Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

The podcast by project managers for project managers. We are taking a fresh look at project estimation. Topics include the estimation obstacles project managers commonly face, key factors essential for accurate projections, the impact of organizational culture, implementing cost management strategies, and navigating the risks of underestimating or overestimating project estimates. Table of Contents 02:10 … Project Estimating Course03:56 … What do We Estimate?04:46 … Factors in a Project Estimate06:26 … Ensuring Accurate Estimates08:30 … Experience and Experiment10:26 … Choosing the Best Approach11:41 … Estimating Tools12:38 … The Problem with Culture14:27 … Who Participates in the Estimating Process?15:55 … The People Side17:31 … Significance of Historical Information20:16 … Managing Costs22:17 … Underestimating your Project Estimates23:44 … The Issue of Risk Management25:26 … Dangers of Overestimating27:56 … How to Combat Overestimating29:03 … Implementing an Estimating Process33:54 … Closing BOB MAHLER:  ...every time you sign your name on the dotted line, your credibility as a project manager is going to be in question and scrutinized.  And the larger the project, the more visible, the more scrutiny you’re going to have.  You should welcome that, and you should rise to that challenge. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I am Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and our sound guy, Danny Brewer.  We’re so happy you’re joining us today because today we’re going to dive into the world of project estimation.  We’re going to discover the essential elements that demand estimation and the crucial factors driving accurate projections.  With our guests, we’re going to navigate the landscape of estimation tools and strategies as we discover a seamless approach for crafting dependable estimates. Now, the experts we’re going to talk to on project estimating are Ren Love and Bob Mahler.  You all know Ren.  She is part of our Velociteach team.  She also does our Projects from the Past snippets that we sometimes include in our podcasts.  And she is the manager of curriculum development at Velociteach.  She’s also worked in zoos, science centers, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom before she joined one of the Big Four accounting firms; and she has 10 years of unique management experiences.  We’re so glad to have Ren on the team.  BILL YATES:  Now let me tell you just a bit about Bob Mahler. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, it’s been a while since we’ve talked to Bob. BILL YATES:  Yeah, Bob started his career with Velociteach similar to what I did, as an instructor.  So he taught for a number of years.  And then he migrated into sales, a natural role for him.  He’s director of business development with Velociteach now.  His background, he started out with the military.  As a matter of fact, he served our country as a Green Beret through the U.S. Army; served in Egypt, Kenya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, many places.  After 12 years of service with the military, he moved back into the private sector and was a telecommunications specialist there.  Project Estimating Course WENDY GROUNDS:  Bob and Ren have developed a project estimating course which you can find on our website. This is an instructor-led course for group or corporate training. This course will teach students the most common and effective practices, tools and techniques for project estimating. You can email manage_this@velociteach.com if you would like more information or you can find a link to this course on our transcript. WENDY GROUNDS:  Ren and Bob, it’s so good to have you both back on the podcast.  I wanted to ask you a little bit about the course.  You developed a course for Velociteach on project estimating.  Can you give us some background to that? BOB MAHLER:  Well, of course.  First and foremost, it’s always a pleasure to be here with the Velociteach team, my home, my family, my livelihood.  So project estimating was an interesting and fun course because, as everyone knows, practitioners go through this vacuum towards achieving their PMP where they answer questions about project estimates without any external factors.  And it’s usually very simplified.  Then, once you start doing real work, you realize, oh, wow, there’s a lot of other things that go into this, like who’s doing the work, and when are we doing the work, and what about risk, or what about quality, and what about stakeholder tolerance? When a recent client realized that studying for the exam and reality were very different, they reached out and said, hey, we need help.  And since you’ve made every possible project mistake in your experience that could be made and then corrected it, you’re the right guy.  So that led us through course development for this particular client. What do We Estimate? BILL YATES:  It was fun for me to watch, Bob, you and Ren collaborate on this.  You were getting requirements from the customer, a large hospital system, to develop this course, helping them identify their pain points.  And then you and Ren were looking at it going, okay, what should be covered in this estimating class, you know, based on just the knowledge that we have, the experience that we’ve had from different industries, and then also specifically for this hospital system.  But let me just back up.  Ren, let me throw this one at you.  What kind of things do we need to estimate on a project? REN LOVE:  There are lots of things that can be estimated on a project.  The three biggest ones that I think come out the most when we talk about project estimating are project costs, how long your project is going to take, and the number of resources that you’re going to need to be getting the work done. Factors in a Project Estimate WENDY GROUNDS:  What are some of the factors and the considerations that are essential when you’re building out your estimates?  What’s the information that you need? BOB MAHLER:  So as Ren previously stated, there are a lot of things that go into any particular estimate.  And I’m fond of saying, and I may have just made this up, that estimates are the anchor between scope, cost, and schedule because, if you get the scope right, hopefully, then the estimates, sound estimates, are going to lead you into a solid schedule.  And since time is money, it will lead you into a solid budget. Some of those factors are, how experienced are you at this particular work?  How solid are your estimates for this particular material?  Who’s doing the work?  What’s your efficiency?  When are you available?  What about inflation?  What about interest?  And what about the vendor?  The list goes on and on.  And whenever you think you’ve done enough due diligence, you’re probably only halfway there.  If you’re not scared, then you haven’t done enough work on it. BILL YATES:  That’s a good litmus test.  I like that, yeah.  When you start to feel overconfident, that’s when you’ve probably forgotten to ask a key stakeholder a key question or turn over one more rock.  That’s a good point. BOB MAHLER:  And I didn’t even mention risk.  As we know, I’m a risk manager, too, and I didn’t even mention risk.  Another key consideration is based on the kind of work.  Is it dangerous?  Do you need to estimate more time and cost?  And that list is a whole ‘nother rabbit hole to go into.  But I think I’ll stop right there. Ensuring Accurate Estimates BILL YATES:  All right.  So key question here.  How do you ensure your estimates are as accurate as possible? REN LOVE:  I can chime in a little bit on this one, Bob, which is historical information can be really, really valuable here.  So here’s where you can look at similar projects in the past and say, you know, that took us two years.  So let’s start our estimating there and adjust for some of those other factors and assumptions that Bob just mentioned a minute ago.  That’s a great starting point, but also making sure that you have the best information possible as inputs to that estimating process.  You may hear the phrase “garbage in/garbage out.”  If you’re using historical information that is not accurate or effective for some reason, then you’re not going to have the most accurate estimates on this project. So, for example, if your historical project that you’re looking at took a year off in 2020 because of the global pandemic, thus took three years to do, and you’re looking at this historical project estimate saying, okay, well, that project took three years, this one will probably take three years, too, well, you’re less likely to encounter a global pandemic, hopefully, than that project did.  So that’s something to think about, too. And then the last one I want to mention is estimating in good faith.  So you can’t truly get accurate estimates if you have already been given a target in mind from some external person.  So let’s say you have a key stakeholder that says, oh, it would be really great if this release coincided with the major holiday a year from now.  Well, now you may find yourself trying to estimate your schedule into fitting that timeline, and that is not estimating in good faith.  You really cannot work backwards.  So what should happen there is that you do all of your estimates to the best of your ability, go back to that key stakeholder and say, all right, based on what we know, we’re going to need more money and more resources to hit that deadline that you want.  And so that’s what I mean when I say “estimating in good faith.” Experience and Experiment BILL YATES:  Okay, Ren, you mentioned historical information, which is so important for estimating.  We’ve got to have historical information in order to really feel like we’ve got a solid anchor for our estimates.  I remember you did some research on the Sydney Opera House.  I don’t think there’s another Sydney Opera House,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Burnout and resilience. How can we move beyond viewing resilience as a buzzword and dispel the notion that it involves only toughing it out or maintaining a positive attitude? Balancing project success with avoiding burnout is a real challenge in high-stress environments Dr. Marie-Helene (MH) Pelletier discusses the necessity of adopting a strategic approach to resilience by integrating psychology and strategy. Table of Contents 02:39 … Why Resilience Is Important03:45 … Do We “Tough it Out”?04:57 … If the Context is Changing, Change Your Approach08:23 … What “The Resilience Plan” Offers11:56 … Helix Shape Resilience Plan Model13:28 … Being Strategic about Resilience15:11 … Creating a Resilience Plan19:04 … Kevin and Kyle20:10 … Burnout24:10 … Can Resilience Cause Burnout?28:20 … Striking a Balance31:20 … Taking Care of Yourself34:15 … Team Resilience37:30 … Contact MH38:07 … Closing MH PELLETIER:  ...most project managers, would not be in a situation where on the daily basis have to explore how everyone’s feeling about everything, obviously.  But they’re also managing a project, managing people who are within this project, and managing themselves supporting this project.  So the more we can incorporate in our observations, the very normal expected demands and expected impacts that these may have on all of us as we navigate this timeline, the more we can, again, proactively manage and be prepared to reactively manage when any one of us, to your point, feels like we need to hit the pause button.  WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome, resilient leaders, to a special edition of Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Stay tuned with us today for a conversation that will reshape the way you approach challenges in project management. I’m Wendy Grounds.  My co-host, who is the expert in the arena of project management, is Bill Yates; and joining us is our unflappable sound guy, Danny Brewer.  Today we’re delving into a topic that’s the bedrock of success in the face of adversity:  resilience.  In the high stakes arena of project management, where challenges loom around every corner, resilience isn’t just a buzzword, it’s actually the secret sauce that turns your setbacks into stepping stones.  If you are navigating a stormy project or just seeking to fortify your professional resilience, this episode is your compass to success because in project management, the resilient not only survive, but thrive. We’re excited to introduce our guest, who is a true champion in the realm of resilient project leadership, Marie-Hélène Pelletier. BILL YATES:  Yes, we are so fortunate to have her joining us as our guest.  And she goes by MH, which is appropriate.  It’s a handy reference to mental health.  The short form really is a great fit there.  We love that.  So you’ll hear us refer to our guest as MH.  She’s a psychologist with a systems mind.  She has both a PhD and an MBA.  She has over 20 years of experience as a practicing psychologist and as a senior leader in the corporate insurance, governance, and healthcare sectors.  MH’s unique talent is bringing together workplace and psychology, translating concepts into key takeaways that listeners can put into action the minute they finish the episode.  WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes, definitely.  There are many takeaways from this conversation, so let’s get talking. Hi, MH.  Welcome to Manage This. MH PELLETIER:  I’m thrilled to be here. Why Resilience Is Important WENDY GROUNDS:  We really appreciate you being with us.  You released “The Resilience Plan.”  It’s a strategic approach to optimizing your work performance and mental health.  Why is resilience so important?  Why does it matter to you? MH PELLETIER:  Great question, and let me provide a definition because we hear the word, we use the word.  What is mostly the definition, even if we go to literature?  One that most people go with is our ability to go through adversity and grow, come out even stronger.  And by “adversity” here, we mean the acute events, but also chronic demands, like a pandemic, for example.  So we’ve heard a lot about it, we know the kinds of things that would help, and most of us are struggling to implement them.  Yet we know from research that, if we did, we would have a chance to more proactively influence the course of how things will go for us and for people we work with.  So it’s a great opportunity, and that’s why I think it’s so important. Do We “Tough it Out”? BILL YATES:  Sometimes people think you either have to tough it out or stay positive when it comes to resilience.  What is your view on this? MH PELLETIER:  I would say most professionals and leaders at one point or another probably think this way.  And there are good reasons.  It’s actually not helpful, but why do we think this?  We think this because, especially early in our careers, without us realizing it, it just appeared that we could just keep going, not pay specific attention.  It felt like we were naturally like this.  Often people even told us, “Oh, you’re so resilient,” that you just get to a point where you think it’s part of you. So because you think it’s part of you, you just think, put your head down, keep going, stay positive, and that’s all going to be fine.  That’s how we get to think about it this way.  The thing is, resilience is actually not a personality trait.  It’s something at times will be higher, at times will be lower, which means on the very positive side that we can influence it; right?  And we actually should because, if we don’t, and we keep taking from that pool of resilience, well, it will go down just like any other resource. If the Context is Changing, Change Your Approach BILL YATES:  This point really hit home with me early in your book.  You shared a very personal experience of you and your husband were hiking, you overcame an obstacle, and then you faced the same obstacle, the river, a few days later.  And your reserves were low.  You were dehydrated.  You were tired.  I think many of us can relate to that in life and in work.  And then this challenge became something that almost got the best of you.  And that was a real eye-opener for me and grabbed my attention.  Share a bit about that. MH PELLETIER:  Yes, I think each of us have gone through something like this.  And you’re right; this situation for me is in a mountaineering situation and not a work situation.  However, it was a fairly significant experience for me.  And the learning I got from it was a mountaineering learning.  If the context is changing, change your approach, MH, which sounds very obvious.  And but then, as I worked with professionals and leaders in my coaching work and in my speaking, I thought, look at the applicability of this in our work. We have our ways of dealing with challenges.  The context changes.  We are facing more unexpected, larger events.  And yet we keep going the same approach, which – and literally people will come sometimes to their conversations with me and say, “MH, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  I’ve always responded this way.  It has always worked.  What’s my problem now that it’s not working?”  And often the key is in the context that has changed.  And therefore the approach needs to change.  We need to be adaptable. BILL YATES:  I thought of a personal experience when I was reflecting on this.  One time I was at the gym, the YMCA, doing a normal workout like I would typically do.  This time I think I pushed a little bit harder than normal.  And I finished my workout, went back into the locker room to retrieve my things, and I could not remember the combination to my lock.  So this was a lock combination that I’ve known for years.  And I’ve been in that same situation over and over and over and was able to remember three numbers.  But for the life of me, for five minutes, I could not remember the combination.  And I was embarrassed; and I was a bit, you know, taken aback by it because this is something that I, you know, I do this all the time.  But again, conditions had changed; and, poof, that information, my ability to handle the situation was gone. MH PELLETIER:  Exactly.  And this is a great example.  I mean, that exact thing has happened for many of us, or something similar.  And often when these things happen, we deal with it quickly.  And at the same time, these are really good warning signs to pay attention to.  Quite possibly in this moment, your concentration was not as high as usual.  And concentration does not just fluctuate for the sake of it.  It usually will go down when our resources are so tapped in other areas that it starts to show in concentration, ability to make decisions, sometimes impatience, even other things.  And that’s another thing we tend to do.  We tend to ignore it.  And part of what I’m saying in the book is unh-unh, let’s pay attention to these things early, proactively. What “The Resilience Plan” Offers WENDY GROUNDS:  So we’re excited that your book is going live, “The Resilience Plan.”  What does this offer that’s going to help our audience?  You know, sometimes resilience just becomes like a buzzword.  We all hear about it.  We talk about it.  What are you offering that is really going to help people to improve? MH PELLETIER:  Great question.  And that’s true.  We’ve heard this word. Like we said, it’s not because we’ve heard it that we’re better at it.  And a fair bit of people I work with actually are project managers.  And they’re wonderful at their, you know, their business thinking, their operational thinking, their organizational sense, all of this.  I have a special place in my heart – seriously, for real, I’m not just saying this to you – for project managers.  I’ve been that leader that works with a project manager who wants a million things done now.  And project manager calmly looks at me and says,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Discover how project managers leverage their skills to navigate the multifaceted sales role. Harold Samson, shares insights on developing diverse sales-oriented skills. From the art of securing resources, fostering team alignment, and building client relationships, hear about the pillars of successful project management in a sales-oriented role. Table of Contents 03:10 … The Project Manager Salesperson06:32 … Internal Sales10:26 … Successful Salesperson Qualities14:30 … Opportunity Bulletin16:56 … External Sales Strategies19:57 … Kevin and Kyle21:00 … Selling to Senior Management25:36 … Real-World Situations29:03 … Look for Opportunities30:43 … Ethical Considerations in Sales34:11 … Contact Harold35:56 … Closing HAROLD SAMSON: One of the earliest things that I learned was that every person in the world since the dawn of time, everybody makes decisions that are in their own best interest.  It’s as simple as that.  And all you need to figure out is what are their best interests? WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me are Bill Yates and Danny Brewer, our sound guy.  We’re so excited that you are joining us.  If you like what you hear, please consider rating our show with five stars, and you can also leave a review on our website or whichever podcast listening app you use.  This helps us immensely in bringing the podcast to the attention of others, and we want to reach as many project managers as we can to be able to help the community. One question I have for you listeners:  How does your experience as a project manager translate into your ability to sell a product or an idea to stakeholders, to your clients, or even to your team members? BILL YATES:  The sales aspect.  You know, just as we were preparing for our conversation with Harold, just this week there was a blog that I read by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, a guest of ours on an earlier podcast, and here’s a quote:  “Traditionally project management has been viewed as a support function, a facilitator of a predefined business strategy.  However, in my experience as a project management expert” - this is Antonio speaking, not Bill – “modern project management isn’t just a facilitator, but an enabler and driver of business growth.” So this is very interesting that Antonio just wrote about this.  There is a sales side to what we do as project managers.  We have to sell it to the team, we have to sell it internally to get the resources, and then sometimes we have to sell to our external customers.  There’s nobody better to talk to us about it than Harold.  He’s had such great experience with that.  I’ve known Harold since 2006, have been working with him since 2006, and he’s just got a vast amount of experience and knowledge on, not just project management, but different industries and how consulting practices work and how project managers get things done.  WENDY GROUNDS:  So today we’re talking with Harold Samson, who is one of our instructors at Velociteach.  Harold has been with us for many, many years.  He has more than 25 years experience in application systems development, and 20 of those involved all aspects of project management.  As a senior principal and co-founder of C.W. Costello & Associates, which is a national provider of business systems consulting services to Fortune 500 companies, Harold gained hands-on experience managing project teams in all phases of the system development lifecycle within many different industries. We just realized we have not yet had the opportunity to talk to Harold on a podcast. BILL YATES:  We need to make that straight.  We need to fix that. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes, yes.  Hi, Harold.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you for being our guest today. HAROLD SAMSON:  Well, thanks for inviting me.  I’m looking forward to the conversation. The Project Manager Salesperson WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, I think it’s been a long time coming, and we’re excited to get into this topic.  Where did the whole idea of the project manager as a salesperson come from, and how has this evolved as your career has progressed? HAROLD SAMSON:  Well, I started up in the Boston area.  When I first got into IT consulting, I worked for a boutique consulting firm up in Boston, and we were organized pretty much how every other consulting firm was organized back then.  We had a CEO and a whole bunch of salespeople, and then all of the consultants.  So it was a flat organization, and the salespeople were responsible for selling, and the consultants were responsible for doing the work.  And there wasn’t any emphasis put on the consultants being salespeople in place, so to speak.  So I worked there for four or five years, learned my craft.  And then me and six of my buddies, we decided to start our own company in Connecticut. So we moved from Boston to Connecticut, and we started our own company, and it pretty much followed the same path until we hired a salesperson from  IBM.  And this gentleman was looking for a change in his career.  He was very, very successful at IBM, selling mainframes and everything that goes along with it.  And we brought him in.  He wanted a challenge.  He wanted to start selling services, so he thought that would be interesting for him. And the first thing that he noticed when he came into our organization is that none of the consultants were selling out there in the field.  And we said, “Well, what do you mean?  We’re supposed to do the work.  We’re supposed to be the geniuses onsite.  We don’t sell.  That’s your job.”  He said, “No, no, no.  My job is to get you into a place, but then you have boots on the ground.  You get to see everything.  I’m not there.  There are many, many opportunities, and I’m going to teach you how to look for them.” And over the next couple of years we went from a small company with a couple of offices.  Ten years later, we were doing $100 million in sales, and it was all because of what this guy taught us.  And as I go from class to class, site to site, and most of my classes are the PMP prep classes, but we teach a variety of other classes where management brings us in to groom their project managers.  And the first thing that we noticed, first thing that I noticed is that these guys wouldn’t know a sales opportunity if it knocked them on the head with a mallet.  It’s really a pretty straightforward thing to teach not only the project manager how to find and close on additional work with the customer, but the team members as well.  They’re out there.  They hear things.  They see things. And they just don’t know what they’re hearing, and they don’t know that there are opportunities buried in some of the chitchat that goes on in any facility.  And you just need to know what to look for, and that’s what we used to train our people.  That’s what this particular IBM salesman used to teach us, and he opened our eyes, the results went right to the bottom line for sure. Internal Sales BILL YATES:  That’s a powerful story.  And to me, one of the things that intrigued me in talking about this topic is, in my mind, there’s two types of sales that a project manager needs to be aware of.  There’s the external opportunities that we need to be more aware of.   But there’s also the internal piece, a sales piece that I think for some project managers is a bit of a stretch.  But it’s, hey, you need to sell the team on the value of this project and sell the team on their contribution to the success of the project.  You’ve got to get them onboard.  So talk to us a little bit about that internal sales piece. HAROLD SAMSON:  You’re definitely right.  There’s two sides of the coin there.  And when we talk to these project managers about sales, the way I introduce the topic, as I say, hey, I’m just curious, how many of you guys have ever been in sales before?  Just a show of hands.  And it seems like an innocent question.  And if we’ve got 20 people in the room, maybe one or two will put their hands up.  Then I’ll begin the discussion.  I’ll say, okay, that’s the problem.  You’re all in sales.  You don’t realize it, but as a project manager, you are selling to everybody.  First and foremost, you are selling to your team.  The first sale you have to make when you bring your team together, you need to convince everyone on the team that it’s in their best interest that the project succeeds. Now, question is, how you do that?  Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to that.  You need to talk to everyone.  One of the first mistakes that I made in the early part of my career as a project manager was I just assumed everybody was motivated by the same thing I was, which was I want to advance in the organization.  I want to make a lot of money.  And I found out very quickly that not everybody is motivated by money and advancement.  And you don’t know that until you sit down and have a one on one with every person on the team.  You know half of them will be motivated by money, and that’s an easy discussion to have.  You know, what’s it going to take?  What kind of money are you looking for in the future?  And let’s put a plan together.  If you do this, then you will get that.  And once it’s in black and white, people have a roadmap for how to get from A to B, then you’d be amazed at how motivated they are. One of the earliest things that I learned was that every person in the world since the dawn of time, everybody makes decisions that are in their own best interest.  It’s as simple as that.  And all you need to figure out is what are their best interests.  Now, half the people, like I said, are going to be motivated by money, advancement, all the accoutrements that go with that.  But the other people, you’d be surprised.  Some people are motivated by, you know what, I’d really like more time off.

Project C.U.R.E. was founded in 1987 to address the staggering shortage of medical resources around the world. It has become the world’s largest distributor of donated medical supplies, equipment and services to doctors and nurses serving the sick and dying in more than 135 countries. Each week Project C.U.R.E. delivers approximately three to five semi-truck-sized ocean containers packed with the medical equipment and supplies desperately needed to save lives in hospitals and clinics in resource-limited countries.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Foundational power skills encompass soft skills, behavioral competencies, and personality traits essential for leaders, aspiring leaders, and team members alike. By embracing these power skills, individuals can elevate their capabilities, leading to enhanced organizational performance and fostering a collaborative, high-performance culture within organizations. Table of Contents 02:47 … Neal’s Motivation03:54 … Targeting the Audience05:31 … A Power Skill08:21 … The 24 Power Skills12:07 … Pick Your Top Three13:25 … Manage Daily Your Top Three Priorities18:11 … A Project Story21:30 … Feedback on Focusing on Top Three23:13 … Treat All Project Managers Equally27:45 … Setting Expectations29:33 … Kevin and Kyle30:52 … Power Sills for the Team32:29 … Who Teaches the Power Skills?33:58 … Informing Your Leaders37:09 … Make Your Leaders Look Good42:37 … Contact Neal44:22 … Closing NEAL WHITTEN: Power skills give you the real power to get your job done effectively and efficiently.  It places the accountability for your actions squarely on you.  I’m very big on accountability.  I think it’s something we’re missing in this world quite a bit.  And I find also that most people would rather have the authority and accountability that these power skills support.  So when you unleash this power in the non-management ranks, I assert your organization and company are going to prosper like never before. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds.  And here with me in the studio is Bill Yates, and our sound guy is Danny Brewer. We’re excited to bring this episode to you.  We’re talking with someone who is well known and loved by all the Velociteach team.  This is Neal Whitten.  He’s a trainer, he’s a consultant, mentor, author, speaker in the areas of power skills and leadership, as well as project management, team building, and employee development.  He has authored eight books and has written over 150 articles for professional magazines and was a contributing editor of PMI’s PM Network Magazine for over 15 years.  He has developed 20 online products through Velociteach.  And Bill, you’re going to tell us a little bit more about Neal, too. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  You know, there are certain relationships that you have at work, partnerships like this, that just take your game to the next level.  We are so honored to partner with Neal.  And I think it’s been nearly 10 years that we’ve been working with Neal.  And yeah, we have a number of InSite courses that are in the voice of Neal Whitten.  It’s actually his voice, it’s his content, and it’s in our InSite self-paced platform. We also are thrilled to offer, if somebody wants Neal to come onsite and present one of his workshops, he even has a two-day workshop on the content that we’re going to go through with this Power Skills book.  You can contact us.  We have that relationship with Neal, and we can set that up, as well.  One of my highlights in working here at Velociteach has been this partnership with Neal Whitten.  We’ve got so much respect for him. WENDY GROUNDS:  And we are going to be talking about his book, “Power Skills That Lead to Exceptional Performance.”  It’s a new book that’s just come out this year.  And, hey, if you’re looking for a gift that you want to give to everybody on your team or to a project manager that you know and love, this is an excellent idea for a wonderful Christmas gift, and you’ve just got a few days to go out and get yours.  Hi, Neal.  Welcome to Manage This.  We’re excited to have you back again. NEAL WHITTEN:  Thank you, I’m honored to be here. Neal’s Motivation WENDY GROUNDS:  So we’re going to jump right in and talk about your book, “Power Skills That Lead to Exceptional Performance.”  And Bill and I were very excited that we got to read it early.  It’s a very good book.  Can you tell us your motivation for writing this book? NEAL WHITTEN:  Yeah, I’d be happy to.  I worked alongside, trained, or mentored thousands of project managers, team leaders, and managers at all levels over the years.  You can tell I’m an old guy.  But I’ve learned a lot from others by listening to them, observing them, and mentoring.  And throughout this period, I’ve commonly experienced many people who either purposely or inadvertently held themselves back from reaching their true potential.  And this situation is always frustrating to me because I often believe in others more than they believe in themselves.  But we’ve all been there.  And as a seasoned practitioner – again, read “old guy” there – I decided to write a book to reach out to this audience and encapsulate decades of lessons.  And it represents lessons that are acquired and time tested from a lifetime of application. Targeting the Audience BILL YATES:  That’s for sure.  Of course, I know and respect you deeply, and we’ve had many conversations.  So when I was reading it, I read it in your voice.  I felt like I was across the coffee table from Neal, and he was pouring truth into me.  This is such good stuff.  And as I’ve said to you, I feel like this should be mandatory training.  These are just basic skills that people need to understand.  They need to have them verified that it’s something they need to do or behavior they need to have.  And you’re validating that in the book. To me, I’d love to give this book to someone who’s just starting their career in project management.  But for me, who I’ve got a whole bunch of gray hair, there’s stuff in here that resonates with me that reminds me or teaches me a different approach.  So to me the audience seems really broad.  Who’s your target audience when you were writing this book? NEAL WHITTEN:  It is a broad audience, but I can be very specific.  There are three specific target areas that I went after.  First of all, it’s for leaders.  If you’re a leader today, I don’t care if you’re in management or a project manager or you’re a team leader, whatever you are, it’s for you.  And it’s also for those who aspire to be leaders so they understand what’s expected of them.  And the third audience is all employees who desire to take their performance to a higher level.  So I agree with you.  It is very, very broad.  Now, a lot of my examples in the book are related to project management.  Those are my roots.  But people who are not project managers, or BAs or whatever, I really think can relate very much to the book, and I want them to be able to do so. Power Skills WENDY GROUNDS:  In the book, you describe a number of power skills that we can implement to take our leadership performance to a higher level.  So just describe exactly what a power skill is. NEAL WHITTEN:  Yeah, power skills, that term hasn’t been around much for very long, maybe a few years.  It’s actually been around a lot longer than that, but it just hasn’t been common.  I like the term.  Power skills include what we think of as soft skills, people skills, behavioral skills, personality traits.  And these are things that come into play every day.  And this book is about those power skills that all employees, leaders and non-leaders alike, need to embrace to perform at their best, thus causing their organizations to also perform at their best.  That was my goal, by the way.  Wasn’t just to have each individual be the best version of themselves, it was also train an organization so it can also now be a best version of itself. Readers will likely recognize the power skills that I introduced.  They’re not like, oh, wow, Neal just created something I never thought of before.  Although there may be some of that in there.  People are not always acutely aware of these power skills, even though they’ve been out there.  And it’s either because no one made them aware of these power skills; or they were aware of them, but they were afraid to apply some of them.  For example, for some people, their palms are going to sweat and their heart’s going to race when they start reaching out to do some of these things because it’s going to require a backbone.  And if that scares people back, there are so many other things in the book that will encourage them to move forward in other areas. And by the way, I’m not trying to change anybody because I want to change them.  I want people to be who they choose to be.  What I’m trying to do is I want people to recognize they can be almost anybody they choose to be.  And I want to give them the tools to get there if they choose to.  Even if, let’s say I talk about 50 different things in the book, and let’s say 10 of them make people a little nervous.  They’re not so sure they could do those things.  Well, even if they just did the 40, they’re going to be better off than where they were before they picked up the book.  But I will bet that most people will move towards those other 10, maybe inch towards it or maybe gallop towards it, depending on who the individual is. But power skills give you the real power to get your job done effectively and efficiently.  It places the accountability for your actions squarely on you.  I’m very big on accountability.  I think it’s something we’re missing in this world quite a bit.  And I find also that most people would rather have the authority and accountability that these power skills support.  So when you unleash this power in the non-management ranks, I assert your organization and company are going to prosper like never before. The 24 Power Skills BILL YATES:  Hmm.  That’s so true.  Throughout the book, you build that premise of, okay, this is good for the individual.  But every individual is part of a team, and every team is part of an organization.  So I really appreciate the way you apply it, first to the individual, and then to teams and organizations.  It raises the value for everyone.  Okay, I’ve got to ask this question.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Constance Dierickx lays out a new paradigm for leadership that offers a way to synthesize thinking, emotion, and behavior. Meta-leadership goes beyond conventional leadership attributes, emphasizing not only the possession of knowledge and skills but also a keen sense of observation and discernment. Table of Contents 02:29 … Meta-Leadership04:42 … Adopting a Meta-Leadership Strategy07:24 … Meta-Leadership Enables Decision-Making10:12 … Factors that Drive our Decisions14:36 … A Tension between Certainty and Uncertainty18:45 … Dealing with Unprofessional Behavior24:35 … Meta-Level Awareness26:16 … Kevin & Kyle27:22 … The Courage to Fail32:23 … Listen, Learn, and be Curious36:55 … Connect with Constance38:42 … Closing CONSTANCE DIERICKX:  And I can't stress the importance of showing sincere interest in other people.  Don't say it.  Don't say, “I'm a people person.”  No one believes you.  Don't say, “People are our greatest asset.”  No one believes you.  Public relations, vanilla pudding.  Do not spew the typical stuff.  Say things that are sincere and memorable and uniquely yours. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I'm Wendy Grounds.  In the studio with me is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer.  We're so excited you're joining us today.  We're talking with Constance Dierickx, and she is the author of a book that we have read called “Meta-Leadership:  How to See What Others Don't and Make Great Decisions.”  Constance is really fun to talk to and has excellent advice.  I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology focusing on decision science and crisis intervention.  She's an internationally recognized expert in high-stakes decision-making, and she has advised leaders and delivered speeches in more than 20 countries.  She's the founder and president of CD Consulting Group.  And we're going to be looking at her book “Meta-Leadership.”  One of the things that comes out of her book that I thought was really interesting was good leaders become great in part because they recognize that their own thinking, emotions, and habits of behavior can be a source of error.  So this is time for a lot of introspection.  We're going to be looking at ourselves, looking a little deeper and how are we being meta-leaders? BILL YATES:  Even to decision-making.  And here's an example of how Constance applies this idea of meta-leadership.  Let's say I'm contemplating a significant decision.  Here are questions that I should answer.  Who am I trying to please?  Or who do I not want to disappoint or annoy?  What pressures am I experiencing to make one decision or another?  Are there opinions that I am minimizing or dismissing because I don't like that person that they're coming from?  Am I being closed-minded?  Those are some of the questions that we're going to be prompted to consider as we look at this topic and discuss it further with Constance. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Constance.  Welcome to Manage This. CONSTANCE DIERICKX:  Thank you, Wendy.  It's delightful to see you and Bill on my screen. Meta-Leadership WENDY GROUNDS:  Can you describe for our audience what you mean by meta-leadership? CONSTANCE DIERICKX:  Yes, yes.  So “meta” is a prefix from the Greek.  Someone needs to tell Mark Zuckerberg that it's not a word unto itself, although I doubt he'll listen.  “Meta” means above or beyond.  And so we think about metacognition, which means thinking about your thinking, which I write about in the book.  I have a whole section on thinking.  We think about meta-analysis.  So researchers will sometimes take a group of studies that have something in common.  Maybe they're all studying the effects of a new antidepressant, and they collapse the data and do what's called the “meta-analysis.”  And so you get the “meta‑study.” I have worked with boards and CEOs for 25 years.  And I always ask myself two questions.  One is why do these smart people do things that don't look so smart, which has haunted me for decades.  But the other question is what do great leaders do differently?  And I've been so lucky to work with a number of extraordinary leaders.  What I've found that they do is that they think above and beyond, and they're synthesizers.  So meta-leadership really lays out a new paradigm for leadership that offers leaders a way to synthesize thinking, emotion and behavior.  And looking at what we gain by overlapping, what is the overlap when you have metacognition, awareness of emotion, and the ability to observe habits of behavior?  You get a really powerful combination that leads to insights.  And generally in great leaders, it also surprisingly leads to empathy, not only for others, but for themselves.  Anne Morriss and Francis Frei, researchers and consultants like to say leadership is imperfect humans leading imperfect humans.  And we sometimes forget that. BILL YATES:  Yes, that is so true.  That sounds just like our day-to-day struggles with projects. CONSTANCE DIERICKX:  Yeah, exactly. Adopting a Meta-Leadership Strategy  BILL YATES:  We haven't really arrived as a leader and there we are thrust into these projects.  So I love the application of what you've shared in your book and the research that you have with project management and just thinking about how to apply that.  If a project manager were to adopt this meta-leadership strategy, how might that lead to success? CONSTANCE DIERICKX:  Well, it would lead them to utilize, but also be appropriately skeptical of their tactics.  Tactics in project management tend to be well known, well understood, and well practiced.  And there's a lot of training and education in project management.  A lot of it's very good, but it does narrow your aperture.  It sort of closes that lens.  And I want to say specializing in anything does that.  You know, when you have a PhD in clinical psych, for example, I'll just go with that one since that's what I know best.  It does tend to, you see the world through that particular lens.  And what I've found is extremely beneficial is to be able to switch out your lenses, not throwing in the garbage what you know about project management, but just widening that lens.  And that means being less of a specialist, less of an expert, if you will. I know in my business practice, in my advisory work, showing up and throwing up on people everything I know is a sure way to be shown the door.  Because first of all, I'm not respecting the context.  Project management is done in a context.  And so we have to respect the context, which means we have to be curious and learn about the context.  So with consultants, I'm fond of saying to coaches, people that are executive coaches will contact me quite often, and they start telling me what their methodology is.  And they all think it's groundbreakingly special.  It is not.  It is all some version of a procedure, a checklist.  It's not that that's bad.  It's just that people marry it.  We marry Six Sigma.  We marry some stakeholder paradigm.  And what I wanted to do with “Meta-Leadership” was say, this is a paradigm that lets you be aware of all the other paradigms that you're hanging onto. BILL YATES:  Awareness is one of the biggest takeaways I had from the book, the self-awareness and awareness of the environment.  We'll go deeper into that.  That’s a key word for me. Meta-Leadership Enables Decision-Making WENDY GROUNDS:  Another big part of the book is decision-making.  How meta-leadership enables decision making.  And if I just can add a quote that you said, “A common but surprising cause of bad decisions is past success.”  Can you elaborate on that and talk about decision making? CONSTANCE DIERICKX:  Yes.  It would probably help the listener to sort of imagine, to pick out from their experience an example of a leader who was the, I know it all, large and in charge leader.  They come into your company from XYZ.  We'll just pick on the external hire, right, who comes in at a leadership level, kicks in the door and says, well, when I was at fill-in-the-blank, when I was at GE, when I was at PepsiCo, when I was at P&G, whatever it happens to be.  That's an example of a failure being born from the seeds of success.  What happened there that worked well, no doubt there are some principles we can extract from that.  But what people tend to do is they apply tactics from situation to situation.  And sometimes the situations look strikingly familiar on the surface.  But again, if you are curious, and you take the time to learn about the context, you will be able to see differences and distinctions as well as similarities.  Then the decisions you make will be much better. You know, another success trap that leaders have is that they don't realize what decisions they're making.  They don't realize what decisions they've already made or what decisions they're postponing.  So being acutely attuned is really super important.  And it's why an external advisor is so important because internal people are less likely to tell you the truth.  I work with a lot of CEOs, and I always tell them – they say, “Well, I think I know what's going on.”  And I’m like, “Eh, my money's on you don't.  My money's on you know a great portion of what's going on.  My money is also on some of what you think is a two out of 10 is really an eight.” But here's the good news.  Once you are asking yourself the question, you can engage in a process to find out.  And it's the experimentation, the finding out, and curiosity is a very emotional thing that really distinguishes great, great, great leaders from the “eh, okay” leader. Factors that Drive our Decisions BILL YATES:  This brings me to the next question we wanted to discuss with you.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Learn from the intriguing parallels between a jazz ensemble and an effective project team. Gerald J. Leonard demonstrates that music and project management share common principles as he offers a unique perspective on fostering a high-performing project team through the integration of music, productivity, workplace culture, and neuroscience. Table of Contents 01:41 … Combining Jazz and Project Management05:12 … Gerald the Author07:31 … Incorporating Jazz and Project Management09:39 … A Cadence to Managing Projects11:50 … Recognizing the Traits13:57 … Mentoring and Coaching14:52 … Kevin and Kyle16:10 … Jazz and Productivity20:01 … Gerald’s Recovery Story23:04 … The Pomodoro Technique and Flow26:03 … Motivation and Accountability31:23 … Employee Burnout34:33 … Getting into the Right Rhythm36:08 … Contact Gerald37:42 … Closing GERALD LEONARD:  ...it’s like playing jazz where things are moving quickly, meeting every day, things are happening.  Every two weeks you’re delivering something.  So things are happening really rapidly, and they can adjust because the customers say, “Hey, I don’t want that.  Let’s move to this one.  I want this requirement now.”  And you have to move and adjust.  Well, that’s like playing jazz.  Again, the song is moving pretty quickly.  So everyone has to, one, know their part, but also really lean in and listen. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome, fellow project champions, to Manage This! I'm Wendy Grounds, and joining me in the harmonious studio adventure today is Bill Yates, and Danny Brewer, our sound guy. Hold onto your project plans, because today we're diving headfirst into a fusion of beats and business. You heard it right – jazz and project management are about to collide in a symphony of ideas with a trailblazing maestro of maximizing potential, Gerald J. Leonard. Gerald is an IT project management consultant; but he also has two degrees in music and is an accomplished bass guitarist.  As a professional bassist, he uses jazz metaphors to illustrate how to build supportive and effective team cultures. Creating successful projects and high-performing teams is much like building a jazz ensemble. This isn't your average podcast – it's a symphony of ideas, where project management meets the jazzed-up art of success. So, buckle up, hit play, and let the show begin! Hi, Gerald.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for being our guest. GERALD LEONARD:  Wendy and Bill, thank you so much for having me.  I’m really happy to be here. Combining Jazz and Project Management WENDY GROUNDS:  Can you tell us, just as an introduction, how you’ve combined your dual careers as a professional jazz musician and as a project management consultant? GERALD LEONARD:  Yes. I had done my bachelor’s and master’s in music, studied through the Manhattan School of Music with a gentleman at Juilliard, and played professionally in the city.  And then I did some ministry work back in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and I wanted to get back into music, but now I was married with two kids. I was kind of done with clubs and those kinds of things and thought, “Okay, so how can I keep playing and also make a good living and raise my kids?” So I got into IT at a time where, if you could spell IT, they were letting you in.  And so I got in.  You know, and I had my master’s already, so I thought, “I’m not going to go back to school for another degree.”  And then I realized they had all these certifications out there, the Novell certifications, the Microsoft certifications, the MCSE certifications, and all these different things like that.  So I just started going that route.  That led me to a place where for years I was doing project work, became a project management consultant with a number of different companies, did work for the National Archives and major corporations, helping them at the enterprise level.  And then I would go and play shows, or I’d play a concert, or I’d play a recital.  And I started noticing that sometimes I’d go into a gig, and I have no idea who the musicians are.  After the second rehearsal, we’re all best friends, we’re hanging out, we’re showing each other’s family pictures, and we’re talking about our careers and where we went to school, and we’re just connected emotionally. And there are a number of projects that I was on.  I remember one with the National Archives, we had a great team together.  And I thought that this is like playing jazz.  This is like playing music because everyone on the team, the developers, the business analysts, the testers and so on, me as the project consultant, we all kind of brought our expertise to the table.  And working with a gentleman named Larry Hines, his name’s popped in my head.  He was like the executive sponsor, our main audience, and he gave us the big picture of what we were trying to accomplish, and everyone just kind of subjugated their expertise to the focus of making this a great project. It actually turned out to be a really, really great project back in the day with the National Archives when they were doing, like, an electronic archiving system.  So that started the germination for me of seeing how music and what I’d learned as a kid playing music and all the things I’ve learned as a musician were being applied into my business world.  And then after that, all the other projects, there were elements of the vibe, or a feeling like I was playing music or a feeling like I’m working with other musicians. Then I’d go do music, and I was able to take the things that I was working with from business and apply them to my music so I was like running more efficient rehearsals or more profitable concerts and so on.  So it just all kind of tied together, basically culminated into me and around 2015 meeting with a gentleman named Dr. Willie Jolley and his wife Dee.  Willie’s one of the top five speakers in the world when it comes to motivational speaking.  Dee had her master’s in education. And I went to them for like a weekend workshop.  They honed in and said, “You know, you really help companies with their culture. And at that time, the song “All About That Bass” was out.  And Willie said, “If you could write a book and incorporate your bass with your consulting,” and he’s just, “Man, you’re going to make millions, do amazing work.” Gerald the Author I took that idea, and over time that book became “Culture is the Bass.”  You let that settle.  Just think about your favorite song where you’re kind of like bopping your head and listening to it.  When it starts off, you hear the drums and the bass.  And that bass sets the tone for is it rock?  Is it funk?  Is it R&B?  Or is it country?  What is it?  You can tell right off the bat based on the bass line. And I always thought you walk into Nordstrom, or you go shop on Amazon, or you go into your favorite local store, it has a vibe.  It has a feel.  And there’s something about it that you like that keeps bringing you back.  It’s the culture, which is kind of like the bass line.  And so my second book turned out to be “Workplace Jazz” because a lot of work went from really large project teams back in the day.  I mean, sometimes you’d go on a consulting engagement.  There’s 20 people, and companies were paying for it.  And pretty soon it whittled down to where you go on a consulting engagement, and there’s three of you.  Or there’s four of you.  And it’s like, we’re it, guys.  We’ve got to make this thing work.  We’re the quartet.  Right?  So that book was about what I learned from playing in small ensembles, and how it would mimic the concept of agile work as a project manager. And then in 2015 I wrote a course, because I had done some work with the Center of Medicare & Medicaid Services where I helped oversee two major programs in project management where we did certification courses.  And so I then wrote a course for myself to take the PfMP certification because I already had my PMP, the Project Management Professional Certification, and I had already spent my 10 years doing it, and I wanted the top certification, which is the Project Portfolio Management.  I had been doing that work for a while.  But at that time there were very few books around that are courses.  So I wrote my own course and took the exam and passed it.  And so a lot of my material now is based on that.  And in fact my last book, which was a business novel, called “A Symphony of Choices,” where a bass player becomes the orchestra manager and has to manage the orchestra.  So he reaches out to an old professor to teach him how to do that.  And the old professor, Dr. Carl Richardson, teaches him my course in small bites, all about Project Portfolio Management, decision-making, workplace engagement, and project management.  And basically mentorship saved a concert season Incorporating Jazz and Project Management BILL YATES:  That is so cool.  Well, I feel like we’ve got a sense for who you are.  And your right brain and your left brain are at 100%.  They are kicking along, man.  This is so cool.  So we want to go deeper into this topic of music and draw on the parallel of music and project management.  What are the key benefits of incorporating jazz music into project management practices? GERALD LEONARD:  Well, you know, when you listen to jazz, what you’ll notice is that they always start off with some kind of a melody; right?  And it may be a short melody, maybe a blues type of melody.  But they have this theme of music, right, that they keep coming back to.  But then once they play that, one of the musicians steps forward, and they start soloing. And soloing is simply, they’re not just like making this stuff up.  They understand the patterns of what they’re playing against.  They understand what they’re playing and how it correlates to what’s being played.

Are you unlocking the potential of a neurodiverse workforce and fostering a project team that capitalizes on the strengths of each individual? In this episode we talk about dyslexia and how it impacts a team's productivity and success. Dyslexia is quite common, affecting 15-20% of the population. Carlene Szostak and Madeline Szostak Hoge discuss the challenges faced by dyslexic employees, and offer innovative strategies to ensure that the workplace becomes a supportive environment that advances employee performance and productivity.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. A project story about a massive initiative focused on an EPIC implementation at University Hospitals in Cleveland. Hear why this project to streamline patient information, enhance care, and improve operations has the tagline "Best Implementation of all time." Table of Contents 04:29 … University Hospitals of Cleveland05:11 … The EPIC Integration07:18 … The Size of the Initiative09:51 … The Cost11:21 … Convey Calmness and the Right Mindset14:47 … The Guiding Principles18:38 … “Best implementation of all time.”21:48 … Kevin and Kyle23:17 … Risk Management28:09 … Time to Pivot31:31 … Big Bang Go Lives32:41 … Project Team Selection34:23 … Enterprise Program Management Office Perspective35:54 … PMO Resources38:15 … Takeaways from the Project42:56 … Find out More44:03 … Update44:36 … Closing WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer, our sound guy.  Thank you so much for joining us today.  We have three guests, which is something new for us, and we’re quite excited to have a really full house on the Zoom studio today.  Our first guest is Sami Othman.  He is an operations and IT leader who designs and executes breakthrough IT solutions that optimize financial performance and efficiency in organizations.  Sami is currently the IT leader assigned to the effort of the project that we’re going to tell you about today.  He’s leading the transformative initiative to move University Hospitals of Cleveland to an integrated electronic health record system.  This is what they call Epic, and it is certainly an epic 600 million investment project that will standardize all hospitals into a common system and streamlining processes and consolidating one patient record. Another person involved on this project is Lora Niazov, and she’s currently the director of the Enterprise Program Management Office at University Hospitals. Lora has also just become is an Adjunct Instructor of Project Management at the John Carroll University  She has over 20 years of experience in healthcare, information technology, and manufacturing industries. And then the other person on the project is Gubran Ahmed, and he is an experienced program management office leader with demonstrated success and strength in strategic planning, process improvement and problem solving, change management, and relationship building across many functional areas in organizations.  Currently Gubran is working at University Hospitals and is leading the Enterprise Program Management Office with a portfolio carrying a budget of over $200 million, encompassing 150 active projects.  And he tells us a little bit about that, as well, in the podcast. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  Yeah he does.  And all three guests are going to provide a unique perspective on what they’re doing with this massive program and how they’re seeing it unfold.  And this is big. WENDY GROUNDS:  This is Epic. BILL YATES:  This is Epic.  The name of the software is so appropriate.  There are 29,000 users.  We’re talking 22 terabytes of data and 3 million patient records that are a part of this conversion and implementation.  I can’t wait to get into it, hear some of the nitty-gritty from them, and hear some of their takeaways, their advice from implementation of this size. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, their project tagline is “Best implementation of all time.”  We really do think so. BILL YATES:  Yeah, I can’t wait for our listeners to weigh in and say, “Yeah, that does sound like it.”  Or “No, mine’s better.  I’m going to tell Wendy about it.” WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes.  And listeners, if you have an epic project, if you are working on a project that you think the story is worth sharing, that you’ve got some incredible lessons learned, or you’ve got a project that you think you’d like our audience to hear about, please reach out to us.  Lora sent me an email, and here we are.  So we’re happy to hear from you. BILL YATES:  There you go.  That’s right. WENDY GROUNDS: Lora shared some exciting news with us as well, that the University Hospital Department of Enterprise Program Management has just won PMIs top 3 PMOs in the world!  They are going to be in Atlanta at the end of October to see if they are winners of the PMO of the year award. Take a look out for that if you’re following the PMI event at the end of the month. If you listen up at the end of the show, I am going to give you an update from Lora on their EPIC program and how their “Go Live” is going. So take a listen at the end of the show. Now, because we have three special guests today, I am going to welcome them each personally.  So first of all, my first contact was Lora.  Lora, welcome to Manage This. LORA NIAZOV:  Hello.  Thank you so much for having me.  I am very excited to be here.  I listen to this podcast all the time. And I also share it with my team.  And I appreciate you making a little bit of time for us.  Thank you. WENDY GROUNDS:  Sami, thank you so much for joining us today.  Welcome to Manage This. SAMI OTHMAN:  Oh, thank you so much for having me.  I look forward to our time together today.  I think we’re going to have a lot of fun together. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah.  We’re excited to hear about this project.  And last but not least, Gubran, thank you very much for being part of Manage This. GUBRAN AHMED:  Hi there.  Thanks for having us.  I’m looking forward to the conversation, as well. University Hospitals of Cleveland WENDY GROUNDS:  So we’re going to jump right in.  And I want you to just set the scene for us of the story of this project.  Tell us about University Hospitals of Cleveland.  How many hospitals and ambulatory locations does this include? GUBRAN AHMED:  The University Hospitals has been around for more than 155 years.  It has the mission of healing, teaching, and discovering.  And we roughly have a network of 21 hospitals.  That includes five joint ventures, more than 50 health centers and outpatient facilities, and we have over 200 physician offices in 16 counties throughout Northeast Ohio. WENDY GROUNDS:  This project is encompassing all of that? GUBRAN AHMED:  Yes, that includes everything. The EPIC Integration WENDY GROUNDS:  So now you’ve been working on this huge initiative.  You’ve been implementing an integrated electronic health record system, which you call Epic.  Can you describe Epic to us? LORA NIAZOV:  Yeah.  So it’s been a wonderful journey.  A little bit about Epic.  It was started by Judith Faulkner in 1979.  It’s a privately held company.  What I find fascinating is that everybody always talks about Steve Jobs and Apple.  And there’s very little buzz about Judith, when really she was a software developer herself.  She started the company in her basement.  It’s a multi-billion dollar organization right now.  The leading hospitals of the world use this software to take care of patients.  It’s a pretty fantastic story from a female leader in software development, especially from the ‘70s. So what Epic does is it provides an integrated health record system for all of patient data across your entire patient journey and story, whether it’s surgery or a visit with your primary care provider or whatever it may be.  It holds all of your information, and then you can share it across different hospital systems to enable continuity of care for you.  So that’s what we’re implementing. BILL YATES:  This is so important.  And then thinking about the complexity of that many health centers, that many offices, that many doctors that have to be coordinated. It is fascinating to me though, Lora, that the company started in 1979.  Just think of all the evolutions that they’ve made.  And it’s amazing that they were obviously able to take on new technology and figure out how do we implement this and still abide by HIPAA and all those things.  And they’re still a successful company and still the market leader today.  That really does speak to their longevity. LORA NIAZOV:  Yeah, it’s a wonderful place.  They’re based in Wisconsin.  They have over 10,000 employees.  We’ve met many of them, I feel like, at this point, with our implementation. BILL YATES:  All 10,000, yeah. LORA NIAZOV:  Yes.  And they have a wonderful fun culture being a software developer, and it’s been a wonderful journey.  We’re lucky that we get to partner with this amazing software.  It’s been a long time coming. The Size of the Initiative WENDY GROUNDS:  Can you give us a sense of the size of this initiative?  For example, tell us a little bit about the schedule and the budget and the number of people that are going to be expected to use Epic. SAMI OTHMAN:  Yeah, sure thing.  So if we back up a little bit and start from the beginning of this program, the board of directors of University Hospitals Cleveland approved this program, the UH Epic program, back in December of 2020.  And then, once we kicked off the new year in 2021, we focused on getting contracts signed with Epic and with our implementation advisor.  So that occurred in that first quarter of 2021. During the course of the middle year of 2021, we focused our efforts on standing up the actual program team, which is primarily made up of our IT resources.  So we leverage our own resources and just literally transition them over to the UH Epic program team.  So that process took place over the course of a few months.  We kicked off the actual program October of 2021, culminating with the final Go Live, which is scheduled for September 30th of this year. Now, the first Go Live that we had was March of this year, and it was primarily focused on our primary care practices.  But September 30th really is the rest of the health system.  So all of the hospitals and clinics that Gubran had mentioned earlier,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Mastering effective meetings is essential for project managers, as successful meetings contribute significantly to project success. Rich Maltzman and Jim Stewart say we should apply the same strategic mindset to meetings as we do to projects, and they offer insights to enhance your facilitation skills to conduct successful meetings. Table of Contents 03:07 … Great Meetings Build Great Teams04:30 … Criteria for a Good Meeting05:44 … Allow Humor to Influence Meetings06:46 … Making a Sad Meeting Better08:32 … Why People are Attending a Meeting09:55 … Project Manage Meetings13:27 … A Meeting Planning Mindset15:12 … Don’t Worry about Being Liked17:06 … Kevin and Kyle18:12 … Dealing with Conflict in a Meeting21:12 … Goa the Garrulous23:16 … Pat the Passive-Aggressive25:56 … The Fear of Forage28:29 … Risk Register29:45 … Virtual Meeting Success34:01 … Get in Touch35:00 … Closing JIM STEWART: If you blow the meeting, you get to make first impressions once.  So the level of planning should be commensurate with the meeting. 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 are Bill Yates and our sound guy Danny Brewer.  You can catch us wherever you listen to podcasts.  One of the apps that we’ve come across is Podurama.  It’s a free app for podcast lovers, and we are also there.  If you want to listen to us, take a listen on Podurama.  You’ll find a link to them on our transcript. We love having you join us twice a month to be motivated and inspired by project stories, leadership lessons, and advice from industry experts. One little thing to mention is we got an email from Feedspot, which is a content reader that helps people keep up with their websites.  And they told me that we are one of the Top 30 podcasts for managers on the web.  So we were very excited to hear that.  Shout out to Feedspot.  Thank you for voting for us. And we have some industry experts joining us today.  We’re very excited to bring you Jim Stewart, as well as a previous guest, Rich Maltzman.  Since 2003, Jim has been the principal of JP Stewart Consulting, and he’s a certified PMP, and he possesses multiple agile certifications.  He is a longtime member of the Project Management Institute and served for several years on the board of the local chapter.  With Rich Maltzman, he also is the co-author of the book “How to Facilitate Productive Project Planning Meetings” and its update, “Great Meetings Build Great Teams:  A Guide for Project Leaders and Agilists.” Rich Maltzman also has his PMP.  He has been an engineer since 1978 and a project management supervisor since 1988, including a two-year assignment in the Netherlands. Rich is also focused on consulting and teaching, and has developed curricula and taught at several universities.  But we’re very excited about their book “Great Meetings Build Great Teams,” and that’s what we’re talking about today. BILL YATES:  Yes.  This is a key to success for project managers is being able to successfully facilitate effective meetings.  So this is going to be a great conversation.  Plus, just reading through the book, there are so many familiar names and concepts that are there.  They make reference to Andy Crowe and the “Alpha Project Management Study” in his book.  They make reference to Alan Zucker, our instructor, who’s fabulous, and some of the blogs and research that he’s done.  And they also talk a bit about Wayne Turmel and virtual meetings.  We had him on Episode 64.  Wayne was terrific.  And also Carole Osterweil.  She was on number 90, Episode 90 with us, talking about facing uncertainty.  So lot of familiar folks that are being referenced here, and we look forward to talking about having more effective meetings. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Rich; and hi, Jim.  Thank you so much for being with us today.  It’s so good to have you both on the podcast. RICH MALTZMAN:  Glad to be here. Great Meetings Build Great Teams WENDY GROUNDS:  So we want to first find out – we’re going to be talking a lot about the book that you wrote, “Great Meetings Build Great Teams.”  Can you tell us the why behind this book? JIM STEWART:  Sort of my idea in a sense, but not really.  I worked with a guy at Brandeis University, and this gentleman has since retired.  But when I was thinking about writing a book, discussing ideas, says, “You know those meetings you used to run at those pharmaceuticals?”  He says, “I would read a book about that.”  That seems kind of dull, but okay.  So I contacted Rich, who I’d known, and now we have this second revised edition. And the why is because I guess it’s like asking why you need to be able to lay concrete, or why you need to be able to put a foundation on a house.  It’s fundamental stuff that has to be done.  And Rich and I, I know I can speak for Rich on this, I would think the majority of people running meetings aren’t doing a particularly good job.  And so we’re a bit evangelistical about that, about saying people should run meetings well.  The title of our book is “Great Meetings Build Great Teams.”  So we’re trying to get people to, A, run meetings better; and B, communicate better. So I think good meetings are meetings of the minds, and well-run meetings build great teams.  And we feel like we have a better mousetrap for that, and we can make that happen.  That’s really the why. Criteria for a Good Meeting WENDY GROUNDS:  Can you tell us what your definition of what a good meeting should look like?  What are the necessary criteria for a good meeting? RICH MALTZMAN:  Yeah, I’m going to take a creative approach here.  Think of it in terms of the ingredients of that meeting.  You need preparation.  You’re going to have a clear purpose, like a recipe, maybe even a picture of that cake or roast, whatever it is that you’re cooking.  You need the right people at the right time.  You need an agenda, a guideline of some kind, maybe a pinch of entertainment or excitement and fun, some means to record all the great ideas and conversation that’s taking place.  And one of the things that was actually in the title of our last book, facilitation skills.  This is a separate skill from running a project.  You need facilitation skills to make sure that everyone is joining in; and that, as we’ll talk about later, you don’t have people hijacking the meeting.  So those are the ingredients.  And I think if you put those all together with the oven preset at 350, you end up with a pretty good meeting. JIM STEWART:  And I’d like to add to the end of that, if I can, Wendy, which is that facilitation is at least as much art as science.  There’s even certification in it.  Facilitating is not an easy task, especially if you have 20 people from different cultures in a room with different expectations. Allow Humor to Influence Meetings BILL YATES:  The emphasis on facilitation in the book was one of the things that I really appreciated.  Another thing I appreciated in the book was the sense of humor you both have.  Just throughout the book, you guys drop these anecdotes.  You have little quips.  I really appreciate that.  I love it.  And I can see how that would influence more effective meetings, too. RICH MALTZMAN:  That’s intentional.  Jim is well known for his comments, snarky comments that he sticks in. JIM STEWART:  Yes.  However, however, you’re actually funnier than me.  Rich and I, when we meet, our meetings when we discuss the book, the first thing we do is rock and roll trivia.  The next thing we do is we clown around a bit.  We just do.  That’s our nature.  We found that we both like that.  And I think we talked about it in the book a little bit, be careful with the humor because it does grease the wheels, but you have to be really careful.  The humor that Rich and I grew up with earlier doesn’t fly.  The humor that makes fun of somebody doesn’t fly.  You have to be very, very careful.  When in doubt, don’t, is my mantra. Making a Sad Meeting Better  BILL YATES:  Yeah, in Chapter 2, right from the start you had me because, again, you talk about the musical references and the humor.  The title of the chapter is “Take a Sad Meeting and Make It Better.”  I love that.  What are some indicators of a bad meeting, and then how can we turn this around and improve our meetings? JIM STEWART:  It’s an interesting question.  First of all, even before you get to the meeting, there’s a grapevine.  People in your company will know who runs the good meetings and the bad ones.  So there’s that.  But if you go to a meeting, and the person running it is non-dynamic – I had that at the place where I was coaching.  It’s a young woman becoming a scrum master, and it was just not uninteresting subject matter.  It just was dull the way she presented it.  You have to sound like you’re interested yourself.  That’s the first thing.  You have to sound like you’re interested in what you’re talking about.  So that’s number one. Number two is having the agenda.  If I have no agenda, what are we going to talk about?  Number three is you’re 10 minutes in, and you’re discussing the first item because the owner is allowing Joe, Mary, Bob, whomever to hijack the meeting instead of saying okay, as we say on the agile side, “Elmo! Enough, let’s move on,” in a polite way.  And if somebody says, “We need to discuss this,” we go to the group and say, “Is this a showstopper?”  Is this, if we go down in the submersible to the Titanic, this thing’s going to implode?  Is it that level?  Or is something going to lead to a separate meeting?  You can make those decisions on the fly. So I think a bad meeting is when you come out, there’s either no agenda, or there was an agenda, and somebody says, “How did it go?”  We got through the first item.