Project Management Happy Hour Kim Essendrup and Kate Anderson

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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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.
 

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/ 
 
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Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership
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.
 

Creative decision making is key to what we do in all our projects. According to FourSight, there are 4 distinct voices in the decision making process. Do you have these voices in the room when you make decisions? Do you know when you need all 4 voices - or only a couple specific ones? 
We are joined today by Teresa Lawrence who gave one of the most fun and engaging talks at this past year’s PMI Global Summit in Las Vegas. She talks us through the FourSight approach to creative problem solving, the 4 voices in decision making, and also reveals the results of Kim and Kate’s FourSight assessment on the air! 
Best of all, you can do this too! Check out our page at https://pmhappyhour.com/foursight and sign up to get your own FourSight assessment and join Kim, Kate, Teresa and your fellow Happy Hour fans as we get our results and learn how we can better approach creative problem solving ourselves and with our teams. 
About our amazing guest, Teresa Lawrence, PhD, PMP, CSM
Teresa Lawrence is an influencer and SME on the integration of creativity and Creative Problem Solving (CPS) into Project Management. Since 2017, she has facilitated, trained and consulted to over 85K people since 2017. Investing years of experience in you.  She was a 2019 Small Business Administration Home-based Business of the Year. A cognitive diversity trainer, she joins us today from Florida.
Find out more about the Teresa’s work and FourSight
You can read more about Teresa's work and even engage her to help facilitate your team here: http://internationaldeliverables.com/  You can read about the FourSight assessment here: https://www.foursightonline.com/  JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR!
Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership
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.
 

“I know the world is ending, but do you have wifi here?”
Sounds funny, but it’s deadly serious. Natural disasters impact critical infrastructure that we depend on every day: shelter, fresh water, food distribution, and power. These are the ones we think about. 
But what about communication? 
How do relief agencies, police, fire, and government coordinate a disaster response when there is no power, no cell signal, no wifi? How do community members communicate with each other, find out where to get aid, or reach out to loved ones who are worrying about them if there is no functioning communication infrastructure - or even a place to charge your phone? 
Enter the ITDRC! The Information Technology Disaster Resource Center is a non-profit organization that sends teams and equipment to disaster areas to provide communication and technology services. The PM’s involved are truly project management heroes, and we get to hear from one of them today, Charis Mayhorn.  
About our amazing guest, Charis Mayhorn
Charis Mayhorn is a Network Architect.  In her day job, she designs IP networks, advises leadership and boards on infrastructure best practices, and guides cross-team collaboration.  In her free time, she volunteers with ITDRC.
Find out more about the ITDRC here:
Volunteer and read more about the ITDRC on their website, https://itdrc.org/ 
Check out this video of a 2 day ride along during Hurricane Ian response: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgbzRiqHnvE  
Read about the ITDRC’s other activities at https://medium.com/@ITDRC 
JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR!
Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership
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.
 

Decisions make or break your project - starting with the decision of whether or not to even do your project. Beyond that, we have planned decisions / phase gates and ad-hoc decisions that happen throughout the entire life of our project. And if you’ve been around long enough, you know that one bad decision can sink your whole project - or at least have it taking on water, fast. 
So, how should we approach decision making in a logical way which helps ensure that:
The right decisions get made
Decisions get made by the right people
Decisions are not revisited any more than they absolutely have to
To help answer these questions, this episode we are joined by Project Management mentor, consultant and YouTube PM star Kandis Porter! If you don’t know Kandis, you must check out her extensive youtube channel covering a lot of great Project Management topics. 
In today’s episode, Kandis will help us understand: 
Why should we care so much about project decisions? 
How should you approach decision making? 
Kandis shares her “D.I.D.I.” framework for decision making
How do you ensure your decisions stick? 
What are some “worst practices” for decision making that we should avoid
And along the way, we may throw in some horror stories about bad decision making that we can hopefully learn from
About our amazing guest, Kandis Porter
Kandis Porter is the Founder and Managing Director of Effective Flow Connections (EFC), a management consulting company that helps transform organizations through project management, process improvement, change management, facilitation of key meetings, and training. Kandis also works one-on-one with clients, focusing on Leadership development and growth. EFC enables organizations to do what they do, even better! 
Kandis Porter has more than 18 years of experience managing people and large projects in both the government and private sectors. She has supported clients in various industries, to include the Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, utilities, medical device, health care, non-profit, and learning & development. 
Kandis has a Master of Science Degree in Project Management (MSPM) from The George Washington University and Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Human Resources. In addition, she is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), PMP Exam Prep Course Instructor through Project Management Institute, Prosci Change Manager, and Six Sigma Green Belt. She is also certified as a Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Practitioner, Thomas-Kilmann Instrument (TKI) Practitioner, and is a Wiley DiSC Workshop facilitator. 
Before joining the consulting industry, Kandis proudly spent more than seven years on Active Duty in the United States Air Force and is passionate about giving back to veterans and their families. 
Check out some of Kandis’ amazing content here:
YouTube: Kandis Porter - YouTube
Website: Kandis Porter - effectiveflowconnections.com
Kandis also has a book being released in early 2023 called ‘Good Decisions Equal Success’; coauthored with good friend and CEO, Damon Lembi
 
JOIN THE HAPPY HOUR!
Get access to all podcasts, PDU certificates, bonus content, exclusive member Q&A webinars and more from our membership! https://pmhappyhour.com/membership
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.