Navigating Major Programmes

MATTI: When people are doing projects at scale, under the microscope of the public eye, like, that is especially hard. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to do this program, because I want to give people the tools and techniques so that they can succeed in those venues. Because it is hard and it is, uh, a lot of pressure. And you know, and I can imagine just like, and I know from my own work, like, how much stress that is.
SHORMILA: You're listening to Navigating Major Programs, home to the conversations elevating the infrastructure industry. I'm Shormila Chatterjee.
RICCARDO: I'm, um, Riccardo Cosentino.
EVGENIA: And I'm Evgenia Jelena. And together we press the industry's experts about the complexities of program management, emerging digital trends, and the critical leadership skills required to approach this multi billion dollar project.
RICCARDO: Let's see where the conversation takes us.
EVGENIA: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Navigating Major Programs podcast. I'm joined today by Shormila and Riccardo, my favorite co hosts. How are you today?
SHORMILA: Doing very well. How are you?
EVGENIA: I am well, thank you. How's Riccardo doing?
RICCARDO: I'm excellent. I'm really looking forward to this one. I always say this, but, like this one.
SHORMILA: you mean it this time, you mean it.
EVGENIA: No, that's just because they keep getting better and better. Well, we are all thrilled and excited and we're following up to a recent conversation Riccardo and I had on the podcast and the idea of bringing back a guest came up. So we're excited to welcome back Matti Siemiatycki who has been on the podcast before. Welcome back, Matti
MATTI: Thanks, Evgenia. It's great to be with you all.
EVGENIA: Nice to have you back. Well, we're certainly excited to talk about what you've been busy with, uh, since we last recorded this podcast. And it's only been a couple of years, but maybe for our audience, if you could revisit who, who you are and what you do, that would be great.
MATTI: Yeah, you bet. So, um, I teach urban planning at the University of Toronto and I run our infrastructure Institute. Our work, uh, and my work personally sits at the intersection of project delivery, good planning, how you, uh, build infrastructure and feather it into existing cities and communities. I, uh, think a lot about that. I think about both the processes and the outcomes of decision making. Our institute does a lot of work on what we call creative, uh, mixed use building, so social infrastructure. We run a program right now, uh, looking at, uh, helping nonprofits to build their own social purpose real estate projects. We do research on these type of initiatives. Uh, we really think of so this is in the housing, ah, space, uh, and connected with social infrastructure and community development. And we think of that as uh, an important piece of infrastructure. And I think that's important that in many cases we think of infrastructure as the civil infrastructure, the stuff that's under the ground or the really heavy economic uh, infrastructure. But there's also the social infrastructure that has many of the same, uh, features, uh, in terms of its life cycle and in terms of some of the decision making and delivery, uh, dynamics. So those are the areas that I teach and our institute does work in.
EVGENIA: Fabulous. And this is personal to me because someone who hasn't been involved in the initial um, podcast episode that kind of explored this idea that we're going to talk about coming, um, and hearing updates of how it has evolved. Maybe I'll just cut to the chase and ask you the question. So a few years ago when you came on a podcast, um, you kind of defined and articulated this very specific idea problem pointing to how we essentially build these major um, infrastructure projects and we invest a lot of money into technology and design and construction. But in reality I think research, uh, demonstrates that there are certain leadership gaps associated with delivering these projects. And that's where you also covered um, the idea of what we've seen in the UK with the major Projects Leadership Academy. And this is something that been in the making for a number of years now. Maybe give us a bit of an overview of how that translated from that initial conversation of the problem definition to where we are today.
MATTI: So it's interesting that there's actually a direct line from some of that initial thinking and those initial conversations. So a lot of my work over the years has been on why projects fail. So on, uh, cost overruns, on late delivery, on projects that don't meet their expectations. And I kind of started to become a little bit of like the coroner of infrastructure. Like when a project really struggled or something terrible had happened financially or in terms of project delivery, I would start getting phone calls, in some cases from the media, uh, in some cases from uh, uh, government bodies trying to say like, what's going on here? Uh, and so as we started to follow up, like we're starting to figure out what is going on with these projects and you start to see some similar patterns over and over again. In some cases, uh, it's a project management issue, uh, which is very technical, but in many cases it's actually, it's a broader set of challenges. You would think that uh, for a country that delivers as many big projects as we do if this was just a technical issue, we would have solved it already. Like we have smart people, we have great engineers, we have a lot of people with the project management certifications. You know, we would have figured this out. And yet the projects keep going badly, the costs are skyrocketing. Just look at our transit portfolio. Private sector projects like pipelines and other types of infrastructure face many of the same issues. So this isn't just dumping on the public sector. These are all across all of our infrastructure in this country. We're struggling with dramatically rising costs, uh, and on top of that, poor delivery. And so the idea in that conversation that got sparked was, well, what if we use training and capacity building focus not just on project management, but on project leadership. This idea that there's a set of tools and techniques of how you manage a team, how you understand the human organizational dynamics, as well as uh, some of the human behavioral psychology of a project that we've all learned uh, from uh, Kahneman and Tversky. Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize, and then Ben Fllberg translates this into the infrastructure sector. How do we train people and give them the capacity to run their organizations, uh, and run their projects in a way that gives them the best chance of success and then learning from those tools and techniques. How do you manage when projects start going off the rails, when things start going badly? What are the best methods that can be used and we can learn from uh, both ourselves here in Canada and from others so that it's not every one of these isn't like a fresh adventure where everyone has to, you know, you're like you're walking through the snow for the first time. It's like others have done this. Can we learn and can we train the people who are going to be running these next generation of projects in order to get them right and to deliver? And just to say, I mean this barely goes needs uh, to be said. But um, the infrastructure is now so critical to Canada's future. We are in a nation building moment. We're facing issues around sovereignty, uh, we're facing issues around national unity. Uh, we have ah, affordability crisis, uh, we have all sorts of economic challenges and productivity issues. And we have under Prime Minister Mark, uh, Carney, we've staked our future on being able to build big things. Like he has said, we are going to build this nation through big projects. And yet if we fail, if these projects go catastrophically over budget, if they're late, if they don't actually deliver, that will put the country at risk and So I think there's a moment where giving people the tools and techniques who are going to run these multi, multi billion dollar projects is critical. And so uh, our institute, prodded on by that conversation and people who reached out to us, we've now started uh, down the path of creating the Canadian, uh, Infrastructure Leadership Academy, which uh, builds on our peers in the UK and Australia and elsewhere, but is going to be um, made in Canada for Canadians to try to understand what challenges we face and give people the methods to uh, address them in their projects.
SHORMILA: It sounds really interesting and I wanted to just uh, you know, as you were saying, the coroner and looking at things going wrong, I mean I think so many of us focus on going what has gone wrong, like who is doing it right and kind of how has this worked? Like have you seen, do you have kind of proof? Uh, because I know you said Oxford, it's a relatively newish program. I mean it's a couple, what, five or six years old. Have you seen that? It's enough of a investment that it really does make an impact on a positive side.
MATTI: So this is what we need to see. And I think it's. I don't want to just stand here and say this is the only thing. If you just take this program, you're going to solve every problem. Like of course not. There's so much going on here. But we have lessons we've learned here. Like for example, the Darlington nuclear plant. Uh, rehabilitation is a project that people point to that went really well and at least in terms of the, on the construction side. And there's a, there was a paper written about it, uh, that tried to understand why. And I thought what was so fascinating about their conclusion, it wasn't that they did any like used any new whiz bang technology or came up with ways of doing things that no one had ever thought of before. Uh, really when the researchers went and looked into the project, what they ultimately found was that they just, they set it up really well. They set clear parameters on what they were doing and what they weren't going to do as part of the project. They put systems in place. This is nuclear. So the safety is really important. They trained people on the building side for how to go about doing this and then they executed really carefully and intentionally. And I think there's a lesson there that like we often uh, in major projects look for the big solution. Like if only we could do things like in, you know, pick your country, Spain, or if only you uh, know you could, you could do it like Wherever, uh, we'll be able to do better. But it turns out that, that just getting the fundamentals right and executing and being able to run a team in a professional manner really makes a huge difference. And I think that's probably one of the most important lessons that's going to be the takeaway from this, which is like, of course we're going to teach people about new technology and we'll uh, bring in ideas of what AI could do. And I think there are places where we can get efficiencies. But a lot of the success of projects, uh, is just putting the politics in the right place of the project, making sure that once you're into the project delivery, that you're focused on delivery and you're very clear on what the goal and outcome of the project is. And then you go and execute and you execute intentionally. And I think that's one of the things, I think there are real lessons on how to do that. That sounds so simple to do and in practice so challenging.
EVGENIA: I think most of us around this table would attest to the fact that a lot of people learn on the job and it's almost encouraged within many organizations to not go, you know, the academic route after a certain point in your career, but to actually learn by watching, by doing, you know, peers. What are your thoughts on that? Like if an experienced project leader, you know, uh, who is this program for? Is this for somebody who, you know, super experienced and they've got 20 years of experience delivering projects? Is this more for somebody who is, you know, starting off? What's the, what's the reason behind your audience for the program?
MATTI: So let me take a step back first, Evgenia, and just sketch out exactly what the program is, because I think that'll help. So where we've landed again, we have done a ton of engagement because my focus here is that this is practical, that it's applied, that it has industry input. And then we in academia design a program that draws on what we've heard to solve a real need in the industry. So what we've heard in all of the conversations we've had, the focus groups, the roundtables, the meetings, the webinars we've done, uh, is that what people will benefit from is, uh, we're going to have three rounds of, uh, in person sessions, three, three day, uh, blocks of sessions in person where it'll be university, uh, faculty plus, uh, industry folks that we're going to bring in, uh, where we focus on how you get a project started that'll be you know, start uh, a project for success is where we're going to begin. Um, and that's sort of like the leadership skills. Um, that's sort of like the MBA for major ah, projects portion. The middle part is going to be the commercial elements of delivery. Uh, so some people will learn about the financials, they'll learn about community engagement and consultation because that's critical. And we're learning with these big projects that, that can make or break a big project. We'll learn about innovation and AI in that piece there. Uh, and then the last part is about uh, delivering under pressure. Like this is where we bring in the elements of the political landscape, political acumen. Uh, this is where we bring in uh, negotiations, we bring in conflict resolution and how you respond when a project is under real stress and public scrutiny. What are the best lessons uh, that can be learned? What are the tools that people can use to ensure their project still succeed? On top of that we're going to have uh, international. We'll have, in between those sessions we're going to have what uh, we're calling a global cafe. So we'll bring in an exp. These will be webinars so that we can bring in people globally. And we're going to focus on a number of countries where they've learned lessons about collaborative contracting, alliancing, building trust. Uh, so some of the countries we've identified so far will focus on the uk, uh, Australia, Italy. I also think it's important that we bring in China into this. Now we might say we don't want to uh, replicate everything China does, but there is something to be said at least of understanding how do they build projects at a fraction of the cost that we're doing and in a speed and pace we couldn't imagine. Uh, I think learning some of those lessons, even if we don't want to replicate all of them, is really important. So that's the parameters of what we're focused on now in terms of who the audience is. I think the people who are sort of at the very, very, very senior positions, they're doing their thing, they're in their role, they're going to do it and they're in uh, till the end. I think this program is really focused on the next level, the up and comers, the people who are going to be the next generation of leaders, like 10 to 15, uh, years of experience, uh, who have worked on major projects and want to take that next step, learn the tools and techniques that will then allow them to take the next steps in their career to become the, uh, project director to be, to move into being the chief delivery officer for their organization, uh, and has the best tools and techniques to deliver.
SHORMILA: Sounds so great. And I know right before we hit record, you had joked about how this is your major project. When you kind of built like what maybe surprised you or what, Was there something that was harder than you expected to be as you were building this, what was the reaction? Like, for example, when you spoke to industry, was it unanimous? Like, yes, we need it. Were there any people who sort of didn't really understand the value, like, what has been sort of your challenges as you're building your own major project?
MATTI: So the first lesson was how many yeses that I've gotten. Like, there is widespread enthusiasm about the concept. Everyone I've talked to said, oh, that's brilliant. We need that. Where it gets touchy is when it's like, okay, how do we actually make this real? And if we're totally honest, how are we going to pay for it? Because the program in the UK I think is £24,000 now. So that's close to $40,000. The one in, or $35,000, the one in Australia, uh, is anywhere between 35 and 40,000. Um, so these are real. That's real numbers. It's real money. And trying to build the case that this is important. I recognize that this is an industry program for professionals who have a career who could just as easily keep going about things, get mentorship in their company and move up. And so the question, building the business case for this and getting the uh, support from people to say, like, yet to go beyond, like, yeah, it's a great idea to, yeah, we're willing to put resources behind. It has been something that's uh, that I would say has taken, uh, time. The great news is people are enthusiastic and we've been able to build the case and build a group also of, uh, supporters from industry. And I think that's what's really helped with this, is that this isn't just something that's coming from academia where me and my colleagues are looking at this and saying, oh, there's a problem to be solved. We have the solution. Come and pay us and we'll solve it. This came because I met with the Future of Infrastructure group, some of the public sector folks and many others, including Evgenia and Riccardo, and gained input that, yeah, we could use something like that. And we think there's a market if you can build this out. And so, you know, that part, uh, uh, you Know, everything in life takes time, but I think like we've the boulders being pushed up the hill. I think we're so close to getting it there and just, you know, every day making it sure it just doesn't roll back down on us.
EVGENIA: When Riccardo and I were talking a couple of weeks ago and this topic of the major Project Leadership Academy and the whole idea came up, um, what I was personally just so happy to see is this how this simple yet complicated idea that came about three years ago and it was a combination of, you know, Riccardo's coming back from his experience at Oxford. Somehow, I don't know how the connection happened. He met with you, Matti and you had a conversation and you obviously shared some, uh, some insights and common, common understanding of the problem definition and how that whole kind of spiraled into an action oriented solution for the industry. And I just hope that we can take a moment to recognize how much of an impact this simple conversation that started with the conversation is making into the industry. Like to me that's just makes me so incredibly happy to be remotely associated with it, but also just to see it in my own eyes how we are capable of really like, we talk a lot about problems, we talk a lot about solutions, but a lot of the times they're just left at a point of a simple conversation or problem definition. But here we are. You, Matti are actually, you know, you developed a curriculum, you are associated with a university, but the program is coming to life. So I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the hard work.
RICCARDO: I can tell you how you came together because it's, uh, sometimes I have a freakish memory, but I think we, you know, I was starting the podcast. I mean, I remember me and Mari were on the other inquiry. I was like. And I wanted to bring academic to the academic perspectives with podcast. So I was like, so I use my connection. I asked him to come, we talked about, we talked about. I can't remember what we talked about, but I remember at the end, Mari, we, you know, we, as we were chatting after recording, I was like, oh, tell me about Oxford. Tell me your experience. And you know, I just started sharing with him, um, the experience. And then, and then I think that's, you know, Mahdi already had the seed in his head that this needed to be done and he was trying to find, you know, some information about best practices from other jurisdictions. And uh, I think, and then we continue that conversation and then, uh, the fig. The fig picked up the ball and helped a lot with moving it forward.
MATTI: You know, one of the things that's remarkable. I'm sure you've all had this experience in your life where you have, like, a really serendipitous conversation, and it ends. And it ends in a place where it's like, someone should really do something, you know, like. Like,
EVGENIA: That's most of these.
MATTI: That's right.
SHORMILA: Like, most of the time we talk and, like, we need to. We're all fired up. Yeah.
MATTI: And the funny part about this one is, like, that someone was me. And I kind of, like, because of all of, like, because of the conversations and because, like. Like, it started with Riccardo and I talking, then Fig came on board. Like, it just got to the point where, like, um, for me, at least personally, it was like, it's now or never. Like, because of, like, that framing of where I think we are in terms of, like, the megaproject moment. Because it's so, like, we could just keep talking about this and saying, like, oh, I wish someone could figure out why these projects go so badly. Like, or at a certain point, like, we just need to do it. And I think, like, the support from you, Riccardo, and Future of Infrastructure Group and folks in the public sector and others just being like, yeah, like, gave me kind of like the wind at the sails to say, well, let's keep pushing and see if we can get it there and get over some of those hurdles. Like, yeah, it's going to take a long time. Yeah, it's going to cost money. But, like, the alternative is worse. Like, we're just struggling with these projects and we'll keep struggling over and over. And so, like, it's been a crazy journey to get it this far, even. And I. And like, now we're right at the doorstep, which is. Which is so exciting. And, you know, just one other thing to say too, is, uh, one of the things that's, I think, going to be unique about this for Canada. And when everyone I've talked to has said is, like, the secret sauce is having the public and the private sector in the same room. Because I've spoken to now a lot of folks, especially on the corporate side, who have said, yeah, we run our own corporate training. We send 20 people to X, Y and Z program, we pay for that program. We, uh, fly them from all over the place. But the part that's not there is it's only our employees. Um, we're not learning how our counterparties and colleagues and M, Even in some cases, competitors think. And I think that having that room where it's not about your direct commercial interest but being able to learn at a bit of a remove about how different organizations and entities understand major projects is really valuable. And I think that's where this could break some of the misunderstandings about how the public sector sees the private sector, how the private sector sees the public sector. And we can start to then create solutions and build, uh, ideas of how general ideas of how you deliver projects and trust, uh, that can enable success.
EVGENIA: Mhm. And it's really this program, to me, in its own definition, it's an executive education program because it's not for an entry level project manager. It's for somebody who's, uh, got certain level of experience in the industry. And we're tying it together with, you know, Canadian project delivery and what's happening there. In your view, what has to happen around the academy and the program for it to actually change. Canadian project delivery and kind of, you know, the research that you've done or you've been part of in terms of the stats that demonstrate that we're not doing well in terms of delivering major projects versus the program kind of just being an excellent executive education program. Like, how would you, um, identify, I guess, the key performance indicators for this, for this academy, in addition to just the academics?
MATTI: I love that question. And the way that I think about it is, look, the best case scenario is like the people take our program, they leave the program, they apply what they learned, the projects go better, they have better success metrics, and everyone says, oh, it was because of this program. Like, you know, that's the, that's the dream, sort of like theory of change. Now, having done a lot of education programs, my experience is it's never that straight A line. So A, that's like the gold standard. That's what I would love to see happen as a B goal. I think what we will also hopefully see is that people who take this program have a better chance of getting promoted. And as they get promoted, they start using these tools and techniques in the projects that they're involved in. They also then share those tools and techniques with the people that they're mentoring. So you're kind of creating a flywheel that like, of course we'd love every person to come through this program, but even if not, every person who's running or leader involved in a major project comes through this program, if they're being mentored by someone who has learned about the behavioral biases that can throw off a project, or who has learned the, uh, best techniques to get a project started or to set up a team that's a temporary organization. Those are really challenging. You go from zero to a Fortune 500 company very quickly and if they learn those type of skills or they learn how to navigate through a crisis, uh, and then that lowers the temperature and people below them are not running around in that frantic state that you sometimes see with projects and they don't get scarred by that. That will be a sign of success. And the other thing that I think will be a sign of success is if on the organizational side, like if governments start looking at teams that get put together from the private sector and say, you know what we want people leading our projects who have been through this program because we know that they have the set of, they have the fundamental understanding of how to lead a project, how to build trust, how to work collaboratively rather than the more traditional adversarial type of contracting. And that that also then becomes part of how projects get done. That people that, whether it's this program directly or just the skills and ideas that come out of it, that those start to permeate through the industry and how teams are formed, that to me is also would uh, be a huge sign of success.
RICCARDO: You know, the alumni of this program is what is going to make the difference. Right? I like the concept of the flywheel, but like the hope, my hope is that it creates a club, it creates a group of individual, like minded individual with like minded tools that sort of create this base of project leadership that then gets reinforced by the group, by the alumni group that grows every year with a new cohort joining and disseminating. Ah yes, I mean you want the people that uh, attended the course, but also those people will disseminate the knowledge and the tools within the sphere of influence. As you said, it's going to be promoted and it will create this um, major program leadership culture that I think is currently missing in Canada.
MATTI: You know, um, the thing for me, Riccardo, I think you're spot on and like the dream scenario for this is that, is that like the leadership Academy becomes the crown jewel in a whole host of programming that we start running through the University of Toronto and ideally through a network of universities nationally. Like this isn't just about us. Like I, I think there the potential, as you said, like we need hubs of excellence where people are like, where there's events about major project leadership, where there's research being done, like we can train all we want but it has to be based on like solid uh, foundational research, you know, where like students are learning how to do this and feeding that information. Into the ecosystem where you're building places like an events and activities where people are networking or case studies or site tours like that. You build, as you said, you built out this ecosystem of activity and that the Leadership Academy is like the pinnacle kind of crown jewel. But you have this whole ladder of ways that people from industry can start to engage and that the university then becomes, uh, an infrastructure institute, becomes this hub where that activity and that sort of knowledge and um, engagement is taking place. But as you said, it's kind of radiating out from there to create a culture change of how we do manager projects.
EVGENIA: I am so inspired by this last idea because, uh, frankly speaking, I was a little bit sad knowing that, okay, this program is about to start, this little project of taking things off the ground is kind of coming to an end. What's next? But now you're kind of defining this could be a whole industry. This could be a whole kind of how we used to look at, you know, PMP or professional project management or even professional proposal management. There are certain, you know, best practices and there are events and conferences that people go to. So this becomes a domain of itself that encompasses all of those things specific to major projects. I like that. I see lots of potential here in addition to just the program.
SHORMILA: I was going to ask Matti like, do you think you would have had, uh, like, I think just generally the industry is, is focusing way more on behavior now than we did maybe seven to 10 years ago. Like, do you think you would have had a captive audience if we were kind of a decade ago? Or is this sort of the prime time that people are really realizing with, with the onset of collaborative models and maybe the scars of traditional P3s? Like, do you feel like all of that did have to happen for us to kind of get here in sort of our maturity as a collective 100%?
MATTI: And it's so funny, Shormila, as you were talking, uh, the way that Riccardo and I actually met, if memory serves, is that I came to interview you for a research project decades ago. And it was about P3s and about how P3s get done. And you really put your finger on it that the way that this started, until a number of years ago, the solution to every problem was the procurement model. It was that, like, if you just ran the procurement better and you set up the model, ideally, then it was, you know, it was plug and play and you could use it for any type of infrastructure. It didn't matter if it was a road, a hospital, a bridge. You, uh, know, uh, it Didn't a courthouse, a prison, it didn't make any difference. It was the model. And you'll all recall, and people in the industry will recall. Like, I mean, there were courses and training programs to go learn how to do P3s. And we said the same thing over and over again. Transfer the risk to the party best able to manage it. You know, pick the right procurement model and, you know, to suit your project. And we would just, like you'd run them through that. And that model transferred all around the world. Like, you could go to many countries. And I remember, like we did, we were doing research, uh, at one point I was, uh, in, uh, Uganda, of all places, and they were talking about the same thing. Like they've gone to the same courses and we're talking about, yeah, transfer the risk to the party best able to manage it. What it's turned out is that, like, the procurement model is, of course important and the commercial arrangement is important, but it's a, uh, limited. We learned the hard way that it's not the whole story. And I think, as you said, rightly, like, we've gotten here by, you know, through some tough lessons, and now the focus is much more on the behavioral and the, The. The relational side of contracting. I know we've come through like, a big alliancing phase where people are doing, like, psychometric assessments on each other. People are going to like, like preemptively going to like, marriage counseling. Um, you know, and maybe some of you have been through this on your projects.
EVGENIA: Like, oh, yeah, huh, you know,
SHORMILA: I mean, there's a psycho something. All right, but.
MATTI: Yeah, exactly. You know, and the question is like. And again, I think it's like, I understand how we got there, and I think the impulse was probably positive, but like, as soon as you start commercializing or sort of scaling any of this, it gets limited and some of the sort of benefits of it, of the real, like, authenticity of it, start to rub off. And people are trying to figure out how they, you know, make the commercial, their best commercial outcome from it. And I think that's the type of skills we're trying to. We're trying to teach people the skills that, like, they can benefit commercially and do great projects through the behavioral side of things and through. Through, like, a relational approach of project delivery. While understanding, as you said, like, all of the commercial elements, all of the, you know, contractual and procurement is still critical. Like, we're not throwing any of that out. It's just that you're using it in the service of, uh, the Outcome.
EVGENIA: Mhm. I'm curious to know as you, you've studied major projects most of your career, what have you changed your mind about when it comes to why major projects fail? And maybe this, this could be backed by research that you maybe have done recently, more recently, or just kind of through your personal observations in the last five years.
MATTI: I'm becoming much more convinced that the individuals make a huge difference. I think that's been the transformation and I would, I would also say one of the acknowledgments, again partly because I'm doing my own major project with this, with this leadership academy and have experienced, you know, the joys of the heartache of it. Like, I've also learned that this is hard work that like, and, and that you do have to give people grace and it doesn't mean that you're not critical and it doesn't mean that you don't carefully assess why things worked or didn't work and apportion responsibility where it's, where it's warranted. But also just recognizing that like when people are doing projects at scale, under the microscope of the public eye, like that is especially hard. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to do this program, because I want to give people the tools and techniques so that they can succeed in those venues. Because it is hard and it is uh, a lot of pressure. And you know, and I can imagine just like, and I know from my own work, like how much stress that is when, you know, you're really under the microscope. So I think that's something that even just personally has uh, become more apparent and something that I want to give people the leadership skills and techniques to be able to manage.
SHORMILA: And one thing, Matti that I think I'm sure is going to be a success factor too, is, is yet you're a known entity to so many in the industry. Just taking a bit of a tangent, I feel like I don't know m very many ah, academics probably for the right reasons. But um, I don't feel like there's many people like you who are sort of shoulder to shoulder with us. And it feels like you have a palatable stake in making these projects succeed even though you're not actually delivering them in the room or where, where does that come from? Like what have you always sort of had that, that desire to sort of like practice what you preach and really be with us as we kind of try to try to build that.
MATTI: Yeah. So uh, I'll take my own slight diversion here as well, which is, you know, My dad was a Prof. For 40 years, so was my mom, uh, at, uh, Sheridan College. Uh, and, uh, my dad was at Toronto Metropolitan, formerly Ryerson University. And that university is so both of them, like, a very specific type of career, like, I like. So I grew up with academics, fine, but I grew up with academics who are really on the applied, practical side, like, who were like, every part of those institutions, both of them, actually, uh, my mom and Sheridan. My dad at TMU was always about, like, translating, like, the knowledge into action. It wasn't just, like, knowledge for the sake of doing it, you know, just for, like, producing it, uh, as enjoyable and fun as the intellectual pursuit can be. And so I think in my career, like, I am so impatient about wanting to have an impact and that impact to be with my students and my students going out and then them changing the world through what they've learned. And I feel that very strongly, like, with the research, too. And I think the other part of it is I don't like ascribing things to others that, like, I wouldn't really want to do myself. Uh, and that's also, like, that part of being involved and engaged is that, like. Because I think, like, part of being an academic sometimes feels like you're standing on one side of the fence, like, peering over it at others, you know, and then, like, passing judgment on them. And I don't like that. I don't think that's really a nice way to behave, and I don't really think that's. That leads to the best research. And I think being engaged with people so you really understand you can be, like, sometimes you're giving voice when others can't speak for professional reasons or personal reasons, whatever. And sometimes you're kind of like, shining a spotlight where there's no light being shone. And I think that's. That's how I feel about it. And, yeah, it's been a really. In the infrastructure space, it's been a really interesting experience. Like, I've gone through phases where, like, people see me and cross the street because they don't want to be. You know, Riccardo will remember. Riccardo will remember those days from the beginning of the P3, uh, conversations when, like, you know, some of the research was not showing what the industry was loving. And it's turned out over time that more, like, I would start. The reason I knew I was fairly on the right track is because, like, I would hear whispers from people, you know, in quiet conversations, they'd say, like, oh, I think, you know, I think you're Actually onto something or I'd hear their conversations. Like, we'd have conversations about, like, why things weren't working so well that, like, you weren't hearing at any industry conference. And I think an industry sometimes needs someone or people who are a little bit of a remove, but also there's a sense of, like, trust that they're not just going to fall flame you. And I think that's kind of how I, you know, how I've kind of seen my role.
EVGENIA: Yeah. And you almost need somebody who can better articulate sometimes the problems that we are way, you know, way too familiar with or living through. And almost, uh, you know, I think that's, that's why a lot of people are, I think, resonating with your research and some of the ideas that you're putting forward is that it articulates. It articulates the problem better than us just, you know, kind of complaining about it, let's put it that way.
RICCARDO: And I think it's. That's why it's so important that this academy is a mix of public and private. Right. Because it's too siloed. Like. And, you know, I was part of the problem. I mean, you know, I was in the P3 camp and I, uh, was one of those that, you know, with the blinkers on. And. But as an industry, we were not. And we're not really open, especially in North America, we're not really open to the academic perspective and a different perspective. And you know, sometimes calling out that the emperor has no clothes. The industry is not industry and politicians are not really ready for that. And I really hope, and I've seen that happening in the uk, you know, uh, for what, uh, Oxford has done and institutional civil engineers and other other professional bodies where the conversation is open and available to everybody, to bring different perspectives and advance the industry from multiple perspectives, not just from the private sector or the academic. Because, uh, uh, Mari, you said there are some academics that have limitation because they just want to look at the theoretical problem, but the industry is also not open to the theoretical view. So that's really problematic. And I really hope that the, uh, academy bridges that by bringing these two type of professional, uh, figures together.
MATTI: You know, the other figures I want to bring in the room is also the academics. Like, I want one of my challenges and my obligations, I think, with a program like this is to make sure that we get the best profs and the best people coming in to teach. And the way that I thought about it, I mean, I, uh, want people who have worked you know, who can bring a theoretical and bring an academic lens, but are teaching things that are very applied and very practical. One of the things Riccardo has been saying to me all along on this, based on uh, your experience at Oxford, is it can't just be practitioners trading war stories. Like if you want that, you can go to a conference and you know, you'll hear every type of war story and it'll be entertaining. It benefits the most when it has an academic rigor at its core. And then you bring in the war stories and the best practitioners to kind of give the, you uh, know the how to part of it. And I think that part also is really important and something we're going to try to bring into this too.
RICCARDO: Yeah. And Mari, I just want to add one thing because you mentioned me, you mentioned the Darlington and you mentioned uh, the paper and by the way will be in the show notes is the. The anatomy of a Unicorn. And uh, yeah.
MATTI: Alex Bazier.
RICCARDO: Alex Bazier and Harvey Mailer, um, who's been on this podcast a couple of times. I, I think you know that one that's the perfect example, right? Because you know, you can go and speak to OPG or Akon or Akin Realis and can tell you all the great things that, you know, the project has done, but to actually have it unpacked from an academic standpoint point and codified so it's not just, you know, it's not just as you said, the practitioner, but like so this the practitioner's version. But then it gets codified and lessons are learned and transferable because from an independent standpoint I think that's really, really powerful. And um, I really like that paper because I think we find a lot of academic papers that look at what went wrong and finally we have some papers that talk about what went right and I think we need more m of that. Uh, but it's very difficult, right, because the confidentiality even remember like uh, I remember having Harvey on the podcast and we were supposed to have a follow up podcast where we was going to come and discuss that paper but then that paper got blocked. It wasn't published because there were conflicts, confidentiality issue. So it was only released last December, but I think I interviewed them in 2024 and, and then I couldn't, we couldn't do the podcast because that paper was, was not released for the confidentiality reasons. Right?
MATTI: Oh, I mean the data and confidentiality has been such a hurdle in this industry like alongside this leadership academy. I'll tell you one of the other things I've been trying to create is a space where uh, organizations share data so that we can actually do proper primary research that then can make the industry better. And it's been across the public and the private sector. It's just been like impossible to unlock the real underlying data that would allow you to draw real inferences. And so in many ways we're all kind of fumbling around in the dark a little bit. We all have our theses and hypotheses about what's going wrong here. But you know, I think you're right, Riccardo. Like having real data that's. And then research that's published and transparent and the method is clear, like that is really important and would really benefit this industry.
SHORMILA: I was just going to ask like, do you have a, uh, kind of a call to action for a listener, like if people are interested in this program? Because now we've hyped them up. They're going to be so excited as they're listening to this podcast, I'm sure. What can they do? How do they stay tuned? How do we kind of follow the journey?
MATTI: So for now, the Infrastructure Institute website, infrastructureinstitute, ca. We have information on there about. We have a page on there, like a landing page coming soon, uh, where people can learn at a high level. And within the next few weeks, uh, we'll be going live, uh, with uh, Rotman, uh, that will, you know, be able to. People will be able to find all the, you know, the details of where the program's heading and anyone obviously that wants to reach out to me, please, I'm easily found at the University of Toronto and we'll chat with anybody.
EVGENIA: That's awesome. Yeah. And we'll be happy to connect people uh, to you as well. I've uh, very, very interested on the next steps and how it evolves and kind of the first cohort and would love to stay close to it and uh, hopefully we'll have you back once you've gone through the first cohort and there's going to be some lessons learned from that and hopefully follow up cohorts in uh, next year as well.
MATTI: Yeah, for sure. We're all learning along this journey.
EVGENIA: Yeah. No, this is wonderful.
MATTI: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a great conversation.
RICCARDO: Yes. Um, thank you Matti and thank you Evgenia, uh, Shormila, for putting this together and uh, almost the time, um, I think we can leave it at that now. And I, uh, put the uh, link to the other um, of the Infrastructure Institute in the show Notes it will be in the show notes so people can, uh, find details there.
EVGENIA: Thank you, Matti for coming back. It's a great conversation. Thank you all. Very exciting, uh, updates.
MATTI: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, everyone.
RICCARDO: Bye now. That's it for this episode of Navigating Major Programs. If you enjoyed the conversation, please follow the show and consider leaving a review to. To continue elevating the conversation, join us on navigating major program's LinkedIn page. I'm Riccardo Cosentino alongside Shormila Chatterjee and Evgenia Jilina Uh, thank you for listening.