 Welcome back from that report. Now the success of Glass-Kill Capital Project depends on the ability of a project manager to bring together diverse and multi-locational teams. This is more pronounced in the public sector as project managers must also deal with the multiple stakeholders whose opinions could strongly influence the outcome. In line with this, there is a need for governments and organizations to focus on appropriately planning and executing project that can create business value, deliver, benefit, and drive return on investment. Now Boloho Oylaki is the managing director of Infinity Points Nigera Limited, a growing technology driven product and service engineering company and executive director of Casting Crown Company, one of the leading green building and environmental sustainability firms in Nigeria. He is a seasoned and versatile architect whose experiences in green building solutions, environmental sustainability, project management, ad tech, and social work span across over 15 years. He is a member of a number of local and international professional buddies. He is currently the president of International Ad Tech Association of Quantic School of Business and Technology, the United States of America, and the outgoing vice president of the membership and knowledge of the Project Management Institute Nigera Chapter. He joins me now to discuss further on project management in the country. Many thanks for joining me Boloho. Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. Now so let's start by talking about project management for those who don't really understand it. What is it really and how influential is it in organizations in Nigeria or beyond Nigeria? Okay, thank you. First and foremost, I want to appreciate the privilege to come here to talk about project management because one of the things that we haven't given more concentration on is the fact that would not be amplifying the way we need to talk about project management because everything about life is about project. So let me begin to define what a project is. A project is a temporary endeavor that you undertake in order to deliver desirable outcomes. I mean, better than that definition, a whole number of things that need to be underscored. Temporary endeavor, there are things that you get to do over a period of time, time bound, that is focused on delivering value to people. The current situation we find ourselves in today is the fact that we live in project economy. There's a concept that was developed years ago in project management institutes that we call project economy because there's a need to drive value. There's a need to amplify the presence of value in whole of humanity. So coming back to, I mean, talking about project management and why it is important, when you look at the vast activities that have been undertaken by men, on a temporary basis, which makes it qualified to be a project, the way we go about doing those things does not necessarily end in delivering value to people. The outcomes are not desirable as such. When you look around in a community here in Nigeria, in Lagos states and across the different states, you see the way governments impute money, I mean, devote money to carry out the different endeavors, projects, programs. The end result does not necessarily deliver value to people and that's why the whole of questions that have been haxed by masses. So how do we change these narratives? That's where the imperative of project management comes in. Product management gives a clear indication to how projects need to be properly conducted. There are standards, there are measures, there are principles, there are processes that are to be followed. Things are not done, like as if they are not well guided. They are guided principles, there are standards that need to be followed, that need to be known and the interesting thing, like I keep telling people what you don't know, you don't know. Why people go to school to study is because they need to acquire knowledge, basic knowledge, know the principles that are under guard, particular discipline for them to be able to practice within the confines of the standards. This is what project management is all about. Okay, so in particular, I noticed you mentioned the projects economy, so is there a correlation between project management and project economy? Yeah, exactly. So project management is more like the general standards, is the discipline it's where, I mean, that on the guards, the performance of projects, okay, it helps for you to understand how projects need to be organized within the project environment. So when you're talking about project economy, it is a concept that has been developed by Project Management Institute to explain the need for us to drive value. It's about value proposition. We're not just going to embark on projects simply because we need to carry a project. Human endeavours have to be defined with a singular goal of delivering value to people and that's what project economy is all about. Okay, so let's talk about project management and how we can actually spur it and to make it better in terms of creativity and, of course, innovation. So how can that be brought to bear in the work of our project managers? Okay, let me start from behind, you know, talk about what the roles and responsibilities of project manager are to be. Again, it starts from acquiring knowledge. Okay. You know, when we're talking about the project management discipline itself, it's not just enough to say I've gone to school, I've studied, you know, just like medicine, you know, you have medical students go through the entire learning process, then come out, go on a year internship, the colleagues' housemanship, then afterwards, you know, when you graduate, you are meant to proceed for your professional certification that will give you license for you to practice. The same thing applies to the field of project management. When you've gone to school to study whichever relevant discipline it is, it is important for you if you want to go, you know, on the trajectory of practicing as a project manager, you need to be satisfied. So the question I used to pull out there is when you're looking at project management discipline, in its entirety, you cannot rule out the certification for project managers, people who are meant to carry out the discipline, who are meant to practice the discipline itself. And I think that's where the issue usually lies. So, I mean, look at the hurries of project managers, do we have the question we need to access, how many of them are satisfied? So now bring it back to the question you asked. When you have all certified project managers practicing, all you will have as a result is quackery. All you will have as a result is non-delivery of heart combs. Because we have like lots of people now, they tell you that they are project managers and I wonder if they have certification at the part of PMI and all. It's so, I mean, so, so annoying, really, when you look at the industry generally, okay, I think it started, not necessarily with project management, started with other discipline within the industry, where everybody just assumed positions and take on roles and responsibilities. And unfortunately, we have regulatory bodies who are supposed to ensure that we don't have quackery practices, we don't have sharp practices as a tool, but I think private management is now driving the need for us to return back to, you know, what's supposed to be the actual practices. So licensing and certifying project managers will present themselves in the field of practice for them to be able to do the needful, because like I said, there are standards, there are processes, there are principles, and there are people that need to be considered. These values are meant for human beings, are meant for hosts to, you know, embrace and relate with. But when the certified people are not hard, I mean, are not put out there for them to be able to deliver these values, what we'll have is no value. You know, and that's what we'll have, you know, across board in the different industry. Okay, let me take you back to last year at your conference, which was some things, resolving project failure, issues in public and private sector. So at that particular conference, I remember there was a call for national policy to address some of these challenges with project management and project failure in the country. So so far, it's been about eight months, have things changed or what's different in that line? That's that's a very good question. Unfortunately, by my personal appraiser, you know, not, I mean, not much difference has been achieved in the past eight months. And of course, there are many reasons that one can easily put forward to explain this. I mean, we just came out of election, and that took quite a number of essence from us. And of course, we all know the way election process is in Nigeria. Once there's election, many things, those are stores and all of that. So then coming out of elections, things are just trying to pick up, you know, dealing with inflation, dealing with a lot of economic challenges and crises are there. But generally, the focus for us in pre-element institutes in Nigeria is the fact that we need to establish more collaborative efforts. We need to collaborate more with people within the industry, professionals within the industry, for us to drive, you know, and emphasize more on certifying professionals for them to be out there to practice as a certified project managers. Then second, I'm aware that there's already a hack, I mean, unhacked, established in place, you know, CIPM unhacked of 2010. You know, one of the things we're, you know, trying to focus on is how to ensure that this act, you know, is fully implemented, because if the hack is fully implemented, it's going to resolve, have initial, all the essence of the problems that we have, you know, in the industry. And one of the hacks is about even the process of acquiring the knowledge in project management. We need to go back to curriculum in schools. What exactly are people learning? Okay, is project management also seen as a critical learning tool? Is it seen as a critical learning curriculum that needs to be imputed just like everybody's talking about technology now, because that's the future. So whatever course you're studying, you need to have an integration of technology in it. Likewise, project management. And is it also interesting to know the project management is a skill for life. So it goes beyond just looking at the formality of project management. Individually, we perform project every day, we engage in different intervals, which underscore what the meaning of a project is. So everybody needs to acquire the skills as a project manager. Okay, before we take a break, I'll just ask one more question. We'll take a break and we'll talk about building collapses and of course the role that MPMI plays in all of that. I read a report. It's on an AU agenda of 2063. Look at that project management in Nigeria and of course maybe the continent. Do you really think that we have this skilled manpower to achieve the strategic framework for delivering on Africa's go for inclusive and sustainable development? Interesting. I'm happy to inform you that this is at the forefront of activities. I mean, in the past few weeks and hope until the end of the year. In fact, we're having an African conference a few months time, specifically in September and this is one of the things that will form the base of a conversation during the conference in Kenya. As project managers, we always seek to contribute to the development of a continent, Africa. So one of the things that we'll be doing in the conference is to drive meaningful conversations around how we can participate in achieving the AU 2063 goal, which is achieving one Africa. One of the things, one of the hordes that have happened to us in Africa through colonization and other effects after post-colonization is the fact that we have that divisive mindset. We don't see ourselves as a united continent. You go to other African countries and they don't see that brotherhood. So there is no collective efforts in developing a continent. These are one of the things that this conference is going to be driving and also be addressing. I'm talking about the hangul of sustainable development goals. We know that the current goal is targeted towards being achieved by 2030 and for us to be able to accomplish that, there are a whole lot of things that have to be done currently. We look at the timeline from now to 2030. In just seven years and there's still a lot of gaps that need to be filled. So we're hoping that some of the standards, some of the principles, concepts that were developed, including project economy, which basically focused on driving value. A part of what we're going to be developing, creating new streams of projects that are focused on delivering value to people across different industries, across different value streams and also empowering people with knowledge because knowledge is key. Education is a key to every form of development. So one of the things that we're also going to be focusing on is how we can move into the education sector to empower youth, have student inclusion in what we do as an organization. I was talking about building collapse, building collapses, which is like a major trend in most cities, Lagos and some other cities in Nigeria have been affected by that scourge. What is the role of a project or PMI in all of that in curbing this issue and just what can be done to have a turnaround on all of this mess as it were? You call it a mess, high quality menace because when you look at the effect of building collapse, it goes beyond just the people who are directly involved in the process of the collapse. The environmental impact is also there. In the past few months, when you look at what had happened in Lagos state for instance, it seems government is now waking from, I don't want to say slumber, but taking up responsibilities to be at the forefront of leading the vanguard to ensure that we eliminate quackery practices across the built and the construction industry. Menace because the people who are supposed to be the practitioners, the certified practitioners are not really the one practicing in the field. I'll give you a very good example. When you want to board a plane, you make your bookings, you have your tickets, you get to the airport and you're taking through the process of being embodied into the plane and you sit in the plane. The hostess come and tell you all giving certain instructions. Everybody listen because they know this about their life. I mean for safety purpose, you strictly adhere to whatever instruction that is given and next it turns over to the pilot. So the next voice you hear is a pilot over the microphone. Ideally the pilot will introduce himself to you, similarly because he needs to affirm to everybody because that's the point of understanding about safety that the person in charge of this trip is qualified and is satisfied for him to lead everybody. But that is not the case usually in the built industry and this is one of the reasons why we have this consistent narrative about collapse. When you look at the number of people, I mean the practitioners in the built industry, everybody, I mean there's this cliché, there's this understanding that it is not a rocket science. So you will see everybody who are supposed to be practicing, practicing, okay, because it is generally believed that oh it is what anybody can do. So we need to change that mindset. So one of the things we are doing for the Pre-Imagement Institute of Nigeria is to educate people on the right practices, how projects need to be organized because Pre-Imagement is about organizing a project. So as a certified project manager you know what the principles, the processes that are meant to be followed for you to derive the desirable outcome. So we need to educate people. Then second, we also tell people more about the need for certification because what you don't know, you don't know. So people need to seek for knowledge. So we have engineers who don't know the processes and principles of project management. The fact that they are certified engineers does not automatically make them competent project managers. So we also go through the process of educating the professionals in the built industry for them to see the need to be certified so that they can acquire the skills and competencies that will help them to navigate through the processes in project management. Alright on the final notes now, in my intro I talked about uncompleted projects in Nigeria. At the time of sometime last year it was estimated at about $12 trillion and the reports also said that about 56,000 abandoned projects exist in most sectors across the country. How do we stem this tide of uncompleted abandoned projects and so Nigeria's can actually begin to get the benefit of you know the dividends of democracy and of course what they are paying their taxes for. The first thing that we stand on which I want to emphasize again has to do with the concept of project economy and that is the narrative around value proposition. Every project has a project objectives and project is time bound. You know from initiation to the closing or completion of a project you know you have to consistently define the kind of value that you want to derive out of the project. Most times this is not the case when it comes to public projects so we need to begin to look into that when a project is being initiated in the public space we have to ensure that value is being optimized, value is what drives the narrative. Then second we have to continue conversation. I mean there has to be continuous evaluation and continuous conversation around the need for us to practice project management the way it should be practiced on projects. Then also there has to be these collaborative efforts I mean to reverse the case the menace is not what the government alone can do because of capacity. So government need to see the need to collaborate with the institute to collaborate with other stakeholders within the industry in order for us to bring all our efforts together to change the narrative. All right thank you so much and Bola Ho for your time. Thank you. I do appreciate it. Bola Ho, you're lucky has been my guest he is the managing director of Infinity Point, Nigeria Limited. He's an architect, he's a visitor, he's a seasoned one and he's had over 15 years in environmental sustainability and project management at the Spantakross, a private and public space. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. All right and that's the size of the show for today, a business insight to return to again tomorrow. My name is Justin Akadoni. Let's do it again next time. Bye for now.