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00:00:00,000 [Music] Hi and welcome to the Sunday Lunch Project podcast for the
30th of August 2020. This is Nigel Creese, your usual host and today we’ve got Chris Field on the show, President.
00:00:31,000 Sorry, Chairman of the PMI UK chapter, so hopefully you’re going to get 00:00:56,000 some great insights from Chris. So, but first, the news. [Music]
So, in news. Well, it’s just been busy, busy, busy. A lot of my, I had a
couple of weeks leave, so enjoying myself up in what was sunny north Wales.
00:01:10,000 Fantastic time, a really good time, but I wasn’t doing a lot of decking.
Right in the eyes, I kind of got my, I could get a little fits of inspiration
and interest in doing it. So, see how that goes, I’m not beating myself up at the moment.
00:01:27,000 On that, I’m just going to try and do it as and when I can. Podcast
interviews, why is you will notice that this has been quite a big delay
since the last July episode, and I didn’t manage to put an episode out at
the end of July, which is, I think, a reflection on partly my leave.
00:01:45,000 I had to cancel a couple of interviews I was going to do, but I have got a
load of people lined up, and it’s just synchronising diaries and arranging times to record those. So, that’s hopefully going to move forward.
00:02:02,000 Well, I’d like to share some exciting news, but I can’t yet, because I’m
going to leave it as a little teaser there. So, we’ll see what we’ll find out.
I’m hoping by next week I will be able to let you know what’s going on, but I’m looking at some good collaboration and working with other areas.
00:02:24,000 I’m grateful, actually, to my company, with Capgemon Eye, and our
internal project management group have been publicising the podcast,
which is fabulous. So, if any of you guys new listeners from Capgemon
Eye, welcome. And that’s, I think, that’s all I’m going to be to wrong about, you know, I’m just going to flip over to Chris Field
00:02:51,000 and get on with the interview if anyone wants to get touched up just to bring me a message. And hope you enjoyed the interview. Cheers now,
bye. Right, so today I’d like to welcome to the Sunday Lunch Project podcast, Mr. Chris Field,
00:03:16,000 the current chair of the, sorry, chair, president, aren’t you, of the UK chapter of the PMI? Chris is an experienced project manager and program, PMO professional with the wealth and knowledge. It’s his
second term as president, he’s held the role in 2009 through to 2012, and he’s a, from my point of view, he’s a major influencer in the industry.
00:03:45,000 He’s a influencer in the UK project management scene. So Chris,
welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Nigel, it’s been a while in organising this, so glad to be able to make it.
00:03:59,000 Yeah, brilliant. I think it’s always that thing where Diaries either align or
clash, and it just depends what happens, doesn’t it? Absolutely. I think
I’ve had a recent circumstances of men that I think a few of us have
had a little bit more time in our hands. And I’ve clearly been travelling much less, so that’s made it a little easier, certainly.
00:04:19,000 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I suppose if it’s people listening back
maybe in 20 years or whatever, we’re currently recording this in August of 2020, the wonderful year of 2020 that people have heard about it with, middle of welcome. Don’t know where we are in the current
coronavirus pandemic. I kind of keep saying we’re in the middle of it,
and I don’t know whether we’re in the middle of the beginning of the end.
00:04:45,000 So it’s kind of a bit confusing. So let’s just jump straight in with the
interview questions really Chris. Where were you born? Where did you, where was Chris? Chris’s formative life.
00:04:58,000 So I was born in Armley, in Leeds in West Yorkshire, in the north of
England, and despite having kind of travelled the world, I guess, initially
with my parents, my dad worked in the construction industry. So it’s
been quite a bit of time overseas with him and more recently travelling
with my job. And I’m actually speaking to you from not so far away, so
just south of Leeds actually and little north of Sheffield in a little known place, but unfortunately, spelt town of peniston.
00:05:38,000 So south Yorkshire. So I’ve, as I say, I’ve found myself being quite a bit
of travelling, but always end up back here, sort of, I guess, my roots in Yorkshire. I know from a lot of your, your posting, I’m sure, proud Yorkshireman. Yeah, absolutely.
00:05:57,000 I’ve not met Yorkshireman that isn’t, my dad was from Scarborough, so
yeah, I think so. Yeah, no, I think it’s a lovely part of the world. I’m very
lucky with where we live. And as I say, despite having moved away, we always find ourselves coming back really, so can’t complain.
00:06:14,000 Yeah, good. So, yeah, I just, you’re in New Yorkshire, peniston, I
remember the, is it a top gear up episode? Yeah, absolutely. Yes, for the unfortunate spelling.
00:06:27,000 Yeah, well, it’s okay. I live in a place called pant, so there you go. It’s
kind of, and most people say is it you say pants whenever I tell people
where we live. So, yeah, I, well, in the, it’s all in the pronunciation with
where I live, of course, but I’ll leave it to the, to the listeners to figure that one out.
00:06:43,000 Yeah, yeah, Google it, everybody. Google it. I’m sure there’s plenty of
ways you can say it. I’m sure if I showed it might do it in your daughter,
she’d go, so you say we, what family? What family have you got there?
00:07:00,000 Yeah, very much so, so married, married in, in 99, so what’s that? 21
years? So, been married for, for quite a while. In fact, got married just
as I was leaving university and I met my wife at university in York.
00:07:16,000 So, my university career was twofold. It was my full four years because
it was four-year course and then I also spent another four years going
back and visiting because Sarah was in her first year at that point. So,
yeah, it’s been quite a bit of time at the university in York and even today,
00:07:35,000 I’ve a kind of affinity with, with the university and we go back and do a few bits and pieces with them. So, yeah, got married way back when. We got a couple of kids. So, Max, who’s just gone, gone 16 and, and Amy, who is, who’s eight.
00:07:53,000 So, Max, bless him as just been through the whole kind of GCSE, fun
and games that a lot of the kids in the, in the UK have struggled with.
So, I struggled with given the, the COVID-19 situation. So, thankfully
he’s come out of that well and will be going on to, to study in six forms.
So, yeah, couple of kids and certainly no plans to, to add a third to, to that collection.
00:08:23,000 I am a friend of mine who studied at the, at, at, at York. I went up a
couple of times and spent, spent, I spent a short amount of time in the, in the student union and then went into the town there. I remember having a very good night there. I don’t remember much about here. I just remember it was a good night.
00:08:39,000 So, nice place to walk. Yeah, I, I think it’s got, it’s more pubs per square
foot than anywhere else or certainly when I was there, that was the,
that was the claim. Of course it’s a, it’s a campus university. So, it sits
on the, the outskirts of the town. So, or city rather, but it’s only a short hop into the, the city.
00:08:59,000 So, you get the, the benefit of both the, the campus and also of course
the lovely city nearby. Yeah, yeah, and it is at York is one of, not an
advert for York, but is a cracking city from, just buildings and everything, long day. What’s it called? Is it the, the, the shambles?
00:09:17,000 That’s right. Yeah, they, it’s a little bit like the, the Harry Potter Street of
course. Yeah, I think that’s, they’ve, they’ve lent a lot from that for the
Harry Potter job. So, you mentioned that you did a lot of travelling when
you were growing up. So, yeah, I’m, I’m guessing you didn’t grow up in these, where did, where was it?
00:09:39,000 You grow up, of course, but the main place you were, you were
travelling to. We hopped around quite a bit as I say my, my dad was in the construction industry. So, we kind of followed the, the various
construction projects, funnily enough in the project management world. So, when I was really young, we spent some time on, we were in, in career, which is quite an unusual place.
00:10:05,000 I don’t really remember much about it. I was, I was very young. I was in kindergarten back then, but we, we came back rather suddenly
because, there was a, a rat infestation of all things in the, in the
complex that we were living in over there. And I think all the expats
were packed off home for, for our safety and of course with me being so young.
00:10:29,000 I think that was perhaps one of the reasons why we were shipped back
to the UK, particularly quickly. So, spent a bit of time in career, also
Holland. So obviously Rotterdam and that part of the world is key in
terms of the, the petrochemical industry. So, we were over there for a, for a few years.
00:10:49,000 Didn’t go to a Dutch-speaking in school. I actually went to the English or American-speaking school in, in Rotterdam. But my, my brother did actually go to a, a Dutch-speaking school last week, where, must we
were out there. So, spent a few years out in, out in Holland. And then I guess, spent a considerable amount of my,
00:11:13,000 kind of early years, if you like, whilst I was at school in, in Scotland. Hi,
living in, um, Kinross. So, uh, person Kinross. So, kind of in the, in the
middle of the, of the country, I guess about an hour or so from memory
from, from Edinburgh. And, uh, yeah, spent quite a bit of time up in, in
Scotland, whilst my dad was up there building a, a, a petrochemical, I think it was a polyethylene plant from memory, goodness me.
00:11:45,000 About the extent of my chemical knowledge, but, um, no, certainly moved around a little bit when, when, when we were young. So, well,
well, you were moving around and, and traveling to all this. Obviously,
your dad doing the, it sounds like, uh, a project management kind of
industry that he was involved in. Was it, is that something that you recognize? Was that what you wanted to be when you grew up?
00:12:11,000 Um, I, I don’t necessarily recognize, uh, making a decision that early on in lots of ways, I think I was probably more of a, what we call an accidental project manager than I was someone who, you know, made a conscious decision to, uh, I guess, join the ranks of project management. Um, I guess in terms of what my, my dad was doing, I, I called that grown up project management, because he was, um, as a lot of the, the more capable project managers, he was an engineer.
First and a, a project manager, I guess, second, so, uh, worked in the,
in the civil engineering industry. And, um, I think, you know, if you look at the, the nature of the sorts of projects.
00:12:59,000 That, um, you know, engineering involves then, you know, they’re
considerably more complex and, you know, the way I often describe it
is, you know, if you get it wrong, then, you know, you risk killing people.
Yeah, you know, compared to, you know, your, your, your typical, um,
IT or, or technology project, which is what I’ve, sort of found myself
doing for the majority of, of my career. No, I don’t think I, um, kind of went through that, you know, when I grow up, I want to be a project manager phase.
00:13:32,000 Um, I think I, I pretty much stumbled into it, um, as a consequence of
what I, what I studied it, uh, at York, really. All right. So, what, what, what, what, did you want to be then? Do you know it? Did you have a
memory? So, um, well, interesting actually, um, and, you know, I don’t know why I’m embarrassed to admit this, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the profession that I initially wanted to, to go into.
00:13:57,000 And so I wanted to be, and, um, back to pronunciation now, we have to 00:14:05,000 be very careful. I wanted to be a banker. Right.
Um, when I, when I was young, um, so, um, in fact, you know, when I
was thinking about university and which universities I was going to go
to, um, I, you know, applied to those universities that were, you know, recognized as, um, go to, uh, universities for, for the banking
profession. So, um, I was actually offered a, a sponsored place at, at,
at, at, at, at, at, at, banker. So, um, I was effectively an employee for a very short time of, uh, royal insurance for those of you that can remember such a company. Um, a term and a half into the degree I, I
realized both the, the degree and the university weren’t, weren’t for me.
00:15:03,000 So, um, hence, found myself, um, as they say, you know, dropping out.
And, uh, actually reapplying to go to York the, the following year. And,
and frankly, it was one of the best decisions I ever made for a couple of
reasons, one, when the university and, and two, as I mentioned earlier, that was where I met my bitter half-serra.
00:15:22,000 Hmm, what’s it got quite a, that age as well, it’s quite a brave decision,
isn’t it, to do something like that, to drop out, I imagine. Or was it, was it hard to make that decision? Was it, uh, just, uh, obvious that you
weren’t happy? Um, I think it was, um, perhaps easier than it, it might sound. I guess, yeah, I had lots of, um, sort of, uh, rose tinted perspectives on the banking profession and, and what it involved.
00:15:50,000 And, and, and frankly, the reality was that it was, um, a lot of crunching numbers. And, as you might imagine, you know, it’s, it’s quite a, a mathematical profession. Yeah.
00:16:04,000 And that’s not really, uh, my thing. And, and perhaps I didn’t know that
until that point. Um, but, certainly, you know, it wasn’t something that, that, you know, I was particularly drawn to. Uh, and perhaps there
wasn’t as much, um, I guess, of the, I’ll say the people side of the business, um, involved, as I had, um, imagined.
00:16:25,000 And, and so, you know, for that reason, um, I think it was a, it was a
pretty straightforward, straightforward decision. And I was very, very lucky. Um, I kind of, um, left during the, uh, during the year.
00:16:38,000 And managed to find myself, uh, kind of, uh, part time role. Um, so
under a little bit of money over the period between leaving and starting
York in the year in the following, it would have been the October. All right.
00:16:53,000 So what was it you actually ended up studying it at York? So, um, it was
a bit of a mixed bag, actually. So it was a mix of, uh, computer science
and business management with, uh, foreign languages thrown in for, for good measure.
00:17:09,000 So, um, it was kind of a, um, tailored degree really aimed at people
going into general management within, uh, the technology space. So it
kind of equipped you with, um, elements of all three really. So, you know, the computer science skills, um, which back then were, um, clearly a boom.
00:17:34,000 Also, you know, the, the general management skills to be able to, um,
effectively run projects, in fact. And also, uh, a language element. So,
you know, kind of giving you a pretty rounded toolkit really to, uh, to go out and become a part of the, uh, the sort of technology rat race.
00:17:53,000 Yeah. Kind of give you that ability to go international if you chose to, I 00:17:59,000 suppose. Yeah, very much.
I think, because, I mean, I was never particularly strong in terms of foreign languages. It was something that I wanted to do, but my, my
brain is wide in such a way that, you know, I find it quite difficult to learn
foreign languages. So I, um, I did study, uh, French, um, but then in my,
in my final year at, uh, university, I actually, um, spent a year studying
Japanese. The, uh, the interesting thing was that the way in which it
was taught, it was taught not solely such that you were able to speak the language, because frankly, there’s only so much of the language you can pick up in, in 12 months.
00:18:34,000 Um, but also, um, how to, um, conduct yourself, um, in a business
environment, um, in, uh, in Japan, because of course it’s a very unique
culture in lots of ways. Yeah. So, you know, silly things like, you know, even presenting business cards and, and how you should behave in a formal setting.
00:18:52,000 So that was, that was fascinating. I kind of enjoyed, uh, as much the,
um, the cultural aspect of that as I did the language for sure. Yeah, and Japanese culture has always been something that’s, um, fascinated me.
00:19:06,000 Um, and, and just that, um, that, um, that whole, um, culture side of it
that is so different. And I know you can fall foul very easily and not even
know it, can you with that scenario in, in a business environment. Yeah.
00:19:28,000 Or you just, just normal meeting someone environment. Yeah, I mean,
to be honest, I’ve never really had, uh, an opportunity sadly to practice,
um, what I, what I learned in, in anger. Um, I, um, I only really, um,
have that 12 months sort of exposure, but certainly it is a very unique, um, culture and, uh, particularly within the business setting.
00:19:52,000 Um, you have to kind of watch yourself perhaps, um, for fear of, uh,
offending, uh, people. I suspect that’s probably moved on and awful lot
in the last. And this scares me almost 30 years. Um, in terms of, you
know, a lot of, you know, how we do business, uh, I guess is, is kind of
become quite westernized and, uh, I guess sometimes, you know, in, in the west, um, certainly in the UK.
00:20:18,000 Perhaps a little lazier than we should be in terms of acknowledging
those different cultures, but, um, yeah, for sure, I, I can well imagine it’s
perhaps turned down in that time, but, uh, but I, I don’t know for sure.
Yeah, it’s like the UK language using as a UK does a general, isn’t it? So we adapt to foreign languages and foreign cultures by shouting later.
00:20:40,000 Kind of a, a standard British approach, isn’t it? Yeah, I mean, even
today in, in the day job today, it’s interesting because I work across
many, many different countries, particularly European, but, but all the
refilled and, um, especially quite embarrassing sometimes to have to admit to the fact that, you know, really I can only, um, you know,
conduct business in, in, in one language, I, my, my own mother tongue.
I can muddle through in, right? And, um, you know, I guess it’s, you
know, a reflection of how I, I say how lazy, and we are in this country, um, it, kind of making the effort.
00:21:21,000 But to be fair, you know, it’s kind of difficult as well, because, you know,
a lot of countries, you know, and certainly a lot of organizations, um, using English or, or American, if you like, as, as the corporate language. Even on those occasions where we go in, you know, attempting to, to use our, our broken foreign language school, sometimes we find that, you know, the reply comes back in English.
Yeah. Yeah. And in, in their mind, they’re going, oh, bless, they’re trying.
00:21:48,000 Yeah. And I remember going, and it’s kind of a bit closer home, we, um,
we holiday in North Wales up, not far from Bangalore, near Abysok on
the, on the Thlin Peninsula and Wales. And, um, it was actually not far, it was, um, Knaven Castle, we were parking at.
00:22:07,000 And as we went through, I said, thank you, and Welsh, to the, the guy
in the car park. And I must have cracked the accent that day, because he started then talking back to me and Welsh telling me where to go
and park. And I thought, as we’re, continue to remind me every time we
ever go back to that car park or the day that I did that and then people not thinking I was talking alright.
00:22:28,000 So I was quite proud and also embarrassed that I said, no, I don’t know
what you’re on about me. Yeah, it’s a funny thing for our languages. It’s
going to be interesting to see what happens in the future as to, you know, which, which countries become dominant and whether the languages that people need change. And I was talking about, you know, that changing over time and in fact, hence Japanese really, because back then, you know, that was going to be the big up and coming language and they were being hugely successful.
00:22:57,000 And of course that hasn’t really continued and the fascinating sea,
which, which countries do, do take off. Yeah, and I think, yeah, it’s, it’s,
I’m, I’m so, um, that it relates a little bit to the, to the industry that we’re
in as well as the fact that. It’s an evolving thing language, even the English language.
00:23:21,000 And you get quite a few people quite, um, wedded to the fact that, well,
that’s not a real usage of a word, but actually look at some language
from history and you’ll go, well, actually the way that that words used
now is completely different to what it was used 600 years ago. And it’s pronounced differently because obviously at some point someone’s
pronounced it in a weird way and it’s, it’s never, it’s never a, um, a static
thing is it language? It’s just, you can nail it in a book for a year, but it changes and even though you like the advent of emojis and I think
there’s, so is there a remote, an emoji in the dictionary now because that’s language at the end of the day.
00:24:04,000 People use emojis to communicate with each other, which is what
language is. So again, how long before we don’t certainly when digital
communications, how long will it be with our kids growing up? They’re going to be communicating in emojis now. And I’ve got absolutely no
idea what they’re talking about, but they’ll build a conversation using
emojis. And it evolves over time. You probably get built to do a emoji is
a foreign language. Yeah, well, firstly at the moment with the vast vast
majority of communication being kind of over the sun, sort of, to the video connection.
00:24:40,000 And so I saw a news article today and I think it’s Microsoft who are about to launch a feature in Microsoft teams that will effectively
transcribe the entire video meeting. So, you know, effectively capture
the minutes of the meeting in real time. So it won’t be long and I’m sure you can probably do this today, even where you can not be captured,
but it can be translated into multiple languages. So, you know, all of a
sudden, you know, your ability to speak different languages, you know,
it’s diminished because effectively, you know, the technology does it for you.
00:25:17,000 Yeah, and as you say, it’s the universal translator in it, the, the Bablefish
sort of scenario from, and it’s got to go to the galaxy. You’ve got, you’re
getting that, aren’t you? And it’s, and it’s getting to the point where it’s going to be certainly with project management point of view of
managing across those cultures and across those. And in the countries
and languages, it is hard, I find it hard to do because making, but then I suppose the AI’s got to become able to deal with colloquialisms and things like that, which is where it starts to become difficult.
00:26:00,000 And I know I was, I was listening to a podcast about a guy from India
and I think it’s. I can’t remember which city it was, but if essentially he
grew up speaking four different languages. And he’s written a book and
it’s been made into a film, it’s a network, flex film, and it’s in the, in the
languages that he’s written it is, and some of it is in English, some of it
is in Urdu, some of it is in, I can’t remember the other, but, you know, I
mean, you’ve got, but he was in the interviews, talking about the fact
that he would, and you talk about the laziness, he grew up with four languages.
00:26:40,000 And depending on what he’s talking about, and depending on who he’s
talking to, he will switch seamlessly between those languages because he grew up that way. And, and it doesn’t make any difference what,
what he’s saying really, I think it’s, I think it’s, I think it’s, what did Delhi used to be called before? It was renamed as, “Darly.”
00:27:03,000 I should know, I can’t remember. Yeah, I can’t remember either way, it
was kind of, it was, it was when he was speaking English, he would use one name for the city when he was speaking another language. He’s
another one, so it’s quite a, quite fascinating that that concept of how
you do that, but I suppose you, as you grow up through that, you will
use the same word to mean entirely different things and you, you just
flex through it, right? I think about it, kids, small children do it so much easier, don’t they? As we get older, it’s harder in it.
00:27:34,000 So obviously you went to university and you did your computer science and you were, um, on your Japanese and your business management
and all that stuff. So what, what, what did you do when you left York?
Yeah, continued going back obviously, but what, what did you, what did you move on to do then? Yeah, so there was no grand design. I mentioned earlier, it was, it was a four year degree and it was effectively a sandwich degree as they were called at the time.
00:28:05,000 So effectively, there was an industrial placement in my, my third year.
So I spent my, my third year working for Procter and Gamble. And I was
very lucky. I landed what was considered to be, you know, one of the,
the debetter, I guess, placement is in terms of the salary for a start. I
was very lucky. They paid me very well. But also it was my first taste of working for a global organization.
00:28:38,000 And I think I was a little spoiled. So the office I was working out of was
down in EGM in, in sorry. And it was the, the health and beauty care
division. So I was working on brands like the boss, sort of aftershave,
max factor, I think was one of our brands back then. Everything through
to crest, toothpaste, fairy, washing up liquid and washing powder. So it was a real mixed bag.
00:29:10,000 But we had offices up in Newcastle and also across in Rome as well.
So even as a placement student, because of the nature of the work that
I was doing, I was, I guess, lucky in that I got the opportunity to travel
between other areas offices. So, you know, I’ll be flying up and down
from, from sorry to Newcastle and across to, and across to Rome every now and again. And you know, for someone who’s at university and
hasn’t really experienced that before, it was, it was kind of cool. And I
guess that gave me a taste for a number of things. I think he gave me a taste of working for, you know, a large global organization.
00:29:52,000 But the work I was doing was a mix of technology and project
management. And I can, I caught the, the bug, I guess. And I was kind
of lucky that my boss. Well, one of my bosses at Procter and Gamble,
because I think I went through about eight bosses in the space of the 12 months I was there. You know, we’re all demoted.
00:30:15,000 Well, I was going to say, hopefully nothing to do with me, but it seemed to be, you know, every month, there’d be a new, a new boss. And actually that probably did me some good. Because, you know, very
early on in my career, I was having to, you know, really stand on my
own two feet and, and kind of model on through. So I was quite lucky, I
guess, looking back. But the guy that I was working for when I, when I left, I called Dave Fisher left, PNG.
00:30:43,000 And I moved across to across to whip bread. So back in the day, whip
bread was still a brewery. And owned the likes of the franchise for pizza huts, brewers, fair beef, eater David Lloyd.
00:30:59,000 So it’s quite a big operation back then. And frankly, still is. But I didn’t
really know where to go and what to do when I graduated. So I kind of picked the phone up to a few contacts and Dave was one of them and
said, you know, if you’ve got any kind of opportunities and Dave was
good enough to find me a role at whip bread. So kind of fell into a job at
whip bread as a kind of junior PM sort of business Alice at whip bread in in looting of all places.
00:31:33,000 And, you know, again, it was a fantastic role. I mean, I rocked up on day one and was presented with the keys to a company car and a phone and I thought, wow, this is fantastic. And they put me on the
road. And basically my first job was to work with the pub managers and the area management team across the UK of the brewers fair. Kind of brand to roll out what would now be called a BI solution.
00:32:04,000 So for those technical people listening to this, it was an earlier version
of the cognus application that we rolled out. So I was involved in just about everything from actually putting the application together to
production, I think it to going out and actually rolling out the laptops to
the guys that were going to be using it to training them on how to use it. And you can imagine, you know, these were pub managers in some
cases, not the easiest of people to teach how to use a laptop and to
interpret a P and L certainly an electronic P and L for the first time when they used to sort of paper.
00:32:43,000 So great opportunity. I was there for two, two and a half years,
something like that before I before I moved on, but so that was largely
thanks to today, day, Fisher and often on West, I’ll in touch. Keep in
touch over, over Facebook, even now, so the 20 odd years on ironically
he’s from bars to just up the road from where I live, didn’t know that at
the time and wasn’t something that particularly came up, but it’s a small world. Yeah, it is. You’re absolutely right.
00:33:15,000 So just you touched there on the fact that you’re a couple of industries
there and obviously one of one of my questions is how am I you got into
PMing. So obviously, a little bit different to somebody. I mean, you kind
of went pretty much bang in straight away doing that kind of role. And
did you, did you realize that’s what you were doing? Did you realize you
were being a project manager? Then there is an hindsight that you look back and they,
00:33:43,000 yeah, that’s actually what I was doing. What’s that? I kind of, I guess I
knew what I was, well, I knew what I was doing. If that doesn’t sound
wrong. But I had a sense of, you know, what the role was about. It was
a hybrid role. So it was project management, but it was also, I guess, you know,
00:34:06,000 going into to business analysis to be fair. But I guess, you know, going
back to what I said initially, there was no grand design. Certainly. I think
I’ve got Dave to thank for spotting, I guess, some of, you know, I guess my strengths and realizing that perhaps, you know, that might be a
good role for me. But, you know, there was no sort of grand design to
move into project management. I think, you know, what I have realized
since, perhaps with, with hindsight is that, you know, a lot of the things that I was doing back then are fundamental to, you know, successful project management.
00:34:53,000 I’ve kind of touched on this briefly already really, you know, for me, it
was, it was about the, the kind of softer. And the people aspects of, of project management and, and project management as a profession as
opposed to, I guess, what I, what I call the tick boxing. So, you know, you think about, you know, pub managers and trying to convince a team of, of pub managers to, to embrace what was, you know, effectively a considerable change for them.
00:35:27,000 Well, you know, guess what, you know, that’s a considerable change management challenge. And there I was, you know, a graduate, fresh
out of university out there doing exactly that. And did I know every
process that I could have applied in that circumstance, did I know, you
know, all the different tools available in order to, you know, manage that
sort of a project, absolutely not. You know, I like to think it was, it was a
success largely down to, you know, the relationships that I was able to
build the approach that I took to engaging with the, with the, with the folks who were bred, the stakeholders, if you like, to use project management speak.
00:36:15,000 So, it’s funny. I mean, what I can do now is I can apply some of the theory to the practice back then, but curiously, you know, I was
practicing quite a bit of what I would consider to be, you know, basic project management and change management without really ever
having been, you know, taught explicitly what that, what that is. Yeah,
so it’s kind of, I suppose you a lot of the, I imagine the business man, I
think you touched on it before your business management training that
you did. Some of those relationship building and people skills, things, I guess, would be in it as a part of that training anyway.
00:36:54,000 I suppose you’ve just, you took those tools and applied them in an effective manner, but maybe like you say, not without a PM, Bach
framework around it or anything like that. And I often, and I’ve said it
met too many times, probably that, that whole thing about the project
management, you just hear the tick boxing, I think the, the whole thing of all of the learning that you can do across all of the different
methodologies are fantastic and it teaches you those, those base tools
and point you at some other stuff, but it still doesn’t teach you how to, how to create something with those tools, you can know how to use a
drill, same as you can do a registry, you can do a project plan, but it’s,
it’s that bit that you layer over it, which I kind of think of as a bit of an art
and I talk about a sculpture, you can learn how to use a chisel, but you learning how to do the register mile is something different.
00:37:54,000 And it’s more that you have to, and it’s kind of experiential, it’s being
lucky in some ways in, in being having a chance to use those tools in
certain ways, but I think it’s, it, a lot of people, I remember, man, I’ve said it before, I remember someone who was interested in going into the project management environment and the reason they were
interested is because they didn’t like dealing with people. So I think I’ll be good at project management, which just makes me chuckle the
event today. Yeah, I mean, that’s actually quite scary to hear. I think, I mean, it might come as a surprise to some to hear me say that, you
know, I think, you know, some elements of project management are tick boxing.
00:38:42,000 I mean, I’m clearly very heavily involved with PMI, one of the
professional bodies and PMI is, you know, to some extent anyway, all
about standards, certification, methodology. And I think unfortunately
sometimes that’s misunderstood as, you know, effectively tick boxing. I
guess the only way I can describe it and you’ve kind of touched on this already is that the project management is both science and art.
00:39:12,000 So there are a set of tools that you absolutely need in order to be
successful. But you also need a level of common sense for sure, which
is often lacking. And then you need, you know, a big dose of the soft
skills and the art of project management, truly in order to be successful.
00:39:37,000 And I think sometimes that concerns me a little bit in the environment
that we’re in right now that, you know, we’re not able to spend time together in the same place as a team as we were, you know, six months ago. And, you know, as much as we can use the technology
that’s available, you just certainly me anyway, you don’t get that same
buzz as, you know, when your sleeves rolled up together as a project
team, really focused on, you know, getting the getting the job done.
Yeah, I, that, I know the thing that I’ve found, I’ve moved to a new team in this period.
00:40:25,000 So I was at the beginning of the lockdown. I was with the team. We’ve
been working together, majority of us, sort of, 12 months. We’ve got a
really good report from point of view, I was a man who was reporting up
to and the team was working for me and found that we obviously put in
loads of extra communication to keep in touch with each other. What’s
up groups daily calls that sort of thing and it made it massive difference
to build keep that to hold on to that rapport to the point that still we still got that.
00:40:59,000 We had a strong relationship and I think it was, it was the thing that,
that the simple thing that I saw was that we had a, the WhatsApp group
in every morning, at least one of the one guy would always put a silly gif on there. And everyone asked me, going, “Morne, because he was up at two o’clock and then everyone’s morning, morning, bing bing bing
bing bing bing.” The same as you are when you’re walking in with your
cup of coffee about to unpack your bag, you get in your morning, “Oh,
what do you been doing? You look naked.” But you just got that little bit of an interaction.
00:41:30,000 And I think we were lucky because we had the rapport beforehand. And then I moved on to a new role. Now it was a new team and it’s, it’s
building, but it is different. I do, it is obviously different to the
relationship that I had with the people who I had been, so that next two
paramedics, mainly for nine months. And I think it takes, and probably
taking longer to build those relationships as well. But, but also I think it, it, it does make you sit back and think about what you do with it
because I think everyone’s seen this is that from, it makes you realise
how many different facets and angles are a communication from you as an individual.
00:42:09,000 You’d have your team, but down below you, you’ve got your cross team, you’ve got maybe your profession, maybe you’ve got some, like just
your friends and family or a group of friends you go on all the day that
you can’t go on this year, like we have. And I, I noticed the one point
where I was looking, I was thinking, geez, we’ve got, I’ve got 15 catch
up coffee calls, being invited to in two days. And I’m like, I can’t do any
work and do those. And initially, I was looking at them thinking, well,
these are mandatory, I’ve got to attend all of these catch up things.
00:42:42,000 And then kind of reset my brain a little bit and go, no, this is, this is to
allow us to do that, not to insist that we do that. But it is really, I get
what you say with it is really difficult to think and going forward as well,
because I don’t think there is, in this for a very short period of time. I
think it’s going to change, and certainly for me as well, the way that we work is going to be more, I personally believe it will be more disconnected.
00:43:13,000 I think there will be more people who will choose to embrace the ability to work from home and work from where you need to rather than have
to be at a hub where you always have to be there. I think in my industry
anyway, I think in the IT industry, the ability to do a lot of it will
encourage a lot of people to do it. So that means we’re going to have to
learn new ways to keep that remote connection with teams as a default.
00:43:45,000 And that, as you say, we’ll all be rolling our sleeves up on zoom a lot of the time with these cutovers, because actually we don’t want Joe
traveling two hours. We can spend another two hours getting ready for
that cutover on that weekend. We’re going to be making those kind of decisions.
00:44:02,000 Yeah, and I think it’s going to take time, right? So I know when back in
March, I think it was when, certainly in the UK, the lockdown kind of
really kicked in. And I think it’s sort of excitement and, you know, bravada around, you know, remote working and how it’s the new normal and how everyone’s going to be working from home forever and
how easy it is and why have we never done it like this before and, you know, let’s shut down all the offices.
00:44:35,000 You know, that was kind of the tone. And I think across the likes of
social media now people are kind of raining back from that. And I think
people are starting to realize, well, actually I kind of like going and spending time with my team and, you know, I kind of like, you know,
going into the office every now and again. So I hope where we’ll end up
is will end up, you know, at some sort of practical hybrid model that says, well, you know, yes, we can work from home and for sure there are occasions where that makes complete sense.
00:45:06,000 But equally, you know, there needs to be a balance. And we also need to spend time as human beings interacting together with one another because you can’t, you know, defeat biology. And my view and I’ve
been reflecting on this over the last few months is that, you know, we
are first and foremost human beings. And typically, at least in most
cases, not all, enjoy the company of others. So I think we’ll end up, you know, it’s not rocket science, but we’ll end up in a kind of hybrid situation where, you know, we can pick and choose.
00:45:46,000 And I think, you know, you’re starting to see a little of that creeping in now in terms of, you know, teams are coming together, you know, maybe once a week. And, but, you know, more and more work is being
done remotely. So I think it will be a balance, at least I hope so because
I’m not sure I can stare at these four walls for the next 20 or years until
I, until I retire, no matter how many people I talk to on a TV screen.
Yeah, I think you’re right. And I think it’s, we were, I was asked what my
thought should be and it was kind of like, absolutely wasn’t going to be a hundred percent work from home.
00:46:22,000 And it isn’t something I’d want to do. I’d want to be in that position where I’m able to go in and, and build those relationships and keep
those relationships, but I wouldn’t necessarily do it. My gut feel is that I would probably spend more time working remotely than working in an
office is my gut feel. But that’s just me, and I think that’s the key thing
as well. I think from an individual’s point of view, different people will have a different level of need of interaction.
00:46:57,000 And then I think we got, go on, so you can say something. No, I was
just agreeing with you. I think that is absolutely the case. Not everybody
is the same. And, you know, I think my, my wife would be the first to
admit that, you know, she’d much prefer that. And I spend more time at home, at home, if that makes sense.
00:47:19,000 As opposed to at home, it can have in the office. And effectively, it’s no
different to her or the family, whether I’m sat in the office at home or sat
in the office elsewhere. I think, you know, it’s different people invest different amounts of time in in in their work.
00:47:43,000 And, you know, I think there’s no changing that regardless of whether
it’s remote or otherwise. Yeah, and I think the other thing they, as you
say is the capability that people have at home as well. And just a simple example, I was on a call earlier.
00:47:59,000 The family were out. So I was sat in the living room rather than locked
away in my little dungeon, got office that I’ve got. And the family come
in and the little and shout to me. And I think my wife said for it, he’s on
a call. And as I said later, well, if I’m on a call, and I have to be on a call, and they have to be, I have to have absolute silence.
00:48:22,000 I need to be sat in the office. I can’t be sat in the home environment and then everyone tiptoeing around me in the home environment. That’s
just that’s the wrong balance, isn’t it? If I’ve got to be somewhere quite a ton, I’ve got to, I do want to have background silence.
00:48:39,000 I’ve got a room with a door on my state isn’t the most. Wouldn’t want to
spend all my life in here. It feels like I’m sometimes when everyone
gone out the house, I tend to camp around different bits of the house
just to break up the, the muscular skeletal movement as well, if nothing else, but also just a, just a different.
00:48:57,000 Refresh on that, but again, it gets. That’s a balance and some people
don’t have that opportunity to do that. So again, I can understand why some people would desperately want to get back in the office.
00:49:08,000 Yeah, and I think I’ve probably suffered from that in a funny sort of way.
So I, I work from the end of the garden. So I’ve got an outhouse down
the bottom garden, which means I literally am by myself staring at four
walls. I don’t have the family coming or going because they’re in the, in the house.
00:49:28,000 I don’t have the dining room dramas or, you know, the kids coming in
and out. But you just have a bell when you want coffee, is it? Well, actually, it was them that I have my own kettle.
00:49:41,000 So literally, I am working in an office for one. So I absolutely have to, you know, kind of remind myself to get up and leave because
otherwise, you know, I’m effectively stuck in there for, I don’t know, 12,
14 hours a day if I’m not careful. So I think in some ways, I envy the
people that have found themselves in a situation where they’re having to work from a breakfast bar or maybe they’re working from a dining room.
00:50:09,000 And I know that mine sounds silly. But it’s not the same sort of isolation
as shutting itself away. So, you know, if this is the new normal, then,
you know, I’m actually considering how we reshuffle things such that maybe we moved the 16 year old into the outhouse and I’ll have his dead as my study.
00:50:32,000 So at least I see humans every now and again. I see plenty of wildlife,
but not many humans. Yeah, I think the thing that’s the thing with me, I
think I’ve got, unfortunately, where the little off is I’ve got has no windows except for the windows on the door.
00:50:51,000 So I get a little bit of traction of people going past the window on the
little door panel door thing, but I’ve got no, no, willed outside to look at. So we could have a hurricane going on outside the house, and I
absolutely no clue unless I’ve left this room. And so I kind of get to a
point now where if when I’m working, my wife doesn’t tend to bring me a cup of tea or cup of coffee because otherwise I won’t come out of here.
00:51:19,000 So I have to go ahead and go and get it. I play, even that’s a useful, a
useful thing to do. So back, we aren’t off on there, but I think it is that
you see for all of us within project management at the moment and all of us in working this, this, this current situation has been.
00:51:38,000 I think probably the single most up heaval in the way of working and thoughts about working I’ve experienced. It kind of, it pales into insignificance on things like when mobile phones are introduced because all that seem to come quite slowly and. But this and email
being introduced, but this is kind of just biggest single up heaval.
00:52:03,000 And back to my list of questions, so you talked about the fact that you
were selling makeup, you were selling beer, so you sound like you’re in
too good to interest in industries there complimentary in some ways as
well. What other industries have you dipped your toe? So I mean, it’s interesting. So I’ve done makeup and I’ve done beer.
00:52:25,000 So what’s the next obvious one to do after those two? I won’t make you guess. I’d like to say fast cars would come next, but but some cars came next. So having done the makeup and the beer, well, you know,
the next, I suppose, you know, very alpha male thing to do is go and work with some motor cars, right?
00:52:47,000 And the connection here really is is, is gluten, so I was in, I was in a, I was in a, gluten working for, for whip bread and there was an
opportunity that came up. Not quite next door, but almost at a voxel motors. So I moved across to voxel and spent two or three years
working, working at voxel in a similar role actually to the one whip bread in the sense.
00:53:16,000 I was kind of working with the dealers. So I went from grumpy area managers selling beer to grumpy dealers selling motor cars. My, my
role there was to look after the dealer systems. So as I’m sure you’re probably aware, the deal is are not employed by the voxel, the manufacturer there, they’re effectively franchises.
00:53:40,000 And my role was to work with the dealer network, we had about 650 or so back then and roll out the manufacturer systems. And so dealer
systems as we used to call them to the, to the dealer network. So that
was everything from, you know, configuring a car to, to buying a car to
the whole after sales operation. We even got involved in recommending the, the business systems, the accounting systems that the dealer network should, should ideally invest in.
00:54:16,000 That was quite interesting and I started out really just kind of rolling out
the regular sort of manufacturing systems to, to our dealers, but I was
there. I guess around about the time of the, the dot com boom. And we,
we actually were the first car manufacturer to, to sell a car online.
00:54:47,000 And I was involved in, in that project from, from an IT, kind of project
management point of view. So certainly wouldn’t claim to be, the whole
responsible, I played a, a very small part in that, but it was quite an
exciting project to be involved in as you can imagine it. And it was
fascinating to see the, the dramatic change really in the industry from,
you know, a model where, you know, the manufacturer basically builds the car and ships it.
00:55:20,000 And, and the dealer, you know, clearly, you know, sells the car to, to the
general public. And, of course, it was quite disruptive to, to introduce a
model where you could actually go on to. Voxel.com as it was back then
and configure your car online and, and actually by the car, seemingly from the, the manufacturer. Put the, he be, G is amongst our dealer network, as I’m sure you can imagine.
00:55:48,000 Yeah. But in reality, it wasn’t quite as scary as it may seem because
effectively we were using our dealer network to fulfill the orders anyway.
So it wasn’t, it wasn’t quite as, you know, much of a game changer as it
could be, but that was kind of my, my first sort of for a into into e commerce.
00:56:10,000 And frankly, a, a wholly enjoyable one given that, you know, all of a
sudden we were thrown into the limelight, I think we were runners up in
a, I think it is this team or a computer weekly, and kind of annual award.
For the, for the work that we did, and we lost out to a stockbrokers, which was, which was gutting. But nonetheless, yeah, we, we did some, some good work in the, in the e commerce space, whilst I was with, with, Voxel.
00:56:36,000 Yeah, well, I suppose it, yeah, and that, that time with it, with the, the
launching of those sort of things and online trading was, was one that
would be massive there, isn’t it? Is, is, with that sort of stuff and cars as
well, I suppose that when, when would that have been that would have been sort of like. 2000, 2008 something that will be earlier.
00:57:00,000 You’re testing me now, and that wouldn’t be 2008, but it’s going to be,
got to be early 2000s, isn’t it? If you give me two seconds and I’m going
to check is CV. My, well, you checks their CV these days, right? I’m going to have a quick LinkedIn.
00:57:17,000 I’m going to have a quick look on my own LinkedIn and remind myself
what I actually do in most of the life. So it was about 98, 98. Yeah, I did that. You know, ask me where I went next now, aren’t you? And if I hadn’t looked, I would have put it wrong.
00:57:34,000 It was kind of what, what other interesting industries you went into? So
just for fun, and I don’t want to bore the audience or indeed you, but given we’ve talked about make up, we’ve talked about beer, we’ve
talked about cars. Absolutely, kid, you know, this was not by design.
00:57:55,000 Where I went next was William Hill, the bookmakers. So they were into
betting. So basically anything anything that could be associated with the vice you got into.
00:58:08,000 You know, the funny thing was I was about to say the only thing I’ve not
got involved in is pornography and actually for reasons that we will
come on to that is not strictly true. That’s a very interesting story. Because otherwise I can’t really leave that hanging.
00:58:26,000 No, you can’t. Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Chris and I encourage you to come back next week to have a listen and find out the answer is to that little cliffhanger that Chris left there.
00:58:53,000 It’s interesting steps. As ever, thank you for listening to the podcast. 00:59:04,000 Thank you to everyone who downloads and shares, etc.
If you are minded to support the podcast, be internally grateful. And as I
always say easiest way to share it with your friends, like it on social media platforms, maybe put some couple of comments on your
thoughts. If you have time, pop along to whatever you’re listening to, this on Spotify app or Google, Amazon, whatever it is and give me a review.
00:59:30,000 Hopefully five stars. And a few comments and that helps other people
discover the podcast. If you are feeling a little bit flush, then grab a copy of one of your books available on Amazon, Apple, Google, the usual places.
00:59:53,000 That would be appreciated whether you want digital or paperback. I
think there are some paperback ones out there that aren’t signed, but they’re quite expensive compared to the ones that are signed. And I suppose that’s it really.
01:00:08,000 But I suppose more importantly, if you guys come back next month,
listen again and have a fantastic rest of your day. Thanks there. Bye.
Well it’s goodbye from me, Nigel Creaser, and it’s goodbye from him, the Sunday lunch PM.
01:00:30,000 Goodbye. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
