Project Managers' Coffee Chat with Tim & Merv

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome conclude the fourth season by reflecting on the significant themes discussed throughout the season, focusing on the human aspects of project management. They revisit the importance of leadership, communication, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and resilience in achieving exceptional project results. Drawing from personal experiences and industry standards, the hosts emphasize learning to lead with empathy, cultural awareness, and ethical governance. They also highlight the necessity of practical skills like problem solving, negotiation, and networking within the realm of project leadership.

Main Take-Aways

Season 4 is a wrap with this episode, #120. Your hosts, Tim Jerome and Merv Jersak:

• reflect on the leadership focus of the season
• summarize the leadership skills that were covered in greater detail throughout the season
• encourage you to listen to the various episodes and apply their learnings to your own experience to see where you may improve your own leadership skills

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: 24 Weeks to a More Successful Project Leadership Experience

00:27 Reflecting on the leadership focus of Season 4 and how we determined the subject matter for the 24 weeks of episodes. Season 4 discussed the important project leadership traits (indeed leadership traits in general) that go beyond just process and technology – the human factors that are absolutely necessary to enhance your skills as a highly competent leader.

04:17 A look back at Season 4, beginning with this week's summation of enhancing these human factors expounded upon during the season through self-directed learning and focusing on providing value:

06:48 … the foundational skills of leadership with a deeper dive into leaders and teams, leaders and stakeholders, leaders and management

10:11 … collaboration within your teams and with your stakeholders

10:53 … communication, plus more focused discussions on both oral and written communication skills

12:05 … cultural awareness

12:50 … discipline, time management, and prioritization

13:56 … emotional intelligence with a focus on self-regulation and self-awareness

15:14 … adaptability, flexibility, and resilience

16:40 … problem solving and critical thinking

17:21 … creativity and innovation

18:04 … negotiation and influence, creating relationships

18:45 … networking, with a much-ignored offshoot of learning to "work the room"

20:06 … ethics and morals, followed by governance and compliance

21:10 … uncommon common sense

22:16 Encouragement to you the listener to review the topics of this 24-week season to help you become a more solid, more informed leader and more solid human being in all aspects of your life.

22:58 Tim and Merv conclude this episode and this season by reflecting on what they personally most enjoyed about their discussions.

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome discuss the pursuit of value when delivering results for your customers. They consider the importance of aligning project goals with meaningful business impacts and the personal needs of team members and stakeholders. Through topics like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, stakeholder satisfaction, and overcoming challenges such as resistance to change and sustaining commitment, the hosts share practical tips and strategies for project managers to ensure successful project delivery that resonates functionally and is pleasing to your end-users. The episode underscores the significance of early communication, requirements gathering, and continuous improvement in realizing long-term project success.

Main Take-Aways

Project leaders have an incentive to deliver value to their stakeholders. Some thoughts on the pursuit of value:

• providing meaningful business impact
• understanding organizational needs
• personal needs fulfillment
• aligning project value with organizational values and business objectives
• delivering customer-centric solutions
• long-term sustainability
• continuous improvement
• measuring value delivered
• challenges to implementing value and mitigating those challenges
• sustaining team member commitment to delivering value

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leaders Pursue Value

00:27 Pursuing value in project delivery means providing meaningful business impact, understanding and meeting organizational needs.

01:51 Pursuing value also helps fulfill the personal needs of team members and stakeholders.

03:29 Aligning project values with organizational values, taking into account not just functional values but also emotional values of the team and stakeholder community.

04:12 As professionals, you have the obligation to guide your customers in achieving the best value from the product you are delivering, to align results with business objectives.

07:22 Taking a customer-centric, human-centered design approach often results in satisfied customers, end-users.

08:54 Pursuing value in long-term sustainability of the delivered product benefits your customers. Designs with continuous improvement in mind add to this value.

11:04 Measuring whether you have provided value can be determined from post-project assessments, customer response, return-on-investment analysis, and comparing what was delivered to what was requested.

12:56 Challenges in implementing value include resistance from individuals within the organization, change (disruptive to the status quo), ambiguity in goal setting and translating executive objectives to the project team, inadequate communication, misaligned results when compared to organizational values.

15:19 Participating in the up-front analysis to gather organizational needs and understand objectives can help mitigate challenges to delivering value over the life of the project.

17:33 Sustaining commitment in longer duration projects helps deliver value through ongoing reminders of the project objectives.

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome dive deep into the concept of value in project management. They discuss what value means, how it differs from benefits, and why it's crucial for project success. They address the importance of value-based goals, tangible business results, and the human-centered approach to design. They also explore the challenges of aligning stakeholder expectations with project outcomes and the methodologies to measure and validate value delivered. Join them for insights on how to enhance project delivery by focusing on the human aspects and ensuring that projects meet both functional and emotional needs.

Main Take-Aways

Everything you do to develop the human aspects of your project leadership skills is designed to deliver value to your customers:

• defining value
• focusing on value-based goals
• considering the benefits of enhancing project value
• delivering tangible results
• human-centered design
• identifying value
• measuring value
• building value considerations into your projects

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leaders Create Value

00:27 Season 4 of the Project Managers' Coffee Chat is focused on developing the strong human factors that will make you a more effective leader. And it all boils down to creating value for our end-user community,

00:58 Defining value as it pertains to project management.

02:01 The PMBOK emphasizes value creation.

02:31 Focusing on value-based goals and tangible results.

04:24 Benefits of enhancing project value: better decision making, motivated teams, shared goals, improved bottom line, etc.

06:30 Delivering tangible benefits in addition to the required functionality.

08:56 Designing systems from a human perspective (human-centered design) is critical to adding value.

09:52 How to identify value – by listening and understanding user needs.

13:41 How to validate that you have delivered value – "as measured by …".

16:40 Building value considerations into every aspect of the project, beginning with the tasks on the project plan.

17:57 Value is a human component of what we do as project leaders, as well as a direct goal of how we manage projects.

Hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome explore the importance of self-learning and self-directed learning for project managers. Emphasizing the learnable nature of learning itself, they discuss cultivating a learning mindset, the benefits of adaptability, and how making and reflecting on mistakes contributes to growth. The conversation touches on strategies such as practice, active reading, effective notetaking, and time management. They highlight the value of curiosity, motivation, and setting up a conducive learning environment, along with the significance of emotional intelligence and self-awareness. The episode concludes with a discussion on creating guardrails and recognizing the importance of learning from failure to provide value to oneself, teams, and customers.

Main Take-Aways

The benefits of self-learning:

• to keep up with the changes
• to understand that mistakes are not bad
• to apply emotional intelligence
• to use your natural curiosity and motivation
• to increase your self-confidence

How to learn how to learn:

• put your learning into practice immediately
• apply learning strategies
• consolidate new learnings into a journal
• cultivate a growth mindset
• follow your natural curiosity
• learn to self-reflect
• apply lessons learned
• learn to contribute to and share ideas in group situations
• learn from your mistakes
• focus on what you don't understand
• develop strong learning habits
• embrace your failures
• establish guardrails
• analyze failures and mistakes and identify areas for change and growth
• don't berate yourself for failures or mistakes

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Why Self-Learning is Important

00:27 Introducing the importance of learning and cultivating a learning mindset. Learning to learn is learnable! Yet so often we are taught to learn through memorization which is less effective.

01:33 The benefits of learning how to learn:

02:21 … to keep up with the fast pace of your changing world

02:45 … to understand that making mistakes is not a bad thing; it helps you learn

03:55 … to apply your emotional intelligence to spur on learning

04:21 … to use your natural curiosity and motivation to aid in self-learning

05:38 … to increase your self-confidence

06:06 Ideas you can implement to help you learn how to learn:

06:24 … put your learning into practice immediately

07:34 … apply learning strategies such as active reading, note-taking, time management, organization

08:18 … consolidate new learnings into a journal

08:47 … cultivate a growth mindset

09:18 … follow your natural curiosity

10:04 … learn to self-reflect to determine how you best learn

10:46 … consider lessons learned (and learn from them!)

11:28 … learn to contribute to and share ideas in group situations

12:08 … learn from your mistakes

13:07 … focus your studies on what you don't understand

14:01 … develop strong learning habits that work for you (e.g., dedicated time and place, quiet time, Pomodoro technique, etc.)

16:01 … embrace your failures as learning opportunities

16:28 … establish guardrails to guide your actions

17:46 … analyze failures and mistakes and identify areas for change and growth

18:40 … don't berate yourself for failures or mistakes

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome explore the importance of learning in the realm of project management. They emphasize the pivotal role of self-directed learning in improving project delivery, not just for project managers but for leaders across various fields. Drawing from personal experiences and industry insights, they discuss the concept of 'learning to learn' and its impact on careers, teams, and customer satisfaction. The hosts also dive into the challenges that hinder effective learning, such as work pressures and unsupportive organizational cultures, and suggest practical strategies for overcoming these barriers. This episode kicks off a reflective week aimed at equipping listeners with valuable tools and techniques to enhance their project management practices.

Main Take-Aways

The entire Season 4 focuses on the human factors that enhance your ability to lead. Self-learning or learning to learn is important in developing these people-related skills:

• why you should never stop learning
• defining what we mean by self-directed learning
• leaders are not born; leaders know how to learn
• having a sense of curiosity
• modalities for learning
• barriers to learning

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Self-Learning for Project Success

00:28 Reflecting on the Season 4 journey of podcast episodes focused on leadership topics for the project leader and for leadership in general.

01:48 Learning to learn – the core concept.

02:32 The importance of self-directed learning – why you should never stop learning.

03:41 Defining self-directed learning to put the next several episodes in context.

04:53 Leaders are not born. You can learn to be an excellent leader, and some of that comes with your ability of learning to learn.

05:52 Curiosity is critical to your ability to learn to learn. Curiosity leads to effort and focus.

09:09 Individuals learn through a variety of learning modalities (e.g., auditory, visual, kinesthetic, etc.).

10:59 Strategizing self-learning using the what, why, how, tools, and stories (i.e., reviewing the many episodes of this podcast's Season 4).

12:20 Some barriers to learning and learning to overcome these barriers:

12:33 … project pressures and time constraints

12:57 … communication – and the noise in our heads that prevents you from completely learning

15:18 … organizational culture that doesn't support learning

16:47 … lack of mentorship and limited feedback

17:05 … lack of motivation

17:39 … lack of self-awareness

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome share insightful stories that highlight the impact of applying common sense in both professional and everyday settings. From delegation strategies to practical tips on organization and emotional intelligence, listeners will learn how to leverage common sense to improve project outcomes. This engaging discussion emphasizes the importance of empathy, adaptability, and practical solutions in navigating the challenges of project management.

Main Take-Aways

Stories are powerful teachers. In this podcast your hosts provide life lessons from personal experiences to illustrate the criticality of applying common sense in our personal and professional lives:

• mentor through practical application
• apply common sense to all aspects of your life
• be creative in seeking common sense solutions to work challenges
• in some situations, check with others before taking action
• venture away from the status quo
• do the right thing always
• be authentic
• be careful when posting on social media
• don't assume that others have the same level of knowledge (or common sense) that you do

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leadership Lessons from the Trenches – It's Common Sense!

01:11 Tim begins this episode with an experience of a manager who mentored through action. Tim learned delegation and innovation from his manager's hands-on application.

02:59 Merv ventures away from career to practical everyday examples of using (and not using) common sense. Practice common sense in all aspects of your life.

04:57 Tim tells of a time as a consultant when he applied common sense to retain a member of the team who was about to leave the project.

06:38 Tim follows this up with a common-sense lesson learned from an experienced person when his car would not start.

07:58 Merv recounts a time that was embarrassing for his company when one of his team – not using common sense – implemented a software change the day before the system was to go live.

09:34 Tim continues with an example from consulting where using the status quo dampened the team's using common sense to problem solve more creatively. He learned over time to listen for what his customer was not telling him, rather than follow his team's normal process of templates and scripts.

12:21 Merv tells of an incident whereby a young person arriving for a job interview was rude to a person outside of the office building, only to soon discover that the person he was rude to was his interviewer. Tim expands on that hard lesson by bringing it back to always doing the right thing.

14:19 Tim and a colleague observed that people often are not authentic in the analysis of their work situations, and that it is only through being authentic that true solutions can be arrived at.

17:41 Merv describes his organization's policies regarding the use of social media when working in client situations.

19:31 Merv then wraps up with a story from his boyhood when working with his father on the family farm. His father had a wealth of common sense knowledge regarding farming, but less common sense when dealing with his son in that he made the mistake of assuming that Merv had similar knowledge.

Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome discuss strategies to enhance project delivery and highlight the importance of stepping away from work to gain fresh perspectives, improving communication to explain complex concepts simply, and leveraging various modalities to share information effectively. The hosts emphasize the significance of emotional intelligence, self-learning, mentorship, and staying connected with frontline realities. They conclude with insights on mindfulness and presence in project management.

Main Take-Aways

Practical tips, tools, and techniques for developing common sense to guide you as you provide leadership direction and get involved in solving problems:

1) change your environment when getting bogged own

2) continuously improve your communication skills

3) apply various modalities to your learning

4) seek out diverse experiences

5) consider applying "moonshots" to your brainstorming

6) consider the long-term consequences of any decision you make

7) learn to apply alternatives analysis

8) enhance your emotional intelligence skills

9) never stop learning

10) stay abreast of frontline realities

11) avoid dead ends and rabbit holes

12) develop mentorships and apply lessons learned

13) practice mindfulness and being present

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Tips, Tools, and Techniques to Greater Common Sense

01:27 Tim provides the first tip by advising you to change your environment, to step away, when you feel that your ability to make common sense decisions begins to bog down.

02:40 Merv has found that the several years he has invested in improving his ability to communicate have paid off in his ability to provide common-sense approached to various project situations.

03:57 Tim piggybacks on that idea by advising you to learn various modalities to help in learning – modalities that assist in common-sense thinking and application.

05:43 Merv has spent time in a variety of career experiences, each one enhancing his ability to apply common sense to various project activities and issues.

07:42 Tim uses a concept he calls "moonshots" to apply common-sense approaches to innovative thinking.

09:15 Merv adds an idea that you should consider long-term consequences of any decision you are about to make to help develop common-sense approaches to that decision-making.

09:51 Tim suggests that considering long-term consequences can be helped by applying alternatives analysis.

11:08 Merv reverts to a favorite topic, that of using your emotional intelligence abilities to assist you with applying common sense approaches.

12:14 Tim encourages continuous self-learning.

13:02 Merv maintains that by staying abreast of the frontline realities of your project as it progresses helps in understanding how to approach problem-solving and general direction with informed common sense. Tim add systems thinking and prioritization to the need for maintaining a working knowledge of frontline realities.

15:34 Tim cautions you about focusing too much time on dead ends or on going down rabbit holes.

16:58 Merv brings in the need for developing mentorship and applying lessons learned to help develop your common sense.

20:25 Tim completes this episode by encouraging you to practice mindfulness and being present to aid in your ability to apply common sense approaches to your work.

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome dive into the concept of common sense in leadership, discussing its key traits and the ways to cultivate it. They explore the importance of emotional intelligence, effective communication, problem-solving, adaptability, empathy, integrity, inclusivity, and lateral thinking as essential components of common-sense leadership. They also share personal anecdotes and emphasize self-reflection, continuous learning, and the balance between technology and human intuition. Tomorrow's episode promises practical tips and tools to apply these insights to improve leadership skills.

Main Take-Aways

Common sense is learned. You are not naturally born with common sense. So what are some common sense traits of project leaders?

• emotional intelligence
• communication skills
• problem solving skills
• adaptability
• empathy
• integrity (ethics and morals)
• decisiveness and calmness under pressure
• inclusivity
• accountability
• diversity of experience(s)
• fostering a culture of open communication
• critical thinking/lateral thinking
• balancing technology and human intuition

And how can you begin to develop them in yourself?

• self-reflection
• learning from mistakes
• seeking diverse perspectives
• mindfulness
• continuous learning
• practicing alternatives analysis

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Cultivating Common Sense in Leadership

00:29 Common sense is not innate; it can be learned.

01:00 Some key traits of common-sense leaders:

01:22 … emotional intelligence and using your emotions effectively

01:46 … effective communication skills

02:28 … problem solving skills that involve both logic (data) and the understanding of human behavior

03:28 … adaptability and the ability to adjust course

04:08 … empathy and consideration of others' ideas

04:57 … integrity (ethics and morals)

05:32 … decisiveness and calmness under pressure

07:43 … inclusivity

08:13 … accountability

08:58 … diversity of experience(s)

10:54 … fostering a culture of open communication

11:18 … critical thinking/lateral thinking

12:34 … balancing technology and human intuition

14:20 High-level strategies that you can consider to develop common sense as pert of your growth as a leader:

14:42 … self-reflection

15:47 … not denigrating yourself for mistakes; learning from them

17:11 … seeking diverse perspectives

18:04 … quieting your mind, being mindful

18:54 … attitude of continuous improvement and continuous learning

20:25 … practicing alternatives analysis

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome consider the challenges project managers face in applying common sense in leadership roles, especially in IT project management. They discuss the over-reliance on data and artificial intelligence, the pressures of urgency, and the impact of cognitive biases. The episode highlights the need for balancing data-driven decisions with practical common sense, understanding organizational politics, and maintaining diverse experiences. It also explores the importance of self-reflection and creating an environment that fosters practical decision-making.

Main Take-Aways

Project leaders, and leaders in general, often make decisions without applying common sense to that process. What are some of the reasons?

• over-reliance on data and artificial intelligence
• increasing complexity in business and on projects
• urgency and time pressures
• wanting to appear sophisticated in their decision-making
• cognitive bias and blind spots
• refusing to get into the details
• relying on the status quo
• lack of diverse experiences
• lack of self-reflection
• assuming that others share your approach to solutions
• rigid adherence to rules and process

What are some simple strategies can you apply to combat these?

• creating a collaborative environment
• communicating clearly
• staying connected to frontline issues
• balancing data-driven and common sense application to decision-making

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Why Common Sense is Uncommon

00:29 Exploring why common sense in leadership is not always common.

01:11 The impact of over reliance on data (and possibly AI) to help make decisions, thus taking away much of the application of intuition/common sense. Decisions become more perfunctory and less creative.

02:54 Increasing complexity in managing business, and in the projects you undertake, are making the application of common sense more challenging.

03:39 Urgency and timeline/schedule pressures create an environment for poor decision-making and absence of common sense.

04:31 Leaders who wish to appear sophisticated and on top of the complexities of their decision-making sometimes set aside common sense in making those decisions. Organizational politics can hinder good application of common sense. Simplicity is the key to application of common sense.

06:21 Cognitive biases and blind spots can inadvertently, unknowingly, substitute for thoughtful decision-making using common sense.

08:50 Management with only a cursory understanding of what projects entail often inaccurately instruct their teams to make decisions. Common sense suggests that such individuals get into more detail before issuing directives that can derail the team.

10:11 Status quo – doing things the way they have always been done – can hinder your ability to apply common sense.

11:26 A lack of diverse experience as a leader impedes the ability to apply common sense to various project challenges.

13:20 The inability to self-reflect reduces the ability to learn from past decisions and hone our common sense for future decision-making.

14:14 Assuming that your thinking process is shared by others results in inadequate sharing of information and incomplete decision-making. This to hampers common sense.

16:52 Rigid adherence to rules and process stymies application of common sense.

18:35 Strategies to combat these barriers to applying common sense include the following:

18:49 … creating an environment that fosters collaborative working together

19:06 … communicating clearly

19:30 … staying connected with frontline events and issues

19:55 … balancing data driven decision-making with the application of common sense to those decisions

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome delve into the concept of 'common sense' within project management, particularly focusing on why it sometimes appears uncommon. They discuss how common sense bridges technical know-how and business requirements, its role in decision-making, and its importance in leadership. The discussion spans emotional intelligence, ethics, team management, and the evolution of common sense through experience and mentorship. The hosts also explore how common sense can simplify solutions and highlight the significance of communication in applying common sense effectively.

Main Take-Aways

The most successful project managers display an uncommon ability to apply common sense to their decision-making and overall management. Some key perspectives include:

• defining uncommon common sense
• relying on status quo in common sense decision-making
• the importance of common sense to your ability to manage as is your technical skill
• bridging business and technical perspectives
• finding simple solutions rather than complex ones
• focusing on high priority tasks
• acting ethically
• developing common sense through experience over time
• the importance of mentorship
• applying self-reflection
• developing habits
• using common sense in social situations
• attention to hunches and nudges
• applying common sense to decision-making
• having excellent communication skills

Show Notes

Today's Project Managers Coffee Chat: Common Sense is Not Always So Common

00:27 Exploring the concept of applying common sense to your role as project leaders.

02:09 Defining common sense in leadership to set the context for the next five podcast episodes.

03:15 The positives and negatives of relying on status quo with regard to common sense.

04:03 Common sense is as essential to your leadership role (or perhaps more so) as is your technical abilities in your position.

04:43 Two ways of looking at uncommon common sense: 1) it's uncommon because it is rarely use, and 2) it's uncommon in that it's extraordinarily astute.

06:01 Effectively being able to bridge technical and business perspectives is a common sense skill to learn.

07:18 The ability to find simple solutions over complex ones is a common sense approach.

08:44 Focusing on high priority tasks rather than attending to every task that demands your attention is a sign of common sense prioritization.

09:13 Common sense requires attention to ethical behaviors which helps build trust and rapport.

10:23 Developing common sense takes time and is best learned through practical experience, including the mistakes you make.

11:18 Develop strong mentorship to help build your common sense approach to managing projects.

11:35 Common sense is also built through self-reflection and self-regulation (e.g. keep a journal to track your decision-making over time).

12:53 The role of developing habits and their relationship to common sense.

14:59 Using common sense in social situations and project situations.

16:34 Intuition (hunches and nudges) are useful in building good common sense approaches to project work and life in general.

18:47 Applying common sense in decision making, solutioning, brainstorming, analysis, etc.

20:11 Excellent communication skills are a strong indicator of excellent common sense.