Managing complexity in aerospace engineering with Mark Cook

Aerospace engineering can be a high-pressure environment, but the way teams communicate often shapes how that pressure is felt. This episode looks at how calm, clear, and collaborative communication supports engineers working inside complex aerospace programmes.

We’re joined by Mark Cook, Programme Manager at Triumph Actuation Systems. Mark shares how his career began in pure science academia, before being drawn toward applied manufacturing and the product lifecycle. Seeing ideas move from concept into physical products changed how he wanted to work, and how he approached engineering in practice.

In this episode, we talk about the differences Mark has experienced across advanced manufacturing environments, and why aerospace rewards a slower, more deliberate pace. We also explore why strong design, robust supply chains, and a well-established safety culture matter in aerospace.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-cook-fapm-45859b1a/
https://www.triumphgroup.com/home

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When I first joined Aerospace about 13 years ago, I said, What's the volume of this part then? And they went um 300. And I said, Is that a day? Is it a week? No, that's a year. And I was like, Whoa, you know, that was quite a shock, really.

Martin Griffiths 0:24

Hi, welcome to the Manufacturers Make Strides podcast. Today I've got a conversation with Mark Cook, who's program manager at Triumph Actuation Systems. He has a career that spans automotive, oil and gas, and now the high spec aerospace engineering. He made a shift just after university from pure science into applied manufacturing. And while seeing how those ideas can be turned into real products just changed everything for Mark. Within making that career change, he experienced the truth about aerospace that being slow by necessity and being rigorous by design lead to a real culture change and shift, and we explore some of those areas. Mark's calm relationship-driven approach to program management on why most delays often come from misalignment, not necessarily engineering faults. And then he finally left us with his biggest lesson for teams to be open, be honest, and pick up the phone before problems start to snowball. So we've got lots of lessons and insights from Mark's career here. Let's jump straight into the conversation now with Mark Cook. Hey Mark, great to have you on the podcast. How's things going today? Oh, good, thank you. Were you joining from today?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So dialing in from work. I work for Triumph Aerospace over on D Side Industrial Park. So I'm just in one of the meeting rooms there, basically.

Martin Griffiths 1:50

So yeah, kind of UK just outside on the border of England and Wales, right on that border, isn't it? Exactly, yeah. On that big industrial park. So we'll get to your your journey and your story eventually, but I like to sometimes just jump in with a picture from now kind of question. When you say or you picture aerospace manufacturing production working at its best, what does that look like to you?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

First of all, having a robust design, design team, a design that um can be manufactured efficiently and to costs, but also then having a good supply chain in place as well so that you've uh you're servicing your customers in an efficient and timely way, basically. So a lot like many industries, but I think aerospace compared to say automotive is a lot more regulated, a lot more safety factors, a lot more hurdles to jump. But end of the day, people flying on the aircraft should feel safe and be safe.

Martin Griffiths 2:45

Okay, brilliant. Well, there's a lot of moving parts in that, and that's part of what you're very much involved in today. But before we get to that, I'd just like to go back to your journey. So what did you study at university and what was your experience in university like?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, I've done undergrad and and postgrad. So sciences was my strength, so did a chemistry and physics degree in Nottingham. Enjoyed that, but still didn't really know what I wanted to do. So I did a master's in the chemistry-based subject and then enjoyed some of the research, so then I got offered a chance to do a PhD. So sayed on and um and did that. So but what I wanted to do was something that was more applied. So we worked with what was ICI chemicals um back then, so it's an industrially sponsored PhD, so actually the product you can see going on to be sort of a usable product in the marketplace at the end of the project.

Martin Griffiths 3:45

Yeah, it's interesting. Like my time at university was similar, is the I kind of drifted into an engineering degree because I was good at maths and science, but I didn't really have a clue. You know, I think some people early on have a really clear path of what they want to do, others, even into their early twenties, it can be quite difficult, can't it, to to figure out. So, did that give you your first tastes into the kind of manufacturing industry then? And did you did you like that? What did you like about that?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

So my first job was in a UK R D centre. So it was going a little still down the sort of research route, but there was also some more applied short-term projects, and then I quite liked again getting the link with the the business units, we'd visit the sites, see the manufacturing to the today stuff, and then obviously work on the projects for the future. So I quite liked the exposure to to the manufacturing side of things, things being made. And inherently I'm more of a product-based person than a software-based person. So my experience with software and working with yourselves has come sort of later on in my career.

Martin Griffiths 4:50

So was there a moment kind of early in your career then that where you realise that the more applied and the industry route is is more for you than than academia?

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Certainly during my PhD, seeing some of the academics, I thought I don't want to just be a pure academic. And some of the projects there were just chasing grants, and some of them were not really that applied, so I wanted to get more on the you know, turn things into real projects and products basically. I did work with a team and my first company, we got a few patent applications in. One product went into production, so it's quite nice to see something that was which we actually had from a concept and turn into a product, was quite nice. And then working with some of the sales guys, supporting them on their on their sales visit to customers, you then get to see the sharp end where they're talking about costs, price reductions, and and what's in it for the customer, basically. So it can be quite brutal at that at that um at that coal front, but also it's quite nice to see you know where your products are going. So it was that that sort of enticed me to go down sort of the sort of semi-commercial route, as I would call it.

Martin Griffiths 5:54

Yeah, yeah, you found that a bit more um, yeah, a bit more kind of engaging than the theoretical kind of grant-driven stuff, yeah. We've had a similar path actually. Yeah, I remember more I because I was really interested in getting into manufacturing because you know, I thought it was great to work on something and you see something physical being, you know, generated at the end of the day. I also remember in the first company I was working with going out with visits with uh some of the sales guys who were a bit uh bit on the crazy driving and reckless driving side. So it was always a bit uh always a bit of an adrenaline fueled experience. Um but yeah, but really good going out, being in those sales situations because you know you can sometimes get focused on the technical details of something, but at the end of the day there's got to be a business case and someone's gotta make a sale, haven't they? So where did Aerospace come into the picture?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Worked in um automotive tier one for some time. I'd also worked in um oil and gas for a short time, had some electrical product experience with Honeywell, quite a big company, but just locally where I live, uh within sort of the commuter belt, officially came up with a aerospace company worked in in optics, and um it was going back to I'd probably with my automotive products they were probably more simple, whereas the air the aerospace optics was quite high end, so you sort of deposit in coatings at sort of particle, a couple of particle sizes, and the designs also uh of the optics themselves were quite high spec, so low volume high spec, but it really intrigued me again to sort of get back to sort of physics days and and something different. So I ended up being there for ten years in the end, so we did some great products. The company's still one of the sort of pioneers and forefronts in that technology, and and that kept me interested for for ten years, really. And that's where I got onto the software side because um we had an in-house development team who developed software, and we did a lot of test benches for customers where we'd have to obviously get the optics in place, do the measurements, but also the software was bespoke written by our teams. So again, that shook got me interest into into the software.

Martin Griffiths 8:03

So you're program manager now, so what does that what does your day-to-day now look like?

SPEAKER_00 8:09

My pure job would be working with the a team on a design and development program for a customer. So we could be developing a new so for Triumph, most of their products are um hydraulic based, and we do do some electrical based um actuation, things that make things move basically. So it'd be working with the design team on something new, but also we've worked on cost reductions, making things a bit cheaper. So if something was designed five, ten years ago, can it be cost engineered? No program goes in perfect, you've always got issues, latent defects, again taking cost out, so working with the teams on that, and just general data support really. Um, when other departments need someone to do some project management for them, could be short term, could be a month, could be three months, then I might offer my help there just overseeing and giving things a bit more structure and and rigour. What's quite nice, Martin, is you work with a lot of different functions, so you get exposure to a lot of different people and uh you know different teams, both in the UK and also Triumph's a big company, so can be working with a team in Asia, in the States, so quite quite diverse.

Martin Griffiths 9:18

Yeah, it's a really very I guess never a dull day, always something going on. Are there any moments kind of early in your career that would you say still shape the way you do things now?

SPEAKER_00 9:28

I would say if I was to do things differently, if I was to speak to someone selecting their GCSEs or A levels nowadays, I'd say don't feel that you have to do certain projects or certain A levels or G C S Es because that's what university wants. I'd say go with your passion, and if you are a scientist but you like to do history or English, why not do that as well? You know, don't just have to do maths, physics and chemistry because that's what you think that universities need that. So go with what you enjoy. You'll always be successful if you do something that you enjoy, is what I've learned. And secondly, when you first start working, you're probably more performance-oriented, you probably think less about the behaviours, about how you interact with people, about teamworking, uh that side of things. So that is a big part, certainly in my role now. I operate in a matrix structure, nobody works directly for me, so I've got to try and get the best out of people just by working with them. So that part of things is a lot different. So the young me, I'd say think about that aspect of your career earlier on as opposed to later on, and try and develop those sort of skills earlier than later.

Martin Griffiths 10:39

So I was I was just wondering about w whether those kind of early exposure to to you know to sales visits that you went out on were with some of those, because some of the negotiations have that helped you. Uh, you know, maybe that on the one side and the research mythology on the other. Are there any lessons from those times do you find still helpful now for you?

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Definitely. I think on on things like relationship management, how those the guys I go out with generally were probably in their 40s and 50s, and I'd be in my twenties. They'd had a lot of experience on that side of things, so that sort of customer relationship side, you know, very important, and even trying to get a price increase through how that can be done in a nice way, as opposed to sort of banging your hand on the table and demanding trying to show value in your product as well, and and how you are a good supplier.

Martin Griffiths 11:31

So you mentioned before that there's you know aerospace programmes, they can be quite long, no, quite long projects, quite long programs. Issues come up. Maybe this is too simple a way of looking at it, but would what what would you say when there are issues? What would you you say is usually sitting at the heart, you know, of those those issues?

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Probably will be a couple of things. It could be a risk that was was not known, or a risk that was not considered to need to be mitigated. It could be just a pure error uh from somebody. It could be something that the customer hasn't thought about, so you know we've had to reconsider. So it can be from multiple areas where that can can stem from. But my last boss, Richard, who worked at Triumph, I've worked for previous bosses and we had an issue here in one of the first projects I worked on, and I said, I'm quite surprised, Richard, that you're not on my case more and getting a little bit more annoyed and and pushy. He said, Mark, that problem will be there no matter how I how I act with you. You know, if I act with you in that behaviour, you know, the team and yourself are going to get more stressed. We need to stay calm and work together as a team, and and that's how I like to work, you know, work with people and try and use the tools when we need them, such as lean tools like A3s and and you know, problem solving, and do things in a logical way and try and remain calm with the team and and try and support the team and if a mistake's made, we accept that the mistake's been made, but just not to do it again.

Martin Griffiths 13:03

He sounds like a great boss, yeah. That sounds like a nice way of kind of handling it, because yeah, that kind of artificial stress and pressure, it's probably only gonna make people perform worse, really, isn't it? Yeah. How does that, you know, working in that communication? What's a difference in aerospace versus maybe some other of the industries that you worked with, you know, when there is that error there, or there's some kind of issue, you have to communicate that to your aerospace customers. What kind of differences have you found there?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

I'd say that the reaction time to correct is quicker in automotive because there's less regulation. So also you factor in things such as export compliance, you know, if you've got military products in aerospace, you can't go communicate things out of the UK without the right controls in place with with things like civil aviation and cars, those regulations aren't in place. So you can be, you know, we've got an issue with a part on our car line today, I want you here tomorrow, and you'll be here tomorrow, and and basically we need a solution in the next few weeks. It can be as quick as that. In aerospace, it still could be, I want you here tomorrow, but there's a a lot more regulation and qualification would go around many of the parts, particularly things that uh we make that go on landing gear and open and lock doors, for example. You know, you can't just suddenly change even a simple washer over a bolt because it could fail, so you there's a lot more rigour around it. So it can be slower, but for the right reasons.

Martin Griffiths 14:35

Yeah, so I might that must be quite a culture change kind of shifting into into this then.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Yeah, when I first joined Aerospace about 13 years ago, I said, What's the volume of this part then? And they went, um 300, and I said, Is that a day? Is it a week? No, that's a year. And I was like, Whoa, you know, that was quite a a shock really.

Martin Griffiths 14:58

So how do you adapt to that then if you're coming from that kind of faster pace, let's make decisions, let's get things done quickly? What kind of things did you have to do to to adapt to this kind of slower pace, but I just said for all the right reasons.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yeah, I mean you have to get to grips with it quite quickly to be honest, you know, you've got to to readjust and then realise you because of the of export compliance a lot of the time, you can't just suddenly do things quickly. So it was just I suppose retraining myself really to adjust to that way. And again, a lot of the improvement philosophy, such as lean, does apply to aerospace, but it's much easier to put a change and justify a change when you've got a hundred thousand units a year, as opposed to possibly three hundred, you know, that if you want to buy a piece of equipment and it costs ten thousand pounds and you can save X on a part by doing so in, it's a lot easier to justify it in the car market than it is in the aerospace market. So, and again, the improvements as well, lean improvements, you typically would do a run on a few hundred, a few thousand parts. That could be a year's run in aerospace, so it's it it's you know it's not quite transferable, but there are some some similarities.

Martin Griffiths 16:12

So you were you were mentioning before about the communication and you kind of work in a matrix where you have to kind of build relationships. You don't have to go into specifics here, but I was just wondering if you remember a moment where maybe an issue was maybe spiralling a bit, maybe some people were panicking a bit, and you know, having that communication helped to get it resolved.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yes, I mean in in some of the bigger projects we have things called statements of work, which defines how a project will be run, and also in there there'll be a communication plan, and that generally is agreed with the customer stakeholders up front. So you will you know typically have a report once a week, you might have a call once a week, you might have a team meeting once a week. There are tools to do that, but that that's that's the structure. At the end of the day, it's up to the program or project manager to do that in a way that is a good communication. So although you might just want to email something or me email you, Martin, and say, Thanks a lot, Martin, can have a project plan off you please for this week. Sometimes a face-to-face call or a meeting is much better because it softens things, if things can come across the wrong way. So I do try to where possible speak to people, particularly if they're on site here in the UK. We've got a sister site in the UK, and then where possible where a project will be launching, I try to get out there to do the launch face-to-face as well. You get the buy-in with things, but yeah, communication generally will have a have a plan, uh, a method of it. It's just how you as the project program manager want to deliver that, you know.

Martin Griffiths 17:47

So you think that and you think one of the big things is that kind of face-to-face or kind of picking up the phone and speaking to someone, you think that makes a big difference there?

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Definitely. And I think also when things are launching or things have gone wrong, that's the best time to do that. Because you can also find that we've had projects with customers where we've had an issue, and by working with them on a problem, you've got to know more of their team, they've got more trust in you because they know your problem-solving skills, which they wouldn't know previously. So by having that communication and and teams calls and whatever methodology you would do, visiting their site, sharing alternate meetings or their site, our site, for example, it helps to build that trust and relationship. A lot of people now too easily just send an email and think that's the job done, well, that isn't the job done. That's part of the job, but that isn't the job.

Martin Griffiths 18:36

Yeah, it's about building the relationship and and the trust that you mentioned before. Yeah, you don't get trust from sending a couple of bullet points in a in a in an email, I guess. So if you're enjoying this episode, please give us a follow on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. That would help us to keep bringing authentic manufacturing conversations with the people who are shaping our industry. Thank you. I'd like to switch gears a little bit and do a section called Myths and Truths. Um so I'm gonna throw some statements out there. Let me know if you think it's a myth or a truth. Most engineering problems get solved faster if everyone replies on the email thread faster.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Myth.

Martin Griffiths 19:16

What do you think of that as a as a whole? You know, when there's when there is an issue going around, a gigantic email thread with everyone CC'd. Is that a good way to handle things or it's not like this this kind of leads on to what we were just saying right there, but no, is kind of a common thing that happens, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 19:34

I mean I've also learned from the hard hard way as well not to do that. But I think to communicate, we've got an issue. So today we can't make a we can't make the product because we're short of this part. Communicate to all the people involved is good, but then I'd put at the bottom I'll be holding a meeting with the direct people responsible with this so that we can discuss it as a team as soon as possible. Sometime when people aren't available uh then you might have to do a bit of the ping-ponging with the with the emails. But the problem is I might be typing the reply and then Fred might be typing his reply and Joe's type and suddenly three emails come in all on the same subject but they've all synced incorrectly and then it it's sort of all together again all over the place. So then I've got to pull it together and try and it is difficult. And you get some people who don't need to say anything feel obliged that they have to say something so they're chugging their bits in as well.

Martin Griffiths 20:26

So Okay that's interesting so you think kind of the email out there to let people who need to know let use that to let them know but say but then arrange ideal situation arrange a meeting for the discussion do that in person then if needed an email afterward saying this is what we've decided to do. Yeah, with a plan. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah that's nice yeah yeah that's really good I like that. Second one then most delays start with misalignment not engineering faults true I say true. Okay. How come?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

A lot of people I mean I I do like to be I'm I'm quite a flexible project manager in the fact that if things are going well I won't apply the tools as as harsh as I would be if things are going wrong. But somebody might say oh the first time yield on that what that on that product there it's terrible Now is it terrible today is it terrible over the blah there's no data behind it so sometimes these things are not communicated properly you know it might have been engineered perfectly well but the test rig might have gone out of calibration and that's why it's terrible for the day so I think yeah sometimes you have got engineering problems engineering latent defects parts come in incorrect and probably aren't checked correctly but yeah I'd say that's not the fundamental reason always it can be all sorts of reasons including communication. If something is urgent you should push it through quickly when I was on a course twenty five years ago I was taught about urgent and important so you know it might be urgent to change the toilet role but it might not be totally important you know it's not going to stop the factory for example so you've got to make an assessment on on that and you might want to do some sort of a risk assessment on you know the impact of it hap of it um happening and probability of it not happening so some sort of an impact assessment might be the thing to do. But again that's a culture thing if if someone senior calls you and says get this done now you might feel pressured but I think you should if you do don't feel it's an urgent thing to do you should do that assessment and go back to that person and say well actually I've got these five things on the go which you've told me also are urgent I've done an assessment and I think this one actually is quite low down because we don't need some more Lou roll because we've got a shop on the corner there we can go and get some from you know you don't need me to to do something now so that's how I probably would answer that question.

Martin Griffiths 22:56

Okay that's nice yeah I like the the the urgent and important kind of matrix and yeah I've done I've done that in the past when I've got a bit sidetracked pressure helps engineers to work faster.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

It's quite funny I'm a manager I'm a member of the Association of Project Managers every month we get a a publication to read with various articles in and it was talking about that similar subject in this month's publications and it was saying that people do not need intense and continuous pressure to work because as you mentioned earlier it actually works negatively with people's performance but people need some pressure to work so the pressure can be a time scale or the amount of work or of that side of things but I think people if they're pressurising the right way from a motivational point of view you can get a lot out of people so I think it's it's and again individual base some people don't take pressure very well some people thrive on pressure my best friend um he's in charge of a county council he loves pressure so he thrives on that but I've met engineers that will break down with just an instance of pressure so it's just working out what level to apply and as a program manager how much to keep back from them as well. You know I might get pressure from a customer saying if this isn't solved in two weeks you've got a big problem I can't tell that to my team member who doesn't handle that very well I've got to deliver it in a totally different message to him to protect him from that level of pressure.

Martin Griffiths 24:23

Yeah that's interesting you know when we've worked together you know I like the way that you will kind of end a question with what's the best timeline you can do or what timeline you you know you open it with an open-ended question first and then you know I've seen you at other times you know coming back and say maybe saying if it's needed, you know, can you do any improvements here or there on it you know but in a you know kind of in an open kind of kind of way. So yeah that's that's interesting. Okay next one program managers need to know every technical detail.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Certainly not so what I do is I I nobody here or very few people know that I've got a PhD and a science background and I don't need to tell people that you know that all they need to know is that I've been employed to be a program project manager. Obviously I need to know a little bit of detail but I just see a product as a black box. So I think I think I've got a technical lead on my team and him and his engineering team know all about hydraulics and electronics. I have a familiarisation with this so I just need to ask sometimes and I do it in a in a in a I pretend I'm naive but I'll ask questions pretending that I'm a bit dumb but actually they're they can be quite intelligent questions just to make sure that we're doing checks and balances with people because you can get engineers who like to do research projects so they can go right down the wrong line or take a long time to do things. So it's it's a balance so to answer your question I'd say you need to know a bit you should certainly go down and see the current products made and speak to people but no it isn't your job to know um how to program test software I wouldn't know where to start so I don't intend to learn I've got experts who can do who can do that and suppliers who can do that.

Martin Griffiths 26:09

Yeah well that's interesting because yeah because I remember some conversations we had you know around some of those projects and yeah you know we were kind of deep it may have been deep in the technical details but you obviously needed you know to up to update the programme uh you know let the customer know what was going on and yeah I thought that must have been quite a challenging way to you know uh at that point to kind of sit you know see the wood for the trees uh you know if you know what I mean at that point and sift down what was relevant from where where we were up to so but that's that's part of the skill I I guess isn't it that's the key skill the yeah better tools and systems automatically improve how teams work.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

I'd say that they should do but you've got to get buy-in and I think the UK generally is pretty poor at training generally I would say training things out so you know we've just got this wonderful new tool called Microsoft Excel and it's going to solve all your problems for doing spreadsheets. Here you go well I've never heard of it before number one and number two I've not been trained on it so it might solve the problems but it's how you implement and and train things you know and again we we have any RP system here and in the previous company use an example when they implemented it they made sure that everyone every function had a super user and a training manual so that when you join the company when I joined the last company as a program manager I was trained on that module you know they could have just you know other companies said right here we go here's the system get on with it learn as you go along but yeah systems are great but you need to know how to use them.

Martin Griffiths 27:47

That's interesting the couple of things you mentioned there because I've heard that come up before so I've got a couple of follow-up questions. One is you speci you mentioned the UK you don't think are particularly good at doing training why what makes you say that and what are you thinking versus another country?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

I've got no benchmark with other countries just speaking to other people who I've worked with in other countries would have a moment saying I've had no training or or whatever. But the UK um yes we do do training and the companies I've worked in have done training but for example I've never worked in a company that's been excellent at training people to be managers for example you know you might be a very good engineer you might get on well with people but it doesn't mean you can manage properly as an example you know and often people wouldn't say to me you know you're pretty poor at negotiating Mark as an example part of your job I think you need to go on a negotiation skills course you know I haven't had that conversation but they're good at saying here's some courses that you might need to know about for example manual handling or or diversity they they're great courses to do and we need all need to do them but you know some specific courses are not often identified so my experience working in in manufacturing generally has been probably need to identify people's needs a bit better and and at appraisals follow up with what you promised your employee because when it comes to the next appraisal they can say well I feel a bit let down because you promised me this training last year and I haven't done it and I can't improve and I want to get on you know want to further my career as an example.

Martin Griffiths 29:24

Sure. Well it it may it should make sense shouldn't it you know we want it it benefit it should benefit you know the people and the business by people having that train and then being more effective. So you know yeah it makes it makes more sense. Okay thanks a lot for doing that let's just move on to to the future and now so what kind of projects uh are you working on at the moment and uh we're coming up to the end of the year what have have you got anything that you're looking forward to to working on next year?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

So we've got a lot of um bid activity ongoing at the moment so we're hoping to secure um some new projects in the near future projects with existing and possible new customers so that's quite exciting for us at the moment I've got a couple of projects one that you're working with me on on a test bench and I've got another similar project as well I quite like those because again it's quite a diverse range of product hardware and software and sometimes again working on that last project with you Martin sometimes you don't know whether it's is it the software on the test bench that's wrong is it the software that's in the hardware that's wrong has the hardware been made incorrectly there's it's quite complex how these things are put together so they're quite interesting projects to be fair and also the people I'm working with on those projects I quite enjoy getting on with as well so you can't pick your project teams and you naturally get on with some people and you don't get on with other people as well but you they're still part of your team you still got to work them and respect them but sometimes some people's natures are more like yours and I quite like to keep things humorous and have a laugh um at the appropriate times so um yeah the teams I'm on at the moment are are like that sounds good so yeah so you've got a good year coming up can you think of any moments where you recently felt yeah this is why I enjoy doing this job and this is why I'm doing this. Yeah so for some strange reason in the last two or three companies I've worked in find it very difficult for internal people who want to be a project or program manager. Their perception is rightly or wrongly every day you get issues. I mean of course things will go wrong because it's not steady state it's development but if you work in supply chain if you work in IT you get problems but the perception is program management is um problems all the time and in a lot of companies you have a lot of responsibility but very little authority so you know I've got to deliver something on time to a budget but essentially I've still got to go and ask for that money. I can't disagree that so so there's you know a lot of responsibility put on that on on that side of things but we had an a young engineer who's just graduated last year been with about a year and he wanted to come and learn about project and program management so I thought how can I do this be a bit devious so I thought what I'll do is I will get him started on some small projects and thinking back to the conversation about behaviours and and and knowing people you need to go down to the other sites and meet these people well why not why can't I do it by phone? I said go down and meet these people on the projects face to face and then learn a bit more about them and then come back we'll start the project so he did that you need I'll get you on um a Prince 2 which is a um a methodology of a project managing with a certification we'll get you that you'll learn how to do it by the book and you'll get a certificate at the end of it so you'll be have some sort of a certification to say well done you've done this properly but you follow me on projects you're sitting on calls and you see how things are done and on a couple of the meetings he said why did you do that? You know why did you make that decision or why did you do that? I said well you've got to try and get the opinion of the team the consensus but sometimes you've had that experience you've been in a previous situation we are the grey beards and I am getting a bit of a grey beard now Martin and old hand in these things and you've seen it before and you know what to do because you've made a mistake before and you've learnt from your mistake and you sort of got it and at the end of it all he said I now know why you asked me to go see those people because it was about getting to know them and networking. I now know why I did the course that was the purest form of doing it but in reality you use that as a framework but you sort of do it your way and that's the way that you get things through and try and say agile and keep the project flowing and and doing things from experience so that was that was really nice that he did that spent some time with me and he really enjoyed the time as a project manager.

Martin Griffiths 33:51

Brilliant yeah that sounds that sounds really good. A couple of things come up that I'd just like to go into on that then I think you said you were you were in the in the meeting a problem had come up or people were s telling you their ideas you'd been there before and you you kind of you knew the solution basically. What's the best way to handle that? Do you just kind of override things and say yeah I've been here before this is how you do it or do you try and bring people round so that they're coming to your way of thinking?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yeah it was it I think from memory it was it was quite a it wasn't a big revelation in project management. It was the fact that I think we may have had some some parts that were not conforming but we could buy some more parts quickly they were they were in stock at the suppliers so we were probably retesting the current parts they may have passed but the risk was that testing could take two to four weeks. If they failed that the schedule would have been blown I think for a thousand pounds we could buy some new ones that were tested from a different batch so I just proposed to the team let's do that you know and then someone will say to me that's a thousand pounds mark isn't a lot of money but it's still a thousand pounds could have been ten thousand pounds it could have been a million depending on the size of the project but it was like let's do that mitigate the risk and if it works these parts of it here we can start fresh we can we can basically get rid of all that lead time so you basically could be wasting money but also you've got to think about the pros and cons of uh protecting the schedule so it was getting a balance there of the right thing to do really so I convinced the buyer to spend a thousand pounds and he was like saying well why would you want to waste a thousand pounds and I explained the rationale to him and then he he understood or the team understood.

Martin Griffiths 35:35

Yeah so yeah it seemed like a bit of a no-brainer. Right and the second thing I was wondering was you know you've kind of mentioned a lot that the face-to-face communication is really helpful and I'm just wondering what you've found with kind of younger engineers kind of coming through I know with my kids they're like very much into the the you know the texting and the messaging to you know to communicate and probably less comfortable at picking up the phone and speaking to someone versus sending a quick message. So yeah I'm just wondering how you see that kind of going or changing things in the future or do you think like an essential thing is to you know to teach the younger engineers coming up to break that kind of messaging habit?

SPEAKER_00 36:16

I'd say from a very general opinion of what I've seen is that young people coming through tend to be a little bit more risk averse than my generation. My previous boss he used to work with an automotive I think cavalier would be a bit of a strong word but because he'd seen so much he would just make the decision which nine times out of ten was correct but sometimes he'd make a horrendous horrendous decision. So I we are seeing a shift and on that particular project where I was doing some mentoring as I mentioned I kept asking about something and it was like I've emailed I've emailed them I've emailed them and I'm like have you phoned them? Well no why haven't you phoned them? Well I haven't got um access to a desk phone or whatever the problem was you know I said well have you asked if you can use mine do you want to borrow my mobile it was almost like it was an excuse not to to do that you know but once they'd they've spoken to that person the problem was was solved because that person realised he had a hundred emails in his box and didn't know which one to choose but once you spoke to him he thought actually this is important so it goes top of the list in priority doesn't it yeah exactly yeah so yeah yeah okay so you think they just need a bit of a gentle push basically to to pick up that phone or get in front of that person and and ask the question. Yeah I'd definitely say so I mean it's not everybody and I've been very generalistic in terms of this but but yeah I've got my own kids and they they do a lot of social media stuff and you know um it has its pros but it has its cons as well you know so you've got to think back to Victorian times, the Roman times they still built roads they still invented things they didn't have telephones they didn't have computers you know it was done that way so it must have worked.

Martin Griffiths 38:05

Thanks a lot for your time this has been a really interesting chat great to find out a bit more about your background and what you're doing. Just wondering if you have a final takeaway that we can leave what one small habit you think a team could start this week just to prevent problems from snowballing?

SPEAKER_00 38:22

I think just be open and honest if you can get that trust within the team and and the company and that often comes to culture the culture's not always there in companies is just to be open and honest about things and and share problems and uh and don't be scared to ask for help and don't be scared to admit a weakness. You know if you don't know the answer it doesn't mean that you're a fool it just doesn't mean you haven't got the answer or you don't know how to get the answer so I think just just try and be open and honest and um I've been in projects before where people have tried to cover things up and yeah it might sound like a good idea at the time but you normally get found out it's always best to be open and honest and then things get flushed out and solved quickly.

Martin Griffiths 39:04

So it's that communication transparency I would say really yeah brilliant sounds great thanks a lot for the chat today thanks a lot for the advice the thought your expertise um yeah I've really enjoyed this chat thanks Martin me too Martin thank you