Manage This - The Project Management Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

The podcast for project managers by project managers. Is Scope Creep derailing your project? A lack of control can lead to projects spiraling out of scope. Join us as Shannon Keenan shares strategies to keep your team focused, avoid delays, and deliver successful outcomes. Learn how to manage scope effectively and prevent projects from spiraling out of control.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. How do successful project managers turn tough project negotiations into win-win outcomes? Discover a practical seven-step approach to managing claims, negotiating with customers, and closing negotiations effectively, offering a competitive edge for project managers handling complex projects.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Following the 2020 devastating explosion in Beirut, project manager Kevin Gemayel's journey is nothing short of inspiring as he tackled challenges head-on. Hear firsthand accounts of his experiences during the blast, his strategies for managing tasks, stakeholders, budgets, and time, and the invaluable lessons learned. We discover Kevin's extraordinary project and the power of resilience in the face of adversity. Table of Contents 04:27 … Meet Kevin05:30 … Kevin’s Story of the Tragedy07:25 … Gathering a Team08:18 … The Family Façade Business09:44 … Deciding How to Prioritize13:34 … An Emergency Response15:33 … Resources and Supplies16:47 … An Economic Crisis20:08 … Personal Impact21:36 … Keeping a Team Motivated22:38 … Ren Love’s Projects from the Past25:00 … Planning Time Management and Strategy28:21 … Creative Problem-Solving29:31 … Kevin’s Lessons Learned31:08 … Personal Growth Through Tragedy34:57 … Looking Back36:37 … Advice to Younger PMs38:46 … Contact Kevin39:59 … Closing KEVIN GEMAYEL: … in leadership, they say you should become a leader and personally lead yourself before leading anyone else.  And I would advise every project manager to learn and to focus on how they should lead themselves before going out there and leading projects and people and teams because, when they do things right themselves, … they will be able to influence the people they are working with.  …  So don’t just focus on books and numbers and theoretical things.  Focus on yourself, as well. 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 is Bill Yates.  We want to feature some younger talent in the project management community.  We’re calling it our Rising Talent series.  So for the next two episodes we’re going to be sharing the stories of two young project managers who are not only inspirational, but they’re also making waves with their incredible contributions to the field.  Now, we have spoken to some young project managers in the past. BILL YATES:  Yeah, Episode 165 we had a great conversation with Kat Shane.  You may recall she had a startup company that she began at the University of Georgia, and it was working on a solution to help people, governments, and businesses figure out what products or packaging are locally recyclable.  So, can I recycle this?  And how to get them where they needed to go. WENDY GROUNDS:  We also spoke to Christelle Kwizera.  That was Episode 146.  At the age of 20, Christelle founded Water Access Rwanda, which was in response to the dangerous conditions Rwandans would face when collecting water from rivers and dams.  She was quite an incredible young lady. BILL YATES:  What a story.  So inspirational and so young. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes, yes.  She was also a PMI Future 50 2021 honoree.  And the folk that we’re talking to in these two episodes are also Future 50 2023 honorees from PMI.  We are really enjoying featuring younger talent in the project management community.  The first one is our guest, Kevin. BILL YATES:  Yeah, this is a heavy story, this conversation we’ll have with Kevin.  It’s heavy.  It’s about the blast in Beirut.  And many people lost their lives, and many people who survived it will be dealing with it for a lifetime.  So, we wanted to recognize that.  But there are so many powerful lessons for us to learn from that, and to hear from Kevin. And we’ve tackled these kinds of topics before.  We spoke with Matthew Harper about the attack on the USS Cole and the lessons learned from that.  Peter Baines joined us from Australia.  He led international identification teams after tsunamis or terrorist attacks.  So, he’s talked with us about that.  And of course, Chuck Casto, that story was so engaging, looking at the Fukushima disaster and the 11 months that he spent onsite after the accident,

What is the project manager’s role in talent development? Instead of focusing on the negatives, shouldn’t we focus on what people do best? After all, projects are more successful when we play to the strengths of the team. Our guest, Connie Plowman, co-authored a book Developing Strengths-Based Project Teams with Martha Buelt. Connie defines the difference between a talent and a strength as she introduces the concept of a strengths-based project team.

VELOCITEACH – Manage This – Episode 107 As businesses and project managers start to strategize about the post-crisis world, Mike Goss explains what makes business recovery a project. How can we respond to this crisis from a business standpoint, and how that can be a project? Table of Contents 01:58 … Meet Mike 03:08 … Everything in Life is a Project 03:49 … Responding to Crisis as a Project 05:00 … Redefine your Business: The Why and the Who 09:24 … Business Recovery as a Project 11:26 … Personal Experience with Business Recovery 13:33 … What Parts of a Business will Benefit? 16:05 … Building a WBS 18:45 … Facing Risks in Business Recovery 20:50 … Staying on Course 22:15 … A Project Plan for all Scenarios 23:49 … Overcoming Communication Challenges in Business Recovery 25:37 … A Plan for Businesses of all Sizes 26:06 … Strategizing in a Post Crisis World 27:23 … Advice for Resilience during Business Recovery 32:37 … Mike’s Course on Business Recovery 34:12 … Closing MIKE GOSS: If we had a scale of one to 10, yesterday you were at an eight.  Then COVID-19 show up.  Now you’re at a one.  Your objective is not to get back to eight.  Your object is to get back to 10, where you’ve never been before.  On your way, you’re going to build in the tools and the processes that make sure you never hit one again, no matter what happens.  That’s a project. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our opportunity to meet with you and talk about issues that project managers are facing today.  I am Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates. So today we’re talking in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, businesses are starting to think about the post-crisis situation.  For some organizations it’s really been near-term survival is what’s on the agenda. BILL YATES:  Right.  I agree, Wendy.  There are so many companies that are just fighting to stay in business right now.  I’m a part of a CEO roundtable, and just seeing the impact that this is having on people locally and globally is huge, I think.  I just saw some statistics today.  Now, just to let listeners know, this is May the 4th.  And so far 30 million people in the United States have filed for unemployment, just since the COVID-19 got really serious in March, up until today.  We’re here in the Atlanta, Georgia area.  So just for our state of Georgia, one in four workers have filed for unemployment. WENDY GROUNDS:  Unbelievable. BILL YATES:  So it’s huge.  And obviously our federal government is taking great steps to help fight through the economic impact of this as we all figure out what does the new normal look like.    So just thinking about what is business going to look like when we can get going again.  So I think it’s helpful for us to have this conversation, and we’re fortunate to have Mike Goss here to talk through some of this with us. Meet Mike WENDY GROUNDS:  He was telling us that his career has taken more twists and turns than most.  BILL YATES:  Yeah.  So he started out as a stereo equipment salesman. WENDY GROUNDS:  And a computer store owner. BILL YATES:  An elevator salesman. WENDY GROUNDS:  And then he became a software developer. BILL YATES:  Senior VP at a bank. WENDY GROUNDS:  And the author of “Breaking Through Walls,” a business novel about overcoming life’s obstacles. BILL YATES:  And then a college instructor. WENDY GROUNDS:  And then a radio personality. BILL YATES:  And of course he fit a military career in there, as well.  He’s a veteran in the U.S. Air Force, serving in Thailand during the Vietnam War. WENDY GROUNDS:  He has been on a podcast before with us, and he tells us more about that in his previous episode.  Since 2014, Mike has also taught PMP exam prep boot camps in Oregon, Washington, and South Carolina. BILL YATES:  Quite a diverse, I’d say, yeah, he is definitely shaking the tree.

Manage This by Velociteach The podcast by project managers for project managers. The Ocean Cleanup organization is tackling the largest clean-up project in history. Henk van Dalen shares his passion for the project as he describes the origin of The Ocean Cleanup organization and outlines this bold project to clean the vast amounts of waste from our oceans. Table of Contents 01:55 … Understanding the Problem 03:19 … How The Ocean Cleanup Began 05:31 … Henk’s Involvement in the Project 06:48 … Ocean Garbage Patches 08:26 … Facing Setbacks 11:21 … The Highs and Lows of Lessons Learned 14:48 … Lessons from Wilson 16:39 … Not Taking it Personally 20:57 … Plastic Size and Barrier Specifics 25:44 … Quantity of Systems Needed 28:00 … Safety for Other Vessels 30:49 … What Happens to the Collected Plastic? 32:07 … Tackling the Problem at the Source 33:50 … Cleaning up the Rivers 37:00 … Leadership Lessons 40:24 … Biggest Surprise on the Project 42:38 … Learn More about The Ocean Cleanup 44:28 … Closing HENK VAN DALEN:  ...the Garbage Patch out there is so big and persistent, that’s not going to away by itself.  It’s almost looking at your house, and you say, “I have a dirty house; but if I close the doors, then, you know, it’s going to be fine.”  You still need to clean it up, as well. So for us doing that part is essential, and we believe that the power and the impact that the Ocean Cleanup can make is really in technology.  Develop technology.  Be able to move quickly to address the problem that’s there already.  But also, you know, it’s us also getting the awareness out there that people start thinking by themselves what it is.  So if the Ocean Cleanup looked at, but what are we good at and where can we make an impact, it’s creating that awareness, backing it up by science and showing how big this problem is and cleaning up the mess that is already out there. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  We’re glad you’ve joined us for a conversation about what matters to you in the field of project management.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and here in the studio with me is Bill Yates. BILL YATES:  Wendy, we’ve got an interesting theme that you’ve hit on.  I love this.  We’ve talked about saving the rhinos.  We’ve talked about tracking orbital space debris.  We’ve looked at community gardens and food banks; sustainability.  And man, have we got a great conversation today. WENDY GROUNDS:  I am very excited about this one.  I have been following this project for a few years now and have been trying to find someone who will talk to us.  And we were very fortunate to find Henk van Dalen.  Henk is the Director Ocean Project of The Ocean Cleanup.  This is a project that is looking to clean up the ocean. BILL YATES:  That’s it, five trillion pieces of plastic that we want to remove from the ocean.  That’s a big project. WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we’re very excited to hear Henk’s story. Understanding the Problem BILL YATES:  Henk, thank you so much for joining us today on Manage This, from your remote location. HENK VAN DALEN:  Thank you.  Thank you for having me, guys. BILL YATES:  One of the first things I want to do is just help our listeners understand the problem.  Can you define the problem for us? HENK VAN DALEN:  So within The Ocean Cleanup, we’re focusing to clean up the oceans, and that first of all means we need to close up the inflow of the oceans, taking the plastic out of the rivers, preventing it going in.  But there’s also the element of a lot of plastic being out there in the ocean itself, and that’s been accumulating there over decades.  And our focus primarily is now on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. So that is the area of the ocean located between Hawaii and California, and there is a plastic soup, you could say, floating around which is twice the size of Texas. So that is an immense amount of plastic,

VELOCITEACH Manage This The podcast by project managers for project managers. Dana Brownlee shares tools for managing up that challenging boss or stakeholder, while creating alignment and clear communication. Table of Contents 00:58 … Meet Dana 02:18 … The Inspiration for The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up 03:54 … Managing Up Research Study 07:02 … It Begins with Self Awareness 08:20 … A Definition of Managing Up 10:05 … Managing Up Mistakes 11:30 … Six Difficult Boss Personality Types 14:32 … A Closer Look at the Clueless Chameleon 19:03 … A Closer Look at the Meddlesome Micromanager 22:40 … A Closer Look at the Tornado 25:22 … The Compliment, Document, and Pivot 27:37 … More Taming of the Tornado 29:32 … Self-Analysis for the Project Manager 31:28 … Get in Touch with Dana 32:24 … Closing WENDY GROUNDS:  Hello, and 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, I have a question for you today.  How often have you experienced a difficult stakeholder or a difficult boss?  What’s your experience? BILL YATES:  Oh, man.  This is such a loaded question.  You’re going to get me in trouble.  Andy... WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we don’t have to talk any current. BILL YATES:  Okay, good, yeah.  I was going to say, Andy Crowe’s not in the room right now, but he will definitely listen to this.  So, got an outstanding manager now.  But yeah, I mean, this is just a part of life; right?  We have managers who – sometimes our boss, our manager is super supportive and great.  Other times there are challenges, and so fortunately we have Dana to talk with us about some of those challenges. Meet Dana WENDY GROUNDS: So our guest today is Dana Brownlee, she is a PMP, and she founded Professionalism Matters, which is an Atlanta-based corporate training company.  Her business expertise has been featured in Forbes.com, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, to name a few.  And Dana likes to give project managers tools they can use.  Dana, welcome to Manage This. DANA BROWNLEE:  Thanks so much for having me. WENDY GROUNDS:  Dana, won’t you first tell us just a bit about yourself and how you entered the project management field? DANA BROWNLEE:  Certainly.  Well, I started my company back in 2003.  I’m dating myself a little bit, can’t believe it’s been that long.  But I started in project management I guess in the early ‘90s.  And in fact I remember it was so long ago, I remember applying for my PMP in handwritten paper. BILL YATES:  Oh, okay. WENDY GROUNDS:  Wow. DANA BROWNLEE:  Like printing it off and writing it out and actually mailing it in, putting a stamp in, so I’m officially old.  But I worked in corporate for a number of years, and then I started my own training company, and I went out, and I teach training classes and give speaking events.  But I do think that I’ve always been wired kind of as a project manager, I dot my I’s; I cross my T’s. In fact, my husband laughed.  He said, you know, “This is definitely for you.  You’ve got a knack for telling other people what to do.”  So some of it is kind of in my blood.  But I love it. The Inspiration for The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up WENDY GROUNDS:  Dana has written an excellent book that Bill and I have both enjoyed reading.  It’s called “The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up:  Project Management Techniques from the Trenches.”  And in this book we read about different types of bosses and techniques that you can implement when working with these different types of managers.  Dana, what inspired you to write the book? DANA BROWNLEE:  Actually, my audiences inspired me to write the book.  I never intended to speak on this topic, to write on this topic, but let me tell you what started happening.  I give talks, and I provide training on a wide range of topics.  So I might be out speaking about communication skills,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. The unpredictable nature of a crisis means that leaders have little time to prepare. Our guest Matt Harper, a retired 20 year Naval Officer, talks about crisis leadership lessons he learned onboard the USS Cole during a terrorist attack. Table of Contents 00:37 … Meet Matt 01:38 … Matt’s Role on the USS Cole 03:55 … Background to the USS Cole Deployment 06:32 … Geographical Location of Yemen 07:58 … October 12th, 2000 10:02 … Reacting in Times of Crisis 12:24 … Events Following the Attack 14:36 … Responding Well or Responding Poorly in a Crisis 16:34 … Management vs. Leadership 20:15 … Crisis Leadership Lesson One: Understand Yourself 21:05 … Crisis Leadership Lesson Two: Be Comfortable with Uncertainty 22:40 … Crisis Leadership Lesson Three: Collaborate 24:01 … Crisis Leadership Lesson Four: Be Ready to do Anything 26:35 … Crisis Leadership Lesson Five: Lessons Learned 27:35 … Keeping Motivated in a Crisis 29:42 … Get up on the Balcony, Take a Different Perspective 33:11 … Go Beyond Your Comfort Zone 34:41 … Resolving the Problem 37:20 … Get in Touch with Matt 38:52 … Closing MATT HARPER: ...this is the hallmark of the good leader, of the good project manager that says, got it, that’s the way it’s supposed to be done, but we’re in a crisis deadline or whatever the case may be.  And this is how we need to do it now. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I am Wendy Grounds, and with me is Bill Yates. BILL YATES:  Hi.  Hi, Wendy. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Bill.    Today we’re talking about what will we do in a time of crisis.  We have Matt Harper with us.  He is on Skype from Denver, Colorado. Meet Matt BILL YATES:  Yeah, Matt has had a twenty year career with the US Navy and we’ll get more into that. Specifically though, he had a unique experience and I’m looking forward to discussing with him and sharing with our audience. WENDY GROUNDS:  Matt is going to tell us about his experience on the USS Cole after a terrorist attack in Aden, Yemen, which happened in October 2000. He was decorated for his leadership after this attack and he’s applied that to coaching lessons in crisis leadership, and so I think he’s got a lot of good stuff he’s going to bring to us today. BILL YATES:  Yeah, Matt, we so appreciate your time.  Welcome to Manage This. MATT HARPER:  Well, thanks.  Thanks for having me.  Looking forward to it. BILL YATES:  Any time we can bring somebody into a conversation that has the knowledge, the training, and the experience that you do, we know our project manager listeners are going to appreciate it and learn from it.  Wendy and I were talking, we feel like the best way to tackle this topic is just start from the beginning.  Give us a sense for what happened with the USS Cole and what your role was, or what part you played in that. Matt’s Role on the USS Cole MATT HARPER:  Sure.  Well, thanks, thanks again for having me.  I would like to kind of start out, having a 20-year military background, I’m sure a lot of the people listening to the podcast will have military backgrounds. BILL YATES:  Right. MATT HARPER:  But for most people who do not, I would like to say that anybody who spends time in the military, what we do on a daily basis is really project management. BILL YATES: That’s true. MATT HARPER:  It’s something that we I think don’t do a very good job, we people in the military or prior military personnel, we don’t do a very good job really making it clear that that’s really what we do, probably 90 percent of our day, is really different types of projects that all interrelate to each other.  They’re all underfunded; they’re all under-resourced. BILL YATES:  Yes. MATT HARPER:  And that’s what we do on a daily basis.  So about my experience, I originally grew up in San Francisco.  I always knew I kind of wanted to be in the Navy,

“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,