Project Management Happy Hour 123 - Hungry Hungry HPPOs - managing loud personalities with Evan Unger
26 snips
Apr 14, 2026 
Evan Unger, a facilitation and meeting design expert who teaches models like POPRA and AREA. He explores why so many meetings waste time. He explains meeting math, the takeoff/flight/landing meeting metaphor, and how to own your calendar. He shares tactics to handle loud senior voices and ways to make meetings energizing and outcome-focused.
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Getting Fired Taught Sponsor Service
- Evan told a consulting story where he got fired for overstepping a client's program by adding unsolicited input.
- He learned the hard lesson: always serve and align with the sponsor who pays the bills.
The True Cost Of Bad Meetings
- Most meetings are under 50% effective, creating a massive hidden productivity loss across organizations.
- Evan Unger calculates leaders spending half their time in meetings can lose a year's worth of productive hours in under a decade, stressing cultural change.
Use POPRA Before You Accept A Meeting
- Use the POPRA checklist before accepting or running a meeting: Purpose, Objectives, Process, Roles, Agreements.
- If the organizer can't state POPRA, decline or ask for clarification to protect your calendar and focus.
