Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  We get together every two weeks to talk about what matters to you as a professional project manager, whether it’s certification issues or creating and implementing successful projects.  We draw on the expertise of experts in the field and share their challenges and successes. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and beside me are the two in-house experts who guide our discussion, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And Andy, you know, folks go online, they look at your bio, and they see all these letters behind your name.  And probably most of our listeners are familiar with most of those letters, those acronyms.  But there’s one, a Black Belt Six Sigma.  Should I be dodging blows here?  What is the Black Belt Six Sigma? ANDY CROWE:  It’s funny, Nick.  It’s a Six Sigma Black Belt.  What it is, Six Sigma has different levels of credentialing.  And there’s Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, Master Black Belt, and Master Black Belt Trainer.  So I’m somewhere in the middle there in terms of that. What it is, it’s funny, there’s a lot of project management certifications out there.  We’ve talked about the PMP before.  We’ve talked about the PMI-ACP.  And we’ve probably touched on the Program Management Professional and Portfolio, the PgMP and the PfMP, and certainly the Certified Associate in Project Management, the CAPM.  A lot of alphabet soup there. And it’s really funny because, even when I go do project management conferences, and people introduce me as a Six Sigma Black Belt, a lot of people in the room don’t know what that is.  They think it’s some martial art.  It’s not.  It’s related to quality.  And it’s a quality certification.  And it’s really the topic of today’s podcast is about Six Sigma, about Lean Six Sigma – which is something a little bit different – and how those work and how they can benefit. NICK WALKER:  Is this a certification that’s been around a long time?  Or is this something that’s fairly new? ANDY CROWE:  It’s been around a while.  Now, what happened with that, when it first came out, there wasn’t a lot of structure as to who owned the certification.  It was one of those things that a lot of different organizations were able to give that.  And then that’s changed.  We’ll talk about that later in the podcast a little bit, about how that’s evolved, who’s vying for kind of control of that certification, what that looks like, as well. BILL YATES:  There are a couple of key components here that I want Andy to explain to the audience, Nick, because if there’s a Lean component, then there’s a Six Sigma component.  And I like where we’re headed with some background here, where this thing, where this movement began because it is all related to quality.  And so Andy, what about Lean?  When did that really come into play? ANDY CROWE:  Lean is an amazing philosophy by itself.  So it’s a series of practices.  And what Lean is trying to do is get rid of waste.  Now, this is useful in a bunch of organizations.  But it’s really, really useful in manufacturing projects.  So if you have a project that has manufacturing, this is where it comes in.  Lean really came into vogue at Toyota.  And so it started after World War II.  It really picked up steam in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  And this is when Toyota started surpassing, and Honda and some of these organizations started really surpassing U.S. manufacturing. And I’ve lived through it.  I watched it firsthand, that it absolutely did.  You know, there were times when, if you got 80,000 miles out of some U.S. cars, that was good.  And then, you know, some of the Toyotas were getting 200,000 miles.  And it was just astonishing what they were able to do.  Well, they got there through a number of things.  Lean was part of it.  So Lean really talks about – the acronym we use in Lean is TIMWOOD, T-I-M-W-O-O-D.  And what it is, is it’s where you look for,

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER NICK WALKER: Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Every couple of weeks we meet to have a conversation about what matters to you as a professional project manager.  We may talk about certification.  We share stories of success and how we can improve.  And we draw on the experience of leaders in the field. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me are a couple of those leaders, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And Andy, we are ringing in the New Year and, at the same time, celebrating our one-year anniversary here at Manage This. ANDY CROWE:  There’s a lot to celebrate, Nick.  So Happy New Year to you. BILL YATES:  Happy Birthday, Manage This. NICK WALKER:  That’s right, that’s right.  And what better way to celebrate the New Year and our anniversary than to sort of step back, maybe take stock in ourselves, make some resolutions, set some goals, and talk about what makes a top-tier project manager.  And Bill, we are fortunate to have the guy who literally wrote the book on that. BILL YATES:  That’s right. NICK WALKER:  Our own Andy Crowe has a book titled “Alpha Project Managers:  What the Top 2% Know That Everyone Else Does Not.”  And Bill, this book has made kind of a pretty big splash in the world of project management. BILL YATES:  It really has.  I remember our delight when we saw that, in the exposure draft for the Sixth Edition PMBOK Guide, we actually have – the book is cited; the study is cited.  And it’s early on, even.  It’s in Chapter 3, when they’re describing the role of the project manager.  And it’s very exciting to see that they’re referring to the research that Andy did in the Alpha Study to describe what makes a project manager successful. ANDY CROWE:  Yeah, sometimes ideas and concepts take a little while to work and wind and wend their way into the PMBOK Guide.  And so we were really happy to see this show up, and gives it a little bit of gravitas, perhaps. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  And, you know, to add to that, I know it’s been referenced many times.  I think it was two summers ago Chip and Dan Heath actually mentioned it as a must-read.  They have – they’re prolific writers and well-respected authors, and I was really impressed by that. NICK WALKER:  So tell us a little bit, Andy, about the Alpha Study.  Give us an overview of how this came about. ANDY CROWE:  Well, the Alpha Study was a look at 860 project  managers.  And we looked at who the high performers were.  And the way we did that, Nick – so in order to go through this study you had to do a few things.  You had to participate in a couple of very lengthy surveys.  That was part one of what they had to do.  But then also the project managers had to provide access to at least five stakeholders.  These stakeholders were team members, senior manager, customer, and they were all current people.  So these stakeholders, these five or more stakeholders, five to eight stakeholders, would take part two of the survey, as well.  But they weren’t taking it for themselves.  They were taking it for the project manager. Then what we started to look at is, okay, here’s the way the PM answered questions about his or her performance.  But here’s the way the stakeholders viewed that same person’s performance.  And what we found was there are some interesting gaps.  And it’s the gaps that make this interesting.  What everybody agrees on is only mildly interesting.  But where there’s a big departure, and where they view the same thing very differently, becomes a lot more interesting. BILL YATES:  There’s a book by Malcolm Gladwell, it’s called “Outliers.”  And what I love is he states clearly the purpose of the book, and it relates so on point with the Alpha Study.  Gladwell says, “This book is about outliers, about men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary.  Over the course of the chapters ahead I’m going to introduce you to one kind of outlier after another – geniuses,...

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Every two weeks we get together to discuss what matters to you as a professional project manager.  Whether it’s how to get certified or how to create successful projects, we get input from leaders in the field and draw on their experience and accomplishments. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me are the in-house experts, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And Andy, it is holiday time.  It seems like every time I turn on the TV or the radio, I hear somebody talking about finding the perfect gift for that person on your list. ANDY CROWE:  And all the sleigh bells in the air that you can hear.  Let me ask you a question.  Has anybody else had an issue with really well-targeted ads coming at them over the Internet? NICK WALKER:  Oh, oh. ANDY CROWE:  It’s been alarming this year how well they’ve figured out what’s going on in my head. BILL YATES:  They know Andy.  They know what Andy wants. ANDY CROWE:  They know.  That’s correct. NICK WALKER:  They know it before I know it.  All right.  So we’ve got gifts that we want to talk about for that perfect project manager on your list.  I guess we want to answer the question:  What’s in your stocking? ANDY CROWE:  You know what, Nick, one of the things we’re thinking about here, some of the project managers get to give a gift to themselves through some of this.  So it’s not so much that maybe you’re buying these for somebody else, but maybe you’re buying it for yourself.  And Bill and I were talking about this as we were preparing for the podcast.  You know, it’s funny, as we look at tools, as we look at technology, one of the things that really always resonates with me is the fact that it’s the process underneath it that really matters.  The technology just facilitates that process. When I started my career in project management, somebody handed me a copy of Microsoft Project and said, “Go and make a project plan.”  Nobody ever taught me how up to that point.  Nobody taught me how to estimate, how to schedule, how to even think about decomposing the work and putting the fences around the scope.  And suddenly I was expected to make a project plan.  So the idea is we’re going to cover some tools.  We’re excited about this episode because this is a lot of fun.  But at the same time, if you give somebody a better word processor, it doesn’t make them a better writer or a better communicator. BILL YATES:  Right. ANDY CROWE:  If you give somebody a better tool, it doesn’t make them a better PM automatically.  And these things will just facilitate getting them there once the process is in place. BILL YATES:  And we get mesmerized by these new tools.  Sometimes they’re... NICK WALKER:  Oh, yeah. ANDY CROWE:  They’re shiny. BILL YATES:  They are shiny, and they come in nice boxes. NICK WALKER:  You can geek out. BILL YATES:  Yeah, we get geeked out.  We think, this is the coolest thing ever.  This is going to change how I do my job and make my life that much better.  And, dang, I just like every feature in it.  I’m going to go deep and figure all this stuff out.  And we lose, to Andy’s point, we lose the big picture.  What are we doing?  How much time am I spending on the tool, just for the sake of me enjoying the tool?  Or is the tool really – am I serving the tool, or is the tool serving me? ANDY CROWE:  Mm-hmm. NICK WALKER:  So with that in mind, do you have any applications that are must-haves, some that you have to have, that you really can’t do without? BILL YATES:  Yeah.  We had fun reaching out to the community and asking other PMs, “What resonates with you?  If you were alone on an island, and you had a project you had to manage, what tool would you want to have on your last two hours of computer life, you know, before the battery dies?”  And so we got some nice feedback from people, from practitioners.

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER ● DR. RUTH MIDDLETON HOUSE NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our every-other-week visit to talk about what matters to you as a professional project manager.  We like to talk about doing the stuff of project management:  how to get certified; how to create success and sustain it.  We talk with leaders in the industry and see what they’ve been doing and draw on their experience. I’m your host, Nick Walker.  And with me are the in-house experts, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And Andy, there’s a theme that comes up in our conversations from time to time, and that seems to be managing the unexpected. ANDY CROWE:  It’s a fun thing.  And you know what, Nick, there are so many examples of things not going to plan.  As Eisenhower said, “The plan is nothing, but planning is everything.”  You’ve got to be waiting for who-knows-what to come your way.  So we’re excited about our guest today. NICK WALKER:  Yeah, let’s talk about our guest.  She is Dr. Ruth Middleton House.  She’s president and lead consultant of Middleton-House & Company.  She specializes in troubleshooting high-risk, high-visibility projects in multibillion-dollar partnerships and joint ventures, on down to small business ventures.  She’s an educator, an author; and, Ruth, we consider ourselves privileged to have you here.  Welcome to Manage This. RUTH HOUSE:  Thank you.  I’m just delighted to be here.  You’re right, Andy, so often so much depends on how we manage that instantaneous thing that we did not see coming.  And as an example, I’d like to go back about 700 years. ANDY CROWE:  You’ve been at this a while, but that’s a surprise. RUTH HOUSE:  When he said “experienced,” he meant what he said.  It was at about that time that a fictional character emerged named Mullah Nasruddin. NICK WALKER:  Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Mullah Nas... RUTH HOUSE:  Mullah Nasruddin.  Mullah’s a title.  Like in the rural South he would be called Reverend Smith or Pastor Jones, probably. NICK WALKER:  Can we call him “Moe”? BILL YATES:  Moe, I like that. RUTH HOUSE:  That’ll throw me off, so I’ll call him Mullah; but you can call him Moe if you want to.  And the story, this story, about Mullah illustrates some truths about culture which changes as circumstances change that are very important for us to remember today.  Now, Mullah was out working in his field when a messenger from a nearby town came and handed him a written invitation to come to the great hall and dine with the prince. Well, Mullah was so excited, he dropped his tools right where he was, headed straight for the hall.  But when he arrived there with his threadbare turban and his dirty tunic on from working in the fields, the guards said, “No way.  Not only are you not going into the hall, I don’t even want you hanging around here on the outside.  You just go back home where you belong.” Well, Mullah was insulted that he had not been treated like the very important person he knew himself to be.  But he went home.  He bathed in perfumed oil.  He wrapped his head in his finest silk turban.  And he dressed in his finest tunic and went right back to the great hall.  This time he received a warm welcome and was even ushered inside and seated right next to the prince.  Well, in those days he would have been seated around a beautiful Persian rug, right next to the prince.  That rug was just covered with huge bowls of beautifully prepared food. Mullah ate and ate and ate until he had had his fill.  Then he reached a hand into one bowl, grabbed some food, and rubbed it into his tunic.  He reached to another bowl, grabbed some food, and rubbed it into his tunic.  Reached for a third bowl, grabbed some food, and rubbed it in his tunic.  Everyone fell silent around him, and all eyes were on him. Finally the prince couldn’t stand it anymore.  And he said, “Mullah Nasruddin, you must have strange eating habits where you come fro...

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Every couple of weeks we get together to address the topics that matter most to you as a professional project manager.  Our conversations touch on getting certified, avoiding pitfalls in the business, and creating ongoing successes. I’m your host, Nick Walker.  And with me are the in-house experts, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And guys, not to be outdone by the politicians, we have an October or November surprise of our own:  Papergate.  Does this rise to the level of scandal? ANDY CROWE:  I would not go that far, Nick.  I don’t think so.  This was a clarification of a policy from the Project Management Institute that you’re referring to.  But I don’t think it goes so far as a scandal.  It’s turned a lot of people upside down, perhaps. NICK WALKER:  All right.  So let’s get into this.  What is Papergate?  Did you come up with this, Bill, this term? BILL YATES:  I can neither confirm nor deny that I came up with that term.  Yeah, what we had was there is a practice, when you go in to take an exam; you have a 15-minute tutorial that takes place before the clock starts ticking down on your actual exam time. ANDY CROWE:  A tutorial of what?  Explain that. BILL YATES:  A tutorial is really – it’s showing you how to navigate.  As you’re taking the exam, it’s administered on a computer, and you have to know how to use a mouse.  You have to know it’s A, B, C, or D.  How do I click on it? NICK WALKER:  Sure. BILL YATES:  When I click on the next button, what happens? NICK WALKER:  So the logistics of taking the test itself. BILL YATES:  Yeah, yeah.  And it is fairly intuitive.  One of the things that we have encouraged our students to do in the past is to take advantage of the 15 minutes and do a brain dump.  And by that we have formulas that are very important for the exam.  We have keywords, mnemonics, trigger words, different things. ANDY CROWE:  Acronyms. BILL YATES:  Acronyms.  The practice is to dump that information on the scratch sheet of paper that is provided at the exam center during that tutorial time. NICK WALKER:  Okay. ANDY CROWE:  And the reason we do that is so, for instance, if you have a formula down in front of you, you may have three, four, five questions on the exam that ultimately reference that formula.  You don’t have to recall it each time.  You don’t have to start second-guessing yourself.  AnYou do it at the beginning.  Your mind’s fresh.  Because by the end your mind’s going to be kind of pulpy anyway, and so you do it when your mind is fresh.  You get that information down.  And then it’s there.  And then you can refer back to it with some confidence and some ease and some quickness of recall. BILL YATES:  And speaking of confidence, I like to encourage students to do the brain dump because it puts you in a confident mood or attitude towards the exam.  You’re able to walk out of the car, come in and be frisked at the Prometric Center, and provide all the right check-in protocol.  And then you sit down, and your anxiety level is really high.  By doing the brain dump, you’re able to produce something on paper.  So you’re getting, kinesthetically, you’re getting involved in it; and you’re relieving some of the stress; and you’re building some of that data that you can refer back to during the exam. NICK WALKER:  And does the feedback from people who’ve taken the test show that this has been effective? ANDY CROWE:  Very. BILL YATES:  Yeah, it’s a good practice.  So we had a curveball. NICK WALKER:  Uh-oh. BILL YATES:  So PMI came back and said we’ve had a change in policy.  And now at all Prometric Centers, when you go to take the exam, during the 15-minute tutorial you’re not allowed to take paper and pencil that’s provided at the exam center.  You’re not allowed to do that brain dump. NICK WALKER:  Okay.  So that kind of changes a lot of the way that peopl...

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER ● ERIC NORMAN NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our chance to meet with you and talk about the nuts and bolts of project management and what matters most to you as a professional project manager, whether it’s getting certified or simply doing the job of project management.  We hear from some of the leaders in the industry and draw on their experience.  I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me are the in-house experts, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And talk about experts, Andy, we certainly have one with us in the studio today. ANDY CROWE:  This is an exciting podcast for me, Nick, and I’m not sure I’ve ever looked forward to one more than this.  So this is a real treat. NICK WALKER:  Wow.  That is saying a lot.  Eric Norman has consulted and led projects and business process improvement efforts at AT&T, at Sprint, Delta Airlines, Cox Communications, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just to name a few.  He’s a frequent presenter at national and international trade conferences and is a recognized authority on program management practice.  Eric, welcome to Manage This. ERIC NORMAN:  Thank you, Nick.  Thank you, Bill and Andy.  I’m thrilled to be here. NICK WALKER:  Eric, you sort of have a unique role in all of this.  A lot of your work has been in the area of developing standards for the industry, but also in performance of a particular role.  Given your extensive background, give us a little brief overview of your current role in project management. ERIC NORMAN:  I actually have two roles.  One is an employment-type role; the other is volunteer.  So from an employment perspective, when I’m working with clients and working with leaders, I’m focused on alignment of strategy in the organization with the delivery of the initiatives that they have.  On the volunteer side, I’ve had a lot of experience with standards, as you mentioned. But most recently I’m working on the Certification Governance Council.  The Governance Council is a subcommittee of PMI’s Board of Directors, and it oversees the strategy and governance of PMI certifications, the eight certifications.  So we look historically at what has happened with the development of certifications over the course of PMI’s history.  And we look out into the future five years, 10 years, 15, 20 years; and we talk about how to manage what we have currently as a family of certifications, and what does the marketplace demand coming forward.  And that’s a fairly active interaction between PMI’s Global Operations Center, the staff, CEO and all the vice presidents and staff at PMI, but also the Board of Directors who oversee that staff. So it’s a very active and interesting role; and I get to see the relationship between certifications, the performance of the role, and the standards that kind of guide that performance. ANDY CROWE:  Eric, just to clarify, earlier you used the word “performance.”  So you’re not looking at the performance of the certification, you’re looking at the performance of the role?  Is that correct? ERIC NORMAN:  We actually are looking – both. ANDY CROWE:  So what does that mean?  What does the performance of the certification mean from your standpoint?  What do you track? ERIC NORMAN:  PMI – you could think of the certifications for PMI as products.  PMI has three major components of their product set.  They have knowledgeware, which are standards and things of that nature. ANDY CROWE:  The PMBOK Guide... ERIC NORMAN:  PMBOK Guide. ANDY CROWE:  ...being a prime example flagship. ERIC NORMAN:  Absolutely.  And it is the flagship.  The other standards, the practice standards and the guides – so the knowledgeware and the publications that PMI is also involved in.  The second big component is membership. BILL YATES:  Right. ERIC NORMAN:  So there is a large effort to always manage the members and their experience and those things.

From wolf rats to sleeping monsters, scary project stories you won't believe. All project managers face risks. Listen if you dare

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Every two weeks we meet to talk about the things that matter most to you as a professional project manager.  These include the ins and outs of just doing the job of project management; how to get certified and stay certified.  And we hear from some of the leaders in the industry. I’m your host, Nick Walker.  And with me are the in-house experts, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  You’ve got questions?  They’ve got answers.  Hey, guys.  It’s been a couple of weeks since we were all together.  It’s good to be back with you. BILL YATES:  Yeah. ANDY CROWE: It’s good to be reunited. NICK WALKER:  I hope you both look forward to this time as much as I do.  This is a great time to get together.  And I mentioned that we like to deal with questions.  One of the questions we’ve been hearing about is earning PDUs.  As most of us know, we need 60 PDUs, those are Professional Development Units... BILL YATES:  Correct. NICK WALKER:  ...every three years to keep the PMP credential current.  And when somebody works that hard to get that credential, they don’t want to lose it. BILL YATES:  That is true. NICK WALKER:  Simply because they don’t get enough PDUs. BILL YATES:  Right. NICK WALKER:  So we’ve mentioned it before, but it’s probably a good idea to go into more detail.  We actually offer PDUs, free PDUs to our listeners. ANDY CROWE:  Right.  This podcast is good for PDUs.  And Nick, just one thing to add a little color to that is it’s not just the PMP.  You’ve got to have them for all the PMI credentials.  So PgMP, CAPM, PMI-ACP. BILL YATES:  ACP, yup. ANDY CROWE:  All of them.  PfMP.  So this is the currency of our people. NICK WALKER:  Let’s talk a little bit about how to get some of those PDUs from this podcast.  Each Manage This Episode, I understand, is registered with PMI as a “Category A PDU.” BILL YATES:  Yeah.  That means it’s top of the line, top-shelf platinum level. NICK WALKER:  Oh, yeah.  And, you know, we’ve aligned each episode to the appropriate areas of PMI’s Talent Triangle.  Tell us a little bit about that. ANDY CROWE:  Yeah.  You’ve got to have – so there’s three legs of a Talent Triangle, hence the word “triangle.”  There’s technical skills, there’s leadership, and there’s business savvy.  And you have to have at least eight PDUs from each of those legs.  So now the days are gone when you can read a book and claim all of your PDUs from reading a book or from giving back to the profession, which used to be a lot of people would get involved in their chapter, and they would give back, and they would get their PDUs that way.  Now you have to have a certain number from training.  And so this really comes in handy here. NICK WALKER:  And the great thing is we make it simple here.  All you have to do is go to Velociteach.com and select “Manage This Podcast,” Manage This Podcast from the top of the page, and you’ll see a big button right there.  It says “Claim PDUs.”  And that spells out the steps.  You can find the PMI Activity ID by selecting the episode from the list.  You’ll see that near the top of the page, as well. BILL YATES:  Correct, right, you’ll see it right there.  And that’s the data that you need to submit that PDU claim.  And like you said, the Claim PDUs button, that spells out all the nitty-gritty details for those PMs.  And they can follow along and check off the list and see it right there on PMI.org. NICK WALKER:  So this is an easy way of getting the PDUs.  I hope lots of folks will take advantage of that.  So let’s give them some information so they can... BILL YATES:  Earn the PDU, yeah. NICK WALKER:  Yeah, let’s do it.  You know, sometimes it’s good to kind of take a step back.  You know, we’ve talked about a lot of things over the last several weeks with all these podcasts.

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER ● JOEL “THOR” NEEB NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Every two weeks we get together to discuss the things that matter to you as a professional project manager.  We talk about project management certification and doing the job of a project manager, and we hear from some of the leaders in the industry.  I’m your host Nick Walker, and with me are our in-house experts, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And by the way, on the day we’re recording this, Andy, you’re getting ready to deliver the keynote address at PMI Honolulu. ANDY CROWE:  I am heading out to Honolulu to be at that chapter.  I’ve been there before, and I’m really excited.  I’m talking about the Talent Triangle, which is getting a lot of buzz within PMI:  the technical, the leadership, and the strategy triangle and how that applies to our own career. NICK WALKER:  And, by the way, our guest today is delivering the opening keynote in a few days at the Project Management Institute’s Global Congress for North America in San Diego.  And this is a guy who probably has enough fascinating stories that we could probably sit here for hours and never exhaust them all.  It’s amazing how you find these guys.  I’m really looking forward to this today.  Our guest is Joel Neeb.  His friends call him Thor.  Are we friends enough to call you Thor? JOEL NEEB:  I definitely think so, yeah, absolutely. NICK WALKER:  Okay.  Okay.  Well, Thor, welcome to Manage This.  We are fortunate to have you here with us. JOEL NEEB:  Thanks, Nick.  It’s a real pleasure to be here. NICK WALKER:  Now, before we begin, let me give just a quick rundown of your background for our listeners.  Thor was an F-15 pilot.  He escorted the U.S. President through the sky.  He flew missions to ensure the safety of our country after the attacks of 9/11.  He was a technical leader of 300 of the most senior combat pilots in the Air Force.  He’s a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas.  He’s now the president of Afterburner, leading a team of more than 70 elite military professionals, and with them has trained almost two million business professionals and fostered elite teams for Fortune 100 companies, companies in the tech industry, finance, medical devices, and several NFL teams.  We could keep going.  But we want to stop there and give you time to talk to us.  Thor, first of all, why Thor?  I’ve got to know that. JOEL NEEB:  So, you know what, for every call sign there’s two versions of the story.  The version one is safe for public consumption, and we could tell that right now, which is Thor and the Thor’s Hammer.  I was an instructor, and so I was known as “The Hammer” as the instructor.  And then there also is a two-beverage minimum version of the story which is a little less flattering for me and probably pretty embarrassing and sounds a lot less cool than the first version of the story.  But it’s a lot of fun. NICK WALKER:  Does it have anything to do with your chiseled Greek god looks? JOEL NEEB:  It definitely does not, at that point.  There’s an embarrassing story associated with it, like every good call sign should have. NICK WALKER:  Okay, okay.  Well, we’ll just have to go into that one after the mics are off. JOEL NEEB:  There you go. NICK WALKER:  Okay.  Well, first of all, tell us the concept of Afterburner.  How do fighter pilots speak into the world of project management? JOEL NEEB:  Well, you know, in my world, Nick, I was flying Mach 2.  I had 350 instruments in front of me.  I was going in and out of the clouds.  I had four, sometimes seven wingmen flying with me at any given point in time.  And I have to manage this complex universe and figure out, as I’m going inside and in and out of the clouds, how to keep these wingmen from running into each other,

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER ● ELLEN SMITH NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our every other week chance to meet and talk about the things that matter most to you as a professional project manager.  What does it take to get started in the field?  To get certified?  And how do you survive? I’m your host, Nick Walker.  And with me are our resident experts, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  They’ve experienced the challenges, they’ve tasted the victories of project management, and they want to share their experience with you. And, guys, we are fortunate once again to have a special guest in the studio today.  Ellen Smith is an attorney with Holt Ney in Atlanta.  She deals with commercial real estate, wireless telecommunications, and land use; and her clients range from single individual member limited liability companies to nonprofit hospitals to Fortune 500 companies.  Varied in her talents, for sure.  Ellen, thanks so much for being with us on Manage This. ELLEN SMITH:  Thanks for having me. NICK WALKER:  We are so looking forward to talking with you about our topic today, and that is negotiation.  But before we get there, Andy and Bill, let’s talk a little bit about the need for negotiation when it comes to project management.  Andy? ANDY CROWE:  And Nick, I want to back up.  You said we’ve “tasted the victories of project management”? NICK WALKER:  That’s my impression. ANDY CROWE:  Bill, is that your experience of your work in project management? BILL YATES:  What I conjure up is more of a bitterness, you know, like the most bitter coffee. ANDY CROWE:  Thinking the bitter dregs? BILL YATES:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  That coffee that’s been sitting there all day. NICK WALKER:  So it’s more the agony of defeat than the thrill of victory. BILL YATES:  Maybe. ANDY CROWE:  You know, it’s one of those – you remember the old saying that you have to have a strong stomach to see how the sausage is made? NICK WALKER:  Yes, yes. ANDY CROWE:  And when you go back and sometimes see how a project gets done, and see what it takes to get there, you’d better have a strong stomach and a strong sense of yourself.  But no, I’m excited about this topic because it’s this whole idea of negotiation.  And the project manager is in such a difficult position.  And this is what nobody really stops to think about.  So you’ve got the organization.  You’ve got this whole group of stakeholders.  You’ve got senior management.  And you’ve got sponsors, users, customers, all of these people. And the way I think about it is sort of picture them in an inverted pyramid.  So that’s on the top side of the pyramid, this triangle pointing down, with the tip pointing down.  And then below you, you’ve got the team.  And that can include a lot of different people.  It can include virtual relationships.  It can include dedicated straight-line reporting relationships.  And the PM is stuck in the middle between those two points.  So there’s a... BILL YATES:  Two very sharp points. ANDY CROWE:  They can get very sharp. BILL YATES:  Yes, very pointy. ANDY CROWE:  And so there’s this idea that the project manager is constantly negotiating everything, all day every day.  That’s really a lot of the job, at the heart of the job.  You could call the person a “project negotiator” as opposed to a project manager.  I mean, there are people who just tick off boxes and say yes, complete, check, check.  And we think about those as maybe a coordinator. BILL YATES:  Right. ANDY CROWE:  But in this case a project manager has to go back in the kitchen and make the sausage.  And it is tricky, and sometimes it’s very ugly, and it’s a lot of work. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  There are third parties that they’re having to rely on to provide valuable deliverables for this project.  So they’ve got contracts, perhaps, with third parties.