Episode 14 — Tim Kelly, the SAFe Agilist

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER ● TIM KELLY NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  It’s a great opportunity to talk about what matters most to you.  Whether you’re a professional project manager, or maybe you’re working toward one of your certifications, we want to help spark your imagination, light a fire under you, and encourage you along the way.  And we do that by talking about issues, friends in the field, and hearing from those in the trenches who are doing the job of project management. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me are two guys who know the score when it comes to project management.  They’ve been there, done that.  They know what it takes to succeed.  And they are here to help you succeed.  They are our resident experts, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And guys, as we look back over our previous podcasts, we’ve had some amazing guests on our show.  And Andy, it looks like we’ve got another heavy-hitter today. ANDY CROWE:  We do.  We’ve got a great guest.  Tim Kelly with McKesson is in the house today.  So welcome, Tim. TIM KELLY:  Thank you. NICK WALKER:  Let’s meet you, Tim; okay?  Tim Kelly, an executive director of technology for McKesson.  He’s with the company’s Business Performance Services business unit.  He has more than 20 years of experience in information technology, information systems management, software and product development, program and project management, as well as wearing many other hats.  Tim, welcome to Manage This. TIM KELLY:  Thanks.  Awesome to be here. NICK WALKER:  Tell us a little bit more about you.  We want to get to know you a little bit better. TIM KELLY:  I have a kind of a unique background.  I grew up managing McDonald’s restaurants, and that was an opportunity to shape the foundation of how I understand people and how to manage profit principles.  So it was a unique opportunity. NICK WALKER:  You know, a lot of people might laugh at that:  “I started at McDonald’s.”  But that is a perfect example of putting what you’ve learned into practice in bigger arenas. TIM KELLY:  Absolutely.  I was studying economics at the University of Utah and had an opportunity to practice what I was studying at the same time.  I learned management principles and clearly a number of key projects.  An example would be trying to put a new HVAC on the roof.  So it had to happen, and you had to figure that out as a manager of a restaurant.  So absolutely had an opportunity to apply the principles.  I wasn’t yet certified at the time, to be clear.  This was many years ago.  But I did recently have a chance to hook up with Velociteach and become certified. BILL YATES:  Yeah, so 2009, Nick.  I had the pleasure of standing in front of a class and looking at the eager eyes of Tim Kelly as he was mastering the Project Management Institute’s framework on project management.  And Tim and I are friends.  We go back further than that.  But it was a rare treat for me to have a buddy in the classroom. TIM KELLY:  Yeah. BILL YATES:  And it was a lot of fun helping you reach that goal. TIM KELLY:  It was awesome.  I tell you what, I also trained for a number of years.  So I opened a training business with Packard Bell NEC in my past.  And just a quick plug for the work that you guys do, the approach, the mnemonic approach about how to retain and learn information, absolutely awesome.  Scored very highly on both the pretest at the end of Bill’s session and then of course did really well on the exam.  So not only did it prove useful from an exam perspective, but I think the approach allowed me to retain the content and then leverage that in business.  So that’s just true-to-life real stuff from someone who’s gone through it and then had to leverage it. ANDY CROWE:  Outstanding. NICK WALKER:  Yeah, bring us up to date now.  What are some of the hats you’re wearing right now?