Category: Risk

A first-time Project Manager and scrutiny…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership & Management, Processes and Practices, Project Management, Risk, Training

In times or yore, a young Badger was appointed to lead a new project developing software for an important client. It was his first time as a Project Manager! After six months, however, the Badger seriously doubted his suitability for the role. The initial enthusiasm, excitement, personal glow and motivation from knowing that your boss believes you have what it takes to be a Project Manager had been replaced by gloomy self-doubt. The project was on track, the team members was working well, and the client was happy, so what was the problem? Put simply, the Badger felt bogged-down with – in his view – unnecessary company bureaucracy and intrusion that encroached more and more on the time to lead the project.

In those days, all company employees had ‘a counsellor’, an experienced person outside the employee’s immediate chain of command, who acted as both a mentor and an independent performance appraiser. Employees met their counsellor formally twice a year, and one such meeting happened to be around six months after the start of the Badger’s project. At this meeting, the Badger shared his bureaucracy and intrusion misgivings and whether he was suited to a Project Management career path. His counsellor chuckled and said ‘Everyone initially struggles with scrutiny in their first leadership role because no one likes to be scrutinised. First-time project managers often underestimate the scrutiny that goes with the job!’ The counsellor was right. What the Badger labelled as unnecessary company bureaucracy and intrusion was largely the scrutiny that‘s part of good corporate governance and operational control.

The counsellor emphasised that embracing scrutiny was important because it builds trust and provides assurance that nothing is being hidden, whereas resisting it creates suspicion, distrust, and even more scrutiny! As an aside, they observed that the level of company scrutiny experienced can be a qualitative indicator of a company’s health, because the absence of it implies anarchy and ultimately company failure. Overbearing scrutiny of everything all of the time, on the other hand, suggests organisational constipation, risk aversion, stifled creativity, and likely underperformance compared with rivals in the market. The counsellor concluded with ‘As a Project Manager, you are actively managing your client and your team, but you must also actively manage your company scrutineers and their agendas’. Over subsequent years as a Project Manager that is exactly what the Badger did!

The Badger’s IT delivery career eventually took him into a senior, company-wide, delivery and business role that included being a scrutineer! Most of the first-time Project Managers he encountered as a scrutineer were better trained and supported and embraced scrutiny positively. Experiencing them trying to influence and manage the Badger was always fun, because when you’ve been in delivery for decades you know all the Project Manager’s angles and how not to be defected from your agenda!

It takes more than a job title to be good in a crisis…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business Continuity, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Risk

Crises can take many forms and happen quickly. They are inevitable at some stage for any organisation. They can be triggered by internal or external factors. Examples of the former are delivery difficulties on a crucial major project, bad decisions by corporate, subsidiary, or business unit leaders, and merger or acquisition integrations that go off the rails. Examples of external factors include a key client organisation collapsing, international turmoil, military conflicts, and disasters involving wind, fire, flood, earthquake, or pestilence. The Badger had some responsibility for crisis management during his IT industry career, which meant he learned a lot about the behaviour of senior people in emergency and crisis situations. In particular, he learned that some in senior leadership positions with impressive job titles, who one would assume are used to high-pressure situations, in fact struggle to be good in a crisis!

The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland reminded the Badger of dealing with the response to the ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull eruption in April 2010.  The ash created havoc by closing European airspace for five days. Many of his organisation’s key leaders, managers, and technical staff were stranded outside the UK unable to return to work after business trips or Easter breaks with their family. Clients, unsurprisingly,  clamoured for reassurance that the delivery of contracted  IT services and projects would continue normally. The first crisis management meeting was memorable due to the behaviour and attitude of one particular business unit leader. They had their head buried in their hands throughout in full-blown panic mode! They were negative about everything, blamed others for inconsequential things, and functioned in self-preservation mode rather than being collaborative and focused on finding solutions in the best interests of the whole organisation. Their behaviour exposed the fact to all present that they were irrational and unreliable under pressure!

Being good in a crisis takes more than just having a leadership job title! It requires a blend of skills, experience, and mindset. Training helps, but experience and mindset are crucial attributes. Leaders with hands-on crisis management experience handle emergencies better because they instinctively apply their learning from previous situations. They listen, think clearly, analyse information objectively, communicate clearly, adapt to circumstances, make sensible rational decisions, and inspire confidence. They remain calm under pressure, resilient to setbacks, and compartmentalise their feelings and emotions to stay focused on the job in hand. They acknowledge the feelings and emotions of others but keep everyone grounded in reality. Their job title alone is never a good indicator that they are good in a crisis!

Crises tend to reveal latent strengths within individuals, so don’t be fearful if you are asked to manage one. You’ll learn a lot about yourself, and you might even do a much better job of it than someone with a more senior job title than your own!

A world without Google…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business Continuity, Information Technology, Life, Online Services, Risk, Smart & New Technology, Technology

A feature entitled ‘Where would we be without Google’ appeared on the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) website last week. It’s an insightful, entertaining article that takes a wry look at how Google (or more properly Alphabet) has become part of today’s critical infrastructure and why we must let it stay that way. The Badger nodded in agreement when reading the author’s words that the world created by Google should more accurately be described as the world that we – consumers, society, and legislators – have allowed Google to create. The Badger also sympathises with the feature’s conclusion, that for the sake of humanity Google must never be allowed to stop because  nobody knows what might happen if somebody switched its services off. The consequences would be awful in ways that we haven’t envisaged.

Since every facet of personal, public, and business life involves risk, believing that Google could never be ‘switched off’ seems foolish, especially when big tech wields more power than governments, and global instability is on the rise. Switching Google off would be a digital earthquake that shakes the very heart of today’s connected world. Its likelihood may be low, but it’s clearly an identifiable risk and so it’s worth thinking about the impact if it were to happen? Do you know what the consequences would be? Do you know what you would do if you woke up one morning and Google wasn’t there? Probably not, because it’s doubtful that most people have this eventuality on their personal radar. To tickle your thoughts, therefore, here’s a brief sense of the impact if Google was ‘switched off’.

Our go-to source for answers, information, translation, scholarly articles, and academic papers (Google Search, Translate, Scholar) would vanish. A billion or more email inboxes, virtual meetings, and chats would fall silent (Gmail, Google Meet,  Hangouts). Travellers and delivery drivers would become disoriented and wander aimlessly (Google Maps). Online collaborative work would grind to a halt and documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and critical business files would disappear (Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides). Similarly, YouTube creators and viewers would lose their stage and access to content, smart homes would lose their brains, and thermostats, house cameras, and doorbells would lose connectivity. Marketeers and advertisers would find their strategies undermined, and businesses using Google Cloud would be disrupted. Your Android phone would need a new operating system. Just imagine the turmoil as you and a billion others try to adjust at the same time!

It’s unthinkable that Google would ever be switched off, you say. Maybe, but thinking about the unthinkable is at the heart of good risk management. What can we do to minimise the impact on ourselves? Well, the saying  ‘don’t have all your eggs in one basket’ comes to mind. It’s as relevant today as it was before big tech dominated the world…

Protecting your privacy…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Online Safety, Online Services, Privacy and Surveillance, Risk, social media, Technology

The arrival of a scam email, a television programme on Banking Scams, scurrilous AI generated images of Taylor Swift, news of a fake robocall using President Biden’s voice, and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre’s warning that the global ransomware threat will rise with AI, made the Badger think about protecting privacy this week.

The following facts underpinned his musing. LinkedIn, Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok were launched in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2011, and 2016, respectively. Amazon was founded in 1994, Netflix in 1997, Google in 1998, Spotify in 2006, and WhatsApp in 2009. The first smartphone with internet connectivity arrived in 2000 when life was very different, as neatly illustrated here. Over barely 30 years, tech and these companies have changed the dynamics of daily life, and what constitutes personal privacy, for everyone. These companies, fledglings 25 years ago but now more powerful than many countries, harvest, hold, and use vast swathes of our personal data. What constitutes privacy for an individual has thus inevitably changed, and, the Badger feels, not for the better compared with 25 years ago. What other conclusion could you make when huge data breaches and scandals like Cambridge Analytica expose individuals to security threats and privacy risk like never before? And along comes AI making the risk to individuals much, much worse!

Everything done online today is tracked and used for some purpose. If you use an internet-connected personal device then the world’s plumbing knows where you are and what you’re doing. When it comes to privacy, therefore, the old saying ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’ was much more relevant 30 years ago than it is today. With vast swathes of our personal data held online it’s hardly surprising that bad actors want to get their hands on it for nefarious purposes. As Channel 5’s  ‘Banking Scams; Don’t get caught out’ programme recently highlighted, just a small amount of your personal data in the wrong hands can make your life a misery. AI just adds another dimension to the potential scale of that misery.

With online interactions a norm of modern life and AI manipulation of images, video, and speech becoming more widespread, the Badger wondered if there’s something other than good cyber security practices that anyone can do to bolster their personal privacy. Well, there is. Don’t post photos, videos, or voice recordings of yourself on social media platforms! Your face, your body, and your voice are part of your real identity, so why make them easy pickings for anyone of a wicked disposition? The Badger’s lost the plot, you may think, but his fundamental point is this. Think about your privacy the next time you post photos, video, or voice recordings on a social media platform. After all, the responsibility for protecting your privacy fundamentally rests with you…  

The biggest challenge of 2024 and beyond…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Life, Online Safety, Online Services, Opinion, Press & Media, Public Institutions, Public safety, Risk, Smart & New Technology, Technology, Wellbeing

This year, 2024, will bring many challenges of one kind or another. Every new year, of course, contains challenges, some which already feature in our awareness, and some which don’t because they tend to emerge from leftfield in due course. The online world, the traditional press, and broadcast media provide plenty of opinion on forthcoming challenges at this time of year, but they tend to highlight things that are already the larger blips on our awareness radar. To start the year off, therefore, the Badger set himself a personal challenge, namely, to decide on the world’s biggest challenge for 2024 and beyond, one that deserves to be a much bigger blip on everyone’s  radar.

The following reality provided the backdrop for the Badger’s deliberations:

  • Life today is dominated by digital technology, global connectivity, the internet, automation, and an addiction to smartphones whose applications provide immediacy of information, anytime, anyplace, for ~75% of the world’s population.
  • Digital evolution continues apace, AI is advancing rapidly and cannot be ignored, international conflict is on the rise, politics is increasingly polarised, and the world order is under considerable strain.
  • Unforeseen natural, humanitarian, financial, and economic crises, are an inevitability.

A front runner for the biggest challenge of 2024 and beyond emerged quickly in the Badger’s thoughts, ostensibly because it had already been bubbling in his mind for months. He quickly concluded that this front runner was indeed the world’s biggest challenge. So, what is it? Put simply, it’s to stem the rise of distrust.

Trust is a fundamental component of cooperation, relationships of all kinds, business, service, and interactions between social groups and different cultures. Society is on a slippery slope to failure without it. Unfortunately, research over the last decade or so shows that our levels of distrust have been progressively rising. Distrust in politicians, governments, corporates, and their leaders continues to rise. Similarly, distrust of the internet and social media continues to grow as we all become more aware of data breaches, fake and weaponised news, misinformation, disinformation, online safety, security and privacy issues, swindles, and cyber-crime. AI seems unlikely to change the trend. The Badger thus feels that stemming the rise of distrust  warrants being the world’s greatest challenge if we want a better society for our children and grandchildren.

Addressing this challenge is not easy, but change starts when lots of people make small adjustments to their behaviour. This year the Badger has resolved to stem his rising distrust of  ‘pushed’ online content that has become the norm in our 24×7 online world. He’s breaking the mould, taking back control, and engaging with it differently and more selectively in 2024. New Year resolutions, of course, have a habit of falling by the wayside. It’s early days, but so far so good…

Electricity – Domestic self-sufficiency…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Energy and Energy Markets, Obsolescence, Risk, Smart Meters

When there’s international turmoil, it’s the average person and their families that are impacted the most. This hit home last week while chatting to the Badger’s aunt after the funeral of his uncle, Jim, her husband. ‘To save electricity, we haven’t watched much television in the last few years’, she said. ‘Jim has also told our electricity supplier,’ she continued, ‘that we’d only have a Smart Meter if they put the daily standing charge down to its 2017 level’. Jim, always a plain speaker, had little time for politicians and the energy industry, and he was perpetually exercised that the daily standing charge on his electricity bill had risen from 15p in 2017 to 48p today. He hated the standing charge. He believed it was a way his supplier penalised him for diligently reducing the amount of actual electricity he’d used over the years in order to keep within his pension budget.

Jim saw the daily electricity standing charge rise by 200% between 2017 and 2023. He was outraged that he must pay this even if he used no electricity. Explanations from politicians, regulators, and energy suppliers justifying rises were ignored because he didn’t trust them! In today’s world of instant information, disinformation, misinformation, and vested interests, perhaps that’s not a surprise, especially amongst the elderly, vulnerable, and those struggling to make ends meet. Jim didn’t want a Smart Meter because he already closely managed his electricity use. He didn’t see what benefit it provided and so he didn’t see why he should be paying through his bills for the rollout programme, especially when it provided little real benefit for consumers. (The rollout continues to struggle – see here and here – and further delay and cost look inevitable).

The Badger’s aunt asked if Jim was right not to have a Smart Meter. Before the Badger could reply, she answered her own question with ‘Yes’. She then asked, ‘Can I avoid the electricity standing charge by completely disconnecting from the grid?’ The Badger nodded. ‘When I was a girl,’ she continued, ’we used a wood-fired range for heating and cooking. The wood came from trees in the local area. It was stored until it was good to burn, and we used candles and paraffin lamps for light. I miss those days because things were simpler. We were self-sufficient and had no reliance on massive companies for our basic needs’.

Jim would’ve been very happy today if he didn’t have to pay £175/year in standing charges because all his domestic electricity was produced from renewable sources at his home. With international turmoil and volatility in energy supply a norm, the day that domestic consumers routinely vote with their feet and isolate from the electricity grid in favour of self-sufficiently is getting nearer. Jim, RIP, will be grinning at the thought…

AI, spooks, and red poppies…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, Life, Online Safety, Public safety, Risk, Security, Technology

The UK weather at this time of year is often variable, and this year is no exception. Rain last night decimated Halloween’s ‘trick-or-treating’ and sightings of ghostly spirits, at least in the Badger’s locality. However, those at this week’s global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park will no doubt have some fun ‘spotting the spook’ because there’ll inevitably be ‘spooks’ from shadowy organisations in their midst! The summit brings together governments, leading AI companies, and many others to consider the risks associated with rapidly advancing AI technologies, and how these can be mitigated via international coordination and regulation.

Given that it’s barely a year since ChatGPT was launched, the fact that this summit is taking place is encouraging. But will something tangible emerge from it? The Badger’s quietly hopeful, even though governments and regulators have historically been glacial and have only acted once a technology is already well-established. The UK government, for example, has taken almost 20 years to establish an online safety law to limit the harms caused by social media. AI pioneers have themselves voiced concern about the threats, and it will be a catastrophe if it takes another 20 years to limit the potential harms from this field of  technology!

With Halloween a damp squib, the Badger’s thoughts about the AI Safety Summit roamed fancifully influenced by November’s Guy Fawkes Night and Remembrance Sunday which are just days away. ‘Spooks’ from the shadowy organisations providing intelligence to governments will certainly push for more sophisticated AI capabilities in their operational kitbag to ensure, for example, that the chance of a repeat of Guy Fawkes’ 1605 attempt to blow up Parliament is infinitesimally small! Militaries will also want to develop and use ever more advanced AI capabilities to enhance their physical, informational, and cyber operational defensive and offensive capabilities. Inevitably, lessons learned from current conflicts will fuel further military AI development, but whatever any future with AI looks like, the Badger thinks that red poppies and  Remembrance Sunday will remain an annual constant.

The Badger’s grandfathers, and his father and father-in-law, served in the British Army in the two World Wars of the 20th Century. They rarely spoke about their experiences, but they were proud to have fought for the freedoms and way of life we take for granted today. Now all passed away, what would they think about the threat that AI poses to our future? Just two things; that an identified threat should always be dealt with sooner rather than later, and that we must never allow Remembrance Sunday to wither on the vine of time because it’s a reminder to everyone that it’s man who makes sacrifices to protect freedoms, not machines.

‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.’

The human dimension, not tech, underpins crisis management…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Conflict, Information Technology, Leadership, Risk, Technology

Sixty-one years ago, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of global nuclear war. Much has changed since that time in 1962, but the scope for catastrophic miscalculation in the corridors of power remains as great today as it was then. Why? Because at the heart of any crisis are people with power, strong personalities, egos, opinions, and different motivations. Having had experience managing crises, the Badger’s interest was thus piqued recently when a friend recommended the film Thirteen Days about the Cuban crisis. It’s based on two books, one of which was written by the US Attorney General in 1962 (Robert F Kennedy), and it dramatizes the US political leadership’s perspective of events.

The Badger watched the film and was struck primarily by two things. The first was that the technology in use during the 1962 crisis was ‘medieval’ compared with what we take for granted today. The film conveys well the fact that the Cuban crisis happened long before the internet, social media, personal computers, smart phones, video calls, digital photography, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and satellite constellations. Landline telephones, switchboard operators, teletypes, paper letters, memos and instructions, and non-digital intelligence photographs from U2 planes provided the  White House drumbeat for managing the crisis in 1962. Today’s technology means the drumbeat is different, computers dominate, information flows and communications are faster, and intelligence comes more rapidly from  open sources as well as from military capabilities etc. (Intriguingly, satellites and UAVs have yet to replace U2 spy planes; these are still in use and not scheduled to retire until 2026.)

The second thing was the human dynamics, the interactions  between political and military leaders, the diversity of advice on dealing with the threat, and the enormous potential ramifications of the decisions that rested on the shoulders of those present. Having been involved in crises in the commercial world, these human dynamics struck a particular chord, even allowing for some dramatic licence. Today, this same human dimension will still be happening as world leaders grapple with various crises. It’s worth noting that the US President, Secretary for Defence, Attorney General, and others, were positively youthful (late thirties to mid-forties) at the time of the Cuban crisis. Today those holding such posts are beyond pension age.

Commenting on this potentially ageist observation, the Badger’s wife asserted that in a democratic society it’s voters who have the fundamental, innate, responsibility to elect leaders with the rationality, capability, character, and vigour needed to make good judgements under intense pressure. It’s a point worth remembering perhaps, because although digital technology has come to dominate every facet of life since the Cuban crisis, it can’t provide any insight into what’s going on in the minds of those who have to make the ultimate judgements and decisions that could affect us all. At least not yet…

Are optimists, pessimists, or realists the most successful leaders?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership, Leadership & Management, Project Management, Psychology, Risk

The Badger was asked many times during his career to engage with delivery and business leaders encountering serious problems delivering a contracted project to requirement, time, and budget. These requests were often initiated by the company’s Chief Executive who simply asked the Badger to ‘chat with those responsible and see if you can help’. They knew the Badger would interpret the request as ‘get stuck in and get the  problems on this contract resolved’. Being aware of the personal traits of the people you deal with, especially those in senior positions, is crucial to interpreting what they really mean when they ask you to do something!

One such ‘how can I help’ conversation with a business leader proved memorable because it spawned a hypothesis that the Badger feels has been validated over the years. Although we knew each other in passing, it was the first time we had met for any substantive conversation. After some initial chit-chat, the business leader quickly focused on describing the delivery, financial, and contractual difficulties of their project. They had, apparently, already spoken to a couple of experienced staff about helping to resolve the difficulties, but neither was, in their eyes, suited to the task. They described one as a cheery but superficial, glass-half-full optimist, and the other as a pedantic, too laid-back, glass-half-empty pessimist. The Badger remembers wondering how he would measure up!

After an hour’s discussion, the business leader asked the Badger to help resolve the project’s problems, adding that ‘you are a realist and you don’t care whether the glass is half full or half empty, only that the glass is a receptacle to be filled with as much liquid as possible’. Their comment spawned a hypothesis in the Badger’s mind, namely that the delivery and business leaders who have the most success, and also the longest careers, are realists. Engagements with many diverse business and delivery leaders over the years have tended to reinforce the hypothesis.

Being a realist means having a personality with a propensity to take measured risks and take measured decisions. It doesn’t mean never demonstrating optimism or pessimism. Those with an optimistic, glass-half-full, leaning tend to be less risk-conscious, while those with a pessimistic, glass-half-empty, leaning tend to have little appetite for risk at all! During COVID-19, for example, glass-half-full characters might have seen themselves as less at risk and taken less precautions, whereas those with a glass-half-empty outlook might never have left their house at all. Realists, on the other hand, would have taken measured risks based on knowing that the virus’s impact mainly depended on age and underlying health.

The Badger’s seen glass-half-full, and glass-half-empty leaders be successful, but it’s the realists who’ve been the most successful and had the longest careers. Is the Badger’s hypothesis sound scientifically? Don’t know, but he’ll stand by it until a proper people expert shoots it down in flames!

This item contains nothing generated by Bing Chat…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Automation, Business, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, Life, Risk, Technology

The Badger’s been experimenting for some time with Bing Chat, an integration of the GPT model developed by OpenAI with Microsoft’s search engine. It’s been both fun and thought-provoking. The capability is impressive, which is why there’s been massive interest in the technology in the 6 months since the public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Many of the Badger’s interactions have made him chuckle, roll his eyes in annoyance, or better appreciate its use for good or evil, but every interaction has, in truth, reinforced why Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, calls on US lawmakers to regulate AI. This capability  has enormous scope to develop further. It’s already engaging the public and changing the way things are done, and it will continue to do so in the future. The Badger, like many, sees many pros and cons, but the primary outcome of his experimentation has been to crystalize the realisation that he must deal with how this impacts his content-producing activities like the writing of the blog you are reading now.

AI is destined to affect the activities and jobs of white-collar workers across a wide variety of industries (see here and here, for example). Indeed, the Badger can think of many functions and jobs that could be impacted by AI-centred automation in the IT industry alone. With perpetual improvement to make the profits stakeholders expect at the core of any business’s survivability, it’s inevitable that AI will speed up the drive for organisations to do more with less people, especially as employing people is expensive. Working in IT or tech industries doesn’t provide immunity from this impact, as BT’s recent announcement highlights. BT is cutting more than 10,000 jobs due to new technology and AI over the next 6 years. For employees in any organisation, therefore, this isn’t a time to stick your head in the sand; it’s a time to scan the horizon, think about how your livelihood might be impacted, and assess your options for countering the threat. All is not completely bleak, however, because AI seems unlikely to replace jobs requiring human skills such as creativity, judgement, physical dexterity and emotional intelligence. If these dominate your job, then the immediate threat is limited.

Experimenting with Bing Chat brings much of the media debate and commentary on AI to life. It’s made the Badger think seriously about intellectual property, ethics, and things like the transparency of content origination in a world where services like Bing Chat cannot be ignored. The Badger believes people deserve to know if any of the content they read online has been generated using a service like Bing Chat or Google Bard. Well, if you’ve read this far, then you can be confident that what you’ve read has been created entirely by a human being. It contains nothing generated by Bing Chat or any other similar capability.