Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Interview with Gökhan Kayal - Coggle Diagram
Interview with Gökhan Kayal
CAREER
Aerospace engineering; Airbus: Envisat, instrument focus, operational interfaces, space shuttle project, EUM as instrument support consultant, IASI engineer staff, then instrument leader, PM, then H/LEO
Perceive the goal to deliver asap and do it - TAKE OWNERSHIP OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING E2E
objectives change, every day you need to look at what are the objectives
convince people to follow your objectives
it's more important to have a BROAD KNOWLEDGE and to understand the context rather than being overspecialized
On what to focus on the first 3 months of being a PM?
understand which are the top 5 criticalities of the programme
Understand the TOP 5 SELLING POINTS OF THE PROGRAMME
you juggle 8 balls and have to be conscious of which you need to keep in the air and which you can drop
Understand the OBJECTIVES: start from EUM corporate obj, then divisional, then objectives to achieve launch readiness (like PDAP ready in the GS) - BREAK DOWN THE OBJECTIVES, BE OBJECTIVE DRIVEN
ADAPT your objectives every day
develop a MIND MAP of the programme
ORGANISATIONAL LEVEL FEEDBACK
we get lost in nice SoW and requirements and then lose the big picture and objectives
PM ROLE: A PM has a CALENDAR FULL and no time to work: secretariat first line to decide if meeting is needed or not
no time to work before 18, most of the time work until 20
the high work load can affect mental health
difficult to take time off but it's fundamental to restart working with a clear mind and positive mood.
papers for DB written at home (weekend or at night)
work over the holidays can be acceptable sometimes but not over the weekend! some other PMs work every sunday
It's so difficult to get things approved, it drains your energy
EUMETSAT does well:
Member states trust us
user consultation process: we listen to them, get their needs and implement them, we deliver what they want
EPS-SG Programme manager and H/DIV go together, the role must be integrated, as the H/DIV must have the knowledge of all programmes under, cannot be an external
ACCESS TO SENIOR MANAGEMENT: ideally feedback from Senior management should be more, even 1:1 - what we have is not sufficient
our programme or system managers, need to be HOME-GROWN
Procurement, appraisal, recruitment, reporting all processes to be improved
SUPPORT: the life of projects makes you act in a "reactive mode": you need to adapt to changing needs and you cannot easily dynamically get more resources as it takes too long
too many meetings with too many people. You need to define the OBJECTIVES of a meeting in advance!!!
There is ANXIETY TO ACT in the organisation: people feel constrained and bound by working practices and processes, that in some cases should be considered only as framework; i.e. rules about contracts, procurements - only for PRD, n/a to OPS
THERE IS NOT MUCH ROOM FOR LOWER LEVEL MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY
: G. had to approve TW requests, office furniture requests, etc. (could be delegated to secretaries in example). Also after a procurement is approved, G. needs to approve again the purchase order. This takes your focus away from important things: where is the border between the monkey pressing the button and the real focus on a task?
We should attract top talent by giving them meaningful work, where they can make the difference in the task and take ownership
TASKS OF A PM and H/DIV
Budget: financial proposal and meetings with project control
Procurement related meetings, reviews
H/Div: VN, people leaving, interviews, reports, appraisal, promotion/grade board
prep for DB meeting; lots of efforts
be sharp on what you say, why, how, without high level of detail
you get questions by people and you need to explain stuff in a simple way
write and rewrite papers
OPIT, COSA, internal interfaces, other H/DIV
authorising officer role (ART request, request for telephone, pc...)
many internal meetings with the team for guidance and for you to get the overview
3-4h weekly meeting with all TL to understand the salient points and develop the mind map
meetings with industry/partners
1:1 exchanges
MB briefings
: senior managers need to give you guidance
RELATIONSHIP WITH THE TEAM
encourage people to drop by the office and speak to me in person
Preferred form of communication with team members: someone does not read emails, other prefer it --> know "your chickens"
not fixed 1:1 meetings with staff reporting to him, but as required - IMPORTANT to do it
he interacted daily with the people reporting to him so he knew their tasks, workload and level of satisfaction, so he could manage this daily --> THE APPRAISAL HAPPENS DAILY with your team, and not only, you need to INSPIRE them, SHOW THEM YOUR VISION
your team needs to share the same goals and ideally the vision, choose them with this in mind
make good comments/reward your team using the right words also in front of others, negative feedback 1:1
Reward your team: propose them for the promotion board, praise people with your higher levels and tell them, sometimes party/drinks for the team
POOR PERFORMERS: understand what is going wrong, then take actions. It is also possible to re-assign temporarily takss. If poor performers are levels down, you MUST support their ROs in this and check on the issue.
SOFT SKILLS
do not take things always too formally, the task comes to you and you do it to make progress
understand that not everyone behaves like you
empathy, LISTENING TO OTHERS, flexibility, capability to adapt, creativity and problem solving
MANAGEMENT STYLE
Recognize that you have highly skilled employees that leave their comfort zone to come to EUM and work, so understand them.
Be OBJECTIVE-ORIENTED, do not micromanage, not asking for reports of what activities the team has done, but look for results and goals
HIGHLIGHT CHALLENGES, COACHING (explain why we do this), SHARING challenges, achievements, goals, issues
Active LISTENING, not making decision without proper information, no action without objectives --> MANAGEMENT BY CONSENSUS,
if not possible then by AUTHORITY, manage by BEING CHALLENGED (encourage people to talk and challenge the PM, critically approach things, so that in the end the best solution can be found)
better to make mistakes than not do things, do not be afraid of mistakes
TRAINING YOUR REPLACEMENT
from announcement (1 year before) to recruitment: 1 month overlap IS NOT enough, 6 months minimum needed for an internal (to experience also a DB cycle, budget cycle), 1 year for external
TRAINING PLAN
if recruited is external you need a structured training program to give them also context
if recruited is internal you focus on what you know he does not know
you dump things on the trainee but you need to be aware that "appropriation" comes with time
background history with partners needs to be part of training: you cannot find it on books
PM training: just plan, manage, organize, interface with partners but in a larger context, programme context
TOP 5 advices
BE OBJECTIVE DRIVEN: review status, objectives, issues and adjust
BE DELIVER DRIVEN: find a way to deliver, conscuisly, in transparency, in coordination
ENCOURAGE PEOPLE in the team to work AUTONOMOUSLY (not stop them, if they do mistakes you review things together, no need for anxiety of making mistakes)
stay coordinated with your HL MGMT, they must know what you do and your view
stay coordinated with PARTNERS, keep them informed
PARTNERS
understand which are their objectives and adapt to changes in their objectives
empathy is fundamental, listen to them and do not forget to
praise
them!!!
each partner needs a bilateral meeting and for each you need to prepare (agenda, selling points, what you tell them, what they tell you,...)
before it is FUNDAMENTAL to have an internal preparation meeting and decide the meeting objectives
You then of course need other prep meetings to deal with stuff before the real meeting... ideally also with people from the partner agency...
know your partners, know their peculiarities and "pride" and how they are driven by their own stakeholders
Some of the history of how partners implement cooperation agremeents are not recorded anywhere: the wording in the PIP is there but you need to explain your successor how the partner has actually implemented it, what they were caring about
never wait and find out things/get surprised in the mgmt meetings with them
agreement with partners: not possible to follow our rules and their rules literally, as they are different and we might be fully clashing: need to use intelligence and flexibility
ANTICIPATE your partners needs and desires, try to give them the illusion that "this was their idea"
For EPS-SG they are:
Metop-SG ESA: no problems
ESA S5: part of Copernicus that is another programme, so they did not care much about the EPS-SG programme. This became very problematic.
CNES IASI-NG: few years were needed to build trust
CNES ARGOS: ok
DLR: after many years we still did not understand each other, lots of tension and conflicts and frustration
NOAA: it depends on who is on the other side, they sometimes "forget" that they are contributing to the Joint Polar system, which does not belong only to EUMETSAT
INDUSTRY
industry goes where the money is
they need incentives, you need to spend money now to protect your assets
may not care so much about doing things on time or meeting objectives
industry wants to make profit and
DELAYS ARE PROFIT!!!
(not always but sometimes yes)
PROGRAMME MANAGER FEEDBACK
he needs to deliver, be selfish.
you need to live in reality, not textbook approaches
in the end you apply common sense, empathy, and there is no other special recipe or thing to do
need to have a big MAP in mind of everything that is going on and that needs oversight
in each moment you need to be able to explain to each partner/industry etc, what's the status
new stuff, REALITY EMERGES (like new programmes) and you need to support them (in your free time)
LEARN THAT SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO CUT QUALITY
you have to exercise autority but it is important that you are challenged in your decisions by your team --> in the end the most suitable decision will be taken --> critically informed decisions
it's like you are in a ship and you are the capitain, you need to know how the wind is, where you are going, what the conditions are, ...
be objective oriented, but accept that you have many daily goals and you cannot achieve all of them every day, learn that you cannot meet all of them. And sometimes you need to make compromises to move on
it will take you at least 2 years to really understand what you are doing in your job as a manager --> therefore it's not really possible to parachute managers into EUM, they need to be "homegrown", as EUM has a special cooperative and international environment
MUST have industrial background and experience, need to understand how industry works and how "they try to fool you", what are their objectives and what they want to do
understand the PM role in connection with the DB, as "we are doing the job for them" (resolve issues in the best interest of all the member states, think of our users)
the PM, as technical background, should be a system manager, this would be natural evolution
your autorithy as PM is only until 100Keur, above that someone else, so role is not much about authority, but about making progress, about MAKING THINGS MOVE (even if not easy with EUM structure and DBs, etc.)
LEARN TO MAKE COMPROMISES TO MOVE ON
PM is an art, the moment you try to apply a penalty, you start putting energy on legal and financial stuff and industry will ask you for more money anyway
ENSURE your MGMT is aware of things and it's your job to make them properly understand
teleworking is not very good for the PM, becuase you need to interact with people on a daily basis to "be aligned"
SW REUSE: it is often more expensive than developing things from scratch, not immediately assume that it's better
PROGRAMME
INTERFACES
EPS-SG crazy number of interfaces, 6 partners requiring dedicated and different attention
more partners you engage, more chances you get of getting your programme approved, but it becomes more complex to handle
DON'T HESITATE TO STATE THE OBVIOUS AND TO REPEAT THINGS - you are familiar with a topic, do not assume that other understood - did you really understand what i meant?
Cross-organisational feedback:
INTEGRATED TEAMS
(people co-located in the programme from other divisions) are fundamental, in both system and GS team. You need intergration from day 1 of the programme.
Users Conference is very useful to attend to see what our users do and how they use our products, also other technology/instrument conferences to keep knowledge of novelties
INTERACTION WITH DELEGATE BODIES
EUMETSAT serves 30 member states, not 1 specific state
some states use the DB meetings to make statements to each other
preparation is key
what to report, agenda (the more you tell them, the more you are exposed to questions and doubts) - only report what's relevant
it's always in the PM mind, every day you need to consider if what's happening is relevant to DB
writing a paper
reports have to be short: shortening a paper takes more effort than writing it consise in the beginning
training to write DB papers is fundamental
we have the trust of DB members, no need to explain/say too much
put yourself in their shoes
do not assume they know EUM acronyms
EFFORT
in theory you would need 2 weeks only on that (not realistic during WH, so weekend work, nights, etc.)
rewrite: sometimes the PM has different ideas on the content of a paper compared to the author
Lessons Learnt on DB
LL on regular reporting
cut, keep it short!!!
maximise delegation
explain things like you would explain them to a stranger on the street
LL on procurement
include MGMT
better react on dynamic issues by doing things and then reporting rather than ask at the beginning for permission and wait for next DB for approval: it would slow down and we cannot always wait
Visa process
HL mgmt and directors need to be aware of things, not see them for the first time on the visa loop: make sure you are in constant iteration with your MGMT
LESSONS LEARNT on Programme
Failures
not having put PDAP in a stable state: we have to discuss and challenge the proposal of the industry. We embarked in the RE-USE of something that did not deserve to be reused (in the end from 70% only 5% of PDAP was reused from MTG, as EPS-SG more complex)
On PDAP, industry was not competent enough and also EUM engineers were not competent enough to understand the deltas --> UNDERESTIMATION because of lack of technical competence
Approaches
We are working with the same processes that the organisation had before the organisation became so complex! Obvs this is not ok.
need to on-board people with specifical technical expertise BEFORE you need them, to ensure that such expertise is available when you need, like AI in example. need to foresee what will be needed
we stripped-off TAS some subcontracts, to let them do only what cannot be outsourced or done by someone else
Achievements
interactions with CNES to operate IASI as EUM wants, make them understand how EUM works and that we have to compromise
We set-up the programme, so we brought the partners to work with us, drafting COOPERATION AGREEMENTS, every word has a meaning, incredible effort, write the PIP
set-up the instrument performance framework: "sometimes go at the edge of the physics", make impossible possible and in some other cases give up on performances
bringing a programme in 10 years from phase B to production, delivery and IVV despite obstacles and challenges
Challenges
PDAP, not solved
when we evaluated the proposals we were naive on the technological aspects and impacts, and not understood what we were embarking on
industrial policy: TAS is such a big contractor and they do not respect much EUM as a customer, as they "can influence what happens here", important in France, etc. Difficult to "blacklist" them.
METIMAGE: even if EUM has experience in working with DLR, we overestimated their experience. DLR had issues on all aspects to develop an instrument. delays and huge cost impact
before setting up a program, check the competences of your partner
Sentinel-5, copernicus element
ESA doesn't understand what is the program, they have the manadate to develop the instrument and that's it, on the ground segment it was never possible to combine the schedule
ESA does not always understand EUM needs, issues had to be escalated to DG
STRATEGY AND PROCESSES
TO BUILD THE MIND MAP OF THE PROGRAMME YOU USE THE WBS as structure and then from there you attach all things that happen (issues, problems, etc. to it)
To structure the programme we started from 1st generation, but with more satellites, take on board all LL, early involvement of ops
Strategy, processes and list of documents needed to define a new programme are in the EMS. You start from there to get the strategic guidelines and then brainstorm ideas with HL mgmt.
We find ourselves always "reacting to ESA", but we need to observe the international environment and make our own ideas.
Scenario: You need approval from mgmt but they do not reply.
What do you do, do you make the decision without their approval? This case shall NOT occur, if you "have done your homework well", your mgmt is already prepared, there are no surprises, you should already know what's their view. If not the case you can always say that a decision you make does not yet have higher level approval or make the decision and then deal with the consequences.
QA
should not just be there to observe and follow the processes, but they schould actively contribute and use judgement to adapt processes to circumstances. "QA should enable us to critically DEVIATE from established frameworks, not robotically implement them." This should be improved in EUM.