Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

Creating an Olympic legacy: The project story about successfully ensuring the delivery of venues and infrastructure of the London 2012 Olympic Games while overcoming huge constraints which impacted project planning.

How do you plan for something you can't predict? Strategist Lance Mortlock demonstrates how scenariolanning can help identify risks and expose vulnerabilities. Listen in for practical steps so that projectmanagers can be better prepared by strategically incorporating scenario planning into project planning. Table of Contents 02:04 … Writing the Book: Disaster Proof03:41 … What is Scenario Planning?07:09 … Examples of Scenario Planning Implementation11:37 … Essential Questions for Scenario Planning11:45 … Step 1: Defining Scope14:38 … Step 2: Explore Environment16:32 … PESTEL18:16 … Porter’s Five Forces21:25 … Step 3: Analyze Trends, Risks, and Uncertainties22:21 … Step 4: Build Scenarios and Signposts24:45 … Storytelling27:05 … Step 5: Confirm Scenarios and Stress Test29:41 … Step 6: Monitor Signposts and Execute Strategies31:40 … Applying AI in Scenario Planning35:04 … Connect with Lance36:27 … Closing LANCE MORTLOCK:  With storytelling, we talked earlier about how project managers take their discipline to the next level.  There’s the basics of what’s expected.  But the truly great project manager leaders again are using the different tools out there like scenarios, like the power of storytelling, to create a more compelling vision of what the future could look like. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  I just want to thank our listeners who have reached out to us and leave comments on our website or social media.  We always like hearing from you. We appreciate your positive ratings on Apple Podcast or whichever podcast listening app you use. So today we’re talking with Lance Mortlock.  Lance is a senior strategy partner with Ernst & Young. And he’s provided management consulting services on over 150 projects, to more than 60 clients in 11 countries.  The topic of our conversation today is based on his book, “Disaster Proof:  Scenario Planning for Post-Pandemic Future”.  And Bill and I both really enjoyed reading this book.  This was very interesting, talking about how you plan for something you can’t predict. BILL YATES:  Yeah, yeah, the uncertainty.  None of us project managers like uncertainty.  Yeah, Lance has written a brilliant book.  Okay, this is not basic project management stuff.  This is taking it to another level.  Lance’s explanation of scenario planning is spot-on.  The six steps he’s going to talk through with us are so practical and I think will resonate with the listeners.  These are some practical steps that we can use as we look at those tough questions that sponsors and customers come to us where they want us to look in the crystal ball and predict the future. WENDY GROUNDS:  Lance, welcome to Manage This.  We are so grateful to you for being our guest today. LANCE MORTLOCK:  Thanks for having me.  Looking forward to it. Writing the Book: Disaster Proof WENDY GROUNDS:  We’re talking about your book, “Disaster Proof:  Scenario Planning for Post-Pandemic Future”.  And my question is, did you already have this book in the works prior to 2020?  Did you write it as the pandemic emerged, or were you already on this project? LANCE MORTLOCK:  I have been writing for quite a bit in a more serious way and professionally for about 10 years. You know, ever since I joined Ernst & Young.  And I’ve been writing over the years about resilience, business resilience, around continuous improvement, different topics around strategy and integrated planning.  And really in, I guess, two years ago I started to think, well, I’ve done all this writing.  I’ve explored all these topics.  There’s a tremendous opportunity to kind of bring these topics together in an integrated way.  So I started to think about that and work on that two years ago. And then I would say a year ago, when we got hit with COVID, it really came to light for me that future thinking in organizations is ...

The construction industry is evolving in terms of women-led teams. Listen in for advice to women entering the industry. Jody Staruck worked on the YWCA Central Massachusetts $24 million renovation project. She talks about the requirements, scope and stakeholders of this project and the unique story behind their petition to win the bid for this renovation. Table of Contents 01:41 … Meet Jody04:04 … The First Female Executive06:23 … Consigli Construction Growth08:38 … Maintaining a Strong Company Culture11:10 … YWCA Central Massachusetts Renovation Project13:44 … The YWCA Services to the Community14:50 … A Unique Bid Petition17:16 … Approach to Obstacles21:53 … The Unique Perspective of a Woman-Led Team24:34 … Overcoming Communication Barriers27:55 … Is the Construction Industry Changing?30:52 … Advice for Younger Women32:29 … Creating More Career Advancement Opportunities34:38 … Get in Touch with Jody35:36 … Closing JODY STARUK:  ...what I tell my younger teammates, male or female, is make a decision because at least then you’re in control.  Otherwise, the decision is being made for you.  And if you make the wrong decision, make another one to fix it.  So there’s always another option to fix it. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and here in the studio with me is Bill Yates.  We want to take a moment to say thank you to our listeners who reach out to us and leave comments on our website and on social media.  We love hearing from you, and I always appreciate your positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or whichever podcast listening app you use. One other thing is we know you’re looking for opportunities to acquire PDUs, your Professional Development Units, towards recertifications.  You can still claim PDUs for all of our podcast episodes.  Take a listen at the end of the show for information on how to claim your PDUs. When you think of an industry dominated by men, construction might be one of those that comes to mind.  Not so, Bill.  Women make up apparently only 10 to 11% of the construction industry’s workforce. BILL YATES:  Well, we are fortunate to have a conversation today with a real trailblazer in the industry.  In 2017, our guest, Jody Staruk, received Consigli’s highest honor, Builder of the Year, out of 300 eligible employees.  Now, Consigli is located –it’s in the northeast.  It’s mostly in the Boston area.  So Jody is the first woman recipient.  She’s also the first female project executive in Consigli’s 116-year history. Meet Jody WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Jody.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you for joining us today. JODY STARUK:  Thank you so much for having me. WENDY GROUNDS:  We want to find out a lot of things from you today.  But I first want to know how did you get into the construction business?  It is rather an unusual choice.  Just tell us your background story a little bit. JODY STARUK:  Sure.  Well, it was actually by sheer luck.  I grew up in Maine.  I never saw a building be built in my entire life.  My mom was a math teacher.  So if I got less than an A in math I was grounded, which didn’t seem very fair because the worse I ever got was a B, but that’s still how it works.  So I was good at math by necessity, and I also enjoyed, you know, the sciences and stuff like that. And the only thing that led me down the road of engineering was a drafting class I took my senior year in high school.  And in Maine they have the University of Maine system, and UMaine Orono has a really good engineering school.  So I was going to go there because everybody goes to one of the UMaine schools.  And I applied to Worcester Polytechnic Institute just to say I applied to two schools.  I got into both, and I said, “All right, great, I’m going to go to UMaine.”  And my parents said, “Great, you’re going to live at home.”  And I said, “WPI it is.” BILL YATES:  So it made the decision. JODY STARUK:  Yeah,

Kory Kogon talks about the science behind extraordinary productivity. Hear how to get the right things done, both personally and professionally, and with quality.  Kory highlights three productivity challenges: decision management, attention management, and energy management, and she describes the 5 choices to implement to master these challenges.

Negotiating, recruiting, career planning, interviewing... rarely taught, crucial skills that are indispensable to career success. Listen in as Mark Herschberg, author of The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You, gives valuable career advice about pivoting and about the value of knowing your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) tactic to deliver significant negotiating power.   Table of Contents 01:40 … Meet Mark02:58 … Pivoting Your Career04:56 … Impact Of COVID on Career Progress06:27 … Post Pandemic Work Shift08:19 … Being Intentional with Relationships11:01 … How to be Better at Interviewing15:11 … What are Good Interview Questions?21:17 … Preparation for Negotiations23:48 … The BATNA Approach27:10 … How to Anchor your Negotiations31:37 … How to Contact Mark32:48 … Closing. MARK HERSCHBERG:  So you want to prepare ahead of time, think about what is it that you want to get out of this negotiation.  What’s your ideal outcome?  What’s your BATNA, your Best Alternative To Negotiate Agreement?  That’s the point at which you walk away.  You shouldn’t take anything less.  What are some possible scenarios that might come up?  What are some tradeoffs you might want to do?  And what might the other side be doing?  WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Thank you for joining us today.  I am Wendy Grounds, and joining us on Skype is Bill Yates.  Today we’re talking to Mark Herschberg.  Mark was educated at MIT, and he’s spent his career launching and fixing new ventures at startups, Fortune 500s, and academia.  Mark helped create the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, MIT’s career success accelerator, where he’s taught for 20 years.  Bill, you’ve read Mark’s book, and you’re going to tell us a little bit about that. BILL YATES:  Yes.  The goal of his book is to be a career success accelerator, just like you mentioned.  And there is so much application to project management.  He’s got a chapter on communications, and the leadership chapter talks about how do we motivate team members, different ways to do that.  There’s some familiar topics here, things like Tuckman’s Ladder, the five different stages for project team development, looking at the 5 Whys technique, the Iron Triangle.  So he goes into some of these things that we’ll look at as project managers and go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that.  And then he goes deeper, and those are the topics that we want to talk to him about today, things like negotiation, interviewing, tips that I think project managers can really benefit from. Meet Mark WENDY GROUNDS:  Mark, welcome to Manage This. MARK HERSCHBERG:  Thanks for having me.  It’s a pleasure to be here today. WENDY GROUNDS:  I want to hear a little bit about your book.  You authored “The Career Toolkit:  Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You.”  What prompted you to write this book? MARK HERSCHBERG:  Years ago, when I first started hiring people, software engineers, project managers, I found when I had asked them a technical question, I’d get a technical answer.  But when I would ask a question like what makes someone a good teammate, what are the communication challenges we face, I would get blank stares.  And I realized we never teach this in our undergraduate curriculum.  So I had to start training up folks that I was trying to hire. At the same time, MIT was getting similar feedback from corporate America and began to put together their own program.  So I heard about this.  I was about a year ahead of them.  I said, “You know, I’ve been working on this.  Can I help?”  So I then got involved with MIT.  I helped develop this program.  I’ve been teaching for the past 20 years.  But of course these skills, it’s not just for MIT students.  It’s not just for students.  They are universal skills.  Again, corporate America said these are the skills we want to see,

If your team alignment is off, this misalignment becomes amplified with remote teams. Hear about tools to manage the human side of your project as we take look at The Team Alignment Toolkit.

Hear about an award winning project to repurpose a 125-year old train station into an aquarium. A project that includes designing destinations and creating animal habitats that tell lasting stories.

The 2020 national elections proved to be divisive and controversial. Join us as we take a look behind the scenes with Gabriel Sterling, who became the face of Georgia elections. Gabriel publicly debunked election conspiracy theories and confronted the provocation of threats against election workers. We talk with Gabriel about people, processes, and technology as he describes the unique challenges he faced as the project manager in the role of Voting System Implementation Manager. He explains the request for proposal (RFP), procurement process, and negotiations on a project that aimed to launch the largest implementation of a technology platform for elections in the history of the United States.

As leaders we should bring clarity of purpose into our teams in times of crisis. Hear how to take action when things look overwhelming, stay grounded during crisis, and lead through tragedy. In times of crisis, it’s not the title you have but what you do.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Are you learning project management from the school of hard knocks? Listen in for some pragmatic, practice-based insights into project leadership. Hear advice about psychological safety, building appreciation, organizational learning, risk analysis and much more. Tips to boost your project success and encourage self-managing, high-performing teams. Table of Contents 01:18 … Meet Kiron04:53 … Psychological Safety07:15 … Soliciting Feedback09:25 … Building in Appreciation11:22 … An Appreciation Board13:32 … Accountability from Within14:31 … Embedded Continuous Improvement15:04 … Unconscious Yet Effective Delegation16:54 … Translating Lessons Learned into Organizational Learning18:12 … Information Radiators for Lessons Learned19:25 … Psychologically Safe Evidence Based Retrospectives21:50 … Leader Goes First22:57 … Retrospect on the Retrospectives24:00 … When Someone Leaves the Project25:45 … Building Bridges with Functional Managers27:02 … Risk Management27:57 … Risk Management as Insurance30:16 … Delphi Technique on Qualitative Risk Analysis31:54 … Words of Advice32:54 … Get in Touch with Kiron34:01 … Closing KIRON BONDALE: When I started my career in project management, I was obsessed with the process side of it, the practices, the tools, the techniques of project management.  I wanted to build the world’s greatest schedule.  I ignored the people.  And I forgot that it’s people that deliver project outcomes, not the processes, not the practices. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Listeners, remember if you’re claiming PDUs, check out our website for the instructions for the new procedure.  I am Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me is Bill Yates. BILL YATES:  Hi, Wendy. WENDY GROUNDS:  Good morning, Bill. BILL YATES:  Good morning to you. WENDY GROUNDS:  Today we’re very excited to have Kiron Bondale joining us by Skype.  Kiron is a senior consultant for World Class Productivity,and he’s worked in the project management domain for over 25 years.  He is also an active member of PMI and has served as a volunteer director on the board of PMI Lakeshore Chapter for six years.  And Bill, you’re going to tell us about his book. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  I really enjoyed Kiron’s book.  It’s called “Easy in Theory, Difficult in Practice.”  He’s a prolific writer.  He’s been blogging for years.  And he’ll describe what inspired him to write this book.  But this book is really practical, filled with advice for project managers, very topical.  We’re going to poke into some of the examples, but I really encourage people to check it out.  Meet Kiron WENDY GROUNDS:  Kiron, welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for being our guest. KIRON BONDALE:  Thank you for giving me the opportunity.  I really appreciate it. WENDY GROUNDS:  I want to ask you first, why did you write the  book, and what was your thought behind this book? KIRON BONDALE:  Yes.  It really was prompted by a challenge my father had given me almost two decades ago now, where when I told him I was thinking about starting a blog, and he looked at me, and he kind of said, you know, blogs are for amateurs.  And this is in the early days, when there weren’t a whole lot of people in the blogosphere.  But he kind of said, you know, forget about these 400, 500-word things.  If you want to be serious, write a book. And my father and I, we disagreed on a variety of topics over the time we spent together.  But that kind of challenge stayed in the back of my head all of these years.  And when I got to roughly about 500 articles in the blog, I started thinking, you know, rather than having to create something from scratch, there’s enough good content there that it probably begs the question, could I not collate it, curate it, create a book from it?  And having some free time on my hands over the Christmas holidays last year,