The Project Chatter Podcast

The Project Chatter Podcast

By Dale Foong and Val MatthewsBusiness
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The Project Chatter Podcast episodes

  • S3E68: Emphasising Fusion Skills on Projects with Anne Bamford & Steve Wake

    In this episode, Dale and Val take Fusion to the next level with Anne Bamford and Steve Wake. A follow-on from episode 66, Val and Dale lift the hood and really understand how fusion skills, training, and inclusion could change the very success of projects. 

    Professor Anne Bamford OBE is Strategic Director of the Education and Skills for the City of London. Anne has been recognized internationally for her research in creativity, lifelong learning, and technology. She instigated the term, ‘fusion skills’ to describe the competencies needed for flourishing now and into the future. Through her research, she has pursued issues of innovation, social impact and equality, and diversity. A world scholar for UNESCOs, Anne has conducted major national impact and evaluation studies for the governments of Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, Hong Kong, Ireland, and Norway. Amongst her numerous articles and book chapters, Anne is the author of the “Wow Factor: Global research compendium on the impact of the arts in education” which has been published in five languages and distributed in more than 40 countries.

    Steve Wake is at the forefront of the development of national and international standards in Project Controls and Management. A genuine thought-leader. A super-connector. A maven. He is a member of the Management Standards committee of the BSi. Currently progressing Project Controls and Benefits Management. He is an internationally acknowledged expert on Earned Value Project Management.. Most recently on the newly published ISO standards for EVM and WBS, and currently he is working on an ISO EVM Implementation Guide. Steve works with government, national and international bodies and academia as a subject matter expert as well as on matters of governance. Steve was one of the authors of Agile Portfolios with ABC. With his Guild of Educators hat on he is working with OECD and the City of London to introduce Fusion Skills internationally to children aged 7-70+ He is also currently working on a Think-Thank for Major Sporting Events. In the afternoons he is championing Circular Economies and Sustainability to combat Climate Change. He has worked in the automotive, print aerospace, defence, insurance, and I.T. industries as a project manager and consultant. He led the Association for Project Management to their award of Royal Charter. He is the Chief examiner for EVM and Planning with APMG. He curates and chairs his own highly-regarded EVA conferences - now in its 25th year and also curates the PMI’s major Synergy event now in its 10th year. He is a visiting lecturer at Warwick WMG, Cranfield, and UCL as well as the Moscow School of Economics. He has an MA in Manpower specialising in the sociology and psychology of organisations and is a member of the London Mozart Players Development Group. His long passion for all kinds of music is almost matched by his continued appreciation of silence.

    Links:

    • About Fusion Skills
    • Fusion Assets 
    • Learn about Fusion
    • Findings and Creative Outputs from Fusion Cities 2 virtual meeting
    • Fusion Cities of the Future
    • Fusion Event REGISTER HERE

      • This podcast is brought to you by:  JustDo.com  InEight.com  PlanAcademy.com - save $75 on any course with this link - www.planacademy.com/chatter/

      1 hr 14 min
    • S3E67: Resource & Effort Management Theorem with Alex James

      In this episode, Dale and Val get geeky about resources and workforce planning! Dive into #resourcemanagement from a potentially new angle with their guest Alex James who is passionate about effort management and #wellbeing on projects.  

      About Alex James; Educated as a civil engineer, Alex has 30 years of experience in construction, design, project, and business case management, fortunately working on signature projects and assets like The Sydney Harbour Tunnel, Sydney Airport, Cross City Tunnel, and Sydney’s rail network. Alex’s frustration with the carnage of poor-quality product, delivered late by stressed people, or low utilisation eroding margins, drove him to better understand the ‘resource management’ enigma.  This led to his creation of the ‘Effort Management Theorem’ used in solutions and analysis offered by his startup RESRODEL. Alex is the Project Leader of an international team developing a ‘Workforce Allocation’ standard, representing the Institute of Management Consultants at Standards Australia and the International Standards Organisation - Human Resource Management Committee. 

      Show notes from Alex James: 

      1. Advanced Effort Management analysis offered by RESRODEL is called ResroOPT
      2. See www.resrodelcom/resroopt with videos
      3. Wellbeing analysis (is being developed in conjunction with Dr. Adrian Medhurst at www.bennybutton.com)

        4. Alex is also presenting at the next - Integrated Project Engineering Congress is at https://ipecongress.com.au    27 - 28 May, Virtual Congress.

        This podcast is brought to you by: JustDo.com InEight.com PlanAcademy.com - save $75 on any course with this link - www.planacademy.com/chatter/

        1 hr 5 min
      4. S3E66: Utilising Fusion Skills on Projects with Carole Still & Jamie Hannon
        In this episode, Dale and Val talk about skills from other professions and how the application of fusing new skills could provide improved ways to manage projects. We're joined by two experts in this field, Carole Still and Jamie Hannon.
        Carole is an award-winning International Educator, United Nations Executive Coach, Chartered Manager, Mediator, and NLP Master Practitioner, Carole has worked in the public and private sectors, spanning the NHS, Accountancy, and Higher Education for 40 years.  Her lecturing expertise spans Leadership, Workplace Psychology, Change management, Mediation, the Art of Networking, and Conflict Resolution.  In 2009 she co-founded Simply Business Skills, a skills-based training company before closing the company in 2014 and donating all its learning resources to Coventry University London.    Since 2010, as one of the first members of staff in Coventry University London, she has held various senior management and academic roles including leading the MBA and Undergraduate Business programmes.  A passionate advocate of experiential and self-reflective learning, Carole’s work in this field, on behalf of Coventry University London, has led to the creation of effective feedback methods and the design and implementation of award-winning business simulations focused on developing the graduate skills employers seek.    As an educationalist, Carole is intensely interested in exploring long-term solutions to the delivery of education, particularly Higher and Further, and how such solutions can cascade down through the education system.    Her Ph.D. research is investigating the common and different understandings of graduate skills, among academics and employers, and how can these impact learning design to develop agile and capable graduates.    She participates in the City of London’s Fusion skills work to bring an understanding of what skills employers want and how they can be articulated in a way in which educators can teach, practice, and assess them.    Carole is a Freeman of the City of London and Court Assistant in the Worshipful Company of Educators.
        Jamie leads an arts-based learning programme that simulates knowledge sharing through the fusion learning model with an emphasis on curiosity, generosity and bravery.  With a career that has drawn on different areas, including performance, theatre producing, and commercial development, Jamie is a living example of this multi-disciplined approach.  Jamie is now designing and piloting new fusion learning programmes for Culture Mile, the Barbican and the City of London Corporation.
        This podcast is brought to you by:
        JustDo.com
        InEight.com
        PlanAcademy.com - save $75 on any course with this link - https://www.planacademy.com/chatter/
        1 hr 13 min
      5. S3E65: Earned Schedule with creator Walter Lipke
        In this episode, Dale and Val get into the geek speak, talking about an additional method to your Earned Value Management methodology. What you may not know is there is a time relative method called Earned Schedule. Val and Dale were fortunate to speak with the creator Walter Lipke and get his take on why this is a useful approach coupled with EVM and other methods to improve time adherence on projects. 
        In this week’s pod, we welcomed Walt Lipke, creator of the Earned Schedule technique used by projects throughout the USA, UK and Australia.
        Walt has 35 years of experience in the avionics industry. As well as being the creator of Earned Schedule, he has published over ninety articles. In 2017 the Australian Project Governance and Control Symposium honoured Walt by establishing the annual Walt Lipke Project Governance and Control Excellence Award.
        For more information on how to use Earned Schedule, visit https://www.earnedschedule.com/
        During the pod, we discussed the following topics:
        Earned Schedule (ES) is effectively an extension to Earned Value Management. The most important development in ES is its ability to more accurately determine the completion date for projects that are behind schedule (or will deliver later than planned.)
        ES uses Earned Value (EV) performance data to generate the time-based information and uses very similar calculations to predict future performance.
        Earned Schedule can be used to “drill down” to identify where deficiencies or constraints may exist and where future rework may be needed if current performance does not change.
        EVM has three different curves: Planned Value, Earned Value and Actual Cost. Once the Earned Value information has been established, you can use Earned Schedule to calculate when this should have been achieved.
        Earned Value needs to be in place in order to generate Earned Schedule data
        It is possible to derive calculated project end dates using ES. Different confidence levels can be used to support this.
        ES is still a new concept, it was created in 2002. This can lead to difficulties in embedding this in the project lifecycle as there is resistance to new concepts.
        Companies such as Project Flight Deck, Scrum Start, Encore Analytics and Project Tracker all have accessible toolsets to help calculate ES.
        The challenge of this is making it relevant to Project Managers. Many PM’s are familiar with showing progress against milestones and using ES can be seen as complex. Having visual aids to show progress can help in this regard.
        It is important to have the right level of data in order to use EVM/ES. Where there are major uncertainties in the project lifecycle such as software, it is useful to use EVM/ES in smaller parts of the project to get the right level of information.
        The most important criteria to the success or failure of EVM is integrity. It is possible to manipulate the data in all directions, therefore it is the role of the PMO to ensure data is transparent and audit-proof.
        There is a risk of hidden re-work if the schedule data is manipulated to avoid scrutiny.
        If you would like to read more about Earned Schedule, you can purchase Walt’s book from the following website: click here 
        This podcast is brought to you by: 
        JustDo.com
        InEight.com
        PlanAcademy.com
        - save $75 on any course with this link - https://www.planacademy.com/chatter/
        1 hr 18 min
      6. S3E64: Crossrail in Review & Systems with Nat Moyes and Richard Palczynski
        In this episode, Dale and Val lift the hood on the UK mega program Crossrail with Richard Palczynski and talk about what systems work on mega programs with our good friend Nat Moyes.
        Crossrail is a railway construction project underway mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency suburban passenger service crossing London from west to east, to be branded the Elizabeth line, by connecting two major railway lines terminating in London, the Great Western Main Line and the Great Eastern Main Line. The project was approved in 2007, and construction began in 2009 on the central section and connections to existing lines that will become part of the route.
        About our guests.. 
        Richard joined Arcadis in February 2019. Throughout his career, he has collected both hands-on programme management experience after working on major programmes such as the Jubilee Line Extension, HS1, West Coast Mainline and Crossrail, where he was Programme Controls Director.
        In his latest role, he is supporting Network Rail’s Transpennine Route Upgrade Programme – a £multi-billion enhancements scheme stretching from Manchester to York. Richard has also collected 6 years in the corporate world helping to run, grow and evolve companies such as Parsons Brinckerhoff, Balfour Beatty and Mace. He is a Fellow with the Institution of Civil Engineers and the APM and is a Supervising Civil Engineer, passionate about skiing and triathlon.
        and...
        Nat Moyes has 12 years at the same software company which is starting to become a rarity, but that is Natalie’s Tenure at Deltek supporting their PPM products and clients. She's seen a lot of industry change, and she's had the privilege to support a number of established clients as well as grow some new ones.
        She's been involved in the APM SIG, steering committees, user groups and general advisory boards, all focused on people, process, toolset.
        Don't forget to buy some Project Chatter merch in our Charity Shop, where all profits are donated to our charity partners.
        This podcast sponsored by:
        JustDo.com
        InEight.com
        PlanAcademy.com
        get $75 off any course by heading to https://www.planacademy.com/chatter
        1 hr 43 min
      9. S3E61: NASA Projects with Kenneth Harris II
        In this episode, Dale and Val talk with Kenny Harris about his experience joining and working in the engineering and project space on some spectacular and cutting-edge NASA projects. Kenny's Bio:Recently acknowledged by Forbes Magazine amongst the...
        1 hr 15 min

      About The Project Chatter Podcast

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      Welcome to Project Chatter,  the podcast where project professionals, specialists and experts from various sectors talk about the latest trends in project management and PMO. Listen to Val and…