Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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:
- Host: Ron Smith
- Website: vincentmirabelli.com
- Social Profiles: Twitter and IG – @vince_mirabelli
- LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincemirabelli/
Audio Attribution:
- license
- title: JENNY’S THEME
- creator: Jason Shaw
- audio source
- 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 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.