Effective Project Management of Advisory Actions: An Ongoing Challenge

Member Opinion

Ongoing Challenge

I often wish AA Australia had a GSO the size of AA World Services in New York. Why? For one thing, it would make some of the Concepts a lot easier to implement. For example, Concept 11 outlines how the AAWS GSO, its Board, other AA members and external consultants can all work in harmony to manage projects and tasks. The Concept concretely unpacks who does what, ensuring all work is carried out efficiently as well as spiritually.

Yes, spiritually. In the short introduction essay to the Concepts, Bill W states:

“‘The Concepts try to design a structure in which all may labor to good effect, with a minimum of friction. This is accomplished by so relating our servants to their work and to each other that the chances of personal conflict will be minimized.”

I don’t know about your personal recovery, but mine seems all about minimizing harm to, and conflict with, others. It’s also very much about having clarity around how to make myself, a ‘servant’, to my work. It’s only then that I hear God’s voice throughout the day, guiding me to play nice with, and work hard for others. As such the Concepts have become a very practical expression of pure recovery for me!

WS Office embodies the concepts

But back to my initial point. The GSO in New York get to embody the Concepts precisely for one reason more than any other; they have enough team members to create the departmental infrastructure they are suggesting. If you’re interested in how, there is a fascinating video on just this subject, easily accessible on YouTube – ‘Your A.A. General Service Office, the Grapevine and the General Service Structure’.

 What keeps popping into my head as I watch this video is how closely the departmental structure of the office mirrors what is suggested in Concept 11 in regards to who does what etc. Our GSO on the other hand? We only have 3 team members. This means from the day it opened some 50 plus years ago, our GSO has at times never been able to replicate what is being suggested in our third legacy. 

Concept 11 in particular reads like a spiritual and organizational pipe dream! As a result, our already hard-working Board members have often had to get operationally involved in doing things that C11 suggests they should not be expected to do. Grass roots members have sometimes been brought in as volunteers to do this or that in a one-off, ad hoc basis. We have some formal service positions reporting to the board – e.g. the National PI Coordinator – but to be honest, it’s hard to see such roles being the equivalent of what goes on within the departments that make?up the AAWS GSO.

How can AA Australia be like NY?

The crux of the issue is this. With such a small GSO, how can AA Australia leverage all the operational and spiritual advantages of the Concepts? Is our triangle really as equilateral as that of AAWS or AAUK? Secondly, if by necessity we have to express the Concepts in an operationally different way, how can we ensure our equivalent approaches are as deeply spiritual as those outlined in the Concept essays? Shouldn’t this be the goal? Why settle for spiritual-second-best?

These are giant questions to consider, and after 50 plus years of trying it’s hard to believe that AA Australia has ‘nailed it’! Take the theme of this article for example; the effective project management of Advisory Actions. Here, despite all of its best efforts, AA Australia can still do a lot better.

Just a bit of background, in case you’re new to all of this. Each year, our annual conference in November creates new Advisory Actions, some of which are large enough to warrant being project managed. In New York, the AAWS GSO have established departments and team members, charged with the responsibility of turning all those conference decisions into new AA products, processes and services. Although I’m sure it’s far from perfect – which organisation is? – from the outside, the AAWS GSO looks very efficient and effective.

Standard Processes Needed?

In contrast, AA Australia appears not to have many standard processes at all for project managing Advisory Actions. For example, the current Advisory Action Flowchart in the Service Manual contains 7 stages outlining in detail how a topic is generated, ratified, voted on and made a binding Advisory Action. In other words, it outlines in great detail how we create an advisory Action. In contrast there is no equivalent flowchart showing how we then turn that ‘thing on paper’ into a finalized, member-ready product.

Here’s what seems to be happening as a result. Advisory Actions lay around for months, or even years, waiting to be actioned. There are no step-by-step general instructions for working them through. It’s always case-by-case.

Obviously, this goes back to us having a teeny, tiny GSO who are unable to leverage the excellent advice contained in the Concepts. In effect, AA Australia has spent over 50 years just making do. But here’s the thing. If we have to be willing to go to any lengths to get sober, shouldn’t we be doing the same in regards to building the most effective, efficient and spiritual processes for project management? Surely what’s good for one legacy is just as good for the other two.

So then, why is it that the Board seem at times very involved in doing operational tasking on projects, when our Concepts literally suggest they should not? Why is it we populate committees and working groups with well-meaning members who may not have the technical skills and experience required to get things done? I bring this us up because our Concepts do suggest we use members and consultants with the such competence. Are we really doing enough, and if not, why not just create better systems and processes? What are we waiting for?

Let’s briefly look a little closer at what appears to be going on at the moment. In general, it seems that each new Advisory Action is project managed ‘from scratch’ – i.e. a working group or committee is formed. When they initially get together, often the first order of business is to work out how to work things out. I’ve had first-hand experience of being in such groups and it has always felt complex, ad-hoc and inefficient. In all honesty, at times it has led me to leave these groups, sometimes with a resentment but always with the view that there is a better, more Concept-literal way of getting things done.

Full disclosure; I work as a consultant in the business world, often stepping in and out of projects very similar to those carried out at the bottom of our General Service Structure. In every case, project teams are staffed with skilled, experienced people who carry out activities in a structured, methodical way. For instance, most organisations and/or project managers subscribe to a model for project management – e.g. PMBOK, Agile or Prince 2. These models outline a staged, structured approach for managing projects from conceptualization to completion, making each stage far easier to facilitate and achieve. The beauty of such an approach is that these models can be used for a project of any size or type!

Very few of my clients would ever just get together and work out from scratch how to work things out. It also doesn’t seem to happen at the GSO in New York. Why would it? It’s hardly best-practice, and it certainly increases the chances for resentments, fears etc. At the end of the day systems and processes exist to take the sting out of being part of a group that needs to get something done. 

So here is the exciting challenge as a I see it:

1.  Let’s first accept what we can never change: AA Australia can never express the Concepts literally. That requires a much larger GSO. However, what we can do is…
2.  Have the courage to change the things we can: We can create new ways to express the spiritual intent of the Concepts in how we perform tasks and manage projects, leveraging at the same time
3. What the rest of the business world uses every day: a simple, generic, best-practice project management methodology.

The change could start with the following admission. Let’s not assume that the current Board or GSO team know everything, and can do everything. Yes, they are our trusted servants, but really, all we must trust them to do is what the Concepts and our other service instruments outline their role to be. That role doesn’t include them knowing and doing everything! Quite the opposite actually. Again, let’s look at best-practice project management. It’s unreasonable to assume that even a single Board member has deep experience in managing large-scale projects using one of the afore-mentioned accepted methodologies. This is usually the province of full-time project managers. It follows then Board members and/or GSO team members may not be able to come up with the best approaches for managing Advisory Actions on their own. 

The good news is, I know a couple of long-time recovered members who are full-time project managers, and who may be more than happy to assist AA Australia as an act of paid, or unpaid service. You’d be surprised how many members there are who would love to do more than buy the biscuits for their home group! 

If we give such members a chance to review what the Concepts suggest, it may be easier than we think for them to produce a bespoke, spiritual and efficient general process for working through all Advisory Actions; one that provides task and role clarity for all! 

Again, what I’m suggesting is that we combine AA’s spiritually specific suggestions for getting things done (i.e. The Concepts) with basic, generic project management principles, thus creating a simple process, or set of processes, for manifesting Advisory Actions of any type. ‘How specific are the operational suggestions contained in the Concepts?’ I now hear you ask. Take the production of AA Literature for example. Here’s what the C11 essay has been suggesting for over 60 years:

Like other General Service Board Committees, this one must be expert in the work to be done. A key figure in its operation will necessarily be a paid writer and consultant. The creative work – that is, the initial form and draft and the final development of new undertakings – will be for this specialist to make. The role of the other committeemen will be of constructive criticism and amendment of the consultant’s effort. Here, too, we should remember that the committee must certainly include persons of wide AA experience. This matter of getting the “AA feel” into all our writings is absolutely vital. What we say so well by word of mouth we must also communicate in print. 

The Literature Committee consequently will find it desirable to test carefully each new creation by asking a number of AAs who are sensitive to AA feeling and reaction, to offer their criticism and suggestions. If the new material is to affect the non-alcoholic world, especially the fields of medicine and religion, a consultation should be held with those non-alcoholic Trustees or other qualified friends who are knowledgeable in these Areas.

Taken as a starting point, it’s almost too easy to glean some simple operating principles that can be applied to the project management of all future AA Australia publications, be they paper-based or virtual. For example:

Principles extracted from the first paragraph above:

• Members and/or external consultants with publishing and writing/design experience are to lead and participate in key activities. These people can be paid.
• Such specialists need to create all first drafts.
• Non-specialist and subject-matter-expert members are to provide feedback and constructive criticism.
• There must also be involved members who have a ‘wide AA experience’, so as to capture the ‘AA feel’.

The way we write about what we do needs to capture the tone and style of how members talk about what we do.

 Principles extracted from the second paragraph above:

• Whilst in draft form, all publications are to be distributed within the fellowship for feedback. This shouldn’t just be the province of the Board, Conference or the GSO.
• Non-alcoholic Trustees and other relevant friends of AA are also to be consulted, so as to ensure that AA publications are fit for non-member consumption.

Honestly, if we gave the above to a project management expert/member to then turn into a simple flowchart of chronological stages, I think they’d find the task very easy indeed. The result? We get to manage all projects efficiently, and there’s less chance of anyone picking up a drink!

Here are some other, even more general and central suggestions from C11:

• The status of executives – executive direction and policy formation distinguished:No active service can function well unless it has sustained and competent executive direction. This must always head up in one person, supported by such assistants as he needs. A Board or a committee can never actively manage anything, in the continuous executive sense. This function has to be delegated to a single person. That person has to have ample freedom and authority to do his job, and he should not be interfered with so long as his work is done well.Real executive ability cannot be plucked from any bush; it is rare and hard to come by. A special combination of qualities is required. The executive must inspire by energy and example, thereby securing willing cooperation. If that cooperation is not forthcoming, he must know when real firmness is in order. He must act without favor or partiality. He must comprehend and execute large affairs, while not neglecting the smaller. He often must take the initiative in plan making.The use of such executive abilities implies certain realizations on the part of the executive and those who work with him, otherwise there is apt to be misunderstanding. Because of their natural drive and energy, executives will sometimes fail to distinguish between routine execution of established plans and policies, and the making of new ones. In this Area they may tend to make new plans and put them into operation without sufficiently consulting those whose work is to be affected, or those whose experience and wisdom is actually or officially needed.Again, here are some general, spiritual principles that can potentially be applied to any project conducted by or for AA Australia:

First paragraph::

• No Trustee or committee head is to chair a working group. This must fall to a nominated ‘single person’. As such, the Board and committee heads are to wear the single hat of project stakeholder, supporting the nominated project manager/’single person’. 
• This nominated individual is to have the normal freedom given to any project manager. As long as they are doing a good job, they are a ‘trusted servant’ – a literal expression of our Tradition 2. They are to be left alone to carry on.

Second paragraph:

• Project managers must have a high degree of professionalism and leadership. As such AA Australia can move away from utilizing well-meaning members who wish to do service, but who may lack relevant skills and experience.

 Third paragraph:

• In regards to how a nominated project manager works with other project team members, they must be transparent and consultative. There is no room for taking over and becoming ‘the actor running the show’. Again, this leans into Tradition 2, where it is clear that those who ‘run things’ have no real, assigned authority of their own. Moreover, they are exercising the authority delegated to them by the groups.

Once again, in the right hands, such recovery-invested principles could easily be infused into a standard process for getting projects done. Oh, and given our GSO is so small, who might the afore-mentioned ‘single person’ and their off-sider(s) be? The good news is AA Australia already has a process in place to locate them; The Skills Register. Right now, we have an ever-growing list of dozens of skilled and professional grass roots members who’ve nominated how they can assist AA Australia. I’m one of them, and already I’ve used my work skills to brief Conference on the new AA safety policy, assist in the production of a radio ad and been a small part of the upcoming service manual re-write.

What I’m suggesting in this article is an opportunity that’s been waiting to happen for over 50 years – to build a standardized, spiritual approach to more effectively getting things done within, and for, AA Australia. Why wait? Why expect the Board and the GSO to do so much? Instead, why not ask the AA members who manage multi-million dollar projects for others, to create a process that can work for us?

Why can’t we finally have a second flowchart for Advisory Actions? One that sits alongside that for deciding upon Advisory Actions. One that details how we actually build them. After all, ours is a program of rigorous action. No-one gets sober by just deciding to do so. Instead, we follow 12 simple steps. We get specific about the action we take.

Why can’t project managing Advisory Actions work the same way? In the end, it’s just another expression of pure recovery.

AA Member Albury NSW