Time Limit

“If there's an accountability problem in an organization, there's also an internal relationship problem between the people working together in that organization.”

You’ve heard it 1,000 times: Team accountability makes projects run smoother. It’s true, it does. But why? Accountability is a personal issue. We are accountable to others, and it’s up to us and only us as individuals to hold ourselves accountable. To others. To our organizations. To our work. To ourselves.

There’s a lot more to it, and this interview with accountability and leadership expert, author, and speaker Sam Silverstein covers a lot of ground. It may even make you rethink the way you think and talk about accountability. 

• What is accountability?
• The values that define an organizational culture
• How leaders can be accountable, and help people be accountable
• Team accountability and what it takes to get there
• Inspiring greatness in others

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• No More Excuses and Sam’s other books on leadership and accountability
• Accountable Leadership Is Leadership that Creates a Safe Place to Work on Sam’s blog

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“Design Operations is tactical, it’s strategic design thinking, it's project management, but it's really this lens on combining business and design thinking to one role.”

A new role has been emerging in the tech and product space, and it’s one that looks a whole lot like project or program management but focuses on design. It’s called Design Operations, and it’s picking up a lot of steam, so you may have seen it rolled out in your organization or others. We wanted to dig in on the topic to explore what is design operations, what does someone in design operations do, and how does design operation help projects and teams?

That’s a lot of questions! Thankfully, Philip Rowe, a UX Program Manager at Google, joined us on the show to explain it all. With a experience working as a project manager and a UX designer, Philip is perfectly positioned to discuss the topic. He and Brett cover a lot of ground in the interview, including:

• What is design operations?
• How design operations works at Google
• How teams interact with design operations folks
• The skills needed to take on a design operations role
• Design Thinking and other design-focused processes
• Cultivating a healthy team culture
• OKRs and how they’re used at Google

Resources mention in the interview:

• Design Operations: Scaling Design Teams & Amplifying Impact, Philip’s presentation at the Digital PM Summit 2019
• What Great Listeners Actually Do
• The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes by William Ury 
• Guide: Set Goals with OKRs by Google

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“The answer to When should you create a plan? is Always.”

There will be times in your career as a project manager when your team or stakeholders want to forego a plan in favor of “just getting work done.” It happens all the time. Some times it works, but let's face it: most times it doesn’t. That's why you always need a plan. In this episode of Time Limit, founder and CEO of project management consultancy 120VC and author of The Irreverent Guide to Project Management, J. Scott, joins the show to talk about planning and estimating, and following a solid method presented in the book for delivering projects on time and under budget every time. If you ever find yourself defending the need for a plan, this episode is for you. If you think you don’t need a plan, this episode is also for you. The conversation covers:

• How to blend processes successfully
• The necessity for solid project management training materials
• When to create a project plan
• The values of planning in both traditional and Agile methods
• How to collaborate on project planning
• Mistakes that PMs make in planning
• How to get better at estimating
• Time-saving tips to strengthen your estimates plans stronger

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• J’s consultancy, 120VC
• J’s book, The Irreverent Guide to Project Management

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“The nice thing about people being away from you is that you cannot micromanage them. That actually frees you up as a manager to go and do the stuff you need to do.”

There’s no doubt that where you work will impact how you work. In an age where remote work has become more and more popular, you’ve probably explored how you can manage projects and people from afar. In this episode of Time Limit, management consultant and author Johanna Rothman joins us to talk all about remote work. The conversation ranges from theoretical to tactical, and offers a ton of takeaways on:

• How to categorize your work environment, whether you’re in the same building as your team or not
• The benefits of managing distributed teams
• The importance of team and project facilitation
• The value of distributed teams in an Agile environment
• How to get team buy-in when you’re distributed
• The value of team-based learning
• The best ways to communicate as a remote or distributed team
• How to collaborate with teams from afar
• Guidance on how to handle remote meetings

   

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Johanna’s book, From Chaos to Successful Distributed Teams: Collaborate to Deliver
• Johanna Rothman's website

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How are you feeling today? If you’re a busy project manager, there’s a really good chance that you’re feeling stress--or you have recently. And as the end of the year approaches, the pressure to wrap things up, deliver on year-end goals, and make everyone happy are probably building up. But you can’t let that stress get to you, because that leads to burnout. That’s why we brought Lynn Winter on the show to talk about how you can deal with burnout--and how you can help others to do the same. No matter the time of year, you’ll want to check this episode, which covers:

• How to define burnout--figure out you are burn out and how you can look inside and fix it
• Are PMs more prone to stress?
• Valuing the project management role
• Signs of burnout at work
• Things that we can do in order to beat burnout
• Facts about how employees deal with stress and burnout
• How to set boundaries

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“PMs have a tendency of being lone wolves and I think going out into the community to understand what other challenges people are facing is a really great way to level set about where you are in the context of the field itself.”

It’s true: project management isn’t an easy job. And, depending on where you work, you can end up feeling like you’re on an island. So where do you turn when you need to vent, learn different perspectives, and grow your professional network? In this episode of Time Limit, Brett talks about project management community with the organizers of an Austin, TX-based digital project management meetup. In the conversation, they discuss:

• The value of community for project managers
• Events and topics that resonate for project managers
• Meetups and larger events that PMs find useful
• Advice for starting your own meetup in your city
• How to make time for community, and yourself

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Kickass PM Meetup
• Project Management Institute Events
• Scrum Alliance Events

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"You manage tasks but you lead people."

As a project manager, you lead projects and teams. Or do you manage them? What is the difference, actually? And will knowing the difference help you to be a better project manager? In this episode, Brett speaks with internationally recognized project leadership coach, trainer and consultant Susanne Madsen. Their conversation focuses in on a topic that many PMs and managers tend to focus in on: How to be a great leader. They also discuss Susanne's book The Power of Project Leadership, which is now in its second edition and is up for a PMI award, and the themes within, including:

• Leadership vs. management
• The path to leadership
• The mistakes project managers make:
• Encouraging leadership
• Finding time to level-up

Resources discussed in this episode:

• The Power of Project Leadership
• Susanne Madsen's website

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“What you have to do (when presenting design) is find out what stakeholders already care about, and frame what you want to convince them of within that context.”

Managing a design project often means managing people and their opinions. You need to lead those sometimes disparate opinions to a final decision and move on in order to keep your project on track. It can be tough, but UX expert Paul Boag has some helpful, proactive approaches to help your design projects run smoothly. In this wide-ranging conversation, Brett and Paul zero in on tactics to manage design projects, but they also talk discuss:

• The difference between PM and DPM
• The basis for how digital projects operate
• How to conduct project discoveries
• The PM's role in digital projects, and how they extend their roles
• Getting to know stakeholders
• Managing parts if the design process
• Managing stakeholder feedback

Resources mentioned:

• Paul Boag’s Digital PM Master Class
• Why I can’t convince executives to invest in UX (and neither can you) by Jared Spool

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“Focus some attention on your people and knowing those people, and understanding what their core strengths are because those are their drivers. Those are the things that really motivate them to show up and get stuff done.”

If you lead projects, you’ve likely had battles with motivation in project management—whether it’s to find motivation to complete your own work, or to mobilize an entire team to meet a goal successfully. You may have won a battle here and there, but sometimes it can feel like the topic of motivation can become an all-out war. But by instilling some basic values and using some helpful tools to help you figure out what motivates people, you can win that war before it even starts. On this episode, Brett interviews Ruth Pearce, who is an accomplished project manager and coach, and the author of Be a Project Motivator: Unlock the Secrets of Strengths-Based Project Management. In conversation, they cover:

• Strengths-based project management
• The strengths that PMs possess
• Techniques used to motivate team members (and yourself)
• How to you keep your team motivated in the face of tight deadlines or other challenges
• How to build influence
• Quick tips and tactics to keep people motivated

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Be a Project Motivator: Unlock the Secrets of Strengths-Based Project Management
• VIA Character strengths survey (this is a free link for our listeners)
• Ruth Pearce’s website (includes a blog and other valuable resources)
• Article on ProjectManagement.com: Team building for success - from the Project Manager up! 
• Article on ProjectManagement.com: Shifting Change: Insider Tips from Project Leaders
• PMWorld 360 E-zine 

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“Very basically a PMO normally stands for a project management office. And they're there to basically help organizations get better at delivering the projects that they have.”

If you’ve ever wondered what a PMO is, that quote from this episode of Time Limit is your answer. But take heed, because there’s a lot of complexity to PMOs. That’s why we invited PMO expert and Director of PMO Learning, Lindsay Scott, to join us to fill us in on:

• The benefits of a PMO and why you might need a PMO
• The types of PMOs that exist
• When to set up a PMO
• PMO roles and responsibilities
• The career path to get from PM to PMO
• Typical PMO structures
• Education and certifications for PMO

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• PMO Learning
• PMO Flashmob
• The Art & Science of Leading Projects
• TeamGantt’s Live Classes

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