Project Management Happy Hour Kim Essendrup and Kate Anderson

Project Management is weird. You can have the same job title and be a very tactical execution-minded project manager - which is the way most of us start. Or you can be a strategic part of the leadership team, recognized for your ability to help executives make their vision a reality. 
So, how do you develop yourself from tactical implementer to strategic partner? 
This episode we are joined by two experienced leaders, Ralph Kliem and Gregg Richie, who have made this transition, and rose to provide pivotal strategic partnership roles with executive teams to help them develop Disaster Recovery capabilities. In fact, they wrote the book on it: Business Continuity Planning: A Project Management Approach. Ralph and Gregg will talk us through how to step beyond the mindset of a tactical project manager and engage with our leadership teams as a strategic partner.
About our amazing guests, Ralph Kliem and Gregg Richie
Ralph Kliem, M.A.,PMP, CBCP, is the author or co-author of twenty books, including the Management Lessons of the Great Explorers; Political Risk Management and the Global Supply Chain; Business Continuity Planning; and Leading High Performance Projects. He has also published in the Project Management Journal and PM Network. 
He managed numerous business continuity projects and programs for major airplane programs at The Boeing Company as well as financial, operational auditing, and information systems projects. He is now retired after over 40 years in the private and public sectors. 
Gregg D. Richie, has over 40 years of experience in project management.  His education includes a MBA with a specialization in Project Management from Indiana Wesleyan University, a BS in Workforce Education and Development from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and a Master’s Certificate in Applied Project Management from Villanova University.
He has managed, participated in, or consulted on more than 1200 projects in his career, and  He authored three books on Microsoft Project.  As a retired member of the US Navy SEABEES, he uses real-world experiences in teaching project management concepts.
You can follow or connect with Gregg at: 
 @GreggDRichie
https://www.linkedin.com/in/greggrichie/
 
You can find their book on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Business-Continuity-Planning-Management-Approach/dp/1482251787/ 
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Meetings. Love them or hate them, they are core to what we do as project leaders. We need to pull people together (real or virtually) to discuss, plan, check-in, and get things done. But as we know, when we get people together, sometimes their misbehaviors - “goblins” - tag along, too!
Being able to manage effective meetings can make or break us as PMs. And learning how to manage these misbehaviors in meetings can make or break each meeting. Fortunately, we have help! This episode we are joined by Rich Maltzman of Boston University. Rich and his colleague Jim Steward wrote the book, “Great Meetings Build Great Teams: A Guide for Project Leaders and Agilists.” In this book, Rich and Jim write about these “meeting goblins” - how to identify them, and how to respond effectively to keep your meeting on track. 
Join us and learn how to tame the meeting goblins! 
You can find Rich’s book on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Meetings-Build-Teams-Agilists/dp/1637424752/
And check out the website here: http://projectmeetings.us
You can connect directly with Rich and his co-author, Jim on linked in here: 
Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/exclaim/
Jim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimstewartpmp/
 
And if you would like to study project management with Rich at Boston University, you can read about their globally respected program here: https://www.bu.edu/met/programs/project-management/
 
About our amazing guest, Rich Maltzman
Rich considers himself a ‘pracademic’ – and is now Master Lecturer at Boston University, an author, and a consultant, providing clients with a deep learning experience and improved results. He had a 40-year career in telecom, mainly in engineering and project management.  At the University level, his focus is always on converting weaknesses into strengths while teaching clients/students how to apply learned skills to everyday situations. 
Rich co-founded EarthPM, LLC, a company devoted to integrating sustainability thinking into project management. His integration of a holistic, global view of project management has resulted in international consulting and speaking engagements in which the focus is the long-term success of projects, with an eye towards ecological and social systems. His blog at the projectmanagement.com site has become very popular.
A co-author of seven books on project leadership, Rich is a former VP of Professional Development for PMI Mass Bay (the Boston area PMI Chapter), and was on the Review Committee for the 7th Edition PMBOK® Guide, helping to assure that sustainability thinking finally made it into the Standard and the Body of Knowledge.
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We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Linkedin and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.
 

“What percent done are you?” 

Status reporting is a core skill (and responsibility) of project managers. It is an opportunity for you to check in with your team, and to build rapport and engagement with stakeholders. But it’s also something we often take for granted. 
In this episode, Kate and Kim talk about how to approach status reporting whether your project is big or small, and how to leverage this key communication point to help with overall project success.  
Why Status Reporting? 
Essential for communicating project progress and challenges
Builds trust with stakeholders by demonstrating progress
Tailoring Status Reports
Reports should be adapted to audience needs
Understanding the audience (executives, team members, stakeholders) is crucial!
Components of an Effective Status Report
Executive Summary: A clear, concise overview
Accomplishments: Completed tasks or milestones
Upcoming Tasks: Planned activities or next steps
Risks and Issues: Key challenges and potential problems
Go-to-Green Plan: Strategy for addressing significant off-track areas
RAG Status: Red, Amber, Green indicators for project health
Budget Status: Financial overview (where applicable)
Timeline Overview: High-level graphical representation of key events
Approaches to Percent Complete
Debate on the utility and accuracy of percent-complete metrics
Preference for tying status to key milestones over percent completion
Status Report Frequency and Medium
Weekly status meetings with teams
Different report cadences for different audience levels (e.g., executive status monthly)
Possible mediums: Email, PowerPoint, Slack, or other communication tools
Challenges in Status Reporting
Ensuring stakeholder engagement and consumption of reports
Potential pushback on RAG status, especially when reporting red or amber
Importance of team input and alignment on report content
Additional Recommendations
Focus on highlighting value and progress in reports
Importance of clear, effective communication in status reports
Using status reports for accountability and project alignment
 
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Being a project manager is tough. You are assigned a team of people who may never have with each other (or you) before, and you need to lead them to accomplish a task, solve a problem, or create a new deliverable. And by definition, this is a unique task - so it hasn’t been done before, at least not in this way, for these stakeholders. 
In among these challenges is perhaps the toughest one: you have to lead this group of people. As project managers, these people almost never report to us - someone else is their boss. So, how do we provide leadership and direction to a group of people when you are not their boss? How do you tell them what to do? 
Sure, we could talk about servant leadership and how a PM is a facilitator, who should be working to enable, motivate and coach the team. But in the real world, you need to get these people to get stuff done, or you are all going to fail. 
In today’s episode, Kate and Kim talk about this conundrum, and offer advice based on their real-world challenges trying to get people to do things - who don’t report to them. 
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It can be hard getting a project started correctly: getting the right executive and stakeholder sponsorship and support, getting them all to agree on the scope and approach, getting funding, approvals, and all the other things required to get a project off the ground.
You negotiate with other departments and get committed resource assignments and timelines. You finally get your amazing project off the ground, you’re humming along then, BOOM! The organization changes. 
Your stakeholders change. Your executive sponsors change. The structure or ownership of the organization changes. Your resources are all moved to different teams. 
And you’re caught-out like a PM with a flip-phone at an iphone convention. 
What now? What do you do? How do you re-align your project and ensure its success in the new (or ever changing) organizational environment? This is the problem that Kate and Kim are painfully familiar with, and tackle on this episode. 
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We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Linkedin and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.
 

Projects are hard. And a lot of them - maybe most of them - fail to live up to their expectations. Missed timelines, quality issues, budget overages, customer dissatisfaction - it seems sometimes like projects miss the mark more often than they hit it. But why is that? What can we learn from all those past projects that can help us make future projects more successful? 
This is the question Jim Johnson set out to understand. In his years with the Standish Group, he and his team set the benchmark for one of the most respected analysis on project outcomes: the CHAOS Report. Join us in this short chat with Jim, as he tells us about the CHAOS report and some of his most important findings over the years. And maybe like Kate and I, you can also learn some important lessons from all those past project challenges.
About our esteemed guest, Jim Johnson
Jim Johnson is the retired founder and past chairman of the Standish Group, a globally respected source of independent primary research and analysis of IT project performance. He is best known for his research on why projects fail, as well as on system costs and availability. He is also a pioneer of modern research techniques such as virtual focus groups and case-based analytical technology.
Get your copy of the CHAOS report here: 
https://standishgroup.myshopify.com/ 
 
JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR!
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STUMP THE PM’S!
We love to hear about your tough PM issues, so please hit us up at podcast@pmhappyhour.com or on Linkedin and we’ll see if we can help you. If we use your question, we’ll send you a PM Happy Hour coaster you can enjoy at your next happy hour.