meets Ron Rosenhead, The Practical Project Sponsor Guy


                                                    

This month I talk to Ron Rosenhead has been involved in project management in some way shape or form for at least 15 years. 

This includes training, consulting, coaching as well as speaking at conferences. 

He enjoys working with individual, groups or organisations working on your agenda!!

Website: https://ronrosenhead.co.uk/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronrosenhead/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ronrosenhead
Project Agency website : https://projectagency.co.uk/

 

Hope you enjoy the show and until next time remember project management is funny. 

Thanks,

Nige


Grab Your Christmas music here



     






Nigel Creaser  0:00  
Today I'd like to welcome Ron Rosenhead to the podcast. Ron has been involved in project management in some way, shape or form for well over 20 years. as CEO of project agency, Ron provides training consultancy, coaching, as well as speaking at conferences to individuals, groups and organisations covering topics from the perfect project, of course, which is, well nearly 10,000 alumni. It's tried and tested practical event project board briefing in depth project management training, benefits, realisation workshops, advanced skills in project management and an intensive one day project management event designed for those new projects or those who need a refresher. So welcome to the show. Ron.

Ron Rosenhead  0:45  
Thank you very much. Great introduction, Nigel. Very, very much appreciated. Thank you.

Nigel Creaser  0:49  
Alright.

So let's get straight in and dive straight into my questions. Where were you born? Oh, I'm trying

Ron Rosenhead  0:59  
to tell you and indeed all the listeners that I'm on the Yorkshireman. And you don't get much more prouder than being a Yorkshire man, and probably most stubborn. I originate from the city of Leeds. And I've got to get this bit in because I'm big Leeds rhinos fan. That's rugby league for those who don't fully know what that is. But really look it up. It's great game. And, you know, I my formative years was spent in in Leeds, before moving down the road to Sheffield, where I got my first degree where I studied at the den, Sheffield, Polly, which is now Sheffield. Hallam University, and it was a was a real watershed for me going going off to Sheffield, it was a quite an amazing place. So and a quite an amazing experience. So my guess is you probably got lots of questions around there. But yeah, that's that's a little bit of, you know, from where I'm from. And I go back to Leeds now and again, my mother still up there. And yeah, I miss the rhinos playing, of course. And my mother gonna say, but it's true. I spoke to a half and a half an hour ago, and

Nigel Creaser  2:11  
it's a good job. You said that I'm sure she probably listens to the podcast.

Ron Rosenhead  2:14  
And like don't get caught up not saying that meant Yeah. So if

you were important born in Leeds in Brighton the city or was it in one of the sort of suburbs,

suburbs place called Motown, nice and leafy, my late father tracked a route from our house, all the way to the Lake District, mostly using paths that were off road and yellow some of the wrong road. And really, really enjoyable time as kids lots of greenery, lots of walking in woods and fields. But yet 20 minutes from the city centre. And yeah, it was it was it was it was good. I enjoyed being in Leeds and in some ways regret not saying that. But then of course, I wouldn't have met my wife. There we are.

There's there's pros and cons with everything, isn't it?

Unknown Speaker  3:04  
Absolutely. So, obviously that that really explains why your passion for cricket, as we discussed before we came on air that your company doesn't like cricket isn't really optimum for

Unknown Speaker  3:16  
quality. And I did actually say to my wife, when our first child was conceived that I did explain to her the fact that we didn't know the agenda, it wasn't the sort of times like it is today where you you know, most kids need to know what the gender of the child or children are going to be. I said, Well look, you know, we may have to we probably will have to get into the car just before you know the child is born so that this child could be born in in Yorkshire. So that if it's a boy can play for your option, there was some stern looks from my wife and I, I should explain to you and the listeners that my wife is an arsenal fan. So you've probably gather that she wasn't in favour of this. But both were born down here. So there we go.

Unknown Speaker  4:05  
That's it. Yeah, I think these

Unknown Speaker  4:09  
words.

Unknown Speaker  4:12  
The word goes past me and I can't think what it what the word is is your loyalties to get to county can be quite severe with the old cricket side of it.

Unknown Speaker  4:22  
So I think it's more loyalty to the city if I'm being honest. Yeah. But But I am Yorkshireman through it through Yeah. Alright.

Unknown Speaker  4:29  
So where do you live now.

Unknown Speaker  4:31  
I'm now in London, North London. I came down after graduating from Sheffield. And I've been here ever since. And London is just such an amazing place for good and for bad, by the way. And you know, you, you know, you get up at sort of six o'clock in the morning. And there's cars in a part of the road. And there's traffic jams already. But at the same time I live North London where there's lots of open spaces. And you know, I suppose that's the second time I've mentioned open spaces, but I like going walking and particularly, I go Nordic walking in fact, with the polls, and I've been going while the sun is up early, I've been going out early, and it's just absolutely brilliant to walk around and see lots of greenery and the dog walkers and just just the the isolation as well, which which is which is fantastic. And it is actually quite a sort of, for me, it's quite a bit of an inspiration, thinking wise and you know, it gives me a little bit space and so on.

Unknown Speaker  5:39  
So that you mentioned your family then and early on. And tell us a bit better.

Unknown Speaker  5:47  
Yeah, I married a little bit my life. Sue, and we've been married. Oh, I didn't tell you how long too long. No, definitely not too long. And we we were really good together. And we have two girls. And it's actually quite interesting because we're grandparents. And that is completely different existence. One of the things that I talk a lot about in project management, specifically training is, is about roles, the roles that people play. And the role of a grandparent is just so wonderful. And got two children, grandchildren, Ali, who's two and a half and Chloe, who's five months ish. We're trying to look at that today. And yeah, it's really, really wonderful when when we get together with them a lot clearly, you know, when the stay over, we do have some quite sleepless nights. But yeah, that's a bit difficult if you've got to get up and you sort of working the next day, but there you go. That's that's life. That's a good part of life, actually.

Unknown Speaker  6:50  
Yeah, yeah, it kind of throws you back to when you had your goals, I imagine.

Unknown Speaker  6:54  
Absolutely. Simply, yes. You don't hear all those storeys, but I have quiet neighbours?

Unknown Speaker  7:01  
Well, I do find out that I've

Unknown Speaker  7:02  
got two girls, myself and I

Unknown Speaker  7:05  
were quite the gap between the first and second. So

Unknown Speaker  7:10  
obviously, that first

Unknown Speaker  7:13  
the first child where you're absolutely battered, and you're completely sleepless and just running on empty. And then you kind of grow up a bit more, and you've kind of gradually gain that back. And when your second one comes along five years later, and you're suddenly hit by that shovel again, is a shock.

Unknown Speaker  7:32  
Well, it's actually you're absolutely right. And I think it's it's that that gap when you you know, the five year gap is nothing compared to obviously when, when years or whatever it may be for for when you become a grandparent and it's wonderful. It really is wonderful. And you know, I can't really express how I feel sometimes in terms of the the creation of life. It's just just just so fantastic. really wonderful.

Unknown Speaker  7:55  
Yeah. And big projects, those songs are

Unknown Speaker  8:00  
you met? You mentioned your Nordic walking. Yeah. And my next question is, what do you do when you're not being Ron Rosen head at

Unknown Speaker  8:12  
Project agency? What Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  8:13  
I'm a husband. And my wife and I like to get out when we can. And I've started to wherever I can take Sue with me on on different trips. We're going down to Canterbury next month, I'm working in down there. I just come back from a conference and I took her with me to Athens. And while we were there, we went off to one of the islands I was working in Amsterdam, and we went off there I was there for five days working. So there's there's there's, you know, run the husband Run, run the dad to two girls, who we try and see as often as possible. But I like to sort of get out in the garden as well. I've just been out today cutting back some issues that were incredibly overgrown, just shot up in the last couple of weeks, gardens actually looking very good. I'm going to big gun but just just to sort of, you know, tame it and plant stuff in it. And the other side of it is I've started to learn to relax a bit more. I find for when I'm when I'm not working and I'm on four o'clock, five o'clock in the afternoon in the summer. Just get a chair out and just go in the garden and get a book out and read. Listen to maybe a bit of music or watch cricket on the iPad. And yeah, I will be for example tonight and tomorrow night. I'll be watching rugby league on Sky. I do enjoy rugby league. Yeah, so there's there's and I just enjoy reading. And I was talking to someone recently about novels. And I was saying that a novel is like a good friend. You just don't want to put it down. You don't want them to go home. And I do really enjoy reading it's it's a great passion of mine.

Unknown Speaker  9:59  
Yeah, I know that freedom of books. I'm

Unknown Speaker  10:02  
I'm a big Terry Pratchett fan. And in passing away, the it was even more exacerbated that feeling of this book's really good. I don't want it to finish. When I was reading his final book. The last book was like, I can feel it. It's getting thinner at the end. And

Unknown Speaker  10:23  
yeah, I that. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  10:25  
you just want to stay with the storeys.

Unknown Speaker  10:28  
And I think the word that book is important because I enjoy the physical book rather than the the online stuff, the online books and so on. My wife's got a Kindle, which she uses, but I find those very cold and I like the physical book in my hand. It does get a bit difficult when you're, you know, you're shipping stuff around the country, and backpacks and briefcases and so on. And then it got a couple of books. And I do know sometimes that I think to myself, should I get a Kindle? But now I stick to the books. I do prefer them.

Unknown Speaker  11:02  
I think I think it depends on what kind of book I'm consuming and how I hold it in reverence. I think in some ways, as

Unknown Speaker  11:13  
I said, I've got about Terry Pratchett getting Neil Gaiman

Unknown Speaker  11:17  
tag patches, good omens book that I read read just before the new series came on amazon prime, and

Unknown Speaker  11:23  
it's battered, that book,

Unknown Speaker  11:25  
absolutely battered. And

Unknown Speaker  11:27  
some, there's something

Unknown Speaker  11:31  
really nice about the feel of that worn out book. And all the hard backs I've got pristine that the paperback is worn, and it's been thumbed, and read and read read. And you don't get that with the Kindle. But then, as you say, some I found the I've recently started listening using audible. And I've found that interesting. So I was listening to Dracula, I've never, and I was on holiday. And it was similar to what you were saying I'm sitting in the sun on a bit on a on a chair, just listening to it. And it was it did take me away really, really, really in written a different way to in a similar way to the books do. But with less effort in some ways. But

Unknown Speaker  12:16  
yeah, so I'm exploring that was quite a finding that

Unknown Speaker  12:19  
another new way of of reading books, and just the digital one. Yeah. And I think it's, it's going to expand as well, because obviously with the, with your echoes and the and the Google Home type things coming in and all the voice stuff is it's I think it's going to explode over time. So you said you grew up in and around leads? Yeah, absolutely. So So when Ron was growing up, did Ron want to be a project manager.

Unknown Speaker  12:50  
I didn't know what a project manager was, I wanted to be a teacher. And

Unknown Speaker  12:55  
I had a bit of a problem, Nigel, I failed all my exams. I was I'm not an academic, although I've got two degrees now. And I failed on my exams, I was absolutely gutted when I failed all my exams, and I left school, and I went to work for a very first job was a sales job, which lasted three weeks, I hated every minute of it. And I moved from there into a chemical company, testing dyes, which was an incredibly unhealthy atmosphere. And, again, I just didn't like that. And I finished it working for lead City Council in the Education Department of Natural fats. And I spent probably over 16 years in local government, and I just never, I really wanted to be a teacher. And I just never had the opportunity simply because of I failed on my course vacations. However, what the council did, with my very first day there that they said, Look, we encourage people to do day release, and they sent me off on a course. And so for now, then, three years, I did day release for sorry, it was probably longer. My you know, memory trick plays tricks a little bit, probably about four or five years, I think it was I did dailies finishing up with some called the ONC in public administration, which was an absolutely fascinating qualification, excuse me. And at the time, I was working in student grants department in Leeds, and they encouraged me to do some research. And I actually applied for my success and got in to Sheffield politics, it was cool. And to be honest with you, yeah, the thought teaching was still in the back of my mind. My sister was a teacher, and she was quite sort of put off by it, particularly the fact that she said there's never any money in it. But you know, when you when you're young, and so on, idealistic, you don't think of that so much. But I actually went off to Sheffield, as what was then called the mature student, because I'd worked for three years. So I assessed my own grant. There you go, I assess my papers of student grants, access management, but I didn't get it checked. And I was in it. Now, this was a public administration degree, but I actually think it was a bit of a bad title for it, because it was more it was sort of mix of Public Administration, which in today's Brexit situation would be fascinating for politics lecturer. There is also a lot a huge amount of industrial psychology, which I really enjoyed. And I still use today, still used today.

Unknown Speaker  15:50  
And that would have been sort of the the organisational theory and all that sort of thing. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  15:54  
absolutely. Wrong facial stuff. Yeah. Yeah, very, very true. Very true. And, you know, I, people will say something, and I will, you know, member will come back of circa, you know, first degree and I'll sort of say, Well, look, you know, here's, here's the theory, what's it like in practice sort of thing, you know, and I really enjoyed my time in Sheffield, it was a real turning point in my life, for the fact that I was the first person when my sister was it went off to do teaching course, but I was the first person in the family to go off and do a degree. And it was just a really, really good experience. Which I was lucky enough to, once I finished, I never, I didn't think about teaching, I just thought to myself, well, what do I want to do. And I went back, I went to work back in local government, in actual fact, came down here to London, working for info Council, which is on the north, north, east aggressive of London, and I was quite interested in the triggers, they sent me off on a training course. But unfortunately, I was ill, and couldn't complete that. But as part of this, I spoke to the training managers, I'd really like to find out a little bit about what you do, during chance of spending some time in the training department. And that was the turning point, in actual fact, and I spent two weeks I think it was with her. And on the back of that I secured a job as a training officer, with Westminster council based in in Victoria. And I was there for six years. And it was just a wonderful experience. I mean, I know a lot of people will not councils and so on. But I have to tell you that the work that the council did was fascinating. The work that I was doing was was was was quite incredible. I really enjoyed it, introduced me to change management. But you know, I started off much further back from that, and introduce me to some of the content, project management, which are pick up on at the moment. And working Westminster was was, I think, as I just mentioned, just a fantastic experience, because it allowed me to get into all sorts of stuff, which really, I want to pick up here, because it's so central to I think project management, and it's about people skills. You know, you can have all the systems and processes in the world. And, yeah, they're good, they set the background or whatever. But frankly, if you can't relate to people, you can't actually motivate people, then it's a problem. But you know, a classic problem that I hear, I asked, I asked each group I'm with, give me one project management problem you would like to solve by the end of this training course. And inevitably, I can't get people on board. He she won't listen to me. You know, that's that sort of thing. And it's not, that's not a project management issue. It's actually about soft skills, it's about how you can get people to engage, or you can engage with them, and persuade them to actually take on board this, this this key change the organisational change, it's actually going to go ahead. And actually one of the things for me is I think that's why so many of these organisational wide projects just don't get off the ground, they may finish, but they never actually achieve what they set out to do. And it's because we don't actually relish dealing with the difficult person, the bad conversations or the difficult conversations and so on. So I hope I didn't really go overboard there, but it's just a little bit of my passion there.

Unknown Speaker  19:41  
Now, and it's not

Unknown Speaker  19:44  
it's something I'm I'm hearing quite a lot, quite a lot, a lot of quiet in there for no reason. In that we've got the and they kind of these onto the certification thing, we've got the some really good methodologies, some incredibly well researched, I mean, you've got the likes the PMINAPM, were 10s 20s 30 4050 years of research and experience and expertise is gone into building those methods. And working out what the best way to deliver a project with those students. And those methods are fundamental to doing a project. But they're only half half the storey on the that's, that's the point is that we we come into project management thinking, let's go on those courses. Let's get sorted without tech. That's all I need to know. And if as you say if you don't take those, what we what are called soft skills, which I've seen in this I can't remember who stole it from there the hard skills because actually and I I'm going to go back to another thing and people bought this, my view of it is that you've got you can teach someone to use a hammer and a chisel. And, and you can teach them the best way to use a hammer and chisel different angle different things. But you can't, then they've got to learn how to create the Venus de Milo. Yeah. And that soft skill of the creative bit is the hard bit in some ways.

Unknown Speaker  21:29  
Well, I agree. And I'm wondering whether it was Donny but Nicole mentioned about the soft skills being naturally hard skills. And yeah, I just want to come back to certification if I if I could, because I got a sort of a bit of a different view from many people about certification, I want to sort of mention two things really one, the best project manager I've ever come across was, someone had no qualifications at all. She picked up and ran with one of the very first Academy school projects, which projects agency were managing. And she she was brilliant, some of the stuff that she had to deal with.

Unknown Speaker  22:16  
Which is just true, just wonderful. And at the end of the

Unknown Speaker  22:22  
project, which was very successful. It was taking a failing school in about mentioned were failing school, and turn it and helping to turn it around and virtually rebuild the place and change the curriculum and so on. she rang me and said, Look, I've been headhunted by what was then the Department for further education and science said will you go with my blessing, because I think it's brilliant, what you've done. And this is a person who had no qualifications at all, but couldn't manage. I think it was a four and a half million pound project I could my fingers are a bit sort of the riot times possibly. But so it's a very, very large project. Well, the second sort of part, I want to to link into qualifications certifications is I was recently speaking at a conference in Athens about project sponsorship. On the questions at the end was an interesting one about should they really be a qualification, a certification for sponsors. I did explain that at one time. That was, but I didn't know anybody or I don't know anyone who's ever taken it. But I actually then went on to say, I think in general, that there are too many qualifications for project management. And that really, it's a topic in its own right, that really we should be reflecting on Do we need all of these, because for me, project management is about being practical, which is one of the reasons I failed my qualifications way back when, and I realised that I'm very MH, a practical person, which is what I try and do on our project management courses. So for me, certification, I have been certified I might print to as lapsed, I'm a member of APM. That's the socialisation of project management. And I'm interested in in following what the professions are doing that actually, for me, it's much more about the practical outcomes, the outputs that people do, rather than having that bit of paper that says you're a project manager, actually, you can't deliver on.

Unknown Speaker  24:30  
Yeah, and I think that's the, that's the concern is, and that's the point is, is you can be taught how to use those tools. And you can be taught exactly what those tools are. But that's your only pathway to be able to deliver a project. And yeah, the certifications route is is if, as you say it's a very, it's a massive topic in itself around value and learnings just related to our industry. I think, if you look at other industries, as well, there's, there's, if the point someone else said to me the other day was if you've got a lawyer, just because they have passed the bar exam, doesn't mean they're a good lawyer.

Unknown Speaker  25:15  
Absolutely right.

Unknown Speaker  25:17  
It doesn't mean that they're ethical, it doesn't mean that they're capable, it doesn't mean that they're that they are going to apply what they've learned very well. And is the same as same as driving test. And just because I passed my driving test doesn't mean I'm a very good driver.

Unknown Speaker  25:31  
No, I agree. I agree.

Unknown Speaker  25:32  
My wife would tell me regular. So

Unknown Speaker  25:40  
when so when you moved into the training organisation that you are you will get discussing before and When did you become aware of project management when you were in that because obviously, that was, I'm guessing was a generic training role that you're in there we were.

Unknown Speaker  26:01  
My job titles Hots pots, notice HOTS head of training services. And yeah, something very strange happened. In the course of a week, someone came to see me and said, Ron, can you help me I've got this big piece of work to do. And I said, Look, let me we sat down and thought about it and talked about it. So I need to think about this. And I was walking along one of the corridors and someone said to me, oh, Cliff chat. I said, What What will you give me give me a heads up? what's what's it about? And he said, Well, he sort of almost the same words, I've been given this really big piece of work to do, and I just don't know how to handle it. So I went out and talked to a number of people in the organisation. This was a local authority Council. And what I discovered was that people were being starting to senior managers were starting to delegate a lot more. Which was, which was interesting in itself, but they're starting to delegate more. And people given these really big projects, that's the term that we would use now. But in those days, they'll just give me big tasks to do. I got a group of people into a room and I started to just do a workshop with them. And I call this work organisation and planning. The title, isn't it? Very good. And as a result of that, I mean, it was a brilliant sort of couple of days I had with these people, it was a workshop. So I said, I needed this go and do further research. And I thought, what I'm going to go out and see what what's what's out there. And I came across the qualification called prompt.

Unknown Speaker  27:38  
You heard of prompt now?

Unknown Speaker  27:40  
It was the predecessor of Prince. No hope I've got that. Right. But it seems to be you know, since remembers that, if he's got a printing in an eminent so it's better?

Unknown Speaker  27:50  
Yeah, if you think that the prince to manual is thick, then the prompt manual was, I took one look on someone's desk from someone's shelf, very proudly showed me the, these these books, which by the way, I asked them for four years. And they were probably a good in old Imperial sort of 1218 inches thick, several books with. And I thought, well, that's not good. And, you know, my, these words keep coming back to me, it's about being practical. And I started to put together some practical, really practical work organisation planning workshops. But it wasn't until, I guess, a little bit later on, I realised that what we're doing what projects and I suddenly saw something as well, which was quite interesting that I'd moved from outside of local government into private sector at this point. And I saw that the account and the lawyer, the marketeer, the salesperson, we're all getting involved in process jets, but they've never been trained in project management. I lost my job and make redundant and I just thought, you know, there's a, there's a sort of bit of a gap in the market here. And I started off as a generic generic Trainer with my own business, I think I'd always wanted to have my own business. But then suddenly, sort of with a blank sheet of paper started to do some planning for myself and the future. And just wrote the words project management on a piece of paper and started to design a project management course, did a little little bit of marketing and believe it or not picked up a client who stayed with me about four years and then started to become more clients. And,

Unknown Speaker  29:40  
and that's how it all started. That's

Unknown Speaker  29:43  
the, you know, the Genesis, if you like, of where I am now. And and and it was an interesting sort of start. And it's been a very interesting journey to where I am now.

Unknown Speaker  29:57  
So what so with that training course that you put together that was it? mean? Is your organisation your businesses focus on supporting the training? Or was it around helping them deliver projects as well?

Unknown Speaker  30:14  
It was mainly to help them deliver the projects as they would that would stop them clearly stuck? How on earth? Do I do this? I could Don't ask me what the projects were because I genuinely don't remember, it's just a week or two ago now. And, yeah, more than a week or two. And, and, you know, I've your introductions at 10,000. I think that's probably up to about, I should change the website, probably it's about 14 or 15,000. Now, the the word really, really struggling, you know, it's that blank sheet of paper, almost like the author, how do they get going, they actually, kickstart is going to be a big change for business. And they've got no skills at all. And that's not actually totally true, by the way, but they have no skills in the project management field. And all what I do is just say, look, you actually brought some skills with you. Let's just bring it all together and show them a very simple way of of actually delivering a way to deliver what they can do. And it works. It works really, really well.

Unknown Speaker  31:22  
Yes, but it's interesting that because in some ways, it's about helping people scale up

Unknown Speaker  31:29  
some innate capabilities. Because if you've got a piece of work, it's just you you doing it. Yes, you are you and some a couple of people doing it in a in a department small department. It we can just organise it, can't you you can do you organise your work your planet? What I'll do this, you do that they self organising teams that we have everywhere these days. That's kind of kind of innate in our ability of just being normal people and getting together and teamwork. But then it's a case of it's the scaling up of that when it becomes harder to do. And that's where I suppose that that kind of thing of what tool do I use to plan? I can't use the fab packet now. It's no big deal.

Unknown Speaker  32:14  
Yeah, and I think I think that the scalability issue is so important. And I quote this so many times that on one particular programme, I had a couple of people who were complete different ends of the spectrum. I had a person on the course who was there specifically, to help to project manage, in a way day, for I can't remember the number of people now but it's going to be in 10 weeks time, it's going to be off site. It's a very specific programme, she was very new to the world of project management. There was also a woman on the course who was doing the Rebuild of part of the site that she was on, it was a million pound, just over a million pound project. But yet here you've got contrasting people contrasting sort of projects, not people. One, which is going to be over in 10 weeks one, which was think was over in about 14 or 15 months. Cost of the first that the way day, not very much, five 6000 pound, the cost of the second well over a million. And it is about scalability. And I think what was interesting about that course is that the person who was doing the away day could actually see the value in scaling up and scaling down. Right. That's that's that for me is the not I've quoted this many, many times, in actual fact,

Unknown Speaker  33:32  
it kind of makes sense is that that

Unknown Speaker  33:35  
that mix of

Unknown Speaker  33:41  
people's need for project management today.

Unknown Speaker  33:45  
And it's any it's across everything is needed, but it will vary. And you can use most of the principles, it's just choosing that because that's the other thing that I I

Unknown Speaker  33:55  
have a little

Unknown Speaker  33:59  
think about something times he's around where you get someone who will take the prints to the pen Bach, the APMAM. But one of those and go, right, let's do all these. And actually doing all that is not what you need. Right for paint in the living room window. Yeah. It's kind of an it's that scaling, to be realising that it isn't a do that and it'll be successful. It's a there's there's the get back. You use the tools you need. appropriate to what you're doing. You're trying to deliver.

Unknown Speaker  34:37  
Yes, absolutely. Right. And I couldn't agree more with you. I think there is this overemphasis on tools, they're very, very useful. But again, I keep coming back to it's probably the fourth time I mentioned it now. It's about being practical. So I'm sorry, if I could. So all you listeners who think this guy's practically model, but it is I've met so many people who, as you just alluded to, to there, who are rule bound, the book says, But actually, just a quick way of doing it in a more practical way.

Unknown Speaker  35:11  
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  35:16  
That first that really, that was kind of the first project, I'm guessing from those two guys coming up to go in or two girls are going. I've got this piece of work. I'm guessing those are the first projects you remember. So I'm assuming there's been many sense. And I expect through that time, you will have seen some huge pieces of work that have gone well, so small pieces where they've gone badly. What What would you say you've seen would have seen as being a biggest, biggest mess up that you saw and maybe the PM or you learned watch locking in on that.

Unknown Speaker  35:57  
Biggest screw up as I Cheers.

Unknown Speaker  36:00  
Yeah, I think the I was working with a one man PMO

Unknown Speaker  36:06  
Top 100 company here in the UK, quoted on the stock exchange British Stock Exchange. And I was trying to coach this guy in a number of different areas. And the the guy said to me very quietly in this open plan office.

Unknown Speaker  36:28  
You see that group over there? And he pointed, and behind the glass partition, the probably 10 people.

Unknown Speaker  36:37  
He said, Yeah, yeah. And I should tell you, this was a Thursday.

Unknown Speaker  36:44  
It's got a significance, I can explain in a moment, or I will explain in a moment, he said, I've just discovered they're managing the desktop project. That's it, okay. And he said, they are going to change the desktop, for this company, globally. They employ thousands and thousands of people all over the world. And that's it. Okay, yeah, that sounds quite a big piece of work. He said it is. He said, I've just found out about it. And as some people, whether they know what they know about it, and they don't seem to know very much. And here's the killer. It goes live this weekend. And I sort of sat there. And I had this image of someone who'd written a 20 page report on whatever it was, on Friday finishing it, and saying, I'll finish that off on Monday, putting on their desktop, and coming back on Monday, and of course, the desktop is changed. And he said to me, one not talking about some small projects here, the cost of doing this was was huge, because that it was LinkedIn to a communication strategy that the business was trying to put in place as well, so that people could be updated on a more regular basis globally. And it was just, you know, he was he was, when he started to explain to me, I could see with his body language that he was struggling

Unknown Speaker  38:26  
to contain himself. And

Unknown Speaker  38:29  
that was actually like my last meeting with him. But we had various telephone conversations afterwards, where he told me disaster after disaster. And the project team were abandoned, and the desktop was still there. But people still couldn't find, say, that report or the information that was on their desktop, and they had the no stakeholder engagement at all, the dyno stakeholder analysis. They just said, right, we'll do it. And they did it. They did it very successfully, except they didn't engage with people. And I just feel, you know, that is just so typical of what I've seen over the years, more people not engaging with the rest of the, you know, global community. In this case, we're talking, you know, well into five figures with a stuff all over the world, different countries and different time zones, obviously. You know, it was, it was a disaster, it was an absolute disaster. I mean, there's been tonnes of things like that. And I think that that, for me stands out as the as the sort of main one. But the saddest thing is I, I lost contact with this guy, because he went to work abroad, probably nine months after, and as a product as a project manager, and I never sort of been at the end of it, other than it was just chaos. And chaos.

Unknown Speaker  39:55  
Geez, I think that goes to one of your points earlier around sponsorship, because there would have been a senior sponsored leader sponsoring that change within that organisation. And

Unknown Speaker  40:11  
as part of that sponsors role they should be going, you let everyone know.

Unknown Speaker  40:18  
I've not seen any comms on this. yet. There's everybody in this organisation, me being the sponsor, who's bits around the block if it does go wrong. And they kind of pound it off and gone. Right? You do that? They'll do the stuff they need to they've got their,

Unknown Speaker  40:36  
their, their were 18 inch terms of project box.

Unknown Speaker  40:42  
Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And, in fact, I'd go further because I think that in the small training that I do, and indeed, at this conference, I mentioned, the sponsor, I has got a role to play in communicating the key change the business. And an actually, I never knew who the sponsor was, I didn't know this project, teamwork. But it was just such a failure. And it was a failure, because it was such a big project. It was a global project. I mean, even even within a company that's that self contained, and, you know, you you just change the desktop without changing telling anybody. Well, you know, incredible.

Unknown Speaker  41:21  
Yeah. Sounds crazy. Sounds crazy.

Unknown Speaker  41:25  
So this is flick it, flip it on its head surely and talk about something that's a little bit more on the positive side, what what have you seen as being sort of the greatest, not the greatest, really good examples of project leadership? And maybe, if there's any points where you've had, like a protest movement, where you've been involved in helping that happen?

Unknown Speaker  41:51  
Yeah, I always find this one a bit difficult, because part of the problem with the role that I play is maybe I'll go in, I'll do two days here, go off, and so on. But

Unknown Speaker  42:04  
so, so let's think about this about

Unknown Speaker  42:06  
everyone. Okay, because one of the strange things that happened to me was, I mentioned my, like, liking for books. And one, one weekend, I was at my local library, and there's a very small car park, and there was a people mover in there, and a guy surrounded by about four or five kids. And, you know, he's trying to get them into this vehicle. And as he turned around, he saw me and he said, Hello, Ron. And he turned out, he'd been on one of my courses. I didn't recognise him at all. And this is part of the problem. Sometimes, people come up to me and say, Hello, how are you? happened the other day, actually. And it was someone who had been on Britain and of course for and I didn't, didn't didn't recognise him in that context. And and he said, Yeah, he said, I will not course that you remember. Actually, I do remember. It was, I came home. And I said to my wife, she's all she asked me, How was the course? I said, Well, let's put it this way, our bank managers happy. And she says, what do you what do you mean? I said, oh, we're going to get we're going to get paid for it. But actually, I really clearly the value to anybody that was there. Well, how wrong I was because this guy told me, and I'll be brief with this, that as a result of I encourage people to go back and talk to their managers. And this is one guy who did, and he talked to the manager about the course and what we did, and the learning from that point of view. And what what he said was that he found it really useful. And a couple of things that he pointed out. So you said, right, what I'd like you to do is to organise in a way day, and let's get together with the team. I can't remember how many was in the team now. And what the first thing they did was they did a an identified all the projects, and quite a number of them. And they've entered Well, let's look at who's sponsoring these, let's look at who's the project managers, only the project teams are, and actually was the result of that, firstly, realised that there were too many projects that they were doing. So they decided to start to look at priorities. Now I'm sort of encapsulating a day, then plus a further half a day in a sort of very brief period here. And they reduce their projects that they were going to be delivering, which meant that they could spread their resources out onto the key strategy, document change projects that they needed to deliver. And as a result of which I therefore got more demands for training, because some of these people have never been on project management courses. And actually, that department was held to be a beacon of effectiveness within the business because of the way that they deliver their projects. So I was really chuffed about that. Because, you know, my bank manager was even more happy because we got more work from it. But I think the bottom line for me was that, you know, it just shows how wrong I was that, you know, something that I come away with feeling quite despondent about. This guy was quite bubbly and bouncy. And he said, yeah, it's really great. And I came back and told my wife, and she said, Well, that's really good. You know, that's, that's, you know, more power to you. And that's, for me, is just one of the proud moments that I can particularly remember, I'm really one of the real successes, I think, because that then spun the organisation to bigger things. And that was the first organisation I ever did any sponsor training with, in actual fact, loaded into take you very far. But I did probably three or four programmes as a huge organisation, specifically for sponsors. And that sort of kindled my, my interest in that particular area.

Unknown Speaker  45:49  
Brilliant. So it's kinda It's that thing that you drop a pebble in the,

Unknown Speaker  45:57  
in the in this in the little calm pool in the knew, you don't actually see the ripples coming back until later here.

Unknown Speaker  46:03  
Yeah, absolutely. Right. Absolutely. And it was it was this guy turned around and said, Hello, Ron, how are you? That I realised all this

Unknown Speaker  46:13  
was fun. So let's drill down a little bit into that is

Unknown Speaker  46:18  
in in the roles that you do, and you tend to do that? Is it quite imagined it's quite difficult way or stepping into an organisation, kind of either understanding what their needs are for training, given the training, getting a bit of understanding about their organisation, but not seeing they're seeing that that outcome necessarily in except for those in those instances, I just had kind of had to kind of deal with that, because you're kind of pushing them off into the distance go. And they have taught you how to do that. Now. How does that make you feel?

Unknown Speaker  46:55  
It's difficult, because I'd really like to follow up with everybody. But it is an interesting one. And I sat down and pondered this one because one of the one of the problems that I I've got is that, you know, you mentioned the one day course the two day course, whatever, whatever length, of course, is, there are some people who need and I don't mean this in any derogatory terms, I need hand holding. And I'm trying to convince I'd be trying to convince clients for years of the need for coaching that project managers. And you know, that we would we would do the coaching, or frankly, they should do it internally, which would be better. And clients don't see the need for this, because you taking something that was a concept that's quite new, and you're taking change as a concept, which again, for some people is difficult, but we all know it's very difficult. And yet, yet, they need that done today. So you're skilled. I'll never forget. I tell you this, that when I was a general trainer, I did a business letter writing course. And a guy came up to me in one of the corridors and said, you know, business letter writing course that you did. It was useless. words to that effect. I can't remember exactly. And I did. And I was sort of bit taken aback and said, why is that ushering him into sort of a side room where we could talk and we got sat down? And he said, Well, so and so still can't write letters? And I think that's, that's that's the sad I said, But what have you done to help them support this person? Well, nothing, you know, you've been on? Nothing. We didn't been on a one day course. But they can do it. And I said, quite work that way. And it doesn't really doesn't write very well didn't spell very well. So so let's be clear. I said, you're expecting one day's worth of training internally, to right the wrongs potentially the wrongs of the educational system, that this person's been through if the car right very well and spell very well. And I said,

Unknown Speaker  49:04  
give me an answer.

Unknown Speaker  49:05  
And natural fat, it was quite a challenge for this person. And then went away into the came back. And we had several discussions and eventually took it on board that he needed to do some coaching, but never did. And I think that that, you know, we should be doing more coaching as consultants, not just project agency, I do think we should be trying to sell the concept of coaching, frankly, whether we do it or they do it. I don't know, the internal people that I don't care. So leaving an organisation behind sometimes it's actually very difficult. But then I don't have their problems, I can walk away from it. That's the beauty of the job, I guess. Yeah. But it's also the stress of the job, because you know, you can see where they're going to fail, you can actually see where they're going to fail. And there have been different occasion where I've actually had to say to organisations not, and in fact, there's one one particular organisation I just said to them, you're spending all this money with us. It's not working, you know, you really need to sit down. And and because we were that every two weeks, we'd been there. And I just said to this director, you got to check out the value that this is your organisation, he was taken aback and called me into a meeting. And the result was that we didn't actually do any more work. But they started to reappraise whether we're going in the direction. He was very grateful to me. Our bank manager wasn't that There you go. But I think, you know, we've all got to live with ourselves the next day and look in the mirror. And ethically, I thought it was the right thing. And I'm still think it was the right thing to do.

Unknown Speaker  50:38  
Yeah, I think and and, like, say, if you can step away from that, there, there are a friend knows marketing company, and their basis is, this is how they do it. And this is what they think about it. And if someone comes to them and says, right, no, I just want you to do this, this, this and this for me. I don't want any all that other stuff. He says, well, there's plenty of people who can do that for you. But I'm not in do that. Because I there's a certain approach and what he knows works from his opinion, and he does it that way. Yes. And that that that strength of your convictions is really valuable, I think and kind of sometimes sitting there going, man, actually no, not anymore. Sorry. That you, I'm not going to just do that. Because you're kind of strive for excellence rather than just for mediocrity doing so. But one thing did piqued my interest as you saying used to kind of you step go there, you have all the joys of training people and seeing people light up as they realise stuff. And then step back when potentially they have the problems. It's kinda like being a grandparent as their

Unknown Speaker  51:49  
parent, actually, because I'm talking with the grandparents recently. Someone said, Look, we've got to let go let go of our kids. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  52:00  
I'm terrified of having to do that with

Unknown Speaker  52:04  
that, learn to let go of particular courses and particular people on the course. Because there's so many of them. I mean, you know, that the conference in mentioned it four or five times now and in Athens, I spoke to a lot of people around and 20 people that speak to everybody, you know, you can't take on the the woes of the world. And one of my one of my many bosses guy called Jeff Davis, he said, Look, all we can do is throw seeds, throw seeds, some of them are grow. Yeah, through sort of expression. But I think you know,

Unknown Speaker  52:38  
no, but as you say that that guy who you thought you thrown on barren grind, and came back. So with the gaps the transformation there, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Fantastic. So on, onto my list, again, back onto the back on the back on the back on the schedule, and back onto the, the the following the process to to its end.

Unknown Speaker  53:03  
You've got your website,

Unknown Speaker  53:05  
I seen on there with with a number of different bits and bobs and project HTC, and number of blogs on blog posts on there. You obviously started doing that kind of stuff, what did what made you using that approach? And and

Unknown Speaker  53:20  
doing it that way? Really?

Unknown Speaker  53:22  
I think I think

Unknown Speaker  53:24  
she's making she's my voice. I think that that was part of the sort of strategy. What am I what's my role, and one of my roles is, I believe I'm an educator, back to being a teacher. I'm an educator. And I felt this way for for quite a long time. And, and speaking at conferences and so on. And one of the things that I decided to do was, if I'm a teacher, I needed to sort of reach a wider audience. And the blogging was was was part of that. And it was, after be honest, very difficult at first, getting getting going. But I think, you know, it became relatively easy and alone. My last blog, real blog was actually over a year ago. It actually, a lot of the stuff that came out was as a result of things that that came out and courses or conversations that I've had with potential clients or actual clients. And I felt that, you know, a wider audience would would actually benefit. So there's some lag between four to 500 blogs on there. I think it's actually just over 500 now. And I thought that it was time to give it a rest. And I don't push the blog very much. But I did actually, my last one I do do want to mention because it's actually a spoof blog, which is written on May the ninth 2018 in big large letters, official projects not to forget sponsorship has been declared null and void.

Unknown Speaker  54:54  
Now, right in front of me.

Unknown Speaker  54:56  
Yeah, I'm gonna read the I'm going to read the first paragraph here, because I think it's, it's, you know, sometimes it's the creative mind. At a meeting of the international project management convocation brackets, I pro MCO, closed brackets. This month, the board ruled that there was no need for Project Sponsor projects to have a project sponsor. Now, there's no such organisation called the international project management complication. That added added on though there was no ruling. But I wrote that more out of frustration, I guess, because organisations just don't seem to see the value of project management. And I had some interesting sort of responses at the bottom there. But I also, just to come back to the general general question, just want to re under underline the fact that I think it's about project management, education. And bluntly, it's, it's a marketing tool, as well. I can say to people look, you know, on a course discovered written this blog, or I've had business from it, I know directly from blogs. And I've had controversy from it, you know, with people saying, Rocco violently disagree with you, and so on. Well, fine. That's what people got. And I will always argue my case. And by the way, I'm not always right. You know, it's it's, it's just, it's wrong. Rosen heads view.

Unknown Speaker  56:17  
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're right there that you can. And that's the wonder of the internet. Isn't it sad? We can viciously disagree with each other. And, or, or happily disagree with each other?

Unknown Speaker  56:30  
Yeah. As long as it's done in a way that's that's, that's acceptable. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, no problem with that.

Unknown Speaker  56:37  
So talking about blogs, what was the last few questions after hearing them come up to us last project blog that you read? That wasn't your own?

Unknown Speaker  56:46  
Oh, Robbie. Well, in actual fact, I do read an enormous number of blogs. And, you know, I genuinely can't remember because I, I read so many of them. The, this is a terrible sort of thing to say, really. But I, I do read an enormous amount. But I can't remember specifically who wrote it, and, and so on. And sometimes I will read an endless number of blogs, but I don't actually get anything from them. And I've sort of cut off halfway through. Because, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. Now, I don't want to read the same stuff on read new and challenging stuff. And there's lots out there. Don't please ask me to remind you that which one it is because I quote, I'm failing miserably with this question. And I feel desperately disappointed in

Unknown Speaker  57:31  
myself for it. Don't worry about it, don't worry about it.

Unknown Speaker  57:36  
So final, final two questions. And these ones I always ask everyone, okay. And if you and I'm guessing you've got lots here. But if we could choose one top tip that you would give to not someone who's come along to one of your courses as a new, but something that they're a seasoned project manager, they've been in the battle, Lisa, numerous different types of projects and types of person. Yeah. What's the one tip you give them?

Unknown Speaker  58:08  
One and a half, maybe. But anyway, I've

Unknown Speaker  58:14  
done this with mine mine record. But

Unknown Speaker  58:18  
I guess the first thing is, it's, it's Be yourself.

Unknown Speaker  58:23  
Be yourself, because I know a lot of project managers get incredibly stressed and challenged by the work that they do. And it often leads them a lot. And they This is not my words, but several project managers said to me, you know, illogical ways of working and so on, which, which is obviously not very good. But linked to that is actually remember the people side. And, for me, the people side is about self as much as because I've seen project managers who have worked themselves into the ground, seven days a week, and working, you know, Saturdays and Sundays, extensive long hours, and so on. And I think that they've not stood up for themselves and being assertive. And actually, in the scoping side of it said, Look, you know, if we're gonna do this project properly, we need, I'm going to create this, we're going to, we need four people full time on this project, you're giving me two people full time. This is a massive risk to the project. I don't think it's going to be successful to achieve what we're setting out to do. And I think that you know, that's that's putting head above the parapet parapet being professional, be thinking of yourself as well. Because I know that a lot of people do burn themselves out, which which I find very, very sad. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  59:46  
and actually, from an organisational point of view, if someone does do that, it doesn't help the organisation either, because they end up with our finished project with the project manager with the massive amount of invested knowledge and, and goodwill built with the team, and they're off sick. And they're kind, and invariably, the project will end up being delivered in the same sort of window that it would be when the project manager comes back and says, We want you got that capability. We're gonna have to stretch it out. Yeah. yourself. self fulfilling prophecy sometimes.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:22  
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:23  
Yeah. So my final question.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:27  
And I'll twist it around a little bit. So because if

Unknown Speaker  1:00:32  
you're not quite understand that flow for my for my interviews, which is fine.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:38  
People normally.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:41  
My dad was from Scarborough, so yeah, okay. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:46  
What would you tell

Unknown Speaker  1:00:48  
the younger Ron, on that first day when you realised you were in that project management, whether it was probably when you were starting that workshop, you had those two guys setting up the at work organisation and planning workshop? What would you say to you there, if you'd bumped into you in that in the corridor at the same time?

Unknown Speaker  1:01:11  
You just said, It's the final question. Well, it's that the word question that I want to pick up here

Unknown Speaker  1:01:19  
is that it's actually keep asking questions.

Unknown Speaker  1:01:23  
I'm renowned for asking questions. I went to a meeting recently, and someone said, you ask a lot of questions, don't you? And I said, Yeah, that's it. Because if you don't actually understand what it is you're supposed to be doing. You're never going to be successful. And I've been astounded over the last my life, how people just sit back and listen. And what's been given to them is inadequate. Unit. People need to dig deeper. And it's just about going out and asking questions, intelligent questions, dumb questions, tough questions, any type of questions, learn really good listening skills, along with really good questioning skills. I think I extended that to maybe one and a half again, Nigel, sorry, the problem, but you know, learn, learn to listen and and learn the way to to ask good questions. Incidentally, I did have a project manager on a course, who said to me, my team came up to me and said, I can't I wasn't a very good listener. This was during a listening exercise when people querying the value of it. So I think, you know, that says a lot for him, which was very brave. And I think for for project managers, generally. So hope that helps.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:38  
Yeah, that's brilliant.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:40  
So thank you very much for your time. On the call, Ron has been really, really entertaining and really interesting.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:49  
If people want to get ahold of you,

Unknown Speaker  1:02:51  
if they want to find out what you're doing and all your courses,

Unknown Speaker  1:02:53  
read your blog items, what's the best way for them to get in touch with

Unknown Speaker  1:02:58  
you? They couldn't beck and call me on the on the mobile which will be? Am I allowed to give a number out here? Absolutely fine. Yeah. Oh, 797-373-5078. If I'm not around, just leave a message. And I'll get back in the usual way. And or just send an email and email is RR project agency. com. That's Romeo, Romeo, Project agency.com. And I'd be delighted, delighted to hear of anybody who, you know, needs just wants to chat or wants information.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:32  
Fantastic. Fantastic. And all it is to say thank you again, Ron, another absolutely wonderful evening.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:38  
No problem. Thank you very much indeed for the invitation. And thank you all for listening. Is that

Unknown Speaker  1:03:47  
right, I'll just work to stop it. recording.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai





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