Episode 19: Rewiring the Project Brain: Cognitive Agility and FutureView with Dr. Lia DiBello

In this episode of Powering ProjeX, host DK dives deep into the persistent struggles of project management and explores ground-breaking solutions with cognitive scientist Dr. Lia DiBello Ph.D, Principal Scientist @ Applied Cognitive Science Labs. 

Despite advancements in tools and methodologies, project success rates remain stagnant at around 30-40%. DK and Dr. DiBello discuss how cognitive limitations, human biases, and a lack of formal training contribute to this issue and highlight a revolutionary approach to overcoming these barriers. 

Dr. DiBello introduces FutureView, an AI-driven training platform designed to enhance cognitive agility and improve decision-making in complex project environments. 

Learn about strategic rehearsals, the importance of understanding the 'why' in project management, and how to foster neuroplasticity to build resilient neural pathways. Dr. DiBello also touches upon using AI as a collaborator for better project outcomes and discusses the potential of leveraging AI further in project management. 

Whether you're an accidental Project Manager or a seasoned project professional, this episode offers valuable insights to transform your approach and achieve consistent project success. 

Tune in for an enlightening conversation that combines cognitive science with practical project management solutions.

00:00 Introduction: The Persistent Challenge in Project Management

01:14 Exploring Cognitive Reorganization with Dr. Lia DiBello

02:29 The Problem Statement: Why Traditional Approaches Fail

05:31 Introducing FutureView: Revolutionizing Training

05:57 How FutureView Works: Key Features and Benefits

10:58 The Science Behind FutureView: Cognitive Agility and Learning

21:25 Practical Applications: Enhancing Project Management

27:43 The Role of Expertise and Iteration in Project Success

38:23 FutureView's Impact: Accelerating Expertise and Reducing Errors

41:47 Operational Leaders in Project Management

42:07 FutureView: No Code Editing Tool

43:02 Rehearsing the Future with FutureView

43:27 Challenges in Project Management

46:42 Understanding Change Management

57:00 AI and Project Management

59:28 Neuroplasticity and Learn

Transcript

Daniela Kellett 0:06

Imagine this. Despite decades of advancements in tools, methodology, and technology, project success rates across industries have barely budged, hovering stubbornly around 30 to 40% for on-time, on-budget delivery. Why? My hypothesis is that project management is deeply people-centric at its core. And I believe these inherent cognitive limitations in our ability to handle complexity, coupled with human biases and the pervasive lack of formal training and ongoing development for project managers, has left us stuck in a never-ending cycle of lackluster results. That said, we shouldn't underestimate the value of our achievements, but we must reflect on the pain that we have endured to get there. But what if we could rewire our brains to overcome these barriers? Today we explore a groundbreaking approach that promises to do just that. We dive into the possible solution with cognitive scientist and expert, Dr. Leah DeBello, whose groundbreaking work on cognitive reorganization and AI-driven training offers us all a clear path forward. At Powering Projects, we champion the growth of project people, empowering every subscriber to lead with distinction, drive impactful outcomes, and turn vision into victory. Through sharp insights, inspiring stories, and energetic conversations, we will celebrate the exceptional people who transform industries and build a better world. Welcome to Powering Projects, the podcast where we dive deep into the strategies, insights, and innovations transforming project management from a trade plagued by stagnation into a profession powered by precision and foresight. I'm your host, DK, and today we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Leah DeBello, a pioneering cognitive scientist whose work is revolutionizing how we build expertise in complex domains. So the problem statement for today. In an era where projects grow increasingly complex, spanning global teams, intricate interdependencies, and unpredictable variables, traditional project management approaches fall short. Success rates have stagnated for decades, with reports like the Standish Group's Chaos and PMI's Pulse of the Profession consistently revealing that only about one-third of projects meet their goals within the original constraints of time and budget. This stagnation appears to stem from three intertwined challenges. The inherently people-centric nature of projects, which amplifies issues in human decision making and collaboration. Cognitive limitations that hinder our ability to process complexity, learn from past errors, and build adaptive mental models. And a widespread reliance on accidental project managers who receive little formal training or ongoing development, leading to repeated mistakes and consistent patterns. The result? Projects that come in well over the intended investment, eroded stakeholder trust, reputational damage, and a profession stuck in a cycle of underperformance. Yet emerging cognitive science offers a clear path forward. By deliberately reorganizing mental models and fostering cognitive agility, we can equip project leaders to navigate chaos, accelerate expertise, and finally break the stagnation barrier. Joining us today is Dr. Leah DeBello, the CEO, President, and Director of Research at Workplace Technology Research Inc., where she's dedicated her career to accelerating the acquisition of business expertise. With a PhD in cognitive psychology, she's led groundbreaking NSF-funded studies on mental models in business, developing tools like FutureViews Profiler, an innovative assessment tool that uncovers cognitive blind spots and predicts performance in dynamic environments. Dr. Dabello's research on cognitive agility and distributed cognition has empowered over 7,000 participants to adapt faster, reduce errors, and achieve breakthroughs in high-stakes settings. Her passion for democratizing accelerated learning through platforms like FutureView makes her the perfect guest to explore how we can rewire our brains for project success. Dr. DeBello, thank you so much for joining us today. Well, thank you for having me. Now, before we get started, I'm going to play a little video for our listeners, uh, just as context about your FutureView tool before we kick off.

Lia DiBello 5:40

Welcome to FutureView, a highly adaptable, accelerated learning system that transforms to meet specific mission requirements. In this video, we'll demonstrate how FutureView revolutionizes military training through adaptive simulation technology. What makes FutureView truly revolutionary are the key advantages it delivers over traditional training programs, such as the No Code Node Editing Tool. Instructors or subject matter experts can create new or modify existing training simulations in real time without external assistance. The Intelligent Agent System. Objects in the SIM can respond to and remember student decisions and create consequences. Real-time feedback. The platform provides real-time performance feedback for military decision makers through comprehensive dashboards tracking individual progress during training exercises. Risk-free environment. Students have the ability to safely practice high-risk scenarios in a virtual, safe environment. Lower cost per student and better use of instructor time. FutureView is portable and scalable. It can replace expensive, time-intensive training methods with a flexible platform that creates realistic, complex training scenarios. Instructor time can be spent on AARs and using data to gain insight into student progress. During simulations, military trainees experience a complete orders process. Students progress through warning orders, intelligence preparation of the battle space, submit requests for information, and develop their operational plans. Every decision is scored using any preferred evaluation rubric. Like all future view features, the scoring system is fully customizable and easily modified to accommodate new or changing assessment criteria. Let's see an example of the scoring feedback as the student asks questions after receiving intelligence preparation in the L FOC. Notice the traffic light indicators in the upper corner of the screen. These visual cues connect directly to the evaluation rubric and reflect how well each participant responds to each situation. The more green lights displayed, the better the participant is performing against established criteria. All decisions are stored in a database and used to compile instant progress reports. These reports are made available to students within the simulation and also as standalone reports outside the system. The reports allow leadership to easily identify how students performed against the rubric. As mentioned, a key feature of the platform is the NoCode Node Editor. This editor makes it easy for a non-programmer to instantly modify a training simulation or create a new training simulation. To demonstrate how easy this is, let's look at part of a simulation where a change is needed. Here, we realize we needed to include another response from the staff sergeant. In the node editor, it's as simple as clicking the Add button, entering the appropriate text, and adding a scoring node to the output. Now, back in the SIM, the additional response is available for the student to choose from. Another key feature of FutureView is the intelligent agent system. Specialized enablers that are difficult to include in traditional training, such as naval craft masters, marine combat cargo officers, forward air controllers, and marine aviators, can be easily incorporated into rapidly repeatable training programs. In the SIM, enablers are part of FutureView's intelligent agent system, meaning they're aware of their environment and act accordingly. But agents don't have to be characters in the simulation. They can be any object that responds intelligently to its environment. This bridge, for instance, constantly monitors its weight load, and the vehicles are also aware of their weight. If the student stays within the limit, they can cross the bridge safely. However, if the capacity is exceeded, the bridge will collapse and the student will have consequences. Agents are easily modified using the node editor. Suppose we want to adjust how much weight the bridge can handle. Simply change the parameters in our node editor. No complex scripting needed. It's that flexible to modify a simulation. Thank you for watching our demo. FutureView delivers what traditional training simply cannot. A flexible platform where instructors or subject matter experts can create and modify complex scenarios in real time using our intuitive no-code editor, with intelligent agents responding throughout the environment and instant feedback reports tracking every decision, students can safely practice high-risk scenarios while instructors gain unprecedented insights into performance. Best of all, it scales from individual training to entire classes, creating leadership opportunities that conventional methods just can't match.

Daniela Kellett 10:55

Okay, let's get started. So, Leah, your research highlights how cognitive limitations such as finite working memory and biases like overconfidence contribute to project failures by preventing managers from fully processing complex interdependencies. So, how does the FutureView Profiler identify these limitations? And in what way does it help project leaders build new neural pathways to better integrate multiple data streams in real-time decision making?

Lia DiBello 11:30

Well, first of all, the profiler is uh it's an assessment tool, and that will identify the working blind spots. So everybody has a kind of working theory of what they're doing, and especially project managers. They have a kind of um sort of worldview of what makes a good project and how they fit into it, et cetera. On these uh the ideal worldview of project management, you know, which is something that was mapped using superstars, um, is uh got some components to it. In other words, um it besides being on time, under budget, et cetera, et cetera, it um they understand how projects deliver value to the stakeholders. And they also have a very good sense of picking up when that value is not being achieved. And that could be because of the project itself and something has changed in the company. And they're very good at sensing that and pivoting so that the the why of the project is uh uppermost in their minds. So the combat agility profiler is an assessment tool that sees how much of that ideal theory of project management in the context of offering value um is something they understand. So it's kind of like um, you know, you you could do the same thing. We've done the same thing with businesses, we you can do the same thing with physics. You know, there are certain core um, I would say, self-evident truths that world-class experts understand very deeply. And the the profiler identifies the presence or absence of those and where your blind spots might be. The future of you um learning uh accelerated learning platform overcomes by giving you um we do have cognitive limitations, particularly with working memory. We call it RAM, you know. Um but we actually have quite an extraordinary ability to adapt. And how we do that is two ways. Because um most of our expertise is actually resides in our what we call adaptive unconscious, which um learns about 200,000 times faster than your so-called conscious awareness, which is what you use to go to school. You know, all your learning from teaching is at this conscious level, which is very slow and inefficient, and in terms of our human evolution is much newer and less evolved. The problem with our adaptive unconscious, which is much more powerful and is a parallel processing system, is that it's unconscious. So it's very difficult to control what you're learning. You know, if you have a particular experience, what you take away from it, it's very idiosyncratic and dependent on what caught the attention of your adaptive unconscious in the moment, which might not be what you want, right? And because it's unconscious, it's hard to know that that's happened, and it's hard to keep it from happening. So future view is a way of focusing. Future view is is a tool that creates experiences, either in situations or in replications of work situations, like for project management. We might replicate all of the agile software, for example, and create this unfolding future that we know would trigger the right things in the adaptive conscious. And the adaptive unconscious is very powerful but very priming. It learns through trial and error, it learns through failure. So we deliberately engineer failures that would force the brain to overcome what we know are the blinds. So, and the reason that it works is because the adaptive unconscious is also very focused on your survival. So because it's relatively primitive, every time you get something wrong, it assumes you're gonna die because it every error is life or death to the adaptive conscious. So it automatically, without you realizing it, starts to seek out um different alternative ways of doing things. Wow. So I'll ask you a question. Have you ever had a situation where you have a difficult problem and you go, Oh, I just can't think about this anymore? And you go to bed and you wake up and you sit up and you go, I know that's because your adaptive unconscious has reshuffled the deck, looked for a solution, and and solidified on something. And if you've ever noticed the emotions that go with that, when you get frustrated, you can't fix something, it's very anxiety-provoking. You know, and yeah, nobody dies from that, but you've but your adaptive unconscious thinks you will. And then when you wake up in the morning and you see the the solution, there's a little bit of euphoria, and that comes from the same place.

Daniela Kellett 16:57

Wow. Can I ask you then? I want to understand how biases fall into that. Do they sit in our adaptive unconscious? Is that part of that right?

Lia DiBello 17:07

All of your adaptive default, you know, autopilot is in your adaptive unconscious, and that's always your starting point. So your biases are are assumed by by your adaptive unconscious to be survival mechanisms. They have a reason, they're gonna protect you, and they actually don't protect you, they actually become very irrelevant pretty quickly. But your adaptive unconscious is very good about updating as soon as it realizes it's not gonna serve its purpose. So that's what the accelerated learning part comes from, because people assume that to become expert in something or to even overcome bias takes a long time. It actually doesn't. It takes cycles of experience, trial and error experience. And your brain does not really have a sense of time that's created by language. Like you have children, right? You know that little tiny children, you know, what we're gonna do and what we have done is in the same place. The past and the future are the same, and the present is really the only thing that's right now, and that's because we don't we're not born with a chronological time. We have to learn that and construct it through language as place. Wow. So the brain only cares about cycles of experience, and if you compress those into um an experience, then it's as if it's a year has gone by in terms of your ability to learn something.

Daniela Kellett 18:50

This is so interesting. I just finished reading a new theory called patent existence theory, which was written by um a gentleman over in Oshawa, Canada, and he talks about how we could potentially make machines conscious and what is that bar of consciousness as a collective. We've been unable to define consciousness and what it actually means. We've had plenty of attempts at it, but we've not landed on anything we all agree with. Patent existence theory is really about recursion, which is learning, recursive learning. I take new models and information from the world, I recursively learn from that, I readapt to it, and then I'm able to implement it. And if that is, if that is agreed, then that is consciousness, and we can actually recreate that in a machine. Does that seem bizarre?

Lia DiBello 19:41

Um Yes and no. I mean, I would say I'm not sure we can create in a machine because the mechanisms are different. We our brains are very holographic. We could parallel and maybe computers will eventually be holographic, processing a lot of things at once in a kind of parallel holographic pattern. But the physics of our brain is quite different. Um we the reason we can free associate is because our brains are electrical, just like a computer, but it's a very low, um, low signal, because otherwise your head would be too hot, right? So literally, I mean, um, so so what we have is very sm very low signals. And so there's a lot of activation of neurons nearby. So we we constantly, oh, by the way, oh, by the way, you know, long chain of thought, it's because we always have this leakage in our thinking. Um, computers may do that, but right now they're kind of digitally programmed to do that. Some people say neural nets are like that. I'm not sure they really are. Our wetware is physic it, the physics of our wetware is quite different. Yeah. And um interesting. So a lot of our limitations and our strengths come from the same limits in the physics of the brain, which is the low electrical potential. So we're very good at recognizing patterns because we can think about a lot of things at once. And um, computers are not as good at that as we are, you know.

Daniela Kellett 21:22

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. In project management, teams often fail to learn from past mistakes due to misaligned mental models and lack of shared frameworks. So, drawing on your work on the shared mental models and strategic rehearsal, can you explain how future views, activity-based simulations induce that disequilibration that you talk about to disrupt outdated schemas, fostering neuroplasticity and enabling teams to create more adaptive collective neural pathways that improve collaboration and reduce repeated errors?

Lia DiBello 21:58

Well, the thing about project management is that it's a defined domain. And that's a good thing. So, what human beings do is that we become intuitive experts in things that are not intuitive. Language, project management, physics, engineering. Language is very intuitive for you. You've never met me, but you understand everything I'm saying. Because you're an intuitive expert at decoding the auditory English. So you don't have to think about it. And even more important, you can't not do it. You can't listen to me and say, Oh, I didn't, I I'm gonna not hear what she said. It's not possible. So um project management is the same. Once you become an intuitive expert in a domain that's been defined by others and which you enter into through participation, just like language, you become an intuitive expert in something that's already in place for others. And that's the definition of expertise. Now, the definition of genius is taking a domain that's in place for others, not only becoming an intuitive expert in it, but then changing it. Right. So most of all of us have the capacity to become experts, intuitive experts. I think all of us have the potential to become geniuses, but that's another podcast. So the the idea is that what we have to do is define goodness, usually by studying a world-class project manager and creating the kinds of scenarios that only that person could do. Kind of like a Rubik's Cube project management, and then give people feedback and iterative strategic practice or strategic experience where they have to meet what we call a non-negotiable goal, make the project successful, and make the customers uh get their desired benefits. Just because everything worked and you did it on time under budget doesn't mean it's a success. The customer's business has to be better or whatever, whoever your client is, in measurable ways. And then um you keep every what we do is we design in FutureView, we design the experiences, and then we tag all of the macro decisions to see if they are in that moment what a world-class expert do. And then not only do we give you feedback that you're close or far to that model in that moment, but we also create a consequence for everything you do. So so that you can see, you can start to connect the dots in a short amount of time between a small preparatory decision and a long-term. So we use compressed time and we use uh immediate feedback, and we use in our system, we have intelligent agents so that the thing you acted upon, like the schedule, would remember what you did and make you face the consequences later. It's an intelligent agent.

Daniela Kellett 25:15

So this is interesting because you mentioned there the Rubik's Cube, and I know this is just a minor thing, but I often say to people, that's what actually makes project management so difficult because we have these, you know, depending on who you ask, 12, 16, different disciplines that in fact all impact one another on a regular basis based upon the small decisions, the micro decisions that you make. And people, I tend to find uh emerging project managers do not understand or see those linkages. And the more experience that you develop, you start to see them in more detail.

Lia DiBello 25:55

Um, they're self-evident.

Daniela Kellett 25:59

Correct.

Lia DiBello 26:00

Right. You don't have to make an effort to see it.

Daniela Kellett 26:03

Correct, correct. But it is a learnt skill I've worked out because over the years I be have become much more intuitive about minor decisions you might make over here and the impact that it has over here. And it often impacts multiple disciplines, um, you know, small changes and small variations in either our scope, our timing, materials, whatever it may be. So it's starting to make more sense for me now, I think. Um and you can mentally simulate the eventualities. Right. I think you absolutely could. And and I certainly can in my brain, I mean, probably not to the level of detail that, you know, I can have things remapped within a day. I mean, it takes time to remap everything, but that's the whole thing. Every time we make a decision, there are multiple disciplines within project management where you have to go back and re-forecast how things are going to occur based on those new decisions. Does that make sense?

Lia DiBello 27:04

No, that's an absolute, and that's true of every domain that for which expertise is a factor. Yeah. And um probably for you, you probably experience time differently too. In other words, when you when something happens in a project, you realize that six months from now that's gonna really create a disaster. It's as if it's happening now for you. Yes, you can see it rain. Yes. And a more novice person would say, why are we worried about that? That six months from now we might all be dead. You know, I mean, that's a long time. It's not a long time for an expert.

Daniela Kellett 27:41

No. And I want to ask you another thing. In one of your podcasts, you actually talked about the three areas of expertise for entrepreneurs. And you talked about capital markets, um, operational expertise, and there was one other element to it. And that appeared to me to be very similar to this because you said, you know, when you are a truly successful entrepreneur, you master all three of these elements. Right.

Lia DiBello 28:07

It's the same with project management. They are different. They are there the three-legged stool would be different. But there's but it goes back to what you said about uh our limited capability. The way we manage that is we organize our thinking according to what we call organizing forces. In business, it's supply, demand, and cap. And then supply and demand are actually very not simple at all to an expert. So, for example, um, when money is cheap, an entrepreneur will use debt instead of equity or cash to finance things because it's it's a better time to leverage capital. The capital strategy would change as as as the economy fluctuates. Other times, um, you know, you um you you can create demand through marketing and so on, but you don't have a way to meet it. So you have to worry about your supply chain, you have to worry about having, you know, spending a lot of money on inventory you can't sell. So the successful business people are very good at balancing what we call the three-legged. The average business person, even a high-level executive, is only good at one or two of them. So you see these people we call one-trick ponies. They're they're massively successful and they think they always will be, and then they get into a different business and it doesn't work. And that's because they probably don't have uh a good handle on the the three legs tool. Project management is very similar. Um, and I would say, just winging it, that it's um it's resources, time, and uh value, or the why for project management. Those three things have to be kept in balance. At all times. And if you use that framework, your job is not so overwhelming. And this is the truth.

Daniela Kellett 30:09

Yeah. That is it. So many project managers are accidental leaders without any formal training. And they're really relying on ad hoc experience, possibly in one of those domains, but not all of them, that doesn't really cultivate cognitive uh agility. So how does Future Views approach inspired by Piaget? A few people. Yeah. Yeah.

Lia DiBello 30:32

Yeah. And Vygotsky, I think it is. Vygotsky have identified the the mechanisms by which we learn and become experts. Um but they never, you know, they never dealt with project management either. No, they've been dead for almost 100 years. But they um but they did identify how the brain changed. I would say uh between Loria, PJ, and Vygotsky, you've got a good working theory of neuroplasticity.

Daniela Kellett 31:01

Many project managers are accidental leaders without any formal training and they're relying on ad hoc experience that doesn't really cultivate that cognitive agility. What other evidence from your studies shows this leading to measurable improvements in project success rates?

Lia DiBello 31:17

Well, again, it goes back to having a non-negotiable goal and a framework. When you do one of our strategic rehearsals, there's no partial credit. You either meet the non-negotiable goal or you don't. And no matter how hard you worked or how well you did the schedule or controlled costs, if you don't deliver the value to the customer and do all the things that are required, um, you have failed. And that's the feedback that you get. Like go and do it again. And it's kind of like finding your way through a maze. There is a way to do it, and you iteratively uh go through until you find the path of the maze. And um what a lot of project managers don't realize is that there's there's always a way to do it. It's not mysterious and it's not random. Projects by definition can always be successful. Even if the success means that the project is not relevant and we need to do a different project, that's still a success. Right. I mean the the the non-negotiable guiding North Star is always the customers or stakeholders' success in the why they're doing it in the first place. And you may have to make a lot of pivots in resources, timing, etc., or even the actual tasks. But if you so our strategic rehearsals force you to do that, they give you a project plan that starts that's not gonna work, and we give you a non-negotiable goal that has to be achieved, and you have to figure out how to go from A to B.

Daniela Kellett 33:02

So this is interesting because, and I wonder whether this is what actually plays into the greater concept of failure in project management, because we start off with a plan and we have convinced a group of people to fund that plan, thinking that that will work. But what you're focusing on here and talking about is iteration. When we go back to a stakeholder group and say, you know what, we've worked out that this doesn't work, this plan is not right. We need to stop, we need to pivot or iterate on that because we've tried something, we're close, but we need to go again. Unfortunately, those uh micro decisions are not funded, right? And every time we have a slight step backwards, we're just it's cost and time, right? And I wonder maybe that's what creates some of this failure, because rather than you know, having a leadership team that understands you need to iterate, pivot, you're going to come up against things that don't work, you need to go again. That's not what they've funded. They've funded a confidence that the original plan was achievable. Exactly, yeah.

Lia DiBello 34:16

So it does require you to have a different relationship with the stakeholder and and find out what's what's immovable for them. So um I actually had some interesting experience with this and working with the military. And one of the non-negotiable goals is that we're able to prepare a certain number of warfighters for um in these in make them more cognitively agile. When we were there um trying to execute the project, and we realized all the computers that they're gonna be using random. And I thought, well, we saw a room with some stuff in it that might work. Let's just get a key and go in there and try. So we did. And then um we installed our our technology on like ten of them. And we realized this is a better way to do this. So let's go get the stakeholder, bring them in here and say, we have a solution. We don't have to live with this limitation. But it has to be okay that we do it in here. The next thing we knew, there was a hundred of those computers now. So what we sold them is not the problem, but the solution. And we did have to sort of do some independent form, like by the way, Mr. Stakeholder, we know that all you really care about is the success of these guys and their preparation. So we found another path to it. And um, we think this will be more successful. And will that cost you anything? Because you probably have these computers already. t and believe me, I'm no project management guru, I realized that the way to get him to pivot, instead of me going to him and saying, all your computers are underpowered, you know, that's your problem. I I did some research in the building, got a key, let myself into another room where I thought the computers would do better, and installed it, brought him to there and said, Um, we think this is a better path to what you want. And it looks like you have all these computers already, and they're much more powerful. And if we get the uh internet to work in here, which it's not working very well, but it could, uh, I think that we've got um a better solution. And we might even be able to get it done without buying new computers and maybe make the move today. Yeah, that's great. And so I think that's what expert project managers do. They say, like, we've we're implementing ERP, we notice you have a new product and you wanted to start with the old products because the bill materials are done. Uh, we think you'll get more value starting with the new ones, because by the time the supply chain system is implemented, you're not even going to be selling that anymore. What do you think? You know, make them part of the decision processing. But keep in mind everything now, some stakeholders do have some immovable constraints like a budget. So you have to you can't just ask for more money. Sometimes you have to say, what's immovable here? The time, the budget, or the outcome? Yeah. And in my case, the outcome was was a done deal. If we couldn't do it, we were toast. Um, I suspected the budget was also going to be a big deal. So I said, well, I can do all this faster with the scene, but I need to make this pick.

Daniela Kellett 38:21

Yeah, that's actually a good point. Project environments are rife with uncertainty where small issues can cascade into major overruns due to interdependencies, as seen in power law distributions of failure. So, how does FutureView help users develop cognitive agility to interrogate the environment and adapt their mental models dynamically, essentially rewiring the brain to anticipate and mitigate those fat-tailed risks, thereby boosting overall project outcomes?

Lia DiBello 38:56

The best thing to do with FutureView is to take a very complex project that that anybody would learn a lot from and that only a world-class project manager could do easily first. And put all those little bad things in there. And then have people uh just navigate it and navigate it and compress time, bang, bang, bang, make it very, very difficult and very challenging. You'd be surprised at, you know, if people do that twice or three times, they get very good at it. It does really accelerate your ability to to manage those things and and do it at a first principles level. In other words, they don't have to have practice with each thing. They just have to have practice with a good set of those kinds of things to develop the cognitive agility and the vigilance tools and do real projects. Now we did do a study on this about nine years ago. Um, and we did publish it. I think I sent it to you. We studied, you know, hundreds of people all over the world with a such a project. And it was a fictional project, but it was very much an emulation of what happens, including all the little niggly stuff. And we got to the participants in 16 hours of gaming, and now we're doing it much quicker, by the way. Got to five years of expertise. Wow. Measurably, regardless of what country they lived in or what language they spoke.

Daniela Kellett 40:29

This is quite amazing. There's a part of me, Leah, where I wonder to myself, why aren't we using this more extensively across our industry? Because in reality, there must be hundreds of projects that we could give as examples that could be built into the tool. And why that is important is because we obviously have lots in construction and then lots of subcategories of construction, rail, roads, light rail, all sorts of different variables. And then we have IT projects and business projects, right? So there's lots of different projects that you can study and learn. A lot of project managers are responsible for their own learning, meaning that organizations mostly do not invest in project managers going and improving their own skills. It's something that you self-invest or you do nothing. Right. Um, and unfortunately, there is a large cohort of our industry that are in the do-nothing camp. I will just learn as I go on the job. Right. And one of the unfortunate parts about that is that unless you have a leader that is proficient in project delivery, it's very difficult for you to get the feedback that's required around your use of the disciplines and the way you've navigated the frameworks and techniques in order to be able to execute efficiently, because a lot of our leaders in this space are actually operational people because we are delivering for operations. Right, right. If that makes sense. I'm really hoping that one day FutureView becomes something that a project manager like me, I can just go and take out my own license and test myself and just play the game. Right. We are getting to that. I mean, if you look at the video, we it mentions the no-code um editing tool. The the biggest constraint to the to making that a possibility, even for us, was the time it took to create the experiences in the um in the platform. Now it takes a few days, and anybody can do it. You don't have to be a developer or a coder. So some of our clients are are making their own with it. Yeah. You do have to, you know, you could train people to be to do the wrong thing. So you have to be careful, you know, and we're trying to make a little sort of guide for people, like when to think about what not to do. Don't teach people stuff, have them throw them in the deep end and make them swim. And make sure the experiences are reality analogous to you. And that's why it's best to just take real projects. Yes. The other thing that you could do, and we've done this with large corporations, is rehearse the actual future. So if you're about to do a project with your team, put it in Future View and rehearse it. And all the stuff that couldn't happen properly will. Yeah. And then you can all learn how you're going to manage that.

Lia DiBello 43:22

Absolutely. Because I must say that takes an ex an extraordinary amount of time. So what actually absorbs most of the time in a project is when we do pivot or we do need to make a change, getting number one, all the stakeholders across why we are making the change. And do we all agree with the change? Is everybody been given a voice on the change? Once that activity is done, then there is executing all of the documentation around the change. Are we sure that we've mapped this out correctly? And then we move on to execution. And that in itself is such a long process when you are moving a big group of people from one method or plan to another. Um, and you know, it takes an extraordinary amount of time. So I totally appreciate how beneficial it would be to manage how you will or to learn how you will pivot through things before we get to that point. Right, exactly. And you could even use future view for the pit.

Daniela Kellett 44:23

Yeah.

Lia DiBello 44:24

So in in lots of ways, what you're doing is when everybody goes through it, they realize, okay, this is why we're making this change. Yes. You can make the pivot in future view first. And then everybody kind of says, okay, we now we get it. Now it's our idea. Now we own it. And everybody arrives with the same worldview of what we're of what you're all doing. Because that's what it does. It reorganizes you.

Daniela Kellett 44:53

It's amazing. Because that is one of the hardest, hardest parts of what we do.

Lia DiBello 44:58

Right.

Daniela Kellett 44:59

Um, all right. So your common mental model of business, which was the triad that we talked about earlier of capital markets, demand and supply, emphasizes this understanding of dynamic interactions. Right. So for project managers that are juggling budgets and timelines and resources, how can future views profilers sort of reveal those blind spots in those areas and through that strategic rehearsal guide the formation of new neural connections that enhance our predictive accuracy and strategic foresight in complex scenarios?

Lia DiBello 45:31

Well, again, the profiler and the strategic rehearsal are different. Yeah. We have used the profiler to find out if project managers have a blind spot. They almost always do. And it's usually in the why. So they're very good at timelines, budget, you know, resource, allocation, documentation, but they often do not understand what the project is for and how they will know that they're still getting to that goal. So when so then we designed a strategic rehearsal that really emphasizes that. So all the disruptions and the pivots require the fact that the why is no longer working. Because we know they know how to manage budgets and they know how to manage timelines. So that that's in there, but it's not a blind spot for them. What's a blind spot for them is when the timeline or the resource allocation is not appropriate. We need to pivot. Yeah. And you know, once they get that, the pivot is not that hard because they're good at that other stuff.

Daniela Kellett 46:41

Yeah. What do you say then about concepts like change management? I mean, we talk about this quite a lot. Um, and I'd be interested to understand the brain science around all of this. You know, why is it that people have such an emotional reaction to change, considering that projects is all about change? I mean, we really are the biggest facilitators of change. Um, and we should be quite used to it. But for some reason, and I notice it more when I'm in project because I've got a team that needs to constantly pivot or reiterate or rethink about what we're doing. And then I've got users out in the real world that also need to pivot. And so I'm managing these two layers of complex change. What is it about humanity that makes us adverse to change?

Lia DiBello 47:30

It's it's a survival thing, and it and it's for a good reason. Um, you know, what we have a theory of what's gonna work, it works, and we stick to it. Um, we're you know, remember, we're not predators, we're prey historically. So we're always trying to avoid the saper tooth tiger. And change is always very difficult, but I I think it's worse than that. I think that the change management approaches, and here's my bias, don't work. Because they try to top people into agreeing to be different. Well, if that were true, I'd be an Olympic athlete. If that's all it took, you know, I mean, all these things that I would, you know, love to be talked into being, that it's just not gonna happen. It's only through participatory engagement that people actually change. So the best way to make them own the whole thing, besides a strategic rehearsal, because it does it below the threshold of consciousness, is to involve them in the design process. Wow. You know, just say we need your help, you know. Yeah, we we realize this is not gonna deliver what what we we said it would. Um, we need your help here to just involve you in a little discussion. And you know, we're the experts, we're gonna make you know everything happen, but we need you to understand how all these different forces are working and maybe you have some ideas. And that tends to convert people.

Daniela Kellett 49:04

It does. I'm gonna take a step backwards from that. So I know what part of the project cycle you're referring to there. But in fact, a lot of the time the decisions have been made well before the funding was even allocated. So if you imagine the business casing process, somebody somewhere has made a decision that says we're making a switch. They've not engaged anyone because they're working at a leadership level, right? And they've decided that they're going to make some funding. They allocate the project team and then they say, go out and design something. This is the why. I have regulators that are wanting to see us do things differently, whatever it may be. Um, or I'm wanting to, you know, develop some brand new technology. Um, but they've not engaged anyone at that stage. They kind of pass that down to the project team, which makes our life really difficult because I my first step in a project is always to engage my senior leaders to understand what do you believe we are doing and why are we doing it? And then I need to go and convince others. Right. So it's it that that's kind of where the problem is, I think, because we're not the people that made the decision at the end of the day. We are just executing it and having to convince these people to come on this journey with us. Right. How have you seen it done differently in organizations where you might think that something else would work better?

Lia DiBello 50:34

Well, first of all, sometimes the decision from on high isn't good for some of the employees. Yeah. Um, I mean, we're seeing that with AI, right? Um, and um, you know, the business has made a decision that they're spending too much money on something that could be done for less and the profit margin could be better. You can't do anything about that except tell people that there might be a different role for them. That that the job they have may be going away, but the knowledge they have that could that could contribute to the company's success may still be useful. And and I object to to that. I feel like when companies have had long-term employees, they've already invested a lot of money in that. But there's a lot of knowledge there. Their job may be something that needs to be eliminated, but their knowledge could still be useful. And um that's that that that can be managed with a good leader. You can have the the a transparent discussion with them about that. And make sure that the why is really the why. You know, um and you know, my my partner always says, you can't shrink to greatness. Is there a way that the project can actually grow the company or increase opportunity for the employee? And I would open, I would have that conversation with the leadership.

Daniela Kellett 52:08

Yeah, so this is an interesting concept, a business concept. I tend to find well, I'm finding more and more in my career that when I look at the portfolio of projects, very few of them are actually about growth.

Lia DiBello 52:22

Yeah.

Daniela Kellett 52:22

Many of them are actually about just fixing BAU errors, mistakes. Right. You know, it's very backward looking. It's very much, let's just try and create efficiency rather than how do we grow the organization, which just seems so at odds with the concept of project management because you're meant to be seeking value. But in fact, the value is I'm just fixing a small BAU error. Right.

Lia DiBello 52:50

You know, maybe the answer, especially for you in your position, is to do strategic rehearsals with leaders. And have them pick the right projects and the right why.

Daniela Kellett 53:03

Yeah.

Lia DiBello 53:04

Um because they you're right, they often don't, you know.

Daniela Kellett 53:07

Yeah, absolutely. And so there's a part of me that just wonders whether that's because uh a lot of our businesses now are led by financial leaders. Yeah. Oh yeah. And really, when you are finance oriented, the only thing you can do is how do I make this more efficient operationally, right? How do I reduce my cost rather than how do I go and grow more demand?

Lia DiBello 53:31

Right, exactly. Or just more value, you know, so that the customers always buy you instead of somebody else. I mean, you can't always grow the market, but you can get more of it.

Daniela Kellett 53:44

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Sorry, total left afield, but um, neuroplasticity research shows that our brains can grow new neurons and pathways throughout life and challenging tasks. So, in the context, once again, of project management's people-centric challenges, how does FutureView leverage that high symbolic density simulations to provoke failure in a safe space, triggering reorganization of mental models and building that resilient neural pathways that empower managers to handle cognitive overload and drive higher success rates?

Lia DiBello 54:22

Well, um, yes, our brains are always growing. And there was some research done at Yale, actually, with monkeys, that showed, you know, it it was assumed for many years that we don't grow new neurons after a certain age. We do. But what happens is they're not used and they they fall away. And that's true in monkeys. And what they discovered through some actually pretty terrible experiments, because they had to dissect the monkeys, was that if the monkeys did use the new neurons, they did grow. And that's true of us, right? We we know that in fact retirement is very bad for the brain. Um, that continuing to do challenging tasks that are meaningful, um we're much less likely to lose our capability and will keep getting better. And people are very skeptical of that. But I said, you know, we we have it around us all the time. My father was in his 90s when he got his first smartphone. As soon as he realized he could call his friends and keep track of his schedule and order things on Amazon, he got very good at it. He did not have to take a course, and during his whole working life, he'd never even used a computer. Wow. And then I gave him a computer, and once he realized he could do stock trades online, he got really good at that. And he he was obviously an intelligent person, but he wasn't, you know. I mean, people adapt, you know. And well, I'm I'm old enough to remember when the internet was new and there was a big concern among all my academic colleagues, the average person wouldn't be able to handle it. I said, you gotta be kidding. Until it's commercially available, it's not gonna be any good. It's only gonna be um, you know, more advanced than a green screen and the sound of a modem when everybody's using it. And and you know, we can't it's the same with AI. We can't control the way people evolve with tools. But as human beings, we are tool users and we are changed by using tools, including language. Our brain is completely different when we have language versus when we don't. It's the same with technology, we used it to extend our own thinking.

Daniela Kellett 56:46

So um the more you do that, the better. So this is interesting. Then once again, sidebar question that I've you've led me to. But I was having a conversation with Professor Paul Boudreaux, and I don't know if you know of him. He uh is an expert in AI for project management. Um and what he said to me was it's very interesting that our industry continues to want people to dig holes with their hands rather than using a tractor. And what he was talking about was our project management processes are still very much paper-based instructions, okay, for most organizations. Many have not implemented project management software, let alone uh bridging that software now towards AI and its uses. And if anything, I'm seeing a lot of people use Chat GPT as a productivity tool, but it's more can you help me write an email? Right. You know, can you remind me of what this methodology or this framework is or these techniques? Um, or can you write my project schedule for me? Can you do this and that? But it's it does sort of interest me that as an industry, we've not there are very few um sort of big AI implementations on how we can use this across an entire organization in a very standardized way to move project management capability forward, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I wonder why why is it that we are not seeing that push considering the trillions of dollars that are invested in project management every year?

Lia DiBello 58:32

Well, I think it's because AI is new, right? I mean, when um the internet was new, we we made very weird use of it, you know. I mean, we really did. And now we use it for everything, and it's on our phone, and we have Siri. Um, you know, my car it is like reading me my email and telling me where I need to be and stuff. So, and it's voice activated, I can tell my car what to do. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have even imagined that, right? So now I take it for granted. I think AI needs to land. Like people think when people think of AI, they think of ChatGPT. There's actually a lot of AIs, there's a lot of AI in FutureView. It's just a different kind. And um we have to adapt and figure out how we fit with it the same way we have with our phones, you know.

Daniela Kellett 59:25

Yeah. Yep. Interesting. So once again, looking ahead, as AI integrates into our project tools, um, your experiments with AI-driven virtual worlds suggest that it can augment human cognition. So, how might FutureView combine with AI to further enhance neural pathway development? Um, helping project teams overcome those bandwidth limitations and align on lessons learned and ultimately transform stagnant success rates into consistent victories.

Lia DiBello 59:56

I think that AI could be really good to figure out the what ifs. Like what what will happen if uh I can't get this particular resource for my project? What's an alternative to reach the same goal? I think AI could be very good at that. And I think it should be used that way. But I think people use AI the way they use Google to find out stuff. It can do stuff for you, including come up with an alternative and run into a uh some sort of problem. Yeah. And I think if you what but what people need to do is they have to be they have to develop their own expertise at meshing with it in a way that's agile. Like I said, a lot of people just use it as a Google search. I was reading an article in the New Yorker about a scientist who using voice activation had a lot a two-hour dialogue while driving. He's a mathematician with AI and came up with a a new solution using AI as a collaborator. Well, I I was so jealous that I logged into the AI that I use, I you know, started doing the same thing. Why didn't I think of that? You know, yeah. It's like I think project managers could definitely do that. They could make AI a collaborator. And particularly since project management is so complicated and there really has to be so many pivots in small things that AI could just manage it for them if they could, but they have to develop the expertise to use it that way.

Daniela Kellett 1:01:39

And this is interesting because it's about asking the right questions rather than expecting the right answers. You know, um, you need to go into it thinking, I'm going to explore something with you and I'm going to ask you a multitude of questions before we get to that.

Lia DiBello 1:01:55

Right. They don't have an easy answer. I need your help to think this through.

Daniela Kellett 1:01:59

Yeah.

Lia DiBello 1:02:00

Correct. And this is why it's so good for learning as well, because I've noticed recently, um, I don't know, I've just been looking at some use cases and, you know, students using it for very similar purposes, being, I'm trying to remember everything for my biology exam today. I've done all of my uh study, but can you just talk me through it and see if I'm remembering this correctly? Could you quiz me?

Daniela Kellett 1:02:25

Yes, correct. Exactly. I mean, you could give your project plan to AI and say, Did I miss anything big? Just as long as you give it the goal. Like this is what's going to create value to the customer. Did I miss anything? Yes. Yes, that is the truth. All right. So if you had some advice to give to project managers about learning and the impact of learning on their lives and their career and their expertise, what would that uh guidance be?

Lia DiBello 1:02:55

Um, trying to learn through experience, other people's or your own, trying to rehearse everything, you know, in some way before you do it. And assume you don't have all the answers and that you're probably wrong. And if you assume that you're wrong about major things, you're more likely to see big mess.

Daniela Kellett 1:03:15

Yeah. I love that. It's very uh, it's very Elon Muskish. Can I tell you? Because that's I'm not kidding you. He talks about failing fast. It's just quite amazing when I hear you speak, because I think that's why he's been so successful. I think he's mastered these things. Um, so we explored today um how deliberate interventions can build new true uh neural pathways. As we explored um fostering cognitive agility and elevating project success rates by addressing the very human barriers um at the core of all of our challenges. Are there any other key takeaways for our listeners today?

Lia DiBello 1:03:55

Well, I think I think that um that in terms of neuroplasticity, and if you boil down what FutureView does, what the Profiler does, what it all does, is it starts with the assumption that we're always wrong and that we always have a bias. And you can do that with your own life. You can say, There's nothing wrong with me, I'm a wonderful person. Everything I'm thinking is probably wrong. And then you start to notice all the things that you could add to your plan or to your to your strategy, or and you can become a lot more innovative. You just gotta be okay with it. I don't need to be right, not trying to get an A. You know, uh everybody in the world who has a particular theory about how things work is wrong by definition because the world changes, and to be ready for that, you have to start out with the assumption that you have a working theory that's probably 30%. Yeah.

Daniela Kellett 1:04:56

And it's interesting that you say this because that goes against the grain of positivity bias, which is where we all live. Yeah. We all live in this world of thinking, oh no, no, no, I'm right about everything. Right. Um, prove me wrong, kind of thing. And and unfortunately, we hit the brick wall before we are willing to admit it. And sometimes we will still will not admit it even when we get to that point. So but that must be one of those adaptive things that is so deep in our subconscious.

Lia DiBello 1:05:26

Well, I think we conflate worth with being right. Yeah, worth is not from being right, it's from being able to become right as things change. Right. But we are uh I mean, I see this with women, you know, like I'm uh I'm capable, I'm valuable, I'm useful. Well, maybe you're not. You know, maybe because of your upbringing, in fact, you're not yet, you know. And the only way to get there is is to start out with that self-evident truth that you deserve to be useful, valued, and and even cherished, but it doesn't get you off the hook to learn and and and change.

Daniela Kellett 1:06:10

Yeah, absolutely. And learning is the key. Um, are you still learning layouts? Oh yeah, of course.

Lia DiBello 1:06:18

Yeah. I was running into a program today and I broke my computer. I blew up. And I thought, you know, this is humbling. Um, but yeah, no, I I am always assuming that I'm wrong and pushing the limit. And you know, we we last week, full disclosure, we had a massive success with a client. Massive. And I said, okay, to my team, now it's time to figure out how we could have done better.

Daniela Kellett 1:06:43

Yeah.

Lia DiBello 1:06:44

You know, success is not a reward, it's a test to see if you could take it to the next level.

Daniela Kellett 1:06:52

Wow. And I that is such a good point.

Lia DiBello 1:06:55

And and you enjoy your success a lot more if you think about it that way. That this is this is the launching point. It's a little higher up, but there's still Mark.

Daniela Kellett 1:07:05

Yeah, so the next level in the game. What is the next level in the game?

Lia DiBello 1:07:09

Right. What else can we do? Yeah.

Daniela Kellett 1:07:11

Are you a gamer by nature? Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You are okay. Now it kind of all makes sense because I was thinking, why would she develop a tool like this? Like it just seems so random, but now I get it.

Lia DiBello 1:07:24

I mean, uh, you know, to be on my father was in the toy business and I worked for him. And I realized toys are the one thing that nobody needs, but everybody wants and everybody loves. And that's because it it's a way to be a different person and it's a way to rehearse different selves and eventualities. Whether it's toy trucks or dolls or whatever, it's all about what do we want to be, what are our hopes and dreams. Even games are like that. So I realize that games are in our DNA, and toys play is in our DNA. And if we can make everything about playing to win, then we all have a lot more hope.

Daniela Kellett 1:08:09

Wow, that is just an amazing piece of advice and guidance for life. You should have that made into a fridge magnet and sell it to people.

Lia DiBello 1:08:20

I think that's uh a key. My home office is full of little toys. And I it is, and I'm always remembering that toys represent um movement, you know. They're that's why they don't look that real. They're all reminding us that things could things are really our own construction, our own imagination. And uh there's no there's no reality, it's there's always invention.

Daniela Kellett 1:08:49

Yeah, absolutely. And so then just tell me, uh is there any more research on the horizon for you?

Lia DiBello 1:08:56

Well, uh, yeah. I mean, one of the things I'm working on now is how people can use AI to extend their cognition. How AI does not have to be evil, it can actually be very uh make us smarter, more more empowered. Um and I'm also looking at um, you know, I'd like Future View to be like Siri. You know, I don't know if you're aware of this, and we might have talked about this the other day, that voice recognition used to be extremely manual, where you had to train voice models for days on your own voice. And you had to articulate in a particular way? Because it because it's based on the ability to to understand the units of speech as units of sound. And now everybody's got Siri on their phone, right? And I would like Future View to be on everybody's phone and nobody have any idea that I invented it. It's just the way you cope with something difficult and learn something uh radically new quickly because things have changed and you want to adapt.

Daniela Kellett 1:10:05

Yeah, that's amazing. I would love it. I would absolutely love Future View on my phone. That is Yep. The sooner that can happen, the better. Yeah. Um, all right. Well, thank you so much, Dr. DeVello.

Lia DiBello 1:10:19

Thank you.

Daniela Kellett 1:10:19

Yeah, thank you for so much of this enlightened conversation and for sharing your groundbreaking insights on how cognitive limitations and training gaps stall our successes um and how your strategic rehearsal and AI-driven solutions can transform outcomes. And your research offers as a powerful path forward to fostering our agility, to leveraging um AI, to break the cycle of repeated mistakes. So, how can people find you, Leah?

Lia DiBello 1:10:46

Uh well, you can contact our company, uh ACSign Lands. Uh, my email is L-I-A-L at acs.org. And we're on the internet. We're all, you know, you probably found me on the internet. We're all over the place. And uh we would love to do something in project management if people if there if there's a a company that wants to try something like that. You know, we're all about having fun do you know creating value.

Daniela Kellett 1:11:16

So yeah, and innovating. And innovating, yes, yeah. It's fantastic. All right. Well, I will put all of those details into the show notes. Um, and thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Oh, it was fun. Thanks for watching. No worries. Listeners, to learn more about Dr. Tabello's work, I encourage you to visit acsilabs.org and explore accelerated expertise for practical strategies. And thank you to all of our faithful listeners for tuning in to this episode of Powering Projects. If you've found value in today's episode, please subscribe, share it with your community of project professionals, and leave me a review. Your engagement helps me reach more people just like you who may benefit from our community. But don't stop there. Engage with us. Share your challenges and successes, and let me know which skills or techniques you want me to cover. Further, help me discover the voices and stories that will benefit our entire community. If you have a guest suggestion, comment below or email me at PoweringProjecanx at gmail.com. To everyone listening, if you're ready to turn project chaos into clarity and unlock your team's potential, go explore the FutureView platform, where cognitive science meets skills growth, guiding you to success no matter where you start. Until next time, keep powering your projects from vision to victory and remember, true expertise isn't just learnt, it's rewired. It's DK and Leah signing out. The content provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute professional, legal, or financial advice. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any affiliated organizations or sponsors. While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date information on project management methodologies and related topics, no guarantee is made regarding the completeness, accuracy or applicability of the content to your specific circumstances. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals before making decisions based on the information shared in this podcast. The hosts, guests, and producers are not liable for any losses, damages or outcomes resulting from the use of this podcast's content. By listening to this podcast, you agree to assume all risks associated with the application of the information provided. Thank you for tuning in, and we hope you'll find value in our discussions.