Project Management Happy Hour

We love our listeners, and we love to answer your questions! In fact,  this episode comes straight from a call for help we received from one of our listeners. She shared with us that her manager told her that she was “too nice” with her project team, and asked us for help in how to deal with this ambiguous feedback.  Most of us have received ambiguous feedback like this. “You need to be tougher,”  “you are too abrupt,” “You need to present better to executives,” or something else like that. But how do you turn that vague feedback into action, and gain confidence back?  In this episode Kate shares her personal experience with some recent “inactionable” feedback she received, and shares how she worked through that feedback to achieve a positive outcome.  JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.

Ever have a project that costs money? Well, this podcast is for you! In this episode, Kate and Kim give you the quick and dirty rundown of basic project financials - not just within your project, but how money gets to your project, and how your finance team may view those financials. In a study Kim’s company did at PMO symposium, they found that tracking project financials correlated with success by every measure of project success - scope, schedule budget (obviously), resource management, customer satisfaction and ability to get the project done. So, financials are important! Check out Kim’s webinar recording here: https://kolmegroup.com/surveyresults/ JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.

Communication is a critical part of a Project Manager’s job, and perhaps no aspect of comms is more important than ensuring that what is communicated is correct and truthful. But when someone is not being truthful - to themselves or others - how do you call that out? Or, as we say, how do you “call bullsh!t” on someone without it wrecking your relationship or the support you need from that stakeholder? This episode Kate and Kim get really, really real about calling out BS when you see it - why it’s our jobs as PMs to do it, how to do it and, where possible, how to do it in a way that ends up being positive for everyone. Well, as much as possible, anyway. And, yup, we do talk a bit of B.S. in this episode! JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.

Many Project Managers are on a trajectory that takes them from a more technical or tactical focus to a more leadership focus in their career, possibly transitioning from Project Management eventually to the Board Room. But how do you do that? How do you make the transition from being known for technical execution to strategic leadership? Well, one of the main things to consider is how you brand yourself. To help us learn about personal branding and growing from a tactical role to a strategic one is our special guest on this episode, Sonia Mundra. Sonia has successfully made this transition, and gives us some amazing coaching to help us grow into leadership  as well! OUR AMAZING GUEST, SONIA MUNDRA Our guest, Sonia Mundra is the President of Chenega Analytic Business Solutions (Chenega Analytic), an Alaska Native Corporation (ANC) and Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB).  Ms. Mundra helps federal and commercial agencies implement records and IT solutions. She has served in a variety of operational, financial and executive roles at Chenega.  In addition to leading Chenega Analytic, Ms. Mundra dedicates a significant amount of time to volunteer associations and activities which help educate and empower the regional technology community. She has spoken for various organizations, including CompTIA, ISACA, PMI, National Contract Management Association (NCMA), and Virginia Society of CPAs (VSCPA). Ms. Mundra is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Project Management Professional (PMP). JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership   STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.

Burning Man is a famous event held in a temporary city the middle of the Nevada desert, dedicated to self expression and artistic freedom with 80,000 people. Can you imagine managing a project there?! One of our very own PM Happy Hour members does so every year! This episode we are joined by Kayla Glenn, a project management consultant and a project manager for a camp at Burning Man. Kayla will share her lessons learned from managing a team of volunteers - lessons which translate very well to any project. Our favorite: “Everyone has a Tuesday.” Check it out! About our guest, Kayla Glenn Kayla is a project management consultant and CAPM. Her favorite hobbies also involve running projects, and she has run a theme camp at Burning Man for the last six years, as well as volunteering as an event coordinator in the non-profit sector, organizing fundraisers and events. She lives in Seattle, WA with a totally awesome cat, and can be found walking around Greenlake. JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership  STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.

We all  assume that following process, better data and improved maturity will fix all our PM issues. That make sense, but is it true? What does the data say? This was our question last fall going into PMO Symposium. Then we realized, we’d be surrounded by hundreds of amazing Project and PMO leaders who could help us understand this better! So, we engaged with 65+ Project and PMO leaders to collect data measuring different aspects of project success, what processes & tools they used (or didn’t) and what data they used. Some of the answers were just as you may expect - but a number of them were really surprising! In this episode, we walk through the findings of that study.   CHECK OUT A VIDEO… We also recorded a video version of this podcast so you can see the graphics - check it out here You can also download a copy of the presentation, here. JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership   STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.

Today we are joined by Rolondo Talbott who gave an amazing presentation at this year’s PMO Symposium. He is going to share with us an amazing story from his time in the military which inspired him to come up with the concept of  Entrepreneurial Project Management. If you've heard about us contrasting "box checker" PM's with being the CEO of your project, Rolondo takes it to a whole new level. With this approach, we look past the obvious or even stated goals of our project and engage at a deeper level to drive value. If you have stakeholders (and who doesn’t!) you won’t want to miss this one.   ABOUT OUR GUEST, ROLONDO TALBOTT Rolondo Talbott, director of project management at Pomona College, joined the IT senior management team where he builds, leads, and operates project management for IT. Rolondo is a UCLA graduate and Los Angeles native who is also a 10-year veteran of the United States Air Force. His most recent position was working for NBC Universal, and he now lives with his family in Claremont, CA, USA. He is also a published author who has written everything from screenplays to parenting related articles which are found in a variety of online and print magazines. He is also the author of the Children’s Book Series, “Uniquely ME” and was named by Disney’s as, “One of New Picture Books Your Kids Will Beg You to Read Over and Over”. When he is not writing, he is helping teams across various industries go from “Great to Legendary” using a variety of certified team building techniques. He also is passionate about helping veterans secure jobs, and volunteers by offering them résumé critiques and job-search strategies.   To contact Rolondo or read some of his many articles and books... Linkedin.com/in/rolondotalbott (Various articles on Management) Pomona.edu/pmo Evolllution.com/author/Rolondo-talbott (Understanding and Achieving Consensus: Best Practices and Pitfalls to Avoid) https://www.cioreview.com/cxoinsight/the-key-to-project-success-nid-27443-cid-63.html (The Key to Project Success)   Parenting Blogging https://www.babble.com/contributor/rtalbott/ (Disney’s Parenting Website) https://www.babble.com/entertainment/picture-books/ (Uniquely ME, Book #31)   Children’s Book Series: Uniquely ME (Various Versions) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071Z974ZY/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_hYnvCbPR4FH5X   JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership   STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.

In today’s world we are bombarded with more information than ever before - it’s on our mobile devices (social email, etc.), daily stand-ups, 24 hour news networks telling us about how the world is collapsing every day, so much going on. That’s a lot of information coming in - so how do you sort through it? With that much information coming in and going out, it can be hard to really feel like we are on top of our projects. Especially in two circumstances: We have a large number of projects we are managing at the same time We have a very long duration project, and need to be able to look ahead and look back So, how do you find a ‘quiet space’ where you can actually think and plan? In this episode, we talk about keeping a Project Diary. A diary or a log of your project can be a great way for you to sort through your thoughts and challenges on a project, and maybe even a way to provide a higher degree of transparency into your project to your stakeholders. Project Diary, Project Log, Project Blog, Project Vlog - we got you covered. Check it out!   JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership   STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.

A natural stage in PM professional development is when you become the ‘fixer’ - the one called in to take over or fix ‘broken’ critical projects. This  is hard, stressful work, and you may wonder why you get (or keep getting) the ‘dirty’ jobs. But these assignments mean your management team has a lot of confidence in you. Embrace it! In this episode, Kate and Kim talk through how to approach taking over broken projects, and take you step-by-step through the remediation process. Kate and Kim share their experiences, tips and survival strategies to get you through alive. JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership  STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.

A defining characteristic of a project is that it ends. Finally. Just finish it, right? If it were only that easy! This episode Kate and Kim talk about what it means to close a project, and walk through some typical scenarios where closing can be really tough, and then share some practical tips on how to get to done.   JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR! Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership   STUMP THE PM’S! We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pmhapyhour and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.