Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

The podcast for project managers by project managers. Dr. Kaitlyn Bunker, Ph.D., P.E. is a Principal with Rocky Mountain Institute’s Islands Energy Program. Kaitlyn leads a diverse team that partners with islands in the Caribbean to support and accelerate their clean energy transitions. Their projects result in many benefits, including the use of more local, renewable energy sources and less imported fuel. Table of Contents 01:33 … Meet Kaitlyn 02:56 … The Rocky Mountain Institute 05:31 … Projects in the Caribbean Islands 08:20 … Program Partners 09:10 … Local Island Energy Resources 10:15 … Aligning Stakeholders, Local Communities and Project Priorities 13:11 … Project funding 14:28 … Compliance and Regulatory Guidelines and Knowledge Sharing 17:59 … Project Risks 20:10 … Leading a Very Diverse Team 22:27 … Leading Remotely 23:25 … The Resilience of Clean Energy 27:05 … Impact of Battery Technology 28:51 … Cultural and Communication Challenges 31:18 … Kaitlyn’s Lessons Learned and a Success Story 34:27 … Hear More about RMI 35:04 … Closing KAITLYN BUNKER:  So we really come in and do a lot of listening, meet with as many people as we can, understand different perspectives and try to bring that all together, and then pair that with our experience. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Please make sure to visit our website, Velociteach.com, where you can subscribe to the show so you’ll never miss an episode, or you can join us on Velociteach Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn.  And if you know a friend who would like to hear our show, please tell them about Manage This. I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me today is Bill Yates.  Bill, so you know I’m always trying to find interesting projects. BILL YATES:  Yes. WENDY GROUNDS:  Projects that are all over the world, not necessarily in one spot, and so this one is all over the islands, the Caribbean islands.  Our guest is Kaitlyn Bunker, and she’s a principal with the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Island Energy Program, where she leads a team that partners with islands in the Caribbean to support their clean energy transitions. BILL YATES:  Yeah, and just to be clear, this is Ph.D. Kaitlyn Bunker, so Dr. Bunker, I just wanted to say that, Dr. Bunker.  She also leads modeling efforts related to small island microgrid opportunities.  So a microgrid, she’ll explain that further.  But it’s a new strategy for having power distributed across an island, especially in the cases of places like the islands in the Caribbean that are prone to hurricanes and other types of storms.  So a microgrid strategy is a very interesting strategy, and we’ll talk about her projects. Meet Kaitlyn WENDY GROUNDS:  Let’s meet Kaitlyn.  Kaitlyn, welcome to Manage This. KAITLYN BUNKER:  Thank you for having me. WENDY GROUNDS:  Tell us about your career path, how you got to where you are today. KAITLYN BUNKER:  Sure, so I’m now a principal with the Islands Energy Program at Rocky Mountain Institute.  But my background is that I studied electrical engineering,  I went to school at Michigan Technological University and got really excited in the field of power and energy, and also control systems.  And so bringing those two topics together led me to the concept of microgrids, which are small electricity systems that have their own sources of electricity.  So they’re able to use that to serve local electricity needs in a small confined system.  But they also typically can connect to the larger electricity grid. So they’re able to operate in kind of those two modes.  And so that was really exciting for me, especially the concept of incorporating more renewable energy into microgrids and combining those concepts together. So I got really excited about that in school and decided I wanted to dig into that further.  So I stayed right at Michigan Tech for graduate school, completed my Ph.D. in electrical engineering.  Really enjoyed that and then was ready to kind of zoom back out from a very specific research topic on control of microgrids with renewable energy, and so that brought me to Rocky Mountain Institute.  That’s where I’ve been the last six years or so, working on broader opportunities to really transform our energy systems. The Rocky Mountain Institute BILL YATES:  Kaitlyn, so tell us more about the Rocky Mountain Institute, what’s the mission of that organization? KAITLYN BUNKER:   So Rocky Mountain Institute is a global nonprofit organization, and our mission is to transform global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future.  So we were founded back in 1982 by Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, who are really leading thinkers and implementers when it comes to energy efficiency and renewable energy.  And Amory is still with RMI as a chairman emeritus, so coming up on 40 years here of some great work in the fields of efficiency and renewable energy. WENDY GROUNDS:  What are some of the impacts that RMI has had in communities worldwide? KAITLYN BUNKER:  So because we are a nonprofit organization, we’re often in a very unique position to work with all kinds of different partners and bring them together in ways that they might not otherwise connect.  We also have a very strong analytical foundation for doing modeling and technical analysis, and we use that to identify opportunities for all sorts of benefits that renewable energy can bring.  So things like cost savings, increased resilience, job creation, all sorts of different opportunities for benefits that are out there that might be important to different people or groups. And so we often partner to try some of these solutions out. So we consider ourselves more than a think tank.  We’re really a “think and do” tank.  Some recent specific examples include a prize program that we’ve been facilitating called the Global Cooling Prize.  It’s focused on designing efficient cooling options.  So as our world keeps getting warmer and warmer, how do we keep people cool without just adding to the warming problem with more emissions from traditional air conditioning?  So that’s been an exciting effort really recently. We’ve supported a lot of cities in identifying and pursuing clean energy options, as well as moving towards electrifying their public transportation systems.  So we often take a very whole systems view of energy, not just electricity or transportation or buildings or industry, but how do those pieces fit together?  And then in my particular program we have supported resilience, redesign, and rebuilding of electricity systems that were damaged in recent hurricanes.  So those are just a few examples of the broad type of work that we do at RMI. Projects in the Caribbean BILL YATES:  Tell us more about these projects that you’ve been working on in the Caribbean. KAITLYN BUNKER: So our Islands Energy Program is focused in the Caribbean, as you mentioned, and we do really three main types of work with the islands that we partner with.  We complete analysis to identify optimal pathways for clean energy transition, so what’s the long-term pathway that’s going to be the best fit for a particular island.  Then we help to prepare and de-risk specific clean energy and resilient projects to help get them actually in the ground and operating, get these first projects going with our island partners.  And then the third thing is we work to connect island stakeholders so that they can share their expertise with each other and build even more expertise through communities of practice.  So that’s broadly what we do with our island partners. And so some specific examples of things that we’re working on right now are looking at an integrated process for planning for the future of energy and resilience, to find optimal pathways for Belize’s electricity system. So in the Bahamas we’re working on redesigning and rebuilding the electricity system in specific islands within the Bahamas that were really devastated by Hurricane Dorian last year.  We’re working in Bermuda, supporting Bermuda in accelerating their transition to use more local renewable energy sources, while making a switch to electric transportation options at the same time.  And then one other example is in Puerto Rico, we’re working to increase opportunities for communities in Puerto Rico to build resilient and clean microgrids. BILL YATES:  I was doing some reading on some of the things that you wrote about the project with the islands,  I was surprised that they import so much fossil fuel for consumption to create energy.  What are some of those statistics?  Because that’s one of the things the microgrid and your initiative is trying to change. KAITLYN BUNKER:  So most islands in the Caribbean today get their electricity from burning diesel fuel which, just as you said, they have to import.  We are seeing islands move towards clean energy and start to make a dent in that, but still the majority of islands’ electricity today comes from that imported diesel fuel. So that makes it very expensive, Islands in the Caribbean might pay about three times what we would pay on average in the United States per kilowatt hour of electricity.  So it’s quite expensive, and it can also fluctuate month to month based on global oil prices. If you’re a resident or a business owner in an island, it’s expensive to start with, and then it can change over time.  So lots of opportunities to use more local options that also happen to be cleaner, but are often much lower cost than importing the fuel as it’s done today. Program Partners WENDY GROUNDS:  Who are you partnering with in these programs? KAITLYN BUNKER: So we do a lot of partnering, it’s really important to our strategy and being able to be successful in what we’re trying to do.  Our main partners are often the governments of the islands where we’re working,

Hear about human and robotic space exploration with Belgian nuclear physicist Philippe Schoonejans. He is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) team leader for the Sample Transfer Arm, one of the European contributions to the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return program. This mission will use robotic systems to return samples from the surface of Mars to Earth. ESA is composed of 28 member countries, and Philippe has cooperated extensively with NASA, Japan, Canada and Russia in his projects. He shares his complex projects and the many constraints facing international cooperation. Table of Contents 03:03 … Meet Philippe 05:03 … NASA and ESA 05:50 … Philippe’s Role at ESA 08:06 … Favorite Projects 09:36 … The European Robotic Arm 11:40 … Prototype Testing 14:30 … Current Projects 16:03 … Getting to Mars 19:43 … COVID-19 Impact 22:30 … Keeping Teams Motivated 26:28 … Collaboration with Other Agencies 28:52 … Vendor and Stakeholder Communication 34:54 … International Cooperation 38:34 … Communicating Complex Projects 40:26 … Words of Advice and Lessons Learned 44:06 … Closing PHILIPPE SCHOONEJANS:  ...we cherish the international cooperation.  We think it’s needed, and we know that we cannot do everything on our own, not even in Europe with our 28 countries, we cannot do everything.  So we do want to work together with everybody else, and with that also learn from what the others are doing. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio today is Bill Yates. BILL YATES:  Wendy, we’re going to go to space today.  Let’s do it. WENDY GROUNDS:  I know.  I am so excited about today’s guest.  We get to sit down with a project manager in human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency.  And this is Philippe Schoonejans.  Philippe is in the Amsterdam area of the Netherlands.  And we’re very excited to have him with us today.  We’re particularly going to talk about the politically complex international environment that he works in with many stakeholders and many countries.  The European Space Agency I think he said has 28 member states. BILL YATES:  Yup. WENDY GROUNDS:  And they also work with other countries around the world, including NASA.  He’ll tell us a little bit more about that.  But some of the projects that Philippe has worked on, he’s been the project manager for the European Robotic Arm for the International Space Station, as well as working on a sample transfer arm.  He’s the project manager and team lead for that.  It’s for a Mars Sample Return Mission. BILL YATES:  Isn’t that fascinating?  And for our listeners, you’re going to hear a lot of abbreviations or acronyms, so ISS, ESA, International Space Station, European Space Agency, different things like that.  NASA.  But Mars, I mean, we have been trying to get to that red planet.  Since 1960 we’ve been attempting to put satellites orbiting around that planet.  And there’s been some success.  But the one thing that we’ve never done is bring anything back.  We’ve had pictures.  We’ve had digital data.  But we don’t have any actual rocks or samples.  And so this mission’s going on now. We do have, I think since 2003, the ESA has successfully put Rovers on Mars, and so they’re slowly moving across that little red planet and collecting data.  But one of the fascinating things is Philippe and his team, they’re working at bringing the rocks and the other things that they can collect back to Earth.  We haven’t done that yet. WENDY GROUNDS:  It’s easy to get overwhelmed just by the vast scope of this project and the incredible things they’re doing.  But we’re going to find that Philippe has some really good information and really practical advice for project managers, particularly those who are working in an international community.  So let’s get right on and talk to Philippe. BILL YATES:  Yeah. WENDY GROUNDS:  Philippe, welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for being with us today. PHILIPPE SCHOONEJANS:  My pleasure entirely. Meet Philippe WENDY GROUNDS:  I want to ask you about your career path, how you got to where you are today.  Could you tell us, have you always been interested in space, and how you got to where you are today. PHILIPPE SCHOONEJANS:  Well, I think I maybe was not the little kid who was always already toying around with rockets in the garden.  But I did have a board game which I liked very much.  It was called Space Race.  It was about space mining, and you had to throw a dice and get your rockets to various orbits and get it into the Moon.  And I loved it, but there was also a bit of frustration because my brother convinced me to buy this game together, and I had to empty all my savings, and then we played it, and he only played it just once, and then he got fed up with it.  And later he went into languages.  So I emptied all of my little kid savings to buy this game, and then I had to find new friends to play it with.  But maybe it’s out of that frustration that I ended up in space technology. BILL YATES:  Yeah, you had an early investment in space as a small child; you had to just commit to it. PHILIPPE SCHOONEJANS:  And that was 100 percent investment, so there was in fact a very large, relatively very large investment.  But I did my studies in nuclear physics.  Some people say that the parallel is that I worked with the large particle accelerators.  So there was already some fascination for things which have a little bit of grandiose elements in there, I loved that, absolutely. But when I’d finished, I applied for a space company, it was Fokker, it was an aircraft company.  They make airplanes, but they also had a space division.  But I also, to be honest, I applied at Shell, and I applied at Siemens, and at Philips Electronics to be a chip designer.  So that I had, indeed, I had choice in the end of three or four jobs.  But I think the space fascination won, and when I was doing that for five years, our colleagues of the European Space Agency were at the time our customer.  They asked me whether I would not want come and join them.  And I absolutely loved that, and I’ve loved it ever since.  It’s such a fascinating and inspiring international environment. NASA and ESA BILL YATES:  Let me ask a follow-up question, just to help those that are in the United States or maybe in North America that are listening.  Compare NASA with the ESA. PHILIPPE SCHOONEJANS:  Yeah, it’s quite different.  I think their biggest difference is that ESA has about 28 member states.  So we are representing the interest of all of these member states, not just one like in NASA.  So it’s very democratic, so very, very political.  And it’s political to the sense that each participating country wants to get back what they put in, so that also means that the bigger countries make bigger contributions.  They have a more important vote in most cases than the smaller countries, so that that is for sure a complication in ESA, but it’s also very inspirational. Philippe’s Role at ESA WENDY GROUNDS:  What is your role at ESA? PHILIPPE SCHOONEJANS: So today I am a project manager in the Mars Sample Return Mission, and that’s particularly interesting, I think, for the Americans because it is a joint mission between NASA and ESA.  And it requires eight space systems to work together in concert to get Mars material back to Earth, which is something which has never been done before.  And so ESA has three contributions to this mission, and I’m the project manager of one of them.  But with that I’m also very much involved in the discussions on the overall missions and the discussions between ESA and NASA. In addition to that, I’ve been doing a lot of technology stuff in ESA.  For a long time I was the chair of the forum that decides which technologies get the budget to be developed.  And so it comes from the needs of the missions that we are planning,  to where do we have a gap in technology, what is it that we still cannot do and would be very risky, and let’s focus our research money on those.  So sometimes it’s a short-term thing; but usually it’s a long-term thing, like we are not yet good enough in rocket engine of such and such type, which maybe we need for future missions.  Let’s initiate a five- to 10-year development to get that going, and then of course that was a tricky job because there were always way more proposals than we could afford.  So that was very, very interesting. Also worked on standardization of space technology.  So we have lots of space standards that are used for all our developments, and we had to decide, okay, which direction should they evolve?  Which ones are we still missing?  How do they relate to the standards that other agencies have.  And yet it’s very important because in all the international cooperation we typically want to work according to our own standards, and the others too.  Like the Russians would work to Russian standards, and the Americans to the NASA standards, the Japanese to the Japanese standards, we to the European standards.  And we have to declare that they’re all equivalent. But also sometimes you have to convince the partnering agencies that they are actually equivalent.  Otherwise they would end up asking us can you please work to the NASA standards.  And then all of our industry has to change the way they do business.  So this is an important subject which I enjoyed very much.  But I think where my heart is, is in the operational part, like really run a project. Favorite Projects BILL YATES:  Philippe, looking back on your long career with the European Space Agency, what are some of your favorite projects, or those that you’re most proud of? PHILIPPE SCHOONEJANS:  Well, I think the Moon one that I just got out of was very, very difficult because it was about defining a Moon space station that is going to fly in ‘24.

In his new book, How Design Makes the World, Scott Berkun explores how good and bad design impact our daily lives. In this episode we examine the big questions Scott asks in the book: What are you trying to improve? Who are you trying to improve it for? How do you ensure you are successful? And how do you avoid unintended harm? Table of Contents 01:09 … Meet Scott 04:23 … Scott’s New Book: How Design Makes the World 07:04 … Q1: What Are You Trying to Improve? 11:12 … Ideas Generation Rule: Yes, And 13:57 … Ideas Generation Rule: No Half-Assing 16:43 … Ideas Generation Rule: No Blocking Questions 18:42 … Ideas Generation Rule: Make the Other Guy Look Good 20:28 … Q2: Who Are You Trying to Improve It For? 25:21 … Q3: How Do You Ensure You Are Successful? 30:15 … How Do We Overcome Bias? 34:17 … Q4: How Do You Avoid Unintended Harm? 41:20 … Advice to Project Managers 43:07 … Get in Contact With Scott 44:00 … Closing SCOTT BERKUN:  So something as simple as idea generation, if you’re not in a roomful of people you trust, none of these methods or techniques are going to help you because no one’s going to feel safe enough to offer what they really think.  And often the problem is that these brainstorming meetings are done with 20 people, 15 people.  There’s no way, even in a healthy organization, the likelihood there’s that much trust among that many people, that someone’s going to feel confident raising their hand against something they know is probably really weird.  And that’s why often brainstorming and idea generation happens the best in smaller groups. BILL YATES:  Yeah, mm-hmm. SCOTT BERKUN:  Four people, five people. BILL YATES:  That’s a great point. SCOTT BERKUN:  Because even if they don’t know each other, in 10 minutes they can get a sense of each other and develop some trust.  And that’s often a problem with project management is that it’s done at this large scale, and the stakeholders and committee members, and we’re going to brainstorm.  But there’s 50 people in the room.  It’s like, no.  That’s a dog-and-pony show.  That’s not where the real brainstorm is going to happen. WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates. So in today’s episode we get to sit down with a special guest, Scott Berkun. Meet Scott BILL YATES:  Scott Berkun is an author, and he has had a big influence on me.  He wrote a book called “Making Things Happen” that I got a hold of early in my project management career, and just loved it.  Just ate it up.  Since then he wrote a book that I really enjoyed also called “Confessions of a Public Speaker,” which I recommend to all our instructors when we bring them onboard. It’s so good, so funny, great advice, and the book that we’re going to focus on today he just wrote this year, in 2020, and it’s called “How Design Makes the World.” WENDY GROUNDS:  I actually had a look at one of his other books that’s called “The Year Without Pants.”  The topic, it intrigued me, the title should I say, and then I saw it was written about working remotely.  So if anybody has questions about that, I’d recommend that book. BILL YATES:  Okay, good. WENDY GROUNDS:  Scott, welcome to Manage This, thank you so much for being our guest. SCOTT BERKUN:  It is a pleasure to be here. WENDY GROUNDS:  Before we get into the nitty-gritty of your books and what Bill wants to talk about, I have a question. So you transitioned from project manager into becoming an author and a speaker.  Why and how?  How has it worked out, and why? SCOTT BERKUN:  Well, the how has worked out well, so I quit my job as a tech project manager guy in 2003, and it’s now 2020, and I’ve been doing this for 17 years.  I’ve written eight books.  And this is the only way I make a living.  So I’ve been very fortunate and lucky, it’s worked out great.  I mean, I’ve been successful enough, I’ve finally made it onto your show.  So this is like a great day. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah. SCOTT BERKUN: So the why, the primary reason was a selfish one, I had a good career, I was very lucky, I worked at Microsoft, worked on some very important projects, had a good career there.  But I turned 31, 32, and I started to ask myself the question, is this all I’m ever going to do?  And I have always been a curious person, an ambitious person about the world and trying to figure out – there’s so many things I’m interested in.  I don’t want to spend my whole life working as a project manager if maybe there’s something else I should at least try. So my goal was to quit and to force myself to do something else.  And I buffered myself for the prospect of failure by saying, well, if I go out in the world and do something else, and I fail, I like managing projects, so the worst thing could possible happen is I’ll come back and do what I was doing.  But not to try something else seemed like a terrible strategic mistake.  So I quit, and I’d always been interested in writing, I was not a journalist or anything, I’d written a few articles here and there. It was always a thing in the back of my mind, someday I’ll write a book, and so I was like, today is that day.  I’m becoming middle-aged.  I quit. So I tried to become a writer, I worked on a book that was a total failure, and I couldn’t find a publisher for it, but I learned through that book, the seven months I spent working on that book, I like this, so if I can make this work, I want to do it.  And then I wrote a book that Bill knows of that was originally titled “The Art of Project Management.”  It’s now called “Making Things Happen.”  And so that book was all about how to be a good project manager, and that book did well enough to support me to do a second book, and then the third book, and then now I’m here.  So that’s the how and the why. Scott’s New Book: How Design Makes The World BILL YATES:  Scott, I’ve got to tell you, I was really inspired by your first book.  “Making Things Happen” hit me at a perfect time in my career.  It kind of opened my eyes up to some challenges that project managers face.  As a result, many of the things that you have in your book are concepts that we talk about in our classes here at Velociteach. So you’ve had an impact on me and on much of the content that I’ve helped write, I’ve been recommending that book for years.  I’ve also recommended your book for speaking, which is “Confessions of a Public Speaker.”  This is a hilarious book, I can’t believe how transparent you are in this book. But the book that we want to focus on today is “How Design Makes the World.”  Some of the concepts really register with me because between a designer and a project manager there are so many similarities.  Project managers, their job is to solve problems, designers are doing the same thing, and many times there are so many common links and traits between the two.  So I thought it’d be a great conversation for us to have today. SCOTT BERKUN:  Absolutely.  I totally agree.  I mean, I’ve always felt like everything is a project.  As a project manager, you meet someone at a party, although no one goes to parties anymore these days, but you meet someone on Facebook or somewhere and say you’re a project manager, most people go, oh, like it’s a boring thing. BILL YATES:  Yeah. SCOTT BERKUN:  And then I go, well, wait a second, you know, how did you build your house? How did you rearrange your office?  How did you deliver – whatever the thing you deliver at work is, how did you do that?  And so they explain, like, that’s project management, if it’s a movie you saw that you liked, somebody managed that project, if your city or your state had provided you a sufficient number of masks to keep you safe, someone managed that project.  Everything is a project, so a project manager means it’s central to everything. And so design is the same thing, that if you like the layout of your house, or you have public transportation in your city that works well and is safe and reliable, somebody designed those things. And that it comes with a plan where it overlaps the project manager.  What’s a plan?  Well, you have a set of goals, a set of constraints, a set of budget restraints, and you’re trying to match the goals you have with the constraints that you have, and that’s what project managers do, but designers do it from a different angle.  Designers are focused more on the ideas, and project managers are focused more on delivery, but to make anything happen in the world, you need both. BILL YATES:  That’s right. SCOTT BERKUN:  And the division between them has always bothered me.  Although this new book is focused more on looking through the world from the designer’s point of view, I’m still a project manager. So a lot of that sensibility is infused in the book, that you could have a great idea, but if you don’t have an organization that is managed well enough to deliver on that idea, then the idea doesn’t... BILL YATES:  It’s not going to happen. SCOTT BERKUN:  Is not going to matter much, yeah. Q1. What Are You Trying To Improve? BILL YATES:  Right, right.  I enjoy talking about this with my friends who are innovators.  You do need both, and the disciplines are very similar, but there are some unique characteristics or strengths for the really true designer versus the true project manager.  If you can find somebody who’s got a little bit of both, then you’ve really got a gem there. Now, I want to get into the book.  So the book really tackles four big questions, and the first question is what are you trying to improve for the designer, which I would argue that’s the same question for the project manager, too.  The first question needs to be what are you trying to improve?  I really got pulled right into your book because you talk about some funny examples,

Telling stories is a powerful means to teach, lead, and inspire. The best storytellers often employ their own life experiences. Sara Amiri MBA, PMP, shares her story working at Uber and Volkswagen and she explains how her passion to build unity, increase empathy, and raise awareness led to the Healthcare Heroes Project.

Hear about the role of the project manager in successful innovation from John Carter, an inventor of the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones who shares the original patent with Dr. Amar Bose. John shares the surprising discovery they made by talking to customers about critical features. Topics include the differences between a program manager and a project manager, career progression for a PM, how to assess PM talent, managing project risk, establishing boundary conditions, small “a” Agile, and the characteristics of a successful PM. Table of Contents 00:32 … Meet John 03:43 … The Bose Headphone Project 06:14 … Listening to the Customer 10:00 … Taking Risks in Innovation Projects 13:45 … Courage to Bring Bad News 15:30 … Effect of COVID-19 on Innovation and Work 19:46 … Program Management vs. Project Management 22:21 … Career Progression from PM to Program Management 26:19 … Characteristics of a Successful PM 28:11 … Why is it Difficult to Hire a Successful PM? 30:38 … Small “a” Agile 35:55 … Establishing Boundary Conditions 40:48 … John’s Success Tips 43:31 … Get in Touch with John 44:14 … Closing WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.   A word to our listeners.  If you have an interesting COVID-19 story, how your project has been impacted by the pandemic, we’d love to hear from you.  You can email me at manage_this@velociteach.com. I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me is project manager Bill Yates. BILL YATES:  Hi, Wendy. WENDY GROUNDS: We’re going to talk to someone today who is a true innovation veteran. Meet John BILL YATES:  Yeah, Wendy, I’m so excited to have John Carter join us.  He is very respected in the area of innovation and product development.  He is actually the co-inventor of the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones . We’ll certainly jump into this Bose topic with him.  That’ll be a lot of fun to discuss. WENDY GROUNDS:  John is also the founder of TCGen, and he’s also been advisor to companies like Apple and Amazon with their  product development and innovation processes.  So I think he comes with a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge that he’ll be able to impart to us. BILL YATES:  Yes.  John has been a project manager.  He’s been a product manager, he’s been a manager of managers, he’s led his own company, and so I cannot wait for the advice he’s going to share with us. WENDY GROUNDS:  John, welcome to Manage This.  We’re so grateful to you for being with us today and being our guest. JOHN CARTER:  Well, thanks for having me. WENDY GROUNDS:  Well, we want to start off by asking you about your career path, and particularly to do with the Bose headphones.  I think most people are really going to be interested in hearing about that.  So tell me a little bit about yourself. JOHN CARTER:  Well, thanks for asking.  And it’s really part of my passion.  It was true since I was a kid.  I’ve always been kind of a boy scientist and had a chemistry set and microscope,  telescope, I mean, whatever I could get my hands on.  I really, really enjoyed technology.  As I grew up, though, I found the importance of sound.  I really thought that that was something I wanted to know about.  It’s invisible.  It conveys meaning and emotion.  And as I learned more, it has incredible range as far as what it can be used for.  Obviously speech versus music is something that’s happening today.  With mobile phones and speech recognition it’s just the Wild West.  So I’ve always been interested in sound.  In college I designed a music synthesizer from scratch before its time. BILL YATES:  Of course you did. JOHN CARTER:  Yeah, right.  It kind of worked.  And when I was looking at graduate school, I looked at places that had audio programs.  And one of them was Stanford; the other was MIT.  And I knew that Dr. Bose taught at MIT, and I decided to go there.  I didn’t have a scholarship at the time.  I just packed up my car and drove across the country.  It was half filled with record albums and my stereo and a few textbooks.  And I arrived in Cambridge without support.  But I was determined to get it. And I had amazing luck because I was taking Dr. Bose’s course in acoustics, and he had just lost his teaching assistant.  And so he asked the class if anyone would like to do it, and I raised my hand.  And it was incredible.  It was a 20-minute interview.  And he said, “Okay.  Let’s give it a go here.”  And it just so turned out what I studied as an undergraduate was what’s called “signals and systems.”  But it’s kind of the big pieces of how the parts work together to get a better system.  And that was Dr. Bose’s approach and actually went into the headphones. The Bose Headphones Project BILL YATES:  John, to me the Bose noise cancelling headphones are iconic.  They were, like, revolutionary when they came out.  How in the world did you get to work on that project? JOHN CARTER:  So when I graduated, I was in the research department, and Dr. Bose was a mentor for me.  And this was amazing.  We talk about luck and fate in what happens here.  He invests a lot of time in his former students who join the company.  And so he and I had two ideas we were working on when I first started.  One idea was how to improve a loudspeaker, and the other idea was this new concept around headphones.  And so I started working on them both. What I realized, and I went to Dr. Bose two months later, and I said, “You know, we’re making a lot of progress on these headphones and not so much on this other project.”  He said, “Let’s just drop the other one.”  And I think there’s a lot of innovation that comes about being lucky and making the right choice.  I think we made the right choice.  So it really came as a natural outcome of collaboration, working on two research ideas. And I could tell you when I first popped the prototype it was all metal parts and everything on my head.  It was like you were transported into another universe.  And you can turn the switch on and off, and the change was mind-blowing.  I knew we were onto something.  And what was really interesting is that we thought as inventors we’d know exactly why customers would really clamor for this.  And we thought it was improved bass response.  This headphone would give you better bass. BILL YATES:  Yeah. JOHN CARTER:  And it does.  Well, we started offering this, trying it out, getting feedback from various customers.  Turned out military was the biggest interest.  And we went to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, as well as Army Proving Ground in Aberdeen.  And the feedback we got was not bass or the performance.  This is noise reduction. BILL YATES:  Okay. JOHN CARTER:  The benefit was noise reduction.  Now, we knew about noise reduction, but we didn’t think that consumers would really find that the most appealing.  That discovery, an innovation that I think is really important, which is you have no idea, really, even the inventor has no idea about what consumers will ultimately value your invention for.  And you would think you would know that, and you’re completely wrong. Listening to Stakeholder Recommendations BILL YATES:  That is huge.  And for project managers it is so good to hear that from you.  Just to the listeners, so John and Dr. Bose have the co-patents on these Bose noise cancelling headphones that we’re talking about.  So this was the guy that was right there from the start.  And John, as you’ve said, at first you guys thought you were building it for X, when it turns out the customer said, no, Y is much more important. And from a standpoint of someone who’s charging ahead as a project, I’m a project manager, and I’ve got goals, and I’ve been told by the sponsor this is what we have to accomplish.  And then you start to get feedback from customers, and you’re thinking, you know what, this sponsor may be slightly off.  There could be greater value in this other area.  This is a challenge to us, I think, to be bold and go to those sponsors, share the information that we’re getting from customers and the ultimate users to say, okay, maybe we need to slightly change our path. JOHN CARTER:  Yeah.  This, I think, is a real challenge for project managers.  And I think there’s a right way and a wrong way to make a sudden right turn on a project.  And I think the right way is to say these are the stakeholders.  This is what they’re telling us.  We think it’s important and a direction that we ought to consider. What a good project manager will do, in my estimation, is they describe the benefit, and they also describe the tradeoffs, and then they indicate a recommendation.  Because when there’s a sudden change, I think project managers tend to be little myopic.  And they don’t step back and say, all right, someone’s moved our cheese.  Here are the new boundaries.  So if we can renegotiate this contract and come clean on it, then we’re going to go in the right direction, and you’re not going to be surprised in a couple months from now when you forgot that we made this decision, Mr. Executive. BILL YATES:  Right. JOHN CARTER:  You agreed to it, but somehow you remembered the old schedule or whatever. BILL YATES:  Yes, the old budget. JOHN CARTER:  Exactly.  And so I think renegotiation of the project boundaries is really important as a project manager.  And also flexibility.  So there’s one other risk that I’m sure you’ve seen in your work with project managers is they’re given direction, and come hell or high waters, they go after it.  And sometimes when there’s a real indication from stakeholders that there’s a need to change, their heads are down, and they’re not going to make that change.  And that’s another quality of, I think, advanced program managers and project managers, to step back and say, wait a minute, you know, it doesn’t matter how quickly we climb that mountain if it’s the wrong mountain. BILL YATES:  Yeah.

In times of uncertainty, project managers can be the pacesetters that keep organizations on the right path and bring balance into their projects. June Mustari discusses real-life issues in project management. Hear practical tips and advice to find the right balance of discipline and flexibility for successful project delivery.     Table of Contents 01:05 … Meet June 02:36 … Telecom Career and TruNorth Consulting 05:47 … COVID-19 Impact and Bringing Balance 08:39 … Emotional Engagement 10:52 … Collaboration Tools 12:31 … Knowing the Technical Aspects of the Industry as a PM 14:20 … Past Project Story: Virtual Desktop Interface Migration 18:16 … Breakthrough Moments and Resistance on the Project 21:54 … Breaking the Rules 25:54 … Words of Advice and Encouragement 31:22 … Get in Touch with June 31:58 … Closing JUNE MUSTARI:  It’s all about trust.  And I think more than ever trust is our cornerstone in our business.  And when you can show up in a way that makes people feel secure, it’s our purpose.  WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me is Bill Yates.  This is the show where we sometimes like to delve into the project stories of project managers who are in the trenches.  In today’s episode, we get to sit down with June Mustari.  Why don’t you tell us how you met June, Bill. BILL YATES:  Yeah, it was such a chance meeting.  June and I were sitting at the same round table at a breakout session, I think Steve Townsend was speaking, at PMI Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia.  So I don’t know, there were just a handful of us sitting at a round table, and June had really good questions for Stephen.  And some of the things that June shared, I’m like, this is my kind of person.  So we talked during the session and just stayed connected after. JUNE MUSTARI:  Yeah. WENDY GROUNDS:  Well, June, thank you so much for being here today. JUNE MUSTARI:  Oh, it’s my pleasure.  I’m very happy to be here. Meet June WENDY GROUNDS:  I want to find out a little bit about your career background.  How did you get into project management? JUNE MUSTARI:  Yeah, when people ask me this, I like to say I didn’t get into project management; it got into me.  I really started my career just taking things on that took shape as projects – you know, the beginning, middle, and with an end goal, an outcome that was very clear.  I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was managing projects.  So then when I actually started to see that there were other people in my network who were formal project managers, I was like, oh, this is a thing, and I really like this thing. And so I decided to get a little educated in it, and I said I was going to take the PMP exam 10 years before I actually took it.  So people say, “I’m going to take the PMP exam.”  And I said that for so long.  But you don’t actually take it until you schedule it.  Like, that’s when it’s real.  So I did eventually get the PMP, and I appreciated the discipline of that.  I’m a rule follower, so like that was a dream for me.  And I passed on my 37th birthday.  So it was like, I got into my car, and I was like, yes.  That’s a little side note about me being a PM and getting started with that. So it just kind of took off from there.  Once I had that credential, I felt confidence.  I don’t think it’s about the credential.  I just think it’s about the confidence.  I took formal project management roles right after that, where it was like my title was Project Manager. TruNorth Consulting and Telecom BILL YATES:  And June, you’ve been in telecom for a long time; right?  Like I’ve done a lot of work with Verizon, and you were actually employed by Verizon for a long time, and you continue to kind of go down that industry path. JUNE MUSTARI:  Yeah, my M.O. is parachuting into situations, trying to solve problems, and then getting out; right?  So I had like four different roles at Verizon.  When I started, I was a temp, and it just progressed from there.  So, yeah, I’ve spent most of my life in telecom.  I did a quick stint in the financial risk industry, and I learned a lot.  Like I felt like I got 10 years of experience from the leadership there and the projects I worked there.  So other than that, it’s all been telecom, yeah. BILL YATES:  And tell us about your current position.  You work with TruNorth now.  And if I remember right, this is your second time with this company? JUNE MUSTARI:  Yeah.  That’s actually where I started more formal project management back in 2013.  And I stayed there for a few years, really loved it.  And I left to do my own thing in the bigger project management world, larger enterprises.  So right now what I do at TruNorth Consulting, we’re veterans in telecom, so we understand all the lingo and how bills look, how records look and all of that.  And so we deliver visibility to millions of dollars in telecom spend in one pane of glass.  So we give CFOs confidence and control of the money that they’re spending in their telecom.  We also help onboard people to our enterprise platform so that they can manage their digital transformation from old copper telecom to fiber or other, VoIP, that kind of thing.  I am their Director of Operations. BILL YATES: Just give everybody a sense for what’s a typical customer engagement like for TruNorth.  So you guys are going in and approaching a business and saying, hey, let us make sure that you’re getting the best deal that you can with your telecom solution.  Let us take a look at the service and the bill and make recommendations.  Is that kind of what you guys do? JUNE MUSTARI:  Yeah.  Typically they actually approach us. BILL YATES:  Okay. JUNE MUSTARI:  Because they are so frustrated that they’re seeking to solve their problem, which is a headache around that very problematic industry.  So when we are going to take on a new client, we first evaluate their spend.  How much are you actually spending in telecom?  So we get a good view of that, and typically our clients are 10 million plus in annual spend.  And then we ask them for all of their information – accounts, copies of invoices, anything like that.  And then our engagement really starts when we start putting that stuff in our tool, our solution where you get full visibility to your inventory and spend.  So the project there is onboarding.  Then the end goal is ongoing telecom expense management after that, which is a monthly review of all of your services so you can control your costs. COVID-19 Impact and Bringing Balance WENDY GROUNDS:  June, one of the themes that we’re having with our podcasts at the moment is we’re asking our guests what their COVID-19 story is.  How has this impacted your work?  What have you been seeing? JUNE MUSTARI:  Yeah, that’s a really good question.  And I feel like this is a really good way to get different perspectives, by asking these questions.  I ask these questions to people in my network.  For us, personally, True North is remote anyway.  We’re distributed all over the country.  So we’re constantly meeting on Zoom.  We live on the phone.  So we had really no adjustment internally, other than how it affected us on a personal level, each of us responding to this crisis new normal.  So that was the adjustment we had to go through, which was little in comparison to those who had to do both – maneuver going remote in their professional life and dealing with it personally. BILL YATES:  What about your customers, June?  What have you seen with some of the adjustments that they’ve had to make? JUNE MUSTARI:  Navigating change is never easy in any organization or enterprise.  So if you’re forced into it, that’s usually where you get the best results, because you have to actually take action; right?  So for them I think, because it is mostly multilocation businesses that have either gone through mergers and acquisitions, which is already problematic in itself, there are many locations. So being able to get skeleton crews in those locations for broadcasting, for example, you still need to be on the air.  Getting skeleton crews in the studio, going virtual as much as you can, all of that brought light, I think, to our clients that they need better bandwidth, and disaster recovery plans, if they didn’t have them.  It put things into perspective, I think, for them more than anything else.  And so for us, our reaction to that was, hey, get on a meeting with us, we’re going to bring humanity and humor to this situation and make you feel like things are normal, at least for that hour. BILL YATES:  Nice. JUNE MUSTARI:  Because we were normal.  So it was actually really cool to be in that position at that time. BILL YATES:  Yeah, telecom and ISP and connections are vital to business.  And to have someone who can approach it from a baseline of great experience, broad understanding of telecom, and also that humanity, you know, that humor and, okay, I know life has been turned upside down for you guys at work.  So let us help you figure out this piece.  That’s a trusted partner. JUNE MUSTARI:  It’s all about trust.  And I think more than ever trust is our cornerstone in our business.  And when you can show up in a way that makes people feel secure, it’s our purpose.  It’s great. Emotional Engagement BILL YATES:  Nice.  So give us some practicals on that, what are some of the things that you’re doing, like on a daily or a weekly basis, with your either team members or with your customers, to help engage just their sense for where they’re at emotionally? JUNE MUSTARI:  Yeah, so it’s just as simple as asking sincerely and with real concern, how are you doing, and letting them talk about it and listen.  That’s really all that’s required is listening, and, then you know, we do a lot, we are already, because we’re remote, doing silly things all the time as a team.

In our current environment, many project managers are being forced to pivot, shift, change plans, and start over. In this episode, John Houser walks us through what happened with his company, Spectrum Healthcare, as they were wrapping up an adoption of a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) just as COVID-19 started to impact their operations. John begins by briefly describing what SAFe is and what led Spectrum to implement SAFe.

Susanne Madsen shares how mentoring and coaching are quite different, yet both emphasize a distinct approach to helping people realize their full potential, and how serving as a coach will make you a better project leader. Our work environment has changed significantly and abruptly; have you considered taking on a role as a coach or a mentor to encourage others to stay engaged and productive? Table of Contents 01:01 … Meet Susanne 01:44 … Coaching vs. Mentoring Definitions 03:05 … Are Project Managers Good Coaches? 04:08 … Who Should Mentor? 04:59 … Deciding on a Coach or a Mentor 06:25 … Good Coaching Skills 07:57 … Limitations of Internal Coaching 11:27 … Mistakes Made in the Role of a Coach 12:43 … Asking Good Questions 15:36 … Making Time to Reflect and Review 18:08 … Don’t Ask Why 19:49 … Enhancing Problem-Solving Skills 22:20 … Benefits of Becoming a Coach 24:54 … Can You Self-Coach? 26:15 … Choosing the Right Mentor 27:31 … Time Spent on the Relationship 28:52 … Who Sets Expectations? 29:33 … Benefits for the Mentor 31:03 … Organizational Coaching or Mentoring? 32:50 … Contact Susanne 33:47 … Closing SUSANNE MADSEN:  So when you study coaching, you become so much more conscious about your own beliefs, about how you come across.  And you just get better at building rapport and having conversations with others, empathizing with others, and not just talking about yourself all the time.  WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  If you like what you hear, please leave us a review on our website or wherever you listen to our podcast.  We always love hearing from you.  I am Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  Welcome, Bill. BILL YATES:  Hi, Wendy.  I’m excited about our conversation today.  This is going to be on a topic that I think a lot of project managers will benefit from.  I think there’s a lot of confusion, too, about coaching versus mentoring.  So we hope to really clarify for people, what’s the difference?  Are they the same?  And what advice do we have for both those who want to be a coach or receive coaching; be a mentor or receive mentoring. Meet Susanne   WENDY GROUNDS:  Right, right, so I was thinking, let’s do a podcast on coaching/mentoring. And the more I looked into it, the more we realized those are two very different things, and so we hope that our guest today can elaborate and give us some clarity. So her name is Susanne Madsen, and she’s a project leadership coach, trainer, and consultant, and we’re very excited to have Susanne with us in the studio today. BILL YATES:  It’s going to be outstanding, and so I’m going to be the one with the boring accent.  We have two wonderful accents, and then there’s me. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes.  Susanne was telling us she lives in the U.K., but she’s Danish.  So, yeah, pick up some of that accent.  It’s pretty cool. BILL YATES:  Yes. WENDY GROUNDS:  Susanne, welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for joining us today. SUSANNE MADSEN:  Thank you for having me.  It’s a real honor. Coaching vs. Mentoring Definitions WENDY GROUNDS:  Coaching versus mentoring.  Could you give us a definition of both of them and just how they relate to projects? SUSANNE MADSEN:  Yes, and it’s good that we start with that because so many people use those two terms interchangeably. And I think we should say that there’s a lot of overlap, that both help us to relate to another person and help that other person move forward.  But we do that in different ways, whether we are coaching or mentoring. So coaching, as a coach, we like to say that we don’t give advice, and that’s one of the big differences between the two. When we coach somebody, we like to help somebody move forward by encouraging that person to find the answers for themselves, and there’s a number of ways we do that. With mentoring – and so I’m looking here at the black-and-white differences between them.  With mentoring it’s perfectly acceptable to give advice because the whole point of mentoring is that you pass on knowledge from one person, who may have the experience that the other person doesn’t have, and so that is part of the parcel.  And when you then relate that to project management, you can see that, as a junior project manager, I might want to be mentored by somebody more senior. So they can pass on the knowledge, tell me all the war stories, and tell me what they think I should or should not do or how to progress within the organization.  Whereas with coaching, it’s much more impartial, in a way. Are Project Managers Good Coaches?         BILL YATES:  So a follow-up question on that, I remember reading some of your blogs and writing about this, and I totally agree with it.  You make the point that project managers tend to want to give more advice and sometimes don’t make the best coaches for that reason.  Is that because we’re problem solvers?  So what is it in a project manager that makes them sometimes difficult to be a good coach? SUSANNE MADSEN:  I think it goes for project managers as many other types of professions, anything to do with engineering and problem-solving, because we like to give the impression that we know a lot. We know it all, maybe not everything, but we are knowledgeable.  We don’t want to make people feel that they could do without us, and so that’s actually something that’s related also, not just to coaching, but to leadership in general.  If I empower other people, and if I don’t tell them what to do, then what is my role? And we can’t really get our head around that, so yes, it’s true that many project managers like to give advice because it makes me feel that I’m needed. Who Should Mentor?  BILL YATES:  Yup.  So following up on that, thinking about it from a person who is thinking maybe I should mentor, given the definitions that we have, who do you think is better positioned to be a mentor? SUSANNE MADSEN:  So when I’m a mentor, I would say I’ve got to a position within the organization where I’m a little bit more senior.  It doesn’t mean that junior people can’t also mentor.  But it suggests that I have a certain level of experience that I want to pass on that knowledge and experience to somebody else.  So I may be very happy with my day job, very busy with my day job, and I may feel there’s a certain way of doing it that I would like to pass on to others.  And so I’m quite happy to spend, let’s say a couple of hours a month mentoring different people, or a couple of hours every six months mentoring others.  Whereas coaching, I think, is fundamentally different because as a coach you do need some training. Deciding on a Coach or a Mentor WENDY GROUNDS:  If we’re looking at it from the other side now, if somebody is saying, “Should I have a coach, or should I have a mentor for my career?”  How do they decide which is the right thing for them? SUSANNE MADSEN:  So I know a lot of people who do both.  So one doesn’t exclude the other, also one might be readily available within the organization, and the other one might not.  But let’s say that we take those constraints away. Personally I would say that, if somebody wants to learn from somebody more senior, if I know that I can get better at the subject matter, or if I would like to climb the career ladder, and I need to broaden my network, or there’s something else I feel that I can get from somebody, let’s say, within my own organization, or with somebody who works within the same industry as me – maybe they don’t work in my company, but in a sister company – then mentoring is for me. Also if I feel that it’s more like there are some situations, the same situations keep coming up for me – I keep locking heads with my project sponsors, or I keep getting the same kind of feedback from my team members and I’m wondering, is it me or is it them?  Then mentoring isn’t really for me. They’re less likely to work with me on those interpersonal skills, understanding my own patterns, my own limiting beliefs, that much more behavioral aspect, so that’s much more about coaching. Good Coaching Skills BILL YATES:  I want to follow up on the role of a coach because there’s a part of me that’s a little bit intimidated when I think about being an effective coach because I agree with you, I think it does require some training.  When you’re thinking about that, what are some skills that you see in good coaches? SUSANNE MADSEN:  Good coaches here, I would assume that they have been trained.  Some of the obvious skills that a coach needs is more about the asking open questions and listening.  And also rapport building is unbelievably important because coaching is about creating a safe and very confidential space because as a coachee, I open up a lot about stuff that may be very vulnerable to me.  So as a coach I need to be able to hold that space and to treat that confidentiality and to build a rapport that enables the other person to really open up, and not make them feel awkward and go, “Oh, really?  Did you say that?  I mean, that’s really horrible,” you know.  So there’s a lot of interpersonal skills that a coach needs that we train in as coaches. And I’d also like to say that a good coach is somebody who can be a mirror.  It doesn’t mean that I just match and mirror whatever you’re doing, but it means that I play back to you whatever is going on for you.  So you might talk me through some of your goals and aspirations.  And I replay that back to you; and I say, okay, so what I’m hearing you saying is so and so.  And you go, yeah, I guess that’s what I’m saying.  So being that mirror is also very important as a coach. Limitations of Internal Coaching BILL YATES:  You talk about the need for building rapport and confidentiality in a coaching relationship.  I totally agree.  I’ve got to be able to trust my coach that I

What is the project manager’s role in talent development? Instead of focusing on the negatives, shouldn’t we focus on what people do best? After all, projects are more successful when we play to the strengths of the team. Our guest, Connie Plowman, co-authored a book Developing Strengths-Based Project Teams with Martha Buelt. Connie defines the difference between a talent and a strength as she introduces the concept of a strengths-based project team.

VELOCITEACH – Manage This – Episode 107 As businesses and project managers start to strategize about the post-crisis world, Mike Goss explains what makes business recovery a project. How can we respond to this crisis from a business standpoint, and how that can be a project? Table of Contents 01:58 … Meet Mike 03:08 … Everything in Life is a Project 03:49 … Responding to Crisis as a Project 05:00 … Redefine your Business: The Why and the Who 09:24 … Business Recovery as a Project 11:26 … Personal Experience with Business Recovery 13:33 … What Parts of a Business will Benefit? 16:05 … Building a WBS 18:45 … Facing Risks in Business Recovery 20:50 … Staying on Course 22:15 … A Project Plan for all Scenarios 23:49 … Overcoming Communication Challenges in Business Recovery 25:37 … A Plan for Businesses of all Sizes 26:06 … Strategizing in a Post Crisis World 27:23 … Advice for Resilience during Business Recovery 32:37 … Mike’s Course on Business Recovery 34:12 … Closing MIKE GOSS: If we had a scale of one to 10, yesterday you were at an eight.  Then COVID-19 show up.  Now you’re at a one.  Your objective is not to get back to eight.  Your object is to get back to 10, where you’ve never been before.  On your way, you’re going to build in the tools and the processes that make sure you never hit one again, no matter what happens.  That’s a project. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our opportunity to meet with you and talk about issues that project managers are facing today.  I am Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates. So today we’re talking in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, businesses are starting to think about the post-crisis situation.  For some organizations it’s really been near-term survival is what’s on the agenda. BILL YATES:  Right.  I agree, Wendy.  There are so many companies that are just fighting to stay in business right now.  I’m a part of a CEO roundtable, and just seeing the impact that this is having on people locally and globally is huge, I think.  I just saw some statistics today.  Now, just to let listeners know, this is May the 4th.  And so far 30 million people in the United States have filed for unemployment, just since the COVID-19 got really serious in March, up until today.  We’re here in the Atlanta, Georgia area.  So just for our state of Georgia, one in four workers have filed for unemployment. WENDY GROUNDS:  Unbelievable. BILL YATES:  So it’s huge.  And obviously our federal government is taking great steps to help fight through the economic impact of this as we all figure out what does the new normal look like.    So just thinking about what is business going to look like when we can get going again.  So I think it’s helpful for us to have this conversation, and we’re fortunate to have Mike Goss here to talk through some of this with us. Meet Mike WENDY GROUNDS:  He was telling us that his career has taken more twists and turns than most.  BILL YATES:  Yeah.  So he started out as a stereo equipment salesman. WENDY GROUNDS:  And a computer store owner. BILL YATES:  An elevator salesman. WENDY GROUNDS:  And then he became a software developer. BILL YATES:  Senior VP at a bank. WENDY GROUNDS:  And the author of “Breaking Through Walls,” a business novel about overcoming life’s obstacles. BILL YATES:  And then a college instructor. WENDY GROUNDS:  And then a radio personality. BILL YATES:  And of course he fit a military career in there, as well.  He’s a veteran in the U.S. Air Force, serving in Thailand during the Vietnam War. WENDY GROUNDS:  He has been on a podcast before with us, and he tells us more about that in his previous episode.  Since 2014, Mike has also taught PMP exam prep boot camps in Oregon, Washington, and South Carolina. BILL YATES:  Quite a diverse, I’d say, yeah, he is definitely shaking the tree.  He’s done quite a diverse... WENDY GROUNDS:  He’s been a very busy man. BILL YATES:  Yup.  I look forward to talking with Mike about the situation that we’re in now, and what we can take from project management and apply to this crisis. WENDY GROUNDS:  Mike, welcome to Manage This.  Thank you for being our guest today. MIKE GOSS:  It’s my pleasure.  I’ve been looking forward to this. Everything in Life is a Project WENDY GROUNDS:  We want to start by just kind of setting the stage for what you’ve been talking about.  So why do you say everything in life is a project? MIKE GOSS:  Wendy, everything in life that’s worth doing has an objective.  Too many times we don’t get around to stating that objective, but in fact, everything we do that’s worthwhile is a project.  We can choose to apply project management principles, or we can choose to wing it.  And so it occurred to me that it makes more sense and saves a lot of time if we make some kind of a plan.  It doesn’t have to be complex, but it has to exist. Responding to Crisis as a Project BILL YATES:  Mike, when you look at that approach, and you think about where we are today with the COVID-19 crisis, how do you put those two together?  Because COVID-19 and this crisis that we’re in can be overwhelming.  So everything in life is a project.  Now you’re looking at it and saying, okay, but how we respond to this crisis from a business standpoint, that can be a project, as well.  What kind of led you to that decision? MIKE GOSS:  Bill, it occurs to me that, if you are trying to dig your business out, and your business is probably closed because of COVID-19, how are you going to dig yourself out?  I see a great opportunity to take where we used to be, make it better, so that where we’re going is better than what used to be. And so if we’re careful as we put it together, the next time a surprise like COVID-19 shows up, and it will someday, we’ll be better prepared for that.  When we apply the principles of project management, we can make that happen.  If we wing it, then it will suffer the same way or worse, just like we are now. Redefine your Business: The Why and the Who BILL YATES:  So one of your statements was this is a time to redefine your business, maybe take a fresh look at it.  What’s your advice on reevaluating business?  How far do we go with this? MIKE GOSS:  There’s two places that we start, and you can dig as deep as you want in both of the places.  The first one is to think back why did I get into this business in the first place?  Something drew me to it, I had a software business, I once had a computer store.  Why did I get into those?  And if I can answer that, then I start seeing visions of what could be because I was pumped when I created the business in the first place. Now my business took a nosedive, I’ll say it wasn’t my fault, but I also have to say maybe I wasn’t as prepared as I could have been.  So it’s now the time to make a new vision for my business to make it something even better than it was before, and that’s where I’ll start, that’s the first part. But the second part has to do with my customers, every person who breathes is not my customer.  I’m going to have to figure out better than I ever have before who is my target customer, and what do they care about?  And once I know that, my objective is I want them to buy stuff from me.  That’s my revenue.  I’ll generate  profits from those sales.  But if I don’t know what my customers are looking for, and I open the door and do exactly what I did before, I’ve already set myself up for big trouble. BILL YATES:  So Mike, a lot of this reminds me of thinking to projects, thinking about a project charter. And I think you can  make the equivalent statement of like a company charter, a mission statement, so with that charter we should be explaining the why.  Why are we doing this project?  What difference is it going to make?  Is it a particular product?  Is it a service? Or is it a result?  Why?  And then who’s going to benefit from it?  Who’s going to pay for it?  Certainly the sponsor.  But then who’s the end customer?  The why and the who are so closely connected, it’s as if you’re describing a project charter, perhaps at a business level. So maybe we need to be taking a fresh look at our business and answering that question of why and the who. MIKE GOSS:  We do, Bill, because, if we don’t, when something else happens, we’re not going to be prepared. We’re going to say, oh, I’m so shocked that that happened, yet we had the chance to prepare for it, and we chose not to take it.  So what you were saying is the why and the what.  Why does this business exist?  What is it going to build in products or services?  And who is it going to sell those services to?  And how well does it meet the needs of those people who are going to come back to our business?  If we haven’t looked at them recently, it’s time, and so this is such a huge opportunity to do that. BILL YATES:  So how do you step back and take that fresh look?  So I think for some who are listening, they’re thinking, man, I’m working more hours than I’ve ever worked.  This is like when I first launched my business, or launched a project.  I’m working more hours than I thought I could possibly work, trying to keep things afloat, and now Mike’s challenging me to be very strategic, to look at the why, look at what it is we’re producing, and who we’re producing it for. So what’s your word of inspiration to those folks? MIKE GOSS:  Start out with your glass being half full and rising, Bill.  Start there. BILL YATES:  Okay. MIKE GOSS:  So right now it’s too easy to say, oh, poor me, doom and gloom, the world is conspiring against me.  There’s no time for that.  It’s now time to do the same thing you did when you first started your business:  create a grand vision of what could be.  Then invite all the kids on your team to go along on a quest to achieve that grand vision,