n
5f5cb5f13d9776f71871133764216358.m4a
00:00:00,000 [Music] Hi and welcome to the Sunday Lunch Project podcast, episode for the 31st of March. This is your host Nigel Creaser. 00:00:15,440
Coming up in this month’s interview podcast, we have Karl Pritchard, 00:00:23,840 also known as the risk guy. But first, our sponsors. 00:00:37,120
[Music] So this month, we’re sponsored by my second book, Project Management the Sketches, a collection of hilarious sketches
and songs on the topic of project management. The five star customer reviews include,
00:00:47,120 laughed out loud, would recommend to others, it is good to look on the
00:00:55,680 bright side of project life. Brilliantly bonkers, project management, 00:01:03,360
00:01:11,600 not a topic I’d normally find amusing, or even vaguely interesting, if I’m 00:01:17,520 honest. Made fun by the liberal application of Python 00:01:23,440
and a clearly dangerously warped mind. Tears in my eyes as my inner voice hummed along to reworked favourites and mouthed
cheekily warped classic lines. If this is project management, how do I get the job?
So try it out. Pop along to Amazon, you can get a copy there, or Kobo, numerous different places.
Or if you’re not sure, and you’ve done a whether you want to give out
some hard-earned cash, why not try and look for when I were a project manager?
00:01:31,600 My first book, published in 2015, which is available free at the moment. 00:01:40,480 [Music]
00:01:46,800
00:01:52,880 In news. So writing has been slow this month. The next book, Boosting Your Brand with Alexa and WordPress,
is Out With Some Beta Readers. And frustratingly, the service is from which I’ve taken screenshots or have changed.
So I’m having a dilemma of whether I’ve got him back, changing it all,
and then you can bet your bottom dollar that the minute that I press the button to publish,
00:02:01,200 they’re going to change them all anyway. I need to look at it a bit more,
make some decisions. I have been working on presentation material to help demonstrate
00:02:09,600 that project management is funny, to go alongside with my books. It 00:02:18,240 needs some work, and I’ve got some basic ideas. 00:02:24,800
00:02:35,200 Hopefully later in a year, we’d use that, maybe at a conference, or in a small room with one or two very trusted individuals.
Last month’s show didn’t get as many visitors to it, and listen to it as the previous one. But hopefully, that’s just going to be ebb and flow.
If you are enjoying this, and if you’ve come back and listen to the
previous ones, brilliant, thank you, I really appreciate it. Please, pop along to whatever tool you use,
00:02:45,680 and if you can give me a review, I’d appreciate it, share it with your 00:02:56,080 fans, etc, etc. In other news, I had a trip out to Shantilly,
in French France, to work with the global project management and service management community within the company I work for, which was an absolutely fantastic day.
00:03:07,200 We were at the Capgemonize corporate university, called Serge Camp de la Fontaine. It was inspiring, tiring, and enjoyable. 00:03:16,080
00:03:24,160 That’s great. That’s really it for news, so on to the interview.
I’d like to welcome Karl Pritchard onto the Sunday Lunch Project podcast today. Karl is the principal and founder of Pritchard Management Associates. As a lecturer, he’s considered a leading authority on risk and communication management,
00:03:40,080 and presents on a variety of management topics, from project essentials to the complexities of network, diagramming and team motivation.
00:03:48,560 He’s worked as an instructor around the world, training some leading
00:03:56,160 international organisations, as well as private clients in the PMI.
He’s the US correspondent for the UK project management journal,
Project Manager today. And Karl’s recorded numerous presentations for international conferences on DVD
00:04:04,800 and developed online training for PMI as well. He serves as a boarder on the boarder directors for projectconnections.com and presents podcasts for them.
00:04:14,560 And recently recorded extensive audio training programme, the portable
PMP prep with Bruce Falk. And he served as a semi-final judge on the PMI’s annual project of the year competition,
00:04:25,360 and the Federal Highways Administration as a judge for their
by-and-your-project competition. He regularly consults and coaches on project management,
00:04:32,560 presentation skills, e-learning, course development, and with a variety
00:04:41,280 of organisation, and he holds BA from the O.I. Ohio State University,
and is a project management professional as certified by the PMI. He’s authored several texts, including risk management concepts and guidance, the project management communications toolkit,
00:04:52,080 the risk management memory jogger, project management lessons from the field. He is a dynamic, and entertaining, and fun keynotes presenter, speaker, and trainer. And some quotes from people who have met Karl all worked with Karl.
00:05:07,520 Karl is by far one of the best corporate educators I’ve experienced as a
project manager from Gripish Snyder. A true project management hero, and with a degree in comedy psychology,
00:05:20,000 a project manager from TSYS. And with over two thousand nine hundred of his students passing the PMP certification, if you’re interested, you could be next.
00:05:33,440 And having stalked Karl’s LinkedIn profile, I also found that in a
previous life, he’s a news director, which is fascinating me. So I think we’ll probably get onto that at some point at no doubt.
00:05:45,360 So Karl, it’s a pleasure to have you on. Welcome to the show. Wow,
thanks. And yeah, I feel like I’m going to bury myself under the weight of my own introduction.
00:05:58,480 Yeah, it’s a great introduction and looking back over you. And to be
honest, there was more I could have put in, but I’ll be spending more
time talking about your introduction if I’m not careful than talking to you. So as you know, I’ve sent you a bunch of questions.
00:06:16,640 I’m going to rattle through and we can have a chat about you, your life and project management, and what makes you tick. So kicking off at
the beginning, the birth of Karl Pritchard. Where was that? That was Columbia, actually born in sailor Ohio, but I’m from Columbia,
00:06:37,680 Indiana, Ohio. And the reason you’ve never heard of Columbia, Ohio is
it is a little map dot. It is a little place nobody’s ever heard of. And I was funny because I, I always tell people they go, where are you from? Columbia, Ohio. Oh, Columbus. And it’s like, no, Columbia,
00:06:57,680 and it’s a little map dot where, oh, my father’s biggest just disaster in his
life was when he called me up and I was living in Maine at the time, but
dad called up and he said, it’s over. Town’s gone to hell. And I said,
Dad, what’s wrong? And he goes, no, no, it’s over now. And I said, what happened?
00:07:14,960 Two things happened in the same month. And I said, what? He said, one, they put in another traffic signal, two, they opened them McDonald’s. And to him, that was the end of life as we knew it in
Columbia. Yeah, I can get the town I’m from, I’m not sure, sizes and difference, but I’ve got some friends who’ve come
00:07:35,360 from Manchester, the city Manchester in the UK, living around the area. And we talk about the fact of where you’re meeting and say, by the
traffic lights, because when I grew up, there was only one set of traffic
lights in the whole town. And there you go. Or by the roundabout. And there was only,
00:07:51,520 there was only ever one roundabout when I was growing up. And if I say to someone who grew up in the area, I’ll meet you by the roundabout, they’d know exactly where I meant. Anyone who’s new to
the area in the last 20 years, absolutely going, they’d just be looking at me dumbstruck.
00:08:05,920 Life. Of course, there are like 20 roundabouts, which one do you mean?
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, the one. Yeah. The, yeah. We had a pelican
crossing, a button, a crosswalk, and it was kind of like the same sort of thing. When that arrived, it was
00:08:22,720 fascinating. So you were born in Salem, Ohio. That’s, is that the, is that
the, the, the say, the famous Salem from Stephen King, or is that the,
no, no, no, no, no, no. Salem, there’s, as a matter of fact, interesting factoid about Salem, they’re the most popular city name in the
00:08:42,160 United States is Springfield. The second most popular city name in the
United States is Salem. Oh, why? Almost every state has a Salem. Oh, why? I did not know that. Yeah. See, I’ve learned something this
evening, or valuable data. Yeah. Hopefully I’ll get it on a, who wants to be a
00:09:01,200 millionaire quiz or something on a, so where are you living out? You still
in the same area? If you move to, no, I, we, we moved big time. I, as,
as you mentioned earlier, I was in radio, so I, in radio, you just jumped from town to town. And I lived in Maine for a while. And now,
00:09:19,360 I have permanently settled outside Washington, DC in Frederick,
Maryland. It’s kind of a nice place. It’s, it’s, it’s grown a lot. We, we
moved here temporarily 35 years ago. And now it’s just me and my wife and we are basically denizens of this place. And,
00:09:43,760 you know, we’re the locals. Whereas the newcomers are all new. Yeah.
We’ve actually qualified now as locals after 35 years. In some places
that can take a, a, a little while, can’t it? Yeah, I can take in generation. Yeah. Yeah. All two.
00:09:57,360 So you mentioned your wife there. What, what, any family? Yeah. I have my lovely wife, Nancy, a goddess to be worshiped. I have two sons, Adam and James. And you couldn’t pick two boys or more opposite. My eldest son is a, he’s the curator.
00:10:18,080 At the Virginia Museum of natural history. He’s a paleontologist. And he
runs a dig once a year out in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. But that’s his gig. And my youngest son is an 18-wheeler truck driver.
00:10:32,880 Why? So, yeah, kind of one end of the spectrum to the other. Yeah. Both fascinating jobs. Yeah. I’m not sure when you, I imagine. The Rostec is both paying jobs. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. Yeah.
00:10:48,720 And, yeah, it’s funny when, like, when you just said about Frederick,
Maryland and, and, it all from my point of view, over here across the
pond, it’s all very romantic, standing places and driving an 18-wheeler truck across America is kind of one of those big,
00:11:04,800 iconic kind of things that you see on the TV. Oh, it is, and, you know,
the thing is, it’s funny because when he started driving truck, one of the first, and mom and I were both like, can we come see? Yeah. And it
reminds me of Smoky in the bandit, straight away with something like that.
00:11:24,160 Exactly. Except he’s the kid who’s never had an accident, never gotten
a ticket. So, so as you say, you were in Salem, you kind of, did you grow up in clumbia, clumbiana? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:11:42,240 Oh, yeah. Growing up in the same, you know, grew up, I was, actually, I
didn’t even have a name until I went off to college. And the reason I say that is because I grew up, my father was the only doctor in this one-horse town. And so I grew up, oh, you’re a docks boy. And so I spent my entire youth as
00:12:03,280 docks boy. I had no name. And, so, you get a name until I went to Ohio State. So when was that that you were around if it’s not a
two-in-indelicate question to say? No, I was, I was born raised. I got out of clumbiana in 1975, moved off to Columbus, and went to OSU
00:12:22,640 until 1979, and never looked back. Wow. So, so when, what did you
study at university, I was a college, I was a journalist major. Yeah, my whole vision was what I wanted to do before I died. I wanted to someday be a news director
00:12:44,720 at a top 10 market, a top 10 station, in a top 10 market. And the weird
thing for me was in hopping around job to job and everything else. I
actually accomplished that goal by the time I was 26 years old. Wow.
00:13:01,040 Yeah, just kind of like, well, crap. One more thing to do now. I peaked 00:13:07,760 too early and we’re done here.
00:13:16,320
So, were you just setting your goals too low then? I guess I was. You should have been looking at the top news director in the country.
Well, and I found out too, the interesting thing that I discovered about
radio was that it doesn’t pay anything. That was the other side of the dark side of radio was that you make no money at it.
00:13:30,480 So, I was forever moonlighting and trying to pick up extra cash. And 00:13:37,680 that’s how I landed in project management. All right.
Yeah, I was so, yeah, tell me about that. How did you, is that that that
endearing question for people of a certain age in project management, and I’m one of those is that you get people now and I’ve had the conversation a couple of other
00:13:51,200 guys is that you get people arriving out of university with a project 00:13:59,120 management degree. I know. Planning to be a project manager.
How crazy is that? Yeah, whereas when I, when I was coming out of
college and school, it was, I’d never heard of a project manager. I didn’t know what they did.
00:14:07,040 I may have, I may have had a vague recollection that maybe they built
bridges or houses or something like that, but that’s very, very, but and so, tumbled into project management as I think a lot of people do.
00:14:17,280 So, yeah, so, so how did you, how did you end up P. M. in? I am, I am
proof that it is the accidental profession. And because I had no designs on it,
00:14:28,800 I got hired by one of the big telecoms and what I was doing to
moonlight while I was still running the news department in DC was, I
was writing anything anybody would hire me to write. And I got hired by
one big utility company to write a bunch of video scripts on contract management.
00:14:51,280 And I did it through a consulting firm and they came back and they
really liked them because, well, Golly, they gave me all this data and I’m a decent writer. Thank you.
00:15:00,960 Done. Well, then this one big telecom firm read about that work through
the consulting firm I was working with part time and they said, oh, you know, we need, we need you to, we need somebody to write a white paper
00:15:19,360 for one of our executives. And I said, yeah, I can write a white paper.
None of the fans said, what’s a white paper? So I went ahead and met with this executive and I sat down with him and I said, what do you want the, what do you want the paper to be about?
00:15:34,320 And he said, I’d like it to be about 40 pages. And I said, no, I’m sorry, I 00:15:44,160 phrased the question. What do you want it to be about, about?
And he said, oh, I wanted to be about issues and concerns in project
management in our, in our organization. And I said, great, do you have
data? He said, no, I have no data. And I said, well, how am I supposed
to get data to write this? And he said, here’s a list of 35 of our project managers.
00:16:01,600 Interview as many of them as you can put together the data, compile it, make me look really, really smart. And that’s what I want my white
paper to be about. So I was his ghost. I was a ghost writer and I wrote this beautiful 40 page white paper just left him misty,
00:16:19,680 I’d him weepy and I picked up a rather substantial paycheck for it and that was that. And I was sure I was just done. It was one more gig
under my belt. Well, it was about six months later, or six weeks later rather that they called back and they said, hey,
00:16:33,440 we need you to do another gig for that company. And I said, they need another white paper? No, no, they, they want you to come into some
consulting work. And I said, I’m sorry, consulting work on what? They said project management.
00:16:48,000 And I said, no, no, no, no, you don’t understand. I’m a writer. I’m a really
good writer. I’m good at gathering data and spilling it back out, but I
have no idea about anything on project management. And then he said,
well, you know, talk to the guy. And so I’m talking to the guy and he’s, you know,
00:17:06,000 you’re perfect for this. And I’m like, I don’t know squat. And he said, it
doesn’t matter. We’ll put you through our training program. And I said,
still, I said, I’m the wrong guy to be giving you advice on how to run
your project management. And he goes, no, you’re the perfect guy. And I said, no, no, no,
00:17:20,080 I’m the wrong guy. And he, he said, and then I caught myself and went,
wait, wait, what is this pay? And, you know, I’m a 20 something just
basically make it barely make an ends meet. And, and he said, here’s what we’ll do. And so I was working at WASHFM in DC from 4 a.m. to noon.
00:17:45,760 So I was on morning drive. And then I would get off the air and I would
go down to this utilities, this telecoms, uh, federal center in DC and
work there from one till seven. And they put me through all the training.
They did everything else. So I was burning the candle at both ends for almost two
00:18:03,840 years. But over that time, I was actually learning to be a project manager. And ultimately it came down to, I had to make a choice
because I was just fried. And, uh, I, here I am. Oh, wow. So that’s how
you go into PME. Yeah, that’s, that’s kind of the, uh, the not so short version.
00:18:27,680 And, and in some ways, I know as a few people have gone to white
being how much. Oh, exactly. It’s, it’s always a pertinent question, isn’t it? So you mentioned there that the telecoms and obviously the news
industry that you worked in, what other industries of you, of you worked in, um, time. Yeah. And
00:18:47,280 I, one of my, my biggest first as an independent consultant, my biggest
first client was Southern California Edison. And I worked with them after
I became the risk guy. Uh, so I did a lot of time in the utility industries.
And it’s kind of interesting because this is what happens in project management.
00:19:07,200 Somebody finds it and goes, Oh, we need that. And it’s kind of like, and
this is a surprise to you. How? But, but they, they do, and variably it was
like first, first big clients were utilities and everything was utilities. Oh
my gosh. I couldn’t get a, you know, Florida power and later, Austin power and
00:19:28,320 light, everybody power and light. And I, I had a lot of utility customers. And then I went to one particular industry and they said, Oh, we’re
looking at your background. You’re all utilities. And I said, No, I’m all project management. And they said, Yeah, but we don’t know that you can help us.
00:19:46,240 And that was a financial services firm of bank. And then they decided to
take a flyer on the utility guy. And I became the financial guy. And I
worked with this bank and that bank and this, you know, this insurance
company, which also, well, I know you’re a bank person, but we’ll try out in the insurance
00:20:07,760 industry. And that’s the way it’s all gone. And this is the thing that’s kind of intriguing is in project management, a company, somebody in a company, and it won’t be the whole company. It’ll be some one poor
soul will figure out that project management has merit and devalue. And they’ll go
00:20:25,360 back and say, we should be doing project management. I really go, Oh,
that’s new. It’s like it’s not new. It’s a zillion years old. Please. Yeah, but
I’ve heard it described and then that’s a podcast. I listened to a guy manager tools.com fantastic podcast. And they have a general management tool techniques.
00:20:48,160 And they have worn on project management. And they kind of boiling it down to the point of when you’ve got projects being run as a normal manager. And it’s like, who does what by when he’s fundamentally,
that’s what it is. And then what’s going to stop who is doing what by when and try and stop them
00:21:05,360 things happening. You get some more devil in the detail, but it’s as you say, so someone’s going to build a bridge in the Roman times. Well,
who’s going to do what by when? That’s that’s that’s that’s that. Yeah.
And we didn’t always have the right title, you know, of, you know, some of them it was just
00:21:23,120 your majesty, you know, but there’s always been somebody in charge.
And somebody trying to make sure things don’t go off the rails. Yeah.
So, so what is so you say working in those industry? So what was that
was that sort of hardware type thing software? Or is it what kind of sort of product, especially so
00:21:44,080 is it varied with you in those industries? Almost everybody who has
hired me has hired me to do some kind of analysis initially. And then
that that lasts for about a month. And then they were they go, oh, you
know what? You’re you’re kind of a funny guy. Do you ever train this stuff? And I wind up
00:22:06,320 being in house trainer. Oh, wow. That’s my love in life. Yeah. And I love
it. I do. I think training is so much fun. Yeah. And you can make a do a
lot of influence from that. Yeah. You make a lot of definitely change
culture. Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. So you mentioned your the telecoms company where you
00:22:29,120 were strong armed into project management into that company. So I’m assuming that that was where your first project that you remembered would have remembered would have been. What was that project?
Actually, it goes back to it was a writing project. It was to develop their 19 volume project management
00:22:49,840 methodology. Actually to craft that. So that was my first big, big thing
that I was doing. And it’s funny because this is back in the in the dark ages when computers were not as advanced as they are now. And this
is also then what led to they wanted their curriculum to be e-learning. And nobody
00:23:17,360 had done e-learning at that point. E-learning was not cool at that point. So they wanted it all rendered as e-learning. And we were the ones
basically in the early 90s pioneering the notion of, okay, how do you
actually make it e-learning and still make it full contact. And that was my big job initially
00:23:39,280 for them. And then ultimately we built the e-learning infrastructure for the George Washington University. Oh wow. Yeah, which was kind of cool. And it actually sounds like I had a pay-in gig in the job and
everything. Well, a lot of times it sounds like I just do whatever comes around the corner.
00:24:00,080 Which I do. But, well, sometimes that’s the best approach, isn’t it? Yeah,
that’s our official corporate motto is anything for a buck. Yeah, it’s the
thing is as you I think our conversation on LinkedIn when getting you on
to it, you said sounds like fun. Let’s do it. And it’s kind of a good
00:24:17,520 attitude to have her stuff, isn’t it? Heaps me off the streets and out of
trouble. I’m wondering that I haven’t talked to you for a little bit whether
keeping you out of trouble is actually trope. I’m the good days. I get the occasional piece of hate mail, but aside from that it’s good.
00:24:36,000 Good, excellent. So moving on from that, what was the largest project
that you’ve run to date being involved with? And what did you learn? That would be the GW project that would be putting together their
e-learning infrastructure. And I learned that and actually it’s kind of funny. I
00:24:57,920 learned it and then I had to relearn it. The whole notion is just assume
you’re right. That’s the biggest lesson learned I came out of the whole
thing with is people will tell you invariably that you’re wrong. They’ll say, oh, no, no, no, that’s not the way it’s really done
00:25:16,000 properly. It’s like, oh, thank you for sharing. I appreciate that, but I’m going ahead the way I was thought I was going ahead. Every time I made the mistake of giving serious time, effort and energy into somebody else’s approach after we had already established an approach and a goal and an
00:25:35,120 objective and a charter and all the other stuff of project management, every time people would say, no, no, no, we need to back away from
that and try something different. That’s where I got burned. Every single
blessed time. And historically, when I have had a plan and stuck to the plan,
00:25:53,920 didn’t always work out exactly as intended, but we always got to the end of game. Did you find yourself with the ones when you’ve gone off-paste that your gut was telling you to stay there, but you went
against your gut? Yes. Yeah. You know that feeling. Yeah, trusting you got
00:26:10,000 sometimes is the right thing, isn’t it? No, and I would actually say it
almost always is the right thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that leads on,
and I wonder whether it’s related to these, what would you call your biggest screw up? And again, what did you learn there? Actually, my biggest screw up was
00:26:30,960 not in project management. My biggest screw up was in radio. I’ve had
every job known to humankind. I have. You pretty much picked the job
and I can tell you, oh, yeah, I did that for a bartender been there, you
know, dishwasher been there, cook, been there, but I was in radio up in Maine. And this is back in
00:26:54,800 the early 80s when a Ronald Reagan, president Reagan, fired all the air
traffic controllers in the United States. He fired them all because they
went on strike. And he said, fine, don’t bother coming back to work. And
he fired all of them. There were suddenly 3,000 very high paying jobs that were
00:27:16,240 up for grabs in the US. 3,000 of the best government jobs you could
ever land. And so I did a report on it. I did a series on how do you
become an air traffic controller? And I did this, you know, on the air
over a period of several months. And it was like, so you say, been eight in becoming an
00:27:35,920 air traffic controller. But I did this and the weirdo thing that happened
was at the very end of this whole series, I got hired as an air traffic
controller. And you see how well that worked out. I got hired as an air traffic controller. And so you went through the whole process then?
00:27:56,720 Oh, yeah. Actually, actually did. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. And the scream
was I was sitting at the medical exam with a couple other people and
they said, oh, yeah, boy, amazing. We made it this far, hungry past the
exam. And I said, yeah, we passed the exam. And they said, how’d you do on the exam?
00:28:13,040 The one guy goes, I got a 78. Wow, you got a 78. That’s a tough exam.
That’s that’s a really good score. And I’m thinking, oh, crap. Because
they came around to me and they said, how’d you do? And I said, I got
a 93. Like 93. Nobody gets a 93. How long did you study? Study what? I just took it on,
00:28:35,040 you know, I took it on a lark. I didn’t even study anything. It was a logic exam. So anyhow, but I flew through the exam, got hired as an air
traffic controller. And I went into my boss, and this is my big lesson
learned, biggest screw up of my entire life that turned out happy. But I,
00:28:53,840 I went into my boss in the radio station. I said, can you match these salary numbers? And he laughed at me and he said, who’s ever going to pay you that much? I said, Uncle Sam and I thumb my nose at him
and I said, turn, I am so out of here and I blew him off and I burned a bridge.
00:29:15,440 And the day before I was supposed to fly out to the academy from
training and I moved back to Ohio in with my stepmother and my father
for just a couple of weeks, got the note, a telegram, do not report to the academy for training. You have been medically disqualified.
00:29:34,640 My eyes were too bad. And so I had burned a bridge with my last boss.
I had done everything wrong. And if you’re looking for the biggest screw
up, that was it because I was unemployed for months. It was a matter
of struggling trying to find a job without any reference for my previous employer.
00:29:53,840 And it was just pretty darn stupid on my part. Now the good news is I
got hired at this little po-dog radio station in Western Maryland. I met
the woman of my dreams. I married her and we moved off to Frederick.
So it has a happy ending but jeez. You know, it’s like if you’re ever thinking
00:30:16,160 your boss is a moron, he’s a chimpanzee, he should be taken out and
shot. Smile warmly at him and keep your mouth shut. That would be my biggest screw up. That’s really interesting.
00:30:35,760 Yeah, so kind of moving on from those sort of things, moving into your,
less, a little bit more of a positive spin of stuff and your project delivery
side of it. What would you say is your proudest delivery from a project point of view? What is it that George
00:30:54,080 Washington? What university? Well, that’s tied to it. But ultimately the company I was working for at the time, we were doing so well in the
e-learning side of the house that for one, I became their vice president
of e-learning and this isn’t like a bank where every every third person is a vice president.
00:31:14,240 I became the VP of e-learning and the other beauty of it was they actually took the company, I was the part of the company that I was
running and spun it off and made it its own company. Yeah, to me that was like, you have arrived. You have actually been able to take something
00:31:35,360 out of a whole cloth, build it and then have them spin it off and turn it
into its own company. That’s pretty. Then they hired a guy from South Africa to run it. Well, things changed, don’t they?
00:31:52,160 So rather than thinking about not so much the project, delivery
themselves, what is your proudest moment, the kind of work moment, I suppose, the focus, but not necessarily, but your proudest project achievement that isn’t necessarily the delivery itself
00:32:10,480 from the project itself. Yeah, and actually this goes to people. It’s a
function of the true joys in my life stem from and it’s one of the reasons
I have been a trainer for over 20 years. It’s because I love the feedback. I really do. Yeah. And it’s not the hey,
00:32:35,120 you know, you’re kind of a funny guy. It’s not that feedback, although I
do like that. The feedback that I really genuinely enjoy is when I’ll run into somebody and they’ll go, I know you don’t remember me, but I want you to know, you changed my life. And when somebody says
00:32:53,840 that to me, I swear I could break into tears just because it’s so
enriching, it’s so fulfilling. Yeah, helping other people is a great, yeah, a great accomplishment. Yeah, yeah, brilliant. So obviously one of my questions is why did you start writing and blogging? Well, you were destined
00:33:18,000 to write anyway, weren’t you? But your blog kind of flows off the back of
that. And you’re looking at the different things. I’ve got kind of a bit of a contentious question here. Okay, so certification. Yeah. How many project management certifications do you have?
00:33:42,000 Why have you got them in which one is best? I have. I have two. I had
three. And I let one laps. I have the PMP. I have the PMI RMP, which is
the risk management professional, which is what I, frankly, most people know me as the risk guy. Yeah. You know, over in the UK, you’ve got David Hilsen,
00:34:04,080 who’s the risk doctor. Yeah, I’m the risk guy. So that kind of makes the
distinction between the two of us. But I had the EVP, the earned value
professional. That’s the one I let laps. But of the three, which do I think is the most valuable? The PMP. Yeah. And the reason is just because it’s a ticket to be
00:34:28,720 punched. It’s one of those things that you go into a company and they’ll
say, oh, are you a PMP? It’s like, oh, yes, of course I am. Now, because
of the company, I run it’s, it’s, are you also a registered education
provider, which is the other big question that answers always? Yes. But which one do I think
00:34:48,400 carries the most cloud, the most weight and actually gets people to go,
okay, there tickets punched. It’s the PMP. It’s not because I feel like it
makes me better as a manager, necessarily. But I do talk the talk. And
as long as I can talk that particular language, I’m in pretty good shape. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
00:35:08,800 So what was the last project podcast you listened to? Wow. And the
answer can be, I’ve never listened to any. Oh, no, no. I actually, yeah.
But the last one I listened to was me. That’s the really sad part. At itmpi.org, the itmetrics and productivity
00:35:35,120 institute, they, they do just a mountain of podcasts. They have a library
that is just staggeringly deep. And that was the last one I would listen
to. Cool. And the last project, project management related blog that you
read. Last blog I read. That was probably, um, oh, jeez, and I’m going to
00:36:00,160 screw up his first name. Last name is Zucker and not Zuckerberg, but
Zucker. Alan Zucker. There you go. But Alan’s was the last one that I
read. And I frankly try to dive into those on a pretty regular basis. And
largely because I think it’s a matter of, I’ll read through them and go,
00:36:25,200 knew that, knew that, knew that. Okay, fine. That’s good. But every now and then I’ll go, knew that, knew that, ew, what a sweet take. And somebody will have found a new angle on something that I’m already
doing or something that I already had a sense of, but the new angle is just that.
00:36:41,600 It’s a new angle. Yeah. And and some of those things, it’s a new way of,
I find a new way that you could describe the thing to someone else as
well, which I find really useful on some of the blogs I’ve looked at. Yeah.
And by the way, I’ve got, I’ve got a, let me, let me give a pointer just so that
00:36:58,320 people can think I actually added some modicum of value here. Um,
that is if you’re, if somebody ever calls you with a really complicated
question, this is a cheap consulting trick. If somebody ever calls you,
they got a really complicated question. Here’s what I want you to do. You go, wow, it is so funny
00:37:19,440 that you ask me that. That is, you know, it was, it was kind of
interesting. I was just working up a blog on that. And if you don’t mind
wait until two days from now, I’ll have the blog done. And I would love
for you to be the first person to give it a look and tell me whether or not I’m making
00:37:37,280 any sense. Now, this accomplishes a mountain of stuff because for one, it says to the person who’s asking you this really annoying, complicated question, hey, I’m on the save way of length. We are
simpatico. It is perfect. So I’m so glad you asked that for two. I’m already a step ahead of you in
00:37:57,520 that I’m writing a blog about this, which you aren’t, but that doesn’t
matter. And then you’ve got two days to come up with a very thoughtful,
cogent, well considered response in 800 words or less. And it’s a win,
win, win. Everybody comes out further ahead and to boot, it builds your relationship
00:38:20,000 at the same time as you’re writing another blog. Oh, it’s fantastic,
fantastic tip. It’s, yeah, I can see how that would work. I think the key
thing there is make sure you do write the damn blog. It won’t be pretty.
Well, I’ve got two final questions. The first one is, what is the one single nugget
00:38:48,080 top tip that you would give to a PM who has been in this industry 10,
20, 30 years, that you think people miss. What would more of that one thing be? Even though they’re successful as a PM, they can be, you
can be very successful, but they could be more successful. Yeah, let somebody else do it.
00:39:10,080 We are by our very nature. And if you look at McClellan and his perception on the three needs, the need for power, the need for
achievement, and the need for affiliation, project managers are the high
need to achieve people. As such, we want to do everything. We want to have our fingers
00:39:30,320 in every flip and pie that’s out there. And nothing could be worse for
you. If you really want to improve your career, allow other people to
take the reins now and again. And it’s so hard because you’re so much
better at it than they are. But the reality is if you don’t give them a chance to make some of
00:39:52,000 the mistakes you’ve made and do some of the things you’ve done, then
they’re never going to be as good as you are. And you need them to be as good as you are so they can come back some day and say, wow, Nigel made me amazing. You know, you want that behind you. Yeah. I know. Yeah, I can see you
00:40:08,240 saying that. That’s a really good tip. Brilliant. Last question. You have a
chance to go back to see your younger self on that first day in project management in that genesis of the career that you’ve built up. What would you tell? What would you say to yourself? First, I would tell myself, hey,
00:40:31,440 I want you to know something. It all works out. No, that’s what the,
because I was, I was and it’s funny. I’ve seen a lot of a lot of younger people, some of my sons, friends who are millennials. And, and you wish could just tell them, you know what, relax and enjoy the ride because,
00:40:51,360 and that’s what I really would, I’d go back and tell myself, don’t be so
flip and nervous, just relax and enjoy it because when this is all, when
you’re 20 years, 30 years down the road, you’re going to be rocking. Everything’s going to be going just fine. You’re going to be really
00:41:08,320 genuinely happy and satisfied with the person who looks back at you in
the mirror. And that’s just a wonderful place to be. Yeah. That’s great.
So thank you, Carl. That’s been a enlightening, entertaining chat. Oh,
thank you. If people want to find out more about Carl, maybe look at all the books,
00:41:30,400 what’s the best way, social media connection, etc, websites or whatever
to get hold of you? I’m on LinkedIn and it’s pretty, you’d spelled the right
way with a T in it. I don’t know. It’d be surprised how many people just leave the T. But it’s Carl at CarlPrichard.com.
00:41:50,800 And frankly, here’s the thing, if you can’t figure any of it out, if you just get CarlPrichard.com, so if you send an email to
Dumbo@CarlPrichard.com, that still finds its way to my mailbox. I get
all the defaults mistake mail that comes into our servers. So it’s just Carl with a C,
00:42:11,520 and it’s CarlPrichard.com. And if anybody does chase me down just an
FYI, I will always get back to you within 24 hours. And if you don’t hear back from me in 24 hours, one of two things has happened. The most
likely, I’m in your spam box. I get to, I never got back to me, Carl, and I’ll say,
00:42:34,160 check your spam box. And sure, oh, I found it. Yeah, you emailed me
three months ago. And it’s like, told you 24 hours, how hard is this?
Yeah, 24 hours. I will always get back here within 24 hours. Brilliant.
Well, again, thank you very much, Carl. Anything else you want to say?
00:42:51,280 I just want to say thank you. Nigel, this is nothing but a good time.
Brilliant. And on that note, I’ll wrap this up. Thank you very much, Carl,
and have a fantastic day. Do you like what? Cheers, mate. Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Carl. Thanks to Carl
00:43:12,800 for that entertaining and informative interview. My family wondered why there was so much laughter when the Injury Air Quotes I was doing a
business interview. But yeah, it was a great time. I found it a fantastic
session today. As always, I’ll include the links to Carl’s website and the show notes and etc and
00:43:34,160 promotion materials. In that mind, if you want to get in touch with me,
just ping me in notes. Similarly to Carl’s advice, you can email me at dumbo@nagelcracer.com or whatever you like at Nigelcracer.com. Grab hold of me via social media platforms. Generally, I’m there as @sundaylunchpm or on LinkedIn,
00:43:53,680 just search for Nigelcracer and I’ll connect with you. So without any
further ado, please have a fantastic whatever you’re doing for the rest of the day or evening or whatever. And remember that project management is funny. So smile. Bye now.