The podcast by project managers for project managers. Hear about the three attributes of restraint: speed, thrift, and simplicity – and how these traits can add to project innovation. Dan Ward describes using a restrained approach of short schedules, tight budgets, small teams, and deep commitments to simplicity to deliver best-in-class technology that is operationally relevant. He highlights how unnecessary complexity adds complications which can reduce innovation.

Table of Contents

01:40 … Dan’s Book LIFT02:46 … High-Speed, Low Cost Programs in the U.S. Air Force04:28 … MITRE Innovation Toolkit06:12 … When it’s Not All About The Bass08:25 … Project Success on a Shoestring Budget13:33 … Speed, Thrift, and Simplicity16:03 … Unnecessary Complexity Reduces Innovation22:00 … Innovation Requires Diversity25:06 … Stay on Track with Innovation28:03 … Status Reporting32:19 … Eating the Failure Cake36:09 … Get in Touch with Dan37:09 … Closing

Dan Ward: ...it turns out we get better results, more innovative results, more impactful results, when we move in the direction of speed, thrift, and simplicity, rather than moving in the direction of spending more time, more money, making things more complicated. 

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 we’re so glad you joined us today.

We have a special guest.  His name is Dan Ward.  And he’s an innovation catalyst at the MITRE Corporation.  Dan previously served for more than 20 years as an acquisition officer in the U.S. Air Force, where he specialized in leading high-speed, low-cost technology development programs.  Dan retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  While he was on active duty he helped establish the Air Force Research Laboratory’s rapid innovation process.

BILL YATES:  Dan Ward is also the author of three books.  We’ll talk about “LIFT” specifically in the podcast that he released in 2019; “The Simplicity Cycle,” 2015; and “F.I.R.E.” in 2014.

WENDY GROUNDS:  In our conversation with Dan we have a particular theme of innovation and managing complexity.

BILL YATES:  Yeah.  So Dan has researched, of course his career was dedicated to this as well, and he’s written books on this idea of innovation and applying innovation to various environments.  Certainly for project managers we can look at this, and we’re going to share some advice and learn some lessons from this man as we talk about innovation and how to apply it to our projects.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Dan.  Welcome to Manage This.

DAN WARD:  Wendy, thanks so much for having me.  I’m looking forward to this chat.

Dan’s Book LIFT

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, no, we are happy to have you.  And first thing we want to talk to you about is your books.  You’ve written a few books.  And your latest one is called “LIFT.”  Can you tell us a little bit about that?

DAN WARD:  Yeah, absolutely.  So “LIFT” was such a fun book to write.  And it takes a close look at what I think is a really interesting part of history, the late 1800s, and then specifically the people who were trying to build airplanes in the decades immediately prior to the Wrights.  So all of these people failed.  None of their airplanes actually flew.  That wasn’t until 1903 when the Wrights had their first successful airplane.

But these experiences, these experiments, and the way they handled their failures have a lot of really interesting applications for challenges people are working on today.  So in terms of like solving hard problems, managing intellectual property, collaboration, diversity, equity, and inclusion.  You know, we think we invented that.  No.  They were dealing with those types of issues in the late 1800s.  So really, anyone who’s trying to solve an unsolved problem or just even just a really hard problem, we can learn a lot from these aviation pioneers in the late 1800s.

The podcast by project managers for project managers.  Is your body language negatively impacting your project teams? Body language expert Jeff Baird shares some handy tips to incorporate into our non-verbal communication. Hear how we can tap into vast amounts of information from body language messages, and how to harness body language to come across as confident and persuasive.

Table of Contents

02:42 … Meet Jeff02:57 … Combining the IT Data World and Body Language06:38 … Our Ability to Influence People09:01 … What is our Brain Doing when We Meet Someone?12:02 … How Can We be Deliberate with Our Body Language?14:55 … Power Body Language17:34 … Nonverbal “Hacks” We Can Use21:59 … The “Head Tilt” and the “Smile”23:43 … Body Language and Virtual Meetings28:27 … Improving Phone Presence30:26 … The 3 “Shuns” of Workplace Breakdowns35:42 … Creating a Safe Environment37:50 … Detecting Lies43:33 … Contact Jeff43:50 … Closing

JEFF BAIRD:  There’s not good or bad body language.  There’s just how it’s going to be perceived in the eyes of the other person.  And as a side note, there’s two sides to this coin, too.  There’s what we’re doing with our body language and how people are perceiving us and how willing they are to listen to us.  And then there’s all the nonverbal signals that they’re sending back to us, too, that can give us clues as to how they feel.  And so there’s not good or bad body language.  I just want to help people to be congruent so that when they say something their body language is going to match that because oftentimes what happens is if those are not congruent, we’ll tend to believe what we see in body language over what they’re telling us with their words.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and joining me is Bill Yates.  We’re so glad you’re joining us.  If you like what you hear, please visit us at Velociteach.com where you can leave a comment on our Manage This Podcast page.  We know you’re also looking for opportunities to acquire PDUs, your Professional Development Units, towards recertifications.  And you can still claim PDUs for all our podcast episodes.  If you take a listen at the end of the show, we’ll give you advice on how to do that.

Our guest today is Jeff Baird.  He has been in data analytics for almost 20 years, but over the years he has found that facts and numbers aren’t always enough to be able to persuade and influence, and how we present ourselves and our message really matters.  He studied the science of body language to learn what makes people tick.  Jeff is a keynote speaker, a certified body language trainer – I found out that that was a thing – and a certified Big 5 Personalities trainer.  Jeff has also done a course with us.

BILL YATES:  Yes.  Jeff partnered with us to build out a one-hour course in InSite, which is our mobile learning platform.  And the course is called “Attracting Top Talent:  First Contact.”  This is so pertinent today.  It’s difficult to find good people for our teams.  And there’s more emphasis on hiring and recruiting than ever.  Jeff just has terrific advice in this one-hour course about how to attract top talent.  What are the steps that we can take to be more successful as we’re recruiting and interviewing people?  And to be honest with you, too, you can flip it. 

I think, from a standpoint of someone who’s looking for a job, this is a great thing to look into, as well.  This course will give you advice.  What is the employer looking for, and what should my expectations be?  So we’re delighted to be talking with him about this area of communication.  And I just think it’s exciting to have him join us, give us tips, and raise our awareness for this area of communication.

Meet Jeff

WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Jeff.  Welcome to Manage This.

JEFF BAIRD:  Good morning.

WENDY GROUNDS:  We’re so glad that you’re here with us today.  It’s been a long time coming.

“A Value Management Office is a cross-functional, cross-hierarchy and cross-silo team of teams.” These are the words of author and industry-leading agile and lean expert, Sanjiv Augustine. Our guest, Sanjiv, presents powerful ideas and strategies for transforming the Project Management Office into an Agile Value Management Office. In this episode, Sanjiv describes successes and challenges he is seeing with recent enterprise agile transformations.

How can you become a leader that people want to follow? Author Scott J. Miller, author of Management Mess to Leadership Success, has a spirited conversation with us about how to change the way you manage yourself, lead others, and achieve a high level of engagement with your project team. It’s never too late to fix our mess and develop leadership success.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Mastering written communication and focusing on the hidden science behind how our reading and writing influences our thoughts and actions. Hear some best practices when it comes to writing winning bids, pitfalls we should avoid, as well as common workplace communication errors.

Table of Contents

02:02 … Rob’s Background Story03:17 … Misfired Messages07:23 … Knowing When to Call a Time-out10:53 … Recognizing the Warning Signs12:56 … Effective Writing in Project Management15:45 … Fluency Heuristic17:01 … Overloading the Decision-Maker22:46 … An Attention-Grabbing Introduction26:57 … “Garden-Pathing”27:49 … Email Salutations29:18 … Compelling Subject Lines30:54 … Words of Advice34:01 … Contact Rob35:01 … Closing

ROB ASHTON:  ...write as if you are writing for a human because you are.  You know, not for the position.  You don’t look at someone’s job title.  Think of them as a human being.  They are as human as you are, and they’re subject to the same mental shortcuts and the same irritations and the same cognitive biases.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  We are so glad you’re joining us.  If you like what you hear, please visit us at Velociteach.com, where you can leave a comment on our Manage This Podcast page.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and joining me is Bill Yates.  Today we’re very excited about our guest.  We’ve never really talked about written communication.  Rob Ashton has a very interesting background.  He’s actually been in science and research.  And because of that he got into the process of reading and writing because of writing scientific reports and research papers.  But he has a very unique perspective on why so much of our written communication just doesn’t work.

BILL YATES:  That’s true.  Now we’re in a remote workforce more so than ever.  So many of us are working virtually.  So what do you do?  You pop open Slack.  You pop open Skype.  And you pop open Teams.  And you just instant message with your team back and forth, back and forth.  Which many times that’s totally appropriate.  I think as Rob will get into, we have a number of different tools at our disposal.  You’ve got to pick the right tool for the right message, or you’re going to get into trouble.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Right, right.  I’m excited to talk to Rob.  A little bit about him before we get there is he’s the founder of a global learning company called Emphasis, which specializes in written communication.  Some of his high-profile clients have been Big 4 accounting firms, big tech, big pharma.  He’s also done some work with the U.K. Prime Minister’s office at 10 Downing Street, and even the royal household at Buckingham Palace.  So we’re in good company.

BILL YATES:  Yes. 

WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Rob.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for joining us today.

ROB ASHTON:  Hey, it’s great to be here.  Thanks for inviting me.

Rob’s Background Story

WENDY GROUNDS:  Rob, before we get into our conversation on written communication, can you tell us how you got into this field and what your background is?

ROB ASHTON:  I started off as a research scientist before a love of words led me into publishing.  So originally trained as an editor.  And I did that for a while, and I found that I guess I just got a little tired of applying the same techniques again and again to the words I was trying to knock into shape.  And I decided that instead of doing that, I would go and teach people to do it.  So I set up a training company to do that, and that was called Emphasis.  And that was 23 years ago.

And then six years ago I decided that I would go back to my roots, and I would start to look at the science of this because there’s very little out there on the science of written communication, or at least in the business world.  There’s a ton of stuff out there in the academic world,

The podcast by project managers for project managers. The number of projects initiated in all sectors has skyrocketed, yet why do project failure rates still remain alarmingly high? Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, author of the Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook: How to Launch, Lead, and Sponsor Successful Projects, emphasizes the value of senior leaders investing in the pursuit of better project management.

Table of Contents

02:11 … The World Champion in Project Management03:53 … The Project Economy05:46 … Organizational Ambidexterity10:15 … Low Success Rate of Projects13:31 … Choosing Predictive or Adaptive Agile Methods16:05 … Introducing The Project Canvas18:44 … Three Dimensions of the Project Canvas20:07 … 1.Foundation21:05 … 2.People22:02 … 3.Creation23:20 … Senior Executives and Project Success26:15 … Challenge your Sponsors27:57 … Self-Assessment29:15 … Engagement Triple Constraint33:30 … Advice for Younger Project Managers35:32 … Contact Antonio37:33 … Closing

ANTONIO NIETO-RODRIGUEZ:  Senior leaders are not there yet.  They’ve never invested in the importance of project management, building competencies.  Part of what we started here is that they did not appreciate it as a core topic.  They preferred to talk about strategy, innovation, and other things, and rather than project management implementation.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and joining me is Bill Yates.  Just a quick thanks to our listeners who reach out to us and leave comments on our website or on social media.  We always love hearing from you.  We know you’re also looking for opportunities to acquire PDUs, your Professional Development Units, towards recertifications.  And you can still claim PDUs for all our podcast episodes.  Listen up at the end of the show for information on how you can claim those PDUs.

Our guest today is Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez.  He is an author, practitioner, and consultant who teaches strategy and project implementation to senior leaders.  His research has been recognized by Thinkers50, with its prestigious Ideas into Practice award, and he is featured in the 2020 Global Gurus Top 30 List of Management Professionals.  Antonio has served as chairman of the Global Project Management Institute, and in that role he launched the Brightline initiative.  He is also the founder of Projects & Co, cofounder of the Strategy Implementation Institute, and a member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches group.

BILL YATES:  Antonio has written several books, as well.  The one that we’re going to focus on today is the new “Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook.”  You may hear Antonio or us refer to this as the HBR, the Harvard Business Review, in our comments.  And Antonio is joining us from Brussels.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Antonio, welcome to Manage This.  We’ve looked forward to our conversation with you today, and so we’re so grateful to you for being with us.

ANTONIO NIETO-RODRIGUEZ:  Thanks to you, Wendy.  I’m really happy to be here with you and look forward to this conversation.

The World Champion in Project Management

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah.  Before we get started, I do have a quick question for you.  If you look back, when was the moment when you knew project management was your thing?  How did you get into project management?  And you’ve just done so much in the field of project management.  I think I saw in LinkedIn you’re the world champion in project management, and I love that.  So how did you become that?

ANTONIO NIETO-RODRIGUEZ:  Well, it’s a pretty sad story, Wendy.  I recognized that I wanted to work and specialize in project management when I was fired.  I was fired in the sense that I had this big idea in a big consulting firm where I wanted to become partner, and I said, “Let’s develop project management advisory service because everybody’s struggling with projects.”  This is like 20 years.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. How does the established project management approach fall short when managing complexity in projects? Kieran Duck wrote the book The Complex Project Toolkit that describes the use of design thinking to deliver your most challenging projects.

Table of Contents

02:35 … The Complex Project Toolkit Book03:52 … Standard Project Management vs. Managing Complex Projects06:38 … Complicated Versus Complex07:19 … A Design-Driven Toolkit08:58 … Is Agile Not For Complex Projects?11:43 … Mindsets, Practices, and Skills13:27 … “Why” Before “What” in a Complex Project17:06 … Inspiring the Shift to a Complexity Mindset20:42 … Individuals Hold Themselves Accountable23:08 … Conversations25:13 … Sense-Making27:18 … Adaption29:50 … Words of Advice31:48 … Get in Touch with Kieran33:24 … Closing

KIERAN DUCK: You know, in complexity, I go back to it’s all connected.  No one person knows the answer.  So pick a good one.  Create the context that works well for this team.  And if they’re having a horrible experience, change it. I really believe that these projects can injure people, won’t take your finger off, but it can really blow people up.  And so create the right context for doing well.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  This is our bimonthly program where we like to talk about what matters to professional project managers.  And it’s our goal to give you some words of advice and to give you encouragement, where you can hear from other professionals and leaders in the field.  We’re glad you’re joining us.  If you like what you hear, please visit us at Velociteach.com and leave us a comment on our website.

I am Wendy Grounds, and joining me in the studio is Bill Yates.  Our guest today is Kieran Duck.  Kieran is talking to us from Sydney.  He is an advisor and coach to senior leaders running complex projects and transforming organizations.  He has redesigned and rescued multibillion-dollar projects and led business transformations.  He’s also a global presenter on using design thinking to drive step changes in project and business performance.  He’s also recently authored a book called “The Complex Project Toolkit.”

BILL YATES:  Yes.  The subtitle was “Using Design Thinking to Transform the Delivery of Your Hardest Projects.”  This is really intriguing to me.  You know, right from the cover he had me hooked.  And Kieran says, okay, look, I’ve seen this over and over and over in my career.  Maybe you guys can relate.  We have a way of managing standard projects, and it works well if your project is standard.

But what if it’s complex?  What if there’s a level to this that just doesn’t fit that toolset?  And he gives the example of, you know, taking a hammer and trying to drive a screw into a board.  It’s ugly and doesn’t look very nice when you’re done with it.  So he makes the case for, okay, if you have a complex project, you need a different toolkit.  And then he describes the toolkit.  This is an intriguing conversation.  I think some people may even find it a little bit controversial.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes.

BILL YATES:  Because they don’t want to give up their standard tools.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes, yes.  And Kieran welcomes that.  If you do find anything you disagree with, you’re welcome to reach out to him.  He’d love to hear your opinions, as well.  Kieran, welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for being our guest.

KIERAN DUCK:  Thanks for inviting me.  Great to be here.

The Complex Project Toolkit Book

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we’re excited to talk to you.  I have enjoyed your book.  It’s an excellent book for project managers.  Can you just give us a little bit of background, and what sparked the book?  How did you come about writing this?

KIERAN DUCK:  Yeah, that’s an interesting question.  I mean, over the years I’ve done a lot of work on project management, project rescues,

At age 20, Christelle Kwizera founded Water Access Rwanda in response to the dangerous conditions that Rwandans would face when collecting water from rivers and dams, including crocodile attacks and disease-ridden water. Listen in to an inspiring project story as Christelle shares her vision to eradicate water scarcity while creating jobs for young people. This team had a goal to look for solutions that intersect the impact on planet and profit.

The podcast by project manager for project managers. We take a look at company culture, transforming remote work to and improving workplace productivity and efficiency.  How to Work Better Together. Hear about a new software company, Hive, which claims to have the first-ever democratically built project management platform.

Table of Contents

03:05 … Hive History04:07 … Core Hive Philosophy05:38 … Democratically Built Features07:17 … Launching Hive09:22 … Challenges Today for Project Managers11:01 … Addressing Recurring Meetings15:17 … Applying Hive17:21 … Team Size Suited to Hive19:56 … Hive Innovation21:57 … Company Culture24:12 … Transforming a Team to Remote Work29:18 … New Hive Features30:01 … Who Influenced John32:47 … Get in Touch with John33:17 … Closing

JOHN FURNEAUX: A brilliantly run meeting is a work of art and very, very impressive to those around you.  And I would encourage all of us to put 100% into our soft skills and how we manage the projects and the people around us.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I’m Wendy Grounds, and joining me in the studio is Bill Yates.  I just want to let you know that you can still claim your free PDUs by listening to this podcast.  We have instructions on our website where it shows you exactly how you can claim your PDUs at PMI.  We still get listeners who struggle with that, and so we just thought we’d make sure we mentioned it.  So we are very excited that it is now Happy Birthday to Manage This, and we’ve been broadcasting for six years.

BILL YATES:  That’s amazing, isn’t it?  Every month we have two podcasts.  We’ve been doing that for six years now.  Incredible authors, speakers, tools, and then people in the trenches doing projects, leading projects in diverse environments.  And it’s been a pleasure to bring this information to the community and just share it and let people pick up on new perspectives and get more advice on just how to be a more effective project manager.

WENDY GROUNDS:  And we’re very grateful to our guests...

BILL YATES:  Yes.

WENDY GROUNDS:  ...who’ve made it possible.  We really appreciate all that they have brought to our podcast.

BILL YATES:  Mm-hmm.  There’s no compensation.  We don’t pay them.  We just thank them and deeply appreciate the preparation and then their time in recording with us.

WENDY GROUNDS:  And thank you to our listeners.  We value you, and we appreciate your support.

BILL YATES:  That’s right.  Keep those ideas coming because that’s what spurs us on.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Our guest today is John Furneaux.  John is the CEO and cofounder of Hive, which is the world’s first democratically built project management platform, used by many teams at places such as Comcast, Toyota, Starbucks, and many more.  A couple of times in the past we’ve brought you tools that are very useful or platforms that project managers can use.  And we just need to let you know we’re not getting any pay for this.  We’re not getting a free use of Hive.  It’s really...

BILL YATES:  Right.

WENDY GROUNDS:  ...the product comes across our eyes, and we think, gosh, this would be something interesting to tell you about.  And that’s why we’re here.

BILL YATES:  Exactly.  As our listeners reach out to us with tools that are helpful or things that they want us to explore, just keep sending us those ideas because that’s where this one came from.  One of the things that appealed to me with Hive, too, is their mantra is “The first project management platform built for users, by users.”  And it kind of reminds me of our mantra of Manage This, “The podcast for project managers by project managers.”  So we’re going to talk about tactical aspects of this tool and how it can be used.  Then we’re going to back up and talk broadly about company culture, not just how Hive can influence that, but how John’s been influenced by different company cultures,

The 7th Edition PMBOK® Guide “represents the most disruptive redefinition of project management in my lifetime,” according to Jesse Fewell. Jesse was part of the core team writing this 7th Edition. We ask Jesse to explain the principles-based approach in this edition, as well as why, and how frequently, PMI releases a new edition. Jesse clarifies what has changed and what has not changed in the 7th Edition.