Project & Operations Management 1 PDF

18:02 Okay guys, welcome. Let me turn on my camera. Do you see me? Can you see me? Okay, great. We are 47. I believe we will welcome someone else who is going to join. Okay, great. I really like the chat, and yes, we see the feed. Super, super. Okay, I have two screens, so from time to time, I wil...

18:02 Okay guys, welcome. Let me turn on my camera. Do you see me? Can you see me? Okay, great. We are 47. I believe we will welcome someone else who is going to join. Okay, great. I really like the chat, and yes, we see the feed. Super, super. Okay, I have two screens, so from time to time, I will look at that one where I can just see the slides, and on this one, I can see the chat open. So, tell me, the master\'s programs listed on this first chart---are they correct? I mean, that you are enrolled in one of these: Finance, Environmental Management, Sustainability and Circular Economy, and Supply Chain Management and Logistics. Okay? Okay, great. We are here today---tonight in Italy because it\'s 6:03 PM. I don\'t know if the class is being recorded right now. I believe yes? Okay, thank you to the tutor who started the recording. And I can go full screen. If I do it this way, I don\'t see myself. I think that you see the screen right now, or not? No? Okay, vanishing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, screen. Okay. I won\'t go to the presentation mode because if I go to the presentation mode, even on my first screen, I lose you, but I believe that it\'s kind of visible, right? This way, if there are parts that need to be enlarged, I will do that afterward. So why are we here? We are here tonight in Italy, but I don\'t know what time it is in your place. We\'ll see later because I will introduce myself and then will quickly ask some key questions to introduce yourselves with key facts that can make everyone feel international too, right? We are here because we will deal with this topic. She doesn\'t see anything? Can you read this, guys? I do see. I can see. Let me enlarge it a little bit. Maybe you are using your mobile? Okay? It\'s at 130 percent; it should be visible now. Okay, so meanwhile, we are now 55, 56\... Project and Operations Management. First of all, quick questions. Thank you, Doga, for helping me understand a little bit more about your background. Basically, I do not have much information because the school shares it with me, but it\'s also important for me to develop, to encourage a networking attitude. It can be very fruitful if you know people that are not part of your master\'s program, and then you add them on LinkedIn, and so on. So the first invitation I give you is to add me on LinkedIn. Antonio is my name, and I\'m very happy to be online in touch with the students from the business school. Over the last years, I should say, it was very great to establish relationships. Also beyond the school, I visited several countries, also in the Middle East and Northern Europe, with colleagues that developed their managerial careers, and we managed to stay professionally in touch. So, who of you---if we are---you already working? Yes or no? First question. You can quickly answer in the chat. Okay. So how many years ago---it\'s a question for all of you---it doesn\'t matter if you work or not---completed your education phase in your life. So when you graduated, or you did your, I don\'t know, master\'s degree or your PhD, how many years passed? Forward. Okay, Vincent, so great. So you will help for these two days. Ten years ago? Okay. Great, great. As you see, guys, we have an audience with different experiences and expertise, and this is very great, typical of the business school, where you can extract knowledge and insights from your colleagues as well. And for a course like this one, and with my methodology---very interactive---this is very cool, so we can also count not only on the experience of the teacher or the professor but also on the colleagues. Okay, who of you has studied Finance? We just say F means Finance. And Pharma or something else, we use H. And who studied Economics, right? E. And Supply Chain, right? So S in the chat. Okay? Okay, guys, Finance? Okay. Okay. Okay, Luca, Pedro, I believe it\'s Economics, right? Like Economics. Okay. Okay, okay. The last question: For those of you that work or are willing to work and have clear ideas about your future, who believes to be more effective on the managerial side of the company or on the operational side of the company? For those of you who know the main difference. So a manager basically is responsible for different types of tasks, sometimes has teams subordinated, but this is just a detail. A very technical and expert person about something is more in charge of operations. So O for operations, M for managerial attitude. Okay, great. So it\'s also very interesting, and I think that this is also in line with the experience of Rome Business School to have people that are developing their careers in vertical units of the company where technical skills are prevailing over managerial ones. And also colleagues that work more on the managerial side and colleagues that probably, as it usually happens in the job market, start with some technical commitment, then grow to become managers. Okay, so you could guess who I am and why I\'m here. The second slide is about the same course we are going to have for different types of master\'s programs and nuances with this idea different, but it\'s not the case for us. So, my name is Antonio Litzi. I\'m currently in Italy, but I spent part of my career abroad, especially in the UK and in Russia, where I was sent by an Italian national company, which is named Calzedonia Group. So you can see that after my master\'s degree in Human Resources and my degree in International Relations, I kept studying Business Management and got my PhD in Organisational Sciences. I kept studying; I kept teaching at the University of Verona, which is close to Venice---a beautiful city, by the way---for these four years, and I taught in several master\'s programs in Rome, in France, in Venice as well. In 2014, I left the academic area and joined the real economy, and I was sent to Moscow in Russia, running the Communication and Image Department of Calzedonia Russia first. And then for two years, I was responsible for the subsidiary in London in the UK, running both subsidiaries---the Russian one and the UK one. Then, at the end of 2016, I left the fashion industry and decided to join a media company which was named ACMG---Artcom Media Group---which published several magazines in Russia, international titles as well, such as Forbes, L\'Officiel, Gala (which is German), SNC (which is Russian), Numéro, L\'Officiel---they are French. As you know, Vogue Digest is American, and so on. When I joined this company, I joined as First Vice President; we were 500 colleagues. It was an interesting experience because for three years, we made the company more effective, more efficient. And since the company had been growing by buying other companies, there were many replicated departments; there was a lot of redundancy, which we managed to absorb step by step. I mean, asking people that were not so crucial to consider other job opportunities, and they got time to leave the company without firing anyone. It was an incredibly challenging period. And I came back to Italy in 2019. From the end of 2019 to 2023, I was a director within a foundation---Republic Foundation of the Ministry of Economic Development in Italy---which I left in October 2023. Currently, I am Scientific Director of Fondazione Academy, which is based in the Veneto area, and I keep writing as well. And for those of you who are Italians, I would be very happy to share this book---the PDF, obviously, the digital version--- which is a collection of 19 very extensive interviews with global leaders, also coming from companies, from the economic sphere, where we managed to focus on their failures because failure is always the best engine to grow into and to grow quicker than it naturally happens. We will spend together six hours---three tonight and three tomorrow. Tomorrow\'s class will open with quick multiple-choice shared experiences to make clear what we learn today. Today, I will give you some vocabulary, and for people who already work, it\'s also very important because, you know, within the organisations where we are engaged, sometimes we start to use nouns and concepts in a very organisational meaning. So if in Calzedonia I say we are gonna have this huge marketing project---for a company like---sorry, let me mute my phone---for a company like Calzedonia, \'marketing project\' is something that doesn\'t coincide with what a B2B company means when it says we focus on marketing projects. So it\'s very important to understand all together, in the same way, some key concepts. So basically, what are these six hours about? These six hours are about learning that when we work, when we act to reach a goal, we can be working on a project, or we can work within a flow that is not exactly a project but is more correctly an operation. So it\'s not that you feel that you are putting less energy or you are using less concentration when you work on the project or more on the operation side. But sometimes, it\'s important to understand that a project has specific frames, I would say, compared to an operation. And even the idea of being creative or trying to find a different way to solve a problem can be not only not advisable but even not allowed. And just an example---I will move from industry to industry to help you catch what I mean. If you are a doctor, and your goal is to perform ten operations a week, we can say that those ten operations---surgical operations---are ten projects, and we will see why they are projects. And if you want to invest time in the morning deciding the order of the patients that are going to be operated on, probably you can decide to do that without any fear or problem. But when you start an operation with that very patient, you cannot innovate in the sense that you change procedures, you change what you plan to do, according to what in medicine is called \'gold standard.\' So you have some rules you have to follow to perform that operation, that process. That makes what you are doing an operation, not a project. 18:20 So is a project the goal? No, a project is not just the goal. It\'s not that you perform ten surgical operations over that week, but the project itself can be judged at the end in the way you reached the goal. But the operation is not all. We can say that when you manage an operation, the way you do something is really the quality of your working. When you run a project, we can say that the result is the index of the quality. But when it comes to operations, the way you do things adds to the index of the quality. We will understand it step by step, but now what we have to keep in mind is that projects and operations are things you perform, and when you perform those things, you have limits that can be different if you are on the operation side or on the project side. So why are we here discussing projects and operations? Because unfortunately, in current life, in current organisations, what is a project and what is an operation is not so clearly divided. You cannot say, \'I am an operations man, I\'m an operations girl, I am a project guy, and you are a project guy.\' It doesn\'t work this way. Basically, to perform a project, to reach the endpoint of a project, you need to plan also how and what is important to do concretely. And you can, for sure, delegate the stuff or you can do it yourself, but it doesn\'t matter if you do it yourself or if you ask others to do it, since an organisation, as you probably know from other electives or basic courses you had, is like a complex unity of different professionals and skills. You need to understand what other people are doing. It doesn\'t matter if you are the boss or you are not the boss; if you don\'t understand what the colleague is doing and why the colleague requires more time, for instance, you cannot perform very well. So understanding within your own scope of work or within the scope of work of a group of colleagues you are part of---if you are performing an operation or a project---is crucial to succeed in that very project or in running that operation very well, or to succeed in your career path. For instance, now I\'m Scientific Director in this organisation. A Scientific Director is basically a person that runs a board of very different scientists. And you do understand very well, if you talk with an economist, he thinks in a different way than an engineer, than a doctor, than a professor at a university, than a dean of a university. My goal in that case is to work every day sharing the points of view of someone who is not the person working on something, to make him or her understand that you have to include---you have to integrate---the perspective of someone with a different operational set of tools, way of thinking, and planning. So if you think about IT guys, IT colleagues in the company, and logistic colleagues, they kind of share something like Gantt charts, like timelines, like the attitude to measure. But when it comes to discussing with the most creative side of your organisation---not only the marketing side, the product development unit, for instance, the after-sales assistance---in many big books, in literature, they are very close to creative people. So, who designs a product should be very in touch with people that assist when the product doesn\'t work because it\'s a matter of making the client happy in the usage of the product, sure. For sure, the product may not be working; you replace it, but creatively. Product people who develop the product and after-sales---the product after-sales service---it\'s very similar. So what we will understand at the end of these six hours is that project management and operations management need to be integrated because the integration---the quality of integration---we have impacts the performance of the entire organisation. There are companies that are project-driven, and there are companies that are operations-driven. You will understand that when we speak about innovation, we touch this kind of attitude of the organisation. For instance, if my name is Rolex, and in my company, well-established in Switzerland crafting watches, and I want to be innovative today, probably I will not work on the engine of the watch because the power of the organisation has been growing over time because of that mechanism, because of the internal side of watches. I will probably work on specific editions of the watches connected to something that happens globally---I don\'t know, Olympic Games, war games, whatever. What basically happens is that when we speak about innovation in Rolex, we work more on the project side. But if my name is Red Bull Formula One car, or Ferrari, or Mercedes---it doesn\'t matter---and we say the company this year has an incredibly high degree of innovation, it\'s exactly the opposite, probably differently than Rolex. When it comes to a car that should perform having high speed and great performance moving, the innovation will touch the internal side of the company. So the engine of the car is built according to specific procedures, knowledge, experience of people. You will see that innovation will require the operations managers to increase the value they give to the company, to adopt different strategies. So it\'s important to understand that in both cases---Rolex and Formula One---what we are searching for is growth. What does it mean? Growth means that you want to secure the future of your organisation. When you come with an idea and you say, \'I think we could do it that way,\' I always say to my colleagues---I want to call you colleagues, not students, because you already are in the job market---also tell together with your ideas what is the plus in terms of growth for the company. Maybe the company will not grow, and you do know tomorrow, but you have to explain what is the pillar, which is the pillar of your idea, and the pillar is also a perspective of growing. And how should this growth be? This growth should be sustainable, but when I say sustainable, guys, I don\'t mean it should be green or with a low carbon footprint or so. This, for sure, is part of something that today you have to do automatically; the generation requires it, and also we do know that the planet cannot be treated as it was treated when fewer people were consuming and fewer people were producing. What I mean when I say sustainable growth is that your idea that impacts the business positively should be able to impact continuously. Example: If I say we have a bookstore, and in September, in August, in October, many families visit the bookstore to buy books, also for kids, teenagers, university students, and we need to be effective and efficient; we need to provide a good service. If I work in the bookstore and I say to the manager of the bookstore---this is a very simple example, but to make you understand what I mean when I say sustainable---and I say, \'I believe that three people working in the bookstore are not enough. We should be more because we are slow; people get nervous; they even leave the bookstore; they go somewhere else. With more people working here\...\' This is your request: having someone else, extra hands to work within the organisation. But the manager says, \'Okay, what do we do at the end of October, November---maybe not December because you buy books to make gifts---when you don\'t have that line in the bookstore? You don\'t need all these people. What can you do?\' So what would you say, what would you answer if you are that person that just asked for more people? What would you propose? Can you write in the chat? Those of you that want to interact, to discuss? I say, \'No, people. I cannot hire any person because these new persons will not be needed when we don\'t need to sell so many books because we will have fewer customers.\' Guys, ideas? The question is, you are the person working in the bookstore, and you see that many clients come and visit the bookstore, and you believe that having more colleagues will help you. But the manager of the bookstore tells you, \'No, guys, because if I hire someone else now, then I don\'t need this person when the school period is over, when we will not have the same number of clients.\' Luca Pedro says temporary workers. So you hire someone for a certain number of months. This is an idea. So you even don\'t pay---you pay a little bit---you accompany the people working there with the other people. Then Claudia says, trying to optimize some processes. Claudia, good. Try to tell me more. How could you optimize? And also interesting, the verb \'optimize,\' making it perform better. With governmental projects, Dimitri states. Okay, Dimitri, what do you mean? Can you explain a little bit more in the chat? Temporary workers? Okay. Part-time. Process efficiency and other products to sell over the year. Stefano says something interesting. Stefano is saying adding other products that sell over the years. So selling---I say super strange---but I sell also beverages, and people will come to also order---they could buy beverages, for instance. Luca says plan some more efficient shifts, restart some screens for people waiting in line. Yes, Luca. Luca is also on the right way, and he\'s saying entertain people when they are waiting. Luca, correct me if I\'m wrong, but also not only entertaining in different ways with screens, tournaments, and so on, but making them be closer to the needs they have. So they can maybe scroll, look in the books they are searching for, and so on. Customers will be happy, he says, when they wait. Buba says outsource staff. So you don\'t hire yourself, but you work with some different companies which provide temporary workers, and it can be an idea. Someone brought up here in the chat, which is interesting---\'waste of motion,\' \'waste of transportation,\' Dalia. I believe Dalia wants to say you can sell books directly to their place; they will not visit; they will place orders. Implement self-service. This is interesting. Improve customer flow to reduce wait time. Luca is correct. Work until the end of the big peak. Or Seba says, \'Okay, three people probably with their covering schedule are not enough, but if they don\'t do what they usually do, they empty energies, and they can do themselves.\' You can have data analysis, depending on results. In the big time, you can have more colleagues in days with lower workload, measuring, imagining already matrices and tools to distribute the peaks, and so on. They can pay themselves. Seasonal workers, improve the process, analyze schedules with more customers, and put people to work accordingly. Maria Raffaella, yes. This is interesting: encourage people with a discount, for example, to shop online. Yes, it might be. We do know that we have to---what Caterina said is encourage---because we do know that when it comes to making people shift the way they usually do something, the way they buy, we should see that the switching costs are not so high, and they even not only don\'t have to face switching costs. Because when we change what we do and the way we do it, we want to feel ensured that we don\'t have to learn from zero again. But since you have to change something anyway, this discomfort is usually called the switching cost. That\'s why Caterina says maybe a discount can help. I would ask the hire to think long-term and invest, how to enter the rate of growth predictions for the company. Okay. I will flag \'growth perspective\' of the entire organisation. I would say believe in us and hire, and we\'ll make you happy selling. Where people look through a few books. Okay, it can be using data, process, streamline operations, reorganize the layout of the bookstore, make it customer-friendly. Yes, yes. Now, I tell you guys what McDonald\'s has done because McDonald\'s has the same problem. Many of you that are older than 30 maybe remember how McDonald\'s was 20 years ago? You remember you were entering the point of sale, you were standing in line, many cashiers were there, and the person in front of you could order, pick the product, could pay cash or by card. You remember it was messy. So cashiers were all-powerful, and customers were all mixed, and maybe you experienced that kind of fear of forgetting something or making mistakes when you were ordering because when finally someone was with you, your eyes were checked by your cashier: \'How can I help you?\' But very quickly, you know the people behind you are waiting, right? I\'m not saying something which is not known in your experience. So they made classes today, divided customers into clusters. So there are customers that want everything by talking to someone---in that case, a cash desk will be open to order. There are people that don\'t want to interact with anyone; they want to see what is there; they also want to learn what is there because they don\'t go to McDonald\'s every day. They can be of different ages; they can be tall; they can be kids; they can be old---with a big thumb or big fingers and a very image-driven menu. And there are people that say, \'I want to order, but maybe I want to change my mind. I don\'t trust this machine; I believe that I can crack my card; I want just to pay somewhere else,\' and you have cashiers that are waiting for you just to pay there. So you see they worked on all your elements, the elements you have mentioned, because they did work on the peak moments, and they did it in a way that could work in the peak moments when you were not facing peak moments. And streamline operations, reorganized the layout of the bookstore---the layout of McDonald\'s changed. And the future of McDonald\'s is to tell you that to pay and to order, you don\'t need to be at the point of sale. And this is an extension of what the drive-thru was already because when you drive and you pick your products, you don\'t leave your car. You see the benefit of staying in your car. But what McDonald\'s is also doing is that you don\'t require an extra table when you buy while staying in the car. So when you provide a service that increases the value perceived by the person, and at the same time you have to increase the value of the company. So given this, it\'s soft, and analyzing the democratic project management, then you create your process---exactly what you need to do. Then you can work on improving your operations, knowing about your demand. But this idea of knowing data very deeply is also about the project because when you decide to produce a new car for a market, you should know very much---or you should guess---if your client is your future car, and your future client is not using your technology. For instance, you are Elon Musk. You have to decide if you are going to sell the new Tesla, saying that it\'s for the first time in that market---in Norway, in Sicily where I come from originally (my family is from Sicily), or in Spain, or in the UK. Not only do you check the economic level of income of your possible customers, but you need to know what can make your project, your product, make someone else\'s success. If you go to London, there\'s a congestion charge to enter the city center---a person in the morning pays, I think, 40 pounds or something like that, just to enter some border and to reach the city center of London. Do you know that if you start from London---and maybe not from Sicily where people still drive and they park in front of the supermarket, close to the cash desk because they don\'t even want to walk to the entrance---this is a simple example---you have a higher probability of succeeding. So not only, then, Dimitri, knowing the demographics of your customers but of the market where you\'re working, and also encouraging people to download the app and to keep buying, for instance, from the point of view of the bookstore---that goal of selling more. Because since we know that motion is not only pollution, but it\'s also a kind of fatigue, tiring action for people, telling them the point of sale---the magazine, the megastore---comes to you, and you can buy anytime. It\'s a way also to justify, to explain, to support the idea of hiring someone else because when you hire someone else, the person could be physically helping customers of the bookstore in September, which is the season where it\'s needed to have someone else there. But in the other months, since you launched the new idea of the business---that is, having the app and asking your clients to buy online---the person could have a desk where he or she doesn\'t serve people physically but keeps working. So what we did was we jumped into a very simple example, and we saw how a multinational company like McDonald\'s managed to succeed. Let\'s think about finance. We know that banks don\'t issue credit cards or other payment tools themselves. Instead, we have networks like Visa and Mastercard---software systems that guarantee transactions. In the past, when we wanted to pay with a card, we had to go through a process. Having a card meant that someone in an organization like Visa had to convince banks to issue this rectangular piece of metal or plastic with your name on it, based on the balances in people\'s accounts. You had to wait several days to receive that card, and then the banks would ship them to customers. There were processes for replacing them at the end of the expiration period or if they were stolen, and so on. The project---relating back to our course today and tomorrow---was to provide people with the service of paying cashlessly. The operations you built up were to produce a card that could achieve that. But now, with companies like Revolut and many other big banks, they tell you that you can create your own virtual credit card with a specific amount that will expire in one hour because you want to protect yourself. You have one just to buy online. When you buy online, you either use a machine connected to your computer where you insert the card, or you simply fill out a form with the name and numbers on your card. This was the incredible shift. Many of you are very young, but when it came to using a credit card, no one could imagine not having an operational series of activities to physically create the card. But I have a question for you: if you are the head of the department at Mastercard that produces physical cards, and from tomorrow the company says, \"We are going to be fully digital. We are not going to physically produce credit cards,\" how would you react? You might react negatively because it brings your job position into question. But if you want to be creative and return to your organization---Mastercard---and say that you need to build a different future with them, what would you propose? For those of you in finance, we already have examples of how the physical production of credit cards is not declining significantly but is changing intrinsically. Changing internally means something on the project side is changing, and consequently, it\'s also changing the operational way of working. What would you suggest? You are the people who produce physical credit cards, and they tell you, \"We want to be totally digital. People will download their cards on their phones, touch the point of sale with their phones, and they will pay.\" Which future scenario can you imagine? You have to be convincing, guys. Let me explain. Please tell us more. Diversification is interesting, but there are people working in the production area. I\'ll give you an insight. Can you repeat the question? An area that physically produces credit cards. So when someone orders their credit card from the bank, the bank says, \"You will receive your new credit card in five days,\" and the card arrives to you. But with Mastercard, now we have the possibility to pay with our devices or buy online by entering the credit card number. Let me tell you, guys, next year we will not print hundreds of thousands of credit cards. We want to produce only 1,000 cards---much less---because people don\'t need the physical credit card. Integration processes are shifting to digital solutions. Is there space to keep producing credit cards physically? And if there is, why? What could work? \"Great loyalty cards.\" Can you tell me what is behind your answer? \"Virtual accounts.\" \"Yes, hello. May I speak?\" \"Please, go ahead.\" \"Yes, we have digital cards in our banks, but we also have loyalty cards where we accumulate points that we can exchange. But it\'s not digital; it\'s just a normal card. Is there an option to have it in the same bank? Same account, same app, same benefits---nothing different.\" \"Okay, let me think. Thank you. I\'ll give you some other insights. The idea is to convince them to implement a digital wallet. They have to develop on the same integration. If they---okay, you mean being changed so that the people who were producing can work on the new digital set of solutions for clients, right?\" \"Okay.\" There are things and brands that we like not only to have but to display. One of the ways that financial institutions have followed over the last couple of decades is through collaborations with people who frequently interact with specific brands. I tried to observe other companies\' needs---producing cards for other customers. I feel like producing these cards can be visualized. \"Yes, that\'s a good observation.\" Let me expand on what I\'m saying. You have people who frequently interact with some brands---for instance, travelers. So repeated purchases make those clients interesting because they are exposed to actions that make you count on them, get in touch with them necessarily. If you are also the company that gets in touch with your clients very frequently, you might offer them a solution that at the same time increases their loyalty toward you through a third party. So you are Delta Airlines or Lufthansa. Mastercard issues cards with two logos---Lufthansa and Mastercard. Maybe you like Lufthansa so much; you are a platinum frequent flyer, and you like to display that you are traveling with Lufthansa. Maybe for you, it doesn\'t make any difference, but I could say that if you own this card issued with Lufthansa and Mastercard, instead of getting 1% of miles when you fly, you get 30% more miles. So you see, I\'m giving you benefits not only provided by the financial institution but by the collaboration you establish. Why are you establishing the collaboration? Because you want to increase your customer base. So what I would say, in answer to the question I posed to the head of the department producing physical cards, is this: If I were the owner, I believe that our clients know us so well and trust us so much that they might switch to fully digital credit cards if they want to. But if you believe we can increase the customer base through collaborations---possible spaces for cooperation where we can acquire new customers by making them proud to be with us and us being proud to display them. Remember, when you give a physical element to someone with the name or logo on top of that product, this is a marketing action. People who are obliged to use something and show that logo are telling you they are not afraid to display it. This is like the small bottle of shower gel I found in a hotel recently. Hotels now place big dispensers; you don\'t see the brand, or they put the brand on top. But this kind of shape, this kind of branding that you put in your toiletry bag---and maybe you try to have not one but two; you call the reception and say, \"Can I have some more shower gel?\"---makes you aspire to have that product, and this happens somewhere, which is that hotel. You will also increase the perceived reputation of yourself with that. What I did: I kept producing cards; I managed to attract new customers. I made those customers ambassadors of my brand because every time they show this card, they display my brand. This is just to say that when it comes again to an idea that meets sustainable growth, we can discuss. Sometimes when it comes to saving money in organizations, we save money but we lose sustainability. Or when it comes to spending more money, sometimes it\'s not a good choice because we don\'t achieve sustainable growth. Sustainable growth is that kind of \"fil rouge,\" a leitmotif that connects good operational practices and managerial project sides. I told you that I would share some common definitions to establish a common vocabulary. What is a project? A project is an effort that different entities undertake for a certain period to create something, which can be a product, a service, or a result. If my project is to get my master\'s degree at Rome Business School, first I need to study what educational opportunities are available globally, find something I can afford and like, enroll, get accepted, join the open day, attend open classes if they have them, then put it in my calendar, accept the schedule, be here with Professor Alessia tonight, and encourage interaction. This is an effort that brings you to something unique that belongs to you, and it can be a product or the result. Getting a master\'s certificate is a result, but it\'s also a product you paid for. Why did you join Rome Business School? Because you want to get that product or that result? Actually, not really. But because with that improvement in your knowledge, you can do something else. You can grow in your career; you can show that you still want to learn. Also, to your boss---maybe your boss will not make you grow because you are bringing new skills or technologies. You pursue your master\'s degree, but he or she understands you want to grow because you are bored and don\'t want to lose connection with your teenage years or your university years, and you like to keep your brain active. These are not just the results themselves but what you get, which is what you call sustainable growth. So a project is temporary---something that doesn\'t last your entire life; that\'s not a project, maybe it\'s a program. We\'ll see that many projects together make up, in managerial vocabulary, the idea of a program. So it\'s something temporary that has a beginning and an end, and there are resources you need to undertake that path, that journey, and an idea of what is optimal in terms of reaching the end. What I\'m saying is that when you perform a project, you should be able to tell yourself if you used the right quantity of resources, if you used those resources in the best way, and if the goal you reached at the end was achieved under the right conditions. In economics, we call those things efficiency and effectiveness, and we will see that. Also, when it comes to operations, you use resources---that matters---but efficiency is the ability to use the resources according to what was planned. You can say to me, \"Reaching this intermediate goal requires three days.\" If you reach the goal in three days, you were efficient---what you planned was achieved. Very often, those who plan are not the ones who execute. For instance, Rome Business School decided the intake is from October to March, as you know, so you have to stay on schedule, and you can judge if you were efficient or not based on whether you followed the plan given to you. At the end of April, when you get your master\'s certificate, you can say you were effective---you reached the goal. If you didn\'t get it, you were not only inefficient because you invested time without results, but you were also not effective. But if you received your master\'s certificate not in April but in February, you were more efficient than expected, and you were effective---you became effective the moment you got your certificate. So this is to say that a project is unique; it is not a routine operation because today we might have a project in operations management; tomorrow we have project operations management, and then it\'s over---you keep doing something else. So the content of the course will change. But to get your master\'s certificate, I told you already, you have some ideas of the streamlined resources, the number of hours you have to invest in studying, and this is what we call a set of operations. So guidelines, rules, instructions are part of the operational side of a project. A project contains and includes things you have to do that we call operations. So a unique, one-time operational activity or effort---for example, constructing houses, factories, shopping malls. The examples you will see here move from something very material, very solid, to something very liquid or even immaterial---introducing new products into the market. It\'s a project. Steve Jobs or Tesla or Netflix, when they say, \"We are introducing a product,\" or \"We are increasing prices,\" like Netflix is doing now with subscription fees---it\'s a project to introduce even a different price of subscription. So can we say a project is any kind of target and operations are the ways of achieving it? Actually, yes, we can say that. And now we see that what we call operations---the ways of achieving---don\'t always have the same importance. So when it comes to defining what is strategic, we have to put in a specific order the ways you plan to achieve it. If planning a concert or a football game is a project, the operations of moving a football team from the airport to the stadium are crucial to make that football game happen. So there are activities that we call operations that, if they don\'t happen, the project doesn\'t happen. And then you don\'t know: is that activity part of the project or operations? I would say, for instance, that moving a football team from the airport to the stadium is a project itself because it\'s so crucial that the entire project can fail. This is a short summary of what we are going to see. What I did was expand on descriptions and examples that we can quickly organize into a well-structured format. If I mention \"foundational concepts review,\" it\'s basically these few definitions that we need to have in mind to proceed together. Strategic alignment---you understand when I say to align means to put on the same level, meaning the operations perspectives and the projects perspectives. Resource allocation and utilization---exactly because you allocate resources for the project and you allocate resources for the operations. Performance metrics---you are brought to measure, to understand data, the importance of measuring. But to measure, you need to collect data. To have metrics, you need to think from the very beginning about how to be able to use metrics; you need reliable data. Change management---it is what I mentioned before: I produce physical credit cards; I want to go digital. Should I do it? Shouldn\'t I? What we consider the \"fil rouge\" is sustainable growth. Risk management goes hand in hand with the possibility of innovation. It\'s a new frontier; we can find new opportunities or perhaps not find any new ones. Technological integration---I will provide examples tomorrow on tools, apps, software that keep operational people and project people updated and help them communicate throughout the process, along with some case studies and examples. If you have questions, please write them in the chat. Are you tired? Is everything clear? Let\'s do a quick check. I see that 2,036 messages were shared in the chat, and we have 67% of participants interacting. I like to have very high-performance metrics, so I appreciate these messages because I understand how boring or risky it can be to fall asleep when you don\'t speak and just listen, especially not being in the same room. So, so far, any questions or observations? Please, Maria? Okay, guys. Yes? Okay, now, I want to show you how vast your geography is. Can you write just the country where you are right now and the current time? Country or city and the time---Denmark? Guys, we are very international. This is amazing. We collect cultures and perspectives. Okay, 8 p.m., 11:44---you might be tired. I hope we\'ll be able to keep you interested and engaged. 309 messages, 82% of participants---amazing. I want to see this percentage growing. Foundational concepts---by the way, at 7:30, if you like, we can take a 10-minute break to drink some tea or coffee or water, visit the restroom. So, okay, and we\'ll meet back in 10 minutes. Enjoy. Okay, here we are. Yes. Yes. Stupid---I like the movie. In time, maybe someone has their microphone on, but this is not a bad sound; it\'s interesting. I have two kids as well. So, sharing the screen. I am going to share the screen again. Okay, so we were on this slide. So we saw the life cycle of the project; let\'s see, like in a mirror, the life cycle of an operation. So who is responsible for operations? Let me enlarge it a little bit, but I think it\'s very visible. You don\'t plan, monitor, execute, or close it as you do with projects; instead, you design, implement, and improve. This is what you do with operations. Imagine that the operation in a Formula One race is to replace tires. So cars enter the pit lane; they want to stay for 10 seconds. In those 10 seconds, the driver is in the hands of a team that\'s around the Formula One car, replacing tires. The person responsible for that tire replacement designs what should be done, and that\'s why we write here: \"Design the operation system or product.\" The product is changing the tires, considering capacity, supply chain, and workflow. It\'s very clear what has to happen, and it\'s not something unique like a project; it\'s something that keeps occurring because they will change tires in every race one or two times throughout the entire championship. After you have designed---I like \"design\" rather than \"create\" or \"plan\"---I use \"design\" because it gives you the idea that you have space for creativity, even when it comes to operations. Then you implement. So the Formula One car enters the pit lane, and you have to make sure that what you designed is executed, establishing and conducting operations to produce goods or services continuously. And also, as you know, because you have your stopwatch, you see how many seconds you use, and so on. At the end, you see if your previous tire replacement---your pit stop---was done better or worse than the last one. So this is a great example to help you understand why improvement goes hand in hand with the idea of running operations. Someone says that on the global scale, it\'s not only those who are stronger or have specific equipment, economically speaking, but unfortunately, in geopolitical powers and possibilities, who often succeed, but also those with better metrics in doing and producing. So this is really important to understand---it\'s not a one-time understanding of who is greater in business when we speak about operations, but those who keep improving. Because it\'s like a race or some business, and your counterpart will try to be better. You have to keep trying to defend your position if you are ahead or to be better than the others. So ongoing efforts to enhance efficiencies and effectiveness, incorporating feedback loops and quality management principles---this is really important to understand. There is, as I said before, something that is not very clear---whether it\'s more operation or project; you can mix that. You can say it belongs to your responsibilities, or \"No, it\'s on you,\" and so on, especially when someone fails. \"Mohammed says, \'Better designs produce more efficient results.\'\" \"Exactly, exactly. Also, the ambition, I would say, when you design, makes the outcome better. And there are moments when you move from project to operation, and these are called transition points. And the goal is to have people or units that understand both languages, both perspectives, both life cycles. So from projects to operations is when a team that runs the project releases the outcome to the operations team, and this is very critical, as it\'s written there, because you cannot do that if you don\'t provide not only the current outcome but what was done before. We saw that in the United States, they voted for the new president, and they speak about transition---it\'s going to be smooth, and so on. Basically, this is interesting because someone told me that it\'s like going to another class---what do you mean? We say political transition doesn\'t actually make sense because one point of view is very often replaced by different points. But the point is that to run different ideas on a path that you had, you need to know who is there, where it\'s going, what was done so far. That\'s why here I specified, including in this slide: it includes training, documentation, and information about what was done before. It doesn\'t matter the direction---you need to manage this handoff and make something in the organization traceable, to provide information about how things were done. Guys, you have to make sure that your colleagues, whether they have bigger responsibilities or smaller ones---it doesn\'t matter---collect traces of what they\'re doing. A good manager or a good operational manager pays attention to that. You have to be able to explain what happens step by step, especially because when things don\'t work, you want to be able to understand what didn\'t work. And to be able to understand that, you use most of the time---even if you don\'t name it this way---what is called root cause analysis. So you go back, and you see, or you start from the very beginning, and you say, \'Up to that moment, it worked. Then it seemed that everything was fine, and then within what we planned, what happened?\' You want to know where to work to improve. To do that, you need this attitude to trace, to have records. So this culture of accounting is very important. And these things that move from the project team to the operations team usually provide documentation to the incoming team. \'Mohammed says, \"Projects hand over from construction team to patient.\"\' Exactly, exactly---construction, yes. Thank you, Mohammed. And it\'s a very clear example because when you move, for instance, from phase to phase or different phases, you need documentation. You need this documentation, which is sometimes validated by third parties because you want to make sure that what is given to you is reliable. That\'s why the system of having audits, the quality department, is also a great example of transition points. The transition point is very often managed by the quality unit. So the quality office traces and keeps tracking what was done throughout the process. It\'s important that not only do you have tools to have records, but also to inspire a culture based on feedback. And we know that the person doing something knows more than the observers. What is important is to provide tools and mechanisms to collect their feedback, observations, and ideas, and someone else who is able to organize and structure the information will translate it into actionable work. I wrote \'actionable project inputs\' because I like this idea of the key in the engine. When you turn on an engine in the car, you turn the key. The car engine doesn\'t work if you don\'t turn the key, but to turn the key, you need the driver sitting there, or you need an application.\"