Category: Podcast Episodes

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#005 – More certifications than Batman with Vincent Mirabelli

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Ever considered getting your: Lean Six Sigma, CBAP, PMP, Customer Experience, or Prosci Change Management?  Vince has all of them and shares an interesting point of view.  If you are considering certifications this is a must listen!

Vincent is a principal at Global Project Synergy.  In his 9 to 5, Vince leads process change through combining Lean Six Sigma Methodology and Design Thinking. In his 5 to 9 (and sometimes, later), he is a podcaster, writer, and speaker in the process innovation and improvement space.

Show Notes:

  1. Host: Ron Smith
  2. Website: vincentmirabelli.com
  3. Social Profiles: Twitter and IG – @vince_mirabelli
  4. LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincemirabelli/

Audio Attribution:

  1. license
  2. title: JENNY’S THEME
  3. creator: Jason Shaw
  4. audio source
  5. changes were not made

 

Use the comment section below to comment on the interview.

Want to get more helpful project management insights like this directly in your inbox? Subscribe to the Managing Projects newsletter (see subscribe in right side menu).

 

Ron Smith

Ron is a Project Manager with Chalder Consulting Inc. www.chalder.ca

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rondsmith

Check out the contributors page.

 

Transcription of Interview

Ron: Welcome to the managing projects podcast. I’m Ron Smith. Today I have a guests with me named Vincent Mirabelli. He is the principal at Global Project Synergy. Vince and I crossed paths at the project wold conference in Moncton. Vincent leads process change through combining lean six sigma methodology and design thinking. So, welcome Vincent!

 

Vince: Thanks Ron thanks for having me on the show.

 

Ron: I’ve noticed something I’ve found intriguing. You are PMP certified, you have a certification through the IIBA and you are a Lean Six Sigma. I don’t run across very many people that have all three. And I wonder if you would talk about why would you ever do such a thing? Why would you ever get so many certifications. And for our listeners who may be contemplating taking all those different certifications. What would you say to them after going through that path.

 

Vince: Whenever I talk about any of my certifications I’ll allude to the fact that one of my goals in life was to have more letters after my name than in it. 9 letters in my last name. So there you go. So yeah I am a PMP. I’m a CBAP through IIBA. I’m a CCXP which is a certified customer experience professional. Yes you can be certified in customer experience. I’m a Lean Six Sigma master blackbelt. I just completed my PROSCI change management. I collect these designations. A lot of people will sort of look at me and say – you know that doesn’t make sense. If you’re PM you should be a PMP period. If your B.A. should be either CBAP certified or the PBA through through PMI period. And that isn’t enough for me because I think that’s that’s very typical. I started accumulating these certifications because they make me better at what I do. What I do is, what a lot of people do, which is solve problems. Having these different disciplines these different methodologies in my proverbial quiver allows me to draw the appropriate arrow forth for the problem at hand. If all you have is a hammer every problem is a nail right. Very cliche saying. I don’t have just a hammer in my tool kit and so I’m able to draw the knowledge and the learning and the practice from all of those disciplines as well as combining. There’s a lot of synergy between each of those disciplines as well. You think about what what project management is… It is really managing change. If you think about what business analysis is it’s getting to the root of the problem which is a big focus of a lean six sigma. And so there’s all all of these different disciplines which then feed into how do you add value to your customers which is the customer experience certificate. So it’s all tied together.

 

Ron: On one of my last projects, we had taken a project methodology and we had some ITIL mixed in. What I noticed during a meeting that we had with a group of peers through the meeting. Some of these terms that were labeled in the project methodology were used in the ITIL methodology but they were an overloaded term. So you had half the room thinking I use that definition of this term within my context this way. And the other half of the room that was ITIL folks use that definition of the term a different way. And until you studied it you didn’t realize that half the people in the room kind of went left on you with that term and the other half of the people are thinking of something different. I totally see the value in doing all these certifications especially when you get down to the execution because if you don’t cover that overloaded term between the two methodologies the project team is going to take a left turn on you at some point and the other and wonder why the rest of them took the right turn.

 

Vince: You touched on the point. The punchline is the execution. I’ve said pretty openly that there are some certifications that all they really prove is that you can read a book and pass a test. When it comes to actual delivery can you bring the thunder? So you either can or you can’t. The question I get most asked, because I’m a master blackbelt, is around Lean Six Sigma certification because there is no global overarching body similar to a PMI. There’s such a disparity in the training. If all you’re interested in is having that title that certification then you can go online and buy a green belt for a couple hundred bucks and do a four hour course for reference like my greenbelt course is 15 days. And has a project requirement. So when you’re done, you’re legit. There are no shortcuts and it is not easy by design. Because it’s meant to test you. Versus taking a four hour course and pass a 10 question multiple choice quiz. And here you go here’s your cert. There’s going to be disparity there and there’s going to be differences in the ability to deliver when the time comes.

 

Ron: So if you were to say OK you’re certified in PMP, IIBA, you’ve got your customer service certification and your Lean Six Sigma… If you were to advise someone that there’s a typical order to go through it or why it would make sense or is it just different to every person.

 

Vince: It’s going to be different to every person. It really depends on you and what you want to do. Are you a PM who wants to understand what your what your BAs are doing. Ultimately that was the reason why I completed my PMP. I was I was leading a process improvement projects but, I didn’t have the same level of insight and credibility that I got with completing the PMP. It’s just a badge of honor so to speak. So I would look at it this way what’s going to give you the most value for where you are today. Do you want to get into more of the consulting process improvement space than I would go towards the Lean Six Sigma. Do you want to be a better project manager. I would say that probably the best thing for you to do is learn a little bit more about change management. The more I’m looking at what project management is you are managing people and you are managing change. I don’t advocate for one approach to one change management process over another but learning how to manage change in the business and what the impact of that is on the people on the project team. Also on the people that are external to the project team and will be impacted. There is such a thing as project fatigue like I’ve seen people go from project to project and there is no let up. And, those people end up burning out. And so how do you manage your resources and how do you manage the flow of change. Because you know depending on your company culture that pace of change could be extremely rapid.

 

Ron: You mentioned a few years ago that you’re certified in Prosci and I’ve read the book – not certified. I’ve read the book on prosci the whole ADKAR model which makes sense to me. And then you start down this path and then someone brings up the fact that this company used to be involved with Kotter change management and they’ve switched to Prosci. How did you pick Prosci over Kotter? Did you relate to that better?

 

Vince: In my 9 to 5 job. We actually brought in Prosci for group training so I didn’t make the choice. I was admittedly resistant from the beginning.

 

Ron: Oh! You could see yourself in the training!

 

Vince: Yeah. So I was thinking like this. I don’t need to learn about change management. I don’t want to learn it. It took me probably six hours to read half of that ADKAR book like it was. And it’s not a big book. I think it’s what 140 pages six hours to read like 60 pages. It wasn’t until I got into that class and I started seeing how it connected that I was bought in. And so as much as I like to learn, and then once you get past that it opened up to me why it was important. Now it’s got me rethinking some of the some of the course material that I have, and how there is a need to actually build in some piece of change management because I think managing the people side is important.

 

Ron: I would say for the last four or five years the projects that I’ve been running there’s been a change manager on them. So companies are are thinking that that is important. You know one of the things that I find a little different is if you are on a project to have a stakeholder list you may not go up to the president of the company as one of your stakeholders as an example. They might get some information depending on how large the company is if a small of course they would be very important to them. For each individual project but the whole philosophy on this whole change management is you’re going from the CEO down to the worker bees in that order. Are you aware of the project or are you desiring to follow it. Which is just kind of like this you’re scoping your stakeholders. It’s kind of a nice touch to the project management certification because it makes you think of a whole stream cut down through the company minimally of who needs to be involved. But it’s like it’s broadening your stakeholder list and it gives you some more skills on on who you can approach inside a company when it’s intended to be. You got to go with the CEO and just have the conversation to say are you aware of it. Or maybe it was by that or maybe it was by their ask that this type of project happened from a strategy perspective.

 

Vince: At that level they’ve got other priorities and other things that are occupying their mind. You mentioned going from the CEO down to the frontline staff which when you rope in the other disciplines we haven’t talked about which is design thinking. This is like a co-creative, collaborative, human centered approach to designing products processes services et cetera. You’re actually going outside the company.You’re you are bringing in the actual users and creating with them the service that they want or the product that they want. And so it’s adding a whole other level that really puts a heavy focus on the voice of the customer which is a really cool approach to projects and problem solving.

 

Ron: So how do you approach it not becoming a monster. So what I mean by that is that I’ve been in projects where there’s been an attempt to mix all of these methodologies. I find that it’s even pushing harder and harder this way because you’re getting to these Internet of Things. Projects where there may be industry standard where there might be government regulation that’s getting added to these projects. But there are project methodologies and you are throwing ITIL in the mix and then you go OK well there’s lean Six Sigma and if you added all of these in all of their grandeur you would create such a large project. So do you have any strategies that you like to use to say we’re going to take some philosophies from this or some work products from that. We are going to add it together but we’re not going to duplicate everything with each one of these processes has.

 

Vince: Yeah. So you’ve almost set me up perfectly for the thing I’ve always wanted to say in an interview. I like to think of myself as Batman. Number one. Batman is the coolest superhero by far. There’s no argument. Batman has his utility belt right. Batman always seems to have the right thing to solve the problem that he faces. I think looking at these disciplines as tools in your tool belt is the right approach. And so you come across a problem and our typical response in business is to buy some piece of software to buy technology and we just throw capital expenditure and technology to solve a problem. What my disciplines are, or what the disciplines that I that I have that I’ve studied allow me to do is, slow down that action and look at the problem to actually dissect it and understand it. So if you can define a problem well it’s 80 percent solved.You’re there. Then you just need to figure out the right tweaks to make it happen. And so being able to look at a problem and say that is a known solution and no problem. And so it’s not actually a project. I call those Nike projects. If you know what the solution is just go do it. The solution is unknown then you need to deconstruct it a bit and understand what is the root cause. If the root cause has to do with any sort of process improvement then you’re going to draw from Lean Six Sigma, a little bit from change management. You probably don’t need a full blown project management discipline. And so it’s just about deconstructing the problem to understand what is the best approach to solving it.

 

Ron: I worked for a company years ago that had a project methodology for a large project and then they said here’s our small project methodology. And I really like that approach because if you have a fairly straightforward project which is what you just described the Nike project. You know we’ve done this before we don’t need all the rigor the team has done and in fact we probably did it two weeks ago. Let’s just get them to do this again. I really really like that in this competitive market of business. You can’t have these enormous projects where your processes become more complicated than the value they’re bringing to your end deliverable. And I really like that. It can become too much when when it becomes an educational debate within the project part of the process that we bring in. Let’s study it right now and we find there’s overloading of terms ocean. I like the Batman toolbelt.

 

Vince: Yeah. I mean the reality is we we look for complexity like we’re we’re looking for… The the solution can’t be that simple! it’s got to be more complex! The reality is most solutions are really simple. We’re just not looking at it the right way. When I’m teaching folks particularly in Lean Six Sigma, don’t come into the project knowing what the solution is. Do the work and the solution will reveal itself. And don’t be surprised at how simple it is.

 

Ron: We’re coming to a close and I appreciate your time because this has been a topic that I’ve considered on these different certifications.

 

Vince: My pleasure Ron. Thank you very much.

 

Ron: Now if folks want to read about what you’re up to. Or get in contact with you online where would you point them? Probably the best place to start is my website. Which is VincentMirabelli.com. I’m on Twitter and Instagram at Vince_Mirabelli and you can find me on LinkedIn /VinceMirabelli all one word. So happy to answer anybody’s questions as they roll in.

 

Ron: You’re also interested in speaking engagements. You go around doing speaking engagements so if you’re a PMI or IIBA chapter. If you’re looking for someone then Vince is a good choice.

 

Vince: Yeah and I will be I will be in Orlando next year. Right now I’m just filling out the schedule but I’ll be in Orlando and I’ll be in Toronto. And yeah if any PMI or IIBA chapters are looking for speakers please reach out. I’m happy to discuss.

 

Ron: Right on. I will point your contact information on so notes as well on the web page.

 

Vince: Awesome.

 

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#004 – Coaching Someone Through a Promotion with Mike Hayes

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Developing the leader within you.  How do you adapt through a promotion?  Seeing trends and not falling into the micromanagement trap.

Listen in on the interview I had with Mike Hayes of Changing Leaf on coaching promotion topics.

Mike is a passionate certified Coach, Teacher and Speaker with the John Maxwell Team and the President of Changing Leaf Inc. a leadership development company dedicated to developing better leaders. He is a co-author in volume two of the book “Dreaming BIG being BOLD-Inspiring stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries and Change Makers”.

Mike Hayes     Changing Leaf Inc.      www.changingleaf.ca     

 

I had a great discussion with Mike about coaching newly promoted resources from first time managers to directors moving to a VP position.  He also talks about some of his favorite authors on the topic.

Show Notes:

  1. Host: Ron Smith
  2. Guest Email: mike.hayes@changingleaf.ca
  3. We are a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites. Books mentioned during the interview:
    1. The Likeability Factor – Tim Sanders
    2. Love is the Killer App – Tim Sanders
    3. High Performance Habits – Brendon Burchard
    4. Multipliers – Liz Wiseman
    5. 5 Disfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni
    6. The Advantage – Patrick Lencioni
    7. 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership – John Maxwell
    8. Dreaming BIG being BOLD-Inspiring stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries and Change Makers – Co-Author Mike Hayes (Contact Mike for your copy).

Audio Attribution:

  1. license
  2. title: JENNY’S THEME
  3. creator: Jason Shaw
  4. audio source
  5. changes were not made
  6. Music: www.hooksounds.com

 

Find Part 2 of this interview on the Ardent Development podcast.

 

Use the comment section below to comment on the interview.

Want to get more helpful project management insights like this directly in your inbox? Subscribe to the Managing Projects newsletter (see subscribe in right side menu).

 

Ron Smith

Ron is a Project Manager with Chalder Consulting Inc. www.chalder.ca

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rondsmith

Check out the contributors page.

 

 

 

Transcription of Interview:

Ron: [00:00:02] Good morning Ron Smith here from Managing Projects and I have Mike Hayes from Changing Leaf from Moncton New Brunswick. He is a leadership coach and facilitator. He has been doing that since January of 2015. Welcome Mike.

 

Mike: [00:00:18] Hey thanks for having me Ron. Good to hear your voice.

 

Ron: [00:00:21] Good to hear your voice. I wonder if you just tell us a little bit about what Changing Leaf is.

 

Mike: [00:00:26] Yeah – excellence so Changing Leaf was birthed out of a transition that I experienced from my corporate career. Spent 20 years with a great organization in the courier transportation industry. That’s where I really developed a love of leadership development coaching and facilitating. So at 20 years of experience, I received that golden handshake. Thanks for your contributions. We are going to transition without you and I was faced with that decision to decide do I join another organization after 20 years or do I start my own thing. This pull towards entrepreneurship and getting my own organization was so strong that I could I couldn’t ignore it. So I opened up my business into 2015. Everything I did in my corporate career I’m now doing independently and working with multiple organizations in different industries from profit to nonprofit and anywhere where there’s a leader who says I need to get better, I want to get better, I want to grow and develop… those are the types of people that I’m working with today. I’m doing coaching with these leaders and helping develop their teams together as well to through leadership management develop workshops. I’m doing Keynote talks with organizations and I’m having an absolute blast. It’s been a great ride so far and I’m just helping make leaders better because when leaders get better everybody that interacts with that leader wins and their performance elevates as a result. So that’s what I’m up to.

 

Ron: [00:02:01] You can see it when the leaderships develop.

 

Mike: [00:02:03] You can see it. You can actually see great leadership you can see bad leadership as well too. We’ve all experienced a bad leader right.

 

Ron: [00:02:12] Unfortunately… That’s a mixture. We’re all human and we’re all going in all different stages. Some of these leaders – it is not a born skill. I’ve seen a lot transition to become real people leaders.

 

Mike: [00:02:28] Absolutely. You’re totally right when you said that people are not born with these skills. It’s something that they learn, something that that we can teach people. And what I’ve seen a lot of organizations do is that they they see these high performers that are individual contributors and they think oh you’re so great at what you do you’d make a great manager. So they trust them into a management role but they don’t give them any of the skills to build their capabilities and we see these people failing as a result. But when organizations invest in their people and if they give them the development that they need then we see them succeed and the team succeeds too.

 

Ron: [00:03:04] It’s the Peter Principle. My background is in IT and I see this with people growing up through the ranks. They are very technical… sometimes the technically smartest cats in the room. They love it. They can solve any technical problem at all. Then the company says there is no other place to put you once you get to this portion of your career. So let’s turn you into a manager. They will give you more authority in the company. And these are people that just love to code or dissect technical issues. But then it is a different skill set when you get into the soft skill side of the house in dealing with people because they’re really there to help other folks grow.

 

Mike: [00:03:45] Absolutely. And I think also to your point Ron there’s there’s also a letting go of the work that they love to do for so long and you don’t get to put them in a position where you’re actually no longer going to be the doer of that task. You’re going to develop to people now who are going to do that task. It’s a letting go of that work that you’ve loved to do for so long and letting someone else do it. And that’s a transition that that we have to prepare people for as they move from being the technician to the leader of the technicians.

 

Ron: [00:04:17] I can totally relate. So OK. Now you really peaked my interest. Here’s scenario. You get called into a local IT shop. You’ve got this wiz bang technical programmer guy who is a bit of a geek and everybody loves him because because been doing so well and getting the promotion. Now he is going to have a team of developers. What would you say to that guy to get him ready for this transition.

 

Mike: [00:04:49] One of the first things I would probably talk to him about a little bit is: how is he feeling about the transition he’s about to experience. What are some of the things that he’s excited about. What are some of the things that that he’s concerned about as well. Try to deal with the reality of what he’s seeing and feeling as he’s about to transition. Get get that on the plate and try to figure out if there’s a way that I can support him through that and I’m sure there would be. But also what I would really spend some time on is the art of delegation. How do you delegate work well so that people feel valued and supported and empowered versus the temptation that most of us would have in that situation to micromanage people. Because if I’ve been doing something for so long I’d probably become quite skilled at it. I may have actually written the process. I may be the one who actually came up with the best way of how to do this task. And so now I’m being asked to let that go and let someone else do that. That’s not an easy thing to do so I would really talk to that young whiz kid about how to delegate properly so that people feel valued and how to be OK with it not being done in the way that you’ve always done it. And if I could get him to just grasp that principle that would be a breakthrough. Because a lot of people have a hard time delegating when they’re in that position. They they see someone else doing the work that they’ve done for so long like you know what you’re not doing it the way I would do it. I’m just going to come and take that away from you again and I’ll deal with that and I’ll try to find something else for you to do. That doesn’t add value to people. People can’t grow under a micro-manager they can only grow under somebody who’s secure is the leader who can let the word go and let someone else do it with their own style and approach.

 

Ron: [00:06:34] Yes I would concur with that. Now you know what came to mind when you were saying that this whole law of multiplication. The time that you are doing that -it that’s all you are doing. There are maybe 20 people who need to corralling to work with those teams to make sure that everyone is efficient. So if this manager pulls himself down in to the weeds then that is accomplished. It is quite a transitional skill to pull yourself up so that you’re not in the weeds.

 

Mike: [00:07:08] I would actually call it increasing your capacity. If I’m the only one who knows how to do it right now then I have a limited amount of capacity to achieve results and to perform it to produce whatever it is I’m producing. But as soon as I actually build someone else’s capabilities to do that thing what I’ve done now is I’ve increased my capacity and I’ve increased my options as well too. So if I can actually get other people on my team to do that thing that only I’ve done and now all of a sudden more people are capable of producing the results for that particular piece of work we’re increasing our capacity to produce results. All of a sudden now we can scale the business to new levels because we have more people that are capable than ever before. So you know it’s about empowering people. That’s what it really is in the end some leaders who aren’t really secure think if I empower that person then I’m giving my power away. But the truth is is that if you empower somebody you don’t lose power yourself you just increase it. You have more power now when you empower someone else it increases the capacity to get get more more things done. Businesses are pressured to get more things done now right. So yeah it’s about increasing your capacity through empowering other people.

 

Ron: [00:08:24] Let’s say you are a director moving into a VP position. Is there a different mindset between the two transitions of someone who is basically a team member member of a small team as they are going to start managing more to someone who is a director moving to VP.

 

Mike: [00:08:44] Right I think the mindset does change when you go from one level to the next. And what I mean by that is I think the way that you see things is really different. I think when you are at the top of an organization you need to be seeing things before other people see things. So you need to be anticipating trends you need to be really connected into your industry and what’s happening as far as innovation is concerned. So if you want to be ahead of your competition you really have to know what’s what’s coming on the horizon. And not only having the knowledge of what’s coming as far as trends and anticipating customer demand but it’s also then envisioning your organization in that space. So you’ve got to envision What’s your organization going to look like a year from now two years from now three years from now. To have that type of long distance view then to to bring that into your organization with an inspiring message of what the future looks like and the believably that you’ve got the right people in the organization to achieve that. That vision is really important so as top leaders brings that message down within the organization to the various levels it’s got to be communicated with great clarity. It’s also going to be a message that inspires people to want to be part of it right. As the vision filters down to the front lines it’s really the front line people who really do the work to make that vision a reality. The clarity of the message and actually involving those people in the discussions about what they see as far as the future goes and how they believe that they need to change and adapt in order to deliver on that future vision is really important as well. Somebody that’s done a lot of work on this that I really like as far as an author is concerned is Patrick Lincioni. He talks about this in his books with the five dysfunctions of team and one of the books that he has called The Advantage. Patrick talks about this concept of who’s your number one team. And a lot of people if you ask them what your number one team if you hve a group of people that you are leading… they’ll say oh my number one team is the team that I lead. He challenges that thought. Patrick says your number one team needs to be the team that you’re a member of. So even though you lead a team of people, and they’re really important, what you need to prioritize is the team that you are a member of over the team that you lead. The reason he says that is because when there’s great cohesion in organizational health on the team that you’re a member of at an executive level everyone in the organization benefits from that cohesiveness that clarity that real team spirit when executives and leaders prioritize the team that they’re a member of. They can take that enthusiasm and bring it into the team that they that they lead. And it’s also a great opportunity for alignment as well to.

 

Ron: [00:11:42] I think of it somewhat as you are progressing up through an organization. Your view point is what you can control, some of the observations you are making in the seat that you are in. You might term that the primary view point. And as you climb the trees to some degree you can see out longer. And you are looking for strategy. You are learning how to manage up as well. What I’ve learned over the years is how much I appreciate as I became managers, how much I appreciate those team members that had helpful insights and said you know what, there is a real opportunity here and I think you need to pay attention to this.

 

Mike: [00:12:19] Yeah without question, I love what you said when you’re climbing the tree you can you can see like far off in the distance right and that’s necessary. But then when you come to executing the strategy like that the day to day work that needs to happen to get closer to that vision that’s when you really need to connect with the people who are doing the work because they have they have the experience they have the insight they have the knowledge as to whether we are on the right track. They can tell you like right away hey you know what… that idea that you had in the boardroom it sounded really great on paper, but here are some of the obstacles that you probably didn’t identify that are going to prevent us from doing it the way that you thought we could do it. If you take care of this this and this then we could do what you’re talking about but if you don’t deal with these things this is always going to be a problem and a barrier for us. Here’s a better way. And they can tell you and that’s the challenge of leadership as well too as you climb up to ensure that you remember where you came from. Where you came from is where the solutions reside. So you’ve got to connect back to that from time to time. Don’t do the work though. You’ve got to let people do the work. Just go back and have a conversation that’s that you want to get some understanding from right. That’s important too.

 

Ron: [00:13:34] Do you know this is a major theme going on now. A lot of the projects that I’ve been running lately, probably I would say for the last four or five years, in my industry, there has always been a change manager that has been put on these projects. It’s really quite telling that there is now a whole role inside of the projects that basically is of this mindset: there is about to be a change, someone has set a vision and all and what they are doing is measuring at different points along the way, is the company coming. So from every level from the CEO to the middle management to the worker bees… You see this Prosci or the Kotter models of that kind of thing. Let’s pole the company to determine who is aware of the vision, or who is desiring to follow it, using this ADKAR model. Who has the knowledge or support, who is a resister or are they supporting it. It is so interesting that you say when you start to lead you need to first of all understand where we should be going. But then ensure the company is following. So if they are saying here is a vision that we’ve set, and the company is not following there is an issue. You can tell by interviewing these different groups of people asking questions like are you aware of the project – no never heard of it – then they are not coming. Are you aware of why we would do this? No I don’t really get why you want to do this. Those people are not coming either. I’ve heard it said before that vision casting has to be so clear and said multiple times before people will believe it is truth.

 

Mike: [00:15:34] Absolutely and I think in the context of change it’s interesting you bring up change because change really is all about bringing something from the future into the present situation. That’s that’s really what it is. We’re not currently doing this now. We have a vision for how could be better. So we need to implement the change. And I think what happens in a lot of organizations concerning is the organization ready for change. Is that at a certain level. There’s these discussions that are happening about change in implementing change. They happen behind closed doors for about four or five months and everybody in that room has had a chance to go through the emotional roller coaster. Is this going to work, or is it not going to work. They get to a place where they’ve had the debate they had the discussions. Everybody’s now on board and everybody’s now excited about the change. And so they come out from those closed doors and they try to introduce this change to your organization and people are not excited about it. Initially people are not enthused about it. People are concerned.

 

Ron: [00:16:45] People didn’t go with you through the hills a valleys of the strategy.

 

Mike: [00:16:51] That’s right. And we forget we got that right so we get back in the board room. Why are people not excited about this change? People are resistant to change just like what they are hearing about it for the first time. And there’s a real temptation to try to push through that and try to sell people on the benefits of the change. But what we need to do is change leaders is just to slow down a little bit and talk to people to find out OK what are your concerns? How can I clarify this for you as to the reasons why we are going in this direction. And just really take the time to really be with people and find out what is going on in your world and how can I help you?

 

Ron: [00:17:32] Yeah absolutely. When you are looking for enlightenment or to hear of new trends in the industry where do you turn?

 

[00:17:42] Well one of the things that I make sure that I do every year is a couple of things. I go to a leadership development seminars and conferences. So one of them is a Leader Cast that usually happens in April or May every year and Global Leadership Summit happens in August. The reason I go to these leadership development conferences is because at those conferences are current thought leaders speakers and authors from multiple different industries. And that’s how I get exposure to who is writing about leadership and the topics that I care about. That’s how I get introduced to Patrick Lencioni and I actually get to meet him in person at one of the conferences that I went to.

 

Ron: [00:18:26] I’ve read some of his books and I like his writing.

 

Mike: [00:18:30] I like his writings too and I think what people are a lot of people appreciate about it is that his style is that they’re all written in Fables so there’s characters that are introduced they’re quick reads and at the end of the book there’s a you know 20 pages of theory but the rest of the book reads like a novel rightsize you’re reading it you’re thinking Oh I think I’ve worked with some of these people. Absolutely so. Anything on team work. Definitely – Patrick Lencioni for sure. A book that I’m reading right now on I guess you’d probably put it under the personal development category is High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard. And what a great what a great read so far are just about really seeking clarity and understanding yourself as a person not necessarily a leader but as a as a person in life – what what kind of person do you want to be and who do you want to become. And he gives a nice roadmap for building your capabilities as a as an individual and also as a leader. You can’t help but get into that leadership space because ultimately what you’re talking about leadership first person you lead is yourself. You want to be at a level where you’re performing to your capabilities to your potential and you want to be a high performing person or a high profile leader. There are certain habits that are going to get you to that level. And nobody’s going to do it for you. You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to do it for yourself. So it’s really about upping your game to perform at peak levels not only for yourself and if you’re an individual contributor but if you’re a leader as well it’s more important I think as a leader to elevate your game so that you can be a model for that performance improvement for others to emulate. John Maxwell talks about this this book: 21 irrefutable laws of leadership and talks about the law of the lid. He says that your leadership ability is the lid that’s going to determine your effectiveness. So the other way to think about this Ron is if today you and I both decided for some reason or another that you know we were all done learning… we knew everything we need to know about everything and we’re not going to read another book we’re not going to watch another TED talk or go to another conference. We’re not going to learn anymore because our brains are full and we just want to be excused from that whole process of learning what we did. My brain is all I need to be excused right. Because if we made that decision which would be an absolutely stupid decision but if we did that what John says is that that’s the lid that you place upon your effectiveness as a leader. Out of 10 if 10 is the highest on what is the lowest I rated like about six today. What is the problem with that is that the people on our teams say they are either or they’re going to do one of two things. They are either going to look at us to go wow you’re not growing you’re not developing I don’t really want to be part of the of your world anymore because you’re at a 6 out I’m at like an 8. So I can’t learn anything more from you so I’m moving on. Or what ends up happening as well too is those eights looking to go well OK I guess that’s how we do things right here I’m going to lower myself to a five or a four and become smaller under your leadership. That’s the law of the lid. And leaders that are really effective that are continuously growing and developing and building their capabilities are always looking to raise the lid on their leadership because they know that if I’m raising my lid as a leader that other people are going to be raising their lid as well too because they want to lead like you. I want to grow and develop like you I see how you treat people. I see how you have visions about where we need to go I see how you inspire and motivate and see how you encourage, see how you navigate the lack of clarity for us and help us to go from here to there. That’s a leader who’s growing is always raising the lid. And that’s what we need more of.

 

Ron: [00:22:41] Did Tim Sanders also write the Likability Factor?

 

Mike: [00:22:41] Yes he did.He also wrote “Love is a killer app”.

 

Ron: [00:22:51] On I’ve read both – you are taking me back! I’ve attended some of these sessions that you just mentioned a few minutes ago. For Leadercast, I’ve attended 5 years of that over 10 years. I have yet to be that the Global Leadership Summit but I’m going to have to put that on my schedule for this year. So my own observations though when from when I read this book the Likeability Factor, by Tim Sanders… the crux of it is: do I believe that people are looking for leaders… Do I think that they’re smart enough to run the company. So that’s kind of like this given. So if you’re in a leadership position do you need to have the skills to run a company and visionary and all that stuff. But then there’s this awkwardness that says “Do I like that person?”. And if the answer is No. I know the guy can run a company but I never invite to him for supper. Or I I don’t want him to really know who I am. I find myself not wanting to really follow where this guy is going. And I consider it almost a transaction of services now. That says I’m learning and employed in a company that is making use of my skills. So I’m going to see this out for a certain time. What I found in my own personal observation is when I can really connect with the leader of the company, somehow it changes. Something changes in me as I’m now desiring to work harder for that company for some reason I’m putting my shoulder into it more and I think that this is a courageous view that is held within companies. But I had a hard time articulating it until I read Tim’s book.

 

Mike: [00:24:48] Right and I think of I think of leaders that I’ve had in the past and those who I didn’t naturally connect with. I did what I needed to do to get the job done but I did give everything. You know what I mean? There were things that I held back. I held back some of maybe my best ideas in some situations. And they didn’t get all of me. I wasn’t really engaged and it’s it’s that’s just there’s something as simple as likability. Like Tim wrote about or do I really connect and resonate with this person and I think of other leaders that I’ve had. I would I would be on the battlefield with them because I know that they are right there with me. And I you know it’s it’s a totally different dynamic. Somebody else has written a lot about this. This is coming up for me now is Liz Wisemen her book Multipliers. You got to read this book is absolutely fantastic. She talks about the contrast between Multipliers and Deminishers. The full title of the book is how the great leaders make everyone smarter. OK. And multipliers are not only likable. They also that they build relationships with people and everything as well. They have like a hard edge to them where they have expectations that you’re going to perform or you’re going to deliver. So there’s that there’s a combination there and then diminishers: they just make everybody else smaller because they want to be the genius in their room. They want to be the one with the smartest ideas. They want to be the one who comes up with the final decisions.

 

Ron: [00:26:30] You know what would be really interesting stat is to look at if you had a multiplier running a company or a manager within a company what is your attrition rate? You get working with a deminisher and you can see the body language in the room, you wonder if they are going to start having health problems. You see how down the team is, and for so long, where nothing seems right.

 

Mike: [00:26:55] It really impacts the team dynamic as well to like he gets to a point where I think the team doesn’t feel like they can challenge the leader. They don’t feel they can disagree with the leader they can question their leader and when and when you’re in that sort of space it’s really tough to be creative and innovative and do your best work and the team stops having the crucial conversations that they need to have in order to have breakthroughs. And so the what the what the problem ends up being is that the diminished or you know we’ll have a meeting and asked like so would you guys have any thoughts or ideas or is there any problems that we need to talk about today. Everybody goes silent nobody wants to talk about it. And that diminished or thinks oh I’ve got a great team. We don’t we don’t have any concept at all. There’s are no issues. There’s all kinds of issues. But people don’t want to talk to you about them because they’re afraid of how you’re going to respond and react. You know like absence of conflict is not the sign of harmony on a team. If I have a leader that tells me that your team never fights. We get along all the time. I’m concerned about that situation because the mark of a great team is a team that can get together and have a good old fashioned debate around that issue and an idea they can question each other. And you know disagree with each other not to be difficult but to discover a best action that everybody can commit to or a best decision. That’s the mark of a great team.

 

Ron: [00:28:22] I love that. In the last project that I ran the team would make fun of me because I used to have this phrase I would say debate it with me. Let’s go through the pros and cons here. I want you to debate it with with me. But I love it! I think that is all ideas in! So when I do risk assessment on a project, I’ll intentionally not allow people to say anything in the room. So you get a bunch of people in the room. They are given sticky notes and they have 3 minutes. I’ll ask them to write down all the risks on the project now go! Well the reason that I don’t want anyone to say anything is because of the exact example that you just gave. No one feels safe to challenge the leader. So if the leader pipes up and says I know what the risks are. Here they are 1, 2, 3. We are done now right? Then if you’re shy or if you don’t want to challenge them then you’re not going to get that information. And so what I found is that the shy people that work on this project – they’re often the ones that are observing. They know that there’s this great big train heading at you but unless you are able to cultivate that environment of everyone can contribute, we are going to listen to you when you speak you are missing out on the great ideas.

 

Mike:  Oh without question they’re missing out on information that could prevent a disaster. I love the train analogy that you that you brought up. And also what’s really great about what you suggested with the you know just in silence write down your thoughts and these sticky notes. Nobody else is influencing anybody else in the room.

 

Ron: Right.

 

Mike: In an open sort of discussion. And then there’s times to have the open discussion. But when you’re trying to get ideas that are not influenced by anybody else if you just throw a question out it’s so easy for other people to say yeah I feel the same way as Jane does or I feel the same way as Matt. And you don’t get any original ideas or any original push back you get group think. Your process is really great as far as getting those original thoughts out. And I love as well to both that “debate me” statement and I do that as well too when I’m facilitating I’m like OK challenge me like I just presented something to you is this is this a truth. Do you think you see this working do you disagree with that because if you disagree with that. Talk to me because that deepens my learning as well too right.

 

Ron:  So alone but I would say this and I want to ask you a question where I have a great session today. Before we finish it up I want to ask you this question so I want to I want you to picture a scenario of this a little morbid on ya. I’m going to get a little morbid on you.

 

Mike:  Oh ok. Yeah.

 

Ron: You’re on your deathbed. All right. Let’s take the scenario of your grandson comes in. Your grandson’s a 19 year old about to go into the world and is finished some schooling is transitioning into the work world. What are some of the things that you would want to make sure that you pass on to him.

 

Mike:  Yeah. OK. Two two things. One thing I would encourage him to do is to always seek clarity as to who you are as a person to really understand yourself but never stop striving to envision a better version of yourself.

 

Ron:  I love it.

 

Mike:  I always always know where where are you right now and who are you. Who are you being today and who do you want to become and always be striving and have that hunger to learn and to grow and to develop because if I could instill that in him. Then he’s going to be useful for others in a long time because it really it’s for me, Ron, it’s about service to others right and I can only be of service to others if I’m growing. So I’d want to pass that on. The second thing and want to pass on to him is to get him to take the time to clarify his his personal values. Like what. What really ultimately matters to him and to really get clear definition around that. I know early in my career I went through the exercise of clarifying my values and it became a a system for making decisions and taking actions. If what I was about to step into didn’t align with my personal values that it was an easy decision to make. So it was such a great great way to clarify what really matters what’s important what your priorities are. Clarify your values and use those values to make decisions and take actions that are in alignment with who you are who you want to become.

 

Ron:  Well I loved spending time with you today so thank you for… Thank you for spending some time with us and letting us know what’s going on with you. Before I move on, I forgot to mention you had a book that came up this year.

 

Mike:  Actually I was invited to be part of a coauthoring project with 25 other authors. And the book is called Dreaming big. Being bold. Volume two Inspiring Stories for Trailblazers Visionaries and Change Makers. So quite an interesting journey to be an author now and to be able to say I’m a published author. It’s kind of a neat space to be in.

 

Ron:  You tell me that you flew up to London to meet a bunch of the authors point by different authors. Is that right.

 

Mike: Yeah. We got together for an event to kick off the launch of the book and got to meet other other people. I’ve contributed stories and life lessons so it was a real great experience just to be in that space of people who have that creative mind set. Right. People who are just positive genuine great people to be around. And we talked about likeability today. These people are likeable people who you just wanted to be spending time with them. Some amazing stories of how they’ve overcome obstacles in their own life to get to where they are so really great great space to be in it and a great network of people to be connected to.

 

Ron:  You know it’s great. It’s great.

 

Mike:  When are you going to write your book Ron?

 

Ron:  On managing projects. I’ve done my my very first e-book which I just published. And so you can find them on site. There’s there’s a link to it there in the top menu. That was a neat experience for me. And so really just getting started on the journey of authoring books and that kind of thing what a great way to get your thoughts down on paper and to try and help somebody out. With that particular book it’s around estimating of I.T. projects and I was with a company about 10 years ago. They spent a really focused effort around wire estimates so variable. And we should study that – was the leadership you and so we did. We developed a systematic approach to estimating it really made us think differently about estimates. And so I enjoyed that process so much in fact I was part of the process to help study it for our company and then to help train people on using this estimation process. I got asked to speak at a developer conference called Maritime Devcon and I spoke to the audience about some of these lessons learned from estimating and the mindset that you need to get into. The main takeaway for me. I personally feel that at least in a projectized type environment your estimates are probably going to define the culture more than most of your other tasks that you’re going to do on a daily basis. So this is what I mean by that. So you go into any I.T. shop. The Developers and say we’re overworked. We don’t have enough time to do your work. Management keeps harping on us because we ran a project and we didn’t get it done on time and they had so much allocation we went over. It all stems back to did have a thoughtful view on your estimation? So the scenario I go through in my book is the scenario of a manager comes in and says “can you build a screen for me”? The developer says shores in the day – seems pretty easy. I can build a screen. What I do in my my ebook is I give you these checklist of things to say you should ask your manager to be more specific. So is it going to be hung off another application that’s already working? Do you want this to also work in the DR environment once it goes live? Are you asking me to test the screen or be part of some of the testing of it? Are the requirements already written for the screen? Can I see the requirements or do you want me to sit you know requirements manage gathering meeting? What happens is you do a quick estimate and then you find yourself you attended four meetings about it but you haven’t done the work the next day and told you really what they want and then you’ve already gone through the estimates. This was such a pattern in some of these IT companies that I was with that that it is helpful to have these types of conversations with your managers. Your manager will look at you and say why don’t you just tell me what the estimate is. I just asked you for a screen. You can go through this checklist with them and say if I understood where you wanted it to run how thorough is it. Do you want me to write the all the install documents then it really helps to shape the conversation you can evolve your company so easily and it’s not rocket science. It’s just slow them down long enough to say what are you asking for. So anyway that’s the whole ebook thing was really neat. It’s not a great time going it.

 

Mike:  Awesome. Well this is great Ron.

 

Ron:  Well thanks so much Mike.

 

Posted on

#003 – Stop Writing User Stories and Start Doing Analysis with Cole Cioran

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Listen in on the interview I had with Cole Cioran as Projectworld in Moncton approaches on Nov 27th.   Cole is the Sr. Director of Research – Application development – Portfolio Management with Info-Tech Research Group and is also the VP of Mentoring with the IIBA Toronto.

If you are attending the conference this would be a great session to attend.  There are a lot of great speakers heading to Moncton!

Cole will be presenting on the following topics:

  1. Stop Writing User Stories and Start Doing Analysis
  2. Thinking Outside the Project Box

Listen to this 10 minute pre-conference chat.

 

Show Notes:

  1. Host: Ron Smith
  2. Guest Email: ccioran@infotech.com

 

Audio Attribution:

  1. license
  2. title: JENNY’S THEME
  3. creator: Jason Shaw
  4. audio source
  5. changes were not made
  6. Music: https://www.hooksounds.com

 

Use the comment section below to comment on the interview.

Want to get more helpful project management insights like this directly in your inbox? Subscribe to the Managing Projects newsletter (see subscribe in right side menu).

 

Ron Smith

Ron is a Project Manager with Chalder Consulting Inc. www.chalder.ca

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rondsmith

Check out the contributors page.

 

Transcription of the Interview

Ron: [00:00:03] This is the Managing Project’s podcast with your host Ron Smith. Join me as I talk with practitioners and the leaders and the role of project management and related topics. Visit ManagingProjects.ca for more information. Cole Cioran is the Senior Director of Research for Application Development Portfolio Management with Infotech Research Group. He is also the V.P. of mentoring with the Toronto IIBA. He’ll be speaking on two different topics at the conference on Monday. The first is thinking outside the project box and the second topic is stop writing user stories and start doing analysis. So without further ado let’s get on to the interview. Welcome Cole.

 

Cole: [00:00:50] Hello Ron, How are you. Pleasure to speak to you today.

 

Ron: [00:00:53] Pleasure to speak to you. Pleasure to speak to you. Thanks for joining us today.

 

Cole: [00:00:57] My pleasure.

 

Ron: [00:00:58] You’re going to be coming up to Moncton on November 27 and you’re going to be speaking at Project World and BA World that’s happening here. The couple of topics that you’re going to be speaking on. One is entitled thinking outside the project box. I wonder if you would give just a minute to talk about who would be interested in that and kind of wet the whistle, if you will, to see if folks might might want to come hear you on the Twenty-Seventh.

 

Cole: [00:01:24] I’m glad to Ron. And thanks very much for the invitation to do that. I’m really looking forward to coming to Moncton. I’ve never been to New Brunswick before and so it’s a great opportunity to see other province. So thinking about the project box was born out of a series of advisory experiences I had with members and customers over the last several years. Organizations have been struggling with this. What do they do with all of the work that comes out of project delivery. If you think about working code that agile thinks is so important. It is all very well but ultimately until somebody has use that motive to provide the value that was expected from it when somebody needs support they have to be able to get help if somebody is maintaining that system may understand how it’s going to work. A lot of those project artifacts are actually something that lives on beyond the scope of their project. One of the things that project managers and business analysts and stakeholders in organizations have to realize is that that project has an effect on the organization that last much longer than project close-out. So this is a talk about a disciplined approach to managing the knowledge that comes out of that project life-cycle. When you think about product requirements, you think about designs for systems, you think about all of those things that people need to support maintain deal with and or on and have in their organizations. All of those need to be kept alive or evergreen. In order to ensure that they’re valuable down the road. Just as much as the code is valuable that other information is valuable as well. Agile people often say you dont need to do any documentation – we’re agile. However, the Agile Manifesto doesn’t say there’s no documentation, they just say they value working more than they do comprehensive documentation. And when you consider that the agile movement was born by software developers you’d sort of understand that point of view. The documentation is really just a transitory thing for them that they consume in order to write that code. But the operations teams that all too often end up supporting that code need more than that. And similarly an auditor isn’t going to look at the code. They they don’t care what the code says. They care what decisions you made. And were they the right decisions based on the policies and standards your organization organizations to be run by. So thinking about that the outside the project box really is an approach for organizations to think about how to deliver work more effectively and how to manage that knowledge after a project is done. There are a lot of things you have to think about that are different. Such as what kinds of things you maintain because you don’t need to document everything right. You don’t want to have people writing everything down under the sun just in case someone needs it down the road. You want to be strategic about picking the things that you want to manage for your organization. You have to organize and store in a way that’s still valuable. One of my colleagues loves to say that old paper documentation is like cheap wine. It ages fast and it doesn’t taste very good. This is something you have got to manage as knowledge assets just as much as you manage that code base.

 

Ron: [00:04:31] Well it’s interesting and I’m seeing that as a trend too where you have these requirements that are being managed at a corporate level so I think this is this is a timely talk. I think it’s a lot of organizations that are that are going through this transition right now.

 

Cole: [00:04:45] Certainly one of the things I’ve seen at big organizations is if you’re regulated, you need to start doing this. I’ve been brought in to work with quite a few organizations from my mom and pop shops with a handful of analysts in a regulated space to some of the largest banks in North America. This is a critical area impacting organizations all size.

 

Ron: [00:05:05] It is interesting because if you take a look at the scenario you gave. So you were running an agile project and then you need some documentation to hand to or transition to operations. That is the cycle that we find ourselves in at times. It’s almost like an afterthought. In some cases where operations is about to inherit something and you do still hear that we’re running agile that means I didn’t have to document anything.

 

Cole: [00:05:36] Well and that means that’s great. All right. Does that mean I don’t have to support anything then?

 

Ron: [00:05:42] Your second topic you’re going to present on is Stop Writing User Stories and start doing analysis.

 

Cole: [00:05:53] Right. One of the things that I’ve seen with agile implementations is they can often go off the rails if they lack discipline. So one of the most common things I hear is there’s no requirements in agile. Although if you go to the product owner her page on the scrum.org site you will find that the backlog that the product owner manages is the backlog of requirements that there there’s still this bias towards not writing things down. A lot of companies trying to get by with just maintaining a list of user stories. Problem with that is a user story isn’t a requirement. It’s not even full design as Alster Coburn the fello who invented user stories said. It’s a placeholder for the for a conversation. And the most important thing to happen in a conversation is a series of questions that identify things like the requirements and the business needs and the value you expect to get out of this. And so all of those aspects of the conversation are things that get captured by a team or should get captured by team or appropriately as they go through the whole agile analysis lifecycle. Much like the challenge with documentation we just spoke about how do you manage and maintain that. They are valuable in all the artifacts that you just are actually disposable at the end of a sprint. And as well it should be – because you might have similar users users or have a different perspective on the same users story come up again and again. But the requirements and design that go with it are those valuable knowledge artifacts. And so having a disciplined practice around your agile teams where they analyze what they’re doing using the users there is only a placeholder for that. Right which is what it really should be. That gives them the ability to do better analysis and deliver better solutions as Boston Consulting recently commented… The biggest project failures they’ve seen have been with mature agile implementations with a little or poor knowledge of requirements. And so certainly this is again for business analysts and for product managers who want to manage successful initiatives. You need to do a discipline job in an agile environment of doing that business in houses work to understand what you really need to be delivering and the value it brings.

 

Ron: [00:08:14] So in terms of notables some of the services that you offer you have a one day intensive session. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do with company there.

 

Cole: [00:08:23] Yes so this is something I’ve offered as a on the side and I’ve taught training courses around agile analysis. So for instance if organizations are looking to build their business model and capability. I come out and teach them not only how to do business process modeling but how to do business process modeling in the context of a agile team. Which is very different than you would do traditional business process. You don’t want to go away and spend two years documenting all the processes of your organization because by the time you’re done they will have all changed and you can just throw at work in the garbage. The goal is to teach and it’s not just the discipline skills of visual modeling which help them deliver better work but also to show them how to do that context. They don’t become a barrier to delivery. Because that’s very quickly where they are an analyst and get into trouble because they’re agile. People are ready to start developing coding if they’re going to go away for six months and write requirements, it’s not going to help. So you’ve got to work differently in that environment and modeling is a key part of it.

 

Ron: [00:09:23] Interesting so if you have any favorite tools that you’re working with are tons of them I love.

 

Cole: [00:09:29] I think there’s really seven types of models that everybody should know how to do they need to know how to do context modeling. That’s a great way to get from. I started business goal to understanding what the stakeholders really need to implement as part of a project. Business process modeling provides that next level of detail that’s really critical for understanding how a solution needs to work particularly in a regulated environment. You have to understand where nonfunctional and regulatory rules all come together to influence how you build your solution. Another area is around UI moc-ups. Good agile practices all over have been using them for years. It’s a good tool for every analyst to know how to use because you want to show people what screens look like. It helps them get a better sense of where you’re going to build. On the more detailed side data models, data flow diagrams, and state diagrams and sequence diagrams are all really essential to blow that context around the user story. And so the trick is to use these tools at the right time in the right places you’re elaborating your use of stories to build the right solution.

 

Ron: [00:10:37] Well that’s great Cole. You know I’m excited to hear you when you come to Moncton. I wonder what’s the best way for people to get a hold of you to reach you if they wanted to ask you a question or you have a website or an email you like to share.

 

Cole: [00:10:50] Certainly they can reach out to need the infotech.com Web site my analyst bio and contact information is available there. And the conference itself Infotech is going to be hosting booths and will be available for people to come up to chat with us and learn more about what we do here to help drive better I.T. practice across the whole software delivery lifecycle and application lifecycle.

 

Ron: [00:11:16] Fantastic. Well the clock is ticking because this whole show is starting in about a week’s time.

 

Cole: [00:11:24] Well I’m looking to being there so good times and I’m looking forward to meeting him in person.

 

Ron: [00:11:30] You’ve been listening to the managing project’s podcast. Be sure to visit us on ManagingProjects.ca for sow notes including links to books and resources mentioned. And don’t forget to sign up for e-mail notifications so you’re the first to know about new episodes. You can also follow us on Twitter. At manage_proj. If you enjoy the show please leave a review on iTunes as it helps other people to discover the podcast. Thanks for listening.

 

Posted on

#002 – Managing Change in a Global Environment with Jennifer Bedell

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

With cultural dimensions such as Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Long Term Orientation as she sites the research of professor Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov and their research teams.

Jennifer brings her years of experience as a Business Analyst, Change Manager, and QA in a Global organization as well as some research by country helping us to understand the different cultures we are working with.

 

Show Notes:

  1. Host: Ron Smith
  2. Contact info for Jennifer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferbedell/
  3. Referenced Material: https://www.hofstede-insights.com/models/national-culture/

 

Audio Attribution:

  1. license
  2. title: JENNY’S THEME
  3. creator: Jason Shaw
  4. audio source
  5. changes were not made
  6. Music: www.hooksounds.com

 

Use the comment section below to comment on the interview.

Want to get more helpful project management insights like this directly in your inbox? Subscribe to the Managing Projects newsletter (see subscribe in right side menu).

 

Ron Smith

Ron is a Project Manager with Chalder Consulting Inc. www.chalder.ca

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rondsmith

Check out the contributors page.

 

Transcription of Interview

Ron: [00:00:03] This is the managing project’s podcast with your host Ron Smith. Join me as I talk practitioners and thought leaders in the world of project management and related topics. Visit managingprojects.ca for more information.

 

Jennifer: [00:00:18] Welcome to the third episode of managing projects. Today we have Jennifer Bedell from Halifax who’s working with ADP. Jennifer will be presenting at project world that is happening in Moncton New Brunswick on November 27 and her title is managing change in a global environment. Let’s get to the interview.

 

Ron: [00:00:40] Good morning Jennifer Badell.

 

Jennifer: [00:00:43] Good morning Ron. How are you today.

 

Ron: [00:00:45] I’m very good. I’m very good. How are you.

 

Ron: [00:00:48] I’m great. I got a good night’s sleep last night so it’s awesome.

 

Ron: [00:00:53] I was reading your profile on the conference page and your profile mentions that you work for a global company ADP and you’re often on calls in the wee hours of the morning. Midnight calls and then and 6:00 a.m. calls that you must be or you must be a fan of the coffee!

 

Jennifer: [00:01:13] I do like my coffee or my tea as the day prescribes. But yeah. I mean it does happen on occasion that all have these conference calls very late. And again early morning. I try to avoid that whenever possible. But when you’re working globally Sometimes this happens and you might just have a nap in the middle of the afternoon to make up for it.

 

Ron: [00:01:36] Yeah. Most of my experience has been around Indian based companies when I have calls at night. So I can totally relate. You’re a trooper. You’re a trooper for doing that.

 

Jennifer: [00:01:49] You know one of the advantages that we have actually is a lot of our colleagues in India are working shift work so that they’ll sometimes do the late nights and we get to work during the day. So it’s OK because it helps you know they’re good.

 

Ron: [00:02:01] They’re good to do that. From your bio 15 years experience in business analysis, change management, and quality assurance. I understand that the presentation you’re giving which is on Monday November 27th Moncton New Brunswick. The presentation that you’re going to give is titled managing change in a global environment. You seem to be the the perfect person to give this talk! Tell me a little bit about why you’re giving the talk and maybe a little taste for for people see if they might want to attend your session.

 

Jennifer: [00:02:34] Sure. So I picked this topic mostly because hey it’s what I do. A lot of it I learned kind of by doing and being introduced into a global organization and basically kind of jumping in with both feet and starting to meet with people across the different regions. As the topic suggests it’s managing change across a global organization and some of the things that I’ve found is depending on who I’m working with or what area of the world I happen to be working with, as I’m introducing something new I’m getting very different responses. So I did a little bit of research and found a gentleman by the name of Geert Hofstede. I think I’m pronouncing it correctly. He’s actually from the Netherlands. And he did research beginning in the 60s on some different dimensions of national cultures. So when he came up with six different categories of how different countries collectively handle certain situations or certain types of things. So it’s not to say that everybody in that country behaves that way or thinks of things that way. But generally speaking he’s found some some commonalities with the people in that particular country. And I’ll give you one example of one of the things that I’ve noticed. Power distance is one of the dimensions that he talks about and he’s got graphs on his Web site that will show you where the different countries fit. The countries that are generally dealing with are Canada, US. I’m dealing with Prague, Czech Republic quite a bit and and China as well. So one of the things that I found in terms of power distance it basically means how accepting is that culture of inequalities and power. So for example a director has more authority or more power than a manager. And in China that’s extremely high. So when I’m introducing a change in China, I go to a director and I say we need to we need to start doing things this way. The director will instruct their team and the team will take it up and just do it no questions asked. Where as in Canada and US that power distance is much lower. So here it’s going to be well you know I just don’t really want to. Why do I have to do it. I look at the way it was. So very different responses just based on that one dimension.

 

Ron: [00:05:25] That’s really interesting. So you’re bringing me back a little bit so it sort of mentioned that I did a little bit outsourced work. I did work with an Indian outsourcer. And what struck me in the work that surprised me was that they didn’t want to bring bad news up the chain to authority.

 

Jennifer: [00:05:46] Yes.

 

Ron: [00:05:47] And I found that so I found that out the hard way. It was it’s a shame. Maybe I should have listened to your session ten years ago. All the companies around are dealing with some kind of Indian outsourcer model. It was a very difficult lesson to learn because they literally didn’t want to tell you what the problems were. You couldn’t help them.

 

Jennifer: [00:06:13] Yeah. And on the other side of it when you’re talking about asking for a change or introducing a change you’ll hear Oh yes no problem we’ll do this very agreeable. when you check back in a month, it hasn’t been done but they don’t want a challenge right. It’s just not.

 

Ron: [00:06:36] I knew that they were working really really long hours and they really wanted to please you and try their hardest but they didn’t want to be seen as not being able to do it.

 

Jennifer: [00:06:47] So yeah and I’ll just highlight what the six different dimensions are I don’t go into the detail on all of them in my talk but I do I do touch on the ones that affect response to change. The dimensions are power distance which I said is acceptance of inequalities and power. Individualism which is kind of like every man for himself whether it’s sort of that it takes a village to raise a child or not. There is masculinity which is kind of a tough one to understand or even explain in today’s society but it’s the word that was used to describe basically whether a culture is more caring or more you know assertive. Uncertainty avoidance is how willing to accept something that is being introduced if you don’t have all the details. Long term orientation: are you willing to accept kind of a short term pain for long term gain. Indulgence versus restraint. You can probably guess where we are in North America on that one.

 

[00:08:05] You’ve been listening to the Managing Projects podcast. Be sure to visit us @ ManagingProjects.ca for show notes including links to books and resources mentioned. And don’t forget to sign up for email notifications so you are the first to know about new episodes. You can also follow us on Twitter @Manage_proj. If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on ITunes as it helps other people to discover the podcast. Thanks for listening.

 

Posted on

#001 – Can the Zombie Apocalypse help you survive your projects? with Hans Eckman

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

A great discussion on his dynamic and creative view on project management.  Requirements Management Platforms.  If you are attending the conference this would be a great session to attend.  There are a lot of great speakers heading the Moncton!

Hans will be presenting the following topics:

  1. Can the Zombie Apocalypse help you survive your projects?
  2. Becoming the Best Version of YOU!

Listen to this 15 minute pre-conference chat.

 

Show Notes:

  1. Host: Ron Smith
  2. Contact info for Hans:  eckmanguides.com

We are a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites. Books mentioned during the interview:

  1. The Purple Cow – Seth Godin
  2. Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison –

Audio Attribution:

  1. license
  2. title: JENNY’S THEME
  3. creator: Jason Shaw
  4. audio source
  5. changes were not made
  6. Music: www.hooksounds.com

 

Use the comment section below to comment on the interview.

Want to get more helpful project management insights like this directly in your inbox? Subscribe to the Managing Projects newsletter (see subscribe in right side menu).

 

Ron Smith

Ron is a Project Manager with Chalder Consulting Inc. www.chalder.ca

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rondsmith

Check out the contributors page.

 

Transcription of Interview

Ron: [00:00:03] This is the managing project’s podcast with your host Ron Smith join me as I talk with practitioners and thought leaders in the world of project management and related topics. Visit ManagingProjects.ca for more information. I’m Ron Smith. Welcome to episode number two. Today’s guest is Hans Eckman. Hans will be presenting at Project World and Moncton New Brunswick on November 27. His topics at the conference are, if you can believe this one, Can the Zombie Apocalypse Help You Survive Your Projects. And becoming the best version of you. Hi Hans Welcome to the show.

 

Hans: [00:00:43] Hi Ron. Thanks for having me today. I’m honored.

 

Hans: [00:00:45] Oh glad to have you. So I know you are with Blueprint Software Systems right now. Would you take a few minutes and just tell us what your focus is with them.

 

Hans: [00:00:54] Absolutely! Blueprint software is one of the largest and most robust requirements management platforms available to large corporations. I’m actually part of their professional services division so I’m helping them and their clients with the business transformation and org change management that needs to happen when you’re moving from project base requirements to actually managing requirements as an asset throughout your enterprise.

 

Ron: [00:01:21] So those requirements that you’re creating won’t die when a project is finished but they will live on or potentially breed into other projects – more of a corporate view.

 

Hans: [00:01:32] Absolutely yeah. And so we’re all used to the kind of one one and done approaches to projects. But when you can start managing that information as an asset at the smallest level you reduce the amount of startup time for each project. You reduce the number of errors and missed requirements. You have the ability to trace and automate your testing because of it. But longer term that information actually has extreme value so you can identify the impact of changes across your enterprise a lot faster, reduce your audit and compliance risk, and identify new opportunities that you might miss if you didn’t have that world view of the enterprise.

 

Ron: [00:02:13] Well it’s really interesting kind of trends are you seeing.

 

Hans: [00:02:18] For a lot of companies the big struggle has been how do I get my stuff faster and better. And that’s what’s been behind one of the largest pushes for Agile is looking at team based and looking at smaller iterative projects. But there’s nothing that prevents those same principles from being applied even in waterfall projects. So the big change I’m seeing is some organizations are really embracing the fact that the understanding of their enterprise operations is as vital as the services themselves.They’re starting to invest a lot more heavily in both the people processes and technology around that area.

 

Ron: [00:03:01] Yeah I hear you here. I mean certainly a trend that I’m seeing as well like it’s quite interesting to look at it from a requirement standpoint like every organization that I’m working with they’re adopting these enterprise architecture groups and the projects need to be interfacing with them. But that’s that’s an interesting view to take a corporate view of how these requirements are being traced. So when you’re not doing that type of work with these companies I hear you’re chasing zombies.

 

Hans: [00:03:27] A little bit and hopefully it’ll remain just in theory and not in practice. But absolutely one of the opportunities I’ve had is to present at conferences across the United States and Canada on the topic you were alluding to ask been one of the most popular presentations I’ve given which is how you can survive your projects by preparing for a zombie apocalypse basically following if you can be ready for the worst case scenario. You should be ready for anything. Showing how some of the skills techniques and approaches in disaster response and disaster preparedness actually perfectly mirror our project life cycles. If we can use those daily examples we can actually strengthen our skills and ability and take those it back into the workplace and perform better there as well.

 

Ron: [00:04:19] I love the analogy because you know we’ve been on those troubled projects that it seems like an apocalypse. I love that you picked that as the analogy. It’s very creative way to say no how did you ever come up with a with a title.

 

Hans: [00:04:34] It actually started Bob primness and I were at building business capability’s conference one year. And like any other conference when you’re meeting and hanging out with people you start sharing some of your war stories. One of the common themes that we’ve seen over the years is we tend to learn more and develop our skills faster in the most impossible projects impossible departments impossible clients we’ve ever worked for. And somehow throughout the evening that conversations shifted over to zombies and what would happen if you were trying to apply those same principles to a zombie apocalypse. So Bob kind of threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to come up with a presentation that could tie the two together and to not be outdone after I succeeded doing that I threw the gauntlet back at him. So sometime coming in 2018 Bob will be presenting BA the musical.

 

Ron: [00:05:29] Say that again? BA the what?

 

Hans: [00:05:32] The Musical. So is the musical with original songs and lyrics by Bob Prentis. He has about half of it written and is refining it and moving forward so we can look forward to that. On the conference circuit next year.

 

Ron: [00:05:49] Oh man can the guy sing.

 

[00:05:51] He is actually an unbelievable singer and entertainer. His keynote presentations are usually about a quarter to a third of it is him breaking into song. He was a one of the lead members of the Minneapolis chorus and just a phenomenal singer and entertainer. Unfortunately I have absolutely no skills in either of those departments so I have to rely on much more information based value rather than the pure entertainment.

 

Ron: [00:06:23] I was doing a little bit of research on on your talk with the zombie apocalypse and found some of your some of your resources and I tell you I want to go home and start stocking the cans of food just to make sure I am ready. But it was you know I really loved your slant on on this topic. And so that is one of the topics you’ll be giving. And then the other one as we’re finishing up the conference is becoming the best version of you and maybe just spend a minute in and tell us a few things about about that.

 

Hans: [00:07:02] Absolutely. I had the honor of being able to do quite a few keynote presentations this year and will be excited to attend in the Moncton conference. It will be my first time participating in that event. And so the the heart of the conference came from a realization that most people don’t realize not only what they’re good at and what their superpowers are but they don’t necessarily see those superpowers as something that sets them apart in a positive way an area that they should be focusing in on. A lot of our professional development, we end up looking for gaps looking for errors looking for mistakes and trying to fill that. But we can actually be a lot more productive if we focus in on our core value and look for more opportunities where we can be our best person and we can do our super powers.That’s really what sets us apart. So in the keynote I try and help people with some tips finding out what their super powers might be as opposed to just general skills that everyone can do. Then develop some techniques and approaches to help people harness that energy and be more successful in their personal and professional lives.

 

Ron: [00:08:16] What do you think the main reason is that people don’t try to identify their superpowers and perhaps try to go to try and go and chase those. What have your observations been?

 

Hans: [00:08:27] I think we’ve got a trap that is common across all all businesses and employment areas which is we tend to focus in on the base skills and activities that are required for a job. So we look at any position any level in the organization and we focus in on all the things you would be doing. That tends to slant our approach to fill out those jobs as equally as possible across the different activities the different skills. There’s really nothing in the hiring process or in a lot of staff and development processes within an organization that really focuses in on your unique talents and why those are important to the organization. We see the same problem with product marketing as well. Seth Godin had a great book The Purple Cow and another gentleman I forget his name offhand wrote an excellent book called Becoming a Category of One which were specifically targeting the same problem with businesses. A lot of companies try and compete by saying we do all these things better or cheaper or faster than our competitors. Instead of finding what it is that they do that makes them unique. Perfect example would be Apple. Apple does not create new products. They don’t create disruptive products. Instead they find a need that and find a way of making it so much better than anyone else can do it more user friendly more intuitive and just a better overall experience. And that’s been their key to success. As individuals, we need to kind of take that same approach. One of the things that we do well that nobody else is doing as well because that’s what’s going to set us apart. That’s what’s going to set us up for advancement and future opportunities.

 

Ron: [00:10:22] So do you see this as a personal enrichment or corporate focusing?You could take that approach corporately. But is your presentation more on the person itself.

 

Hans: [00:10:36] Yeah my my focus is on the person. Eventually this will probably could turn into corporate workshops or other activities. But at the moment, it’s helping people understand what makes them special.If being special and being different is a good thing they should stop trying to hide it. Now hopefully some of those people especially as they move into leadership or management positions will turn around and start looking for those special skills looking for those opportunities within their team and then that’s how it can spread throughout the enterprise. But at the moment my focus is much more on the individual than the than a than a team or corporate environment.

 

Ron: [00:11:17] So Hans, I think you’re becoming one of the veterans from what I can tell on on the circuit for Project World and you’ve spoken a few times now. Tell us a little bit about your speaking engagements. Where do you go that across North America. Have you have you left the continent? What’s your focus on some of your speaking engagements?

 

Hans: [00:11:37] So far it’s been largely the United States and Canada. Not that I wouldn’t love to be able to present in some other countries. I just haven’t been able to work out the logistics yet. I had an invite to go to speak in London but we were never able to find a time or a way to make that happen so definitely enjoy focusing in on North America. Would love to spread out. And primarily speaking on project management, business analysis, leadership, and then also some on soft skills and other personal development areas.

 

Ron: [00:12:14] Well you know what I am excited to see you here in a couple of weeks. What’s the best way for people to get a hold of you or you have a web page or an e-mail address that you’d like to share?

 

Hans: [00:12:26] Absolutely so yeah. I love connecting with people love staying in touch. All of the all of the articles I write all of the presentations that I do are available on my web site which is Eckmanguides.com. And you know they can grab my name off of your blog to get the right spelling. So that’s where all of my information is published. I look forward to anyone that wants to connect through linked in and stay in touch that way I try and make sure and publish everything. Also through LinkedIn and then if people want to reach out directly my email is Hans@hanseckman.com And I’d be happy to help out wherever I can.

 

Ron: [00:13:07] Thank you for the time this afternoon. And again I can’t wait for that conference. It sounds like a lot of fun teasing zombies. Can’t wait to hear that.

 

Hans: [00:13:16] It’ll be good. I have never. I’ve had a lot of people that started very nervous about coming too and very curious how it was going to be, but I haven’t met any one who didn’t at least walk away with a few tips and tricks that they could absolutely apply to their professional lives as well.

 

Ron: [00:13:34] Yeah absolutely. These conferences are really well done and thanks for your time today.

 

Hans: [00:13:39] Thank you so much. It’s been an honor being here I look forward to meeting you and the rest of your listeners at the conference in a week.

 

Ron: [00:13:47] Sounds great. See you then.

 

Ron: [00:13:50] You’ve been listening to the Managing Project’s podcast. Be sure to visit us and ManagingProjects.ca for show notes including links to books and resources mentioned. And don’t forget to sign up for e-mail notifications so you’re the first to know about new episodes. You can also follow us on Twitter @manage_proj. If you enjoy the show please leave a review on iTunes as it helps other people to discover the podcast. Thanks for listening.