The podcast for Project Managers by Project Managers. As organizations are going through transformation, there’s plenty of internal and external pressure to adapt, PMI’s Stephen Townsend talks about the changes and challenges for project managers, future trends in the marketplace, and how the role is evolving.

Table of

Contents

00:26 … Meet Stephen 02:02 … Cooks vs Chefs 08:53 … Enhancing your Toolkit 10:41 … Conflict and Adaptation 13:14 … Future Trend: Soft Skills to Accelerate Innovation 21:12 … Building New Skills and Capabilities 25:31 … Global Executive Council Talent Management Survey 29:56 … How Organizations can Help PMs Increase Value 35:54 … Challenges as Opportunities to Change your Perspective 42:13 … A Revolution of Project Management 44:48 … Connect with Stephen 46:02 … Closing

STEPHEN TOWNSEND:

...one of the key things I would say to individuals is, if you’re completing

PDUs just to tick the box, you’re wasting an opportunity.  You’re wasting your opportunity, and you’re wasting

your organization’s opportunity because this is really your investment in

ensuring that you remain competitive in today’s environment, not only within

your organization, but also competitive with your peers who are project

leaders.

NICK WALKER:  Welcome

to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our opportunity to meet with you and

talk about what real life is like in the shoes of a professional project

manager.  I’m your host, Nick Walker, and

with me is the guy who is always on the lookout for interesting and talented

people we can bring on our program.  And

Bill, it looks like your talent scout eyes have snagged another big fish.

Meet Stephen

BILL YATES:  Yeah, I’m

delighted that Stephen Townsend is going to give us the time on the

podcast.  He is a very busy man.  I’ve known him, goes pretty far back,

probably 2011 when I served on the Advisory Group for the PMI REP communities,

when I really got to know Stephen.  And

then had the opportunity to sit in on one of his talks, a couple of his talks

actually, at the fall Global Conference back in fall of 2019 and just was

reminded of the depth of his knowledge and the experience that he has.  Stephen’s out there in the marketplace.  He meets with so many companies to talk with

them about their project management practices and where they’re going, what

trends they see.  So great to have him on

with us today.

NICK WALKER:  Well,

before we meet him, let’s learn a little bit more about him.  Stephen Townsend has worked with PMI since 1999, and currently he is PMI’s

Director for Network Programs.  In this

capacity he leads special program initiatives for the Institute.  One of those is serving on the U.K.’s Project X Research

Consortium Steering Committee, supporting the benefits realization management

research stream.  He’s also involved in

exploring how organizations are enhancing and reinventing their value delivery

capabilities.  For U.S. federal

government agencies he produces materials to help them implement requirements

associated with the Program

Management Improvement Accountability Act. 

He also leads the PMBOK Guide’s Seventh Edition transformation work

stream.  Stephen, welcome to Manage This.

STEPHEN TOWNSEND:  Thank

you.  Good to be with you all today.

Cooks vs. Chefs

NICK WALKER:  We want

to talk with you about some of the changes and challenges you see coming down

the pike for future project managers. 

But first, I’d like for us to talk about an analogy that Bill says you

made at the PMI Global Congress last fall. 

And any listeners with a background in the restaurant industry are going

to get this right away.  You said that

some project managers are cooks, and others are chefs, and also that we need

both.  So could you explain that analogy?

STEPHEN TOWNSEND:  Yeah.  So just to put it in the context of the

conversation that we had at the PMI Global Conference, we presented a slide

that was intended to be provocative, to get people to really think about

themselves in the context of their organization and its current state, whether

that’s in transformation, whether they’re in steady state.  And the question was, do you envision

yourself as a project manager or as a transformer?  And I’m hoping that people don’t take

anything negative from the connotations of a cook versus a chef.  But they really reflect different mindsets,

skills, and capabilities that we wanted to emphasize in the conversation.  So, for example, the cook likes process.

BILL YATES:  Right.

STEPHEN TOWNSEND: 

Give me a pathway to creating the desired output and constrain change so

that I can actually deliver what I’ve been asked to deliver.  And one of our PMI volunteer contributors, a

gentleman by the name of Eric Norman, who

led the development of the Third Edition of our Standard for Program

Management, shares that, in the context of program management, the team embraces

change because you’re trying to implement a vision of something that’s

completely different, that you haven’t done before.  But in a project, your focus is on

constraining change because you have a very specific output that you’re trying

to accomplish.  And anything that changes

that output requires change across all of the different elements of the project

that you’re trying to manage, particularly the cost and the schedule and the

resources.

So in projects, as much as you can, you try to constrain

change, whereas in programs you tend to embrace change.  And so in the environment that a cook

operates in, a cook wants to maintain the stable condition.  So you want the oven at the right

temperature.  You want all of the exact

ingredients in the exact quantities that you need them.

A chef, on the other hand, likes experimentation.  For a chef, the outcome is about the experience

in finding the right ingredients, in understanding how to blend them, and in

delivering a fantastic meal at the end. 

It’s not about the deliverable. 

It’s about the outcome.  And so in

this context the chef understands the properties of the ingredients and how to

blend them, how to produce the desired flavors. 

Chefs also love improvisation. 

They love tailoring, and they love adaptation.

So if you look at that in a project context, if I’m the type

of person who likes stability, or who understands and feels that the process is

the way to guide the achievement of the outcomes, I’m going to be more of a cook.  So I’m going to want to use the process to

constrain change, have all the right ingredients at the right time at the right

temperature to move things forward.  If I’m

the kind of person that loves a challenge, that loves a little bit of chaos I

might be more of a chef because I want to be able to pivot and adapt.  I want to use process where process makes

sense.

But there may be times where we have to pivot.  We have to adapt.  We have to invent our own way of being able

to deliver.  And particularly as

organizations are going through transformation, as they’re trying to build new

transformative capabilities.  The chef

characteristics play a much greater role in those types of initiatives than

they might in some of your more product or service delivery types of

activities.

And to the point that we were discussing before the podcast

started, we had a young lady in the audience who said that she was actually a

mixture of both, that she liked process because process gave her a sense of

discipline and order that helped her frame how she might focus on delivering

the outcome.  But she also liked a little

bit of chaos and the ability to be adaptive and to change and, in some

instances, to actually instigate change. 

So not just responding to change, but being the one to instigate change

in the organization.

So people kind of know where they fit in this construct at

what they’re comfortable with.  And the key

thing is you can be one; you can be the other; you can be both.  And organizations need project professionals

who bring both skill sets to bear.

BILL YATES:  Stephen,

I agree with that so much, and one thing I’ve noticed about the great chefs,

they started out as cooks.

STEPHEN TOWNSEND: 

Definitely.

BILL YATES:  And I

think, drawing that analogy further, I think project managers, again, we have

to learn how to walk before we can really start running and sprinting.  And you’re right.  Organizations need both, both those who can

follow a recipe and keep banging out consistent great results.  And then they need those who improvise or

perform really well when there is a chaotic moment.

There’s a show that I like watching called “Chopped.”  And it’s 60 minutes of chaos.  There are four chefs that are competing to be

the Chopped Champion every episode.  And

those are definitely chefs.  They don’t

have recipes.  They’re given, I think, 20

minutes for the appetizer round, 30 minutes for the entrée round, and 30 minutes

for dessert.  And they’re competing

against each other.  They have the same

ingredients.  There’s no recipe, so, you

know, cooks beware.  Right?  You really – you have to improvise, and you

have all these different resources that you can go to, to pull in different

flavors.  And so it’s fun to watch that.

But I can see how that analogy plays out with project

managers.  And one thing I’m excited

about, Stephen, after hearing your presentation, your talk at Global, I was

thinking, you know, what a great conversation to have in terms of what you see

in terms of trends in the marketplace for project managers.  How do you see the position or the role

evolving?  And I know you and I had some

prior conversation about a particular study from the American Productivity and

Quality Center.  Maybe a good time for us

to talk through some of that, some of those findings.

Enhancing your Toolkit

STEPHEN TOWNSEND: 

Sure.  Before we go to that topic,

though, I also want to point out, because when we use the word “project

manager,