[00:00:00.410] - Announcer
Do you wonder if others are dealing with the same project management challenges as you not sure where to turn for guidance and leadership? Office hours are in session as we discuss project Management and PMOs with global leaders hearing their story and learning their secrets to success. Our goal is to empower you and help you elevate your PMO and project management career to new heights. Welcome back to Project Management Office Hours with your host, PMO Joe.
[00:00:28.660] - PMO Joe
Welcome everyone to Project Management Office Hours. We're the number one live project management radio show in the US, broadcasting to you today from the Phoenix Business Radio Studios and Tempe, Arizona, your host, PMO Joe. And for the next hour or so, we'll be talking project management and Change Management today before we jump into the show. I just want to remind everybody and encourage you to go out to the PMO Impact Summit. That free event is coming up on September through you can visit PMO Impact Summit dot com to sign up for that.
[00:01:09.590] - PMO Joe
This is I don't think maybe the fourth or fifth year of the conference. It is a fantastic conference. Lora Bernard does an amazing job with her team to get a great lineup of presenters and speakers this year. They have a wide range of topics included agile executive perspective, future readiness, leadership, organizational change management, PMO startups, project portfolio management, resource and stakeholder management and strategy. So if any of your listeners out there interested in any or all of those categories, I highly encourage you to go out and register.
[00:01:50.300] - PMO Joe
I personally have a session where Laura and I actually have an interview type discussion about stakeholder engagement, stakeholder management. So looking forward to talk to all of you out there on that again that's September 24, and you can go to PMO Impact Summit dot com to register for that event for free. I also want to thank our sponsors, the PMO Squad and the PMO Leader. This is a reminder as well for everybody to head out to Project Management Office Hours, dot com or Apple Podcast. Whatever your platform is, see all of our past shows and also get to know what upcoming episodes we have with amazing leaders from around the world.
[00:02:31.980] - PMO Joe
So that is it for now. I did mention Change Management a couple of times on that intro. And with that, I want to say, I'm very excited today to have Tim Creasy joining us. Welcome, Tim.
[00:02:43.420] - Tim Creasey
Thank you, Joe. Great to be here this afternoon in Boise, Idaho.
[00:02:48.460] - PMO Joe
Yes, slightly before that. Here in Arizona. We're still in the morning time. But, Tim, if you could take a moment just to say Hello to everybody and introduce yourself so we can get to know you a little bit better before we jump in with some discussion.
[00:03:00.880] - Tim Creasey
Very good. Well, yeah. I'm Tim Creasy, chief Innovation officer, Prosci so I can start with what prosci. We're a firm dedicated to help organizations achieve more successful outcomes than times of change. With the realization that helping our people adopt and use change is probably the biggest place we see leakage of overall project value, so that as a firm, we help individuals and organizations build change capabilities to achieve successful outcomes. My role is as chief innovation officer, so I've really steered the innovation and research and thought leadership for the last two decades here at Prodi.
[00:03:35.540] - Tim Creasey
Whether that's solutions for change management practitioners, for senior leaders to become better leaders of change people managers to step into their critical role, even the project manager community to become those partners and allies, we need to drive more successful outcomes so that's who we serve and my personal AHA is to help people see change. The challenges of change is unlockable because most of the time I think we have the answers within it's around how do we see the challenges in front of us is something that we can unlock and taking the human side of change demystifying it taking it out of the psychologist couch and making it something actionable that we can intentionally you do on purpose to drive outcomes and organization.
[00:04:18.360] - Tim Creasey
That's really what we're all about.
[00:04:20.340] - PMO Joe
I love it, and I always try to get to know our guests a little bit better before we do the show. So it doesn't sound like just a stuffy interview because those are boring, and I don't think anybody loves those. So as Tim and I got to know each other a little bit better, we have some common bonds over this year. It's turning into an agony of the Boston Red Sox collapsing season. Now with COVID, right. We're all been impacted by covet. We're seeing the impacts of that in the Boston Red Sox right now.
[00:04:47.190] - PMO Joe
Tim, what's your thoughts on the sock these days?
[00:04:49.680] - Tim Creasey
The socks. So, Joe, I grew up in Colorado and we didn't have baseball. The Rockies only came when I was in high school. One of my first jobs is actually as the radio board guy that ran the commercials in between innings. So I never had a baseball team. So my wife and I moved to Boston from 2003 to 2005 for me to do my MBA there. And if you could pick two years to live in Boston, those would be the two years. I mean, we arrived to Patro getting left in too long and on going yard 7th and game seven of that year, then a Patriot Super Bowl, then the World Series.
[00:05:25.250] - Tim Creasey
But another Patriot Super Bowl. So it's a magical time I realized that I was a bandwagon fan, right? Someone who just got into you couldn't not get into it while you're there, right? Especially that's magical 2004 season. But we're standing in the bar. They've won. And I'm jumping up and down with my hands on above my head. You know, this is when I realized I was the bandwagon. And as I looked over and I see a 24 year old guy with tears pouring down his face on his phone with his grandpa.
[00:05:53.630] - Tim Creasey
And I looked over across the bar over there, and I see a 65 year old man with tears pouring down as she's on the phone with his son. And so I realized I was along for the fun ride, not the 86 years of misery. But it was certainly a wonderful town to be a part of. And now they just kind of win every other year. So I kind of got used to it there.
[00:06:11.420] - PMO Joe
Yeah. I grew up in upstate New York, the Albany, New York area. So for us, it was met. Yankees, Red Sox were really the choice are exposed, I guess, even at that point. So I was a Sox fan, and I was one of those guys materials rolling down their face. Right. I had lived the agony I've been to Fenway, I don't know. Maybe 100 different times. And remember 86 when the ball gets through Bill Buckner's legs when I thought we were going to win that one and the highs and lows of cheering for sports teams, right?
[00:06:40.540] - Tim Creasey
For sure. Well, I was actually sitting in the Boston Beer Works right across the street from Fenway for game four of that ALCS when Poppy went yard right after the Steel, a second base. So magical times for sure.
[00:06:53.470] - PMO Joe
Absolutely.
[00:06:54.100] - Tim Creasey
Grown up in Colorado, the three most important sports teams for me, where the Denver Broncos, the Denver Broncos and the Denver Broncos. So that's kind of where I sit.
[00:07:03.040] - PMO Joe
Yeah. I love the bronc because I was a Steelers fans will still Steeler fan and Broncos were always my number two. They seemed like the West Coast version of the Steelers back in the 70s and 80s, for sure. We're today on LinkedIn Prosia posted about the show, and I was like, Man, I got a comment on this. What am I going to say about the show? And I put in there it said, Project Management and Change Management or like peanut butter and jelly. They're both great independently.
[00:07:32.410] - PMO Joe
But when you bring them together, it's just awesome, right.
[00:07:35.190] - Tim Creasey
So much better. Right? Yeah. And I think I love the frame. Right. I'll give you a couple of turns of phrase that I've played with one of them back in 2004. We started using complimentary disciplines with a common objective. They are complementary in nature in terms of as long as we align on the fact that we're both here to land this change to the best value to the organization. And if we agree that that's the flag on the horizon, change Management and project management are expected allies, expected collaborators kind of in that journey.
[00:08:07.000] - Tim Creasey
And Gramble, and he's one of the master instructors at Prosti Canada. He introduced me to this Turner phrase that he created earlier this year that I just love that project management prepares the solution for the organization. Change management prepares the organization for the solution.
[00:08:23.380] - PMO Joe
I like that one.
[00:08:24.540] - Tim Creasey
And just like you said a peanut butter sandwich or a jelly sandwich. It's all right. But it's when we bring the two together that we actually enable the organization to manage the two sides of every change, the technical side and the people side.
[00:08:37.500] - PMO Joe
And the reality is, by definition, it a project is a unique endeavor that's causing change in an organization. How big or small that changes, of course, depends on the project. But every project has changed. Therefore, our discipline, the project management discipline would benefit greatly if we could understand change better, the impacts of it, how to manage it, how to help teams adopt to it. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:09:05.700] - Tim Creasey
Yeah, I think you're spot on. We've used the language about the difference between a project challenge and an adoption challenge because I think you're right, Joe. And a lot of this has happened over the last 20 years that we've started to appreciate that because I said so isn't enough to get a change to take place in an organization.
[00:09:25.030] - PMO Joe
Right.
[00:09:26.490] - Tim Creasey
And those old value systems of control predictability accountability. My grandfather's GE that he started and retired from those value systems might have reinforce that. How high is the right answer. But times have changed, and the more we empower employees to own their work and to own that outputs their work, the more we encourage them to take accountability and be involved. We have a different obligation to them in times of change. Instead of just saying, instead of expecting, how high is the answer, our job is to prepare equipment, support them through the journey.
[00:10:01.710] - Tim Creasey
We know that they're going to have as an individual. And I think it was with Stewart Easton, the episode you did with him where you're talking about the real value. What are we actually trying to achieve or deliver from our project initiative? And I think you guys use the cloud based CRM system as an example. And I think that's a beautiful example of translating the project challenge into the adoption challenge. Right. The project challenge is rolling out a cloud based CRM system. The adoption challenge shows up in how my sales people arrive each and every day and how customer service executes their job.
[00:10:36.940] - Tim Creasey
And so it's above and beyond a stakeholder mapping. It truly gets into defining what does this change this project mean to Andy, Becky, Charlie, Debbie, Eddie, Franny, Jerry Harry is those were all alphabetical.
[00:10:52.970] - PMO Joe
I don't know if you got that.
[00:10:54.170] - Tim Creasey
I always thought it was so clever and no one else has ever thought it was clever.
[00:10:57.410] - PMO Joe
But I was waiting to see where you're going after is right.
[00:11:00.040] - Tim Creasey
Yeah, that's kind of where I drop off. But Andy, Becky, Charlie, Debbie. I've been talking about them for over ten years because Andy, Becky, Charlie, Debbie, is how changes actually come to life in the organization and how I ship partnership of project Management change management is about achieving successful outcomes by tending to those two critical side of the coin. Here's the thing, Joe. You know, the people side of change it's there, whether you pay attention to it or not.
[00:11:28.570] - PMO Joe
Right.
[00:11:29.140] - Tim Creasey
Just like you said, there is always going to be a people side of change, whether we're tending to it, providing thought and intent and structure and purpose. Or are we leaving the people? So to change up the chance, which I think is kind of the historic approach that we're stepping out of.
[00:11:49.690] - PMO Joe
You know, when you're read enough to people, I'm surprised you didn't go. Andy, Debbie, Kevin, Alice, Roger to give us some ad car, right. One car. Yeah.
[00:11:59.260] - Tim Creasey
I went alphabetically, and I have a friend whose daughter Alexandra. She's always disappointed. I don't mention Alexandra. So if niches listening, we'll do. Alexandra, Becky, Charlie, Debbie.
[00:12:09.030] - PMO Joe
Another thing we have in common. You mentioned your grandfather at GE, coming from the Albany, New York, area, actually connected. That's the birthplace of GE. So all of my dad and uncles and grandparents and everybody was a GE. So I'm a GE kid that's obviously branched away from that and traveled around to get away from the GE mindset. Hey, nothing wrong with GE, but the reality is they've struggled over the past decade, right? Because a lot of change management activities that they haven't been able to handle too well.
[00:12:41.800] - Tim Creasey
Yeah. Change. There's an article we've used in our training programs for years that comments on the number one reason leaders get tired, and we always think it's not hitting financial marks. But when they actually survey board members, it's failing to implement the changes we need to implement in the organization. That's what we pay and charge our leaders to do is to shape the organization and help lead it into what we envision it could be. And right out of that false projects, change and the adoption usage of the solutions we come up with because, yeah, the change landscape is littered by projects that were designed, delivered, signed to meet requirements, delivered on time, on budget, and created zero value to the organization and most of the time.
[00:13:27.730] - Tim Creasey
And here's the problem, Joe. It didn't actually create zero value to the organization because we spent all the money in time trying to build that out.
[00:13:34.910] - PMO Joe
Negative value. Yeah.
[00:13:35.950] - Tim Creasey
We're talking about a huge net opportunity cost, and because we taught people we could just tell people to change, we left all of the value in the project, the sitting there to chance. So even when we talk about the ROI of change management, Joe, we talked about it within the context of the ROI of the project. And so we asked this question. We call it the key question. What percentage of this project ROI depends on people adopting and using the solution. What percentage of this project ROI depends on people showing up in a new way, and then I offer up sometimes what I call the punch and the gut question behind that, which is what percentage of our budget resources mind share.
[00:14:19.980] - Tim Creasey
Are we actually dedicating to helping people adopt and use the solution and how much of it are we putting into designing the technical solution? And we see this huge disconnect between how critically important adoption usage is and how little we tend to it now that tide is turning over the last two years. Right. As we respond to the pandemic, we're seeing a hugely people dependent portfolio change that organizations are bringing forward.
[00:14:45.640] - PMO Joe
So before we get too deep into this because I see where we're headed and I love where we're headed, but some setting some baseline definitions. Right. Because in project management, change management as a term can have multiple definitions. Right. There's change management, like a change request that we're going to change the scope of the project organizational change management. Change in the sense of transformation. We're going from old to new lay some pavement for us here on definitions of change and change management to make sure we're all thinking the same way.
[00:15:22.440] - Tim Creasey
Yeah. And I would add in a coin purse as another change management technique. Right. The phrase has been used a lot of different ways, and so I tend to try to anchor to what we deliver, not necessarily what we do. So if what we do is the discipline of change management, there's processing tool there. What we deliver is employee adoption and usage to drive successful outcomes and change. And so that's when we talk about the way we anchor change management, it's to adoption and usage of change.
[00:15:52.200] - Tim Creasey
Typically, Joe, I'll also introduce I did some writing and I never published it, but I'm tempted to pull it forward about how human beings need context and contrast to make sense of anything on text and contrast. So context is how does this relate to the stuff around it? Contrast is how are these things similar or different? So usually, if I'm asked to define change management, request the Liberty to define change leadership and project management as well, because all those three moving parts are critically connected. So I defined change leadership is deciding where to go and how to get there.
[00:16:28.700] - Tim Creasey
And to me, this tips into the whole strategic prioritization, the conversations you're having in some your recent episodes.
[00:16:35.330]
Yeah.
[00:16:35.840] - Tim Creasey
Project management is building what we need to get there. And it could be a physical thing like a product or a piece of hardware. It could be a piece of software. It could be processes that we're building. Right. Project management deciding where to go and get there is change leadership building what we need to get there is project management helping our people get there, too, is change management. And so any successful initiative needs all three of those components direction and guidance, a technical solution that meets the needs or issue or opportunity in front of us and a people side solution that helps our employees embrace it up and use the solution we put in front of them.
[00:17:12.990] - Tim Creasey
A note up those three.
[00:17:15.940] - PMO Joe
Yeah, the context of that.
[00:17:18.530] - Tim Creasey
Right.
[00:17:18.860] - PMO Joe
That helps understand it. And for the PMO difference as PMOs versus project management, the PMO needs to ensure that all three of those are being brought together, whereas the project manager right as the middle one you had mentioned, we often try to equate PMO and project management into one, but the PMO really encompasses all three in that example. So I love how you laid that out. Very easy to follow along with all that.
[00:17:46.490] - Tim Creasey
And actually, in our research, within the PMO is the most likely location for a change management office. We see about 40% of our study participants have created a structural functional group. It's focused on change management, and most often actually, it starts a lot in HR. But within the PMO is one of the most common places, and it's where people tell us it should live because you're able to connect the technical and people sides from where that priority is being evaluated, strategized stack, ranked and executed out of.
[00:18:21.580] - PMO Joe
And it's also now the front end of that. Right. We're seeing. So the strategy realization office, and I've always argued, well, the good PMOs take all three items you mentioned, and that's the scope of the PMO we don't need. We certainly need discipline and expertise within those three spots, but we don't have to have three different functions trying to function, you know, collaboratively or integrated or together. So it's an evolving space that we're in right now. I think companies are trying to figure out how to do all of this right now.
[00:18:56.420] - Tim Creasey
Absolutely. I think it's a leadership governance challenge here in terms of what we define the finish line has, because if I define the finish line as on time, on budget, meeting technical requirements, my PMO might not extend to think about strategy realization, the people side of change. When we define the finish line as delivering the expected improvement to the organization through this effort, then that I think you've created that platform. And then I would say enlightened PMO like you described it, to really lean into the people side and the change leadership components.
[00:19:31.950] - Tim Creasey
I was working with a client down in Australia that actually created a benefit realization office as well, which I think will be an interesting another interesting way for this discipline to start to go. And it actually lived between the PMO and the business, the organization to pick up the solution the PMO had generated and help do some of that translation into operations that can sometimes get lost. Want to get too obsessed with the technical side of the coin.
[00:19:57.470] - PMO Joe
And we forget about the people side of the coin and that's that kind of definition up front, the finish line. That's where with the PMO squad, we use purpose driven PMO. That's our approach that we use, because if we try to say all PMOs are created equal for the same reason, it's foolish right. That's not going to be. So if we start with Why do we exist? What's our finish line, then we can handle everything that comes after it. Absolutely. But too often today we see PMO leaders going from company to company trying to implement the same PMO in multiple organizations, and they don't exist the way they need to.
[00:20:35.800] - Tim Creasey
And I think it's either you and David or you and Stewart that were talking about that Purpose component, and it prompted me to think about this framework that I introduced a couple of years ago called a two by purpose statement to buy. So it's to achieve what by doing what I like to say that again, to achieve what by doing what? So we call it a two by purpose statement and what came out of the conversation. And again, I apologize. I can't remember what episode it was, but you all used again.
[00:21:08.610] - Tim Creasey
That CRM example, installing the CRM solution is a buy. It is not a two, right? And when you get a project team together that hasn't expanded kind of that strategic horizon. I guess they can often define the two achieve what with the actual buys, right? They've taken all the by doing what and put that into the two. So the two by purpose statement. I mean, I'll get a team together, get five people around the table, have them each right there, and then we'll like, flash them up because it's really interesting, right.
[00:21:43.140] - Tim Creasey
You can start to see where the intentionality is, where the focus is. And if we've started to create that value chain disconnect between the activities we think are important and truly what we've set out to achieve. And the neat thing about the two by purpose statement. I could write one for pro size and organization to enable our clients to achieve their desired outcomes and change by helping them build individual and organizational capabilities. I could write one for the discipline of change management to capture people dependent project return on investment by preparing equipping and supporting our people through the changes they're experiencing.
[00:22:18.430] - Tim Creasey
I have a thing called the ROI Calculator that calculate the ROI of change management or projects the ROI change management on our project. I could write it to you by statement for that right to build commitment and buy into the people side of change by quantifying its unique contribution to expected overall project outcome. I even wrote one for myself like a personal one. I published this on LinkedIn post a while back, but you have my own personal to buy, and so we use them a lot right now.
[00:22:48.920] - Tim Creasey
We're in the strategic planning process inside of Rosie and we have written two by statements for each of the three strategic initiates, right. And then we've written encourage each geographic market to write their own to buy and how they'll support it. So it's kind of a fun way to start to anchor to that. This whole idea of anchoring to the Y to reference incircle purpose driven. It's certainly in the air. And we found that the two by purpose statement becomes a really fun kind of construct anchor to.
[00:23:18.580] - PMO Joe
Yeah, I think that the other show and you were referencing there with Antonio Needto Rodriguez.
[00:23:24.010] - Tim Creasey
Okay.
[00:23:24.760] - PMO Joe
Where we had talked about that and we do a similar exercise where when PMO squad goes out and works with organizations on purpose driven, PMO will take the stakeholders in a room and independently ask them to write out the mission statement for the PMO. And then eight plus years. We've never had to executive give the exact same answer, because that's never been defined. We're not aligned. And if you're not aligned at the beginning, it's hard to reach the same destination if you're not on the same journey, right?
[00:23:52.720] - Tim Creasey
For sure. I'll do it around project outcomes as well.
[00:23:55.210] - PMO Joe
Sure.
[00:23:55.500] - Tim Creasey
Particular project outcomes. And I heard again it's story similar letter to this one on your episodes been with Big Pharma. We have a thing called a change score card and the first sell is what are the results and outcomes we're trying to achieve from this project. And they were two years and $25 million in. I clicked into the sell. I said, okay, tell me what to type here. I like tape to the mic, right? Is this thing on you are two years and $25 million into this thing.
[00:24:24.300] - Tim Creasey
Tell me what to write in terms of the results and outcomes we're trying to achieve. We gravitate back to the bus of the solution we could elevate to achieve what. And somebody pulled me aside and said, you know, Tim, someone somewhere at some point in time could have answered that. But that evaporates over the life of the project. And so I think part of the project management office and the skilled project manager is retaining the wife or changes, especially when things are changing so rapidly or when things last longer than we thought they might have.
[00:24:58.800] - PMO Joe
You know, you gave some techniques and tips there, which was awesome. We always love to get those for our audience to pull in. And I always wonder now do the employees of McDonald's eat McDonald's? So do the employees of Prose follow pro. I right. Those just sharing items with the audience. Or do you internalize that and use that as well within the organization?
[00:25:23.140] - Tim Creasey
No, it's a great question, and I've seen it play out. I work with a lot of individuals in organizations that are working to build change management capability across the organization. And it's amazing how quickly they'll forget everything they know about change management when the change they are working is building out a change management capability. I'll bet to you you watch it with good project managers trying to stand up a PMO as well. They get all caught up in the excitement of the effort and forget to actually manage it like a project because is standing up a PMO is a project as well.
[00:25:56.390] - Tim Creasey
So that whole notion of the Cobblers children that have no shoes. I learned through our partner in Saudi Arabia that they're saying is the carpenters Doris hung crooked. So again, kind of that same context, right? It's in your own backyard. You don't tend to it. It doesn't work that way. Roy, if you ever want to be held to a very high bar in terms of ensuring that you built sufficient awareness of the need for change before you step into desire to participate and support the change certainly turn inside of protein.
[00:26:30.320] - Tim Creasey
It's what we do every single day. The neat thing is, I think it's connected back to our values as an organization. We did some really neat value work at the beginning of this year, rolled out a refresh set of values. But the number one value that we have is impact. We have this statement. It was painted up on the wall back in our old office. I have it on in a picture frame next to me. It says, we are proud of the people we are, the work we do and the difference we make nice.
[00:27:00.500] - Tim Creasey
And so that was up on the break room wall in 18 inch tall letters. And it's really part of how we step into each and every day, not only the work we do inside of pride, but the work we do with clients, especially. But when you turn inside of Rosie, you try to make a change inside of prose. You have that notion of the impact, being proud of the impact I'm going to have being cognizant of. What does the adoption usage side of this change look like now do we do it right every time?
[00:27:29.550] - Tim Creasey
Absolutely not.
[00:27:32.350] - Tim Creasey
Right. Yeah.
[00:27:33.860] - Tim Creasey
Right. Who stands out at the front of innovation? I definitely have been one of my tongue in cheek jokes again, going back to context and contrast. I always think I could explain change management to you for an hour, but if I can help you see bad change management, your ability to understand good change management goes up tremendously. And so I started using this tongue in cheek joke of the email on Monday for training on Tuesday for Go Live on Wednesday. All right. That's not the way to prepare equip and support people through an important change we're asking to make, but it's pretty often the approach that's used.
[00:28:09.710] - Tim Creasey
I've certainly been the proponent or the cause of some of those changes inside of Rosy, but we begin asking the question very early on what's the problem we're trying to solve here and whose job will have to be done differently and how as we solve it. And so part of it's that mindset shift of what is the adoption challenge at the beginning of the change we're stepping into?
[00:28:31.760] - PMO Joe
Yeah, I'm waiting on that. I can throw maybe a little bit of a curve ball at you here, but I think fits the discussion. So we also run the PMO Leader site, and we have a webinar on there recently with Michael De Prisco from PMI. And the question came up about PMI and Pros and co opetition, I think is what he called it. And somebody on the webinar audience had asked, hey, PMI is done a lot with Agile. Is there anything coming in the future with Pro side that kind of bring these two together in a more formal setting.
[00:29:13.710] - PMO Joe
So is there any breaking? He didn't give an answer like an affirmative to that. He just said, we work with a lot of partners and lots of things are always going on in the background. So any breaking news that Tim has to share with us, if anything, between PMI and Pro Si.
[00:29:27.800] - Tim Creasey
Yeah, it's an interesting one, right? Jokes. The relationship has been there for 16 years, right. If you would have taken our three day program in 2004, you would have earned your PDUs for it because we realize that there is this once we realize we're all marching towards the same thing, which is more successful change, we can become great allies. Prohi has always earned you your PDUs. I've spoke tons of PMI chapters. I've actually got one coming up here in a couple of weeks for PMI Delaware Valley, where I'm going to do in part of their events, spoke at many of the conferences going to be Is it be virtual?
[00:30:08.970] - Tim Creasey
Yeah, the big of my October Ves session. So I'll do a 45 minutes talk about change management and project management, how they come together. I think it'll be fantastic as the two come together to create. I think there's two fold advantage here. Joe. One is creating a platform for better integration in projects. So on a particular initiative, if we are able to come together with other project management disciplines, can we form the platform for better integration of those two pieces? And we do that with all the different project management approaches.
[00:30:46.330] - Tim Creasey
We align ad car, precise individual. That's the thing. Change management, in the end, is about helping an individual through their own successful change journey. So whether you're using in whatever solution approach you're using or even project management methodology you're using, I can align the individual milestones along your technical milestones so that we can increase the likelihood of delivering results and outcomes. So we adapt and adjust it to many of these different project management approaches. The better we can show how the technical and pupil sides come together on an initiative.
[00:31:21.180] - Tim Creasey
The better integration we get of the disciplines in practice. The other thing that I think is really exciting is around this idea of building multilingual change leaders that the change leaders of the future will be multilingual. And I don't just mean English and French. They will need to be able to speak the language of change management, project management, knowledge management design, thinking. All of these improvement initiatives become languages that skill leaders will need to at least become conversant in. And so as TMI and protest, I start to come together there.
[00:31:56.690] - Tim Creasey
We create even greater educational opportunities for folks in both are either those disciplines.
[00:32:02.880] - PMO Joe
I was in a club house room a couple of months back and somebody asked, Should project managers become pro side certified? And that's just a big question, right? It's a personal answer, I think. But ultimately, I was like, Well, of course. I mean, what would be the downside of that? Understanding the discipline of change is a project managers such complementary skill set that we often avoid. Right. We think technical side of project management as opposed to the change in people side of it. So how would you have answered that question if you were in that chat room at that time?
[00:32:39.360] - Tim Creasey
Yeah. I think your right. The answer is if you want to be one of these leaders of the future, you need to become multilingual in the capabilities and technologies that help organizations implement change. And so to me, project management and change management are certainly very they're even better allies, I think, because neither of them prescribed the change that's needed. I think that's an interesting thing, right? That a lot of these improvement fats that we see coming through. Organizations tend to prescribe a particular change to make, reduce, deficiencies, reduce errors, migrate applications off premises.
[00:33:19.760] - Tim Creasey
Whatever these waves are, they prescribe a particular change. Project management and change management are unique in that they both help us deliver those changes better in a more effective, more efficient way in the organization. And I think that adaptability actually creates a really neat opportunity for these two to continue coming together. I'll tell you what, if I look at job titles coming to my open enrollment programs because each week I run seven to 15, probably open enrollment, three day programs where people can gain their certification.
[00:33:53.380] - Tim Creasey
Project management job titles are the most frequent job titles I see coming to my programs because I think change management has grown as a profession and a discipline. That's what's going to happen over the last 20 years, informed by the prosy research, really a formalization of the discipline. And now I think we're seeing it identified as an additional skillset or competency that a great business analyst should have in their back pocket, that a great project manager should have in their back pocket. That a great communication specialist surgery, great learning and development practitioners should have.
[00:34:27.130] - Tim Creasey
So you want to hear a horrible joke? Yeah.
[00:34:31.190] - PMO Joe
Go for it.
[00:34:31.940] - Tim Creasey
I have told this. I told this on stage in front of 800 people, and I always tell them it's crash when I tell it.
[00:34:37.800] - PMO Joe
But you're supposed to say this is a great joke, and I.
[00:34:42.260] - Tim Creasey
Don'T want to set the wrong expectation. You know, Adams, like in chemistry, atom. You know why you never trust an Adam? No. Because they make up everything. They make up everything. And in the same way, human beings make up everything. And human beings are what make up our organization. So when we implement a change, the better we help our people through that change, the more successful we're going to be and anything that's going to help us do that better. I often get the question, Joe. I wonder if you got this.
[00:35:15.480] - Tim Creasey
Can a person be both the project manager and the change manager on an initiative? Is that a question here? Yeah.
[00:35:23.270] - PMO Joe
We get that all the time. I even get why isn't the project manager the change manager? And it's an expectation a lot because we're consulting firm. So we go out to clients and their expectations that are buying the resource. They can do all of it. They can do the resource requirements, gathering the project leadership, the change management. It's a lot of different disciplines. You hire separate subcontractors, building a house or you don't ask the plumber to wire the electricity, and that's what they do in the project space.
[00:35:54.940] - Tim Creasey
Right.
[00:35:55.180] - PMO Joe
I just don't think organizations have matured their understanding enough get over those separate disciplines to know the importance of having separate people in those roles.
[00:36:03.900] - Tim Creasey
Yeah. It's kind of like because I think they're hiring the outcome, right.
[00:36:08.490] - PMO Joe
Right.
[00:36:08.820] - Tim Creasey
Or hiring for change success and then expecting that you're going to bring whatever it takes to make that up. But I think you're right that these parts, like project management, change management are integrated in action. But there are specialties mindset, skill sets, competencies that are separate. I'll tend to answer the question two ways, metaphysically and practically practically, as does somebody have the number of hours it takes to address both the technical and the people side of the change in some small changes that might be the case.
[00:36:41.940] - Tim Creasey
Others certainly not the case. Metaphysically is can somebody have the mindset and competence us to be good at both? And I think that's kind of a mixed bag. I've seen some people that absolutely have both of those competencies, and I've seen great change managers. Would you never want them managing a project and great project managers that just don't aren't wired the way to be great in change management. I think that's the same thing will happen when we move from traditional to more more sequential, traditional project management approaches to more iterative agile project management approaches.
[00:37:17.600] - Tim Creasey
I think we'll start to see some most interesting underlying, almost like personality trait wirings that might run into some opposition as we change how we do change.
[00:37:29.040] - PMO Joe
Yeah. We've had some shows with Ruth Piers and Steven Fulmer and Carol Oster Wheel and Josh Ramirez, where we talk about some of those neuroscience components to the project management discipline and knowing your character strengths and being able to motivate teams to action, flight versus fight. All those come into play on all this. And I'd even take it one step further. And what you said, I think there's a lot of PMS out there that don't have either right. We talked about one or the other, but I think certifications have caused people to think that you're a project manager because of a certificate, as opposed to I could be without a certificate in my entire life.
[00:38:11.110] - PMO Joe
I just run as a project manager because that's how I'm wired, right? I'm not a singer, I'm not a musician, I'm not an artist. I can't draw. But you know what? I can run projects because that's just the way my brain works. How do you see that playing in the pro size space, right. Of certifications, but not having the competency to go after early because I'm not as familiar, right? Being completely open with size certifications as I am the project management one. So I see a lot of PMPs who aren't great project managers.
[00:38:42.690] - PMO Joe
Do you see that in your space as well?
[00:38:44.820] - Tim Creasey
Yeah, I think certainly. I mean, this is part of the conversation we see in particular. You'll see it in the social media space, and I think there's kind of three different pieces right there's. Well, I'll start with two certification. It's binary, right? Zero or one. Have you achieved it or not by accomplishing whatever the requirements were for it? How good are you at? It is a different question. The driver's license doesn't mean you can go and drive a race car, right. Luckily, those are two different things.
[00:39:16.500] - Tim Creasey
And I think one of them, I think, is part of this. Who's the anonymous army that says that's thinking that because we run into this conversation with the change management folks like people think that if you have a certification, you're a great change manager. I'm like what people? Because none of the people that take the class have ever conveyed that to me is the hiring manager to tell me because they have the paper, they're qualified. We've got different conversations we need you have in there. Now.
[00:39:48.740] - Tim Creasey
I do think there is value in building common language in common, shared understanding. Right?
[00:39:53.940] - PMO Joe
Absolutely.
[00:39:54.640] - Tim Creasey
So you know, it's one thing to say, I can be good at project management without the certification. But if I'm in a room with six other folks and we all need to at least have a shared structure instead of understanding instead of language, that's where I think sometimes you get these folks that say.
[00:40:12.720] - PMO Joe
I've got 40 years.
[00:40:13.810] - Tim Creasey
I don't need the paper. The paper is not to say, are you good at what you're doing or not? The paper is to say, do you have the knowledge and skills to be able to engage the knowledge, to be able to engage with these other folks who are also doing the same thing. So a vision held by one is viable to none. That's true in businesses. But it's also true in this notion of if you have the vision of how to lead a project more successfully and you're the only one that has it, it's really not all that valuable if there's a bunch of us that are trying to get somewhere together.
[00:40:48.270] - Tim Creasey
Yeah, the paper practice is a big conversation fee.
[00:40:52.800] - PMO Joe
A few moments ago, you had mentioned research and one of your answers. And so the other thing I always get in conversations with people. The they type conversations again is how do they know it's all just be Where's the proof? Where's the backup for what they're trying to sell? Not specific profile, but in general, that's out there. So let me throw back into prose context. All of these concepts makes sense to me. But what's the historical context or research context for that?
[00:41:26.890] - Tim Creasey
Yeah. Great question. So Profile was founded by an engineer. He was running these huge, massive process transformation projects, and he kept realizing that no matter how beautiful he designed the process, if people didn't follow it, he wasn't creating any value out of the project. And so Jeff Hyatt was his name again, a curious engineer that started to ask the question, Why do some projects deliver outcomes and others don't. That's the fundamental foundational question, right? That just began asking. And then we began asking and answering that question across the whole variety of different topics.
[00:42:04.820] - Tim Creasey
I will definitely tell you, I'm a pretty big relativist. I don't know that there's right and wrong ways to manage the people side of change. For a large project in an organization, the human beings are way too beautifully complex to say there's a right and wrong, but there's better and worse. And so that's what we've aimed to do in building this body of knowledge around change management. And so I'll give you an example. What's the biggest mistake you've ever watched a sponsor make on a project?
[00:42:37.030] - PMO Joe
I know it's ignoring it right? As to me is.
[00:42:40.110] - Tim Creasey
So they just completely ignored it. So I could ask one person that question and I get a good data point. I get a good story from you, especially if we're drinking bourbon, right? Yeah. I could ask ten people that question start to see a couple of emerging themes, right? I could ask 50 people that question and start to see some significant patterns manifest themselves. And we've asked that question to 8000 people over the last two decades. But in a particular study, I might ask 400 people that question.
[00:43:10.020] - Tim Creasey
I do the analysis and discernment, and I come out with here's the seven biggest mistakes sponsors make in times of change. Is your sponsor definitely going to make one of those? I'm not going to put any money on that. I can your sponsor find another way to mess this up? It's not on one of those seven absolutely guarantee. But those seven help us understand how we can nudge the people side of change and our leaders forward to becoming more effective sponsors. The wild thing is, if we look at the back end of the data, Joe, the more effectively we engage our people, the more effectively we apply change management, the more likely the project is to deliver results.
[00:43:49.690] - Tim Creasey
And again, we've got about 6000 data points that show a six fold increase when we go from poor change management on an initiative to excellent change management in terms of likelihood of delivering the project objectives. And we get a three fold increase when we go from poor to far because there is so much poorly managed change going on out there. So, yeah, we've got the correlate of beta. We have clients that will do analysis inside their portfolio of change. They'll do a best practice audit score for change management on each project, plus a realization of expected ROI on each project.
[00:44:24.630] - Tim Creasey
Stack those side by side and you start to see the correlations. The crazy thing, though, is once somebody experiences a project where the people side of change is done with intense with structure that we begin by answering, Why, why now, what if we don't that we have our senior leaders fulfilling the role of active and visible sponsorship, that we got our people managers on board ahead of time and prep to not only be recipients of but agents of change when we communicate openly and honestly, we know that this creates the conditions in which projects are more successful.
[00:44:58.460] - PMO Joe
Yeah, I can speak from personal experience. The last project I ever ran before I became the PMO manager for the first time, I ended up becoming employee of the year for that company. Got the fancy trip, got to go along with all the sales guys, and we purposefully intentionally included change management on the project being executed by somebody other than me. Right. We brought on a resource to do that. So that was a long time ago before there was any grey hair in my beard and I had hair, so I believe it for me, it's personal experience is the great teacher.
[00:45:41.040] - PMO Joe
And I've witnessed it. So that's fantastic.
[00:45:43.760] - Tim Creasey
I think circling back to the MRI piece, it's about delivering what you signed up to deliver faster and more completely than you thought you're going to. And so just simply starting to ask that question, what percentage of this projects ROI depends on people. And what are we doing to help them changes that change that it's a great frame.
[00:46:07.180] - PMO Joe
It's a great reference point to get everybody focused on. We had a guest on she's actually been on a couple of times. Jessica cone from Makea Wish America, and I got into a car with her to have her describe how they utilize it. But, heck, she wasn't the CIO chief innovation officer at Pro Side to describe it. So I've got you now help the audience understand Ad Car a little bit better. And what that's all about?
[00:46:34.720] - Tim Creasey
Yeah. Very good, Joe. So Ad Car is that individual change model invented by Jeff Hyatt. Our founder, describes the five building blocks of successful individual change. So whether it's getting your kid to clean up their room, getting a neighbor to clean up their yard supporting that local charity that you're involved with or getting your people to start using teams more effectively. Individuals go through these five building blocks. The first is awareness of the need for change. Notice that it's not awareness that the change is happening. It's awareness of the need for change.
[00:47:08.430] - Tim Creasey
It's an internalization of why why now, what if we don't? And if we can help a person get sufficient awareness, they say to us, I understand why. That's the milestone marker. I understand why after that comes desire to participate and support the change. That's the personal decision to step out of your current state, to step into that transition and to step toward that future state that we're moving toward. We all know human beings have free will so we can't make desire. But we can nudge desire.
[00:47:39.140] - Tim Creasey
And we know that there are personal motivators, organizational motivators, and in particular, the answer to what's in it for me with them, we call that if a person achieves sufficient desire, they would say, I've decided to. So I understand why I've decided to the third building block is knowledge. I know how to those are the skills that we need to be able to make the change both during the change and after the change. Knowledge is where we all jump to. Right, Joe?
[00:48:07.380] - PMO Joe
Absolutely.
[00:48:08.070] - Tim Creasey
We've got a training. We got a change. We need some people to do something different. What we do, send it to training. We want to become agile. What do we do? Send everybody is from training jumping straight to knowledge without helping the person say, I understand why. And I've decided to is going to be wasted knowledge efforts. So awareness desire knowledge. The fourth is ability. I am able to. So I understand why I've decided to I know how to. I am able to and that's when the change has come to life in the process of skills interactions, the way that person shows up, it's the demonstrated capability to do my job, the new way as required by this project of this initiative, and the gap between knowledge and ability can be small or large.
[00:48:54.140] - Tim Creasey
Right? Knowledge and ability are two very different things. And if you go play one hole of golf with me, you'll see the difference because I know to keep my head down. I know I'm supposed to keep my head down, but that's not the way I play golf and then pro. I would be a complete failure as an organization if Jeff had invented the Ad Cub model and left off that or the R is reinforcement. Now, unfortunately, in a lot of our projects, we leave off that are we kind of forget about the reinforcement, but it is our natural physiological psychological tendency to go back to the way we used to do things.
[00:49:32.840] - Tim Creasey
So if we want a change to tick, we need to make sure that we're intentional about it. Those mechanisms, the measures, the reinforcement to sustain the change. So I understand why I've decided to I know how to I'm able to and I'll continue to awareness desired knowledgeability reinforcement. And on YouTube, the Profile YouTube channel, there's a whole section called Tim Talk. There are these fun little five minute videos of people interviewing me. And there's one that's all about Ad car. So it's a really nice dive if people are looking for a little bit more information.
[00:50:06.820] - PMO Joe
Ted approve the Tim talk
[00:50:09.610] - Tim Creasey
Ted who?
[00:50:13.960] - PMO Joe
What I love about models that work and stand the test of time is that they exist before they exist in your life, before you knew they existed. So the purpose driven PM, I'm not a certified pro side person. I don't know a car in and out, but when you're talking about it, right, purpose driven PMO, the description we give for that is knowing the why before the what and how and the way you just described it was people jump straight to knowledge, right?
[00:50:41.660] - PMO Joe
They want to go to the knowledge without the upfront work. And I think that's where pros is such a hold on a captive audience, because when you go through and get the training to take what you already knew and put it into a model and the discipline, it's so easy to connect to, it's such a it's so common. I hate to use that language because I'm not trying to diminish it, but right now it fits into just how we live.
[00:51:12.640] - Tim Creasey
But I'll come back 1005 agree, and I'll come back with common sense, not common practice. Absolutely. Because what we've done is described, the human nature, the human journey of change in a way that makes it accessible and actionable in a way that we can support people through. And so it does feel like common sense. I heard this description of creativity as when you see something and you're just like, wow, I've never thought of it that way. And there's no other way to think about it then that way, of course, it's stunningly unsurprising.
[00:51:50.180] - Tim Creasey
And you've never seen it that way before. And I think a car sometimes gives people that, well, of course, this is how people navigate change. Look at that time. I missed ability watch that, you know, people can begin to tell their own stories and experiences of change into the Ad car model. And I think the power of it. We call it a simple yet powerful tool because some things that are valuable at first path are only valuable at first. That right. Then our CEO. His name is Scott McAllister.
[00:52:20.940] - Tim Creasey
He came out of a strategy lean Six Sigma consulting world, and he said, Im, Ad car is one of those things that the more I learn it, the deeper and more powerful it gets. So now we're doing full on Ad car for steel analysis. So we're integrating Ad Car and Kurt Lewin force fields. We'll do Ad car milestone mapping. So you take a big project, you're running, we start to lay out where the impacted groups. And for each of those impacted groups, we start milestone mapping each of their ad for milestones.
[00:52:49.810] - Tim Creasey
So we've built a roadmap of how each group is going to have to navigate this change. Right. I started building out a car, a platform. How can you actually take gamification and see how it helps with makes sense of people's ad car journeys have done ad car and design thinking in a really beautiful way. So in the end, organizations don't change. People do.
[00:53:12.010] - PMO Joe
Yeah, absolutely.
[00:53:13.470] - Tim Creasey
Projects create adoption challenges and only create value if we can figure out how to help people over those adoption challenges. That's the kicker is how to give people an accessible way to make these challenges of change unlockable in front of them for the name.
[00:53:30.980] - PMO Joe
Like Buzz. I've had lots of fun times my life where people have mispronounced that name. So that's why I'm PMO Joe now, so people don't have to struggle over that. And I've heard many different pronunciations of pros. Where does that name come from? And why didn't they call the company Ad car or something a little more easy to pronounce? Is there a history behind the profile name? Yeah.
[00:53:55.350] - Tim Creasey
There actually is a history. Jeff was researching how to name companies when he was coming up with the name of Pros, and he stumbled across the notion, maybe a bit of research finding here there that if people mispronounce your name, they're more likely to remember it. And so there is a bit of intentionality around picking a name. People would struggle to pronounce. It actually comes from a contraction of the words professional and science. Okay, so professional and science pulled together gives you pro Si. But we do get called Proske.
[00:54:28.990] - Tim Creasey
Probably more than anything else.
[00:54:30.660] - PMO Joe
Especially in Eastern Europe, I would imagine. So. Yeah, this has been awesome, right? It's been a great education session for me, but in a way that I think again, you mentioned simplification of it, right? I think it's so easy for all of us to understand. And then the project space for those who run projects. Boy, we've seen it. We know the difference of a good project, and we know the difference of good change management. Hopefully, we provided some education to the listeners today to get them to say, okay, how can I get better at it?
[00:55:04.790] - PMO Joe
How can I maybe formalize it and take it into a discipline? So certainly. Thanks, Tim, for helping out with all that. And before we sign off, I want to give you an opportunity. How can folks get in touch with you? Is there anything that you have coming up? You did mention some events you've got coming up, but anything you want to share before we sign off today?
[00:55:26.680] - Tim Creasey
Yeah. Joe, really appreciate the time. Thanks for having me. These live ones are always kind of fun, right? Because you never know which way they're going to go. But I really appreciate the time here. I think you're right. My hope is that we've given the listeners some of those keys to start to unlock the challenges of change. And these frameworks that help us describe our reality in a way that we can influence, I think is one of those kickers because the people side of change will always be there whether we tend to it or not.
[00:55:54.710] - Tim Creasey
So pro site dot com is the best place to start. There are loads of free resources. There articles, thought, leadership, articles, logs. There's countless recorded webinars available for replay for free, including a whole 1 hour about integrating change management and project management. So pro site dot com is the place to go. You can find me on LinkedIn. That's where I'm the most active and often late in the evening. And sometimes the bourbon inspired stuff is a little more fun than the midday stuff. And then if you're on YouTube, find the Pro side channel on those Tim talks, there's a great one called back to the Basics, a great one about Ad car, and then some they go even beyond that.
[00:56:32.840] - Tim Creasey
And organizational agility as a strategic comparative for organizations going forward and how we can all invest in growing the most important muscle we can grow, which is how to navigate change more successfully.
[00:56:44.650] - PMO Joe
Awesome. Thanks so much, Tim. I really appreciate today. And of course, thank you to all of our listeners. Please be sure to go out and visit ProjectManagementOfficeHours.com. See of all of our past shows and our upcoming guest, which include Mersa Silva, Ricardo Vargas. And then we're going to bring on some guests from PMI and track via to Talk Citizen Developer in that new program that they're working on. That will be an interesting show as well. Also a reminder as to mention we are live right now, which is always fun.
[00:57:16.290] - PMO Joe
We've had a couple of shows go completely off the rails because of that. But we also release the shows as a podcast, so be sure to subscribe on Apple podcast. I Heart Radio Spotify Spreaker. Whatever your platform of choice may be. Of course. Thank you to our sponsors, the PMO Squad and the PMO Leader. Please be sure to go up to their websites and learn more about what they offer. That's it for now. Office hours are closed until next time. I'm PMO Joe, and you've been listening to Project Management Office Hours.
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