn’t spoken want to add something?”
“We’ve had a lot of input—shall we pause and synthesize before going further?”
“It seems like we’re circling—what decision are we actually trying to make here?”

This is facilitation as real-time systems sensing.

6. Handle Dominant Voices Without Shutting Them Down

Use turn-taking protocols or timed contributions.
Redirect: “Great point—let’s hear from others and then come back to you.”
Reframe: “That’s one perspective—let’s gather a few others.”

You don’t suppress. You redistribute attention.

7. Stay Above Content While Tracking Progress

Always be watching for:

Is the group aligned on the goal?
Is there clarity or confusion?
Are we solving the right problem?
Are we converging or diverging?

When needed, zoom out:

“Let’s check in—are we solving what we set out to solve?”

8. Use Visible Frameworks and Visual Anchors

Facilitators should externalize the group’s progress:

Whiteboards, digital note boards, sticky walls
Frameworks like 2x2s, timelines, clustering
“Parking lots” for tangents

When ideas are visible, conversations become shared and depersonalized.

Sample Phrases for Assertive Neutrality

Situation	Assertive-Neutral Language
Off-topic digression	“Let’s note that and bring it back if we have time.”
Monologue from participant	“Let’s hear from others before returning to that thread.”
Stuck in circular debate	“What decision or clarity are we aiming for here?”
Silence after question	“Take 30 seconds to think silently, then we’ll go around.”
Emotion in the room	“There’s clearly energy here—can someone help name what’s happening?”

Facilitator Mindset: Be a Mirror, Not a Megaphone

You are not the expert. Let the group create the content.
You are not the decider. You are responsible for clarity, not judgment.
You are the container. You hold time, space, safety, and flow.

People trust facilitators who are predictable in process, generous with attention, and calm in conflict.

In summary: Presence Over Performance

Neutral but assertive facilitation is not about theatrical charisma. It’s about presence, clarity, and control of process.

If you can consistently:

Keep the group focused,
Draw out quiet voices,
Defuse dominating behavior,
Clarify purpose,
And move toward decisions…

You will elevate not just meetings but the culture of collaboration across your entire organization.

Liberating Structures: Facilitation Tools That Make Meetings Actually Work

Most meetings are broken. They are dominated by a few voices, sidelining introverts. They rely on rigid agendas or aimless discussion. Too often, they generate decisions no one owns or worse, no decisions at all.

Liberating Structures offer a solution. Instead of relying on one person to lead or a free-for-all discussion, these are structured methods designed to engage every participant, surface diverse perspectives, and accelerate productive conversations. This blog post explains what Liberating Structures are, how they work, and how project managers, team leads, and facilitators can apply them to transform meetings and collaboration.

What Are Liberating Structures?

Liberating Structures (LS) are 33+ simple, repeatable microstructures developed by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless to make group interactions more inclusive and effective.

Unlike traditional meeting formats like open discussion (which favors extroverts) or presentations (which discourage participation), LS methods are designed to:

Involve everyone, not just the loudest voices
Break down hierarchies of influence
Allow groups to self-organize solutions
Improve clarity, ownership, and action

Core Principles

Li berating Structures are built on a few foundational ideas:

Structure enhances—not limits—creativity
Participation should be distributed, not concentrated
Small groups accelerate clarity
Constraints create freedom (short time boxes, limited responses)

Every LS method structures who talks, in what sequence, how long, and on what question—to ensure clarity, engagement, and outcomes.

Common Liberating Structures and How to Use Them

1. 1-2-4-All

Goal: Generate inclusive ideas and converge on key themes.

How it works:

1 min: Each person reflects silently.
2 min: Pairs share thoughts.
4 min: Pairs form groups of four and consolidate ideas.
All: Groups share top insights with the full room.

Use for: Brainstorming, idea generation, quick retros, prioritization.

Why it works: It avoids groupthink and lets quieter team members contribute early.

2. What, So What, Now What?

Goal: Debrief after events, clarify meaning, and identify next actions.

Steps:

What? (Facts and observations)
So what? (Meaning, implications)
Now what? (Actions or decisions)

Use for: Project retrospectives, post-mortems, stakeholder reviews.

Why it works: It separates emotion and judgment from analysis and action.

3. Troika Consulting

Goal: Peer coaching and advice in a time-boxed, focused format.

How it works:

One person shares a challenge.
Two peers ask clarifying questions.
The original person turns their back or listens silently while peers brainstorm advice.
They turn back to debrief what they heard.

Use for: Problem-solving, mentoring, decision clarity.

Why it works: It removes the urge to interrupt or defend ideas and promotes reflective listening.

4. 25/10 Crowdsourcing

Goal: Rapidly identify high-value ideas from a large group.

How it works:

Everyone writes one bold idea on a card.
Cards are passed around and scored (1–5) anonymously by others.
After five rounds, the highest-scoring ideas emerge.

Use for: Innovation, planning, risk mitigation, team improvements.

Why it works: It elevates group wisdom while preventing social bias.

5. Ecocycle Planning

Goal: Identify where your initiatives are in their lifecycle and rebalance efforts.

Quadrants:

Birth: Ideas starting out
Maturity: Running smoothly
Creative Destruction: What needs to be stopped
Renewal: What’s returning or transforming

Use for: Portfolio review, strategy realignment, program audits.

Why it works: Helps teams reallocate energy and prevent stagnation.

Applying LS in Real Meetings

When to Use Liberating Structures

Kickoffs: Build shared understanding (use 1-2-4-All, Impromptu Networking)
Retrospectives: Reflect and improve (use What-So What-Now What?, Ecocycle)
Strategy Sessions: Prioritize work (use 25/10, Purpose-to-Practice)
Problem Solving: Generate solutions (use Troika, Wise Crowds)

Don’t Use LS If:

You need strict command/control decision-making (e.g., legal or crisis response).
Participants are not open to participatory structures.
Time constraints are so tight you cannot support breakout formats.

How to Get Started

1. Pick 1–2 methods to start

Try 1-2-4-All in your next team meeting—it requires zero tech and minimal prep.

2. Use physical or digital tools

Use appropriate white boards or notecards when meeting physically or digital tools like Miro, MURAL, or Jamboard for remote collaboration.

3. Set expectations

Explain why yo a're using LS to build better participation, not to waste time.

4. Debrief outcomes

After the meeting, recap what worked and how the format influenced insights.

In summary: Meetings Should not be Spectator Sports

Liberating Structures are a powerful toolkit for turning meetings into engagement dialogues instead of status theaters. By using structured participation, you unlock hidden ideas, balance influence, and accelerate alignment. If your team is stuck in a rut of unproductive meetings you may try switching the structure. You do not need to overhaul everything, rather just introduce one method, explain the why, and observe the shift.

Prioritizing What Matters: How to Use the RICE Framework Effectively

In fast-moving environments, deciding what to work on next is more important than how you work on it. Prioritization is the difference between chasing noise and delivering impact. One of the most structured, objective tools for this is the RICE Framework, developed at Intercom to bring clarity and consistency to product and project decisions. If you are a product manager, project manager, or team lead making bets with limited time and resources, this blog post breaks down how to use RICE to prioritize effectively and avoid common missteps.

What Is the RICE Framework?

RICE is a scoring model that helps you evaluate and compare potential initiatives by four dimensions:

Reach: How many people will this impact?
Impact: How deeply will it affect each person?
Confidence: How sure are you about your estimates?
Effort: How much time or cost will it take?

Each idea or project gets a RICE score calculated as:

RICE Score = \frac{(Reach \times Impact \times Confidence)}{Effort}

The higher the score, the higher the priority assuming your goal is to maximize value per unit of effort.

Breaking Down the Four Inputs

1. Reach

Definition: Number of people/events/units affected in a time frame.
Examples:
- “1,000 users/month will experience this improvement”
- “200 internal requests per quarter will be eliminated”
Tips:
- Use real data if possible: active users, signups, NPS responses.
- Keep time frame consistent across ideas.

2. Impact

Definition: The magnitude of benefit to each affected user.
Scale: Typically subjective, e.g.:
- 3 = Massive impact (users completely change behavior)
- 2 = High impact
- 1 = Medium impact
- 0.5 = Low impact
- 0.25 = Minimal
Tips:
- Align on a shared rubric with your team.
- Use this to differentiate between “nice-to-have” low and medium benefits vs. the “game-changer” high and massive benefit features.

3. Confidence

Definition: How certain you are about your estimates for Reach and Impact.
Scale:
- 100% = High confidence (backed by data or tests)
- 80% = Medium (some data, some assumptions)
- 50% = Low (mostly guesswork)
Tips:
- Penalize uncertain ideas that are better to defer or test first.
- Do not fake precision. It is okay to say “we don’t know.” and select the scale number that matches the general "we have a lot of doubts" (Low) versus "we feel good about" (medium) levels of confidence.

4. Effort

Definition: The total cost to implement, measured in person-hours/days/weeks.
Unit: Should match the size of your team (e.g., “3 person-weeks”)
Tips:
- Include development, testing, design, and communication effort.
- Be honest: underestimating significantly harms the model’s value.

Example

Suppose you're evaluating two features:

Feature	Reach	Impact	Confidence	Effort	RICE Score
Auto-save drafts	2,000	2	90%	4	900
Export to CSV	500	1	100%	1	500

Even though export is quicker to build, auto-save has more long-term value per effort invested.

Common Pitfalls (and Fixes)

❌ Mistaking Precision for Accuracy

Don’t obsess over decimal points in scoring. RICE helps with relative prioritization, not scientific truth.

✅ Fix: Use it to rank options and guide conversation, not as a unbreakable rule.

❌ Skipping Confidence

Teams often forget to reduce scores for low-confidence ideas, which biases the backlog toward risky bets.

✅ Fix: Adjust impact and confidence, and consider splitting high-uncertainty items into MVPs.

❌ Inconsistent Time Frames

Comparing Reach per week to Reach per month across ideas skews results.

✅ Fix: Normalize Reach to a shared timeframe (e.g., “per quarter”).

When to Use RICE (and When Not To)

Use it when:

You need to prioritize many competing ideas.
You have limited resources and must defend trade-offs.
You are building product roadmaps or cross-functional project lists.

Avoid it when:

Every item must be done (e.g., compliance, legal requirements).
Impact is unknowable (e.g., greenfield R&D).
You are in early discovery mod; RICE works best after scoping and validation.

How to Operationalize It

Create a RICE scoring spreadsheet for team planning sessions.
Build RICE into your decision document templates.
Review RICE scores quarterly to ensure prioritization reflects current strategy and data.

At the mid-level, your impact comes from how well you manage in all directions. It’s not just about driving Gantt charts forward, rather it’s about thinking holistically, influencing strategically, and making everyone around you more effective.

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Mastering the Ladder of Inference: A Framework for Better Decision-Making and Team Communication

In project and program management, breakdowns in communication often stem not from malice or incompetence but from unexamined assumptions. One framework that helps surface and challenge these assumptions is the Ladder of Inference, developed by organizational psychologist Chris Argyris and popularized by Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline. Whether you are leading cross-functional programs or managing stakeholder conflict, understanding the Ladder of Inference can dramatically improve your decision-making, alignment, and influence.

What Is the Ladder of Inference?

The Ladder of Inference is a model that explains how people move from observable data to action often unconsciously by climbing a “ladder” of mental steps:

Observable data and experiences (what I see, hear, or observe)
Selected data (what I focus on)
Interpreted meaning (what I believe it means)
Assumptions (what I infer beyond the data)
Conclusions (judgments I make)
Beliefs (what I now hold to be true)
Actions (what I decide to do)

The higher up the ladder you climb, the more detached you become from the objective data—and the more your conclusions become self-reinforcing.

Why It Matters for Project and Program Managers

1. It Reveals How Misalignment Happens

Two team members can see the same message and walk away with completely different interpretations. The Ladder explains why because they are selecting different data and applying different assumptions.

2. It Helps De-escalate Conflict

When stakeholders clash, it’s often because they are operating from different parts of the ladder. Stepping back down to observable facts can diffuse tension and reopen dialogue.

3. It Improves Decision Quality

By making your inferences explicit and inviting others to challenge them, you reduce the risk of acting on flawed reasoning.

Applying the Ladder in Practice

1. Make Thinking Visible

When you present a proposal or critique, walk others through your ladder:

“I noticed in the sprint review that our QA lead flagged several late tickets (observable data). I focused on those that were marked critical (selected data). Based on that, I assumed our definition of done isn’t aligned across teams (assumption). So I’m suggesting we rework our onboarding process for engineers (action).”

This approach surfaces your thought process and invites feedback on each step.

2. Challenge Your Own Ladder

Before acting on a conclusion, interrogate the steps below it:

What data did I focus on?
What meaning did I assign?
What assumptions am I making?
Could there be alternative interpretations?

This is especially useful in stakeholder management, hiring, and performance reviews that are all situations loaded with inference.

3. Use Inquiry to Navigate Others' Ladders

When someone makes a claim that does not match your experience, ask questions that reveal their ladder:

“What led you to that conclusion?”
“What data did you base that on?”
“Is there another way to interpret what we saw?”

Avoid saying “You’re wrong.” Instead, use curiosity to explore where your ladders diverge.

As outlined in the book Crucial Conversations, Navigating your ladder is equated to "understanding your story" and their ladder as "letting the other tell their story" such that you can find mutual purpose and/or see where your mutual stories are in disagreement.

4. Integrate into Retrospectives and Post-Mortems

The Ladder is a powerful tool for retrospective analysis. Ask:

“What assumptions did we make that turned out to be incorrect?”
“Where did we jump to conclusions too quickly?”
“What data did we ignore?”

This builds a culture of reflection rather than blame.

Example: Miscommunication in a Status Update

Scenario: A program manager hears a tech lead say “We're on track” in a standup. A week later, a deliverable is missed.

Project Manager’s Ladder (unspoken):

Observed: “We're on track.”
Selected: They didn’t mention any risks.
Interpreted: Everything is progressing smoothly.
Assumed: No blockers exist.
Concluded: No follow-up needed.
Belief: This team is reliable and transparent.
Action: Did not escalate or probe further.

Reality: The tech lead had concerns but assumed the manager would review the team's risk and issue board for details. Both parties climbed different ladders based on partial data.

Fix: In the retro, both used the Ladder to surface where their assumptions diverged and agreed on more explicit risk communication going forward.

How to Institutionalize the Ladder of Inference

Train your team in the model during onboarding or workshops.
Include it in meeting templates: “Are we making assumptions here?”
Visualize it in working meetings as part of your problem-solving toolkit.
Use it in feedback sessions to clarify behavior vs. interpretation.

In summary: Slow Down to Speed Up

In fast-paced projects, it’s tempting to jump to conclusions and act quickly. The Ladder of Inference teaches that speed without reflection often leads to avoidable errors. By stepping down the ladder and examining assumptions, seeking disconfirming data, and communicating transparently, you improve the quality of your decisions and the health of your team.

Beyond the Gantt Chart: Systems Thinking for Strategic Program Management

Professionals in project and program management often master tools like Gantt charts, OKRs, and Agile frameworks but few step beyond tactical execution into strategic foresight. One knowledge area that distinguishes expert program managers from competent ones is systems thinking, which is a framework for understanding complexity, interdependencies, and long-term outcomes in multi-project environments. This blog post introduces systems thinking as a core competency for senior project/program managers, including actionable methods and tools to apply it in real-world program environments.

What is Systems Thinking?

Systems thinking is a way of understanding reality that emphasizes relationships and patterns over isolated events. Instead of managing components (projects, teams, milestones) in isolation, systems thinkers ask:

How do these elements interact?
What are the feedback loops?
Where are the leverage points?
What unintended consequences might emerge from an issue with one part of the project/program that can impact other aspects of the program?

This shift is critical in program management, where individual project success can mask systemic failure (e.g., delivering all projects on time but failing to achieve strategic outcomes).

Why Traditional Project Management Falls Short

Limitation #1: Linear Planning in a Nonlinear World

Most project management methods assume causality flows in a straight line from requirements → execution → delivery. But in programs, outcomes often emerge from nonlinear interactions: political changes, market shifts, or unexpected user behavior can derail even the best-planned initiatives.

Limitation #2: Optimization of Parts Instead of the Whole

Project-level KPIs (e.g., time, scope, cost) may conflict with program-level objectives. For example, optimizing for speed in one project might create technical debt that slows down others.

Limitation #3: Lack of Feedback Awareness

Few PMs systematically track delayed feedback loops (e.g., user adoption lagging 6 months post-launch) or balancing loops (e.g., team burnout slowing down delivery).

How to Apply Systems Thinking in Program Management

1. Map the System: Use Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs)

A Causal Loop Diagram helps visualize how different elements of your program influence one another.
Example use case: Map how stakeholder engagement affects team morale, which influences delivery quality, which in turn impacts stakeholder trust.

Tooling: Use tools like Kumu, Vensim, or even Miro for collaborative CLD development.

2. Identify Feedback Loops and Delays

Reinforcing loops: Positive feedback cycles (e.g., more users → more feedback → better product → more users).
Balancing loops: Stabilizing forces (e.g., increased workload → burnout → reduced output).

Add delays to your loops. Delays are often where surprises and risks hide.

3. Surface Mental Models

Mental models are the implicit assumptions stakeholders make. For example:

“More features = more value”
“Velocity = productivity”

Facilitating workshops that challenge these assumptions can prevent costly misalignments. Tools like the Ladder of Inference or Double-Loop Learning frameworks are helpful here.

4. Use Archetypes to Spot Systemic Problems Early

Common system archetypes in program settings include:

"Fixes That Fail": A quick fix (e.g., hiring contractors) solves a symptom but worsens the root problem (e.g., knowledge loss).
"Shifting the Burden": Reliance on short-term solutions (e.g., micromanagement) instead of capacity-building.
"Success to the Successful": One team keeps getting resources due to past success, starving other teams.

Once recognized, archetypes can guide you toward leverage points.

5. Find Leverage Points

Leverage points are places in a system where small changes yield large results. Examples in program management:

Changing incentive structures
Reorganizing decision rights (who decides what)
Altering communication protocols between teams

Avoid the trap of micromanaging outputs. Instead, shift structural conditions that shape behavior.

6. Create System Health Metrics

Supplement traditional KPIs with system-aware metrics:

Traditional KPI	System-Aware Metric
% Projects on time	Cross-project dependency volatility index
Budget variance	Stakeholder alignment score
Delivery velocity	Team cognitive load index (via survey)

Track these longitudinally and look for lagging indicators that reveal system health.

Applying This in Practice: Case Example

A healthcare technology firm ran a portfolio of projects to digitize patient onboarding. While each project met delivery deadlines, patient adoption was poor.

A systems map revealed:

Reinforcing loops between support workload and user dissatisfaction
Delay in feedback between training delivery and field implementation
Over-reliance on vendor solutions (“shifting the burden”)

System interventions included:

Redesigning the onboarding workflow to simplify interfaces (a leverage point)
Creating a shared cross-functional roadmap
Embedding feedback loops into user training sessions

Within six months, user satisfaction rose 40%, and support tickets dropped by half.

Final Thought: From Operator to Architect

To excel at the program level, a project manager must evolve from operator to system architect—someone who understands not just how to move tasks forward, but how structure drives behavior. Systems thinking is not a soft skill, but an operational career advantage.

Recommended Reading & Resources:

Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows
The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge