Software People Stories

How effective are your elicitation skills? A good understanding of elicitation can help avoid stakeholder frustration and expensive errors. In this podcast episode, our guest business analyst Jamie Champagne gives advice about the elicitation process.

Nationality, gender, ethnicity, age, and professional and organizational culture can all impact your cultural identity. Jane Canniff shares her experiences in regard to cultural differences across various multicultural work settings.

Listen in to hear a Project Manager who has years of experience in the trenches . Mike Pondiscio talks to us about managing more than one project at a time, resourceful ways to manage change, communicate with stakeholders, and keep a project on track.

Can introverts succeed as project managers? Jennifer Kahnweiler shares how introverts are highly effective leaders, using “superpowers” to effectively lead their teams. Listen in for expert advice about what motivates the introverts on your team.

Andy and Bill tackle your questions in this episode of Manage This. We appreciate your feedback, and we’ve dedicated this episode to your questions. Andy and Bill share their career stories and the relatable challenges they have experienced as PMs.

Tricia Molloy talks to us about setting and achieving goals. Tricia explains the Reticular Activating System, Vision Boarding for project success, overcoming obstacles, and techniques for reducing stress and distractions.

How have primary functions of the business analyst evolved? Have tools, practices, and expectations changed? What BA skills are most important today? In this podcast, BA expert Laura Paton discusses the changing mindsets and roles of the BA.

Agile is not for everyone. Project managers face 2 big questions: do you want to make the transition to agile, and can you make the transition? Steve and the team discuss the indicators as to whether or not a not a project manager is a good fit for agile.

The Mercedes-Benz Stadium and Home Depot Backyard. Hear how project managers Bill Darden, President and CEO, and Matt Dale, VP of Darden and Company kept these world class sports and entertainment facilities on track. Hear about their efforts to manage expectations, communicate clearly, and drive decisions.

Table of Contents Wayne Intro………………………………………………..…..…..00:39 The Challenges of Remote Leadership………….......…...01:38 The Human Dynamic………………………………….……..….03:26 Leading Remotely is Leading differently……….....…..…05:02 Advantages of Remote Teams………….....….….………..…08:02 Organizations Struggling with Remote Teams? ….......10:37 Tools: Richness vs. Scope of Media…………......…..…..…12:59 3 Dimensional vs 2 Dimensional Communication….....22:41 Use Technology to Build Relationships………..…....…...25:21 Where to find Wayne…………………………………….....……31:08 NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our chance to sit down and talk about what matters to you as a professional project manager.  We get inside the heads of people who are doing the job and doing it well.  We talk with them about leadership, we talk about methods, and we talk about what works and what doesn’t work, all with the purpose of learning and improving our game. I’m your host, Nick Walker.  And with me are the two guys who never stop learning, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And Andy, I’m anxious to hear what we can learn from our guest today. ANDY CROWE:  You know, I definitely think there are things we can learn today.  We’re going to be diving into remote leadership, long-distance leadership, remote teams, that kind of thing.  And it’s going to be very informative.  I can feel it. NICK WALKER:  Well, let’s meet our guest.  Wayne Turmel is the cofounder of the Remote Leadership Institute and the author of many books, including Association for Talent Development’s “10 Steps to Successful Virtual Presentations.”  He also coauthored a book with Kevin Eikenberry, “The Long-Distance Leader:  Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership.”  Wayne and Kevin cofounded the Remote Leadership Institute to help remote leaders succeed in a virtual workplace.  And Wayne, I think it’s appropriate that we are speaking to you remotely today from Chicago.  Thank you so much for being here with us on Manage This. WAYNE TURMEL:  I’m delighted to be here, guys.  This is going to be fun. NICK WALKER:  Now, you state in your book that today, according to the Project Management Institute, 90 percent of project teams have at least one member, usually more, who aren’t colocated with the rest of the team.  Remote leading, that’s got to be a challenge.  What are some of the challenges of it? WAYNE TURMEL:  Sure.  Well, you know, you’re more likely to find pandas mating in the wild than a project manager that has all their people in one place anymore.  So it’s absolutely – this is now a fundamental skill, right, that we need to get our mitts around.  On one level, not much has changed.  I mean, if you look at the job of the PM, what’s the job; right?  We need to help figure out scope.  We need to assign resources.  We need to coach periodically.  All the stuff that we need to do.  Nothing’s changed.  I mean, Peter Drucker said the greatest project job of all time was building the pyramids, and we’ve just been trying to live up to that ever since. BILL YATES:  Right. WAYNE TURMEL:  The difference, of course, is the guy who built the pyramids was at the pyramids.  He wasn’t trying to flog people by email.  So if we think about what we have to do, in many ways it’s not that different.  What has changed radically is how we do it.  We’re now forced to communicate through technology, which fundamentally changes the way people interact.  It changes the human dynamic.  And I know a lot of PMs get real nervous when we talk about human dynamic, right, because it’s all about process.  But the fact of the matter is that communicating through technology is radically different than the way we were born and raised to communicate.  And some people adapt naturally, and others need to be very mindful of how we do that. ANDY CROWE:  You know, Wayne, it’s interesting because I think for a long time,