I am glad the Silicon Valley Bank depositors will get their money back . Now the world can take the time to debate and fix the underlying problems .
As always, this is strictly my personal opinion and nothing more
This was not really a Lehman kind of scenario like a lot of social media posts seem to imply. It’s more of the classic “run” scenario . When there is mass panic and every deposit needs to be yanked out quickly – I doubt any bank can survive that , including the very big ones. That said – there is no excuse at all for SVB not managing their risk competently .
Banking business model – and the regulatory frameworks that need Banks to hold certain amount of highly liquid assets – generally assume a scenario less catastrophic than a full on run .
The primary question now in my mind is on what will change about risk management at banks – and potentially the regulations around it .
The last round of big changes were made because of the 2008 crisis . Those regulations were made when technology was not as advanced as it is today. The kind of run we saw in old movies and read about in college – they had long lines of people waiting at branches to take money out via tellers . Sure in 2008 there were smartphone apps – but not everyone had them . High speed internet was not as widely available . And social media was not yet the thing it is today .
It meant that people needed a bit of time to act because of the inherent inefficiency of banking processes .Now there is very limited friction . If a founder panicked seeing the VC’s email to pull money out of SVB – the instinctive response probably was not to go find the 8-K filing of SVB . The more likely scenario is a quick look at social media groups , Twitter etc and then do a wire transfer on the phone . The run in this case is a lot faster than any time before in history . Maybe we should find another word instead of “run” to refer to this in future !
I know that Banks do evaluate technology risk carefully – and so do regulators . But that’s about systems not crashing , being auditable and not causing trouble to customers and so on . Frictionless transactions have always been a good thing . Managing the risk of advanced tech and social media (which is also about great technology that advanced fast) fuelling a Bank run will be a new risk management muscle to exercise for all parties – but one I am sure they will start thinking about seriously and real quick !
Train to become a project manager and if you don’t get to the top of the class , apply for the hostage negotiator role at FBI 🙂
I am joking of course – but when I look back at my own career where I have managed projects, the skill that made me successful was my ability to negotiate . Since then I have moved on to other things, but the people who have my respect the most are the folks who lead successful delivery of projects . Time and again , I have seen that people who have PM roles succeed or fail depending on their negotiation skills
If there is one role that I think is even harder than that of a project manager – it’s that of a product manager . These poor souls usually have zero authority and all the responsibility to get things done . But I digress … let’s get back to project managers
The negotiation experience starts before you even win the work . There are some great PMs who are always in demand . Everyone wants them . These PMs know what is in store once they say yes to a project – and start negotiating with the sales team , top management etc to make sure they are front and center from the beginning of the sales process so that undeliverable stuff doesn’t get promised ( or god forbid get written into actual contracts ) . Not all PMs are that lucky
What is the first law of projects ?
It’s like laws of physics – you have to take it as a given. Entire discipline of project management is based on the fact that you can’t outrun Murphy’s law . Agile vs Waterfall doesn’t matter – Mr.Murphy is an equal opportunity flame thrower . You will rarely have easy decisions . You need to be ready to make “lesser evil” decisions all the time . It’s a “character building ” exercise 🙂
What is the second law of projects ?
I am just going to call it Vijay’s law till someone else lays claim to it – it states “all problems are caused by people and hence all solutions also are about people” . Stack the deck in your favor with the best people for each role whenever you can . Technology , budget etc are all people problems ultimately !
What is the third law of projects ?
Bad news doesn’t get better with time . Communicate bad news earlier than later . What makes stakeholders cranky is not usually failure – it’s the thought that they could have done something to stop the problem if only they knew sooner . Try hard to not surprise people to the extent the first law of projects let you . That’s half the battle .
What is the fourth law of projects ?
Take all the help that is available when offered , and keep asking for more when you need it . Heroics are unavoidable in many projects – but do t let that be the first solution option .
What is the fifth law of projects ?
Know the contract , but don’t use it as a daily weapon in the project . Your job is to make sure everyone involved understand what is the problem to be solved and why it is a problem that needs to be solved . PMs who don’t understand the WHY usually fail . Knowing the WHY also helps frame the deviation from scope , funding and timeline in the proper context 
What is the sixth law of projects ?
The current project is always the worst project ever ! It will look ok after you have moved on to the next project . In other words , remember that projects have end dates and hence don’t panic on every small thing that happens in day to day execution . I have had absolute nightmare projects – and now I can joke about it .
Looking back at 2022 – the first question I ask is “are we really at the end of the year already?” .
My quick reflections follow – as always , this is all strictly personal and have nothing to do with my employer
First some “personal” stuff
Thrilled for our daughter – finished her high school in 3 years with summa cum laude , and finished her first semester of college being on Dean’s list . And she is having fun making new friends, traveling etc
Very grateful for the great team that I am part of . Thanks to them – I could effectively do two roles this year, and I feel confident walking into my new role as the managing partner for Financial Services (FS) next week .
Totally feel bad for Archie who didn’t get as much time with me this year thanks to me getting a little too busy with work . I have promised him I will do better next year . Ollie has no complaints – and has been holding my hand throughout webex meetings
Got to hang out with my mom a lot more this year than usual and I hope to do that next year too
Reading has been a bit of a casualty – though it is slowly getting back to normal .
And now some “work” stuff – largely my observations on the financial services industry
There are two trends in financial services that fascinate me – apps moving to public cloud a lot slower than people thought , and big data moving to cloud much faster than the original Datawarehousing wave in the past . Companies have a real challenge sweating their legacy investments and making use of all the innovation goodness available now .
There are very few clear boundaries in IT anymore – to stay relevant, we need to acquire multiple skills and keep learning . Long gone are the days when 5 days of training a year kept me on the bleeding edge of SAP . We need some serious thinking urgently on how to up skill rapidly and at scale
FS companies are getting religion on “product vs project” approaches . I am sure 2023 will see the demand for product manager type folks go through the roof
It’s very good that FS companies have strict regulations to comply with – we are all protected because of that . I am not totally sure though if the design and implementation of existing solutions can be called thoughtful . The industry can and should make use of ML and automation a whole lot more – and even more importantly take a second look at existing workflows to see if they still make sense .
Perhaps the biggest untapped opportunity in tech now is the under utilisation of junior talent . This needs urgent attention . There are very few things in tech that need everyone in the team to be highly skilled and experienced . I implemented their party logistics systems , pricing engines and so on as a junior developer – mostly by learning new stuff on the job . That was not the exception – that’s how all of us worked at the time . Today most companies won’t take you into a Dev team to do basic file handling if you don’t have a couple of years experience ! When people cry about lack of budget to do fancy projects – I often make this suggestion , and am constantly amused by the shock on their face . The irony of this situation also is that many of these folks are so excited about GPT generating code – but would not trust a young engineer to write it .
FS companies do more legacy Modernization projects than any other industry I know of . These are expensive initiatives no doubt and often very strategic . However they are not usually done in an efficient way for the times we live in. I see three broad opportunities to improve – a) better product management ( including perhaps from Agile education to business and not just IT ) b) better standardisation in coding ( for example – why does every developer have to spend time on scaffolding code ) and c) better testing (not just more automation , but also optimising coverage – and definitely making good use of synthetic data )
FS companies in US have some ways to go to embrace the fact that no one company can effectively serve all needs of their customers . It is not that this is a new idea – it’s just that culturally the industry is not fully committed yet in my opinion despite the massive disruption that the incumbents face . For sure most companies have dipped their toes in ecosystem initiatives – but very few have serious commitments with budgets to back it . I have a strong feeling that this will get serious attention in 2023
I will close with the topic on sustainability . I am absolutely thrilled that FS has largely jumped in on what is perhaps the most important thing for our planet and hence humanity . First order of business is to track, record and report . This seems to be well under way and has largely become a board level priority . But I do have a question on what happens next . If a developer raises their hand in a scrum meeting and questions if they need such heavy compute because of its negative carbon footprint consequences – will the engineering VP even consider a trade off ? Will the business live with that trade off ? That’s where the rubber hits the road . I am hopeful we will indeed get to a good place – if we replace sustainability with cyber security in this hypothetical , we know the answer is that the leaders will act on it real fast . We know that ML models are getting similar treatment as well in many companies . So I have a lot of faith that sustainability will also get there very soon !
