Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

“Why are we throwing away perfectly good stuff?” That’s the question our guests John DuCongé and Shan Arora are asking us this episode as we join them for a tour of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s recently completed Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design. This building was designed and built to the Living Building Challenge 3.1 certification standards, the most advanced measure of sustainability possible in the current built environment, with some of the most stringent building performance standards in the world.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. We’re facing new challenges that are changing the way that we work. Listen in as we address the specific challenge of working remotely. Table of Contents 00:43 … Coronavirus Impact – Keep Calm and Manage This 02:23 … Working Remotely and Managing Yourself 03:57 … Establishing a Rhythm 07:40 … Dealing With Interruptions at Home 11:45 … Sticking to a Schedule when Working Remotely 15:53 … Interruptions and Communication Methods with your Team 16:51 … Turning on Video Cameras 19:33 … Making Time to be Proactive 21:27 … Turning it Off at the End of the Day 25:39 … Experiment with Collaboration Tools 27:58 … Can I trust my Team to be Accountable? 31:57 … Facing New Challenges with Grace 34:35 … Connect with Crystal 35:20 … Closing CRYSTAL KDAKIA:  It’s already a tough time.  So really using this as a time to bond together.  Times of crisis are great to emphasize a positive company culture.  So, and I think that goes both ways.  Both frontline employees, team managers, and team leaders need to have a lot of grace in all those categories because everyone is adjusting to a new normal. 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. BILL YATES:  Hi, Wendy. WENDY GROUNDS:  Every two weeks we get together to talk about what matters to you as a professional project manager, and this week there’s a lot that we want to talk about. Coronavirus Impact – Keep Calm and Manage This BILL YATES:  Yeah, these are very unusual times, not like anything that I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime.  The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has hit, and it’s affected everyone on Planet Earth.  It’s changing the way that we work.  And we thought, what a great time for us to address the challenge that is new to us as project leaders.  We wanted to talk about specifically how to work remotely. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes.  I’m sure a lot of people are worried and anxious.  Someone wise I heard saying this on Sunday is we can’t allow uncertainty to dictate how we are going to react.  You know, we can’t change what we can’t control.  But there are things we can control, and that’s what our guest is going to speak about today. BILL YATES:  Yeah, that’s great.  I think it goes right along with our tagline of “Keep Calm and Manage This.” WENDY GROUNDS:  Absolutely. BILL YATES:  We’ve got a lot of challenges to keep calm, so we’re all wondering how do we manage this. Fortunately, we have a past guest of our podcast, Crystal Kadakia, who’s going to join us today.  She’s had a lot of experience working remotely, she’s also written a lot about the ups and downs of working remotely, some of the challenges and some of the benefits of it.  And she is all about creating a better workspace.  So we are delighted to have Crystal join us today.  Crystal, thank you so much for joining us. CRYSTAL KADAKIA:  Thanks for having me.  Thanks for – it’s nice to be back. BILL YATES:  Well, it’s a spur of the moment thing, but the times call for it. CRYSTAL KADAKIA:  I think that it’s very timely, and also just something that I’ve been really wanting to share more and more about.  So I’m really glad that we’re getting a chance to talk about it. Working Remotely and Managing Yourself WENDY GROUNDS:  Crystal, you wrote a blog which recently we’ve published on the website:  “Does Coronavirus Have a Silver Lining?  A Guide for the Newly Remote Manager.”  And we’ve kind of highlighted some things in this blog that we want to talk about, can we start off with managing ourselves, what it looks like when you’re working remotely and how to manage yourself? CRYSTAL KADAKIA:  Yeah, sure.  So the first thing about all this is you have to take care of yourself first, if you’re managing a team remotely, and you don’t have your own work environment together,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Hear advice on how to achieve constructive crucial conversations, and how to ‘rethink’ a story that is driving a negative emotion. CARRIE WOODS: People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.  And when they know that you care, they will start responding.  And they will feel safe enough to show you their true meaning. Table of Contents 00:58 … Meet Carrie 02:15 … Getting into Crucial Conversations 04:14 … Crucial Conversation Definition 05:32 … Warning Signs of a Crucial Conversation 07:00 … Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication 08:32 … Achieving a Constructive Crucial Conversation 10:30 … Facts and Stories 15:00 … Using the Right Strategy in a Crucial Conversation 20:58 … Getting to the Root and Performing “CPR” 25:23 … Accountability and Changing Behavior 27:42 … Softening the blow in a Crucial Conversation 32:11 … Creating Safe Environments 33:02 … Moving from Conversation to Results 35:32 … Get in Touch with Carrie 36:50 … Closing WENDY GROUNDS:  Hello I am Wendy Grounds and welcome to the Manage This podcast, this is the show by project managers for project managers! And so with me in the studio is a familiar voice, Bill Yates.... BILL YATES:  Hi, Wendy.  Good to be here. So you may notice that Nick Walker is not in the room, he was here for the first 100 episodes.  And Nick was actually, he acquired so much knowledge as a project manager, he’s taken a new gig as a project – just kidding.  He has retired, and he has moved closer to family so he can be with his grandkids, and he and his wife can spoil them. WENDY GROUNDS:  I think he actually mentioned he was project managing a wedding coming up. BILL YATES:  That’s true. WENDY GROUNDS:  So, yeah, he’s using those skills. BILL YATES:  Yes, that’s absolutely true. Meet Carrie WENDY GROUNDS:  You know Bill, we’ve all had those difficult conversations, those conversations where the stakes are high and everyone has a different opinion and then emotions get involved. Well, on this episode, we’re talking about just those conversations. Crucial ones and our guest Carrie Woods is going to describe to us how facts and stories drive our emotions and also how we can move from those crucial conversations to getting results.  Carrie is an author, speaker, master trainer, and executive coach as well as a Certified Platinum Level VitalSmarts Trainer in Crucial Conversations.  Carrie, welcome to Manage This, we’re so glad you could join us today. CARRIE WOODS:  Thank you.  Thank you so much.  It is absolutely fantastic to be here today. WENDY GROUNDS:  Well, we’re happy to have you. So could you just tell us, what brought you into this line of work, and what makes you passionate about it? CARRIE WOODS:  Absolutely, so about 14 years ago I transitioned from the corporate world into being a full-time writer, of all things. And with that, as my client base grew, I moved into instructional design, and from instructional design moved into facilitating the content that I was developing for various organizations, and so today we work with companies like Amazon, Volkswagen, Lincoln Electric, helping develop leaders at all levels to be more effective. Getting into Crucial Conversations BILL YATES:  Well, so one of the things we’re excited about is this whole topic of Crucial Conversations, and it comes from a book, a very popular book, something that a lot of life coaches and others put to work.  And I’m excited about seeing how we can relate this to the world of project managers.  How did you first get into this Crucial Conversations?  Did you read the book?  Did somebody recommend it?  Or how did you become a master trainer with this? CARRIE WOODS:  Oh, my goodness, so several years ago, actually, the book was recommended to me, and as I shared – so we work with all kinds of companies. And what we found, especially with  my background as a writer,

The Podcast for Project Managers by Project Managers. As we celebrate 100 episodes we thank our listeners who have joined us for the journey. In this podcast Nick expands on some lessons he has learned about project management from his time on Velociteach’s Manage This. Table of Contents 00:06 … Celebrating 100 Episodes 03:29 … Nick’s New Adventure 07:00 … Reviewing Past Conversations 08:33 … Conducting Effective Meetings 10:13 … Virtual Team Communication 14:38 … Being Transparent and Maximizing Potential 17:59 … The Essential Components 19:27 … Importance of Integrity 22:45 … Building Blocks of a Project 24:24 … Dealing with Stress 25:34 … Cybersecurity: Creating Awareness 28:44 … Story from a Vietnam Veteran 31:55 … Learning Superior Processes 35:12 … Stimulate Progress and Maintain Excellence 39:00 … Great Leaders Bring Calm to Chaos 43:14 … Nick Signing Off Celebrating 100 Episodes NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  We are so proud and so excited to mark our 100th episode.  Everybody’s here to celebrate:  Andy Crowe and Bill Yates, producer Wendy Grounds, engineer Andie Leeds.  And we’re so glad you have joined us for the celebration, too, but also for joining us and supporting us in our Manage This journey over the past several years. Andy, I’m going to ask you, go back in time, tell us the story behind the podcast.  What was your vision for the podcast then, and has that changed over the years? ANDY CROWE:  Well, Nick, that’s an interesting question.  You know, if you go back in time, I used to be on the project management speaking circuit quite a lot. And so one of the things that always happened is people would come up and say, “I’ve been listening to these CDs”  we used to produce CDs, now they’re digital downloads.  But Bill Yates and Louis Alderman and I were on there, and people would come up and say, you know what, “I’ve been driving around in the car, I’ve been listening to that.”  One person said that when their child misbehaved in the car, that they would actually make them listen to 30 minutes of that. NICK WALKER:  Oh, cruel and unusual punishment. ANDY CROWE:  It was a really funny interchange. BILL YATES:  I’ll get feedback on that one. ANDY CROWE:  One of the things that I figured out during that series of conversations, though, is people would always come up afterward. And so they didn’t want to talk about what I had spoken on that evening at the project management meeting, they wanted to talk about the audio series that we did. And I told Bill, I said, you know, there’s a few things.  Number one, project management is a really difficult job for a lot of people because you’re effecting change, and the world resists change.  So you have people trying to create something that doesn’t exist, to make something different, and this gives us a chance just to have a conversation with people.  Every couple of weeks we get a chance to talk, and it is, it is a conversation, so I like to think of it that way. You know, so we get feedback from listeners, and we try and incorporate that into where we’re going.  But that was the whole goal is just to engage people, and part of it to say, look, we know it’s a tough job.  There are easier ways to make a living than being a project manager.  And at the same time people who do that for a living, a lot of times it’s more of a calling than a profession. So it’s something that you, you know, you can’t imagine doing anything else, it’s a chance for us to engage with people, and that’s the whole goal.  You know, we don’t monetize this podcast, we don’t sell ads, we don’t ask for donations, we’re doing it because we love this profession, too. BILL YATES:  It’s a way for us to connect with our tribe.  When I think about some of the podcasts that have meant the most to me, it’s when people are going through some of the same struggles that I have as a project manager.  Nick,

The podcast for Project Managers by Project Managers. As organizations are going through transformation, there’s plenty of internal and external pressure to adapt, PMI’s Stephen Townsend talks about the changes and challenges for project managers, future trends in the marketplace, and how the role is evolving. Table of Contents 00:26 … Meet Stephen 02:02 … Cooks vs Chefs 08:53 … Enhancing your Toolkit 10:41 … Conflict and Adaptation 13:14 … Future Trend: Soft Skills to Accelerate Innovation 21:12 … Building New Skills and Capabilities 25:31 … Global Executive Council Talent Management Survey 29:56 … How Organizations can Help PMs Increase Value 35:54 … Challenges as Opportunities to Change your Perspective 42:13 … A Revolution of Project Management 44:48 … Connect with Stephen 46:02 … Closing STEPHEN TOWNSEND: ...one of the key things I would say to individuals is, if you’re completing PDUs just to tick the box, you’re wasting an opportunity.  You’re wasting your opportunity, and you’re wasting your organization’s opportunity because this is really your investment in ensuring that you remain competitive in today’s environment, not only within your organization, but also competitive with your peers who are project leaders. NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our opportunity to meet with you and talk about what real life is like in the shoes of a professional project manager.  I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me is the guy who is always on the lookout for interesting and talented people we can bring on our program.  And Bill, it looks like your talent scout eyes have snagged another big fish. Meet Stephen BILL YATES:  Yeah, I’m delighted that Stephen Townsend is going to give us the time on the podcast.  He is a very busy man.  I’ve known him, goes pretty far back, probably 2011 when I served on the Advisory Group for the PMI REP communities, when I really got to know Stephen.  And then had the opportunity to sit in on one of his talks, a couple of his talks actually, at the fall Global Conference back in fall of 2019 and just was reminded of the depth of his knowledge and the experience that he has.  Stephen’s out there in the marketplace.  He meets with so many companies to talk with them about their project management practices and where they’re going, what trends they see.  So great to have him on with us today. NICK WALKER:  Well, before we meet him, let’s learn a little bit more about him.  Stephen Townsend has worked with PMI since 1999, and currently he is PMI’s Director for Network Programs.  In this capacity he leads special program initiatives for the Institute.  One of those is serving on the U.K.’s Project X Research Consortium Steering Committee, supporting the benefits realization management research stream.  He’s also involved in exploring how organizations are enhancing and reinventing their value delivery capabilities.  For U.S. federal government agencies he produces materials to help them implement requirements associated with the Program Management Improvement Accountability Act.  He also leads the PMBOK Guide’s Seventh Edition transformation work stream.  Stephen, welcome to Manage This. STEPHEN TOWNSEND:  Thank you.  Good to be with you all today. Cooks vs. Chefs NICK WALKER:  We want to talk with you about some of the changes and challenges you see coming down the pike for future project managers.  But first, I’d like for us to talk about an analogy that Bill says you made at the PMI Global Congress last fall.  And any listeners with a background in the restaurant industry are going to get this right away.  You said that some project managers are cooks, and others are chefs, and also that we need both.  So could you explain that analogy? STEPHEN TOWNSEND:  Yeah.  So just to put it in the context of the conversation that we had at the PMI Global Conference, we presented a slide

The Podcast for Project Managers by Project Managers. Are you suffering from burnout and low productivity? Sarah Hoban talks about identifying workplace stressors that lead to burnout, and how boosting your productivity can be an antidote to burnout. Hear how to recognize the symptoms of burnout and how to delegate effectively. Table of Contents 01:47 … Meet Sarah 02:45 … Burnout 04:20 … Symptoms of Burnout 06:02 … Recognizing Burnout in your Team 08:09 … Unchecked Burnout 09:58 … Identifying Workplace Stressors 11:03 … Recovering from Burnout 13:00 … Knowing the Why 16:09 … Productivity as an Antidote 17:40 … Delegating Effectively 21:05 … Daily and Weekly Reviews 24:56 … Annual Review 26:02 … Time to Disconnect 28:08 … Staying Creative 30:07 … Preventing Burnout in Team Members 31:37 … Overcoming the 80/20 Delegation Rule 34:46 … Best Advice 35:54 … Get in Touch with Sarah 36:58 … Closing SARAH HOBAN: ...productivity isn’t a zero-sum game.  You’re not productive or you’re not.  And it’s not about being perfect in your productivity, if that makes sense.  It’s really about taking gradual steps to improve every day.  It’s not like you are productive or you’re not, and if you’re not, you’re a failure.  It’s how can I make one small change to be a little bit better than I was yesterday?  NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  It’s a chance for us to get inside the minds of some of the people who make project management happen, those who are doing the job, and sometimes training others to do it, and do it well. I’m your host, Nick Walker, here to tell you that some of the guests we feature on this podcast are with us because of the feedback you have given.  So we hope you’ll keep the comments coming on your podcast listening app, or Velociteach.com, or on social media. Alongside me, as always, is Bill Yates.  And Bill, this time we’re going to talk about a subject that, frankly, might be a little scary for some, and one that some of us probably just wish didn’t exist at all. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  It’s a reality check.  We’re going to talk about burnout. NICK WALKER:  Excellent. BILL YATES:  I heard Sarah speak at PMI Global Conference 2019.  And I found her speech and presentation very refreshing, very relatable.  She began by talking about burnout, and then went into, okay, how do I avoid that, and how do I become more productive?  But it was stuff that we need to hear as project managers.  So I look forward to this conversation. NICK WALKER:  Yeah.  The fact is, most of us are in a continuous effort to get more done with the time that we have.  And that can cause stress.  And while stress may actually encourage creativity and improve productivity, excessive stress in the workplace can have the opposite effect and cause burnout. Meet Sarah Our guest, Sarah Hoban, is with us to speak about that.  She’s a PMP Certified Project Manager and Strategy Consultant with 11 years of experience at Booz Allen Hamilton, directing complex multimillion-dollar projects and leading diverse global teams.  Her career is focused on incorporating project management techniques to improve organizational business processes.  She has a master’s in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University and a graduate certificate from Georgetown University.  She hosts the weekly blog and podcast titled “The Stealthy Project Manager.”  She’s Skyping with us from Washington, D.C. today.  Sarah, welcome to Manage This. Let’s talk about what might be an ugly word for some.  It’s a subject that you’re all too familiar with:  burnout.  Tell me why you’re all too familiar with it. Burnout SARAH HOBAN:  Yeah.  It was actually something that I experienced, I think like many project managers have probably experienced at some point.  There was a period of time where I was working on a project, and I think there were a

The podcast for project managers by project managers. Project Managing Community Gardens. Hear all about an innovative project to increase access to locally grown food and build healthier communities, by empowering local growers, prioritizing local food, and saving food-producing land in a fast-growing city. Table of Contents 01:37 … Meet Britni 02:22 … Food Well Alliance 04:18 … Connecting with a Passion 05:33 … Preparing for a PM Role 07:02 … Stakeholders 07:59 … Plant Eat Repeat Project 09:01 … Aluma Farm Project 13:57 … Communication with Stakeholders 15:03 … Working with City Governments 16:06 … Problem Statement Strategy 18:09 … Facing Obstacles 20:03 … Compost Issues 22:44 … Getting a Community Garden Started 24:55 … Resources Offered to Growers 26:58 … Face to Face with End Users 29:20 … Where to get Produce 29:42 … Advice for New PM’s 30:41 … Lessons Learned 31:43 … Closing BRITNI BURKHARDSMEIER:  I think my advice would be the importance of building your project management toolbox, so learning what are those best practices, whether it’s techniques of communication, how to interact with partners externally or internally.  What are those tools you need, you know, your templates for budget and timeline and meeting notes?  But then in addition to that also still being able to stay fluid and adaptable and recognizing that you may have to change things up because every project is slightly different.  Every partner on that project is slightly different.  NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  We’ve been listening to what you’ve been telling us about what subjects you’re interested in and what kinds of guests you’d like to hear from, and so we thank you for your input. Please keep the comments about our podcast coming.  So you can leave a comment on Google, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or whichever podcast listening app you use.  You can also leave comments on the Velociteach.com website or on our social media pages, it’s your feedback that brings the kind of guest we have on our program today.  And Bill Yates, I need to tell you, I’m not sure who suggested we have a podcast about food, but I’m certainly glad they did. BILL YATES:  It’s making me hungry just thinking about that.  Looking forward to getting into that.  So Britni is going to describe some projects that she’s worked with that are really unique, the stakeholders are unique, the problems to solve are unique.  And I think, regardless of the type of project we have, we can all learn from Britni. Meet Britni NICK WALKER:  So, let’s meet our guest, she’s Britni Burkhardsmeier, a project and impact manager at the Atlanta non-profit Food Well Alliance, a collaborative network of local growers, community leaders, and city leaders, working to build thriving community gardens and farms across Metro Atlanta.  The goal is to increase access to locally grown food in order to build healthier communities.  Britni holds a master’s in public health from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, with a concentration in global nutrition.  Prior to attending graduate school, Britni worked as program coordinator on the emergency health and nutrition team at Save the Children U.S. in Washington, D.C.  Britni, welcome to Manage This. BRITNI BURKHARDSMEIER:  Thank you for having me. Food Well Alliance NICK WALKER:  Let’s get started by just learning a little bit more about the Food Well Alliance. So how did that organization get started? BRITNI BURKHARDSMEIER:  So we started in 2015 with funding from our founding benefactor, the James M. Cox Foundation.  And we really got started because it was a vision between the Cox Foundation and Bill Bolling, the founder of the Atlanta Community Food Bank.  And so together they saw an opportunity to connect members of Atlanta’s local food movement to collectively build healthier communities. NICK WALKER:  And what about you?  I mean,

It’s a “Stump the PM” session! Velociteach Senior Instructor, Margo Love has over 30 years experience managing projects and we are going to discover which of the 49 Project Management Processes she has not performed and why. Margo discusses executing both internal and external projects. Of the 33 Project Documents in the PMBOK guide, Margo weighs in on which she has found to be indispensable.

Hear how to support your team’s success when transitioning to Agile. The adaptation of the Aikido principle of Shu Ha Ri, as well as more info on Disciplined Agile. Table of Contents 00:58 … Meet Alan 02:07 … Defining Agile 04:20 … Shu Ha Ri 08:26 … Non Traditional and Non Profit uses of Agile. 14:43 … Challenges with Transitioning to Agile 17:41 … Disciplined Agile Train the Trainer Seminar 21:48 … Choosing your WoW 23:14 … D.A. and Lean 26:01 … Value Stream Mapping 27:33 … Fundamentals of Agile InSite Course 29:51 … Closing Alan Zucker: ...as long as you are stepping in and making those decisions, the team won’t.  So you really need to focus on stepping back and giving the team that space to make those decisions and allowing them to stub their toes and skin their elbows. So that they will become successful over time. NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  We’re back with another episode, bringing the kind of information you’ve been asking for.  We hope you’ll keep the requests and comments coming in.  You can always comment right there on your listening app, or on Velociteach.com, or on social media.  We love hearing from you. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me are the two guys who guide our discussion, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And this time around we’re featuring a member of the Velociteach family.  And like most of the folks around here, Andy, he has credentials a mile long. Meet Alan ANDY CROWE:  He does indeed, Nick.  And we have Alan Zucker on the show today.  And Alan and I go back a good ways.  He and I interacted back before he worked for Velociteach.  We had a relationship.  Somebody I have deep respect for, and I’m really looking forward to today’s podcast. NICK WALKER:  Before we hear from Alan, I want to tell you a little bit more about him.  He’s a certified project management professional, an ITIL Foundation certificate holder, a Scrum master, a scale Agilist, and an Agile certified practitioner.  Alan Zucker is a keynote speaker, and he has more than 25 years of experience as a leader in Fortune 100 companies.  In 2016 he founded Project Management Essentials to provide training and advisory services.  He recently completed a new course for Velociteach titled “Fundamentals of Agile.” Alan, welcome to Manage This.  We want to talk Agile today. And before we really get into it, can you tell me a little bit about what Agile is, particularly for my benefit and for the benefit of those who maybe are coming from a predictive or waterfall background. Defining Agile ALAN ZUCKER:  Sure, Nick.  Well, first of all, Andy, thanks so much, it’s great to be on the podcast again. So Agile is a way of managing projects and it goes back formally about 20 years. And it started out as a way of developing software using incremental and iterative development techniques. So what we try to do with Agile is try to develop our projects and deliver our projects in smaller pieces. And then learn from what we’ve delivered in order to make things better with each of the successive increments. BILL YATES:  Those are some of the keys; right?  Small batches, quick iterations, quick turnaround, get it in the hands of the customer, deliver value quickly.  Those are some of the keys. ANDY CROWE:  Value, value, value. BILL YATES:  Yeah, value, value. ALAN ZUCKER:  And so I think one of the other really big pieces of Agile is that it changes the way we work, and it really focuses on having empowered teams and people really engaged, both from a customer’s perspective, as well as from the technology team perspective. In our traditional projects, particularly our waterfall projects, there’s a big separation between the customers, the business, the development team, the testing team, and on an Agile project we try to get everybody to collaborate together more effectively. So, it’s really interesting,

The podcast for project managers by project managers. Hiring the best is a significant undertaking. Our guests Don Lang and Laura Butcher offer excellent advice on how to approach filling a critical position, and choosing a candidate who is a right fit for your organization. Table of Contents 00:48 … Meet Don and Laura 02:03 … Understanding the Whole Person 03:21 … Job Description vs Job Specification 07:00 … Measurable Job Specs 08:12 … Candidate Specification 11:03 … Deal Breakers 11:55 … Talent Brand 13:35 … Being Transparent and the Cost of a Bad Hire 19:23 … Planning for the Interview 21:08 … Building Rapport 23:12 … Laying out the Interview Plan 24:40 … Non-Verbal Cues 25:48 … Note Taking 28:46 … Roles of Multiple Interviewers 32:12 … When No Candidates are a 100% Match 35:10 … Assessing Capability 37:04 … “Hire The Best” Insite Course 38:23 … Closing DON LANG: Oftentimes companies will spend more time investing in a new piece of software or a photocopy machine in terms of doing research and scouring prices and so forth.  And they’ll do a couple of quick interviews and think you’ve made the right decision.  NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Every couple of weeks we meet to discuss what’s important to you and to all professional project managers.  We try to talk with the best of the best, drawing on their experience and seeing what has worked for them. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me is the true voice of experience, Bill Yates.  And today, Bill, we have another full house here in the studio. Meet Don and Laura BILL YATES:  Yes, we do.  It’s great to have Laura and Don in the room with us.  And I cannot wait to dig into this topic because they are experts when it comes to hiring the best. NICK WALKER:  So let’s talk about hiring.  As we all know in today’s economy, hiring the best people is more critical than ever.  It costs a lot to find and interview candidates and to train new employees.  No one can afford to lose time and money from a bad hiring choice.  Employees are an investment, and we want a good return on that investment.  That’s why Don Lang and Laura Butcher are here with us.  They are the founders of Blue Key Partners, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations develop their leadership talent through learning and executive coaching. Don and Laura wrote a course titled “Hire the Best” for Velociteach’s InSite Mobile Learning Platform.  Laura has a background as an HR leader, supporting hiring and talent decisions across multiple industries; and Don has experience as an assessor of talent and in helping leaders apply skills and techniques to get the right person in the right job at the right time.  Don, welcome to Manage This.  Laura, great to see you again.  Welcome back. LAURA BUTCHER:  Thank you. DON LANG:  Thank you. Understanding the Whole Person NICK WALKER:  Let’s just start with the basics; all right?  First, getting to know a job candidate.  To what extent is it important to learn more than just the person’s job skills? DON LANG:  Well, it’s certainly important to understand the whole person because that’s who shows up at work.  Oftentimes in an effort to try and get the best person we focus on some technical competency, some experience, some skills, at the exclusion of really understanding how is this person going to fit in the organization? And I was reminded of that the other day when I was talking to a hiring manager who hired a construction estimator.  Lots of great experience in estimating significant construction projects.  But when they got to work, immediately they started looking at different ways of changing the work environment in their office.  They wanted to move to a different floor because it was too noisy where the other estimators were.  They wanted a microwave brought in.  They wanted someone to help do some of the tasks that typically the other estimators would...