Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Learn from the intriguing parallels between a jazz ensemble and an effective project team. Gerald J. Leonard demonstrates that music and project management share common principles as he offers a unique perspective on fostering a high-performing project team through the integration of music, productivity, workplace culture, and neuroscience. Table of Contents 01:41 … Combining Jazz and Project Management05:12 … Gerald the Author07:31 … Incorporating Jazz and Project Management09:39 … A Cadence to Managing Projects11:50 … Recognizing the Traits13:57 … Mentoring and Coaching14:52 … Kevin and Kyle16:10 … Jazz and Productivity20:01 … Gerald’s Recovery Story23:04 … The Pomodoro Technique and Flow26:03 … Motivation and Accountability31:23 … Employee Burnout34:33 … Getting into the Right Rhythm36:08 … Contact Gerald37:42 … Closing GERALD LEONARD:  ...it’s like playing jazz where things are moving quickly, meeting every day, things are happening.  Every two weeks you’re delivering something.  So things are happening really rapidly, and they can adjust because the customers say, “Hey, I don’t want that.  Let’s move to this one.  I want this requirement now.”  And you have to move and adjust.  Well, that’s like playing jazz.  Again, the song is moving pretty quickly.  So everyone has to, one, know their part, but also really lean in and listen. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome, fellow project champions, to Manage This! I'm Wendy Grounds, and joining me in the harmonious studio adventure today is Bill Yates, and Danny Brewer, our sound guy. Hold onto your project plans, because today we're diving headfirst into a fusion of beats and business. You heard it right – jazz and project management are about to collide in a symphony of ideas with a trailblazing maestro of maximizing potential, Gerald J. Leonard. Gerald is an IT project management consultant; but he also has two degrees in music and is an accomplished bass guitarist.  As a professional bassist, he uses jazz metaphors to illustrate how to build supportive and effective team cultures. Creating successful projects and high-performing teams is much like building a jazz ensemble. This isn't your average podcast – it's a symphony of ideas, where project management meets the jazzed-up art of success. So, buckle up, hit play, and let the show begin! Hi, Gerald.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for being our guest. GERALD LEONARD:  Wendy and Bill, thank you so much for having me.  I’m really happy to be here. Combining Jazz and Project Management WENDY GROUNDS:  Can you tell us, just as an introduction, how you’ve combined your dual careers as a professional jazz musician and as a project management consultant? GERALD LEONARD:  Yes. I had done my bachelor’s and master’s in music, studied through the Manhattan School of Music with a gentleman at Juilliard, and played professionally in the city.  And then I did some ministry work back in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and I wanted to get back into music, but now I was married with two kids. I was kind of done with clubs and those kinds of things and thought, “Okay, so how can I keep playing and also make a good living and raise my kids?” So I got into IT at a time where, if you could spell IT, they were letting you in.  And so I got in.  You know, and I had my master’s already, so I thought, “I’m not going to go back to school for another degree.”  And then I realized they had all these certifications out there, the Novell certifications, the Microsoft certifications, the MCSE certifications, and all these different things like that.  So I just started going that route.  That led me to a place where for years I was doing project work, became a project management consultant with a number of different companies, did work for the National Archives and major corporations, helping them at the enterprise level.  And then I would go and play shows,

Are you unlocking the potential of a neurodiverse workforce and fostering a project team that capitalizes on the strengths of each individual? In this episode we talk about dyslexia and how it impacts a team's productivity and success. Dyslexia is quite common, affecting 15-20% of the population. Carlene Szostak and Madeline Szostak Hoge discuss the challenges faced by dyslexic employees, and offer innovative strategies to ensure that the workplace becomes a supportive environment that advances employee performance and productivity.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. A project story about a massive initiative focused on an EPIC implementation at University Hospitals in Cleveland. Hear why this project to streamline patient information, enhance care, and improve operations has the tagline "Best Implementation of all time." Table of Contents 04:29 … University Hospitals of Cleveland05:11 … The EPIC Integration07:18 … The Size of the Initiative09:51 … The Cost11:21 … Convey Calmness and the Right Mindset14:47 … The Guiding Principles18:38 … “Best implementation of all time.”21:48 … Kevin and Kyle23:17 … Risk Management28:09 … Time to Pivot31:31 … Big Bang Go Lives32:41 … Project Team Selection34:23 … Enterprise Program Management Office Perspective35:54 … PMO Resources38:15 … Takeaways from the Project42:56 … Find out More44:03 … Update44:36 … Closing WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer, our sound guy.  Thank you so much for joining us today.  We have three guests, which is something new for us, and we’re quite excited to have a really full house on the Zoom studio today.  Our first guest is Sami Othman.  He is an operations and IT leader who designs and executes breakthrough IT solutions that optimize financial performance and efficiency in organizations.  Sami is currently the IT leader assigned to the effort of the project that we’re going to tell you about today.  He’s leading the transformative initiative to move University Hospitals of Cleveland to an integrated electronic health record system.  This is what they call Epic, and it is certainly an epic 600 million investment project that will standardize all hospitals into a common system and streamlining processes and consolidating one patient record. Another person involved on this project is Lora Niazov, and she’s currently the director of the Enterprise Program Management Office at University Hospitals. Lora has also just become is an Adjunct Instructor of Project Management at the John Carroll University  She has over 20 years of experience in healthcare, information technology, and manufacturing industries. And then the other person on the project is Gubran Ahmed, and he is an experienced program management office leader with demonstrated success and strength in strategic planning, process improvement and problem solving, change management, and relationship building across many functional areas in organizations.  Currently Gubran is working at University Hospitals and is leading the Enterprise Program Management Office with a portfolio carrying a budget of over $200 million, encompassing 150 active projects.  And he tells us a little bit about that, as well, in the podcast. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  Yeah he does.  And all three guests are going to provide a unique perspective on what they’re doing with this massive program and how they’re seeing it unfold.  And this is big. WENDY GROUNDS:  This is Epic. BILL YATES:  This is Epic.  The name of the software is so appropriate.  There are 29,000 users.  We’re talking 22 terabytes of data and 3 million patient records that are a part of this conversion and implementation.  I can’t wait to get into it, hear some of the nitty-gritty from them, and hear some of their takeaways, their advice from implementation of this size. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, their project tagline is “Best implementation of all time.”  We really do think so. BILL YATES:  Yeah, I can’t wait for our listeners to weigh in and say, “Yeah, that does sound like it.”  Or “No, mine’s better.  I’m going to tell Wendy about it.” WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes.  And listeners, if you have an epic project, if you are working on a project that you think the story is worth sharing, that you’ve got some incredible lessons learned, or you’ve got a project that you think you’d like our audience to hear about,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Mastering effective meetings is essential for project managers, as successful meetings contribute significantly to project success. Rich Maltzman and Jim Stewart say we should apply the same strategic mindset to meetings as we do to projects, and they offer insights to enhance your facilitation skills to conduct successful meetings. Table of Contents 03:07 … Great Meetings Build Great Teams04:30 … Criteria for a Good Meeting05:44 … Allow Humor to Influence Meetings06:46 … Making a Sad Meeting Better08:32 … Why People are Attending a Meeting09:55 … Project Manage Meetings13:27 … A Meeting Planning Mindset15:12 … Don’t Worry about Being Liked17:06 … Kevin and Kyle18:12 … Dealing with Conflict in a Meeting21:12 … Goa the Garrulous23:16 … Pat the Passive-Aggressive25:56 … The Fear of Forage28:29 … Risk Register29:45 … Virtual Meeting Success34:01 … Get in Touch35:00 … Closing JIM STEWART: If you blow the meeting, you get to make first impressions once.  So the level of planning should be commensurate with the meeting. WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio are Bill Yates and our sound guy Danny Brewer.  You can catch us wherever you listen to podcasts.  One of the apps that we’ve come across is Podurama.  It’s a free app for podcast lovers, and we are also there.  If you want to listen to us, take a listen on Podurama.  You’ll find a link to them on our transcript. We love having you join us twice a month to be motivated and inspired by project stories, leadership lessons, and advice from industry experts. One little thing to mention is we got an email from Feedspot, which is a content reader that helps people keep up with their websites.  And they told me that we are one of the Top 30 podcasts for managers on the web.  So we were very excited to hear that.  Shout out to Feedspot.  Thank you for voting for us. And we have some industry experts joining us today.  We’re very excited to bring you Jim Stewart, as well as a previous guest, Rich Maltzman.  Since 2003, Jim has been the principal of JP Stewart Consulting, and he’s a certified PMP, and he possesses multiple agile certifications.  He is a longtime member of the Project Management Institute and served for several years on the board of the local chapter.  With Rich Maltzman, he also is the co-author of the book “How to Facilitate Productive Project Planning Meetings” and its update, “Great Meetings Build Great Teams:  A Guide for Project Leaders and Agilists.” Rich Maltzman also has his PMP.  He has been an engineer since 1978 and a project management supervisor since 1988, including a two-year assignment in the Netherlands. Rich is also focused on consulting and teaching, and has developed curricula and taught at several universities.  But we’re very excited about their book “Great Meetings Build Great Teams,” and that’s what we’re talking about today. BILL YATES:  Yes.  This is a key to success for project managers is being able to successfully facilitate effective meetings.  So this is going to be a great conversation.  Plus, just reading through the book, there are so many familiar names and concepts that are there.  They make reference to Andy Crowe and the “Alpha Project Management Study” in his book.  They make reference to Alan Zucker, our instructor, who’s fabulous, and some of the blogs and research that he’s done.  And they also talk a bit about Wayne Turmel and virtual meetings.  We had him on Episode 64.  Wayne was terrific.  And also Carole Osterweil.  She was on number 90, Episode 90 with us, talking about facing uncertainty.  So lot of familiar folks that are being referenced here, and we look forward to talking about having more effective meetings. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Rich; and hi, Jim.  Thank you so much for being with us today.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Projects are instrumental in defining an organization's vision for a more sustainable future. Dr. Joel Carboni talks about Sustainable Project Management, and the goal to achieve a stated objective while considering the project outcome’s entire lifecycle to ensure a net positive environmental, social, and economic impact.  Table of Contents 02:23 … Green Project Management03:41 … Multifaceted Sustainability04:42 … The UN Sustainable Development Goals08:35 … Green vs. Sustainable Projects09:51 … The Lifecycle Impact of Projects12:09 … Barriers to Sustainability Adoption13:25 … Questions to Ask on a Project Kickoff15:40 … Ren Love: Projects of the Past17:49 … Changing Role of the Project Manager18:54 … Raising Awareness20:54 … How to Influence Stakeholders22:47 … How to Evaluate Impact24:30 … PRiSM Project Delivery Methodology26:02 … The P527:42 … P5 in Action30:24 … Project Managers can Affect Change31:37 … Contact Joel32:18 … Closing JOEL CARBONI: We’re not being taught to think outside the box of initiate to close.  It’s what is the impact of our work, and what happens beyond handover?  What happens at the end of the asset’s lifecycle?  So when we look at green projects, it’s are you taking a total asset lifecycle focus?  And that’s what we have to do. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds.  With me in the studio are Bill Yates and our sound guy, Danny Brewer.  We’re so excited that you’re joining us, and we have a really interesting conversation today.  We’re talking about Green Project Management. Our guest is Dr. Joel Carboni.  He holds a Ph.D. in sustainable development and environment, and he has over 25 years of experience in various areas of project management including government, finance, consulting, manufacturing, and education.  In addition to serving as president emeritus of the International Project Management Association (IPMA) in the United States, Dr. Carboni is also the founder of GPM, Green Project Management.  And he’s the GPM representative to the United Nations Global Compact, where he was a founding signatory of the Business for Peace initiative and the Anti-Corruption Call to Action.  And he’s a contributor to the development of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. BILL YATES:  SDG is a Sustainable Development Goal.  We’ll hear from Dr. Carboni that he actually worked with the United Nations to define those 17.  Just some quick examples of some of those.  One of those is climate action; another is clean water; another is no poverty.  A final example, quality education.  So those are some of the sustainable development goals that we’ll refer to. Also Dr. Carboni is the creator of the PRiSM project delivery methodology.  We’ll make reference to that and the P5 standard for sustainability in project management.  He’s written training programs on green and sustainable project management that are offered to more than 145 countries.  He’s the lead author of the book Sustainable Project Management, and he is a well-traveled man.  We are fortunate to catch up with him and get to talk to him today. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Joel.  Welcome to Manage This. JOEL CARBONI:  Thank you.  It’s good to be here. Green Project Management WENDY GROUNDS:  We are looking forward to getting into this topic.  I’ve been watching your website and been looking at Green Project Management for a while.  And I’ve always said, “Hey, I want to have Joel on the podcast.”  So I appreciate you being here.  Now, you’ve done a lot of work in sustainability.  You established Green Project Management.  Can you tell us a little bit more about your organization? JOEL CARBONI:  Yeah, sure.  So GPM, Green Project Management, we’re a social enterprise.  And that sits in between a nonprofit and a for-profit company.  So what makes us unique is that a large portion of our income ...

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Amy King is a champion for the homeless! Hear how she boldly addresses the need for safe, rapidly deployable, living shelters, to deliver the dignity of private space for the homeless. This is a complex project which integrates social services to provide a healing community environment in each village, and also seeks to debunk adverse public perception towards homelessness. Table of Contents 02:28 … Meet Amy04:00 … The Homeless Problem05:11 … Homelessness Data06:41 … Designing the Shelters09:27 … Looking at a Pallet Home10:47 … The Prototyping Phase13:29 … Pitching the Project14:59 … The First Client16:35 … Talk to People with Lived Experience17:32 … Impact Stories19:38 … Returning Home21:15 … COVID as a Catalyst22:43 … The Impact of a Pallet Village25:30 … Forming a Team27:33 … Kevin and Kyle28:53 … Overcoming Obstacles33:01 … Requests from Cities33:30 … Overseas Market34:55 … The Goal to End Homelessness37:39 … “What I Wish I Had Known”40:55 … Where to Next for Pallet?42:32 … Access to Housing for the Homeless43:43 … Intrinsic Motivation for the Project45:36 … Find Out More46:06 … Closing AMY KING: So housing, there’s this really popular American narrative which is homelessness is a housing problem.  I 100% disagree with that.  ... A house, four walls and a roof, do not solve a person’s homelessness crisis.  Giving them keys to an apartment does not solve their homelessness.  You have to address the root cause issue.  That person will end up homeless again.  WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds.  With me in the studio are Bill Yates and our sound guy Danny Brewer.  We are so excited you’re joining us today.  We have an incredible project story. Our guest is Amy King, and she is the founder and CEO of Pallet.  This is a public benefit corporation working to end unsheltered homelessness and give fair chance employment opportunities to people of all backgrounds.  Pallet has deployed more than a hundred villages across 85 U.S. cities.  Amy also co-founded Weld Seattle, which is a nonprofit that equips systems-impacted individuals with housing, employment, and other resources conducive to reintegration back into society.  And her passion is just incredible.  I think you’re really going to enjoy her story. BILL YATES:  Yeah, when you take a husband and a wife – and Amy has a background in psychology.  She is a psychologist by education.  Her husband is a master builder engineer.  When you take those two and combine them and take the passion they have, you end up with something amazing like Pallet. Just getting back to it, Pallet offers short-term shelter, community rooms, and private stall bathrooms.  A large interim housing community can be set up in a matter of days with minimal tools using this Pallet system.  Each Pallet structure is versatile.  Units can be used for a variety of purposes from sheltering evacuees to building command-and-support centers or for temporary housing for recovery workers.  Their motto is “No one should go unsheltered when shelter can be built in a day.”  WENDY GROUNDS:  And they’ve done so much more than just build shelters.  When you hear Amy talk, what started as a small project, it grew, and it became more and more, and they got involved in the community.  They got involved in the lives of the people who were living in these shelters.  BILL YATES:  And as we’ll hear from Amy, many of those that have experienced homelessness are now vibrant workers and contributors to Pallet. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Amy.  Welcome to Manage This. AMY KING:  Thank you so much for having me.  I’m excited to be here. Meet Amy WENDY GROUNDS:  We are really looking forward to getting into this topic and to hearing about the incredible work that you’re doing.  But won’t you first tell us a little bit about your background, your career,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. How can agile project managers create conditions for self-organizing teams to thrive? In the agile world of a self-organizing team, the trend is to empower the team so the individuals doing the work can make decisions. So, what role do project managers play?  Hear about the three responsibilities of the new agile leader and some important skills to level up in order to lead an agile project. Table of Contents 03:03 … Humanizing Work03:50 … Empowering Decision-Makers05:21 … Changing the Role of Managers08:20 … Challenges for Project Managers09:32 … Complex Systems11:33 … Defining the PM Role13:58 … Coordinate and Collaborate16:35 … Who Does It Well?18:29 … What’s in a Title?20:33 … The Three Jobs of Agile Management23:49 … Project Manager Skills27:25 … Visualization Skills33:10 … Is Agile Right for Me?36:39 … Contact Peter and Richard38:19 … Closing PETER GREEN: ... one of the things that has been an underlying theme to these amplifier skills we’ve talked about – coaching, facilitation – is a real trust that the people doing the work can figure out how to solve it if I do the three jobs well.  If I create clarity, if I increase capability, and if I improve the system for them, they will be able to knock this project out.  They don’t need me to manage it... WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio are Bill Yates and our sound guy, Danny Brewer.  We’re so excited that you’re joining us, and we want to say thank you to our listeners who reach out to us and leave comments on our website or on social media.  We love hearing from you, and we always appreciate your positive ratings.  You will also earn PDUs for listening to this podcast.  Just listen up at the end, and we’ll give you instructions on how to claim your PDUs from PMI. Our two guests today are from Colorado and from Arizona, so we’re kind of jumping around the place.  But we’re very excited to have Richard Lawrence and Peter Green from Humanizing Work join us.  Richard’s superpower is bringing together seemingly unrelated fields and ideas to create new possibilities.  Richard draws on a diverse background in software development, engineering, anthropology, design, and political science. He’s a Scrum Alliance certified enterprise coach and a certified scrum trainer.  His book “Behavior-Driven Development with Cucumber” was published in 2019. Our other guest is Richard’s co-worker, Peter Green.  At Adobe Systems, Peter led an agile transformation and he co-developed the certified agile leadership program from the Scrum Alliance.  He’s also a certified scrum trainer, a graduate of the ORSC coaching system, a certified leadership agility and leadership circle coach, and the co-founder of Humanizing Work.  What I found interesting was, with all his other creative activities, Peter is also an in-demand trumpet player and recording engineer. BILL YATES:  Which will appeal to Andy Crowe, our founder, because he loves to play the trumpet.  Wendy, we are delighted to have Richard and Peter join us.  We’ve had conversations planning for this today with them, and they bring so much knowledge and experience to the table.  Here’s the thing.  Project managers traditionally are taught to direct and control team members.  So what role does management play in the agile world of a self-organizing team?  If my team’s self-organizing, what am I supposed to do; right?  How can they create conditions for self-organizing teams to thrive?  What is the function of managers in this new world, and what does an agile organization need from its management team?  Those are some of the questions that we want to tease out with them today. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, guys.  Thank you so much for joining us. RICHARD LAWRENCE:  It’s great to be here. Humanizing Work WENDY GROUNDS:  We first want to find out a litt...

The podcast by project managers for project managers. If we can identify the reasons why people say no, we can be more effective in getting them to follow our requests. Patrick Veroneau introduces an acronym called GREAT to understand the resistance we may be facing from our team. An offshoot of effective leadership is being able to inspire other people to say yes to our requests. Table of Contents 00:32 … Rise Against Hunger01:57 … Meet Patrick03:39 … Six Principles of Influence05:49 … Signs of Resistance07:02 … Goodwill09:21 … SCARF13:07 … Reactance14:56 … Self-Awareness16:41 … Expertise18:46 … Build Credibility20:55 … Kevin and Kyle22:02 … Apathy24:51 … Trust and CABLES26:16 … Congruence27:22 … Appreciation27:35 … Belongingness27:48 … Listening28:22 … Empathy28:37 … Specifics30:45 … Contact Patrick32:15 … Closing Rise Against Hunger WENDY GROUNDS:  We visited Rise Against Hunger as a company, Velociteach, and we did some meal packing there.  We packed over 1,080 meals that were sent to – I think these ones were going to Zimbabwe. BILL YATES:  Nice. WENDY GROUNDS:  But it was going to people who are not in the position to just be able to get food as easily as it is for us.  Rise Against Hunger is an amazing organization.  They target remote communities with hunger pockets, and they send their packages of food there. BILL YATES:  We had such a great time as a team preparing these, you know, helping put these meals together, packaging them.  And we ended up with all these boxes of packaged meals ready to go.  It was so fun for the team to be together.  It was a team-building event with a purpose.  Those are our favorites. WENDY GROUNDS:  I highly recommend it as a team-building event.  I think that was really fun.  Everybody really pulled together.  We packaged a bit too quickly, almost.  We were so excited about doing this that we got finished too quickly, and then we had to wash dishes; didn’t we. BILL YATES:  Yeah.  But there’s nothing better in terms of bonding than seeing your coworkers wearing hair nets.  It was just... WENDY GROUNDS:  Oh yeah.  Oh yeah. ____________________________________________________________ WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer. We’re talking to Patrick Veroneau today.  And he’s the founder of the Emery Leadership and Sales Group, and they focus on helping employees and organizations bridge the gap between engagement and excellence.  He had his first management position with a division of Van Heusen Corporation, and he spent over 15 years in the biopharma industry in sales training and leadership development.  He continues to develop and refine leadership and sales models that blend evidence-based research and theory with what happens in the real world.  And what happens in the real world is often we’re trying to lead or to manage people on our projects, and we get resistance.  And so we’re going to be talking about that resistance today. Meet Patrick Hi, Patrick.  Welcome to Manage This.  We’re so glad you’re here today. PATRICK VERONEAU:  Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity to be on the podcast.  Always great to talk about resistance. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah.  First of all, tell us about your company, Emery Leadership Group, and what inspired you to start it. PATRICK VERONEAU:  So Emery Leadership Group is primarily an organization that helps other organizations to develop better leaders and really to become more productive.  If you don’t have good leaders, right, if you don’t have people that can inspire other people to say yes to requests, then it’s very difficult to, I think, be as effective as you could be.  And there’s a lot of research in terms of what are the things that inspire individuals to want to say yes to our requests.  And that’s all that leadership is.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Selecting contractors and negotiating the terms of a major project is one of the most difficult aspects of project management. In this episode Ed Merrow sheds light on fairness in contracting relationships, for the relationships to be self-enforcing, and how not to unwittingly set your contractors up to fail.  Table of Contents 02:53 … Meet Ed05:28 … Contract Strategies for Major Projects06:59 … Hiring Contractors is Never Easy07:55 … Key Principle #209:12 … #1 There is No Free Lunch10:20 … TINSTAAFL11:28 … #3 Complex Projects Need Simple Contracting Strategies13:03 … Collaboration15:07 … #4 Owners and Contractors are Different17:44 … #5 Large Risk Transfers are More Illusion than Reality19:25 … Importance of Scoping21:29 … #6 Contractors have Shareholders23:14 … Ren25:29 … #7 Contracting Games are Rough Sport27:05 … #8 Assigning a Risk to Someone Who Cannot Control that Risk is Foolish29:07 … #9 All Contracts are Incentivized33:20 … #10 Economize on The Need for Trust36:40 … The Value of Prequalifying Contractors40:13 … Getting the A-Team or the B-Team42:48 … Get in Touch with Ed44:02 … Closing ED MERROW: ...both owners and contractors play games.  Contractors usually win those games.  My advice is try to keep games out of your contracts.  Try not to put in a bunch of complex provisions whereby you think that the contractor will “have skin in the game.”  I want owners to remember that skin in the game is almost always owner skin.  WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This.  This podcast is by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio are Bill Yates and Danny Brewer.  We love having you join us twice a month to be motivated and inspired by project stories, leadership lessons, as well as advice from industry experts from all around the world.  We want to bring you some support as you navigate your projects. If you like what you hear, please consider rating our show with five stars and leaving a brief review on our website or whichever podcast listening app you use.  This helps us immensely in bringing the podcast to the attention of others.  You can also claim free Professional Development Units from PMI by listening to this episode.  Listen up at the end of the show, and we’ll tell you how to do that. Today our guest is Ed Merrow.  Ed is the founder, president, and CEO of Independent Project Analysis, the global industry leader in quantitative analysis and benchmarking of project management systems.  Ed received his degrees from Dartmouth College and Princeton University; and he began his career as an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.  He followed that with 14 years as a research scientist at the RAND Corporation, where he directed the Energy Research Program.  We’re talking to Ed particularly today about his most recent major research effort which is centered on the quantitative analysis of how contracting strategies and delivery systems shape project results.  His new book is on this subject, and it’s titled “Contract Strategies for Major Projects.” BILL YATES:  In our conversation with Ed on procurement and contract strategies, Ed is going to share with us the key principles of contracting that all those involved with planning and executing major projects should know.  Here are three things to listen out for on this episode.  One, contractors may make convenient scapegoats, but they are rarely to blame for bad projects.  Number two, we depend heavily on trust, yet trust is not a contracting strategy.  And number three, contractors are almost always more skilled at playing those contracting games than those owners are. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hey, Ed.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for joining us today. ED MERROW:  Well, thank you, Wendy.  I’m glad to be here. Meet Ed WENDY GROUNDS:  We are looking forward to getting into this topic.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Will your project’s documentation pass the test of time once the project is done and the people are gone? Documentation is at the intersection of information management, organizational design, and personal productivity. Accurate documentation makes teams more efficient and effective. Table of Contents 01:23 … Essential Project Documents03:43 … Defining Information Management04:34 … Adrienne’s Story05:59 … Performing an Information Audit09:19 … Signs Your System is Out of Control11:33 … Dynamic Documentation12:44 … Improve Your Documentation15:19 … Budget for Closing Documentation16:57 … Finding the Right Balance19:12 … Kevin and Kyle20:27 … Strategies for Meeting Notes23:49 … Have a System25:54 … Getting Everyone Onboard27:25 … Documentation No-Nos30:06 … Personal Productivity31:06 … “The 24-Hour Rule”31:41 … Contact Adrienne32:43 … Closing ADRIENNE BELLEHUMEUR: I actually say documentation is at the intersection of information management, organizational design, and personal productivity.  So documentation kind of underpins these three major disciplines, but the personal productivity is often forgotten. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer.  We’re talking today to Adrienne Bellehumeur, and she is the founder of Bellehumeur Company and co-partner of Risk Oversight.  She’s based in Calgary, Alberta.  She’s also an expert on productivity, documentation, governance, risk, and compliance; and has delivered 15 years’ experience as an auditor, accountant, analyst, problem solver, and independent consultant. Adrienne developed a documentation approach called “dynamic documentation,” and she’s a published author of the book “The 24 Hour Rule,” and she’s going to tell us more about that book, as well. Adrienne likes to talk about processes, tools, and methods, and some of the best strategies to use to maintain effective, efficient, and timely documentation.  So as you may have gathered, we’re talking about documentation and information management.  So Bill, my question to you is what are some essential project documents that project managers should be maintaining? Essential Project Documents BILL YATES:  Oh boy, the list goes on and on.  They’re all essential, every one of them.  Let me start with the legal stuff first.  I think project managers who’ve ever done work with, either with outside contractors or their customers, an external customer, they would agree anything related to contracts, addendums, agreements, even the email threads where those may have been negotiated or key decisions were made, those should be considered mandatory.  You’ve got to have those backed up.  They can’t just be living on your hard drive.  They need to be backed up.  Also things like the project charter, anything with signatures that gives authority to the project. And then kind of going down the list, there’s scope things like requirements, scope statement, the product roadmap, the backlog, change requests, logs that keep up with things, task lists, or issue logs.  These are dynamic.  These need to live.  So you have to document them almost with a date stamp on them.  That’s true with a risk log or risk register, as well.  Major communications, major rollouts, maybe you hit a milestone or something significant, you want to keep those documents.  Think about, okay, could someone who doesn’t know anything about this project take a look at it six months, two years later and go, “Oh, okay.  Yeah, I get it.  I see why you guys made that decision.  I see who was involved in it and then what action took place after.” And then one of the biggest challenges, and I think we’ll hear this from Adrienne as well, when you’re getting ready to wrap up your project, that is one of the most difficult times to make sure that you’re doing good docum...