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8b068e963316e1798e3c558131483265.m4a
00:00:00,000 So when did you realize that you were a project manager? Was it 00:00:07,920 before you were called one? Or was it after?
00:00:15,760
00:00:23,040 Somewhere in between I think. I mean, I think the points I remember were, I was being given bigger and bigger things to do.
And I was beginning to recognize, I still didn’t have the words to describe it. But then when I went on a training course,
it kind of jelled for me. In fact, I was talking to another person, I’m sort of assimilating to mean experience from the accidental project management world,
00:00:30,560 some time ago, and we were at the conference. And we were just 00:00:35,840 talking about this, how do we even survive?
Because nobody taught us anything. And I think we survived because, I
think the ones that did survive during that era, were the ones that had a kind of affinity to,
00:00:45,840 a degree of control, but also I think more to do with the soft skills of
understanding the people’s side of things and the communication that’s required. [Music]
00:01:05,520 Hi and welcome to the Sunday Launch Project Manager podcast for
Sunday the 13th of August 20, 23. This week we’ve got a rerun as I’m on the holiday,
00:01:14,800 or Peter Taylor, the lazy project manager. So enjoy! [Music] 00:01:22,160
[Music] Just a quick shout out, another way that I found that you could
support the show, the lessons, info in the show notes, is that it’s the British podcast awards this year
00:01:38,320 for the 11th and 10th cuts off on the 5th of September, for what they
00:01:50,000 call the People’s Trace. I have no illusions that I will not win it, but
being devoted for maybe getting one or less set on all of those
specialised layers, or anything like that means that the discoverability
for the podcast would be improved, which is always the back of getting the show out to people.
00:02:04,880 So if you’re inclined to vote for me, and actually I’d probably vote for
others as well, I personally voted for the social distance sports bar podcast I really enjoy. If you go along to British Pods 2023, 00:02:21,440 for all my website, so NigelCruiser.com/BritishPods2023, and then
that’ll be directed to the right page and you search for me, the Sunday Launch Project Manager, you should pop up, click on that,
00:02:35,840 and then cast your votes and you’ll be verifying things like that. And
then you can book for other ones as well, if you want. So if you can do that, I’d be very grateful, and tell your friends,
00:02:45,120 cheers there. So I have a number of responses, affiliate links, in the
way that it’s set up, that have kindly allowed me to share their services really.
00:03:13,280 The first one is my clean, and Mike runs PM on my PM courses, and it is a great resource for getting those fundamental service project management trained, reasonably priced,
00:03:29,840 and Mike presents it in an accessible and clear manner. You can check
out some of his videos on his YouTube channel, and kind of give you a view of where they are.
00:03:46,160 But the code for that, if you go to NigelCruiser.com/onlinePM courses,
all one with a lot of case, that’ll be directed to it. There’s very different levels that you can buy, you can buy individual courses,
00:04:01,120 you can buy pathways as well, if you like. And I get a kick back, oh,
those, my currently shares me that, so if you do jump on and use it, I
hope you find it really useful. I think it has, I’ll leave that down to you,
00:04:16,480 and that’s what that is, so there’s a throw-in in particular risk on that. So
jump on that, and that again, it’s NigelCruiser.com/onlinePM courses, and enjoy. I wanted to welcome you all to the Sunday Lunch Project podcast,
00:04:37,600 and I’ve got a special guest today, a gentleman called Peter Taylor. I’m
going to read a biog from his first book, and the book that I first got
introduced to Peter, and I, in fact, have a signed copy in front of me.
00:04:51,760 It says, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the lazy project manager.”
Despite its title of the lazy project manager, Peter is in fact a dynamic
and commercially astute professional, who’s achieved notable success in project management,
00:05:06,080 program management, and professional development of project managers. Lately, the head of projects are a global supplier of
performance management solutions. And in addition to that, there’s a few quotes I’ve heard, which are,
00:05:21,920 “Perhaps the most entertaining and inspiring speaker in project management today, with over 17 books and presenting over 330 presentations around the world in 25 countries to more than 40,000
people.” So Peter, I want to welcome you to the podcast, and as I say,
00:05:44,320 it’s very, I’m very grateful to come along. Oh no, I’m delighted. I’m
delighted. I’m reading Barry’s by that first kind of introduction on the ground, so that was a, that was a PR thing I put together about 10 years ago, that dynamically
00:05:55,600 commercially astute, “Oh my goodness me.” Yeah, these days I just say
I’m a speaker in a project manager, it’s a lot simpler. Yeah, I get the
book with the “Bee Lazy” from Peter at NONIT, and I’d forgotten that I
got it signed by you. It’s that long ago. Yeah, wow. So that, as you know, I’ve pinned you
00:06:16,160 a few questions, and I kind of want to get behind who Peter is, really,
and with some of the interviews on here, I want to try and get a little bit of a variation around people’s history and how they go into project management, because I think it’s an interesting and varied subject matter,
00:06:32,080 really. So I’ve kind of given you a bunch of questions that I’ve sent there, where were you born, and where you live now? So kind of, do
you want to give us a little background around those? Sure, okay. So I was born in, in the UK, I was born in Kent, I was born in Pembury, actually, I was born
00:06:49,040 in Pembury Hospital, and that’s interesting because my aunt still works
in Pembury Hospital all these years later, and actually my partner was
born in the same hospital. Quite a few years between us, but that’s one thing we’ve discovered we have in common. So I’m from Kent, I spent very little part
00:07:05,680 of my life living in Kent. Most of my life living either where I am now,
which is in Barkshire, so I live in Sandhurst, in Barkshire. I lived here
from my formative years up to my mid-20s, and I returned just over two
years ago to the same area, but I lived just down the road from where my
00:07:23,360 parents lived. But I spent the 25 years up in the Midlands, well, you
know, just at sort of around the Coventry area. So that’s kind of my
personal journey. I mean, obviously, as you said, I’ve traveled the world
in speaking, etc, but I’ve never lived in the UK, so that’s the kind of two major
00:07:40,480 locations. All right, cool. And you mentioned your partner there, with a
little bit of family and background there. Yeah, so, yes, I’m with the lady
who’s Julia at now, and yeah, so we have a family between us. I mean,
we actually don’t have any children together, but we do have a lot of children
00:07:57,280 between us. So we in fact have nine children. It makes Christmas and
other events very, very interesting. So we have nine children, ranging
five girls, four boys ranging from 15 all the way up to 31. So, yeah, quite a good range there. So Christmas is a big project in itself then?
00:08:20,000 Oh, yeah. Well, I’ve retired the corner with a nice glass of wine and
what’s the chaos into it. They’re pretty much self-sufficient, actually. It’s
quite interesting. So they make a lot of noise, but there are a lot of fun as well. Great. Brilliant. So you said you grew up in the
00:08:34,240 Barca area. And so one of the things that intrigues me is kind of what people who are project managers wanted to be when they grew up. And I know some some project managers have yet to grow up, but what
was it? What was your, what did you want to be? Yes, interesting. I’m actually meeting people
00:08:51,920 these days who grow, growing up wanting to be project managers. It’s
going to, in my day, that was, well, it didn’t exist. I mean, it just wasn’t spoken about. So, well, at school they told me I should be in the
accountant, which fortunately I wasn’t. What I want to grow when I grow up? I guess the best
00:09:08,720 thing I could say I wanted to be was what kind of my sort of fantasy was
to be a writer. Now, clearly I wasn’t thinking about being a writer of business books, but I wanted to be an author of some form. So that was an overarching one. Beyond that, I was just generally confused about what life
00:09:24,320 was going to offer. I mean, my best friend is one of those people who
had the utter clarity. He wanted to become a construction engineer from
the moment I met him, really, you know, very early age. And you know,
he’s done that and he’s been very successful. In fact, the United States has been a major
00:09:40,160 construction company in the US. So he was at a path and I had
completely no path and it was kind of, that’s kind of how I just fell into project management, really. All right. So, going on to that was the project management. This kind of, I’m guessing you didn’t
00:09:54,800 go to university and have a project management degree and that sort of
thing because I’m, I kind of know, rather you’re similar age to me and I
don’t think there was existed then. No, no. So my education was fairly
typical. I mean, I, you know, I did my sort of, I would levels and I
00:10:10,480 then started doing some A levels and I was rude. I wasn’t educating me
mind you at that point, as far too much of a distracted rebel, I suppose. So I quit school and I went off and worked for a year to make some money and then I went back to college and cram my A levels in one year because
00:10:26,000 that’s about as much time as I could bother to give to that kind of
activity. And then I was that first job then. The first job was, I mean, I
just, I spent a summer doing odd jobs basically. I joined a recruitment
agency and did everything from packaging boxes to kicking parcels of trains and things
00:10:44,320 like that. I would say my first real job was I joined a company because I
shared a house with a few other guys and they worked in this company.
It was part of the aeronautical defense system suppliers and they were
recruiting like crazy and I joined and my first real job was a progress chase.
00:11:02,880 I sat there on a printed circuit board assembly section and I had to basically make sure, well, yeah, my job was supposed to know where
all the work orders were in a given time. I wasn’t very good at it, to be
honest. So I was, I was a bit too lazy in the wrong way at that point and it didn’t really
00:11:18,800 inspire me. But that was my first job and eventually I kind of, then I fell
into something I kind of got the hang of which was stock control, stock management, warehouse management and then it kind of moved on
from there. All right. So then your education, you’re getting back and did some more studying
00:11:37,680 you said? Well, I did something, I did some related to the work I was
doing and then it kind of, you know, what, what clicked for me was, you know, I joined a company, a smaller company at that point and they
happened to be deploying an MRP, material, it’s planning solution, but those who might remember
00:11:56,240 MRP before ERP or MRP, M-R-P2 then ERP for those. And the IT
director of that company had basically customized the hell out of this particular solution and then moved on to start his own company and
they were trying to basically deploy the next generation of software in a kind of vanilla format
00:12:14,480 and they needed someone to do a comparison. And for whatever
reason I had some spare time, I showed them some aptitude to do this,
I had some structure and discipline and around it I’ll produce some nice
reports. And then from there, I kind of, I spent time working with the consultants that came
00:12:31,840 in with us and I realized that those, those guys coming in, we seemed to drive much better cars than I had and they seemed to have much
better suits than I was wearing and therefore I decided that was the job
I should join and I feel like I kind of fell into it at that point. All right. So that was your
00:12:48,240 step into a career path then really. Yeah, so that was my career path and but I was at that point I was a manufacturing consultant, but I
joined a company and I can look back and I can look see it now. I mean
I can see that I was, this was my first project because I was doing some work for one
00:13:06,080 of the home computer companies at the time, one of the many that kind
of exploded onto the scene. And they had this brilliant technique of
sales and repairs because they were literally, it was the heyday, they were number one in the France and I think they were number three in the UK
00:13:25,840 or at computers at the time and they were selling thousands of, actually thousands and thousands of these things because a lot of, yeah, a percentage of them came back because people said they didn’t work
and that was quite possible but the company who decided their policy on this was actually,
00:13:40,960 it was the users were idiots and therefore we would record the serial number. We put them in a brand new box and sell them to someone
else and if that second person then sent them back we’d say actually
it’s not the user there is a problem in which case we put them in a big pile at the far
00:13:56,080 end of this warehouse and send a brand new one out and everybody
was happy but suddenly I realized actually now we had 10,000 of these
boxes in the corner and actually that was a lot of money so they said
we need to repair them so my first project I would say was to design a very simple repair,
00:14:10,960 a test and repair line it was such a simple project really because all the
resources were in one place I think I had to walk up the road to a shop
to buy a couple of pieces of equipment and that was it but it’d been the people were there, the desk, everything we needed, etc was there,
00:14:25,280 it’s just a matter of putting together this structure and process which I
did fairly quickly. I know people called me a project manager, it wasn’t
decided it was a project but I can look back and go actually that for me was my very first project, very simple but it kind of gave me some insight
00:14:42,320 into the approaches that seemed to work for me and it was many years,
it was five years after that I think I was called a project manager and eight years after that I was ever sent on a training course to be a project manager, so when did you realise that you were a project manager?
00:14:59,040 Was it before you were called one? Or was it after? Somewhere in
between I think, I think the points I remember were, I was being given bigger and
00:15:09,200 bigger things to do and I was beginning to recognise, I still didn’t have
the words to describe it but then when I went on a training course it kind
of jelled for me and in fact I was talking to another person of similar age to me in experience from the accidental project management world
00:15:25,200 some time ago and we were at the conference and we were just talking
about this, how do we even survive because nobody taught us anything
and I think we survived because I think the ones that did survive during that era were the ones that had a kind of
00:15:38,560 affinity to a degree of control but also I think more to do with the soft skills of understanding the people’s either things and the communication that’s required and then when I went on the course it gave me almost the mechanics of project management and I was like, oh wow, I understand that,
00:15:54,480 that would have been useful to understand etc. So I would say somewhere in that part of period I kind of evolved into a project
manager and took it from there. And did you sit there back there and think, right, oh I am doing this project management training,
00:16:10,320 I am doing this, this is what I am going to be doing for the foreseeable
future or was it a case of this seems to be the right thing to do at this
time? I think the latter, the right thing to do at this time, I mean, I’m one thing I’m terrible at is
00:16:22,320 having any, the worst interview question for me, it’s a long time since
I’ve really been interview but the worst interview question for me is,
where do you see yourself in five years? I haven’t got a clue, I’ve never
had that kind of projection of my life, it’s like this is interesting,
00:16:36,240 I think that is where it might take you and really writing a book was kind
of like that, I died in no idea, I thought I’d write a book, I write a book
and here we are. So I won’t ask that question and I’ll cross that off my list.
00:16:49,200 So you just mentioned one of the things that the fact that you first
project you remembered being that, an unofficial project if you like. You talk about the sounds like you had the MRP organization and the working with the desktop supplies, what other industries have you worked
00:17:10,320 across? I’ve worked in most industries over the years, I mean, I haven’t
worked in construction, I would never clue what to do in construction
and I haven’t worked in sort of space, design, or anything like that. But
pretty much every other basic industry, whether it be pharmaceutical
00:17:24,080 banking or consulting services or anything like that, that’s one of the beauties of a consultative type world, you touch many points, my
background is in manufacturing, it’s a long time since I’ve actually dedicated to manufacturing, but that is my background. But I like touching many, many
00:17:45,360 industries, etc. They’re all interesting and everything I get involved in, when I publish my first book, I kind of annoyed the hell out of my
publishers because all I wanted to do was learn about the publishing
industry and I turned up at shows and things like that just to understand it
00:18:01,280 and they were quite bewildered that anybody would actually want to do
that, then went used to it authors doing that, but that’s me, I like to learn
it, and it’s been a lot of time in retail as well, and that’s a fascinating
world, that’s where I am right now in retail. And again, it’s fascinating
00:18:16,880 to learn the dynamics of that very dynamic business right now, retail is
just changing rapidly, so that’s what excites me. Yeah, I remember all
these different industries have their uniqueness, I remember working in a, with an organisation where I was doing a financial
00:18:34,480 planning system and they pointed out that they were part of the Dexon’s
group and it was a case of they had the change freeze on any of their IT systems from the middle of November until the end of January and it’s kind of like, well, why? And then I kind of dropped, the penny dropped is
00:18:50,400 that’s their biggest time when they get any money in it all, so they didn’t
want anything, if they couldn’t take payments at a shop, they’re massive
impact on their business. Oh yeah, absolutely, the golden quarter, we
would have gone through that, etc, and that’s the kind of things you learn
00:19:04,640 about, you know, it’s okay, it’s fascinating, so I understand the pattern of the projects that we’ve got underway at the moment and what works and what doesn’t work and when do you leave them alone and when do you try and make differences for them? Yeah, yeah, so talking about your projects then,
00:19:17,760 and maybe the ones you’re on now, and although, what is the largest,
and I’m not asking for stats and details to verify that it is the largest,
well, what would you say was your largest or naliest project? Well, the
management, what did you learn on it? I pretty much learned everything that was really,
00:19:38,400 you know, really practical and this thing, so this was, it was nearly three
years in the end, it was, it was in the steel stock holding industry, it was deployment of a kind of, this company had many depots all over the
place where people could go and order steel and all the other stuff that goes,
00:19:56,320 you know, they’re kind of heavy metal kind of structure material, and
you know, this, this was a, this was the controlled rollout of an MRP
system with financials and everything, it was complex, it was difficult,
they were going through a transformation, you know, so it actually was,
00:20:15,840 was very challenging and we got into also distribution requirements plan as well, and they had all the warehouses and restocking and
ordering, and it was, it was, it was fascinating for that point of view, but
it took a long, long time and and kind of what I learned from this was up so many lessons that,
00:20:34,480 you know, it, you know, it went well, it went as actually long, wrong, it
kind of recovered, it was just, it went almost legal at one point and then
it went to a one to finish, et cetera, so there was everything. I think,
well, I really, the key, I think two things I learned on this one is, I
00:20:49,120 thought of a say, I was summarized, is one is the important, I mean, I’m
not a person, I really hate people who just audit trail for the sake of it, but I kept good records and actually, you know, when we had the bad
times, the build, it used to go back and reference clearly, conversations, decisions,
00:21:04,160 et cetera, so, you know, I really don’t like, you know, I, and people would joke about me, but, you know, I have no emails in my inbox or
anything and I don’t know, it’s story emails because it’s in the moment
for me and it’s, it’s a conflict of conversational thing, not a kind of audit trail,
00:21:16,720 but I do keep records in, in critical ones, so that, that proves very
valuable to me, I think, the second thing, which is, was, was learning
about the kind of dynamics of the users, because one of the big selling
points on this, this solution we were putting in was that we would make life much
00:21:35,120 faster for the people who used it, because the old system was staggerantly slow, you know, they, you know, imagine some guys
comes in, they’ve ordered some, some material, it’s being loaded up on
the lorry right now and, you know, and they stand there tapping their fingers and banging and
00:21:49,040 et cetera, because they’re waiting for the system to catch up with the order process and payment, and this was brilliant. So when we deployed the first, you know, 10 or so of these depots, et cetera, service desks, et cetera, you know, everybody was delighted, you know, but there was a teething problem,
00:22:04,000 training problems, et cetera, but everybody was delighted because it was, it was like lightning speed compared to the old system. What I
didn’t anticipate was that halfway through the deployments of about 40 of these, these locations. Of course, the old system was no longer burdened by all these
00:22:18,560 major depots, because we rolled them out quickly. So the old system
was going at lightning speed, and nobody understood why we had, they had to change at all. So, you know, learning about the fact change
impacts people in different ways, and you have to anticipate a lot, I think was kind of one
00:22:31,040 of the, one of the other big messages or big lessons I learned from that
experience, to anticipate the impact on people and actually projects, the
longer they are, the more things changed during the project. Yeah, I can
see how that can frustrate people, especially if they’re moving on to a new one
00:22:47,840 that it’s subtly different, the perception can be difficult on user
experience, kind of. So looking at, I don’t know whether it would drop
within this project, would it, would watch your biggest screw up from a project point of view, and what, and I hopefully you would
00:23:06,720 have learnt something from it. Well, I mean, yeah, you’ve got lazy
project manager, that is an entire book of screw ups, which, unless as
I’ve learned, which is one of the things people tell me they like about
the book, when it’s short, too, it’s funny, and three, it’s actually got honest lessons,
00:23:21,600 and it was most project management books at that time, which is
theoretical masterpieces of perfection, which I don’t think this really helps people. I mean, my biggest screw up, I mean, there’s just so
many, I think, that you can go through in that one. I mean, I think, I mean, the one I’m going to touch
00:23:42,160 on is, was a game, it was from that project, the big project, it was,
realizing the kind, was it, was it, was it a screw up as such? It was, I
completely underestimated the influence of a particular stakeholder in
this one, and I can’t go to too much detail on it, but the point is,
00:24:00,400 this particular person wanted a piece of functionality, and we kept
saying that’s not in the contract, well, I kept saying it’s not in the
contract, it’s not in the scope, we talked about it, we didn’t do it, et
cetera, and, and they were so nice about it every single time, because this would happen every
00:24:13,200 few months, they can’t have a chat with me over a coffee or raise it at a
steering meeting or whatever, and every time we, I’d, I’d, I’d be buff it
and go, “I remember this, you know, I can’t say their name, obviously, but you know, Mr. X, do you remember this?” We talked about this, “Oh, yes, yes, I remember that.”
00:24:27,520 I mean, we’re right at the very end, and there was a major milestone
had to be signed off, and it was, it was a tough old contract, because if
they didn’t sign this milestone off, they basically had the, the right to go
back and try and reclaim all of the money that we’d already, I mean, those days,
00:24:39,680 you know, revenue recognition was very different, you know, the
moment the, the sort of paper that was signed, we think we actually, in, basically, set an invoice from about 80 percent of the revenues or
things, and that, we can’t do that now, obviously, but, right at the very end, he,
00:24:54,400 he basically just dug his heels in, and, and, you know, this guy was,
was, wasn’t a very aimable, wonderful person. He was very influential because he was the nephew of the, a founder of the organization, he
had gazillion shares, etc. And we had to do it in the end, we had to do it, and we had to do it,
00:25:12,080 our own cost, etc. And it wasn’t, you know, he added another couple of months in the projects, which, you know, on that, on that scale of
project, maybe not so critical, but I did, it was an excruciating sense of,
I didn’t truly anticipate or understand what this guy could do if you wanted to,
00:25:28,480 and he was so nice about it, you know, I almost apologized it, you
know, but, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s understandable, stakeholder, it’s, it’s
critical, really is. Yeah. Yeah, and they don’t, they don’t necessarily need
to be shouting and banging a desk to the, the, not supportive thing.
00:25:43,600 No, I mean, because I’m, look, in contrast, there was the, there was the, you know, the son of the devil who was the IT director who was
always banging his fists and demanding stuff, and, you know, actually everybody, including the company members from the board, you know, got board with him in the
00:25:55,440 end and, and the kind of ignored him. So yes, they say it’s the quiet
ones. That’s a fair point. So flipping it, let’s move back to being a bit
more positive on these. What would you say was your proudest project
delivery? You know, can I cheat and say, well, actually finishing my first book,
00:26:13,440 I guess, oh, yeah, yeah, it’s a, I know, having no done a couple that I
know what the project it is now. Yes, yeah. I mean, Chris, it was, it was completely unknown for me. And it was like, well, I wanted to do a
book. I wanted to do it right, a book, because I thought it would support my
00:26:28,480 speaking. And that’s really the advice I was given. So, you know, I was
very fortunate. I found a publisher who were willing to publish this crazy
title book called the laser project manager. But I had a very, what they, what they was interested, they came back to me and they said, look,
00:26:42,480 they were a very small publishing house. They said, well, one of our
books is, we’re not going to go ahead with it. So there is a, there’s like a
two month window. So we could actually publish it this year. But can
you write it? Can you get a manuscript in like eight weeks? Of course, I said, yes.
00:26:58,160 The fact that I did much faster than that because I had a lot, I mean, to
be fair, I had a lot of thoughts behind it. The website I built as stuff put
together. So it was, it wasn’t that onerous, but it’s like, okay, yes. And I didn’t, you know, I had an idea, I had to write a book. And I just,
00:27:14,000 you know, basically locked myself in my room. I was posting notes
everywhere and bits of paper and cans of energy drinks and the like.
And I shut myself away for just over a week to produce the first sort of draft of it. And then I was just in despair because it was 10,000,
00:27:31,440 when it’s short from what they wanted. And I could run out of things to
say and, you know, all that. And but eventually, you know, it came out
and, you know, I was very fortunate. It was very successful as a result.
So, you know, that was a, that was a project. And I, and I actually did a kind of retrospectively
00:27:48,240 afterwards and kind of, you know, could look at it and go, well, if Peter,
if you’d actually thought about this as a bit more of a project rather than
just sitting there staring at a screen, then that’s actually, you might have structured this a bit better and done something different. So,
00:27:59,360 yeah, that’s probably my proudest moment is that it existed. And
obviously, since then, obviously very proud on the success it’s had. So
kind of a link to that really is what, what, what made you start the writing and the blogging and the speaking, I think you alluded to
00:28:15,120 there that you were looking to do speaking. And then you just outcast
and the, the array of things that you do nowadays. Yes, I mean, it all
came out from, from all that really. So, you know, I was, I’d worked with
a gentleman who I dedicated the book to actually and I’d worked with him in a number
00:28:30,800 of companies and we actually worked in a couple more companies after
that. And the, the, all, picked off with he basically said, well, I think it’s
time for me to move on, you know, he would run professional services,
you know, globally or whatever and he always recognized and need for someone
00:28:45,280 to oversee the kind of project community. And this is before PMO’s existed, you know, we had a centre of excellence in a community of
properties, et cetera. He said, well, I think in moving on, what are you
going to do next? I said, well, I kind of still have what to do here and I kind of
00:28:58,240 enjoy it, but, you know, I want to do a bit more speaking. I kind of enjoy
that. And that’s when he insulted me and said, you know, you’re really
good at this, but you’re the leastest person I’ve ever met. And that’s
kind of where the letter of achievement has come from. So I kind of had then had what turned
00:29:10,880 out to be a brand in the end. I didn’t realise that. So, it was like, well,
okay, a book, a book would help me speak. Right, okay, I write a book and I was very lucky and I got a publisher and we produced a book.
And actually it was, I, I, I was grateful in there because one of those publishing deals,
00:29:27,840 which was joint risk. So basically said, yeah, we’re probably sure book, but we need to just buy X number of books, which was quite a big
number at a rate. And of course, I said, yes, I would say anything at
that point, you know, sell my children, whatever it’s like, I’m going to be an author,
00:29:42,240 it’s fantastic. So when my, when my four sample copies turned out, it
was very excited. And when the lorry turned out with the shipment for
my garage is like, it was like, okay, I need to get really these. How am I
going to do that? Well, I’m going to hit the road. I’m going to start
00:29:56,160 speaking. And obviously nobody paid me in those days. So I did, you
know, PMI events, like the APM events, stuff like that, British computer,
society events. I like also, I chose along a load of books and sold them.
And, you know, within a fairly short period of time, I managed to get
00:30:11,040 rid of all the books and actually all of some more. So that was really good. But like, you know, it kind of kickstarted me that, and it’s
something that’s quite common these days, you know, and I’m sure you
know, this, the, you know, publishers are really kind of good if you, if you, but they
00:30:24,640 also expect authors to do a promotion themselves, etc. So I tried
everything. And I, you know, the website was there and I’ve been much
improved over time. I started blogging and that seemed to work. And, you know, obviously I did things, you know, extraction of book or articles based on the principles of
00:30:41,600 the book. That was quite popular. I gave it a go at a podcast and I was very excited when a few people started subscribing. And then, you know, astonished when I had my first thousand people kind of, you
know, listening to the podcast and it’s gone on since then. And I would try many things.
00:30:59,280 There’d been the latest project manager, e-learning course, you know,
I’ve tried sending the books online, anything and everything to kind of promote market, etc. and get my, my self out there. And, you know,
obviously over time that first year of speaking for free in the UK turned into my first invitation
00:31:14,480 to go abroad and then it’s a kind of, it’s now it’s a mixture, you know, I
do some kind of giving back to the community if you like and it keeps me in practice as well and I like going to these events and some, obviously people paint me forward, the larger ones, etc. So,
00:31:27,280 that’s kind of really how it came about. And it’s astonishingly it’ll be 10
years in May this year. I’ve been actually doing that. Yeah, and I know
Tudor and I was looking at the book earlier, noticed that it was the copy right on it was 2009 and it kind of seemed 2009,
00:31:42,720 seemed so long ago, but only yesterday as well. So it’s really strange.
Yeah, I know, it’s, I know, maybe it’s just age feeling. Yeah, I guess so.
And that’s kind of, I go back to the early point, if someone said to me,
what are you going to be doing in five or 10 years? I wouldn’t say, well,
00:31:59,360 I’ll have written, well, actually, I’m just under the process of, you know,
writing my 19th and 20th book. I would never have been as vicious that I would have been happy with, you know, the book, if you like, you
know, I just couldn’t imagine that 10 years later that to a degree, I would be known
00:32:18,960 to a degree, I’ve been successful. And, you know, I have the
opportunity to write and speak and 25 countries around the world. It’s
just, it’s been amazing. Yeah. Still waiting for that call for Iceland
though. Absolutely. Thank you for that plug. I am Dechland Weissland. They got very close
00:32:35,120 at one point. It’s a very nice people with long surnames from Weissland.
So, Iceland, if you’re listening, I am desperate to come to Iceland and speak. Yeah, I’m not sure my, my listenership is that wide at the
moment. Maybe it will be wonderful. So, so, talking about books, talking about,
00:32:53,200 obviously, you, you, uh, producing your books, but just a, what’s the last
project book that you read? Um, I’ve just started, actually. So, one of
the things that’s nice is the fact that lots of people send me books these days to read. And I, I, I consciously took December and most of January off to
00:33:11,440 go and read other books. Yeah. So, I’ve just, I’ve got a pile next to me
right on my windowsill right now. And the top one is the one that a lady
called Ruth Peers sent me, which I know, and I’ve seen Ruth on, okay,
be approachable. Be approachable, be approachable to Vater and a lot of the secrets of
00:33:26,800 strength based project management. So, I’ve just literally started that
one. Um, so, you know, I don’t have, I don’t have a view. Um, I’ve just finished the chapter on an accidental project manager, so, uh, I
recognize a lot of that. Um, so that’s currently what I’m reading. So, we’ll see where that
00:33:40,560 one goes. And then I’ll move down that I’ve actually got eight books to
read. So, um, I need to crack on with those ones. Yeah, I was chatting
over, I think it was over LinkedIn with Ruth on, see if I could get her on
this podcast as well. So, that would be really good. Well, yeah, you can tell you, you know,
00:33:55,680 you know me and if she wants a good review to get on your podcast, I’ll
try that, bro. So, um, so again, similar sort of thing, the podcast and
blogs, what, what do you listen to? What are you, or what do you read that you find, and fix or like, sparks your project management? Um,
00:34:12,800 yeah, I’ll be in trouble. Yeah, I’ll be honest, on podcasts, I haven’t, um, I
haven’t listened to many podcasts for a long time. I mean, you know,
Courtney, this fiction as one was a little favor of mine. Any other few
others I would dip in and out of, but I haven’t listened to podcast for a while, and that’s
00:34:30,960 probably partly down the phone. I’m not doing a huge amount of
commuting these days, which I used to do. Blogs, yes, and I, you know,
I’m not particularly a follower of blogs or writers, but what flies out at
me, if I see something on LinkedIn that’s intriguing, I, you know, I’m a classic sort of, right, okay,
00:34:49,520 well, you’ve got 30 seconds, and if it hooks me, I’ll read more on it. And
that’s kind of where I go with it, or, you know, if I’ve been talking to
someone about particular topic or I have a conference coming up that’s
themed in a certain way, some things will leap out. So I’m a very heavy LinkedIn user,
00:35:03,760 and you know, and I enjoy some, there are some good after-goo blogs
out there. So I don’t have a particular affinity to anybody, but I like lots
of people, and I’m more interested by the actual specific blog article
itself. Yeah, okay, cool, cool. So just, you mentioned that you’re, you’ve got your
00:35:22,320 19th and your 20th book in progress in a moment. I know you, I think
you’re, it must be your 18th, then the presentation on presentations came out. Was it November time, October time? Yeah, that one, yes,
that’s, because what are my favourite ones? Because I mean, I’ve done a lot
00:35:37,840 of presentation, you asked lots of questions, and so I put together this crazy thing called the presentation on presentations, which is 60
minutes of how to be a good presenter, and all the bad things you can
do. And of course, there were some notes of it, and then it became a cover one
00:35:50,160 day workshop, and then, and I thought, well, this is actually the basics
of a book, so let’s get that out the way. And that’s, that’s one of the
beauties of the world these days in publishing, I’ve sort of digressed it a
little bit, but, you know, that I have books are published by, you know, the regular
00:36:04,960 sort of publishers, but also you can self-publish so easy through Amazon. So there are some books I can just churn out there and go,
you know, I can tick that, I’ve done that, it’ll be useful, I can sell a few of
those, or people might be interested. So that’s what that one is, and now
00:36:18,720 currently I’m working on two books, and, you know, they’re both with
traditional publishers, and they’re extremely different, and they’re going
to take a while to do really, but I’m quite excited about both of them,
they’re very, both very different. One is to do with project management, and one
00:36:34,320 isn’t to do with project management, so that itself makes it different and
interesting. Cool, cool, so we get, we get to see them later in the year
or early next year. I’ll imagine next year, you know, these, these, with
the drafts will hit the publishers mid year, so they typically take at
00:36:48,720 these six months to actually put them through their little processing sausage machine, and they’ll come out in 2020. All right, cool,
excellent. So I’ve got a couple of final questions on this, it’s kind of
okay, and mix really is one of them is what your, what would be your top tip to a seasoned
00:37:07,360 PM that’s out there these days? Aside from by all your books, but, you
know, well, obviously, this season they’ve already read all my books,
you know, that fair enough. Yeah, that, and you know, one of the things
I’ve met, and it’s interesting, so, you know, obviously I run, I run PMOs, and have
00:37:21,600 run PMOs for years, and one of the things I always differentiate senior
project managers are not, I mean, to degree it is about their experience,
their capability to scale a project, the complexity of project they’ve delivered them managed successfully, but the other thing I measure, and this is my
00:37:37,680 challenge back to seasoned project managers is share, I mean share
your knowledge with other people, and, you know, yes, part of what I do
is very commercial part, what I do is obviously for me, my family, and
the income, and et cetera, but I also do quite a bit of stuff to kind of try and give
00:37:53,520 a little bit back to the community, and, you know, that’s what I like to see in project managers, every single project manager whose
seasoned has a story to tell, and they may, they may want to tell it in
different ways. I mean, we’ll have their strengths and weaknesses in a way we want to
00:38:07,040 communicate it, but even if it’s a very simple blog article, if it’s a very,
you know, LinkedIn, one line, right, or a tweet, or anything like that, it is,
there are so many opportunities to share, and there are so many people joining the profession, and it’s great, and they are, yeah, we’d
00:38:25,600 style off-wheel, I guess there are a lot of people who intend to be
project managers, and they take it degrees, et cetera, but they actually
need that kind of practical advice as well. So I think my top tip is like, if
you’ve learnt this much, you’ve learnt something that’s valuable to other people,
00:38:38,720 so don’t keep it yourself, you know, share it with the green beans.
Exactly, sort of flip side of that, then is the final question of you’ve,
you’ve got one, one presentation slide, one presentation slide, you’re allowed to time travel to see young
00:38:56,960 Peter Winnie’s doing that first repair line project, yeah? What would you, what would be on that slide you tell him about project
management? It’s something I’ve talked about a lot, so it’s very simple and it’s two words, and I was very fortunate I was given these two words, this two word advice,
00:39:12,960 the guy I worked for, I know, back in his early days, he knew, as far as I know, he knew nothing about projects or project management, we were
all consultants effectively, but he came to me and he said, look, you
know, this is what you’re doing, and he said, Peter, there’s a simple guy that I have,
00:39:29,360 which is no surprises, yeah? You can scrub as much as you like within
recent, and if you come to me and tell me about it, we’ll work together
and try and find a way to resolve it, he said, but if something lands on
my desk that you haven’t told me about, and it’s a problem, and it’s something
00:39:45,280 that you’re responsible for, I, it’s a surprise, then we’ll be having a very
different conversation. And I think that’s really at the heart of project management, project management is working with this crazy, dynamic,
changing, complex, multi-person, multi-resource, multi-issue type world over a
00:40:05,520 period of time, and actually the project management’s job is to try and elevate themselves to a point of trying to anticipate as much as
possible, and everything is impossible, clearly. But the more you can
elevate, and one of the biggest weaknesses I see in image-your-project managers is they get so
00:40:23,840 dragged down into the weeds that they kind of forget there, you know,
I’m offering supporting your project team and getting involved and not
being a loop remote resource, but I see it so often, they get dragged
down to so much detail, they never spend the time going, hang on, let me just look
00:40:38,320 at this, how’s the project going? Are we heading the right direction? Is
there something, you know, is this project titanic heading for an iceberg
over there potentially? It’s that kind of thing. So, you know, I think a
slide that just says no surprises is extremely, it worked for me anyway,
00:40:51,760 and I think it’s extremely good advice. Brilliant, brilliant. Well Peter, I’ve
come to the end of my questions, but I could probably listen to you for
much longer. If people want to hear more about you, get hold of your
books, where’s the best place they can get hold of for finite details?
00:41:12,160 Yeah, I’m in the website, www.thelazeprojectmanager.com is the best
place to go to and I want LinkedIn and I want Twitter and, you know, people just can connect me that way. I love connecting to people on
LinkedIn particularly, and yeah, I’m out there. That’s brilliant. Okay. Well, that’s it. Thank you
00:41:29,760 very much again. I maybe not said it at the beginning, but a little bit of a
fanboy from getting the book and you’re a bit of an inspiration to getting my backside into writing something as well. So thank you for that sharing and inspiring and catch up with you again. Yeah, thanks
00:41:46,480 everybody. Be lazy. Cheers. Bye now. Another great sponsor of the
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00:43:59,280 Well, I hope you enjoyed the interview with Peter there for those who’ve
listened to it before, I hope you picked out some new things for those
who haven’t, maybe you want to jump back, listen to some of the, the back catalog, uh, other we’re going to cut the back catalog out to coming up
00:44:12,160 with next couple of weeks, if you’re not going to, so look at yourself,
cheers there. So this is my final wrap-up every week you’re going to
hear this, you’re going to get bored of it, but you can always click next
podcast if so, um, if you have enjoyed it, if you listen to this podcast
00:44:39,440 the end of this show and you think that was great, I’d love to be able to
help Nigel, there are loads of ways you can do it, the first and obvious
way is to share the podcast, send it out to people, um, if you, if you
know colleagues or friends who’ve benefit from it, think they’d enjoy it,
00:45:00,160 just send them the link, grab one of the links, send it or send them to www.NigelCriser.com/podcasts, that’s www.NigelCriser.com/podcasts
and that’ll push them over to a, um, a link tree link and it’s got all of the different ways they can consume the podcast. Uh, if you are feeling generous and have a big
00:45:25,280 bag of cash, you could grab a copy of one of my books, obviously, um,
they’re available in all the usual places and print and, and, and digital. Again, jump on the website, uh, www.NigelCriser.com/shop and that
will give you a list of all the different ways that you can contribute, um, and grab copies of
00:45:48,720 the book. Also got, um, links to all my guests, the books on there as
well where I get a little bit of a kick back from them. Um, if you are of a
sporting mind, um, I have a number through doing some of my judo and
running, uh, antics, uh, I’ve managed to secure a few, um, uh, affiliate links and affiliates
00:46:12,080 there as well. So in there, somewhere in the sponsors page, there’s
links to those as well. So clicking on to those and grabbing, uh, your, if
you’re, if you’re, if you’re looking to, uh, get super fit, then that would be
fabulous as well. And I get a little kick back from those. Uh, I have a Patreon
00:46:30,320 account. It’s patreon.com/sundaylunchPM. Uh, so again, you can ping
something in there by me a coffee or whatever. And finally, obviously the most important is coming back, coming back, listen again, um, because, uh, the more of you than come back, uh, the more, uh, visibility I get, because
00:46:51,840 there’s more times that you’re downloaded and all the SEO works and
things like that. So yeah, that’s it. So, uh, if you can help me out, I
would be much appreciated. If you can, don’t worry about it. Thank you very much. Chisna, bye.
00:47:06,160 [Music] My latest, uh, the latest, uh, affiliate that I’ve got on the show
now is Riverside. Um, I use Riverside to do my interviews, Riverside ever. Um, it kind of offers you a whole, if you like, 00:47:37,120 my pro studio management producer too, and, and, and goes beyond
that, has a really good free layup. And I, um, I mean, usually for a while
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one of the high paid levels, the support was being quick, responsive and, and, and, uh,
00:47:56,000 high quality, and people keen to help me, uh, the organisation is really
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onto, uh, as you’re doing the interview, so you’re not burning bandwidth
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00:48:29,040 the conversation. Uh, and then, at the end, the upload, uh, the, the, the
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00:48:46,400 really, the best, best of the tools I’ve tried using, um, to net, and, you can get that nodulecrison.com/mode. You can get a little bit of the
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get the audio. So, um, we’ll see you guys next time with a little bit of audio, and then, um,
00:49:08,800 we’ll see you guys next time with more videos, and then, um, I’ll see you guys next time with more videos,