Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

The podcast by project managers for project managers. This episode we share an environmental project story about CIRT, a startup company working on a solution to share recycling information to reduce waste. Kat Shayne and her team built a database to answer your recycling questions. Hear about the complex challenges encountered on this project. Table of Contents 01:37 … Meet Kat04:37 … The Origin of CIRT08:17 … Accessing CIRT08:55 … Building a Database11:19 … What is GiGi?12:42 … Identifying What Can be Recycled13:59 … Keeping the Data Current15:40 … Skills or Passion?17:51 … Satisfying Stakeholders20:00 … Tackling Obstacles22:44 … Lessons Learned Building CIRT24:48 … Measuring the Impact of CIRT26:14 … I Wish I had Known!27:53 … Advice to Project Managers29:49 … Get in Touch with Kat31:12 … Closing Kat Shayne: ...making sure that the people that are in place are doing the things that are their strengths, and providing access to resources and tools that help them work on their weaknesses. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hello, and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Thank you for joining us today.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  We like to bring you stories about projects.  And today we are bringing you a story about Katherine Shayne.  She worked in environmental sustainability focused on global materials management and marine plastic litter for the Jambeck Research Group and UGA New Materials Institute.  Kat has a passion for bridging science and technology with business and mitigation strategies in communities especially in terms of waste management and new materials. BILL YATES:  Wendy, have you ever been holding something in your hand, or you’re about to throw it in the trash, and you’re like, wait a minute, maybe I could recycle this. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes, yes, many a time. BILL YATES:  So this is the question.  This is the problem that Kat and her team have been addressing.  At the University of Georgia Kat is the co-founder and president of Can I Recycle This.  It’s a startup company which is working on a solution to help people, people like me and you, governments, and businesses figure out what products or packaging are locally recyclable and how to get them to where they need to go. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Kat.  It’s great to have you on the podcast.  Thank you for joining us today. KAT SHAYNE:  Thanks for having me.  I’m really excited to be here. Meet Kat WENDY GROUNDS:  I want to hear a little bit about your background before we start.  You have a master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of Georgia. BILL YATES:  Go Dawgs. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah. KAT SHAYNE:  Go Dawgs. WENDY GROUNDS:  What sparked your interest in environmental sustainability?  How did it all begin? KAT SHAYNE:  Actually, I did not plan on becoming an engineer at all.  I was an English major when I started at UGA.  And I was going pre-law because I’d already looked up one of the highest-passing degrees for the LSAT was English.  So I started off in English.  I was really passionate about writing.  And I had a class that was an elective science class.  It was with Dr. Knox.  He’s a climatologist at UGA.  And he had me in his class, and he asked me to come in for office hours one day.  He was like, what is your major?  And I told him I wanted to do pre-law. I really had a passion for policy and law. And he says, “Well, you really have a knack for this,” because it was a climate course.  He said, you know, “Have you explored engineering, applied sciences?”  I said, “No, I didn’t even know UGA had engineering.”    So I went and checked it out, and at the same time I was trying to find a little bit more purpose in my degree, you know, what kind of law did I want to go into if I was going to do that. Because my significant other at the time had been diagnosed with cancer.  And he was 20, and he had colon cancer.  So I was, how can this happen?  Why is this a reality?  Like I didn’t understand how that could happen, you know.  My stepdad had been getting a colonoscopy when he was 50, that’s when you start to check for those things.  So I was trying to find something where I could do good and do the least amount of harm, right, or trying to fix systems. And so I looked at engineering, and I said, okay.  I can either be reactive, go into law and try and fix it from something already happening, or I can look at systems and try to fix them before they happen, like design better systems, design more efficient systems, design systems that do no harm.  And so my significant other ended up passing away when he was 21 of colon cancer.  So that made it a mission to use the skills that I had and create better systems through engineering.  And that’s how I got into my sustainability path is because I was looking to create better products or better services that could do the least amount of harm, be the least toxic. BILL YATES:  So sorry to hear about that loss.  And what an impact on you at that age, to have someone that close pass away.  So sorry for that.  And it makes sense, too, you know, I can see how that would lead you to these bigger questions that many times, you know, it’s much later in life that we start to ask these questions of ourselves.  Okay, what am I going to do?  What is my purpose in life?  And how can I make a difference?  I love that, “So do good and fix systems.”  That’s a good mantra.  The Origin of CIRT That turns us to CIRT, or CIRT.  You developed CIRT because you saw a problem.  Tell us what CIRT stands for, and through that I think you’ll describe the problem. KAT SHAYNE:  In 2018 myself and Jenna Jambeck, Dr. Jenna Jambeck at the University of Georgia, started CIRT to answer the question Can I Recycle This?  So it’s an acronym.  We’ve shortened it now because we answer many, many more questions like can I reuse this, can I recover this, can I refill this.  So we map out materials recovery systems, mostly in North America.  But we are looking to expand elsewhere.  After I graduated from undergrad in engineering, I went on to work with Jenna in grad school because she was the only one doing research on plastic pollution, and I was really, really fascinated by it because when that leaks into our environment it’s really harmful to people and animals and our ecosystems alike.  So I wanted to make an impact in that area. So I started working with Jenna.  We were studying plastic inputs into the ocean.  So if you’ve ever heard that there’s going to be more plastic than fish in the sea, someone took a stat from our research and turned it into that other statistic.  And so we were getting a lot of attention, her group was, for that research.  That also meant we were getting questions about plastics and recycling and waste management from people all across the globe, really.  So we would get questions like what do I do with the No. 1 plastic that I have?  What do I do with my chip bag?  Or why is my recycling truck going to the landfill? We would get all these questions from people across the country and across the world about recycling and waste management.  So we decided to put together a way to find that out really easily.  So we built a database to answer what to do with a product wherever you are.  That was kind of the thesis for it.  How do we tell people exactly what to do with their products, after they buy them and after they use them?  So we initially came up with an artificial intelligence bot, and it was on Twitter, and it was on Facebook Messenger, so anyone could ask without having to download a new app; right?  Like I’ve got a thousand apps on my phone.  We wanted people to be able to use that with the apps they already had. And we were trying to sell it to cities.  Well, city timelines and budgets were just not in line with the startup, unfortunately.  So we pivoted, and we started to offer this information to companies, and it quickly caught on.  And so now we work directly with CPGs and large multiunit institutions to help procure, purchase, and use the right materials for recoverability. BILL YATES:  And what does CPG stand for? KAT SHAYNE:  Consumer Package Goods companies.  So you can think of like consumables to decking material, like all sorts of things that we use as consumers can be put into that category.  And so one other thing I wanted to mention was another reason we did this is because many recovery systems are very localized.  So when you think about your waste management, it’s usually based on your city or your county.  And so they’re very different as you move around the U.S. and into Canada.  So they can change mile by mile.  I mean, I’m in Athens, Georgia.  What I can recycle is not necessarily what you can recycle in Atlanta.  So they do change.  And they also are in flux.  So they also have changes per month.  So they might accept glass this month and not next month, and so we keep track of all that information. Accessing CIRT KAT SHAYNE:  We have a web application that is online, so you can access it through your browser.  The reason we didn’t go down the app road, we did have that on our product roadmap at one point, was the hurdle to adoption.  We wanted people to get this information as quickly as they could.  So the way that we’ve done that is we’ve created integrations for apps, for websites, for different types of ecommerce, so that this information can be used by the brand and the company or the organization to, A, get that information out to their consumers, or use it to purchase better products. Building a Database BILL YATES:  I don’t want to go too nerdy with you, but the idea of building out this database of information is just so intriguing to me.  I’m thinking of all the data science and the computer design that goes into that.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Two important interpersonal skills for project professionals to sharpen are negotiation and persuasion. Before you embark on your next stakeholder negotiation or try persuade an unyielding team member, take a listen to Carlene Szostak as she talks about successful negotiation and persuasion. Table of Contents 01:45 … Meet Carlene02:38 … Types of Project Negotiations03:40 … The Traits of a Good Negotiator04:38 … Preparing for the Negotiation Process05:45 … Finding the Why07:29 … Listen Well10:26 … Enhance Your Negotiating Power12:43 … Dealing with Unethical Tactics14:59 … Reading Body Language16:12 … Negotiating for a Project Extension17:02 … Traps to Avoid in Negotiations18:48 … When Negotiation Stalls21:57 … Kevin and Kyle23:13 … Factors for Successful Persuasion24:40 … The Right Mindset for Persuasion26:37 … Dealing with a Confrontational Person28:46 … Persuasion vs. Manipulation30:46 … Tips to Persuade an Owner or Stakeholder32:31 … Challenges Facing PMs Today34:01 … Contact Carlene34:30 … Closing CARLENE SZOSTAK: ... Well, with technology and with the ability to reach people regardless of where they are in the organization, those walls have come down.  And people that are in the position of power want to hear from the people closest to the projects.  So therefore the permission has been granted.  All we have to do is step into it. 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 we’re so glad you joined us today.  If you like what you hear, we’d love to hear from you.  You can leave us a comment on our website, Velociteach.com; on social media; or whichever podcast listening app you use. Our guest today is Carlene Szostak.  She’s a business leader, she’s a consultant, author, and an educator.  She’s an established senior leader with a broad range of experience managing people, process, and technology.  So we’re going to talk about negotiation and persuasion. BILL YATES:  You know, Wendy, one of the things that we’re talking about is the importance of getting to know the other person that we’re negotiating with.  And one of the books that I’ve read on negotiation is by Chris Voss.  It’s “Never Split the Difference.”  In that he offers some questions that I think are helpful for me when I’m thinking about a negotiation, and what does the person on the other side of the table want?  Here are some of these questions.  This is just food for thought. “What about this is important to you?  How can I help to make this better for us?  How would you like for me to proceed?  What is it that brought us into this situation?  How can we solve this problem?  How am I supposed to do that, that thing that you’ve asking?”  These are just some questions that are food for thought for those that are trying to get in the mindset of that person on the other side of the table. Meet Carlene WENDY GROUNDS:  Carlene, welcome to Manage This. CARLENE SZOSTAK:  Thank you so much for having me. WENDY GROUNDS:  Won’t you tell us how you got into project management? CARLENE SZOSTAK:  So my career started with the NFL.  Again, that had nothing to do with project management, but that experience segued me into working for a Fortune 50 company that had multiple moving parts.  And our senior leadership did not believe in project managers.  We hired the team, the team did the work, and that’s it.  And one very excited and future-looking leader on the C Suite came in and said, “Well, why don’t we just test the model?”  I had the opportunity in my region to actually get a project manager to work for me, and they opened our eyes on the things that we didn’t even consider we had to do or think about.  And ever since then I have been passionate about making sure that organizations have project management influence in anything that’s touched that makes a difference for the business to move forward. Types of Project Negotiations WENDY GROUNDS:  Carlene, we’re excited to talk about negotiation and persuasion.  I think it’s a topic that is close to the heart of project managers.  But before we get into that, could you give some idea of the types of negotiation that is commonly used in a project? CARLENE SZOSTAK:  Well, I would say that, as a project manager, they would probably say that they negotiate every day, all the time. BILL YATES:  Everything, yes. CARLENE SZOSTAK:  Exactly.  And working on projects are never routine based on my experience.  I would probably say that the most used is attempting to go with a win-win when they’re trying to resolve a conflict.  It could be a conflict between associates that are in impasse.  It could be a stall that just suddenly popped up.  Or it could be a request for a change of a deadline, or even stakeholders that suddenly decide that they want to have a report out and an explanation as to why we’re going that way.  I think it’s – I don’t know if you know the game Whac-a-mole.  It’s a county fair game.  I kind of see project managers doing that throughout their day. The Traits of a Good Negotiator BILL YATES:  Yup, that’s so true.  Things pop up, and you’ve got to deal with it.  In your experience with people that have gone into this area of negotiations, you’ve seen people do things well, and you’ve seen people do things poorly.  What are the traits of a good negotiator? CARLENE SZOSTAK:  I think just the training that a project manager goes through kind of sets them up for success.  But if I had to come up with the top three – I like working in threes – the top three that I would come up with would be the first one is to actually create a plan.  What the heck are they trying to accomplish?  And then the second one would be to organize it.  So identifying what’s important and what’s clutter.  And again, if we don’t sit down and take the time to do that, all of a sudden in negotiations you don’t know which way you’re going because you have all these ideas in your head.  So again, create a plan, organize what really is important and what isn’t, and then stay focused.  And so plan, organize, and staying focused would be my top three. Preparing for the Negotiation Process WENDY GROUNDS:  Creating that plan, what are some effective preparations that can be done to start that negotiation process? CARLENE SZOSTAK:  I guess I would start with talking about preparing.  And again, back in the day, this will show my age.  Back in the day we used to go to the library, we used to find microfiche, we had to read old newspapers.  It would take hours and hours and days for us to find out some information.  Now that information is at our fingertips.  So I would start there.  The Internet is a great, vast place to start with.  Go to using keyword searches, and of course friends in the network.  But knowing the history of the company, knowing the person that you’re interviewing in advance. So these are fundamentals.  And we should be doing that regardless of what we’re involved in, if it’s job hunting, negotiating a podcast, doing some background information.  I think LinkedIn is a great source from a business perspective.  Where did they go to school?  Who are they connected with?  Are they connected to people that you’re connected with?  And then reach out to those folks and find out kind of how the other person thinks. Finding the Why I didn’t talk about this earlier, but one of the things that’s important as you’re negotiating is thinking the Why? question.  And there’s a game that we used to play, I call it the Why? game.  I’m sure if we Google searched it there’s an official title for it.  But practicing asking a question and then saying, okay, and why?  And why?  And why?  So for fun, outside of a negotiation setting, I would recommend people practicing that.  How many whys can you get to before you’ve actually kind of exhausted it? Because sometimes when you’re prepping, you’re thinking at only one level.  And then once you get into the negotiations, the person says something, and then you can’t take it at face value.  You really have to say, so why?  And then you may end up finding out what the true truth is underneath that, if you take the time to ask the question.  So I would think that that’s probably the biggest thing from the preparation standpoint. BILL YATES:  I completely agree.  I feel like there are two key pieces of information that we need to prepare before going into a negotiation.  And I think we tend to focus on the first, which is the subject matter.  Which is, okay, what is it we’re talking about?  What are the details in the contract?  And what does my team run into?  So we really get hyper focused on the subject matter that we’re going to negotiate or discuss.  And we forget the person.  That’s the second one.  And it’s so important. Much of the reading that I’ve done on negotiations talks about empathy.  To your point, you’ve got to ask that question of why.  What motivates this person?  How are they likely to respond to this conversation we’ve going to have?  Based on their background, how do I expect them to respond?  Then how am I going to respond to that?  So it’s like a chess game almost, you’re doing a lot of planning in advance and thinking about different ways this could go.  Listen Well CARLENE SZOSTAK:  Yeah.  Now, one of the things we touched on a little bit, but I think we should emphasize here, is that even though we’re asking questions, the listening part is the important part, too.  I mean, really listening.  And so, your success happens when you hear something and then respond to it.  So I think successful negotiations isn’t just taking the first thing that somebody says, but listen for the story behind the answer, I guess would be the way I would go. BILL YATES:  Okay.  I’ve got to refer to a book, Chris Voss,

As a project professional, are you creating an inclusive, high-performing team that builds on each individual’s strengths? Hiren Shukla, the founder of Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence at Ernst & Young Global, talks to us about how to support neurodiversity on project team. Hiren shares the remarkable impact of this innovation at EY as they are tapping into the significant skills of the neurodiverse community.

Hear about SmartPM, a real-time automated analytics platform, which analyzes complex construction schedule data via machine learning to uncover actionable insights so construction firms can reduce delays and improve project outcomes.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Lessons learned from a space crop production project to develop sustainable fresh food systems, in support of long duration space missions beyond low Earth orbit. We’re exploring the world of astrobotany and the challenges of this unconventional project. Table of Contents 02:38 … Meet Ralph05:05 … Project Management Role at NASA08:30 … Space Crop Production09:44 … Project Stakeholders11:35 … Tailoring the Pitch12:39 … Growing Plants in Space16:46 … Plant Growth Substrate19:16 … Regolith23:15 … Types of Plant Crops for Space27:42 … Kevin and Kyle29:09 … Understanding Both Sides of the Project33:34 … Further Testing36:15 … Project Simulation Funding37:59 … Making the Most of Opportunities40:51 … PM Lessons Learned43:26 … Find out More44:34 … Closing RALPH FRITSCHE: I think it’s an advantage not having too much of a foothold in any camp because what it does is you bring a bias with you that you have to work through.  Not having that bias gives you the ability to understand the passions that each side brings to the table and to try to balance those.  Because personalities are such that I might have an engineer who’s very knowledgeable and demonstrative, and they may override the plant scientist person.  And you have to be able to see that dynamic if it happens and try to balance that out.  So it’s really almost acting like an orchestra leader trying to understand when the right time to engage one group versus another. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hello, and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Thank you for joining us today.  This is where we interview top experts and project managers to get their unique perspectives.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and joining me is Bill Yates, who likes to dig deep into complex issues that project managers face today.  If you like what you hear, we’d love to hear from you.  You can leave us a comment on our website, Velociteach.com, on social media, or whichever podcast listening app you use. Our guest today is Ralph Fritsche.  He is with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which we commonly call NASA; and he’s a space crop production and exploration food systems project manager.  And he’s leading the efforts to develop sustainable and reliable fresh food systems in support of long-duration space missions beyond low Earth orbit. BILL YATES:  This is so fascinating.  This conversation with Ralph is just something I’ve been looking forward to because, I mean, Wendy, you and I, neither one of us are really green thumbs.  We can kill stuff. WENDY GROUNDS:  No, no, I’m really bad.  I’ve been trying so hard. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  And here we’re going to talk with Ralph about growing stuff in space.  And it has to be edible, and it has to be the ultimate in terms of nutritious and tasty and sustainable and zero waste.  It’s like, ah, what a problem to solve, and what an interesting project to address. WENDY GROUNDS:  It’s such an interesting project because we spoke to Philippe Schoonejans a few months ago, and he was telling us it can take over eight months to get to Mars.  So it’s not like you can stop midway and resupply and get your fruit and veggies.  So Ralph’s team is trying to develop sustainable fresh food systems for these astronauts. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  And Ralph’s had a 40-year career with NASA.  He’s done a little bit of everything, and he mentions a few of those in our conversation.  But talking about this latest project challenge for him is just mind-blowing. Meet Ralph WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Ralph.  Welcome to Manage This.  We’re so glad you’re joining us. RALPH FRITSCHE:  Thank you very much.  Pleasure to be here. WENDY GROUNDS:  Before we get talking about astrobotany, and I’m so geeked out about that, I want to find out a little bit about you.  Can you tell us about your career path?  Have you always been interested in space? RALPH FRITSCHE:  So, you know, it’s interesting, when I look back over it, I never envisioned or planned to be working in the space industry or on a space program.  But there are all these things that I can look back on my life that popped up that kind of probably said I was always destined to be here.  One of the first recollections I have, when I was a kid, I was doing one of these pencil-by-number paintings that they had back in the ‘60s, and it was of Ed White walking in space.  I was actually doing that when I heard about the Apollo fire that he died in.  Then I would follow all the other space missions, the early Gemini and even Mercury missions, Apollo. And so I was always interested in it.  But at the time I lived up in the New York area, eventually moved to Florida, right by the Space Coast.  And then I was interested at the time.  I went to college for physics and space sciences.  But always more from a cosmology perspective, not for human interaction in space.  But then being so close to the Space Center, when the time came to graduate, that’s where the jobs were.  And I got into it.  And I’ve been working at the Space Center or on some aspect of space program-related things for the past 40 years, everything from early space shuttle flights, went through most of the space shuttle program, up through ISS, International Space Station, the assembly of that. It was probably one of the highlights for me because I got to travel all over.  We worked with the Europeans on the Columbus module.  So we got to go to Europe several times.  Worked with the Japanese on the JEM module, got to go to Japan.  Before we actually built the station we worked with the docking module that allowed the space shuttle to dock to the Russian Mir station and got to travel to Moscow.  You know, I’ve got all these experiences that I likely would not have had otherwise.  But the interesting thing is where I’ve wound up now and working in crop production and plants.  Trying to feed astronauts in exploration missions turns out to be probably really the most interesting thing I’ve done from the practical perspective of helping humanity reach out beyond low-Earth orbit into the solar system. Project Management Role at NASA WENDY GROUNDS:  Explain your project management role at NASA. RALPH FRITSCHE:  Again, interesting.  We started off with, once we built Space Station, our group changed, and we began doing a series of research payloads.  So basically we transitioned from building Space Station to using it.  And so they were smaller research payloads, and they were space biology-related payloads.  Generally the way things are broken out within the science mission directorate and the biological physical sciences program is that plants are focused out of the Kennedy Space Center; animals are out of the Ames Research Center. So our stuff has always been focused on plants, microbes, things like that.  The small research facilities were generally things that were either a standard facility that we developed for multiple applications or unique one-off hardware packages.  And then we would work with principle investigators to make sure that we could match their experiments to the right hardware, or build hardware if needed, and then take that hardware all the way through the verification process and get it to fly in the International Space Station.  So they were very compartmentalized payloads that we would work a couple of years on each one, and then you pick up the next one. And then one day we were told that one of our funding sources was interested in doing space crop production.  We had grown plants on the Veggie payload.  We were getting ready to fly the Advanced Plant Habitat, another plant payload.  But the whole term of “crop production,” we weren’t really sure what that was at the time.  And I don’t think the asking people really understood, either.  But we knew there needed to be a role for plants beyond research into an application to feeding crew.  And so I was basically given that moniker before we really understood what it all involved. And now it’s kind of transitioned into trying to work a roadmap for the food systems for exploration to see where can plants play a viable role for keeping astronauts healthy and safe on these long-duration missions.  Really when you look at it, food’s the first line of defense for crew health.  And we know that when I start getting further away from Earth on the longer duration missions to Mars, for example, the prepackaged food that we have now starts to degrade in certain key nutrients after about 18 months.  And so we’re looking at three-year missions.  So the challenge is how do I supplement the crew diet with the kind of nutrition that they need, also doing other things like adding flavor, textures to the diet.  And so plants are really, probably I would say, the most known commodity for doing something in space. There’s a lot of different technologies that are still being developed, synthetic biology, things like that.  But they require a lot more infrastructure.  We kind of know how to basically grow plants now with all our practice in low Earth orbit.  And it’s now how do I move this into deep space environment, and how do I figure out what types of missions are going to require this supplemental nutrition?  What would those key nutrients be, so what plants do I grow?  So it’s really time to lay a long-term roadmap out there, see where do we do the research that’s needed, where do we deploy the systems, et cetera.  So it’s kind of a big range thinking out the next 30 to 50 years. Space Crop Production BILL YATES:  The complexity here just blows me away.  And just for a human to reach Mars takes so long.  So to your point, then, okay, we have meals that have an expiration date.  Okay, what are we going to do once they get there and do some work and then come home?  You know, they have to have food to eat.  This is so complex.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Andy Crowe shares project management advice and reflects on 20 years of training project managers at Velociteach. Hear about his bold move to step away from a successful project management career to launch Velociteach, and what he learned along the way. Listen in for tips on how to find balance if you’re overwhelmed, dealing with uncertainty, and managing changes. Table of Contents 01:20 … Behind the Book03:05 … Comparison to Other PMP Exam Textbooks05:05 … Defining Success05:48 … Lessons Learned Starting Velociteach07:14… Challenges that PMs are Facing Today11:07 … Kevin and Kyle12:45 … Most Successful Project13:31 … Project Manager Competencies15:33 … Acquiring the Technical Knowledge17:15 … Tools and Techniques18:52 … A Team Replaced or Project Cancelled?21:07 … The Overwhelmed Project Manager22:50 … Finding Balance25:19 … Managing Changes and Unpredictability29:07 … Best of Project Management30:15 … Closing ANDY CROWE: To me it’s such a joy to bring order into chaos.  It’s such a joy to deliver a solution, to make something, to build something.  I love that.  WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  We are so glad you’re joining us.  If you like what you hear, please visit us at Velociteach.com, where you can leave a comment on our Manage This Podcast page.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and here in the studio is Bill Yates and Andy Crowe.  Bill, this is a very special day today; isn’t it. BILL YATES:  Yes, we’re celebrating 20 years, a 20-year birthday or... WENDY GROUNDS:  Love birthdays. BILL YATES:  ...anniversary for Velociteach.  That’s right, Velociteach started up in September of 2002.  And we just wanted to invite Andy into the studio just to pause and reflect on 20 years of Velociteach, and then ask him some personal questions; you know?  What makes a project manager successful?  What’s it like when your project gets canceled?  Tell us about starting a business.  So this will be a fun conversation, just to get inside the brain of Andy Crowe, CEO of Velociteach. WENDY GROUNDS:  And I think he has a lot of great advice for younger project managers or project managers who are struggling.  He has some really good advice.  So take a listen. Behind the Book Hi, Andy.  Welcome back to Manage This. ANDY CROWE:  Thank you.  I’m excited to be here. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we’re excited to talk with you today.  So Velociteach, it all started with a book.  And writing a book is a huge project.  Could you tell us a bit about your book, “The PMP Exam:  How to Pass on Your First Try,” and your motivation to write it? ANDY CROWE:  You know what, I was motivated because when I read other books I wasn’t happy with them.  And they didn’t explain things the way I did.  So, you know, certainly there were a lot of resources out there, and people definitely passed the PMP before this.  But it was something that I like to explain things.  I love to write.  I just write a lot regardless.  And so it was a good marriage of things.  As I was going through, I took all of my notes that I had used previously to study for the PMP and kind of put them to use and organized them.  And then it evolved over time. BILL YATES:  I’ve known you for a while, and I think that’s a  natural evolution for you.  That’s part of your DNA is you look at something, you go through something personally like the PMP Exam.  And you go, you know what, I think I would have done better if I’d had this, or if.  It makes sense to me that you would go through that, pass the PMP Exam, and then go, you know, I think I could write a book about this. ANDY CROWE:  Well, and also, you know, it was something that, as I’m going through trying to explain things, there were just things that I thought I would love to have stated that differently.  I would love to have explained this a different way.  And so, you know, some of the resources that were out there either talked down to you, or they explained things that, well, yeah, if you already understood them, that would help.  And if you didn’t understand, it didn’t help at all.  So I was trying to bridge that gap. Comparison to Other PMP Exam Textbooks WENDY GROUNDS:  What else about your book makes it different from other PMP textbooks? ANDY CROWE:  I think a lot of it is the voice we use and the way we try and relate back to the work that project managers are doing.  So there aren’t a ton of assumptions in there necessarily.  We try and explain concepts from the ground up.  A lot of illustrations, a lot of diagrams, a lot of examples.  And then a whole ton of questions.  I don’t know if any other resource has that many sample practice questions built in. BILL YATES:  One of the things that I think gives you a unique voice with the book is it includes both predictive and adaptive.  And I think when PMI expanded the test to include all the agile content, for us it was like, ooh, this is a great opportunity.  We’ve already written a lot of content.  You had the PMI ACP book already. And then I think it just added to the value of your book because then you added, gosh, dozens and dozens of pages to go into agile content, which again had the same mindset of this is how it makes sense to me.  This has been my experience. ANDY CROWE:  Right.  And you know, it was – that was a weird time in the industry because you had a lot of companies trying to suddenly brand themselves as agile experts.  And some of them had no idea, and some of them were trying hard to do agile through this waterfall or predictive lens.  So it was just a really interesting time with a lot of chaos.  And it was fun to try and step in and bring some order and some reason to that. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  And I would say you brought simplicity to it. You know, being able to take a difficult concept, a complex concept, and bring simplicity to it.  And I think for many it’s just very hard to think, okay, predictive versus adaptive.  They’re very different.  But how can I understand them both?  ANDY CROWE:  Thanks.  You’ve not the first person to call me “simple.”  No, the two are in opposition to each other to a large degree, and they’re trying to accomplish the same thing through not necessarily opposite means, but certainly different. BILL YATES:  Yeah, very different. Defining Success WENDY GROUNDS:  Andy, with your book, what defines success? ANDY CROWE:  Number of units sold.  No.  I’m kidding.  Although, you know, it is nice to have some success in the market.  But to me the real success comes through the number of people who use it successfully, the number of people who pass.  And this is the only job in my life that I’ve ever had where people write thank-you notes.  So we’ll regularly get notes from people because this makes a difference in their career, makes a difference in their life.  And so that is wonderful, to get those.  That never gets old.  I read every one.  I try and response to every one I get. That to me defines success. Lessons Learned Starting Velociteach WENDY GROUNDS:  People are often afraid to step out and take a risk, to do that career change, and especially going alone in a new business.  Can you tell us a bit about starting Velociteach and your lessons learned in that process? ANDY CROWE:  That’s a big question, Wendy.  I understand that fear of taking a leap of faith.  You know, I had done training, a good bit of training at the very beginning of my career, and I loved it.  I loved training.  And what I loved about it was seeing the light bulb come on.  I used to teach for the federal government.  And this goes way back into the late ‘80s.  But I loved seeing the light bulbs come on.  I loved seeing people understand concepts and trying to help lead them along a path.  So that was a natural transition for me.  I absolutely loved project management.  I had been doing it. And I had been growing as a project manager, promoted up, director of project management for a public company.  And it was a nice marriage of the two.  But it was still a terrifying thing to do, and to jump out and make that change.  So I definitely understand it. Lessons learned?  I wish I had done it earlier, honestly.  I think, you know, it was something that I’ve never looked back and said, oh, this was a career mistake; or, wow, I shouldn’t have done this.  Not every venture like that works.  This one did.  And it was a real delight. Challenges that PMs are Facing Today BILL YATES:  Andy, when you look at project managers and the role of the project manager, what are the biggest challenges that PMs are facing today? ANDY CROWE:  You know, I’ve said for years it’s a tough gig.  Being a project manager is tough because you’re caught in a vise of organization expectations, customer expectations.  And sometimes they’re unreasonable on both sides, and they all pinch in on the PM.  So the PM’s got to try and figure out how to make this work and how to broker some kind of satisfaction among all the parties.  And of course you’ve got the team, as well.  And so a lot of times if the PM is sort of a pleaser personality, he or she is trying to make the customer happy, and the team gets creamed by having to work too hard, having to put in too much.  They’re redlining all the time.  It’s a difficult job. And then you’ve got a lot of organizations are mandating a specific approach that may or may not work well for that project.  So some organizations are purely predictive, some organizations are pure agile, and there’s really almost no appeal or no discussion, even though that may not be tailored just right to this particular project.  Again, the PM’s got to figure out how to make that work.  Some people are better at that naturally than others.  But I think there’s a lot of challenges out there. And, you know,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Who looks out for the owner’s interest to achieve project success while maximizing project value?  In this episode Herbert Marshall talks about differentiating project oversight from project management. We look at some best practices for project oversight from the perspective of an owner or client. Table of Contents 01:44 … Nuclear Power Plant Project Role02:55 … Lessons Learned from Project05:00 … Defining Project Oversight06:09 … Project Oversight vs. Project Management Roles08:24 … Project Oversight Independence10:32 … Inspiration for the Project Oversight Guide13:40 … Oversight Advice16:36 … The Role of the Oversight Professional21:10 … When to Add an Oversight Professional24:30 … Project Oversight Examples28:30 … Get in Touch with Herb29:47 … Closing HERB MARSHALL:  So the project outcome as measured by an owner won’t exactly align with the success factors of the project outcome for the contractor, nor do the risks perfectly align.  And so that creates a natural tension between the two.  And if not done right, there ends up being winners and losers. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  We’re glad you’re joining us.  If you like what you hear, please visit us at Velociteach.com and leave us a comment on our Manage This Podcast page.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and joining me is Bill Yates. BILL YATES:  Hi, Wendy. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Bill.  So today we have an interesting guest; don’t we? BILL YATES:  Yes, we do.  Herb Marshall is our guest.  He’s a retired nuclear-navy officer and a former lead field assistant for the Department of Energy, Naval Reactors.  He’s got over 20 years of experience overseeing major capital projects, including construction, fabrication, logistics, overhaul, operations, maintenance, and vessel decommissioning and dismantlement. Herb brings a wealth of knowledge to us.  And we’re going to talk about something that I bet none of our listeners have really considered before, and the topic is project oversight.  So we’re going to distinguish or delineate project oversight from project management and talk about this gap that Herb has seen in the marketplace with projects, which is many times we don’t really have someone representing the owner.  So we’re going to talk about that with Herb. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes, it’s going to be interesting.  And Herb wrote a book.  It’s called “The Project Oversight Guide.”  And we’re going to talk to him a bit more about that, as well.  Hi, Herb.  We’re so thrilled to have you join us today. HERB MARSHALL:  Thank you for having me. Nuclear Power Plant Project Role WENDY GROUNDS:  To start off with, let’s get a little bit about your background.  You were previously hired as the chief architect of the project oversight model for a billion-dollar decontamination and dismantlement of a U.S. commercial nuclear power plant.  Can you describe your role on that project? HERB MARSHALL:  Oh, sure.  Well, I was brought in when they were struggling in the beginning, and they decided we need some subject matter expertise if we’re going to oversee this contractor doing this decommissioning while we’re retaining the nuclear license.  So I began where you probably need to begin, which is designing the organizational structure, working with the leadership, writing the job descriptions for the oversight staff and management positions.  And then I worked with various department heads and wrote about 20 or so of the protocols and processes, developed the key performance indicators, the reporting structure, the project management manual, and developed and administered about 40 hours of training.  I also developed an Oversight Professional Certification Program and chaired the final certification oral boards for those would-be candidates. Lessons Learned from Project WENDY GROUNDS:  So what was your lessons learned from this experience? HERB MARSHALL:  Boy, it was an eye-opener.  The lessons learned were actually the genesis for the book, the Project Oversight Guide, “POG” I affectionately call it.  And I would say there’s four primary lessons learned from my experience. First, there’s no textbook out there on the best practices for project oversight, from the perspective of an owner or client.  And if you do a search online, you’ll find there’s no shortage of literature on expertise and the art form of project management and its tools and techniques.  So with there being no real standard for owner oversight, my opinion is owners are disadvantaged by this asymmetric information deficit as it gives contractors and project teams a built-in inherent advantage over their clients.  So I really wanted to close the gap on that. The second thing is that policies, procedures, and protocols are no substitute for oversight culture.  So, you know, if you know my history at Naval Reactors, they have a “75 years of oversight” culture.  And that needed to be paired with procedures and processes in order for it to be effective. The third thing I would say is that the leadership there tended to think that by virtue of a person being a smart and high-performing engineer, that made them competent to fulfill an oversight role.  And most folks don’t realize that oversight is somewhat its own discipline requiring experience and training and a firm grasp of its best practices.  So that was an important lesson that drove me to wanting to write the book. And lastly I’d say most of the leadership sees oversight as overhead, when it’s actually a value center that pays for itself, much like project controls does.  Studies have shown you get a 3X return on your project controls if you spend the money on it.  So those are my four primary lessons learned. Defining Project Oversight BILL YATES:  Those are great.  And we want to spend the majority of our time talking about that book, and I appreciate you calling it the “The POG.”  That’s the way we’ve been affectionately referring to it as we’ve been going through and reading and taking notes.  And it’s called “The Project Oversight Guide:  An Owner’s Guide to Oversight of Capital Projects, Project Teams, and General Contractors for Delivering the Expected Return on Your Investment.” Now, one of the first things that we want to talk about is because we agree with you.  When you search, when you look, there’s tons of information out there about project management, the role of the project manager, program management, the role of the PM in that regard, but not about project oversight.  So first, give us a definition.  How do you define project oversight? HERB MARSHALL:  As a straight definition, I would define it as advocating the owner’s interest in order to achieve the owner’s project success factors while maximizing project value by providing a risk benefit, a certainty benefit, and a quality benefit.  And those three benefits add up to the value of oversight and how it saves clients and owners money. Project Oversight vs. Project Management Roles BILL YATES:  Excellent.  You made that distinction between project management and project oversight.  So spin that out for our listeners.  What’s different with the role of project oversight versus project management? HERB MARSHALL:  Well, the example I like to use is that of a homeowner.  If you’re a homeowner, and you are going to build an extension on your house, and you pay this fixed-bid contractor to build that extension on your house, no homeowner is going to vacation in the Bahamas and drink piña coladas on the beach and wait for the contractor to tell them that the extension is done.  Right?  That homeowner has an interest in ensuring the safety of the home because his children are going to play there.  He has an interest in the stewardship of the money, so it’s not poorly spent.  He has, for resale value, he has an interest in that they comply, whatever their governing rules are, building inspectors and the like.  And he also cares that it’s done prudently.  So those are the foundational elements of oversight. And the other thing I would say is that project management does do some oversight; right?  In “The POG” I lay out that there’s elements that go into project management that are related to oversight functions.  But it’s really a collaborative duty.  Anyone who’s been in like a major capital project knows that a first-line supervisor has to oversee his folks.  But half the time he’s chasing down supply chain and receipt inspection and dealing with personnel issues, and there’s that little bit of time you have to go to the site and make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.  So in that respect, oversight as a collaborative duty is secondary.  But for an owner, oversight is their primary role.  And they need to be able to do that in such a way as not to usurp or interfere with the contractor self-governance. BILL YATES:  Got it.  And you bring up a key word here, which is owner.  Well, the analogy of the homeowner because, yeah, the project teams, you know, when I’m building a home or a major addition, project teams come and go.  They all may have different project managers.  Maybe there’s a general contractor overseeing the whole thing, but at the end of the day, they leave, and it’s my house.  I’ve got to live in it.  Right?  So to your point, I’m not drinking piña coladas on the beach.  I’m down there looking at the jobsite, and I’ve got this interest. HERB MARSHALL:  Right. Project Oversight Independence BILL YATES:  And one of the keys that I like about this is this oversight role is serving the owner.  Therefore, they need to be independent from the project manager, independent from the project team.  Talk about the need for that independence. HERB MARSHALL:  When you think about it, the quality control is built into the PM.

Over the last couple of years, company culture has undergone significant transformation. The fact is every person on a project team has an influence on the culture. As project leaders, we shouldn’t take our responsibility to team culture lightly. We’re talking with culture expert Colin D Ellis about in-office culture, remote culture, and hybrid culture.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. As a project manager, do you have an obligation to support your team members’ development for the duration of your project assignment?  In this episode, Lisa DiTullio explains how to effectively coach team members and still get the work done. She describes how to create a learning, collaborative environment for your team, which will benefit each individual and the project delivery. Table of Contents 02:05 … Meet Lisa03:26 … Defining Coaching05:16 … Changing Landscape for Project Managers07:33 … Traditional Approach to Managing Projects09:45 … How to Coach and Deliver Successful Projects12:35 … Coaching Project Fundamentals16:40 … Asking the Right Questions18:04 … How to Evolve as a Manager Coach20:06 … Listen More, Talk Less21:58 … Coaching Through the Life of a Project25:01 … Fitting in a New Team Member29:40 … Keep it Simple to be Successful30:47 … Get in Touch with Lisa31:55 … Closing LISA DITULLIO:  And if they challenge you, like, “Well, wait a minute, you know this, can’t you just tell me,” you have to be prepared to be able to go back and say, “But when I give you the permission and the opportunity to think about this on your own, you will never forget it.  You will own it.  It is yours.  And then you can build off of that, and you can continue to succeed.” WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our bimonthly program, where we like to talk about what matters to you as a professional project manager.  And we’re so glad you’re joining us.  If you like what you hear, please visit us at Velociteach.com and leave us a comment on our website. I’m Wendy Grounds, and joining me is Bill Yates.  Our guest today is Lisa DiTullio.  Lisa is the principal of Project Chalk Talk.  She has over 25 years experience in establishing PMO and Portfolio Management models. She is also the author of several books and a regular contributor to industry blogs and various podcasts.  As past VP Portfolio and Program Management of Foundation Medicine, Lisa built the PMO from the ground up.  As past director of the PMO at Boston-based Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, Lisa was a core member of the turnaround team for an organization that went from being placed in state-supervised receivership in 1999 to being the number one health plan in America in U.S. News & World Report many years in a row.  So we’re going to talk with Lisa about the project coach. BILL YATES:  Yeah, some of these questions are going to be along the lines of, okay, do project managers also have an obligation or a responsibility to support team members’ development?  We’ve got to deliver successful projects.  What about our team members and their development?  It’s an opportunity to support team members’ development through coaching for the duration of the project assignment.  But again, you’ve got to find that balance of getting things done.  So we’re going to ask Lisa how coaching can be done simply, without getting in the way of successful project delivery. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Lisa.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thanks for being our guest.  LISA DITULLIO:  Thank you so much for having me.  I’m thrilled to be here. Meet Lisa WENDY GROUNDS:  We’re excited to talk on this topic.  But before we get there, can you tell us about your current work? What are you doing right now, and how you got into project management? LISA DITULLIO:  I fell into the profession like many of us have, which is totally by accident.  I never grew up thinking I was going to be a project manager.  Didn’t even know what a project manager was.  And in typical form, most folks who are good at their day job get rewarded by being assigned a project.  And that’s exactly how it happened.  I had no background.  I had no training.  And I just knew that I had to deliver a lot of work within a certain timeline.  And I knew that the pressure was on, and I needed to do a good job.  It was a very small team.  And we were dealing with a momentous project in healthcare, which has been my primary focus throughout my career.  And that’s how it happened.  It was just simply by accident. I still believe the accidental profession is alive and well for so many different reasons.  And I left my day job again at the end of last year and decided, you know, once you start a business, then you have no fears about doing it again.  And so I’m doing it again.  I’m just having a lot of fun because I’m staying in a very narrow alley which is teaching, coaching, mentoring. And being a little bit of a change maker in this profession.  I think it’s time for us to do so. Defining Coaching WENDY GROUNDS:  Can you tell us what coaching is?  LISA DITULLIO:  Yeah.  There are so many different definitions.  A lot of people think of the traditional definition of coaching as in an athletic coach who oftentimes will give you strong guidance on how to do something to get better, to really focus and work on your talents and your strengths.  The coaching that I’m thinking of and from how we’re going to talk about it today is really about empowering individuals in a completely different manner because most folks that we oversee – and for project managers what’s really interesting about it is whether project managers recognize it or not, for the life of a project, those project team members spend most time with the project manager rather than their functional manager.  And they will rely on that project manager or program manager, especially if they’re good ones, to guide them along the way. And it could be that guidance can be in a plethora of areas and topics and skills.  The difference, though, for project managers, is it’s not telling our team members what to do and how to do it.  It’s challenging our team members on figuring it out on their own.  But we always offer them a safety net so they will never fail.  But it forces a complete different mindset on a project manager because it’s a whole lot easier.  We’ll just tell them what to do.  In fact, it’s worse than that.  Usually the project manager is, by the time I tell you to do it, I can do it myself.  So think about what we’re challenging these folks to do, which is, you know, sit on your hands, listen intently, ask a lot of questions, and empower the individuals.  And ultimately, as you do this on your project teams, you are creating a learning collaborative environment on your team, which is the ultimate place to be when you’re delivering really complex stuff. Changing Landscape for Project Managers BILL YATES:  That’s good.  That’s a great description. And, yeah, there’s a certain arrogance that I think it’s easy for project managers to fall into because many times we kind of grow, like you said, we kind of grow out of a technical background where it’s like, okay, I reached a level of competency where now, I’m kind of in charge of this part of the project or the entire project team.  That’s a great wakeup call.  I appreciate you talking about that.  I also wanted to talk about that changing landscape that you see for projects and project managers.  How would you describe that landscape today versus what it used to be? LISA DITULLIO:  Yeah, it’s a great question.  And, well, first of all, as a world, we’ve gone through extraordinary change in the last couple of years, and I don’t think we’re ever going back to what we used to have before on any level.  Yet, when you look at the history of project management, so the PMI was founded in 1969, and Agile became a thing in the early 1990s.  And by the way, I’m a big proponent.  Put your weapons down, stop worrying and fighting over what methodology is the best.  It’s about what’s best for the organization to meet those needs. We also have an aging profession.  I believe the latest stats on PMPs, that over 50% of our PMP holders right now have less than five years’ experience under their belt.  So now you go back to that coaching mode.  So I believe it’s an aging profession, and I think it’s also equally fueled by the Great Resignation.  But for those who are still with us who have been really well trained, real experienced, and are a full believer of the methodology, which I think is still a great thing. As long as we’ve got some flex to it, they want to tell us what to do. And the coaches themselves don’t necessarily see flexibility in the way we deliver projects.  So you have to change your mindset to be flexible in order to coach really well.  Because the younger generation, first of all they were born out of the womb with devices.  They have a different way of thinking and behaving.  And they have some extraordinary thoughts, ideas, and suggestions of how we all could do this better together.  So if we don’t open our mindset, we will never be able to coach them to extraordinary things.  It doesn’t just benefit them as an individual, but benefits the delivery of a project in a program. Traditional Approach to Managing Projects WENDY GROUNDS:  Lisa, can you describe how organizations have traditionally approached managing projects?  And what are some drawbacks to this approach? LISA DITULLIO:  Sure.  And again, I’m going to try to stay out of the debate of what methodology is better.  But for most of us, regardless of the methodology that we rely on, we rely on process.  We’re heavily driven by process and templates.  And the problem with that is we get so intently focused on process and templates, we forget to ask ourselves what does this project really need?  And speed is of the essence for just about everyone.  We are investing millions and millions and millions of dollars on these really important projects everywhere in organizations. And there’s some belief right now that there’s more money on the table for our projects than there are for operations.  And I think it’s a very compelling argument.  As a result of that,

How is Agile relevant beyond IT? Alan Zucker explains how agile roots are in the Lean manufacturing movement as he shares about the application of agile practices for non-technology projects. He talks about agile as a mindset, the Gemba Walk, House of Lean, transparency in teams, value stream mapping, and much more. Recently Alan launched a new Velociteach InSite course: Agile Beyond IT, a hands-on application of agile practices for non-technology challenges. Table of Contents 01:59 … Agile Beyond IT03:09 … Blurring the Lines between Traditional and Agile06:04 … Fusion Cooking and Project Management07:21 … Agile as a Mindset not a Methodology10:19 … Self-Organizing and Self-Managing11:32 … Empowering Team Members12:36 … Iterative and Incremental15:12 … Iterative and Incremental in Non-IT Projects15:21 … The House of Lean17:43 … Transparency in Healthy Teams19:22 … The Gemba Walk22:53 … Agile Manifesto beyond IT24:59 … 12 Agile Principles beyond IT27:41 … Dignity28:49 … Value Stream Mapping in Non-IT31:39 … Advice for New Leaders32:57 … Get in Touch with Alan34:19 … Closing ALAN ZUCKER: Another is trusting the wisdom of the team, recognizing that you don’t need to come up with all the answers, or potentially even any of the answers; that your strength lies in bringing out the experience and knowledge of everybody else on the team. WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  This is the podcast about project management.  We are excited to bring our guest to you today.  This is actually someone we’ve had before. BILL YATES:  Yes. WENDY GROUNDS:  Alan Zucker is joining us.  He’s a certified project management professional.  He’s an Agile Foundation certificate holder, a Scrum Master, a Scaled Agilist, as well as a keynote speaker. BILL YATES:  We have a course that we are launching.  This one is called “Agile Beyond IT.”  It’s a part of our self-paced training in InSite.  Alan created the “Fundamentals of Agile” course for us, and the feedback was always positive, and sometimes he’d get the comment, “I don’t work in technology, so how does this apply to me?”  Well, that’s something that he’s dealt with a lot in some of the consulting and other training that he’s done for organizations. For several years Alan’s helped clients use agile principles and practices in diverse non-technology fields, everything from construction to not-for-profits.  These experiences are the basis for this class.  And he pulls some of the concepts from the agile principles and says, “Okay, here’s the principle.  How can we apply this beyond IT?”  Very practical, great advice. Alan has got multiple agile certifications from PMI, the Scrum Alliance, Disciplined Agile, and Scaled Agile.  He’s created courses for us.  He instructs for us.  He is in the classroom.  In fact, as we wrap up this session today, he’s going to begin a four-day PMP prep class for us.  And we’re delighted to have him with us. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Alan.  Welcome to Manage This once again.  Thank you for joining us. ALAN ZUCKER:  Hi.  It’s great to see you guys again. Agile Beyond IT WENDY GROUNDS:  Now, we’ve just mentioned that you have completed a course for us, “Agile Beyond IT.”  And we’re very excited to publish this one.  It’s an excellent course.  Could you give us a little bit of a background for this and why you picked that name for the course? ALAN ZUCKER:  Sure.  So a few years ago I created a “Fundamentals of Agile” course for Velociteach.  And it’s been very popular.  But as we were looking at some of the comments that people left, people were saying, “Well, this was a really great course, but it was all about technology, and I’m in a non-technology area.  How can I use agile?”  So we had some conversations, and we put together a course for people that aren’t in technology.  And it just so happened that around the same time I was thinking, how do I begin to sort of coalesce and distill some of the ideas I had around agile because I’ve been working with very non-traditional organizations and teaching them agile techniques to better manage their work.  Like I’ve done a lot of work with nonprofits, and that’s really been very interesting to show them, hey, you can use these agile techniques.  And they love it. Blurring the Lines between Traditional and Agile BILL YATES:  Alan, I’m going to quote Alan at Alan.  There’s a key concept that you share early on in the course.  And I’m going to quote it:  “As the profession evolves, successful project managers will be pragmatic and select the best practices based on the project context.  In other words, the lines between traditional and agile project management will blur, and we will pick the best tools and practices based on our project’s needs.”  I love that.  I completely agree with that.  But let’s dig into it a little bit further.  How do you see the lines blurring? ALAN ZUCKER:  So I think if we look at project management or the history of project management, traditional project management really came from construction, really from engineering and the expectation that we can design something and build it.  And if you’re looking at an office building, that’s what they do.  Turns out that my son-in-law is a construction project manager and has worked on some big buildings here in the DC area.  So you’ve got your designs and your specs.  You bring in the guys that do the excavation, and the concrete guys, and they pour the floors.  And then you bring in the plumbers and the carpenters and three different types of metal workers.  And it works where you’ve got a good design. Agile started in software development.  And agile works really well there because we’ve found and we know that we cannot fully articulate what we need upfront.  So the idea of iterating through and getting feedback and moving forward works well.  And I think that for a lot of us, if we begin to think about, well, what are the best practices from either side of the spectrum, we begin to pick and choose and say, well, it might make sense to do a daily standup, even if I’m working in a traditional environment.  Or that maybe we need to do more structured risk management on our agile projects. BILL YATES:  Yeah, those are good.  I love the concept of bringing the best out of both and blurring those together.  Now  whenever we talk about this, I’m sure we have some purists that are really on both sides, both camps. ALAN ZUCKER:  Yeah. BILL YATES:  Who do you think’s going to get more upset by that?  You think the Agilists or the Waterfall teams are going to be more upset by that? ALAN ZUCKER:  I think you’re going to have folks on either side that aren’t going to be very happy.  I think that the people on the Waterfall side, you know, if you’re working construction there’s probably less that you would adopt from agile.  And the things that we recommend would probably be, “Hey, that’s a great idea.”  I think the Agilists sort of came in as the insurrectionists 20 years ago.  And I think they are beginning to slowly move to say, well, there are things of value from traditional project management. Fusion Cooking and Project Management WENDY GROUNDS:  Alan, in your course you compared project management to fusion cooking.  Can you explain that for us? ALAN ZUCKER:  Sure.  I think that originally one of the ideas I was thinking of or the titles of the course I was thinking of was Agile Fusion, or Project Fusion.  I like the idea of blending and mixing.  So I think in the course I talked about this great sushi restaurant that I go to in Mexico, where they’re making traditional sushi, but then mixing in Mexican spices and peppers.  Or there’s a place here in D.C. where there’s Eggs Benedict, and then they use Beef Bulgogi as the topping.  And I think it’s just the idea that there is all these really great ideas that we can share and we can mix.  And if we don’t think about things in this very compartmentalized way, just phenomenal, inventive, creative things can happen. BILL YATES:  You make me think of I like watching Bobby Flay, the famous chef Bobby Flay.  There’s a show where people are trying to come on and beat him.  And he’s always taking some traditional recipe and adding his own style, and it’s usually some kind of like a serrano pepper or something that he adds to it that just takes it to another level.  And the judges love it.  So there’s that idea of fusion. Agile as a Mindset not a Methodology There are so many little pieces that we can pull from agile practices that are very applicable and very helpful in those environments.  And that’s what I appreciate about the course.  We’ll get into the details.  But instead of saying, okay, you must do this, it’s more of a, hey, consider the mindset behind this.  Consider the mindset of agile in this and what is something from that.  If we look at that mindset, how can we take that and move that into the way that we’re managing projects?  A vital point that you make is that agile, don’t think of it as a methodology as much as a mindset.  Talk more about that. ALAN ZUCKER:  So I came to project management from economics.  I have my master’s degree in economics.  So I was the accidental project manager.  And back in the dark ages, back in the 1980s, I was working for a firm that was doing environmental consulting work.  And I was working with a senior economist to develop a model of what would happen under different environmental regulations.  This was the dawn of the computer age. I built this massive model in Lotus 1-2-3 Release 1A.  And he had some ideas about, well, this is how the model should work based on some previous experience.  And I had a little bit of experience with personal computers. So we would build a little bit, and then we would troubleshoot, and we would go back, and we would review.