26.10.15 It's Not AI: What PMI's Research Says Project Managers Really Need with Joe Sisto (61)
[00:00:00] Chris: in this episode of Great Practices, I'm joined by Joe Sisto, PMI Atlanta board chair, that's one of the largest chapters in the nation, as well as a project management instructor at Georgia Tech. Listen in as Joe discusses the surprising insights PMI is seeing in their latest research, what this means for the role of the project manager, as well as what skills you should be focusing on to thrive in this new economy.
[00:00:26] Spoiler alert: believe it or not, it's not AI. Plus, find out how the MORE methodology, M-O-R-E, should change how you view your job as a project manager and what stop signs can teach you about making sure that you take all of your stakeholders into consideration we'd like to welcome you to this episode of Great Practices, and today I'm talking with my number one guest, Joe Sisto. Now, it's true, he is an amazing guest, but he is also literally my number one guest, as in my first guest ever on Great Practices. Joe joined me on July 15th of 2021 for our inaugural episode, and we've been in touch ever since.
[00:01:41] So here we are, over five years later, over 60 episodes in, and he's back for round two. Now, Joe is currently serving as the PMI Atlanta Board Chair. That's one of the largest chapters in the US. He's a Georgia Tech instructor of project management and has decades of experience as a [00:02:00] PMO and project director.
[00:02:01] Today, we're gonna be talking to Joe about the importance of not only having technical project management and PMO skills, but how important it is to bring business acumen to the table as well. Joe, welcome back to Great Practices.
[00:02:18] Joe: Thank you, Chris. It's wonderful to be here, and I wanna congratulate you on 60 episodes plus of Great Practices. I can't believe five years have passed.
[00:02:28] It seems like yesterday, just yesterday,
[00:02:31] to me.
[00:02:32] Chris: seem like yesterday. And not only, you know, not only have you been a great guests but you've also, uh, pointed a lot of other great guests along the way. So I, I've really enjoyed, you know, I've enjoyed working with you over these past five years and absolutely staying, staying connected.
[00:02:46] Joe: been my passion, so it's easy to follow your passion.
[00:02:49] Chris: Yes, exactly. Now, for our listeners who weren't around five years ago, can you share with them a little bit about who you are and what it is that you do?
[00:02:59] Joe: Sure. right now I'm an instructor of project management and Agile classes over at, Georgia Tech. I've been doing that going on six years now, and I've enjoyed it thoroughly. Uh, I've helped develop curriculum for Georgia Tech as well, and I will continue to do so, uh, next year, so I'm looking forward to that.
[00:03:17] I'm also head of the, uh, PMI, uh, local chapter. We have over 6,000 members. Uh, we're growing steadily. We're at 6,500, in fact. And then, uh, I'm also the de facto lead for all of PMI North America, the Project Management Institute, for all of the technology standards for the chapters, which is a great honor, and I've enjoyed, interacting with all of the chapter presidents in North America, including Canada and the, uh, Virgin Islands
[00:03:44] Chris: That is quite a full plate that you got going on right there.
[00:03:48] Joe: It sure
[00:03:49] Chris: that's abso- that's absolutely amazing. So you have been, you've been around clearly project management, uh, and PMI for, for a long period of time now. What, what problems are [00:04:00] surfacing or what are some of the things that PMI is seeing, like in some of their latest research?
[00:04:05] Joe: Things have changed. Uh, I, I think that I would've thought at the beginning of the year, the number one challenge or problem to the industry would've been, as we're all talking about it, artificial intelligence, and it's not. The classic skills of project management, you know, managing the budget, managing the scope, managing the timeline and the deliverables, uh, and the quality of those deliverables has shifted significantly.
[00:04:33] And a, a significant amount of research was done by the Project Management Institute last year of thousands of different people across hundreds of different companies and states, uh, in, in, uh, America and Canada as well, and the research findings were stunning. And they put together a model, and this is what really what I wanted to tell you today 'cause it's a stunning new development, uh, and new direction for project management in general, where it's been discovered and research supports that good business skills are now a significant indicator of project success.
[00:05:12] Um, and the, the studies that were done and published last November, which are now being communicated out, uh, have substantiated key skills that will increase project success, like, uh, managing stakeholders better, you know, and managing the perceptions, and the ownership attitude of a project where a project manager shows that they own the outcomes, not just the deliverables, and then relentlessly reassessing the parameters and the stakeholders and expanding the perspective, um, to an enterprise perspective.
[00:05:47] Those four key skills, and I can break some of them down, are now showing to have a five plus percent improvement in project outcomes, uh, across the board, across [00:06:00] hundreds and hundreds of projects, uh, over time. That's the first time I've actually seen hardcore research on intangible skills related to project success.
[00:06:11] Remember in the past and for many years, decades really, it was all about managing the scope and the deliverables and, and being on time, right, uh, and being on budget. Those were all the things we knew were absolutely critical to success. And now they're saying, "Wait a second, it's really about these leadership skills at...
[00:06:29] and business skills that are, are now considered equally critical."
[00:06:35] And PMI has actually changed the exam as of July 8th of this year to reflect now 25% of the exam is now on these new skills. So I've been going out sort of preaching the gospel, and I'm finding that, uh, CEOs wanna hear me say this, um, because it's the first time they've actually...
[00:06:53] They've said it to me many, for many years, and I'm sure they've said it to you too, "Hey, wait a second. Why can't we get more business savvy project managers?" But now the research shows it
[00:07:02] Chris: Why do you think there's been a change? because, you know, project management back in the day, it kind of was all about time and scope and quality and budget and all those types of things. What's changed recently that this, that this is now important?
[00:07:16] Joe: That is a great question. What has changed is the incredibly dynamic nature of business today. And w- from... And I've been this, in this a long time, even from 10 years ago, you could write a charter for a project, even if a project was 90 days. You could write a scope document and write a set of requirements even on what's called a waterfall project, a project with a definitive ending, like, uh, building a new building or buying a fleet of trucks and saying, "Okay, this, this project's got a definitive ending."
[00:07:52] That's no longer true. And, um, for many years, probably it's very common, because I've been around a lot, [00:08:00] you might write on a 90-day project, 10, 15, 20 change requests, right? And even the change requests have a hard time of keeping up, so you have to put together a, a change management system and a process and a governance board to make sure you can handle all that change.
[00:08:16] And now the new model, which they're now calling the MORE model, M-O-R-E, uh, says that this now has to happen dynamically. From day one, you're going to have to just assume that that charter is gonna have to be revisited maybe every week or every two weeks as you check in with stakeholders, and have a new attitude about, uh, as a project manager about accepting change and being proactive in driving the change, not just accepting the change.
[00:08:46] Very different kinds of, thinking here
[00:08:48] Chris: I think you nailed it. I think the fact that, business is so dynamic now and it changes on a weekly basis. I mean, there, that is not, that's not an exaggeration. the project manager is, is on the front line and they've gotta be asking, "Is this still the right thing to do?"
[00:09:03] I mean, that's fundamentally what it comes down to because, it's not like you can just keep going three, six, 12 months at a time and it stays the right thing.
[00:09:12] Joe: Exactly. Yeah. In fact, the R in that MORE model actually says, quote-unquote, "Relentlessly reassess project parameters to respond to inevitable and ongoing change." Those are some pretty strong words in this new model of, of what a project manager needs to do.
[00:09:33] Chris: So what, what is, what is MORE? So you, you've referenced that,
[00:09:36] Joe: Yeah, so this M is managing your perceptions of all your stakeholders.
[00:09:41] So you now have to proactively check in with them weekly, bi-weekly, not just at the status meeting, but as part of your ongoing work, right? Are you communicating with them the right way? Are you getting feedback? Uh, even unsolicited feedback, you've got to now go [00:10:00] and pursue that feedback. The second is something is, I know is your bailiwick, is own the project success beyond project management itself by taking full accountability for delivering both the tangible, and listen to this, and perceived value of the project.
[00:10:17] Wait a second. There's a perceived value on top of the tangible value? You know? They're looking for outcomes now. So the new word is not deliverables, it's outcomes, and we're having to reteach ... Even at Georgia Tech, we've changed our curriculum to go, "Wait, let's talk about what outcomes would be on a project, not just your deliverables that are in your project charter and your scope statement."
[00:10:42] 'Cause we would check off those deliverables and go, "Well, that's not exactly." "Yeah, but you signed off on that three mon- just three months ago." "Yeah, but we really want blah, blah, blah." Instead of complaining about it, you're expected to be ahead of it now and should have known, you know, at the beginning and during the project that these things are now shifting.
[00:11:02] And then the last, uh, of that MORE model is E for expand perspective. So consider the broader picture of how the project fits into the larger goals. And what's happening with that is that we used to think our stakeholders were the people who funded the project or maybe the users or departments that would benefit the project or the departments, like if we were in retail, they might be retail operations and the training group and the marketing group and the, uh, HR and things like that.
[00:11:30] But now they're looking at stakeholders, uh, as being the government as well, as being the community, as being consumers, as being legislative body, bodies, as being other stakeholders, suppliers even. And they should now be interviewed to be part of possible changes and dynamic outcomes of the project itself.
[00:11:52] That's a very different way of looking at things.
[00:11:55] Chris: Remind us what the R was again
[00:11:58] Joe: Relentlessly reassess.[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] Relentlessly
[00:12:01] reassess the parameters of the project.
[00:12:04] Chris: Got it
[00:12:05] Joe: You mean the... We've got to take that charter now and re-shop it around? you know, is this what you thought the outcome would be? Are we still there or has something changed, right? And so it's now expected that project managers are proactive with that, and, and they want to move forward with that as they relook at, maybe since we started this project, something has changed, and it probably has.
[00:12:28] But they're, the- they, the stakeholders may have a hard time putting it into words or requirements or, scope statements,
[00:12:36] right?
[00:12:37] Chris: you know what's interesting out of that is 50% of these, deal with perceptions, right? You know, managing perceptions of stakeholders, owning project success, tangible and perceived outcomes. I mean, that you're, you're having to manage all of that, that ambiguity and, and those opinions basically, throughout this whole process too, right?
[00:12:57] Joe: Exactly. And they're expecting project managers really to step up in terms of taking on that mantle of leadership, being proactive Foreseeing what might change and proactive in going out and asking for change rather than reactive going, "All right, I'm gonna accept the change you're giving me, um, and I'll go ahead and implement it, but I'll need more money, more time, whatever."
[00:13:21] You know, doing an assessment on it. They're now as- saying, "No, no, no, you as the project manager have to go out and, and go seek that out now." and this is a big message. This is a huge, uh, new message that we at Georgia Tech, being platinum partners of PMI, have incorporated into all our new class materials, and the research supports it.
[00:13:44] The thing I really like, I love scientific research, being a tech guy, right? I love anything that's engineering I could actually put my finger on and prove. but uh, listen to this in, in terms of the numbers, I just wanna make sure these are stated. If you actually adhere more to this [00:14:00] model and you're proactive with stakeholder expectations, it's an 83 versus 78% chance of meeting business goals, 73% versus 68 versus adherence to budget, 63 versus 59 adherence to schedule, and it reduces project failure by a full 3%.
[00:14:21] Now, those of us that grew up with science backgrounds and, and math backgrounds like me, you know, when you take large samples of 2,800, uh, 3,000 people, anything past that 3% boundary is now statistically signi-significant, right? 3% is usually the plus or minus on the, on large sample error rates, but when you get to four, five, six, 7%, okay, there is, there is a factor there.
[00:14:45] These things really do help improve. it's proven true on even some of the projects I've managed recently where I've had to implement, uh, some robots in a factory, just last year. and you know, we signed off on the charter, et cetera, et cetera. But as we implemented the robots, we learned there were some new ways in which, uh, requirements were coming for packaging.
[00:15:08] The robots needed to package cartons in a case, and the way cases needed to be labeled, and it was a constant flow of changes. Constant, constant. Every week there was a series of changes. And you could take the approach of, all right, I'll be, I'll be reactive and I'll accept all those changes and put a change request in.
[00:15:28] That's not good enough. You have to go out there and find out what else could impact that project for implementing, uh, robotic packaging. Um, and this was for an orange juice company, you know, implementing robotic packaging. We were packaging cartons of orange juice into cases. Very simple stuff, and you would think, "Oh, that's a known scope.
[00:15:48] We're just gonna put in robots to put in cartons and cases." But cartons and cases meant forklifts have to work differently, loading of trucks works differently, deliveries now work differently, weight [00:16:00] limitations now work differently, um, the speed of the assembly line works differently, electrical requirements in the factory, the union has to be consulted.
[00:16:09] uh, the FDA has to be consulted to be sure that, you know, we're... noth- no orange juice stays in open air more than, 20 minutes, right, before it's packaged and put on a refrigerated truck. So all kinds of things have to be thought through ahead of time
[00:16:24] Chris: Well, I mean, that, that, that ties into expand perspective, right? Just
[00:16:27] kind of making sure that all of those different groups are in there,
[00:16:29] Joe: Yeah. Even though the stakeholders may not have thought of that originally to tell you that.
[00:16:34] Chris: Okay, so I'm gonna just, I'm gonna nut this out. So as far as this MORE concept again, right? So what we're talking about is, is M-O-R-E, managing perceptions of stakeholders, own project success, have full accountability for it, relentlessly, relentlessly reassess, and then expand perspective, right?
[00:16:53] So if, if, if a project manager starts bringing these elements into, into their way of working, you're saying you've seen substantial increases as far as, success,
[00:17:05] Joe: Absolutely. It has a measurable, documented, graphical output, you know, that people have charted now into research, which I love. and it's got me very excited in why our PMI local chapter has sponsored now research both at Tech and at Georgia State University for project management. We're now grantors of new, new research.
[00:17:25] and it, and it tickles me because it also tells me that the profession is growing in its own internal knowledge. That being around a long time and talking to other folks that have been around a long time in project management, this really validates what I've learned as a career, right? And, and validates what I'm hearing we all talk about, you know, over lunch or dinner, and then we go, "Yeah, have you noticed that?"
[00:17:48] "Yeah, I've noticed that too." And now there's re- now there's science. You know, it's not just discussion, it's real science behind
[00:17:55] it. Uh, and executives love this when I tell them that,
[00:17:59] Chris: [00:18:00] And it puts, it puts a project manager at a whole, at a whole different level in the organization, you know? Instead of just, tracking and reporting on what happened and all that type of thing, it's just like they're really looking forward and they're making an impact and they're making sure this is the right thing to work on.
[00:18:16] and that situational awareness, it's, it's a game changer as far as a new way of working now,
[00:18:21] Joe: Absolutely. they've even taken the time to map out all of these skills. and so some of the things that we're, we're now teaching is if you've interviewed five stakeholders internally on a project to start your charter, you probably needed to interview 10 departments you've never thought of before that might be impacted, right?
[00:18:41] And then you, you probably have five external stakeholders, um, that you've never thought of before. I'll give you another example. I teach these classes and I get input now from folks that are project managers from all over the place. So, uh, I've taught a lot of these classes for state and local government and, uh, I remember once I had the Department of Public Safety for one of our, uh, local Atlanta, governments, and they were talking about a project to implement a stop sign in a local neighborhood.
[00:19:12] And a stop sign could cost $45,000 to put in a stop sign, a four-way stop,
[00:19:19] right? So significant money, right? And if you had to put in six of these, you, you, you're talking a quarter million dollars, to improve neighborhood traffic flow. And they'll do studies to show that traffic's improved and there's fewer accidents.
[00:19:33] They'll see how many accidents because people didn't stop properly in the prior year. Great science. So this one department go- went ahead and put in a four-way stop. Well, there was a neighborhood protest. The, the local neighborhood association protested the stop sign with over 60 protesters, and they wrote City Hall and talked to their alderman and so forth, and had it rescinded.
[00:19:54] Now, they never thought of actually consulting the neighborhood association about the, the stop sign [00:20:00] as a stakeholder. Even though they had all of the statistics about how many accidents and things like that and thought they were doing the community good, they didn't really look into what the community wanted as a stakeholder, right?
[00:20:13] they had to go back, you know, represent. It took an entire another year and, um, to kind of present their findings and get, you know, community support. Now they've incorporated into their practices to survey the community to have an open hearing even on a stop sign.
[00:20:29] Um, and this is a major Atlanta community.
[00:20:32] But, but think, think about all the time and the money and the effort that was wasted, you know, to get it up to that point, you know, to, to hit a brick wall, basically that you could have predicted or you could have gotten ahead of that. that's a big difference there. so Joe, in this, in this ever-changing environment, this dynamic environment that we are all working in, what skills, would be most helpful for a project manager to, to focus on gaining or expanding?
[00:21:01] being open to change and being pre-active, in other words, beyond proactive. Foreseeing the change ahead of time, that it's more than just a deliverable kind of change. We're changing processes in people and attitudes and training, and that a project today now has internal and external stakeholders that need to be included and constantly re-interviewed.
[00:21:22] And then the openness to change on the charter, the budget, and then refocusing on reassessing the value, especially intangible value, uh, and perceived value of the project as you're going forward. Um, some people will lose heart about what you're doing and may not support you in the future because the situation's changed.
[00:21:46] So if you don't roll with that situation and go ahead and change your project, and take the lead on changing the project rather than just being receptive to change, you now have to drive the change. and, uh, skills in change [00:22:00] management, uh, skills in communication, and we're teaching some new skills in doing stakeholder mapping, re-interviewing and changing the change control process itself to be proactive change control rather than reactive change control.
[00:22:15] In other words, go ahead and build in, between milestones. Uh, you're going out and interviewing and surveying, does this charter still make sense? Does this business case still make sense? The, the, influenced perceived outcomes rather than deliverables make sense. Those should be stated now, not just the deliverables in the charter.
[00:22:35] Very hard to communicate. I think it's gonna take several years to make that full sh- shift.
[00:22:41] Chris: So you still, I mean, you still need the foundational project management experience and expertise and skills, scope,
[00:22:48] time, budget, that
[00:22:49] type of thing. You just
[00:22:50] gotta layer this, you gotta layer this on top of it, you know, in order to
[00:22:54] complement that basically
[00:22:55] Joe: Yeah, absolutely. And, and it isn't because, I mean, this is an elevation of the role of project manager. Uh, we still predict and are still experiencing critical shortages in project management today of s- of people. and I know that there's a lot of people unemployed, but they don't have-- they're not showing the skills that senior management is looking for.
[00:23:15] so I get calls weekly for jobs, Chris. I'm not kidding. And, and, uh, I just had a major employer call for four senior construction project managers in Atlanta, and I didn't have a single person apply. I announced it to the club and so forth. A typical club meeting, I'll-- we'll have eight open jobs. I'll have four or five applicants.
[00:23:37] I mean, it's three or four jobs, there isn't even an applicant. And we'll announce these. I've brought recruiters to our meetings, and I always have more jobs than applicants. Isn't that wild?
[00:23:47] Chris: is going
[00:23:47] on there? I don't understand that They're looking for a higher set of skills.
[00:23:52] Joe: They're looking for a higher set of skills. So, I'll give you an example.
[00:23:55] A major automobile manufacturer is [00:24:00] opening up, a brand new facility in Atlanta, brand new building in the hundreds of millions of dollars in Atlanta. Was looking for construction project managers, but they needed someone to manage the vendors, the external stakeholders, government regulators, uh, and so forth for constructing a building, putting in new wiring and massive electrical test facilities to test new automobiles.
[00:24:24] They wanted to build a gigantic automobile tester, so they're doing it. Um, but we had to find project managers outside of the city around the United States to move here, uh, to fulfill those job requirements. I don't get paid for finding people jobs, but I was trying to help people find jobs. But they needed somebody very skilled at managing these external stakeholders.
[00:24:43] They were less worried about the project of building the internal facilities and the building itself. Isn't that interesting? And this is, this is a big dollar job. These are very well-paying, uh, positions. They were looking for s-several in Atlanta and several in Los Angeles.
[00:24:58] Chris: So that's gonna be my great practice that I'm gonna recommend is if you're looking for a job and you got high skills, join the PMI Atlanta chapter.
[00:25:05] Joe: Yeah, definitely. And we're teaching this stuff now, yeah, to
[00:25:08] make those, make those skills transition. It's the same thing with the resume. Everybody's putting AI on their resumes. What we're really looking for is leadership, change management, stakeholder skills, uh, what they're really asking for.
[00:25:21] Chris: I, I think it comes down to, business acumen. I mean, that's ultimately what it's coming down to.
[00:25:26] That's what the project managers need to have in order to have that. So Joe, if there was one great practice related to this topic, um, that you'd want to share with our listeners today, what would you, what would you focus on?
[00:25:39] Joe: Um, interview your stakeholders, not just at the beginning of the charter, but throughout the project, and build milestones for interviewing and shifting. and it should be between milestones, not at the end of the milestone period where people go, "You're off base."
[00:25:54] Chris: Perfect.
[00:25:55] Joe: Right? Um, yeah, somewhere in between we need to create plans where we're [00:26:00] checking everybody's pulse and seeing if the value is still there, 'cause the value will likely shift now, um, to what we thought the perceived value was
[00:26:09] Chris: And checking in between milestones allows you time to adjust and adapt and pivot
[00:26:15] Joe: If there was just one thing to do, it would be that.
[00:26:18] Chris: Excellent advice. Well, Joe, thank you very much for being on again today. And, uh, what would be the best way if somebody would like to talk to you more about this topic? What's the best way to get in
[00:26:29] Joe: Email me please. Um, jsisto, J-S-I-S-T-O, @pmiatlanta.org, O-R-G.
[00:26:38] Jsiso@pmiatlanta.org
[00:26:41] Chris: Perfect, and we'll include that in the show notes as well. And, um, but Joe, again, we appreciate you being on again today for the second time, and, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll shoot for episode 120. We'll, we'll pencil you in for that. Sound good?
[00:26:53] Joe: All right, sounds great. When's that expected to air?
[00:26:56] Chris: I don't know, man. It's like I, I do one a month, so we're talking five more years, but
[00:27:00] Joe: Okay.
[00:27:02] Chris: Thanks for being on again today, and we will talk to you soon
[00:27:05] Joe: All right. Take care. Bye-bye
[00:27:09] Chris: That was another great episode of Great Practices, and we certainly do appreciate Joe joining us today. So what were some of the great practices and insights that came from today's episode? Well, I liked, him talking about that new PMI research that's come out about how things have changed.
[00:27:26] the classic skills of project management, managing budget, scope, timeline, deliverables, quality, those things are still important, but what he's finding and what this research is showing that everybody really kind of had a feeling about, is that business acumen and business skills need to come into that equation as well.
[00:27:49] Now, the reason for that, which I thought was interesting, is just the incredibly dynamic nature of business today. You know, by the time that you start a project, you [00:28:00] write a chart or a scope document requirements. You know, maybe you start going down that project and, completing it using the waterfall method.
[00:28:07] By the time you're down that track, within a week or two, you know, the requirements could change. What the initial thoughts of what this was going to do or the environment that it was working in are maybe different now. So it's up to project managers to stay ahead of that.
[00:28:23] He used the word preactive a number of times. So, you know, we're all familiar with what being proactive is, but he's challenging everybody and saying that we need to be preactive and foresee what some of these changes could be, foresee if this is still the right thing to be working on, and then take the steps necessary, to make sure that there's still alignment within the organization.
[00:28:47] What about this new methodology, this MORE methodology? I love this. M-O-R-E. M, managing perceptions of all your stakeholders. that was the regular check-ins. That was, you know, not just checking in, "Well, here's this milestone and this is delivered. Now we're moving into this phase." But what are we doing in between these milestones, and what are we doing to proactively make sure that our executives and our stakeholders, everything is still aligned with what their expectations of this project would be?
[00:29:21] And the next one was O, own the project success beyond just managing the project itself, but taking full accountability for delivering both the tangible and the perceived values. Again, it is a shift from, "Okay, we did this deliverable and we did this thing, and this system is up and running," but what are the outcomes?
[00:29:44] What are the results from that? What is the business value? That's what we need to be focusing on as project managers. R, that was the next letter in MORE, relentlessly reassess the parameters of the [00:30:00] project. make sure that things haven't changed. And literally things change so quickly now. It can be from week to week there's new information, there's new challenges, there's new risks, could be new stakeholders.
[00:30:13] Whatever that is, constantly be challenged at that and say, "Are we still working on the right things?" Or, "Is all the input that we had originally put into this, is this still relevant and is it something that we could still, continue to move forward with on?" as you relentlessly reassess the parameters of the project.
[00:30:32] And then finally there was E, expand perspective. that's just moving beyond the scope and the time and the quality and the deliverables, that type of thing. But what is the broader picture of how it fits into broader goals? go beyond just the core stakeholders that you may have internally at the organization.
[00:30:53] He talked about, you know, make sure that if it's a bigger project worth bringing in maybe government stakeholders, community, consumers, legislative suppliers. Who knows who has to be involved in order to make this project a success. But you've really got to expand beyond just kind of looking within your organization and just the standard, you know, stakeholders that we may have a couple of people from various departments.
[00:31:17] But just understand that it goes much broader from that, and we need to expand our perspective. So MORE. M, manage perceptions of all your stakeholders. O, own the project success beyond just project management activity itself. Focus on outcomes.
[00:31:32] R, relentlessly reassess the parameters of the project. And E, expand our perspective. That's really the model for the new project manager as, uh, this environment that we're all working in is changing so much
[00:31:47] I love that example of a stop sign. You know, he said it would take $45,000 in order to put up a four-way stop, and so they were doing that, and they realized they never consulted with the neighborhood or the [00:32:00] community in which they were doing that. So they thought they were doing the community good, but that's not what the community wanted.
[00:32:06] They had other ideas or, you know, perhaps maybe another way of dealing with that. So all of that time, all that effort, all that money was wasted, in order to put up these stop signs. And if they had expanded that E, if they had expanded their perspective, that E in MORE, they would have not made that mistake and been able to do that much more efficiently and effectively.
[00:32:30] Now, what skills does a project manager need to be, successful in this new environment, in operating this new way? He brought up a couple of them. Being open to change, being proactive, that's beyond proactive. You know, predicting what could happen and then doing something about that. So that's a huge one.
[00:32:49] he said acquire skills in change management, acquire skills in communication, acquire skills in stakeholder mapping. all of these business soft skills, you know, we've always talked about these as the soft skills. This is where people are looking for in addition to just that core fundamental project management methodologies that we bring to the table, but we've got to have that business acumen as well.
[00:33:16] And finally, he left us with that great practice of just constantly interview stakeholders throughout the entire project.
[00:33:23] Don't wait for a milestone, don't wait for the next phase, don't wait for the scheduled check-ins, but make sure that you are consistently and regularly and intermittently checking in with everybody and saying, "Hey, is this still the right thing to do? Is this still going to accomplish your objectives?"
[00:33:41] So again, we'd like to thank Joe for being on Great Practices today. And do you have a great practice you'd like to share? Well, you can send an email to chris.kopp@gmail.com. That's chris.K-O-P-P@gmail.com, and someone will get in touch with you shortly. Also, be sure not to miss [00:34:00] a single episode by subscribing to Great Practices on your favorite podcast platform.
[00:34:05] And if you like what you hear, we've had great guests on, we've got many more that are lining up. Be sure to share this with your manager, your colleagues, and anybody else you think would benefit. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and keep putting great practices into practice.
