n<\/p>\n
9a7c903f2773101f56d655155c105a85.m4a<\/p>\n
00:00:00,000 [Music] Hi, this is Norge at the Sunday Lunch Project podcast for Sunday the 13th of September. This week we’ve got a second part of the Chris Field interview from<\/p>\n
00:00:25,000 early on in the month and we’ll get to find out some information with the
\ncliffhanger that we left them on. But first, quick word from sponsor request. [Music]<\/p>\n
00:00:45,000 So what’s been going on for the last couple of weeks? Being to very
\ninteresting conversations going on just the other day, I’m absolutely
\ndelighted to be featured on the UKMI UK chat this website. They have a
\nnew section there called podcast and if you want to, you can go there and listen to all the<\/p>\n
00:01:08,000 back catalog, most of the back catalog culture 2019. All in one place and in addition to that the PMI UK website has a vast array of resources from events that they put on many of which are free all
\naround the country or at the moment in virtual style but also education resources, information about<\/p>\n
00:01:35,000 membership etc and opportunities to volunteer so I highly recommend
\nyou pop along to that PMI.org.uk I think it is. So that’s the biggest bit of
\nnews. I had a great interview with Bruce Gay earlier this week which
\nabout ended the month which is fantastic as well. I have been, the last couple of weeks are children have gone<\/p>\n
00:02:00,000 back to school so that’s been a new experience for us all considering
\nit’s been almost six months since the last time they were properly at a
\nphysical school with a little, or in a few wrinkles on that. We’ve got, I’ve
\nbeen doing a little dekin, I have a dek outside my house which I’d like to go to<\/p>\n
00:02:23,000 rack and ruin for some time and it’s needed fixing so it’s been quite a
\nbig job. In fact I’m sat on it now sitting looking at a load of spiders
\nbuilding webs. I can see at least three, two of them, sorry, that isn’t one
\nbit. I’m sat in the sunshine outside which is great. That’s pretty much it from me. I’ll let you get on with the rest of the podcast
\n00:02:56,000 and hopefully it’s an intriguing cliffhanger we left you on last time. Enjoy
\nthe interview. Bye. Well, as you know, the funny thing was I was about
\nto 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.<\/p>\n
00:03:24,000 That’s a very interesting story. Is this playing because otherwise I can’t really leave that hanging. Is that lucrative period when you were working between universities or something like that?<\/p>\n
00:03:42,000 It’s a modern recipe. William Hill was great. I went in and I was the first
\never project manager. Who is this project manager and why on earth do we need them?<\/p>\n
00:03:55,000 My job was to really make the e-commerce department on the back of the successes that we’d had at General Motors. A little bit more respectable. This was back in the day when you had webmasters that were building massive, hugely successful websites. But they were running them under their desk. It was also new and fresh and fast moving.<\/p>\n
00:04:21,000 I think if I’m right, William Hill back then were looking to go public or have just gone public and they needed to demonstrate that they were capable of managing reasonably complex projects. So I went in and
\nintroduced a very simple methodology, introduced the team to projects
\nhaving a beginning, a middle and an end. Why it’s important that you have a plan, some of the basics.<\/p>\n
00:04:52,000 I was there about a year or so before I hopped again. It was a
\nthoroughly enjoyable year. It’s interesting to see actually the guys that I was involved with back then because they were pretty bleeding edge technologists have all moved on.<\/p>\n
00:05:08,000 Now I look up to them in their roles these days. They’re all heading up
\ntechnology, the likes of the BBC. There’s one guy who I think runs the
\nwhole of the SkyBet operation as well. So they’ve clearly gone to much
\nbigger and I wouldn’t say better, but certainly much bigger things than when we were together back in the day.<\/p>\n
00:05:30,000 But that is now, that’s a good 10 years ago. So it’s a while ago. So we’ll
\ncome on to the thing you’re there paying, we’ll keep it. Just thinking about the projects you’ve managed over your career.
\n00:05:49,000 What would you define as being? What was the largest project you did?
\nYou’ve heard me say, when I say largest, it’s not necessarily a financial
\nvalue or whatever it’s whatever felt the biggest thing that you did.<\/p>\n
00:06:05,000 And what do you think you learnt from it? So I need to be a little bit
\ncareful with how much I share on this for commercial reasons. If we go
\nwith value, but also complexity, then I was involved in an acquisition when I was working for a company called Project One, who are a kind
\nof small, but very, very successful transportation change consultancy.<\/p>\n
00:06:38,000 And it was a fascinating project. There were countless work streams, everything from legal through technology, through people, through
\nchange. Everything you can possibly imagine given it was effectively
\none organization or one business acquiring another. In fact, carve out of
\npart of a financial services organization. So it was huge in terms of the financial value and the complexity.<\/p>\n
00:07:07,000 But that’s not necessarily the reason I’m picking it because the contrast
\nthat I’m going to make is that, you know, regardless of whether or not I
\ntalk about the largest or the smallest project that I’ve been involved with, my answer would broadly be the same. And that is what makes
\nthe difference between the successful projects that I’ve been involved
\nwith and the ones frankly that I’ve got the most out of. Perhaps those that have been more of a struggle have always been the people.<\/p>\n
00:07:40,000 I don’t know that sounds a little bit naff and I’m sure it’s not the first time
\nthat it’s been said, but it’s so, so true. And I guess the best way can
\nexplain this is that if you’re working on a project with a team of people
\nwho are genuinely emotionally bought into wanting that project to be a
\nsuccess, then they will do whatever it takes. Regardless of whether or
\nnot they understand project management, regardless of whether or not they are, you know, the best of the best.<\/p>\n
00:08:13,000 You compare that with those situations where, you know, you think you’ve got the 18 and maybe you think you’ve got, you know, all the tools you could possibly ever imagine. Yeah, you know, the team are not committed, they’re not bought in for whatever reason that magic
\nsources and there. And it’s those projects that are the hard slog and it’s
\nthose projects that are likely to be the ones that are going to be the, the biggest struggle.
\n00:08:38,000 So it’s for that reason that I say it’s. For me anyway, it’s all about the, 00:08:47,000 it’s all about the people. Yeah.<\/p>\n
So you say some of those projects were difficult, some of them were
\nnot so. And it’s again, even when you’ve got a really difficult project,
\nhaving the people there, even if it’s as you say, it’s a hard slog in your hard slogging it together. You can get a lot out of that, can you?<\/p>\n
00:09:04,000 Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, sometimes you can turn them
\n00:09:11,000 around, right? So sometimes it’s that hard slog that makes the people.<\/p>\n
It’s not that, you know, it’s an either or scenario far from it. I mean, I can
\nthink of a couple of examples of where I’ve been in projects where, you know, we were really struggling. And, you know, it was only because
\nwe came together that we were able to turn that around and ultimately
\nnot only was the project a success, but people walked away feeling that they benefited something from the role that they had played in the
\nproject. That’s always nice to see, right? If people are walking away
\nfrom a project and they feel that, you know, whether they’ve got a new
\nskill or they feel that they’ve learned something new, or they’re just generally a better person as a result.<\/p>\n
00:09:49,000 Then for me, that’s a fantastic take away, you know, as well as the classic, you know, have we achieved the business case, have we
\nachieved time cross quality, all that good stuff. Now, it’s those projects,
\nI’m sure you see this too, where you stay in touch with those people, you know, whether it’s Facebook, whether it’s LinkedIn, you know,
\nwhether it’s, you know, I’m fashioned telephone. It tends to be those projects where you’ve absolutely clicked.<\/p>\n
00:10:18,000 And, you know, you’ve delivered something special and it’s felt special
\nand that buzz has been there. Where you stay in touch. You’re right.
\nThanks for the, I don’t have many of them, you know, where you run for the hills.<\/p>\n
00:10:32,000 And, you know, you frankly, you know, never want to speak to, you
\nknow, the individuals that were involved again and actually I can’t really
\nthink of very many certainly in my past where that’s been the case, but
\nI’m sure we all have a few in our closet. Yeah, I think you’re right. I think
\nyou will. And that’s it. I think that’s it’s not just project. It’s roles, it’s jobs, it’s departments.
\n00:11:00,000 There will be scenarios where the situation creates an environment
\nwhere that culture can’t become what it needs to be. And it kind of fix
\nme to the stuff that Colin Alice was talking about around the culture, the
\nfact that as a manager or a project manager or as a line manager or as
\nan organizational manager, you can’t drive a culture. You can put, you
\ncan have a comment of what the words are used, but it really, I found it
\nreally interesting. The fact that you got, you can have a really good team who work really well together.<\/p>\n
00:11:42,000 A really good cultural basis and a really solid, but I don’t actually
\nachieve very much because, but whilst as a group, they’re, they’re solid
\nand their culture is brilliant, but actually getting stuff done isn’t always
\ngoing to be easy to do. And it’s, it’s funny how you can get a culture can
\nhave a great group of people and just have one person in it can break
\nit. Is that be break that from a point of view of to break it to be a better
\nculture for achieving things or break a good culture to be a bad one.<\/p>\n
00:12:17,000 And it’s really weird to understand how, as a PM, how you can influence
\nthose as well. Well, I think it’s curious, isn’t it? Because I mean culture
\nfor me is, is, is massive and we could spend, you know, hours talking
\nonly about the, the topic of, of culture. But I think this is where, you
\nknow, the question is to whether or not a project manager is a manager or whether they’re a leader is, is fundamental.<\/p>\n
00:12:46,000 So, you know, those environments where all the disaster of the project
\nmanager is to is to manage and to tick the box. If you like, those for me
\nare the situations where, you know, perhaps, you know, the team will,
\nwill, will maybe struggle more than, you know, those situations where, you know, the project manager considered themselves to be more of a leader and provides the space and the support for the team to, you
\nknow, find, find that, that, that secret source or find the, the culture that works for them. And I guess, you know, one of the things that I’ve
\nalways seen as a, as a key element of a project manager’s role is, is
\nexactly that it’s, is providing the, the space and providing the, the support necessary to, to bring that team together.
\n00:13:45,000 It’s the classic, you know, if a project manager thinks that they’re the
\nbest, most capable expert on a project team. For me, that’s, you know,
\nnot necessarily the right approach, you know, for me, the, the rather the project manager is to recognize that their role is, is to surround themselves with those best, those most capable individuals in their
\nfields and provide the support and the space for them to be successful.
\nNow, is that the role of a project manager or is that the role of, you know, someone else to be discussed?<\/p>\n
00:14:23,000 But I think it’s, it’s fundamentally for me one of the differences between those projects that, you know, out now succeed and knows that, you
\nknow, struggle on and get by. Yeah, I agree, and I think that, but by
\ndoing that, I think you, you kind of got to, as you say with the managers that the commander control approach sometime, it will maybe get you those time cost quality elements, but identifying where you’ve got
\nopportunities for these really good people to continue to grow. For the
\npeople who are coming in who have the potential to be leaders in the organization to find them a chance to grow.<\/p>\n
00:15:07,000 And I think it’s in, I think I’ve always kind of thought that if someone’s
\nworking to me, that’s very for me, but within the project team, that they need. It’s important for me to help them leave the project better
\nequipped for the next project than they arrived at the project that I’m
\nmanaging. And I think if all project leadership roles do that, and I think a lot of people do.<\/p>\n
00:15:42,000 It makes it better for everyone, and that fact that you can, it feels that you’re, everyone wants to grow a bit, everyone wants to learn
\nsomething new, everyone wants to take control, but a little bit more risk than what they’ve got, because the end of the day, if you’ve got
\nsomeone doing a piece of work, it’s the same old, same old, same old,
\nsame old every time. It doesn’t help them, doesn’t help you, doesn’t
\nhelp the organization, doesn’t help society. No, absolutely, I think that
\nthat that’s spot on, and I think you are right. I think, you know, most,
\nwell, I like to think most project managers absolutely see that as part of their role.
\n00:16:19,000 I think maybe where there’s work to be done is educating those outside
\nof the role that it’s a part of what we do. I think, you know, unfortunately
\ntoo often, you know, project managers are seen as, you know, the plan, jockey. And I think, you know, that’s a shame because most people
\ndidn’t go into the project management profession to do that most went in because, you know, they, they see a much broader opportunity.<\/p>\n
00:16:51,000 So I think that needs to be well recognized and I think we need to play to people strengths more, more than sometimes is the case. Yeah,
\ngreat. But looking here, you talked about some of the pieces of work you’ve done or the different interesting exciting stuff.<\/p>\n
00:17:11,000 Let’s get on to something a bit more meaty. What was the biggest screw up that you’ve, you’ve managed or done maybe not manage is a
\nproject manager about your biggest screw up in your professional life.
\nAnd what did you learn from that? Or did you just have Jesus keep on
\nmaking that mistake? So this is the classic exam question where there’s an awkward silence where we try and dream something up that sounds credible.<\/p>\n
00:17:33,000 Yeah, because we’re trying to raise those things from our memory banks, right? Absolutely. So now you’re going to have the awkward silence, why try and think of something credible.<\/p>\n
00:17:43,000 So biggest screw up goodness me. Can I cheat and say can we come
\nback to that? Yeah, that’s fine. Yeah. That’s what I haven’t brought them is just that I can’t think of.<\/p>\n
00:18:05,000 I’m sure I mean, I don’t want to, I don’t want to sit here and say, I’m just, though, you know what, there’s never been such a thing. What a
\nridiculous question because clearly that’s not the case. I’m just trying to
\ngive a sensible example to, to discuss. That’s not a problem at all. Well,
\nwhile you’re thinking of that, you made this may help fuel it anyway.<\/p>\n
00:18:22,000 So on the kind of flip side of that, what would you say is your proudest?
\nThose two things, proudest project delivery. So of all those projects
\nyou’ve done, which when you kind of sit there, I think, yeah, that one made me feel.
\n00:18:36,000 Yeah, getting that over the line, me and the team, bril. But and also
\nwhat was your proudest project achievement, which not necessarily the
\ndelivery of the project itself, but during the execution of a project, what would you say would be your. The proudest achievement you’ve done had.<\/p>\n
00:18:54,000 So I think I mean, I’ve got lots of kind of memories of projects where
\nI’ve waterway thinking, you know, I really enjoyed that experience and
\nthe team, hopefully. I did too. And for me, that’s, you know, the sort of
\nkey measure. I guess it’s kind of taken for granted to some extent that, you know, we successfully delivered the project.<\/p>\n
00:19:18,000 There will have been ups and downs, but if the team walk away, you
\nknow, feeling that we’ve achieved something, I think that for me is key.
\nThere is one, and I’m really to this day, still not entirely sure why this
\none always stands out in these sorts of conversations, but there was a,
\nthere was a project I was involved with for a large utility company when
\nI was working at a TCS, Tata, I spent 13 years or so working with, with TCS. And it was a really mixed team. So we had the customer. So the utility company, we had TCS, we had a number of other third party suppliers, all kind of in the mix.<\/p>\n
00:20:04,000 And it goes back to something that we thought about earlier, but for
\nsome reason, we all kind of came together and we left our, I kind of
\nbadges at the door, if you like. Yeah, really just, you know, put the
\nproject first. And I was the, I was the, the program manager, in fact, on
\nthis. So we had a couple of other project managers that were involved. And the experience that we had as a team was such that, you know,
\nkind of goes without saying that we delivered the project eventually, not without some challenges, but, you know, we’ve absolutely stayed in touch.<\/p>\n
00:20:43,000 A number of people remain very close personal friends to this day. There are a number of the team that, you know, and now kind of, you know, mentor, mentee. And that has continued. And it was on several
\nlevels. So I think the team just really hit it off because one, we had
\nsome very, very capable people. So there’s no denying that capability was, was a factor. But everyone shared, you know, a real sort of
\ncommitment to delivering the project. But I think above all else, and this is a funny sort of thing to say.
\n00:21:25,000 Everyone shared the same sense of fun. And, you know, recognize that yes, everyone was prepared to work really hard and boy, we worked
\nhard. But in that, you know, there was still time for, you know, people to to enjoy themselves and, and build, you know, what have become, you
\nknow, close professional and personal relationships. And it’s slightly
\nunprofessional example, but it might give you a silly sense of the, the relationship. So it was actually was an SAP implementation.<\/p>\n
00:22:03,000 So, you know, inevitably with these things, they tend to be quite large cut over window. So this thing was over over a weekend. And we
\nactually had an indoor, kind of nonstop cricket competition running the
\nentire duration of the cut over effectively just to keep people’s spirits up
\nand provide some sort of, you know, silly outlet effectively. Probably
\nbreaking, you know, no end of rules, you know, having this thing going
\nin the corridor last were also deeply committed to getting this, this cut
\nover over the, over the line. But I think it was just the, the camaraderie
\nand the, I guess shared values really that the team had that made such a massive difference.<\/p>\n
00:22:55,000 There were some silly things that we did, you know, the textbooks tell
\nyou that it’s important to have, you know, team names and, and project
\nlogos and t-shirts with, you know, the name of the project on well, they
\nactually did most of those things. And I was a little bit cynical. But the
\nfunny thing is that actually when all said and done it was by far one of
\nthe most successful projects that certainly I’ve been involved with. So, you know, there must be some method in the in the madness.<\/p>\n
00:23:25,000 Yeah, I think I think you, you know, sort of things you’ve got your, that,
\nthat, that, that, and not the same, but similar, I’ve seen, but you create
\nthat shared identity. And as you say that, that shared identity of the
\nproject. That, that smaller group in the sort of like, you know, the organizational,<\/p>\n
00:23:51,000 theory, and all that, it’s you form groups anyway. And that’s what we do naturally as humans. And if you’ve got something that you can hook around you as a group. From a big organization like Tata, a big organization from, from, I guess you know, sap there or from the customer organization.
\n00:24:11,000 Those, those big organizations that you not feel part as an individual as
\npart of that group. And this subgroup of being this project by doing those things you talk about there kind of creates that connection,
\ndoesn’t it? And then you become like, that’s mine, my latest group that
\nI’m with, like your football team, like your friends that you are the pub with, I choose the employee in the dark team, whatever.<\/p>\n
00:24:34,000 You know, you know, it’s, it’s another one of those. And by investing
\nthat time in creating that group. That’s, that’s what, that’s where you get the payback, don’t you? And that culture.<\/p>\n
00:24:47,000 Absolutely, but without forcing it, if you like. Yeah, and I think, look,
\nwe’re talking a little bit about sort of my experiences and, and inevitably,
\nyou know, a lot of that is, is, is about project management. And I think, you know, just to stress that.<\/p>\n
00:25:04,000 For me, you know, on that particular project part of the role of the
\nproject manager is about, you know, looking for ways in which to make
\nthat happen. So, the reason I consider that to be one of my successes
\nis that, you know, there was no rocket science, but, you know, creating
\nthe environment in which projects can be successful is a term I use an
\nawful lot in several different ways, whether I’m, you know, describing the role of a PMO, or whether I’m describing the role of a project
\nmanager, but, but ultimately that’s really what it comes down to for me.<\/p>\n
00:25:42,000 I think that that’s, you know, for me, a way of kind of summing up the
\nrole that we all play when it comes to project management. It’s about,
\nyou know, spotting opportunities to create that environment, no matter
\nwhat that might be, you know, whether it’s introducing a level of fun,
\nwhether it’s sending a bunch of people on a training course, whether it’s
\nfinding somebody different because someone doesn’t fit or they don’t
\nhave the skills. That that that’s what project management is about for
\nme. It’s not the, I hate to say it again, but it’s not the tick box mentality, which, you know, is is kind of almost taken for granted as a as a hygiene factor for me, you know, someone shows up, you know, they need to be able to run a plan.<\/p>\n
00:26:27,000 That’s not what it’s about. That was the first question. I think you asked the second question around. It was around sort of like not from a
\nproject delivery, just your proudest achievement in in projects in your career.
\n00:26:43,000 So whether that might have been the mentoring of one person that might have been, I don’t know. Do you know mean it could be any. So
\nthis is, so I’m going to take the opportunity to just I guess introduce the, the PMI Rob. We’ve not spent an awful lot of time.<\/p>\n
00:27:00,000 Well, it’s good because that’s my next question anyway. All right. So
\noften when I talk about my role with PMI, I describe it that my, my, my, my day job is project management and my, my hobby is project management and my passion is also project management.<\/p>\n
00:27:19,000 Which is kind of sad. And I accept that. Unfortunately, there aren’t any 00:27:29,000 kind of project management anonymous clubs that I can go to.<\/p>\n
So the next best thing was the PMI. So basically, as you mentioned in
\nthe introduction, I’ve been involved with PMI for, for, for. A scary
\nnumber of years now, I think I originally joined when I was at gym room, motor, so voxel about 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
00:27:48,000 And I’ve been volunteering ever since. Currently, I am the chair and I
\nprefer the term chair to president. I know you mentioned this earlier, but
\nI think president sounds a little bit grandiose. So so I, I, where I can, I use the term chair, rather than.<\/p>\n
00:28:05,000 I look after the PMI UK chapter. So we have about 3000 slightly more than 3000 members in the UK. And effectively, as many people will
\nknow, we, we run. Kind of networking events. We are heavily involved in promoting professional development and promoting project management and both individually and.<\/p>\n
00:28:34,000 And really, that has to, you know, be my, my sort of overall proudest
\nachievement in. In project management, because of the contribution, I
\nthink that we have made collectively as a, as a UK chapter to, to project
\nmanagement in, in the UK. And perhaps just to break that down a little bit in terms of specifics.<\/p>\n
00:29:02,000 Certainly some of the things that we’ve done, whilst I’ve been
\nresponsible for the, for the chapter, we, we introduced. 10 years or so ago now. A, an event.<\/p>\n
00:29:15,000 Called Synergy. So Synergy was introduced as a celebration of the
\ncontribution that project management makes. And frankly to, to all of
\nour daily lives in, in various ways, you know, whether it’s, you know, standing up the nightingale hospitals, as we’ve seen recently. 00:29:36,000 That’s ultimately project management. You know, whether it’s, you
\nknow, smaller, but nonetheless, equally significant projects. Again, you know, project management is, is involved. So.<\/p>\n
00:29:48,000 We set Synergy up about 10 years ago and it’s run every year since it’s
\nkind of a flagship event. I think it’s reasonably well known now within
\nthe profession as one of. The kind of flagship annual events that the profession runs and we’ve had, you know, anything up to. You know, 758 hundred people attend in, in, in previous years. And, you know, we’ve had all manner of people come along and, and speak.<\/p>\n
00:30:18,000 We’ve had Princess Anne has attended in the past. Ken Livingstone. 00:30:28,000 So, you know, the past mayor of London, you’ll, you remember.<\/p>\n
And all sorts of, you know, can a household names. So I’m, I’m
\nparticularly proud of that. And more recently. We, we introduced the PMI UK national project award.<\/p>\n
00:30:45,000 I’m somewhat say not before time. It’s something we’ve talked about for
\na very long time. But last year we ran them for the first. The first time ever. So they were held in London. We had something approaching 200 people attend. And we, we ran a, a kind of black tie for more award ceremony.<\/p>\n
00:31:05,000 Recognizing the contribution that project management has made. Both
\nin the public and the private sectors. We’re running the award again this year. So it was a, as well certainly it was considered a success.<\/p>\n
00:31:23,000 We partnered with PWC last year and I’m delighted that PWC
\nconsidered the awards last year enough of a success to partner with is
\nagain this year. In fact, they’ve increased their involvement. So I’ve got
\nnothing but gratitude for their support. And this year in actual fact, in many ways it’s more important.<\/p>\n
00:31:44,000 And if I can use this as a little bit of an opportunity to, to promote what we’re doing. So we have introduced an additional award this year,
\nwhich frankly is way way more important than perhaps the other awards not to demean them anyway in any way. And that is we, we want to
\nrecognize the contribution the project management has made to the last sort of six months or so.
\n00:32:15,000 So kind of the, the COVID-19 situation. So we’ve actually called it the COVID-19 response award. And we’re encouraging nominations from
\nall walks of life. I mentioned a couple of examples earlier of the sorts of things that might be, might be relevant.<\/p>\n
00:32:34,000 And we absolutely want to recognize those projects that have made a
\nconsiderable contribution in very difficult circumstances over this last.
\nAnd so, six months or so. So really pleased that we’re able to run the
\nawards again this year. And even more pleased that we’re able to in a small way.<\/p>\n
00:32:56,000 Recognize the contribution that the project management and
\norganizations have made in this in the last, this last six months. And
\nnominations are open now. We will be judging the awards this year, but
\nfor obvious reasons, we’ll be running the award ceremony in March of
\nof next year. And I’m delighted actually that this year, or rather March of next year, PWC have agreed to host the awards on their premises.<\/p>\n
00:33:37,000 And then we’ll be doing the award ceremony in central London. So
\nreally looking forward to that and genuinely optimistic that we can use it
\nas an opportunity to recognize and thank some of the projects that have
\nmade such a contribution over the, over the last, as I say, the last few months. And I’m going to answer to a short question. But that’s
\nprobably the contribution that I’m most proud of over the last, over the
\nlast 20 odd years, not least because effectively, I’m been honest to me when I agreed to do this all those years ago.<\/p>\n
00:34:20,000 It amounts to what is effectively a second full time job. So evening and weekend is is PMI work. And then evening weekend and daytime is is day job. So you can imagine trying to squeeze everything in is sometimes a little bit of a challenge.
\n00:34:42,000 Yeah, and I know that when we’ve talked over linked in a different times on, there’s always been one or a hundred things that you’ve been
\njuggling at the same time and then seeing that you’ve got. I know you
\nwere presenting at certain things. I know your judge in the global PMO
\nlines towards is it and things like that. So you’re, you’re, as I said at the beginning, you’re, I said it in the UK is a mover and shaker in the
\nproject management world. Internationally you are obviously recognized as well and the passion that you have certainly when I came on in November down to the, the synergy and I’m kind of ashamed, but I understand why I didn’t.<\/p>\n
00:35:23,000 This is the first time I’d been to one, but absolutely gutted that there
\nwon’t be one this year because I kind of gone right, I need to reserve November to be down at the next synergy event because I found it
\nabsolutely incredible. The information, the passion and the people was
\njust really, really sort of, you know, sometimes these kind of events, you
\nknow, they give you a shot in the arm. And, and you kind of make you
\nthink actually, I’m not alone because it can be alone, even with a group
\nof other project managers, sometimes it can be quite a lonely sort of
\nthing, but getting input from other people and just being able to catch up with people that.<\/p>\n
00:36:05,000 In that instance, I hadn’t caught up with myself and with likes a Gordon and actually November has created quite a few interviews for this
\npodcast. So, yeah, that’s that synergy event was very, very critical for
\nthis year. Yeah, I mean, I’m absolutely delighted that you think that and
\nthere’ll be many people that will perhaps not appreciate what I’m about to say, but I think.<\/p>\n
00:36:33,000 One of the reasons that were perhaps not running synergy this year
\nand it’s nothing to do with COVID is that in some ways, it’s kind of run
\nits course. So, we said it up 10 years ago and when we said it up, there
\nreally wasn’t anything quite like it and I talked about, you know, 758,
\n100 people attending and we’ve seen numbers decline. So, certainly in
\nNovember last year, we didn’t have anything like that. It was probably 300, maybe 400 at the very best.
\n00:37:09,000 So, I think, you know, at the moment, we are doing some soul
\nsearching in terms of how we move it on. So, the things that we like to
\nthink that we can do as the PMI UK chapter is we can, we can innovate and we can be quite destructive because when all this sudden done,
\nwe’re a group of volunteers. We’re very fortunate that we are funded by by PMI to do what we do, but we don’t have the commercial pressures that many organizations do.<\/p>\n
00:37:42,000 We like to take advantage of that and consider ourselves to be, you
\nknow, kind of a little bit more flexible, a little bit more nimble if you like
\nin terms of what we do. And in terms of synergy, when we originally set it up 10 years ago and I’ll never forget where and when. There were three others sat in a bar in Milan of all places.<\/p>\n
00:38:07,000 All the best ideas come from three people. But the aspiration was, and this is where synergy comes from is that we wanted synergy to be a
\nforum for not just PMI, but for the effective you, the round table of
\nprofessional bodies that have an interest in project management. So, you know, back to, you know, King Arthur’s sort of round table, we expected or hoped that the PMI APM, RICS BCS would all back the
\nevent and, you know, despite best efforts to promote that as division.<\/p>\n
00:38:53,000 Unfortunately, we’ve not quite nailed that in 10 years of running the
\nevent. So, I think, you know, what we’re now doing is is reflecting on where we go next. Clearly, the awards are something new and fresh.
\nWe brought those in last year, they will continue. Now in the process of
\ntrying to, I guess come up with the child, if you will, of synergy. So whether that’s, you know, synergy 2.0 or whether it’s something completely different.<\/p>\n
00:39:33,000 But I think, you know, ultimately what we’re trying to do is to provide a platform to promote project management and promote the profession
\nfirst. And it just so happens that we’re using our role as the PMI UK
\nchapter to do that. And certainly what we don’t want to do is flip that
\nparadigm, if you like, and use it solely as a vehicle to promote the PMI chapter, because that’s not what we’re about.
\n00:40:03,000 What we’re about is promoting the profession and putting the
\nprofession first ahead of any of the politics that may come of being a
\npart of one of a number of different professional bodies. Yeah, and I
\nthink I think I get that. It’s that that whole, the different professional
\nbodies and each professional body has a mindset of where they want to go and what they see is the value and how they can add to it. And I quite often have the conversation with people who have asked me,
\nwhich one’s best and it’s kind of that’s kind of, it’s not the right question.<\/p>\n
00:40:40,000 Is is is the is what I would say to people on those it’s kind of depending
\non what you want it all the answers always depends. But all of them do
\na fantastic job of trying to move the project management profession to be better and give more tools, give more knowledge, more get better project management out there and better project management results.
\nAnd I think that the I’ve seen some of the things that you’ve got on there
\nis that obviously on a lot of the events that you run whilst they’re run by the UK chapter.<\/p>\n
00:41:19,000 And then this is probably something just just say to people is that check
\nout the UK chapter because there are events there that are just open to
\nanyone. Certainly in this virtual time that you just say right come along
\nand you promote other events say just come along and I know that lots of these events now are against the point where it’s. There’s some
\nvaluable stuff for people to get information from and without necessarily being a member of the PMI or member of the chapter and it kind of supports that.<\/p>\n
00:41:45,000 That’s the goal that you have of lifting all the ships isn’t a rising tide lifts
\nall ships doesn’t it? Well, absolutely, I mean, we we’ve been I suppose,
\nyou know, very lucky if that’s the right word over the course of the last few months in that we have a very successful program of online or
\ndigital events that existed before COVID, but we had the platform on
\nthe ability to ramp that up pretty quickly. And so again, this has all been done by by our volunteers and certainly one or two individuals in particular.
\n00:42:27,000 So we’ve been able to move from the kind of sort of physical events
\nthat we ran to running a program of digital events very, very quickly.
\nAnd benefited from that in the sense that we have now become and this was never planned, but we’ve become something of a flagship amongst
\ncertainly PMI chapters as to how to run a successful program of online
\nevents and through that and the connections that we’ve made. And the
\nright that we’ve now been able to actually combine forces and the best
\nexample that I can give of that is that we are now part of a seven way
\ncollaboration of chapters around the world who come together to offer
\nonline events completely free of charge to anyone who frankly cares to to join them.<\/p>\n
00:43:29,000 And the chapters are a little bit of a mixed bag, so we’ve got Mumbai,
\nwe’ve got the Czech Republic, we’ve got the Netherlands, South Africa,
\nSouth Florida, the UK and Sri Lanka. So, you know, massively diverse
\nin terms of where we are and frankly time zones, which is a bit of a
\nheadache. But the interesting thing that we all have in common is that you know what we just want to do what’s right for the profession.<\/p>\n
00:43:58,000 So, you know, we’re not making any commercial gain from this. It’s costing a lot of volunteer time to make it happen. But what we are
\nseeing is a massive uptick in demand for these events so much so that we’ve had to actually invest in a considerably larger license.<\/p>\n
00:44:24,000 So, such that everyone who wants to join these events is able to do so.
\nSo, whilst it’s free of charge to the individuals that join these events, we’ve made a considerable investment in terms of the platform. So, such that everyone who wants to join can do so.<\/p>\n
00:44:42,000 And frankly, that’s a fantastic example for me of what a professional
\nbody should be about. We’re not trying to sell anything. We’re not trying
\nto charge admission. It’s all about bringing like-minded individuals together who want to learn and to grow the project management profession.<\/p>\n
00:45:03,000 So, I mean, it’s fantastic to watch this happen and see the number of
\nchapters get involved. And of course, that’s one of the benefits that PMI
\nhas as a global organization in terms of being able to bring different
\ncommunities together from from all over the world. And do this sort of
\nthing. And there are very few organizations out there who are really in a position to do that.
\n00:45:26,000 Yeah, see that. Well, I’m coming to my last few questions now. So, 00:45:38,000 these are my kind of last bits of nuggets.<\/p>\n
What’s the last project management book that you’ve read? I’m a
\nterrible reader. So, I have all best intentions when it comes to reading books.<\/p>\n
00:45:52,000 And unfortunately, I- The honest truth is I’ve moved to audible books. 00:46:01,000 That’s reading as far as I’m concerned.<\/p>\n
But the admission is that I really get beyond, you know, the first chapter
\nbefore I, I nod off. So, they’re great therapy, but not particularly educational. And the, the, no word of a lie.<\/p>\n
00:46:16,000 And Peter will love me for this. The last book, project management
\nbook anyway that I read cover to go was the, the lazy project manager by Peter Taylor. And that was, you know, some time ago, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t do that.<\/p>\n
00:46:32,000 Well, I would have been, you know, two, three years back. And I’m just,
\nas we’re talking, I’m just, I’m just reached for it from the bookshelf. And
\nI’ve got a, I’ve got a signed copy from, from Peter here, if the, of the book.<\/p>\n
00:46:48,000 Which I won’t forget he was selling at the back of one of our synergy
\nconferences out of a cardboard box. Back in the day when when no one really knew who he was. And of course, he’s gone on to bigger and better things since and good luck to him.<\/p>\n
00:47:03,000 That was the last book that, that I certainly managed cover to cover. And if you haven’t read it, then I would absolutely recommend it
\nbecause if I can get to the end, then that says an awful lot about how
\neasy it is to read. But it’s kind of stuck with me as well in terms of some of the advice.<\/p>\n
00:47:21,000 So very much recommend that, that you, you take a look if you haven’t done so already. Yeah, I completely echo that sentiment. What about the last project management podcast that you listen to?<\/p>\n
00:47:37,000 So the last project management podcast. So I guess, Trisby told, did a
\nlittle bit of research in terms of the sorts of questions that you might be asking me. I guess you get this a lot.
\n00:47:52,000 So the podcast that you did with, with Gordon, Gordon, Kehler. He was
\na good friend of mine actually. So, so Gordon, great guy. One of the role
\nmodels from, from PMI in the UK when I joined all those years ago, 20 years ago was a volunteer.<\/p>\n
00:48:12,000 Gordon was on the board of the, the PMI UK chapter running event up
\nand down the, the UK. To be honest, I’m not sure that we’ve ever really
\nemulated the quality of event and the rigor that he put into those events
\nfrom way back. So I’m delighted that actually recently he’s, he’s got back involved.<\/p>\n
00:48:36,000 So yeah, that was, that was the last podcast. And the project
\nmanagement related. And again, that, that, that interview was off the
\nback of Synergy. Gordon and I were on the UK chapter on the Midlands area many years ago, 15 years ago, whatever it was.<\/p>\n
00:48:53,000 And we discovered that we lived almost about six miles from each
\nother. Right at the time and we said, oh, we’ll have to go and have a
\ncoffee, something or a pint. Yeah. And then 15 years later at Synergy, we had a pint together.<\/p>\n
00:49:07,000 I didn’t realize there’d been 15 years between the first one we
\nmentioned and that. Well, we had kind of odd, odd linked in chats every
\nso often, but very, very infrequent. And yeah, we, we chat away and it
\nwas kind of like, oh, yeah, and we’ve, we’ve subsequently been out and had a couple of beers and I managed to persuade him to come on the
\npodcast because he was didn’t really want to be on it, but yeah, it was, again, that was a very brilliant part of Synergy.<\/p>\n
00:49:35,000 What’s the last project management blog of the U of red? Ah, so that’s
\ninteresting. So until recently, I probably wouldn’t have had an answer,
\nbut as it happens, I’ve been doing a little bit of research these past couple of days and actually gone back to.<\/p>\n
00:49:56,000 And I’m a friend of mine and checked out her blog. So I’ve actually been
\nlooking at Elizabeth Harren’s blogs. So Elizabeth runs a sort of project
\nmanagement blog, or in fact, various blogs and one of hers specifically stakeholder management is something that I’ve been looking at the
\npast couple of days. And it would have been one of hers. I’m trying to remember the name of the actual blog to give her a bit of a plug. 00:50:31,000 It’s the project management. Yeah, good. So trouble by calling it something and then realizing that it’s completely wrong and totally
\nsexist, but I think I’m right in saying it’s the girl’s project management.<\/p>\n
00:50:44,000 Yeah, it is. I think I think she had some name changes on some stuff
\nthat she was doing, but I think you can still get through it from that.
\nOkay, so I have a final question. But we still haven’t heard your teaser answer to your teaser.<\/p>\n
00:51:01,000 So what if you can incorporate it in your answer or not, tell us and leave
\nus hanging till another interview in a few years. Absolutely qualified my
\nearlier comment. Go on and qualify your earlier comment, and then I’ll ask you my last question.<\/p>\n
00:51:16,000 Okay, so last two questions. Sorry, all right, I’m conscious that we’re
\nprobably other running. So I’ll keep this brief, but so far we’ve talked about beer. We’ve talked about cars. We’ve talked about vetting and
\nwe’ve talked about makeup. So we talked a little bit about pornography
\nand the fact that that would clearly be the next obvious career move.<\/p>\n
00:51:38,000 So in reality, I spent about 12 months working for a fairly small but
\nhighly successful streaming video company. And the story is as follows, I joined to actually head up their project management organization, which I did. But I was also asked by the owner of the company who
\nhappened to be the chief exec, whether or not I would help him out in
\nterms of getting involved with a small part of the business over in North America, which was struggling.<\/p>\n
00:52:17,000 So I spent a little bit of time over in Atlanta, in fact, in North America. Turns out that the business unit was a subscriber based streaming
\nvideo product, a little bit like YouTube, but this was corporate. So if
\nyou’re a large corporation and you want to stream video, then you could subscribe to the platform and we will provide the service.<\/p>\n
00:52:42,000 And of course, this is where the link comes in the two biggest
\ncustomers that the organization had had in the past, I stress in the past had been one, the evangelist community in North America. So
\nstreaming the kind of evangelists, so the religious evangelists and the second, of course, I say, of course, was streaming of pornography.
\nNow, thankfully, before I arrived and no word of a lie, before I arrived, they had got out of the porn industry.
\n00:53:25,000 But you can imagine, I mean, this, this, this, this, this beggars belief, but
\nwe literally built, whilst I was working for the organization, a monitoring
\ncenter, a video monitoring center, a bit like, you know, the, I guess the, the scenes you see of ITV and BBC where they have banks and banks
\nand banks and banks of, of TV screens, where you’re monitoring shows
\nthat are being broadcast and the quality of what’s being broadcast in
\nterms of the signal. So we built one of these things and a comment that was made to me when we were doing this was, can you only imagine
\nthe difficulty that we had where we had people in there trying to monitor
\nreligious programs at the same time as monitoring well, you know what.
\nSo that’s the link in terms of the, the industry that will not get another
\nmention, because we’ve mentioned it way too many times, but just for
\nthe record, I would like to state that there is a link, but thankfully they had got out of that business long before I was involved.<\/p>\n
00:54:33,000 So, as a final couple of questions, what would you, what would your top
\ntip be for a season to PM that’s out there? What would my top tip to goodness me? So, I think, what I would probably say, and I hadn’t
\nwritten anything down or really considered this, so I’m going to share
\nthe first thing that comes into my head, which is probably. The, the most
\nhonest way of approaching this, I would say it’s about listening to your team.<\/p>\n
00:55:14,000 And I know I’ve taught a lot about people and I’ve taught a little bit
\nabout culture and how important that is certainly in my experience. I’m
\nnot a great listener, I’ve been told that many times, I recognize that
\nthat’s not perhaps a string, but I also recognize how important it can be. So, I guess both personally and professionally, my recommendation would be, you know, listen to your team, because they are eyes and ears.<\/p>\n
00:55:44,000 And, you know, if there’s a concern or if they’re telling you something, the chances are, there’s something in it. And I think, you know,
\nsometimes there’s a risk that, you know, project manager knows best. And actually, in my opinion, that’s really the case.
\n00:56:06,000 You know, if I one day write a book and hopefully no one will steal this
\nnow that I’m going to share this, it will probably be titled, you know,
\nproject manager knows best. Of course, ironically, because in my view,
\nthat’s very rarely the case. Yeah, you’ve kind of thrown an image of the mother in tangled singing that now and you in that homework, doing that, but that’s just me.<\/p>\n
00:56:33,000 I’m going to leap back to my eight year old daughter. She’s the singer,
\nnothing. Yeah, it’s very enough. So, the last question, on that first
\nproject or early projects that you started working on for kind of the proctor and gamble, wasn’t it?<\/p>\n
00:56:52,000 Or maybe the whip red ones. Your first day when you realize you’re
\ndoing project management, what, what, what would you, your advice be to you now? What would you say to yourself then?<\/p>\n
00:57:13,000 This is going to be a really boring answer, but I think I’m going to repeat
\nmyself. In terms of the, the kind of the, the listen more talk less mantra.
\nOnly because someone actually told me after my full say that might be a good idea.<\/p>\n
00:57:32,000 Fair enough. So just that just that just peak, I don’t know if. The way the phrasing that you use that have you been watching the Hamilton
\nmusical by any chance on Disney? My wife, in fact, my family generally, other than me, seem to be obsessed with it because we all obsessed as well.<\/p>\n
00:57:50,000 I must admit, I perhaps I should because seemingly it’s far better than
\nI’m giving it credit for, but I haven’t really paid enough a lot of attention.
\nIt’s, it’s, it’s just what you’ve obviously threw through Osmosis picked up
\nthat line because it, one of the lines in the song is. It is almost identical to what you said.<\/p>\n
00:58:11,000 Oh, really talk, talk less this and more. I’m starting to feel that we need
\nto create a project management musical here. We’ve talked a couple of times about, you know, waiting for my work.<\/p>\n
00:58:26,000 So I have a couple of songs in my, in my second book that could be 00:58:38,000 used. So, there you go. And I’m potentially working on some more.<\/p>\n
So that is all my questions. Chris, thank you so much for giving me so much time. I really appreciate it.
\n00:58:46,000 It’s been an absolutely fascinating interview. And I know that obviously
\nPMI is, is your and the project management profession is your passion
\nand you light up even more when you start talking about it. If people
\nwant to get in touch with you, I want to find out more about the PMI UK chapter, get involved with it, maybe volume two, whatever.<\/p>\n
00:59:10,000 What’s the best contact details to get hold of you and find out more? Yeah, absolutely. So we have a website and I’d please suggest that that’s a good place to start.<\/p>\n
00:59:24,000 So the PMI UK chapter website is PMI dot org dot UK. And don’t forget the dot UK because you will find yourself on the global website
\notherwise. So PMI dot org dot UK is a good place to start this and some contact details on there.<\/p>\n
00:59:48,000 And please do by all means reach out. And if there’s anything I’ve said
\nthat interests anyone or you just want to find out more about what we
\ndo to PMI then by all means feel free to reach out and I’m very happy to point you in the right direction. Brilliant.<\/p>\n
01:00:07,000 Well, thank you very much Chris. You’re an absolute star and have a wonderful evening. No, thank you. It’s been enjoyable. We should do this more often.<\/p>\n
01:00:22,000 Yeah, absolutely. So that wraps up this week’s episode. Thanks Chris 01:00:37,000 again for sharing your time with us.<\/p>\n
And I hope you all enjoyed that and I’m sure you did enjoy that interview. The next one is Bruce Gaye and that will be in a couple
\nweeks. So if you haven’t hit subscribe and then you’ll automatically get that in your in your hopper when you when it comes in.<\/p>\n
01:00:58,000 As ever, if you want to support the show, the usual groups, please
\nshare with your friends. The biggest one, get more people listening to
\nbe brilliant. If you would like to write a review or not have a platform
\nyou’ll listen pop onto whatever it is and just give us a lovely five star review, review would be beautiful. You can grab a copy of one of my books which will help pay full stuff as well.<\/p>\n
01:01:24,000 And we have the Patreon page which you can contribute to also. That’s great. Any of those most welcome but more importantly, if you come
\nback next time and have a listen again. So that’s all for me and have a great rest of your day. Bye.
\n01:01:46,000 Well, it’s goodbye from me, Nigel Creaser and it’s goodbye from him, the Sunday lunch pm. Goodbye. [Music] (gentle music)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
n 9a7c903f2773101f56d655155c105a85.m4a 00:00:00,000 [Music] Hi, this is Norge at the Sunday Lunch Project podcast for Sunday the 13th of September. This week we’ve got a second part of the Chris Field interview from 00:00:25,000 early on in the month and we’ll get to find out some information with the cliffhanger that we left them on. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcripts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigelcreaser.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}