Episode 153 – Simplicity and Restraint: Reshaping Project Innovation  

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Hear about the three attributes of restraint: speed, thrift, and simplicity – and how these traits can add to project innovation. Dan Ward describes using a restrained approach of short schedules, tight budgets, small teams, and deep commitments to simplicity to deliver best-in-class technology that is operationally relevant. He highlights how unnecessary complexity adds complications which can reduce innovation.



Table of Contents



01:40 … Dan’s Book LIFT02:46 … High-Speed, Low Cost Programs in the U.S. Air Force04:28 … MITRE Innovation Toolkit06:12 … When it’s Not All About The Bass08:25 … Project Success on a Shoestring Budget13:33 … Speed, Thrift, and Simplicity16:03 … Unnecessary Complexity Reduces Innovation22:00 … Innovation Requires Diversity25:06 … Stay on Track with Innovation28:03 … Status Reporting32:19 … Eating the Failure Cake36:09 … Get in Touch with Dan37:09 … Closing



Dan Ward: ...it turns out we get better results, more innovative results, more impactful results, when we move in the direction of speed, thrift, and simplicity, rather than moving in the direction of spending more time, more money, making things more complicated. 



WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  And we’re so glad you joined us today.



We have a special guest.  His name is Dan Ward.  And he’s an innovation catalyst at the MITRE Corporation.  Dan previously served for more than 20 years as an acquisition officer in the U.S. Air Force, where he specialized in leading high-speed, low-cost technology development programs.  Dan retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  While he was on active duty he helped establish the Air Force Research Laboratory’s rapid innovation process.



BILL YATES:  Dan Ward is also the author of three books.  We’ll talk about “LIFT” specifically in the podcast that he released in 2019; “The Simplicity Cycle,” 2015; and “F.I.R.E.” in 2014.



WENDY GROUNDS:  In our conversation with Dan we have a particular theme of innovation and managing complexity.



BILL YATES:  Yeah.  So Dan has researched, of course his career was dedicated to this as well, and he’s written books on this idea of innovation and applying innovation to various environments.  Certainly for project managers we can look at this, and we’re going to share some advice and learn some lessons from this man as we talk about innovation and how to apply it to our projects.



WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Dan.  Welcome to Manage This.



DAN WARD:  Wendy, thanks so much for having me.  I’m looking forward to this chat.



Dan’s Book LIFT



WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, no, we are happy to have you.  And first thing we want to talk to you about is your books.  You’ve written a few books.  And your latest one is called “LIFT.”  Can you tell us a little bit about that?



DAN WARD:  Yeah, absolutely.  So “LIFT” was such a fun book to write.  And it takes a close look at what I think is a really interesting part of history, the late 1800s, and then specifically the people who were trying to build airplanes in the decades immediately prior to the Wrights.  So all of these people failed.  None of their airplanes actually flew.  That wasn’t until 1903 when the Wrights had their first successful airplane.



But these experiences, these experiments, and the way they handled their failures have a lot of really interesting applications for challenges people are working on today.  So in terms of like solving hard problems, managing intellectual property, collaboration, diversity, equity, and inclusion.  You know, we think we invented that.  No.  They were dealing with those types of issues in the late 1800s.  So really, anyone who’s trying to solve an unsolved problem or just even just a really hard problem, we can learn a lot from these aviation pioneers in the late 1800s.