People And Projects Podcast: Project Management Podcast

Scrappy Project Management Too much project management education--including what you find on bookshelves at stores--is dry. Seemingly impractical and irrelevant. I'm constantly on the lookout for people who are practical and inspiring voices on helping us get better at leading teams and delivering projects. In this episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Kimberly Wiefling, author of Scrappy Project Management. In today's discussion, Kimberly will help us understand what it means to be scrappy--and why it's important. We'll talk about some of the predictable and avoidable pitfalls that plague our projects. You'll learn what her Project Success Scorecard is and how it can help you and your team. Kimberly will share insights on dealing with risks and assumptions AND why she recommends you never say No, even to the most ridiculous demands. Kimberly is as fun as she is brilliant. Learn more about her work at Wiefling.com. For more content related to today's episodes, check out: Episode 274 with J. Scott about hi

Hiring: Your Most Important Responsibility It could be argued that there is nothing more important than hiring outstanding people. But the sad fact is we generally stink at hiring people. For a host of reasons, we often end up hiring what our guest in this episode calls the 90-Day Wonder—someone who, after 90 days, makes us wonder, “Why in the world did we hire this person?” How do we avoid that? Well, today I’m excited to introduce you to Lou Adler. Lou is the author of a book entitled Hire With Your Head: Using Performance-Based Hiring To Build Outstanding Diverse Teams. The 4th edition of this classic book has recently been published and it’s filled with ideas that have been perfected over the years. In this episode, Lou shares some of the biggest myths and mistakes that we make in the hiring process. He explains what Win-Win Hiring is and why it’s critical to the hiring process. Lou explains the difference between a great candidate and a great hire—they’re not the same. And he explains what a performance

Communicating With Difficult Personalities One of the biggest complaints people have when working on projects is related to communication. Often people feel out of the loop or they just don’t understand what is being written or said. It’s been suggested that up to 90% of what we do when we’re leading projects is communicating. And I think it’s fair to say, we all would benefit from leveling up our ability to clearly, effectively communicate with our teams, colleagues, and management. In this episode, I’m excited to introduce you to Tina Kuhn. Tina is the author of a book entitled The Manager’s Communication Toolkit: Tools and Techniques for Leading Difficult Personalities. In today’s discussion, Tina will share why those of us who lead teams and projects are tempted to default to email or other less-rich mediums—and why that causes problems. Tina will share some insights on how to communicate more effectively in your next Zoom or Teams meeting. She’ll help us see that effective communication is not just adjus

Thursday Is The New Friday If you ask someone about how things are going at work, what’s a typical response? What I most often hear is “Busy! We are busy!” Ask someone how they’re feeling, many people will say, “Fine.” But if they get more transparent, what they’ll often say is, “I’m tired.” Busy and exhausted. Can you relate to that? In this episode, I’m excited to introduce you to Joe Sanok. Joe is the author of a book entitled Thursday is the New Friday: How to Work Fewer Hours, Make More Money, and Spend Time Doing What You Want. Does that subtitle sound like overselling? Or at least something that sounds nice but isn’t practical? Well, Joe is here to challenge that suspicion. Learn more about Joe and his book at JoeSanok.com. Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? LEAD52 is your 5-minute weekly pass to leadership intelligence. You get 52 weeks of learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Join us at

Improving Your Ability To Influence One of the common concerns I hear from clients and podcast listeners is related to influence. How can I convince a boss or colleague or stakeholder or loved one to agree to something, especially when I don’t have authority in the situations? I can confidently tell you that my new favorite book on the topic of influence has just hit the shelves and I can’t wait to introduce you to it. Zoe Chance is the author of Influence Is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen. If you love behavioral economics, you’re going to love Zoe’s approach. But what causes this book to stand out is how she makes the science so practical and engaging. By the time we’re done listening to this episode, you’ll be using terms like the Gator and the Judge—and you’ll know what the mother of all misunderstandings is. Zoe shares the bedrock principle of behavior and how you can use that to be more influential. You’ll be more motivated than ever to just

Lessons from a Successful Project Manager (and Business Analyst) One of the joys of hosting this podcast is introducing you to a wide group of authors and practitioners. I’m constantly on the lookout for resources to help us on this mission and in this episode, I’m glad to introduce you to Donna Gregorio. Donna is a practicing PM and wrote an easy-to-read book entitled The Successful Project Manager: Practical Guidance from Lessons Learned. In today’s discussion, Donna will tell us how her background as a business analyst feeds her ability to be a better project manager. And vice versa. She’ll talk about what it means to really lead a project—and to be a trusted advisor—not just a task tracker. Donna will share some lessons learned about work breakdown structures, change management, and agile. And she wraps up the conversation with some career advice that I think you’ll find helpful. It's a fun, practical discussion that I look forward to sharing with you today. Learn more about Donna at DonnaGregorio.com. Jo

Improving Your Ability to Lead We often joke in our project management workshops that participants have signed up for a leadership class cloaked as a project management class. So much of our ability to deliver projects comes down to our ability to lead people and teams—regardless of our title or whether team members report to us directly. That’s a core premise of the People and Projects Podcast--that we’re all leaders—and I’m constantly on the lookout for resources to help you and me develop our ability to lead. Darren Reinke reached out to me last year to talk about his book The Savage Leader: 13 Principles to Become a Better Leader from the Inside Out. After browsing a copy of the book, I knew this was a guy I wanted to talk with. His passion for leading is clear and his advice is practical. Learn more about Darren at TheSavageLeader.com. Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? LEAD52 is your 5-minute weekly pass to leadership intelligence. You get 52 weeks o

Can You Change Other People? We’re continuing a series of episodes on the topic of change. Back in episode 339 we talked with Katy Milkman about her book How to Change, which provided some helpful insights into the behavioral science of change. Then we talked with Gary Lloyd in episode 343 about his book Gardeners Not Mechanics to get practical insights on how to lead change in organizations. I wanted to add one more episode in the series to focus on a key aspect of what we need to do as leaders: help others to change. Peter Bregman and Howie Jacobson have written a remarkable new book entitled You Can Change Other People: The Four Steps to Help Your Colleagues, Employees—Even Family—Up Their Game. Did you catch that title? You can change other people. Isn’t there something about the phrasing that just seems wrong? Isn’t it true that you can’t change other people—you can only change yourself? Peter and Howie are going to challenge that idea today. They’ll share why changing others might just be the most impor

Leading in an Ecosystem We’re continuing a series of episodes on the topic of change. Back in episode 339 we talked with Katy Milkman about her book How to Change, which provided some helpful insights into the behavioral science of change. But what if you are planning to lead a change initiative. Beyond what Katy brought us from behavioral science, I wanted to bring you a process—something that is practical, memorable, and tested across industries. And I’m glad to say I found it! In this episode I’m excited to introduce you to Gary Lloyd, author of Gardeners Not Mechanics: How to Cultivate Change at Work. I’m not a gardener but I find Gary’s approach to be practical for changes you want to lead at work and in your personal life. I can’t wait to share the discussion with you. Learn more about Gary at GardenersNotMechanics.com/. Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? LEAD52 is your 5-minute weekly pass to leadership intelligence. You get 52 weeks of learning, de

Little Changes Can Make A Big Difference It’s interesting to me how little changes can have outsized benefits. For example, how something is said. There’s a difference between a boss saying, “You can hit this date, right?” and “Here’s what we need to get done. How much time do you think this would take? What do you need from me to make that happen?” Sometimes it’s just little shifts in what we say. How we make an ask. How we look at a situation. And with just a little shift, we can sometimes reap enormous benefits in our relationships at work and at home. I’m excited to introduce you to Krister Ungerbock. Krister is the author of one of my most gifted books recently. It’s entitled 22 Talk SHIFTs: Tools to Transform Leadership in Business, in Partnership, and in Life. It's a book I probably would have never picked up, but I'm so glad the publisher reached out to introduce me to it. I look forward to introducing you to Krister and his work! Learn more about Krister at Krister.com/. Join our Global LEAD52 Commun

Help For Leading and Delivering Projects Part of leading and directing projects is influencing--ethically using the tools and techniques at our disposal to deliver the intended results. Could it be that, at times, we might even need to be a bit pushy? That's something that my guest mentions here in episode 341. I’m excited to be joined by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez to talk about his new book, the Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook. In addition to being an author, Antonio is a practitioner and consultant with a heart for teaching and raising up a new generation of project leaders. He’s the former chairman of the Project Management Institute and is a highly respected researcher and management consultant. Learn more about Antonio at AntonioNietoRodriguez.com/. Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? LEAD52 is your 5-minute weekly pass to leadership intelligence. You get 52 weeks of learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a

80-20 Is Everywhere You’ve certainly heard of the Pareto Principle, right? It’s the 80-20 rule that says, for example, 80% of the value of our projects comes from 20% of the scope. Why do I bring this up? Because most of us know about 80-20 but we don’t leverage it to our advantage. And today’s guest is going to challenge us on that. Perry Marshall is joining us to talk about his book Detox Declutter Dominate. Learn more about Perry at PerryMarshall.com. Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? LEAD52 is your 5-minute weekly pass to leadership intelligence. You get 52 weeks of learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Join us at https://GetLEAD52.com. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Talent Triangle: Leadership   Drifting in Time by chilledmusic Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7539-drifting-in-time- License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license It's Funky by F

How to Change There's a change you’ve probably been wanting to make. It could be that you know what to do. The problem is doing it. Remembering it. Following through. And perhaps not beating yourself up because you haven’t made progress. Whatever it is that you’d like to change, we have good news for you in this episode. Katy Milkman joins us to talk about her fantastic new book How to Change. If you enjoyed our conversation with James Clear about his book Atomic Habits, you're going to love this conversation with Katy--this book shares the underlying research behind popular books on habits. Learn more about Katy at KatyMilkman.com. Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? LEAD52 is your 5-minute weekly pass to leadership intelligence. You get 52 weeks of learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Join us at https://GetLEAD52.com. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

The ROI of Kindness Is it possible to be too nice? Is niceness the same as kindness? In today’s discussion, we’re going to drill in on that idea. I’m excited to introduce you to Brian Biro who wrote a book entitled The ROI of Kindness. In today’s discussion, Brian will talk about the difference between being nice and being kind. He’ll explain what a Kindness Value Proposition is and why you might want to consider developing one. We have an extended conversation about one of the kindest things you can do, which is to be present with other people. And make sure you stay around for the outtakes because Brian was a friend with legendary basketball coach John Wooden. Outside the official interview, Brian shares some inspiring insights about who many consider to be the Greatest Basketball Coach of All Time. Learn more about Brian at BrianBiro.com. John Wooden TED Talk In the outtakes of this episode, Brian and I talk about Coach John Wooden. Here's an insightful TED Talk that highlights some of Wooden's perspective

Managing Projects and Teams One of my favorite voices in the world of leading and delivering is Johanna Rothman. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Johanna for a couple of decades now and throughout that time she’s been a clear voice in how I think about managing teams and projects. And her writing, coaching, and consulting have helped project teams around the world. In this episode, she joins us to talk about her new book series entitled Modern Management Made Easy. It’s a series of 3 books that address some pervasive myths about management. Learn more about Johanna and her book series at jrothman.com/modern-management-made-easy-a-three-volume-set/. Additional Resources In this episode, I refer to these other interviews that you might find helpful: My discussion with Johanna in episode 207 about her book Create Your Successful Agile Journey My discussion with Annie Murphy Paul in episode 335 about her book The Extended Mind Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next lev

How to Deliver Projects Let’s say a boss comes up to you and says, “Hey, our senior leadership team just authorized this big new project. I’m assigning it to you and need it delivered in the next 14 weeks. We’re counting on you. Good luck!” What’s going through your mind at this point? Maybe you’re excited about the opportunity, which is great. But a lot of times people are thinking, “How in the world am I supposed to deliver all of that, in that timeframe, when I’m already overbooked with other projects! And so is everyone else I’ll need!” So what do you do? Clint Padgett joins us again to talk about his new book entitled How Teams Triumph: Managing By Commitment. If you're looking for insights on how to deliver challenging projects, this is a book you'll want to read. Learn more about Clint and his book at ProjectSuccess.com. Additional Resources You can find my previous discussion with Clint in episode 29. Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? LEAD52 is yo

Much Of How We Think About the Brain is Wrong Today we're having a discussion about the brain. Actually, it’s more than that--we’re going to talk about how a lot of what we think we know about the brain might just not be so! Science writer Annie Murphy Paul joins us today to talk about her remarkable new book entitled The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside The Brain. It’s a book that has expanded how I think about the mind and I can’t wait to introduce you to what I consider a must-read book. Learn more about Annie and her book at AnnieMurphyPaul.com. Additional Resources In my comments after the interview, I mention a follow-up interview you may want to check out. It's with Dr. John Medina, author of a series of books called Brain Rules. You can find my discussion with John in episode 188. Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? LEAD52 is your 5-minute weekly pass to leadership intelligence. You get 52 weeks of learning, delivered right to your inbox

Preparing for the Next Rogue Wave We’re continuing a series of episodes on the topic of the future. It’s hard to imagine that we can be effective at leading others if we’re not forward-thinking. But after getting slammed by the COVID tsunami and subsequent recurring waves, the future can feel so unsure. So how do we prepare ourselves and our teams for the future despite the challenges of understanding it? To help us with that, we’re joined in this episode by Jonathan Brill, author of a new book entitled Rogue Waves: Future-Proof Your Business to Survive and Profit from Radical Change. Jonathan is the former Global Futurist at HP and has led companies that have substantially improved the world in many domains. Not to mention he invented a machine that makes frozen coffee slurpees! Learn more about Jonathan and his book at JonathanBrill.com. Additional Resources In the outtakes of the episode, Jonathan mentions an HBR article that he wrote with Dorie Clark about how to future-prep your career. You can find tha

How much fun would you say you and your team have as you go through your day-to-day work? When you look back over the pandemic experience thus far, there are plenty of reasons for the word fun to not come to mind. There has been great loss, much fear, and though working from home may have its advantages, it can definitely have an impact on how a group of people experience the idea of being a team and having fun together. In this episode, you'll hear from Dr. Bob Nelson and Mario Tamayo, authors of a new book entitled Work Made Fun Gets Done. It's an insightful book on trust that I look forward to sharing with you. Learn more about Dr. Bob and Mario and their book at DrBobNelson.com/. If you found this episode helpful, here are some recommended follow-up episodes: Episode 316 with the authors of the book Humor, Seriously Episode 109 with Peter McGraw about his book The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next lev

Leading Virtual Teams That Work Though many people are slowly starting to return to the office for at least part of the week, there’s reason to think that we’ll be leading teams and projects with stakeholders that are not co-located. And though we’ve gained some experience with that now since the global pandemic began, I continue to hear from people about the challenges they experience, both as a leader of teams and as members of teams. I’m excited to introduce you to the work of Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel. They are authors of the books The Long-Distance Leader and The Long-Distance Teammate. Both are insightful books on how to navigate leading virtual teams and I look forward to sharing ideas from the books with you. Learn more about Kevin and Wayne and their books at KevinEikenberry.com. Join our Global LEAD52 Community Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? LEAD52 is your 5-minute weekly pass to leadership intelligence. You get 52 weeks of learning, delivered right to your inbox, ta