Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

Dr. Ruth Middleton-House describes how the shift from the emotional brain to the rational brain in making crisis decisions is absolutely critical. When disaster strikes on a project, learn how to size up the situation, evaluate your options, and take appropriate action.

The podcast for project managers by project managers. "Driller Mike", a tunnel boring machine drilling a 5 mile tunnel underneath Atlanta. Table of Contents 01:19 … The Project Story 02:38 … Meet Ade 06:28 … Project Objective 09:44 … CMAR 12:28 … Meet Bob 15:42 … Driller Mike 18:27 … Decision-Making Criteria 20:46 … The Unexpected Risks 23:12 … Encountering Opposition 24:21 … Lessons Learned 25:13 … Current Project Status 27:50 … CMAR Lessons Learned 31:23 … Collaboration Tip 31:46 … Project Success 34:58 … Closing BOB HUIE: So the city kind of told everybody at the beginning we don’t have a lot of time to do this, so we can’t be fighting with each other and not getting along and doing things like that. We needed to find a way to work together for a common goal, and that was a substantial lesson that everybody had to learn.  And then once we learned it and put it into effect, it had a tremendous positive impact on the success of the project to date. NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our chance to meet and discuss the things that really matter to you as a professional project manager.  We take seriously the adage that wisdom is found in a multitude of advisors, and so we seek out experts in a variety of vocations who can give us insight based on their real-life experiences. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me is the one who guides these conversations, Bill Yates, and Bill, we talk about all sizes and scopes of projects on this podcast, and today we’re talking about another really big one. BILL YATES:  Yeah, this one’s deep, a very deep project, we’ll talk more about that, but I can’t wait. The Project Story NICK WALKER:  Well, let’s talk about this deep project just a little bit.  The City of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management provides water to 1.2 million users each day.  So the department is in the middle of establishing a 400-foot-deep reservoir that will hold 2.4 billion gallons of water, the reservoir will be in the former Bellwood Quarry northwest of downtown Atlanta.  The Quarry is to be filled through a five-mile-long tunnel that will connect it to the Chattahoochee River, the city’s primary water source.  To bore the tunnel, a tunnel boring machine, or TBM, was constructed and installed for the two-year-long tunnel project, a TBM. (Driller Mike) BILL YATES:  TBM.  NICK WALKER:  And there’s another acronym that we want to talk about. BILL YATES:  Yeah. NICK WALKER:  And you’ll probably hear this come up a lot.  That’s CMAR. BILL YATES:  Right. NICK WALKER:  C-M-A-R. BILL YATES:  So CMAR, that’s a – really it’s a procurement term, it’s a contract type, and it stands for Construction Manager at-Risk.  Once the agreement was reached between the City of Atlanta and that major provider – Bob will talk about that.  So you may hear the owner, City of Atlanta, refer to the project manager of the team as the CMAR.  So you met your CMAR that way. Meet Ade NICK WALKER:  Good.  Well, we’ve got a couple of guests in the studio here.  So let me first introduce Ade Abon, Senior Watershed Director for the City of Atlanta, Department of Watershed Management, he is the director for the Capital Projects Management Division. Ade has 34 years of experience, 19 of which have been for the City of Atlanta in the planning, design, construction management, and also program management for wastewater collection and water distribution systems, Ade, welcome to Manage This. ADE ABON:  Thank you very much. NICK WALKER:  I’d like to start off by just maybe finding out a little bit more about you.  What was your career path to the position that you’re now in? ADE ABON:  Yeah, so I’ve got a very long career path, and I will try and do my best to lay it all out.  Yeah, I – born, raised in Nigeria.  I worked for a couple of years on a road construction project. NICK WALKER:  In Nigeria.

Scheduling is a big deal in project management. We're getting into the nuts and bolts of project management tools with Jen Morrisey the Vice President of Product at LiquidPlanner, a cloud-based project management platform.

Mark Von Tillow, US Forest Service Retired Division Chief, Los Padres National Forest, California, and Type 1 Incident Commander, talks about working in hazardous conditions while building healthy teams, managing resources, prioritizing, and much more.

Be inspired to offer your PM services in your local community as J. Kendall Lott and Selena Buchanan talk about PM4Change and the Project Management Day of Service®- where PM professionals can provide services to assist non-profit organizations.

Listen in for Andy and Bill's answers to listeners PM questions. e.g: How do I get the team past the storming phase? When to hold meetings and how to conduct them? How to monitor projects closely and how to close them? What are future challenges for PMs?

Productive kickoff meetings are central to project success. How effective are your planning meetings? Learn what steps to take before a project kickoff and how to deal with challenging attendees from author Rich Maltzman.

Laura Butcher addresses ways to determine stakeholder expectations, as well as how to build and maintain trust with your stakeholders. Hear how to overcome cultural obstacles, and how to represent your company’s headquarters in a foreign setting.

Table of Contents 00:59 … Meet Heather 02:46 … Orbital Space Debris 04:10 … LEO and GEO 04:41 … Policy Standards 06:14 … Regulating/Interagency Debris Coordination Committee 08:24 … Assessing and Mitigation 10:24 … Coordinating with Multiple Teams 11:38 … OSD Observatory on Ascension Island 15:53 … Effective Communication 18:26 … Is There an End to this Project? 24:09 … Career Advice 25:57 … Measuring Success 27:31 … Learn More 29:03 … The Bill and Nick Wrap Up HEATHER COWARDIN:  But we need to figure out a way to kind of control its growth and make sure that all space users can utilize the space environment.  And that’s the best we can do right now. NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Every couple of weeks we meet right here and have a conversation about what matters to you in the field of project management.  We talk with real people, doing real jobs, and find out what makes them successful and what keeps them motivated. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me are the chief motivators, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And Bill, for those who have ever said that the sky is the limit with what we do around here, well, they may need to rethink that perspective a little. BILL YATES:  Yeah, they’re in for a treat today.  Heather is going to talk to us about the orbital space debris issue that I didn’t even know existed.  This is going to be exciting stuff. Meet Heather NICK WALKER:  We all know how much we rely on satellites in orbit around the Earth.  These provide us with services such as navigation, meteorology, climate research, telecommunication, and human space exploration.  Unfortunately, with increasing space activities, a new and sort of unexpected hazard has started to emerge:  space debris. Dr. Heather M. Cowardin serves as the section manager and project manager for the Orbital Debris Research Section under the Science and Exploration Department of the JETS Contract with NASA Johnson Space Center.  She also leads the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office Research and Development Task Group. Dr. Cowardin, it’s an honor to have you with us here on Manage This.  Can we start out just getting to know you a little bit better?  How did you get to where you are today? HEATHER COWARDIN:  Well, I guess let’s go all the way back a couple of decades and talk about my childhood dream.  I wanted to be Batman, a garbage collector, or an astronaut.  And here we are, a couple decades later, and I feel like I’ve hit at least two of those three points.  I’m a superhero trying to protect space assets in space from garbage.  So not doing too bad. NICK WALKER:  Excellent. HEATHER COWARDIN:  So I guess where I kind of got to from there is I went to space camp in seventh grade after I won a fellowship from the Society of Women Engineers.  I was going to school at University of Houston, got an internship that turned into a full-time job, that turned into basically being a lead, into a deputy manager, into a full-on manager, to here we are now.  So been at NASA a good 15 years. NICK WALKER:  So you’re concentrating on space debris.  I think this is something that maybe escapes the radar of a lot of people. HEATHER COWARDIN:  Aha.  See what you did there. Orbital Space Debris NICK WALKER:  Yeah.  What is orbital space debris? HEATHER COWARDIN:  Right.  So it’s any manmade object that no longer serves a useful purpose.  So what does that mean?  Spent upper stages.  Mission-related debris.  Carriers for multiple payloads.  Even something as small as paint flakes, those can be very damaging. NICK WALKER:  How much of it is there? HEATHER COWARDIN:  There’s about 19,000 objects in space right now that are greater than 10 centimeters.  That threshold is basically the limit of where our sensors can track debris.  But in general there’s probably a good 23,000 or plus that are greater than 10 centimeters, 500,000 that are in the one centimeter range,

Andy Crowe and his wife Karen have recently departed on a sabbatical aboard a 48-ft catamaran, named Gratitude. Hear their story from a project manager’s perspective, focusing on how this undertaking compares to any other project facing a PM.