Join hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome as they dive into crucial traits of successful project managers: adaptability and flexibility. Merv shares a personal experience involving a project impacted by the Affordable Care Act. The team had to adapt and remain flexible to deliver a better product despite the legislative changes. Tim discusses his own career shift from corporate to entrepreneurial life, emphasizing the importance of adaptability. The conversation also explores dealing with clients' changing requirements and managing diverse teams with different work habits. The episode underscores the necessity of being adaptable and flexible in ever-evolving project and career landscapes.

Main Take-Aways

Stories are powerful teachers. Today’s story lessons help your understanding of the importance of developing a strong sense of adaptability and flexibility in handling change that inevitably affects your project execution:

• being adaptable when a major change affects your project from an external source
• adapting to job change, whether reactively or proactively
• handling changes in client expectations
• being adaptable to taking advantage of opportunities (not just threats)
• the cost of not adapting to technology changes
• adapting to cultural differences on a project

Show Notes

Today’s Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leadership Lessons from the Trenches – On Being Adaptable and Flexible

00:27 Merv begins right off with telling of an experience requiring both adaptability and flexibility when federal legislation changed the rules for a system he and his team were overseeing. The change occurred in the middle of the project after much of the work was completed. The system integrator, the stakeholder, and his team had to be both adaptable and flexible in their approach to the change to salvage as much completed product as possible while the new requirements were defined.

04:08 Tim tells of a personal experience where he was required to transition from a corporate career to entrepreneurial life, and how he learned to adapt to a new way of earning a living.

06:05 Merv recounts his own situation moving from corporate to entrepreneurial life, and how his learning adaptability and flexibility prepared him proactively to make the move.

09:31 Merv adds a story of how, despite close work with his customer on a project, when it was near time to implement the system, his client had different expectations. Solving that challenge involved both adaptability and flexibility.

11:55 Tim worked with a community development organization to secure funding for a sustainability project, and learned a lesson in expanding his horizons. Change can be an opportunity rather than a threat and we must learn to adapt to those opportunities.

14:20 Merv shares an experience where members of his client organization refused to adapt to new technology and new processes, and the eventual cost of that inflexibility to the organization.

16:26 Tim adds his own experiences where institutional knowledge was lost as staff did not adapt to change.

18:05 Merv provides an example of flexibility when working with cultural differences in staff work preferences, in this case the various generations on his project.