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00:00:00,000 [Music] Hi and welcome to the Sunday Lunch Project podcast episode 00:00:23,000 for the 29th March 2020. This is your host Nigel Creaser.
And this month the Sunday Lunch Project Manager meets my good
friend Gordon McKelle, the factory builder. But first a word from our sponsor.
00:00:34,000 [Music] Sponsorship for this episode really comes with my guest from a few weeks ago, Dr Karen Thompson, and the Responsible Project Management team,
00:00:55,000 who are launching a regular online Lunch and Learn meetup to support
project and professionals through these difficult times that we’ve got at
the moment. These will be interactive sessions with the aim of sharing some insights and ideas
00:01:12,000 about handling the current situation. And I should probably mention this that currently we are in the middle of the COVID-19 situation. And
therefore lots of things have changed, lots of project management, lots of people working from home,
00:01:26,000 having lots of different ways to work. And this virtual meetup is a really
good place for a bit of support, I think. So at the moment it is the inaugural event.
00:01:39,000 It’s going to be on the 1st of April. And they’re planning for the 1st and 00:01:48,000 3rd Wednesday of each month. And it’s not on April 4th. 00:01:57,000
Take it from me. So yeah, get along to that. I’ll put link in the show notes to Karen’s LinkedIn post about it.
And then you can go and register for that and hopefully exchange some
good ideas and give each other some support. As ever, if you are out there and you’re thinking you want to like to,
00:02:08,000 or you know someone who might want to support or sponsor the show, then please let them get in touch Sunday Lunch Pm pod at NigelCriser.com. [Music]
00:02:25,000 I also wanted to mention in this sponsorship section is a new website that’s been launched by a group of key leaders within the project management community. And the pmtribe.com is always called.
00:02:49,000 You may have seen some of the things #pmtribe.com/pmtribe around
on social media. I highly recommend it. It’s free for a month.
00:02:59,000 I think they got their kickoff call early next week on Wednesday. So get 00:03:07,000 in on it. Get that free month.
00:03:13,000
See what it’s like. I would look at the content. There’s a whole bunch of content going through every day from Monday onwards, I think.
So you’ll have likes of some of the guests I’ve had on this call like Peter
Taylor and Colin D Ellis. And I think they’re faculty of training there is
going to expand. But looking even before they got their official launch, the content on there looks like it’s going to be pretty good.
00:03:37,000 So I recommend getting on that. Thanks very much. So the single 00:04:02,000 biggest thing this month is obviously the effect of COVID-19.
As I speak in the UK here, we are approaching the end of the first week
of lockdown. And my second week of isolation of self-isolation, we had
a couple of cases suspected in my office a couple weeks ago. So it’s been, I suppose, surreal is the best word.
00:04:20,000 I’ve really been able to use and I’ve kind of toyed with the idea of
putting out a separate podcast or a blog post or an Instagram video. But
I’ve decided to against it as there appeared to be lots and lots of great
information coming out. But I was also, when I first scribbled something down, I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed.
00:04:42,000 And I don’t know if everyone else is feeling the same. Really with the
sheer volume that’s been coming out on that same subject. And I kind
of wanted, I didn’t, I wanted to pass something on, but I didn’t want to add to that sea that was kind of draining me a little bit.
00:05:03,000 But in saying that, I did take some notes and I thought, I’ll share what notes I had here and what I was thinking about saying. And the key
thing I was sort of recommending, I’ve tried doing this with my teams is increasing the communication as being the key. Both frequency and type because we may have a standard way that we communicate with our teams.
00:05:26,000 Quite often with us is that can be that drop at the side of a desk. For some people out there with a bit more remote teams, it’s slightly
different. And you’ll be more used to this kind of remote communication.
But I think it was, is also a case of even if we were co-located and something similar, actually touching base with everyone and saying,
00:05:45,000 how are you doing? How are you feeling? And actually trying to take
some time to take away from delivery type or project problems. But just personal, how are you doing? How are you family? And I see emphasise that more.
00:05:59,000 And then using different tools to do it, it’d be easy to ping an email
saying, you’re okay. Or maybe I am, etc. It email sucks as far as I’m
concerned because it’s something that we’re so used to, it doesn’t give us that.
00:06:17,000 You won’t get a feeling for how people are with that. We use to couple of things that we’ve been looking at. We’ve obviously put in some
regular calls, not every day. We’ve done it every other day with a Friday being the optional but preferred if everyone pings the video on.
00:06:36,000 So we can all see each other’s faces because there is that tendency to
be on a conference call, on a phone, on text, at the end of an email.
And forget what people look like. You’re not seeing those smiling faces you’re used to seeing in the office.
00:06:53,000 So I’m kind of saying use video more, use the phone more so people
can be away from their desk. Quite a lot of us are sad looking at our computer screens. And whereas if we’re on the phone we can get up and walk.
00:07:06,000 And actually as a person or one I’m trying to get up and walk to move
myself around when I’m on the phone. I think I’d say as patients as well.
Because in these communications people may not get that just quickly as they could do.
00:07:21,000 Or made misunderstand what the communication is because you haven’t got those nonverbal messages that you get in those face to
face conversations that we’d all have at there. And I suppose in general the written word sucks. So call and check if you’re not sure.
00:07:45,000 If someone writes something down I use the example and a bit of
topicalness is. There’s the words I did not say she bought all the toilet roll. If you emphasise each of those words is say I did not say she bought all the toilet roll.
00:08:04,000 I did not say she bought all the toilet roll. I did not say she bought all the
toilet roll. And I did not say she bought all the toilet roll.
00:08:14,000 All three of those sentences have got the same words in if it’s on I am,
if it’s on e-mail, text whatever it’s the same thing. It’s the emphasis you
don’t get. And you can’t get that very easily unless you’re on the phone or talking or seeing them talk it.
00:08:35,000 So just think about that before you react maybe to an assumed tone of
an e-mail or an I am. And the other thing is we started using WhatsApp. You could use a similar sort of stream in message.
00:08:50,000 But basically you’ve got a… In the morning people are going on to it and going “good morning” and then they even have a good weekend. As if
you were in your office as you’re walking out the door or you’re walking the door.
00:09:09,000 And a little bit of banter or learn, a little bit of a few jokes shared. It’s
sensitive to other people and etc and other people’s don’t want to be offending people. But it’s kept that team feel and that cohesion.
00:09:26,000 So I recommend doing that and that “good morning” is it’s a nice thing
to see that your colleagues are there and saying “good morning” to you.
I just kind of had enough on that subject as I said I felt a little bit overwhelmed on it. Incredibly overwhelmed at certain points.
00:09:43,000 But the rest of the month kind of aside from that. I had my single
“biggest day” right in my novel. So I can’t remember how many words it
was but it was my biggest single day since I started trying to write it.
00:09:54,000 Into the first with lots of inaction. So I’ve kind of been swamped doing
other things and lots focusing on it. The interview roster is looking a little sparse at a moment especially for the month end interview.
00:10:06,000 So I’ll be if there are people like there are pinged messages too and
you’ve said maybe or yes I’ll be firing out more chases on those. So prepare for yourself or if anyone out there knows of someone who
would like to be on the show or if you’d like to be on the show. Just get hold of me at Sunday Lunch PM pod at NigelCreaser.com.
00:10:28,000 I’ve still got a bunch of scheduled “yeses” to schedule so I’m going to
grapple to those guys soon. I think that is really everything I wanted to
talk about today. And I know there was one other thing which was about
the fact that I mentioned last month that I was potentially going to put into the PMI Ted at PMI conference for October.
00:11:01,000 And I did in the end I did it with or I think I had about 15 minutes left
with the cut off after lots of procrastination and did the ring through the
month. But I put it in October I don’t know whether they’ll take my idea. It might not work it might work but fingers crossed.
00:11:30,000 So maybe that’ll happen. So anyway on with the interview and have a 00:11:40,000 chat to Gordon the factory builder. Thanks.
In this month’s interview I meet Gordon MacCaller, the factory builder.
Gordon’s a professionally qualified project leader and project director at Prime Design projects who are independent global specialists in the
filling and packaging of Infant Formula and Liquid food and beverage. He has implemented business and capital projects around the globe
leading and inspiring dispersed project teams from different cultural backgrounds.
00:12:12,000 And welcome to the Sunday Lunch Project podcast Gordon. Thanks
Nigel. Glad to be here. Yeah. Looking forward to this one I said I’d get you on it didn’t I when we.
00:12:23,000 The chat last year. Yeah. So let’s start at the beginning. 00:12:27,000
The beginning of Gordon where were you born? I think some people 00:12:34,000 might be able to guess the region just from the accent. Certainly.
Hey it’s a it’s a country rather than a region. Oh, it’s a. I was born in Peasley in the West Coast near the West Coast of Scotland just near Glasgow.
00:12:50,000 Lovely. Lovely. And so I’m where do you live now? 00:12:54,000
I’m living in Ellsbury and North Structure. Yeah. Just stop the road from 00:13:00,000 me.
00:13:04,000
Yeah, not far away. Yeah. And interesting.
Our chat last time we had about the fact that we know each other for quite some time and they never got rent having a chat. Yeah. There was project management that brought us together.
00:13:15,000 It was yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:13:18,000 So and family have you got family wife kids? Yeah. I’ve got a wife and three children.
00:13:24,000
Good. And so you said you were born in West Paisley in Paisley, New 00:13:32,000 York. Yes.
So is that where you grew up? Yeah. I grew up in Peasley went to school in Peasley and then went on and studied and. 00:13:40,000 A Glasgow and Glasgow University. Or was you like growing up in Peasley? What was what was Gordon’s childhood like? 00:13:48,000
00:13:58,000 Oh gosh. It’s so long ago. I can’t remember.
00:14:02,000 I bet there was some highlights. It was good. It was exciting.
I lived near the school. I just had to walk to school. And then I grew up 00:14:14,000 in the Scouts and went sailing.
00:14:24,000 A lot as well. So yeah, a lot of outdoor stuff. Quite a lot of scouting as well.
I did find the Scout group there. So I started off there, went through that
and eventually led the Scout group. So if I need to, you can be at the big girls sort of thinking you know all that stuff.
00:14:37,000 Yeah. So with the camp, with the wild camping. Yeah. 00:14:41,000 Yeah. Yeah. I see.
00:14:44,000 Yeah. So we need to fire your demand to turn to. I’ll be able to light a fire.
00:14:48,000
00:14:54,000 I like many fires on our projects. And put a few out sometimes. I try to. 00:14:58,000 Yeah. Cool. So you said sailing there.
Was that, was that lake sailing out in the ocean or what? Like I, I, I, I don’t know where, obviously I know where the west of Scotland is. Yeah.
00:15:10,000 No, looking where paisley is in that area, it just kind of doesn’t say. Is 00:15:18,000 that like north of Glasgow or South Glasgow? It says it. 00:15:21,000
00:15:28,000 Excuse me, Southwest of Glasgow. Yeah. But it’s not far from the coast.
00:15:40,000 It’s about 40 minutes from the coast. That’s so was it a lot of coastal 00:15:46,000 sailing you do? You know, is it like?
Yeah. Yeah. And then gradually I went on to a sailing, cruising yachts and sailing all over the west coast of Scotland.
And well, all the way out to St. Kilda at one point. So, so that was good fun. Yeah.
Yeah. And so, so what, when Gordon was growing up, wondering off up
to school, doing the scouting, setting fire to stuff and sailing boats? What, what did Gordon want to be?
00:15:58,000 Did he want to be the project director of a leading filling and packaging,
an infant formula company? Yeah. I wasn’t really at the top of mind at that point.
00:16:15,000 I actually didn’t know what I wanted to do. Like, I guess like many 00:16:22,000 people. But I love traveling.
So I thought learning a language wouldn’t be about an idea. So I
studied languages at university. But I got, I got through university and still didn’t know what I wanted to be.
00:16:33,000 So I decided, well, I’ll go into industry and manufacturing. And I became 00:16:45,000 a management trainee in a local, whisky packaging company. Oh wow. 00:16:51,000
Excellent. So you said you went, you went university in Glasgow? In Glasgow, yeah.
So what was, what was that like? What, what, what, what, what, what
languages were you studying and what were you doing there? I studied French and German there and, and a bit of history as well.
00:17:05,000 So, so yeah, it was good. It’s a great university right in the center on the 00:17:13,000 west end of the town, certainly. But it’s not far to the center.
And what was that? Was there lots of usual shenanigans of university
life there? Was it a straightforward one or did you take cap yours and go in?
00:17:22,000 Because quite often from my understanding people doing languages
tend to go to the countries for some time to actually get a bit of that
usage of the language rather than just the pure study. Yeah, I went quite
a lot, I went quite a lot to France, but just during the summer. I didn’t take a year out.
00:17:38,000 I like like many people do. But they spent a lot of time in Paris actually
with some friends and relatives over there. And what did you do while you were over there?
00:17:49,000 Did you work? Did you chill out? No, no, it was a, it was literally six weeks of holiday and a, yeah, that was good. So, I’m just doing the tourist thing and seeing friends.
00:18:03,000 Excellent. So, so obviously with coming out of the language and you,
you, kind of a stereotypical thing there saying you’re going to work in a whiskey company for a Scotsman. And doing the packaging that. So, what, what were you doing? Was that first job like?
00:18:20,000 Well, it was, it wasn’t a whiskey filling company or whiskey manufacturing company was making the packaging for whiskey. So,
basically, it’s just like the boxes, the boxes. Yeah, the cartons and then the boxes.
00:18:35,000 My first job was as a work study officer. So, I stood in the middle of
about a hundred workers, all erecting cartons telling them how fast they
needed to work. Which wasn’t very popular, I must say, because their
wage is dependent on, or their bonus is dependent on what I had to, on
the times they got and how many cartons they could produce per hour. And how old were you then then? I was 21. And I suspect there were quite a few long enough people working in there?
00:19:07,000 Just a few, yes, yeah. It was the time where the print unions were fairly strong. So, we had a good few debates about how fast people should
work at. Yeah, how did you do that? Being a young, ambitious manager,
I was maybe a bit enthusiastic with some of my times that I gave them.
00:19:31,000 A stretch goal. Yeah, exactly. So, did you, did you enjoy that? 00:19:38,000
It was a good learning experience about working with people and
perhaps what could have been a difficult situation. But certainly, I was
able to get on with people at that point, which I think partly established what I like to do is working in teams and so on and overcoming
difficulties with relationships and that kind of thing. Yeah, it’s a good practice zone there, isn’t it, I suppose.
00:20:12,000 I noticed something in what you said there, and I don’t know if I picked it up wrong there where you said there were, when I said making the
boxes and you said they were making the cartons and later boxes. Did I
pick up that there are two very dick to me, yeah, a box that you put the,
and the what I call a box that you put a whiskey bottle in and a carton.
And then, I think, I think, the carton is the same thing, is there a specific distinction in your industry there?
00:20:39,000 I guess, I guess it’s the carton is what the bottle goes into a, and what I
call the box is probably more accurately a case. So, the cartons would go into the, into the box or the case. Right, I see.
00:20:53,000 Yeah, I just thought there was just, there was a, a, a differential
differential there that you’d pull back. So, working as a, as this work
study officer, so how, how did you move from that into this wonderful world of project management? Well, why, and why, did you take, I guess, I mean, my first job as a manager was, was actually at that
factory and looking back on it, I suppose it was, it was a project where we had a problem with
00:21:27,000 putting a printed sheets onto corrugated board. It was the first time it had been done and, and we couldn’t get the, the sheets to come out
flat. They were always bending, so we had to work with the production
team to bring up a technical solution to that particular problem. So, I suppose that was my first, first project, glad to say we did it successfully and they, on to produce many, many sheets of laminated whiskey cartons that you, that you can see now.
00:22:01,000 So, so was that with the first in your company, was that sort of like an
industry first? I guess it was close to being an industry first at that time.
It was, it was high quality, a lot of printed sheets going on to cardboard
and because of various technical issues, it was difficult to make them
flat, but, but, but, we succeeded in doing that, at least in a small scale. So, so that was good, but I, that, that kind of led into production management jobs and operations management jobs for the first 10 years of my career.
00:22:36,000 I moved from Glasgow down to Bristol, where I was an operations manager in a flexible packaging, a plant where we made medical
packaging and toothpaste tubes and all sorts of different films. And for,
for wrapping crisps and sweets, etc, anything that is flexible packaging we would make. So, I then moved on to it from there down to Port Smith and joined another packaging company that was making cartons for, again, many different industries.
00:23:16,000 And then I got a job in a plastics caps and closures factory, but that wasn’t, it was originally to be the operations manager or factory
manager of a new plant, but the plant didn’t exist. And I was taking on
to build it. And that was my first, where I would recognize as major,
certainly industrial project, was to build a, this packaging plant up in,
rexum in north Wales, which is why I’m now based in, in structure. So, that was my first project.
00:23:54,000 And I didn’t have a clue about how to go about doing it initially. So, that
was interesting. That’s quite a, because quite often I’m coming on to my
next question, what was the first project that you remembered and kind
of, you kind of said you had your, where you were trying at the little, the
right. And then, but then you kind of, your first, what you sound like there was your first, in quotes, proper project.
00:24:25,000 Yeah. Sounds like a massive project for compared to a lot of us who in
their first projects were, I think my first project, I probably had two
people and, and, and, uh, a scope to write a form or something to, in, in IT, maybe 40, 50 days worth of work is a project, if you like. I’m guessing it was the scale of that was quite a significant more than
something like that. Well, it was, I guess it was, it was about 18 months long.
00:24:52,000 There were probably around about. 12 project teams, they’re about
some the various disciplines from the architects and the builders, say, through to the sales team, the production teams. It was a, it was a whole business we were putting together.
00:25:13,000 And that was also relocating and existing plant into into a new plant and
moving the employees from, from that old plant down to the new plant
as well. So, so there was everything involved in it really from relocating
equipment to a buy new equipment to recruiting new staff were growing
the business as well. And of course, putting up a factory. So was that moving that factory from relatively local?
00:25:42,000 Yes. Yeah, so it was kind of within the same sort of thing you weren’t
doing loads of laying off and things like that as well. It was just, yeah, it
was just just next door to it. So I think we’ve got double the size of the workforce. So, wow. So there was a lot going on.
00:25:59,000 So what do you remember about that? What did you, what did you say you, you didn’t know what you were doing? How did you, how did you
deal with that? Something of that scale and I was for in quotes, not knowing. Sorry. In quotes, not knowing.
00:26:14,000 Yeah, what’s to. I think I was fortunate in the company I joined and the management team that I joined had already put together a group of
project teams and listed the project teams. I didn’t really know anything
about project scope and project planning or, or even Microsoft project Gantt charts at that time.
00:26:38,000 I had to learn very quickly, but I guess a lot of it was just common sense
and just understanding what it was we were putting together. And what needed to be done and with the help of all the people within the
business, all the experts within the business. I was able to, to pull it together and create the new factory.
00:27:02,000 So thinking about that being your first project, obviously you’ve gone on
and continued with that project career of yours and in my mind. I think
we’ve talked about this before how I look at something like that and 18
months project with lots of firm, hard building and all that sort of stuff.
And I think it’s it, it scares the hell out of me with the infrastructures.
00:27:25,000 I think. But I’m guessing you’ve had projects that have been bigger than
that piece of work. So what, what would you say is the largest project you’ve, you’ve run and what I suppose when I say large.
00:27:39,000 I don’t necessarily mean budget, I don’t necessarily mean days or
people or whatever it’s more felt the largest, the biggest or significance,
probably a better word than large to you. And whether that was actually
something that affected the business you put into or that the people
who might benefit from it or something like that. What would you say was the largest project you’ve managed and when what did you look, what’s the key things you learnt out of that one?
00:28:08,000 The largest project was probably a was when we moved to America
with it with the same company. In fact, and we had to build a flexible
packaging plant. But none existed in the location that we were building it, although they had two factories elsewhere.
00:28:27,000 So we’re creating a new plant in a new location just outside Chicago.
And they to do that again, we had to recruit everyone for the business.
And we had to train people up in the technical aspects of how to run the packaging machines.
00:28:46,000 So we set up a training center prior to building the factory. And they we
ran the training center and then. The technical manager and the training center and I built the factory and put that together.
00:29:05,000 So it was very it was very similar to the one in rexon, but they are a much larger scale. So what would you say would be the key learnings
you’ve got from that piece of that project? Yeah, I think I think by that
time I was beginning to understand projects and how to to run projects.
00:29:24,000 In fact, that was where I joined the PMI. I took my PMP exam out in
Chicago and that supported the. That particular project. And therefore I was able to put a structure around what I was doing and understand why I was doing it.
00:29:44,000 So so the whole. I think the aspect of learning the hard side of project
management, if you like, in terms of processes and procedures. I was one of the biggest things I learned.
00:29:59,000 But the other thing again, it like in all projects, it’s about the human side
of the project and building relationships. And I would say it was. That was the first big international project I’ve been involved with.
00:30:15,000 One of the things you learn is that generally people are the same. The
world over, they want the same things. They just have different cultures and speak in different languages.
00:30:24,000 A lot of the time, but if you treat people well, then they tend to respond. 00:30:43,000 Cool. So obviously that’s a big successful project on time.
On scope, I guess, and on budget and all those sort of things. Yeah,
contrasting that in your careers in delivering what’s your biggest screw up that you’ve ever had? And again, what did you learn from it?
00:31:01,000 What did you learn? Well, that’s easy because whenever I make a think
about what my biggest mistakes where one comes, jumps to mind in it.
I was in the first project I mentioned, building the factory in rex and the project was running late.
00:31:18,000 And the architect came to me to say, look, I can speed this up by
putting panels in the roof that had a sandwich panels in the roof. So
they didn’t need to put rock will up and take extra time putting the insulation into it. So I thought that sounds like a good idea.
00:31:42,000 Like let’s go with go with that. And of course, I put the poly the panels
up filled with polyurethane foam only to find that the health and safety
advisor said I couldn’t do it, but I hadn’t talked to him beforehand. And the it was the materials that were flammable and the insurance
company wouldn’t allow flammable materials in any building that they were ensuring.
00:32:08,000 So I guess that that taught me I need to understand. I need to talk to
insurance companies first when we’re building factories and to sit with health and safety managers and understand what the requirements are
for their buildings. You just thought the architect wouldn’t know that one.
00:32:32,000 I could have thought that, but it was materials that they had used in other plants. So I guess it was nothing unusual to them. We managed
to get around it though and find the solution to it, which was to to under
lay the roofing with plasterboards so that if it actually didn’t catch fire
then it would take longer to penetrate through the roofing panels and the roof.
00:32:58,000 And then what was it that would have been a strip it all out and redo it
all with it? Probably yes, that was one of the one of the other options. Geez, didn’t happen.
00:33:08,000 So let’s go back to a positive view. In all of the project deliveries you’ve 00:33:21,000 done. What would you say is your proudest project delivery? 00:33:39,000
It’s difficult to say. I’m proud of all of them. It’s great to create something
from nothing. All different factories have built all around the world.
It’s been great. It’s been traveling to these places. Setting up a project
setting up the project team and actually building factories or installing production equipment, whatever that may be. But I think there’s two things I would say.
00:33:54,000 One is working in Brazil with a group of project managers. I was a consultant to a company there and they had a load of young project
managers who were just starting out in their careers and it was giving them support and helping them. To overcome problems, find solutions and just teaching them how to run projects.
00:34:21,000 And I think that’s something I’ll always remember and helping them in
their careers. And I’m glad to say most of them are stayed in project management. So that was the from a work point of view.
00:34:35,000 That’s probably my proudest achievement. The other thing I guess in a
00:34:46,000 personal life was sailing out to St. Kilda. And that was many years ago.
And when you think about it, say a project management is a bit like
sailing and achieving a destination, organizing a crew and so on. So it
was nice to be able to do that. So you think so some of that structure and thinking ahead.
00:35:08,000 Is that sailing sort of same sort of methods that you’d use? Yes, yes. You plan a route, you bring a team together and you work your way
towards a destination. And what about the when you hit a school, is it called whatever?
00:35:26,000 Is that the same sort of thing is dealing with those risks and that is
managing those in the best way you can? It is. It’s a specific set of
risks, whether it’s the wind or the tides or rocks and navigating. It’s
planning ahead. You look at what might happen and you make plans to.
00:35:50,000 To divert or do something different. Or to stay in order and not proceed
00:36:02,000 until you’re sure it’s safe to proceed. So very similar in running projects.
Never ever thought of it like that. It was a really nice, nice sort of. I was the way to come remember the word that is the analogy for it or whatever.
00:36:12,000 Yeah, and then I would. Yeah, I’m going to steal that off you and use that. You can’t do that.
00:36:19,000
00:36:23,000 What happens? No one knows stealing it. So.
Hi, it’s Night here. Sorry to interrupt the interview and I’ll get you back to
it very shortly. It’s just a reminder that to make sure that you get to hear to these wonderful interviewees and their stories,
00:36:41,000 to click your subscribe button and then you’ll get them into your pod catcher every month as soon as they come out. Anyway, back to the interview. You’ve done a lot of projects around the world.
00:36:58,000 What are the highlights, would you say? I know we’ve got the we pick
the biggest screw up. And what are some of the things that you’ve done that you kind of go,
00:37:05,000 well, that was that was interesting. That all that wasn’t interesting or
00:37:13,000 that was annoying. Well, that was scary or that was whatever exciting.
What are some of the things that you get top to mind? I think again,
another project in China that I did a installing equipment that wasn’t
building the factory, but it was installing a production lines for packaging infant formula milk.
00:37:34,000 That was probably one of the most exciting projects I did, because I
was out there on my own initially and beginning to pull it together and I
hadn’t a clue about the culture of the company. I think it’s a culture of in China or the language.
00:37:51,000 There were many English-speaking companies out there which
obviously helped, but we are working with a lot of Chinese people as well, who’s level of English varied quite a lot.
00:38:04,000 And so it was communication was a real challenge then. How did you
deal with that communication? Well, I started learning Chinese or man,
00:38:19,000 I suppose, yeah, with the language, he’s expert. That’s kind of what 00:38:27,000 he’s doing. That helped from a very basic point of view.
And also it helped just being able to say a few words of Mandarin,
helped to break down barriers, build relationships again, and begin to understand the people working in China as well on the project.
00:38:48,000 So that helped. Also just working within teams and making sure that you had a good Chinese speakers alongside you as well to convey
what you wanted to convey. It all helps, but it’s still very challenging.
00:39:08,000 Yeah, because I know from a cultural point of view, I think there’s a certain cultures where they won’t, if you’re sort of like a manager perceived as,
00:39:22,000 they won’t tell you they can’t do something. That’s right. And so you’d 00:39:30,000 be saying, well, well, you do that and they’ll say, 00:39:39,000
it’s right. And it was explained to me as when they say, I’ll try, it means it’s not a chance that’s going to happen.
But they’re not going to tell you they won’t do it, because it wouldn’t
want to offend you or be perceived as not doing what. So it’s kind of one of those things that is kind of,
00:39:52,000 when I looked back, I thought, OK, I can see now. I can see where I’d
00:40:02,000 been expecting something, and so I was, yeah, we’ll try and get that to.
And then I managed to pick that up then when having the conversations
you’d build a spot and you’re, hang on a minute, that person just said
they’ll try to do it, which means, OK, so taking that next step and say,
00:40:11,000 OK, that’s great. So when will you do it? Yeah.
00:40:16,000 And take it. And you only had to give them that out, or find a way to give them out of that,
00:40:22,000
saying, right, so you’ll try, right? And then you’ll try to do it by that day. 00:40:28,000 When do you think you would be able to?
If you’re going to try, find that’s great, but what if it doesn’t? And that gives them the opportunity to give you the actual, no, I can’t make Friday, but I will do it by next Tuesday.
00:40:38,000 But you need to take that extra step in the conversation that you 00:40:44,000 wouldn’t get otherwise. Yeah.
Do you find that sort of thing? It’s important not to lose faith. Not just the chain as well, but try not to embarrass people generally.
00:40:53,000 And with it. So it is taking that extra step. And it’s, it’s a, you know, just 00:41:03,000 supporting people with that job
and making sure that what you’ve said is actually been understood by
the person that’s receiving the information, which isn’t always the case, whether it’s in someone speaking
00:41:14,000 another language or speaking the same language, it can be checking 00:41:22,000 understanding is a very important part of communicating. 00:41:28,000
00:41:40,000 Yeah, that’s true. Very true. So obviously it’s been a linguist and that 00:41:50,000 communication is something
00:42:01,000
00:42:10,000 that is obviously going to be dear to your heart, isn’t it? And that I 00:42:19,000 suppose, does it make it easier or harder you being at that, 00:42:26,000
00:42:35,000 but you think by having lots of, is that why it’s led you to go to do these 00:42:44,000 international projects, etc. Do you think that that, that, 00:42:52,000
that, want of travel kind of led you that way? In terms of speaking another language or wanting to speak another language. I think,
I think initially it was the travel itself. I mean, we did a very close connection with France and, her relatives in France.
So it was always, we were always going over to France and holidays
and so on. And I think I just wanted to keep on going beyond France.
And exploring other parts of the world. The language side of things, I’ve always been interested in.
So whichever country I go to, I try and learn at least a few words of that language. Excellent.
So. That’s kind of all of the, the kind of your history projects or thing.
There’s, like I said, you say your price achievements, etc. Is there anything that you think of your career that,
that again is, is you, you’re trying to want there any other interesting
moments or highlights? Well, I can’t believe that with the, the scale of things that you built into and maybe that’s me, isn’t it?
00:43:05,000 It’s I can look at what you’re doing. I actually sit there and I think it, it, it, 00:43:13,000 it befuddles me about right how the heck do you build a, 00:43:19,000
just to build a packaging line? How do you go about doing that? Because it’s so complicated and difficult.
And as I think we talked about it before, I watch how it’s made on there. Yeah.
00:43:25,000 And I sit there and they got the suckers picking up all these different
things. And I think they’re thinking, instead of watching that and you’d be going,
00:43:29,000 yeah, I could do that better. You should have built that line differently on 00:43:34,000 there. Imagine you’re, you can see,
00:43:39,000
00:43:44,000 you know, where it’s to me, it’s just like this amazing stack of 00:43:48,000 machinery. And I suppose the,
00:43:55,000
the other, and I don’t know whether it kind of thing, but whether it’s in your interest or it really,
where you’ve got a lot of the warehousing automation that’s going on in these days. And that’s, I imagine,
a lot of that is similar kind of technologies, because that’s a bit, probably not talked about it.
And that I found really fascinating about what you’ve done is where, you
know, I’ll talk to people who are potentially project managers in the IT industry,
00:44:04,000 or you’ll talk to a project manager who is a project manager in the building industry, or a project manager in, in sort of change management and business change.
00:44:15,000 But your projects tend to encompass all of those items in there. Plus
00:44:28,000 you’ve got the engineering project in the middle of the, of the thing. 00:44:33,000
00:44:38,000 So it’s, it’s have it, and I, I see them as very, and I, and I kind of use the, 00:44:42,000 I think you said before, it’s common sense in some ways. But the 00:44:50,000 managing of those,
00:45:00,000
00:45:06,000 you would see them as very different disciplines. And I suppose you, 00:45:12,000 do, do you,
set your projects up with different heads of those different pieces, I guess? Yes. Yeah, I think, I think it’s,
the skills required to, to build a complete factory are so diverse that no one person can do it. And it’s important to work with,
you know, is to put your teams of experts together and to work with them. And I guess as a project manager,
what you bring is that, a pooling together of those teams, that coordination,
leadership of it, because as I say, you can’t be expected in the everything that’s involved in building a factory. 00:45:23,000 So my role is just one part of a, a small, a,
00:45:28,000 or a large group of people, who each of them have their specialisms. And they,
00:45:34,000
hopefully, you know, I’m able to pull that all together and make a 00:45:42,000 success and make the factory run at the end of it. 00:45:48,000
And so, do you, do you normally put,
00:45:57,000 a project manager to lead those different disciplines? I guess so, team leaders and so on,
00:46:05,000
00:46:09,000 I guess as always, this thing in my mind about project and program management, some people might describe it as program management, 00:46:18,000
all of that. I just see it as one project, but, 00:46:26,000 but each of the teams does have a leader, because there can be 00:46:31,000 hundreds of people involved in projects like this, from, 00:46:35,000
from the builders through to the, manufacturers of equipment through to 00:46:42,000 the employees within the, within the factory.
00:46:47,000 So, so yes, each of those areas needs,
00:46:50,000 needs leaders are, are project managers? So, a lot,
a lot of the things that you’re doing is leading leaders there, rather than 00:46:55,000 leading the, yes, leading the actual practitioners a lot of time. 00:46:59,000
00:47:06,000 Yes, I would say so, yes. And do you, do you see any difference in the way that you need to,
00:47:10,000
00:47:14,000 to work with, in those scenarios? Can I’m guessing you’re, 00:47:17,000 you know, very different levels when you’re managing different 00:47:20,000 projects? Yeah, well,
00:47:22,000
often you find that people, certainly in, in our industry, 00:47:27,000 haven’t been formally trained in project management. And I, not,
not everybody there, there are many trained project managers, but very often,
it’s not to, a, a,
a, a, a,
a, a, a,
a, a, a,
so you’re relying in their skills and abilities as leaders in their technical knowledge, to lead their teams. And so,
you’re bringing that, that, level of a project knowledge,
00:47:31,000 and, to run the project. So there’s a lot coaching of those guys, I
suppose, I can see the fact that if you are going to build a factory and you’ve got a guys who really know the engineering, they really
00:47:42,640 know the SAP thing, maybe it’s slightly different there, but building of it
while they are buildings, now they have the engineering knowledge, as
you say. They’re not necessarily, I suppose, if they are in the business, not going to be doing that every day, are they going to do
00:47:59,040 hitting misses of those for big chunks of time and then run, I guess a lot
of them transitioning to running those businesses as well. Yes, they
often can, but just thinking about the project management training and so on, I think a lot of that will be in-house in some of the larger
00:48:14,240 organizations that we do, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into joining
the PMI or the APM or other project organizations. Okay, cool. So, vast
couple of questions really. Yeah. What was the last project management book that you read? He won’t believe it.
00:48:39,600 It was the pin book. I didn’t read the whole book, I just dipped into it. Is
that the latest one? Yes, I was looking for a WBS chapter, but so that
was the last one I’d read. I’m actually just bought a Suzy Palmer True and Peter Taylor’s new book,
00:49:07,760 he bought the management at SOBOLOX and it’s lying in my desk here
just now, but I haven’t started reading it yet, it just arrived this week.
Excellent. That was forward to reading that. Yes, I believe it’s very good and I’ve started reading it and I haven’t finished it.
00:49:24,000 Good. Yeah, the bits I’ve read are a nice, refreshing change to some of
the project management publications that I’ve read. Well, I heard Jay on
your podcast as well, so that inspired me to buy the book. Good. Well, I’m glad that worked then. That was why I invited
00:49:44,320 him on to help him promote it, so that’s good. I’d date this little project,
they’re the massive amount of income forms. So, on that talking project, what was the last podcast you listened to in project management?
Again, it was a Sunday lunch project manager, I think that was the last one.
00:50:04,080 I don’t listen to many podcasts, I’m just getting into the podcast scene and there’s some fascinating podcasts out there and all sorts of
different topics. Yeah, it is my list is always, I don’t manage to listen to all of the podcasts that I’ve got on my hopper. There’s some nice diverse
00:50:28,000 stuff to listen to, I find, especially on the roads to work, it’s quite good.
So that’s excellent. So, blogs, project management blogs, do you read
any project management blogs? Not especially, unless it’s by accident, not so much by accident, but I use LinkedIn quite a lot,
00:50:49,040 and I’ll click on articles that are posted in LinkedIn. So I guess that’s my main route into reading about a project management and some will be blogs, some will be just articles. Seems similar to me, really.
00:51:06,960 Paneultimate question, what is your top tip for someone who has been a project manager, been in the trenches of project management for a few years? I kind of got maybe got their pay and pay. What top tip
would you give them if they asked you? I think, I mean, we’ve talked a lot about it,
00:51:32,640 and it’s probably come through in the interview in IJ. Is focus on
relationships and they don’t get too involved in the detail. Understand
what the project is, the scope of the project as well, but the primary thing for me is focusing on relationships.
00:51:54,400 And the final question, except for the contact questionnaires right again. So on that day when you’ve realised you were in project management,
just before you were saying, “Yes, so yeah, I’m happy to do this project management. I’m going to build this factory,”
00:52:16,960 or all the one with a packaging can do the engineering. “What would
you tell your own Gordon, their the fresh-faced project manager? What would you tell him?” I guess don’t make assumptions is probably the key thing. It’s very easy just to, as a young man,
00:52:39,440 or a woman just to crack on and full of enthusiasm and wanting to get a job done and believe that, you know, what needs to be done. It’s to understand what you’re being asked to do. So don’t make any
assumptions. Yeah, like the fact that those roof-pup tiles will be fun. Exactly. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:53:01,120 Brilliant. Gordon has been a fantastic interview. I think there’ll be some people who are quite shocked at how relaxed you are talking about
building a massive factory over 18 months and putting the whole thing
in there, because I think to a lot of us it’s quite awe-inspiring. If people wanted to find out
00:53:24,400 more about you, more about primary design projects, what should they
do? How are they going to get in touch? Well, LinkedIn is probably the
bit, again, the best route just to put my name into LinkedIn, or we’ve got our website as well, www.primzaneprojects.com. Both routes will get contact details of either myself
00:53:46,080 or my colleagues. Cool. Brilliant. Well, all that’s left for me to say is thank you very much for coming on and you have a fantastic evening
and I will see you soon. You too, Nigel. Thanks very much for inviting
me. No problem. Thanks, Gordon, for that brilliant interview. I hope you all enjoyed
00:54:14,480 that. There are some incredible building things that the Gordon’s done
within factories that he didn’t think particularly impressive and I always
think they are. One thing we didn’t get to talk about, where we talked
about a couple of days later, was the fact that in one of the factories in America
00:54:34,160 that he built, in order to get products to it, they had to build a siding off a
railway, so they had to break into an existing railway line and pull it off to the side, which is just mind boggles me where you start with something like that. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. If you know anyone who
00:54:55,360 has an interesting take project management, then get him to message me at SundayLunchPMPod at NigelCrucest.com. If you’ve got any questions, comments about the show, then use the same email address or grab me on one of the social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, using the handle SundayLunch
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00:55:55,280 Oh, and when I were a project manager, you can get in Pay-Per-Back
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00:56:15,280 so that’s it, right? Remember, #ProjectManaging is funny. Well, it’s goodbye from me, Nigel Kreaser, and it’s goodbye from him, the Sunday Lunch PM. Goodbye.