Episode 112 – The Role of the Successful Project Manager in Innovation Manage This - The Project Management Podcast
-
- Management
Hear about the role of the project manager in successful innovation from John Carter, an inventor of the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones who shares the original patent with Dr. Amar Bose. John shares the surprising discovery they made by talking to customers about critical features. Topics include the differences between a program manager and a project manager, career progression for a PM, how to assess PM talent, managing project risk, establishing boundary conditions, small “a” Agile, and the characteristics of a successful PM.
Table of Contents
00:32 … Meet John
03:43 … The Bose Headphone Project
06:14 … Listening to the Customer
10:00 … Taking Risks in Innovation Projects
13:45 … Courage to Bring Bad News
15:30 … Effect of COVID-19 on Innovation and Work
19:46 … Program Management vs. Project Management
22:21 … Career Progression from PM to Program Management
26:19 … Characteristics of a Successful PM
28:11 … Why is it Difficult to Hire a Successful PM?
30:38 … Small “a” Agile
35:55 … Establishing Boundary Conditions
40:48 … John’s Success Tips
43:31 … Get in Touch with John
44:14 … Closing
WENDY GROUNDS: Welcome
to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. A word
to our listeners. If you have an
interesting COVID-19 story, how your project has been impacted by the pandemic,
we’d love to hear from you. You can
email me at manage_this@velociteach.com. I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me is
project manager Bill Yates.
BILL YATES: Hi, Wendy.
WENDY GROUNDS: We’re going to talk to someone today who is a
true innovation veteran.
Meet John
BILL YATES: Yeah,
Wendy, I’m so excited to have John Carter join us. He is very respected in the area of
innovation and product development. He
is actually the co-inventor of the Bose
Noise Cancelling Headphones . We’ll certainly jump into this Bose topic
with him. That’ll be a lot of fun to
discuss.
WENDY GROUNDS: John
is also the founder of TCGen, and he’s
also been advisor to companies like Apple and Amazon with their product development and innovation
processes. So I think he comes with a
lot of experience and a lot of knowledge that he’ll be able to impart to us.
BILL YATES: Yes. John has been a project manager. He’s been a product manager, he’s been a manager of managers, he’s led his own company, and so I cannot wait for the advice he’s going to share with us.
WENDY GROUNDS: John,
welcome to Manage This. We’re so
grateful to you for being with us today and being our guest.
JOHN CARTER: Well,
thanks for having me.
WENDY GROUNDS: Well,
we want to start off by asking you about your career path, and particularly to
do with the Bose headphones. I think
most people are really going to be interested in hearing about that. So tell me a little bit about yourself.
JOHN CARTER: Well,
thanks for asking. And it’s really part
of my passion. It was true since I was a
kid. I’ve always been kind of a boy
scientist and had a chemistry set and microscope, telescope, I mean, whatever I could get my
hands on. I really, really enjoyed
technology. As I grew up, though, I
found the importance of sound. I really thought
that that was something I wanted to know about.
It’s invisible. It conveys
meaning and emotion. And as I learned
more, it has incredible range as far as what it can be used for. Obviously speech versus music is something
that’s happening today. With mobile
phones and speech recognition it’s just the Wild West. So I’ve always been interested in sound. In college I designed a music synthesizer
from scratch before its time.
BILL YATES: Of course
you did.
JOHN CARTER: Yeah,
right. It kind of worked. And when I was looking at graduate school, I
looked at places that had audio programs.
And one of them was Stanford;
the other was MIT. And I knew that Dr. Bose taught a
Hear about the role of the project manager in successful innovation from John Carter, an inventor of the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones who shares the original patent with Dr. Amar Bose. John shares the surprising discovery they made by talking to customers about critical features. Topics include the differences between a program manager and a project manager, career progression for a PM, how to assess PM talent, managing project risk, establishing boundary conditions, small “a” Agile, and the characteristics of a successful PM.
Table of Contents
00:32 … Meet John
03:43 … The Bose Headphone Project
06:14 … Listening to the Customer
10:00 … Taking Risks in Innovation Projects
13:45 … Courage to Bring Bad News
15:30 … Effect of COVID-19 on Innovation and Work
19:46 … Program Management vs. Project Management
22:21 … Career Progression from PM to Program Management
26:19 … Characteristics of a Successful PM
28:11 … Why is it Difficult to Hire a Successful PM?
30:38 … Small “a” Agile
35:55 … Establishing Boundary Conditions
40:48 … John’s Success Tips
43:31 … Get in Touch with John
44:14 … Closing
WENDY GROUNDS: Welcome
to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. A word
to our listeners. If you have an
interesting COVID-19 story, how your project has been impacted by the pandemic,
we’d love to hear from you. You can
email me at manage_this@velociteach.com. I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me is
project manager Bill Yates.
BILL YATES: Hi, Wendy.
WENDY GROUNDS: We’re going to talk to someone today who is a
true innovation veteran.
Meet John
BILL YATES: Yeah,
Wendy, I’m so excited to have John Carter join us. He is very respected in the area of
innovation and product development. He
is actually the co-inventor of the Bose
Noise Cancelling Headphones . We’ll certainly jump into this Bose topic
with him. That’ll be a lot of fun to
discuss.
WENDY GROUNDS: John
is also the founder of TCGen, and he’s
also been advisor to companies like Apple and Amazon with their product development and innovation
processes. So I think he comes with a
lot of experience and a lot of knowledge that he’ll be able to impart to us.
BILL YATES: Yes. John has been a project manager. He’s been a product manager, he’s been a manager of managers, he’s led his own company, and so I cannot wait for the advice he’s going to share with us.
WENDY GROUNDS: John,
welcome to Manage This. We’re so
grateful to you for being with us today and being our guest.
JOHN CARTER: Well,
thanks for having me.
WENDY GROUNDS: Well,
we want to start off by asking you about your career path, and particularly to
do with the Bose headphones. I think
most people are really going to be interested in hearing about that. So tell me a little bit about yourself.
JOHN CARTER: Well,
thanks for asking. And it’s really part
of my passion. It was true since I was a
kid. I’ve always been kind of a boy
scientist and had a chemistry set and microscope, telescope, I mean, whatever I could get my
hands on. I really, really enjoyed
technology. As I grew up, though, I
found the importance of sound. I really thought
that that was something I wanted to know about.
It’s invisible. It conveys
meaning and emotion. And as I learned
more, it has incredible range as far as what it can be used for. Obviously speech versus music is something
that’s happening today. With mobile
phones and speech recognition it’s just the Wild West. So I’ve always been interested in sound. In college I designed a music synthesizer
from scratch before its time.
BILL YATES: Of course
you did.
JOHN CARTER: Yeah,
right. It kind of worked. And when I was looking at graduate school, I
looked at places that had audio programs.
And one of them was Stanford;
the other was MIT. And I knew that Dr. Bose taught a