[00:00:01.450] - 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 stories story in 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 Kia Mojo.
[00:00:29.810] - PMO Joe
Welcome everyone to Project Management Office Hours. We're the number one live project management radio show in the United States, broadcasting to you today from the Phoenix Business RadioX Studios in Tempe, Arizona. I'm your host, PMO Joe, and for the next hour or so, we'll be talking project management. We have very special show today as I'm excited to have our guests joining us live from Ukraine. So it's going to be great to speak with them and get some perspective on the real situation there and not just what we hear on the news. We'll be able to get some firsthand accounts. Before we get into the show, just a couple of announcements. I want to celebrate and acknowledge that Phoenix Business RadioX, our home, has just celebrated their fifth birthday. So a clap out to the radio station. It's such an amazing accomplishment under the leadership of Karen Nowicki to bring so many great radio shows and podcasts to the world out of our little studio home here in Tempe, Arizona. So it's fantastic what we've been able to do. Special thanks to all the team who have supported us over those five years, including Darrol Robinson, who's here producing our shows.
[00:01:44.710] - PMO Joe
As always, Angie Shields, Kindra Maples, Kelly Lorenzon and everybody else back in the Atlanta headquarters who helps make these shows possible. So congratulations on five years. It's been a great trip and look forward to the next five and beyond. It's going to be a lot of fun. Reminder to everybody that we are live, so add a comment, let us know where you're joining us from. It's always great to be able to see where guests are, where our audience is, and if you have questions, feel free to enter the comment in there as well and we'll try to address all the different comments and questions that we get as the show goes on. A reminder that each of these shows is about an hour in length, so they count for one PDU, right? What a great opportunity for those that are trying to get your recertifications in place. This is episode 105. So you have 105 PDUs out there if you go and listen to all the shows, but don't do it just because you're getting a PDU. Get it? Because you're listening to great guests and you're hearing their story with great experiences from some of the best leaders in the world within our industry.
[00:02:54.350] - PMO Joe
And with that, I am very excited to have our special guest with us today. Mariia Abdullina, Oleg Matseliukh and Mykola Stefanynshyn. Welcome Mariia, Oleg and Mykola.
[00:03:09.590] - Mariia Abdullina
Hello.
[00:03:10.520] - PMO Joe
Hello. So I want to have each of you say hello and introduce yourselves and we'll put Mariia if you want to go first.
[00:03:19.220] - Mariia Abdullina
Yeah, sure. So hello Joe. Hello everyone who is listening to us today. It is very nice to meet you again in such a nice atmosphere and thank you Joe for inviting us here to your show. It's really great pleasure and great honor for us to be here and share our story and experience. So my name is Mariia Abdullina, I'm head of Project portfolio and Efficiency Management Division in Raiffeisen Bank Ukraine and I'm driving transformation activities in our bank. I'm in banking industry since 2009 and I joined our company directly from the university and built my career over the last 13 years. So this is like my family bank. So I'm not only a boss but also a mother and a wife. I have seven years old son and he's Jack and I'm really excited to do some sport and healthy food and engage my family into this habits. So talking about a bank so this is a bank in top five in banking industry in Ukraine and part of the Raiffeisen International Group in the Central and East Europe. We are serving now more than two 5 million customers so you can imagine how big we are.
[00:04:49.350] - Mariia Abdullina
So I pass my word to my team. Oleg please.
[00:04:54.230] - Oleg Matseliukh
Hello. It's a pleasure to be invited to this show. Thank you Joe. My name is Oleg Matseliukh. I am chief development and Support manager in Project Management office in Raiffeisen Bank. Mainly I am working with strategy and project methodology also besides work I am playing football, visited gym, playing poker also from the beginning of this situation in Ukraine I married and have a dog. It's also big challenges and help me to manage with stress. So nice to meet you. Hello to all guests. Mykola
[00:05:42.790] - Mykola Stefanyshyn
Hello everyone. Nice to meet you. It's a great pleasure to be here with all of you. My name is Mykola Stefanynshyn. I'm from Lviv. I'm quite new in the PMO team because I joined it in August 2021 but for me it was a great challenge just because I have never been working before in Ukrainian market. So before that I just was working in the Shared Service Center company and here in the bank. It was quite challenging and interesting for me to start here and basically I gained a lot of experience yes and up to now and even in this period of time it's quite intense and it's really like hard time yes for us but we still learning we are doing everything we can be persistent and we are professionally as well growing even in all the circumstances. Yeah so it's great pleasure and hope for a good discussion.
[00:06:42.980] - PMO Joe
Well, thank you so much everyone and Oleg, congratulations on your marriage that's fantastic. And when you say football, just for us Americans over here, that could be soccer or that could be football. So I'm assuming you're meaning soccer, right? Yeah, and I think it was that Ukraine was just made it to the match before qualifying for the World Cup in soccer and just missed. Right. But I think it was at one goal. So close.
[00:07:11.750] - Oleg Matseliukh
So close. Really? The team played very well much, but unfortunately it happened probably next time.
[00:07:23.370] - PMO Joe
And Mariia, my introduction to you really came from the PMO Global Alliance PMO Awards last year. I was one of the judges and your bank had been submitted and was the winner of the European Award for top PMO in Europe and then made it to the finals, of course. And what an amazing accomplishment for your bank to be able to do that. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience and what it feels like to be named the best PMO in all of Europe?
[00:07:55.530] - Mariia Abdullina
Yes, sure. I remember my excitement and all of our team when we find out that we won. It was a long journey to prepare for the PMO Global Awards. So we were shooting the video, we were writing the scenario, we revealed the whole story. And we try to do it as actual and life as possible. And during the preparation, we try to focus not only on the nice stories and what are good achievements, but also to show what are the challenges, what are our lessons learned. And you know, I think this is something which help us to win because we truly show the reality. During the contest itself, we were watching carefully under the competition between different countries and we're even making the bets. Oleg was calculating probability, what is the probability of our winning in that competition? And we were excited all over the steps. When I was listening to the announcement, I was really screaming. And I was sitting in the room with one of my board members in our bank and I thought, we want can you imagine? And he thought, Oh, Marsha, you did a great job. You miss Europe. And they were miss Europe.
[00:09:38.520] - Mariia Abdullina
But it was really a great job of all our team because everyone was engaged. We did it really jointly. And when we got this chance to present Ukraine on such a great contest, I come to my team and told, okay guys, now we have really challenging changes, transformation in our bank and we have such a challenge and opportunity to present Ukraine in the world. And I thought, Okay, are we ready for that? And I thought, of course. When? If not now? And I thought, Okay, if you go, I also rely on you. And we did it. You see.
[00:10:19.850] - PMO Joe
That's fantastic. I love it. We had Lucho Guardado from El Salvador on the prior episode, his team had won Best PMO in America right from the small country El Salvador. So it's great to have in back to back weeks two of the top four PMOs in the world from last year on the show so it's fantastic to go through that. So one thing I want to talk about, obviously the most obvious thing, right? Everybody in the world knows that Ukraine is at war at the current moment but what we don't know is what's the impact of that, right? How does business and day to day life go on? How does a bank function during the middle of a war? I don't know, Mariia, if you want to start that or one of the.
[00:11:04.780] - Mariia Abdullina
Other team members yeah, I may start and then password to my colleagues. So what shall I say? That during the war Raiffeisen is caring about safety and financial sustainability of more than 2.5 million customers and 6.5 thousand employees currently on average 75% of our branch network continue to work. It was quite hard times to come to this percentage because of occupied territories, because employees were moving to more safe places within Ukraine and abroad it required a lot of effort from our employees. Even a special group of people was collected come together to make decisions to care about all business continuity processes. If you want to continue, probably to.
[00:12:04.900] - Oleg Matseliukh
Add in general that no one expects that this can happen really we have a lot of news previously that probably Russian can attack us but no one take it really so seriously because we have already eight years of war in the east part of Ukraine and probably they think that okay, that can something happen in this area and no one else but it was like scale attack for all Ukraine but things got in bank we have this BCM scenario even in this case and it really worked. Of course everyone was in super stress but starting from the morning, 24 July, our board members and key people, they immediately start from the morning, activate this PCM scenario, start to support people with the creation and also take care of our customers because in country we have a huge panic in the first day and no one even knows what should I do, should I run, should I go to Poland? After that we have the situation that a lot of people leaving their houses, moving to the best part of Ukraine and it was like very unpredictable situation because no one knows what is next. We have threads every hours and you're working and you should go to the bombing safe place and you take your laptop, you start to connect with your employee colleagues, even have some important call and really try to work and be more useful in this time, which you really can and do your maximum this first day.
[00:14:03.530] - Oleg Matseliukh
After that the situation is a little stage to be a little bit better probably Mykola.
[00:14:12.050] - Mykola Stefanyshyn
Yes, I also share a little bit about this and smaller mark to that the 24 february, July this nightmare has started. I'm saying nightmare because probably for most of people, for us it began in the morning. Yes, early in the morning. Mariia probably has heard all the bombings, sherlings, et cetera. But me and duly we received some messages from our friends, received, I think it's five or 600 in the morning. And to be honest, I couldn't even imagine, I couldn't believe I thought it's something that was not happening, not exactly the war yet. It was a really harsh and hard moment at that time. But professionally speaking, yes, we started the work, started working from the first day. So we connected everyone who could and we just started to move on and started to move based on our PCP and discussing our basic meetings and to understand what to do. And we can proceed the story as well.
[00:15:22.690] - Mariia Abdullina
Yeah, so if I may also continue so we as the bank as well as others in the Ukrainian market, had to ensure that our key business processes are working stable, that business services are available for clients and they have access to their money when they need. As a result, our clients have 24 x seven access to their money through our digital platforms. And our call center was always ready to answer all the questions. Bank as well, always was focused on its values and safety of employees was a key priority at that time. So due to people were moving to more safe places, two key topics here appeal on our agenda. So first one is how to organize safety for our place, how to help them to find accommodation, how to help with evacuation, how to ensure they can continue working when they found safe place. And secondly is how also to organize additional working hands in those areas who require them. So it was really great to see how people from other business areas, for example, we are ready to work in the call center and open accounts for our clients like procurement or project managers carmasters.
[00:16:51.030] - Mariia Abdullina
This was a cool representation of high cross functional capabilities and really agile in work in application.
[00:17:01.950] - PMO Joe
Yeah, that's amazing. I know a lot of companies are always saying, hey, we have a good business continuity plan in place in case the Internet goes down for 4 hours, right? But it takes it to a completely different level when your extended network is jeopardized because of cut power lines and of course invading troops and occupation and stuff of those lines where ATM machines could get knocked out. And how do people get access to their funds and transfer their money and all those sorts of stuff? Especially if they're leaving to Poland or other countries and they want to make sure they have enough money when they get there. Right. They have to have access to those funds and they're relying on your bank to be able to make sure that happens. Usually in the PMO world, we have such high governance for things of how do we approve things? Did the approval process and the governance process changed at all? Because you needed to make decisions maybe more quickly and more immediately?
[00:18:02.250] - Oleg Matseliukh
Yes, from the beginning so we do not know what happened as we say safety first but regarding customers needed to be analyzed a lot of different things currently happening in Ukraine and a lot of customer needs goes to the call center and we collect all these needs to optimize some things, some parts for example which government provide some donation to the people who live in Ukraine we open the solar account automatically to allow customers in the bank and build support to have less already request to our call center and also we are working like on the short term reaction we face with some situation and need to immediately react to start developing something process it was really not easy but we managed to do this in the beginning.
[00:19:17.800] - PMO Joe
Yeah, go ahead Mariia yeah, I wanted.
[00:19:22.020] - Mariia Abdullina
To enlarge a little bit and share also from the PMO site so crucially important factors for our being more during the war was adaptability and flexibility so our agile transformation helped us in adopting to the conditions and react quite fast to new business needs as Oleg mentioned so we have stable agile teams which quickly change the priorities in their backlogs according to current business needs and work hardly to implement fast necessary features and functionality as the one which Oleg mentioned with the accounts opening which gives access to financial aid from the government on the one hand side as well major part of our portfolio was put on hold because priority shifted it was like different situation completely but on the other hand we had our clients, their needs, business call those appear with their priorities and thus we focus on the short term functionality delivery we reprioritize incoming demand and give our stable teams new purpose. Of course, short term none can plan for longer than three months and it really helped our people feel that sense of purpose be helpful, get this inspiration and motivation to continue their lives to be valued and deliver some value to.
[00:21:07.880] - PMO Joe
The customers yeah, I would imagine obviously a tremendous sense of nationalism and pride, right to rally around one another, to be able to support yourselves as this is going on how does that play into the values of the bank itself, right? I mean every company has their values right in their mission that they go towards but in this circumstance does that change at all? Or maybe your values actually enhanced the way you are operating?
[00:21:38.730] - Mykola Stefanyshyn
I can maybe try to answer as well this question start for definitely that all the values that's the key that values are helping you in critical situations so basically all the values we try to establish and to grow before interesting to learn ownership for any task, for anything which you do in your activities here in your domain, etcetera. The productivity, the collaboration between the teams and as well the thoughts about customers and employees. So everything, all these values just increased? Yes, they enhance in this period and they started being a basis, for instance, as well as it also helped to establish the good support to employees who were leaving the country. There was also established all the services and possible services for people who were trying to take basically the cash from the places they were in countries because it was also the big problem. And basically the values also are driving us as well to still be compliant even in hard situation, to understand, to be professional and to keep the PMO principles. Yes, what we do yeah, I can.
[00:23:03.560] - PMO Joe
Imagine that obviously gets stressed and relying on your teammates becomes maybe even more important than it used to be. Teammates are always important, but in these situations it's even tougher. Mariia, what was it like at the beginning of this? Oleg and Mykola had talked about that. But imagine at the beginning of this, first you want to check to make sure your family is safe and okay, but then your teammates, right? How did you rally around one another when all of this started?
[00:23:32.370] - Mariia Abdullina
Yeah, well, hard to remind myself how hard were those days. Our first day started with a huge shock and we tried somehow to continue working and none of us believing that this is real. But then checking the news, checking what is going on with your friends, how people started to crazily move for example, from Kiafia we realized that it is really happening. And of course after checking with the family that everyone is fine. We also organized a number of chats with our employees. We set up everyday kind of townhouse calls to catch up and we were asking okay, everything is fine, how is your family? So that was really our routine afterwards to check early morning every next day if everyone is in safe place. What also was organized by our HR team is online and every day monitoring where our people are moving so that we can support them. We organized the Helpline and Help Telegram charts which were our employees who were in the safe places, help with the logistics and different questions in the community who moved within Ukraine and abroad. Also, it was also not only within our team, but also bank wide.
[00:25:13.270] - Mariia Abdullina
There was a communication channel established with the connection to the board of management who updated employees regularly on what are the updates on the recent situation, what is the organization reaction and our response action to the restrictions and limitations which were coming from our central bank, from the government. How can we support our clients, employees, et cetera. As we already mentioned, our key focus was really on people's safety and during the first two weeks, I would say people were moving around, were moving within the Ukraine. Some decided to move abroad and take their families. And of course, it took some time to have the accommodation to arrange your life there but then immediately guys connected to the work, they were available. We even track the availability of people and ask, okay guys, do you have laptop? Are you ready to work? On certain dates? It was really crucial to join our operational division and support in transactions and operations which clients were doing in our back end systems and what we did, we also asked guys, okay, do you have this experience? Are you ready to work part time and help in this area? And you know what?
[00:26:41.700] - Mariia Abdullina
None refused. So everyone was really excited to help. And with this they feel this sense of purpose. They wanted to be helpful as much as possible.
[00:26:54.450] - PMO Joe
Yeah, I didn't think about it that way. I guess maybe work provided a constant for them that was a little bit of normal, maybe in a period of extreme uncertainty and then maybe you could rally around that, right? To be able to come together as a work unit. That's an interesting thought. Yeah. So, Oleg, from your perspective, same sort of question on that. Is there's a leadership perspective to this of how do I make sure that we're organized and we're leading our team? And then there's a team member perspective of I need leadership to help me make sure that we're doing this from both different perspective. What was your view of how the company came together, the bank came together and worked together during that uncertainty?
[00:27:44.260] - Oleg Matseliukh
Yes, from the leadership perspective, it's also very important to usually work closely with your team. You usually should check the situation about healthy safety and to be ensured that your team have good opportunity to work closely. Also, it's very help to work with this huge stress which also hold people in the bank and hold your prayer in facing from the beginning. And if people have opportunity to work, it's also good to organize some process and work for them and start to do something that they are feeling that they are still important in this crucial situation because of course, a lot of people in Ukraine lose their job, business has a lot of difficulty and everyone's worried about the future will I have work? Will I have job? Will I have some money to buy food to eat? Because everything in the beginning was unpredictable and due to this, it's very good to collaborate with closely collaborate with team, have really short term focus tasks and that every person in your team feels your involvement in this to support even other department or to proceed with some special tasks for your current activity, which still valid in this situation.
[00:29:27.250] - Oleg Matseliukh
And it's also important to speaking and ask about personally in this time because probably it's the most important thing that when you talk every day with your leaders, with your team, even board member, every week talk to all people and this confidentiality that everything will be good, that we are safe, we should work our best in current situation what we can support each other and as one big family like bank and support other customers because we are all in this situation in our moment and we should do what we can from our best from each person because someone can work, someone can't any possibility to work. We do not think to look about these things. But do you personally in this moment probably this approach was taken and all people like knowing that someone do not work. No one talks about this. Everyone do maximum 100% even more in this difficult time.
[00:30:39.290] - PMO Joe
On a more light hearted note, as a dog owner myself and you had mentioned you had a new dog during this time but I believe you're in leviv so maybe you're not getting the constant sounds and noises for us. My dogs get scared whenever there's fireworks and noises around. I mean everyone thinks about people. My wife would be very angry at me if I didn't ask about the pets because she's such an animal lover. How do pets react in this period? Obviously we as people have the ability to comprehend and understand, right? But pets don't have that capability. What's that like?
[00:31:16.670] - Oleg Matseliukh
Yes, so in the beginning, probably in first week after this war start it was really stressed and we just took this small dog and he just was three months after birthday but currently this helps us to motivate us to help us to work with stress. It's like new member of our family for now and it's usually great but when we have some alarm air or some different songs our doctors of course worried and feels this situation with some dangerous and start lying but it's also the second part of support me and my wife we also take care very much about our new family member and.
[00:32:22.860] - PMO Joe
What's your dog's name and what kind of dog?
[00:32:25.730] - Oleg Matseliukh
Phoebe.
[00:32:26.840] - PMO Joe
Phoebe. What kind of dog is Phoebe?
[00:32:30.350] - Oleg Matseliukh
It's like Pomeranian.
[00:32:32.930] - PMO Joe
All right, so little one, right? Yeah, small. All right. And for Mykola, you're the newest team member out of the group so maybe you didn't have as much of a chance to appreciate the culture of the bank prior to obviously all of the war starting. What have you been able to appreciate? You heard Oleg talk about this and Mariia as well. All this great culture and the ability to adapt and overcome as a newer person into that. What's that look like for you? Right? You don't know yet, right? Until you get into a situation like that. So what's your reaction as a newer member of the team?
[00:33:12.390] - Mykola Stefanyshyn
Interesting question. I'm a new member, yes, but still I'm not so new basically I really had a very good time to experience these values because in Ukraine we have different types of companies and I was even a bit worried moving from the place I've been before and definitely it was this bank, this something which I was really filled while here. So it's the place where, as I mentioned, the values, they are important, the people are nice and definitely it was really great experience even beforehand because we already got acquainted with each other, all our team, we already worked with other teams. But what definitely experienced during this start of war yes, that we started to be even closer. So we became more open to each other. We also became more transparent and open to the people with whom we work, with whom we collaborate externally. So basically I am really experiencing this openness at this moment because we are feeling united and we want to overcome these threats, this time together and to become stronger, to become more resilient and that's maybe as a person I feel in our team in Overland Bank at the moment, you from the person which is new.
[00:34:50.750] - Mariia Abdullina
I wanted to even share a story and experience of Colin. He's, chief Analyst in the PMO. And when the war started, it was huge demand for the analytical skill because we wanted to build the dashboard, online dashboard with information where our people are located, whether they're moving abroad and whether they need any support, as well as understanding who are in occupied territories, who need help. So that was the key topic to build on. And Call immediately joined controlling team who was responsible to build up jointly with HR. And he also showed a very great experience of the cross functional team collaboration. It was also positive feedback from the collaboration from other units. So Colin himself, how it is that's fantastic.
[00:35:54.890] - PMO Joe
I remember back to the video that you had submitted for the Global Awards and leadership was such an important the bank's leadership was involved in that video. And supporters of your PMO, how did they lean on the PMO or did they lean on the PMO to help in any of the business continuity work? To be able to say we got to get this done, just get it done. What was the interaction like with the leadership team?
[00:36:24.830] - Mariia Abdullina
Yeah, I would say that in the business continuity plan development we were not so much involved. But when the war started, there was urgency in making particular projects. Like first one which we launched and the chart came to us named Hybridwork 20 is really how to enable work in this constantly moving environment that we had different type of employees who stayed at home, who were in occupied territories, who moved within Ukraine, who moved abroad. So for these four type of employees we had to build new processes, new way of working, arrange everything from really nothing. We built on that a lot of achievements and exactly our team helped to achieve that. And we are about to close this project as all our achievements are ticked off. So we really perceived as a professional team within the bank and our stakeholders and users are coming to get high quality service. And not only as I also mentioned, we worked with our portfolio. We had to put on hold certain projects, certain activities, and our task was to collaborate with key leaders, transformational leaders, to agree with them and facilitate the discussion. What would be our focus for the next short term period?
[00:38:06.300] - Mariia Abdullina
We can't just endlessly do nothing. Yeah, as soon as our people are in safe places, they started to ask questions, okay, how can we help? What shall we do? And we facilitate this decision making.
[00:38:22.800] - PMO Joe
So maybe this is a weird question in my mind it sounds like a weird question before I ask it, but obviously the shock of the war when it started, but now it's been over three months. Is that now become normal? Has your current operations become kind of a normal feeling for you at this point? Or is it still seem as if you're working in a business continuity, right, in an emergency type setting?
[00:38:50.390] - Mariia Abdullina
Yeah, I would say that there are both feelings in parallel. So we continue to focus on our BCM plan and execution. We are restructuring in some areas our operational model, like in operations. At the same time, people who are in safe places, they need this purpose, which we talked about. They need to continue their work and get this also feeling of stability and believing in tomorrow. So I would say there are two parallel realities. Of course you can't ignore what is going on, but you also can't continue being desperate, depressed, whatsoever. You try to find some motivation for yourself and say, okay, this is how it is and we need to move forward, we need to serve our clients, we need to continue working. And that's how it is.
[00:39:52.570] - PMO Joe
Mykola, when I was asking that question, I saw you shaking your head as well. What's your thoughts on that?
[00:40:00.090] - Mykola Stefanyshyn
Yeah, I agree with Mariia, but also just want to say that we do not have the time for reflection for the moment. Yes, we are in this situation and we need to act. We need to work, we need to bring some value, we need to do something, we need to volunteer, we need to support army, the people in need, and to provide the services to customers what we currently are doing. Now, maybe time for reflection will be a bit later, but we all have some stories, some things which happening around with the people. Luckily, fortunately, maybe not the closest to us, but we know those people who were due to the words who someone died, et cetera, et cetera. So we understand this, but we are trying to reflect a bit later. Yes, now we need to act and we need to work.
[00:40:54.240] - PMO Joe
Just a comment that had come in for Mariia, right? What a demo, a demonstration of resilience despite all odds and teamwork, to pivot in such unprecedented times and obviously congratulations on the award that you all received last year as well. That's from Natalia. I'm not sure where Natalia is located, but thank you for that, Natalia. It's always good to get that feedback during the show. So what's the future like? To your point, Mykola? Right, maybe I'll ask this to Oleg you must stay present because this is reality. But there's going to be a future. How do you plan for the future? Right? Mariia has talked about the portfolio and projects being put on hold for the current time. But how do you get back to normal operations at some point? Or is that still so far into the future that you just don't have to worry about that at this time?
[00:41:44.350] - Oleg Matseliukh
No, we already from the beginning we start to react, we collect almost important topic in our bank, we already prioritize them based on in the beginning we hold everything and we already start in the first month already to prepare the top priority things in the month start from the first priority and next for the 14 priority. We already give the project and adaptive team the focus, where should they go in the short period of time. But of course in parallel we already tried to see the future strategy, what the business outcome can be in future when the work will finish. We have a lot of different scenarios. Of course, for the moment it's very difficult to say everything is realistic, but based on all scenario we have like a middle term focus and after that probability, like long term also focus for the bank, like to stay the most recommended financial services in Ukraine and also we have already some working group which already start to work with middle and long term and hope till end of the summer we will already have some full clarity in which way we should continue because of course the work have huge impact and every day we have different situation but still we should keep focus on everything and go ahead and continue to work and do our best for our customers.
[00:43:47.270] - Mariia Abdullina
Yeah, if I may add to this point that of course our current mode is survival. We don't know yet how the situation will end up, what would be the territory of Ukraine and how it ends, but we started to build on our assumptions on the new future and opportunities which are to be open for our bank and picture is not so bad, we also see good opportunities and this is something for us to consider for the next period.
[00:44:22.670] - PMO Joe
And is the bank a business bank, consumer bank, a commercial bank? Are you serving both businesses and individuals? And I asked that because I know in some parts of the country they've started some rebuilding, of course, where the Russians have been pushed back. So is that something where the bank is involved, trying to help the community get back through business lending? Are those sorts of operations still in place?
[00:44:49.130] - Mariia Abdullina
Well, we are Universal bank so we are serving both corporate clients and private individuals as of now we didn't stop our products so we continue to serve our clients and honestly we even did more in favor of clients in the first month so we canceled all the commissions for the private individuals. We also implement credit holidays for our clients because impact was on the whole business and on all industries that's why every industry was trying to support each other and it was also good to see how our clients were showing their stability and they were covering their loan payments et cetera so it was really nice to see so during the first month, of course we have this drop in our income et cetera but it's like the same for all the banks on the Ukrainian market so a question.
[00:45:59.080] - PMO Joe
For obviously the whole world was dealing with COVID and that forced PMOs from around the world to have to react differently and start to do digital transformation projects and bring them through so maybe your bank had some experience in some sort of emergency setting before the war happens. Of course the war takes it to a whole nother level but was coveted in any way a test run to get your practices sharper and your team to be able to execute better at.
[00:46:28.860] - Mariia Abdullina
That point yes, 100%. We even were discussing on the first meetings with management board that bad to say of course, but covet really helped us and prepared us for the work because during the covet we already moved all our people especially support functions to online mode so all we're working from home remotely it was enabled with the equipment, with access rights, all the environment when we started we all were prepared so there was no disruption in our processes in our cooperation and work model with employees so it's even enlarged and you mentioned digitalization and I must say that it become even stronger yes, so the need for digitalization become even stronger because we need to serve our clients not only within Ukraine but also who moved abroad so we need to set higher level for our services, high availability and cross border even
[00:47:40.310] - PMO Joe
Oleg so you're nodding as well when I had asked.
[00:47:43.710] - Oleg Matseliukh
That question yes, because almost been focused to start the most digital as can be from the beginning of the world we start with cloud migration program it's like all services which we have on land in some cities it immediately start to migrate in cloud because bank needs to be more flexible and safety from clients perspective that everything is not physical but everything is in cloud also we have a lot of different security project will also keep efficiency from our customers that we are safe and of course in general we are like super agile and work team in different conditions because start from covet everyone don't need to go to the office we are as a team of team work from different cities in Ukraine and we feel fully comfortable from the beginning. I also started two years ago in a bank and I'm in Lviv, some also employees in military region from our team and we work online together but together we have full alignment and it really helps that when we face with this situation and work, we already have this experience that everyone can just need to laptop and fully can work and support the bank and to do their functions really?
[00:49:29.350] - PMO Joe
Yeah, as Mariia said, it's horrible, right COVID that had led to that, but it's good that it did and for Mykola, a kind of a question for you on this would be here we are in this middle of this tragedy, obviously that's taking place and the war is active and everything for us on the west that just see through news and don't really get to see the day to day perspective of what you go through with life what is it that we should be aware of, right? What's the story that we need to know that maybe you can share with us that we may be not getting what's the reality for life like in Lviv for you?
[00:50:14.550] - Mykola Stefanyshyn
Luckily unfortunately is less impacted territories. Yes, we are on the west part of Ukraine, however, we still had some missile strikes in view inside the city so some of them was flying over our heads yes, we heard homes and we also heard the results of it and saw the results of it but definitely what we think it's important to not overestimate the value of propaganda also it's important to act as well when the propaganda rises in some countries it's kind of truth that the discussion and the war started eight years ago yes, and probably the actions were not proper enough in some cases yes, maybe to stop the aggression and possible aggression, but maybe not but it's kind of something which we also have to reflect later on after everything will be stopped yes, everything the world will be finished but also in different countries maybe I will also share the good example on the previous topic because due to the reason that we are working in different cities yes, in different regions we also had the possibility to each other in this collaboration, for instance, people from departments and which have relatively much safer place, they could substitute the people who were in these places and have to move on and other so basically people in department started working in the contact center 100 persons that leave, for example, started to call to the clients and starting to learn how to talk with clients, et cetera so there are a lot of different examples even in our bank where people were like the copying and being.
[00:52:27.430] - PMO Joe
In these circumstances yes, and Mariia, as we're getting close to now, the end of the call here hour goes by quickly is there anything that people in the west or other countries can do to support, whether it's, I don't know, thoughts and prayers or if there's anything more concrete or physical that we can do to support the bank and your team and those who had to leave the country, is there anything that you can think of that we might be able to do?
[00:52:57.350] - Mariia Abdullina
I may say some general things. Yeah, it may sound to you, yeah. But I think things which all people over the world can do is of course the native possible support those needs which are actual for the army, for the refugees. Another thing which can be helpful and would be helpful definitely is really supportive of our refugees who moved from Ukraine and looking for some accommodation or some place to live for some time. So that would be of course helpful as well. As Oleg mentioned, the third thing would be on the news. So really investigate, not to leave to particular one use, but really check for other sources and be thoughtful and make your own conclusions on what is going on. Contact real people from Ukraine who can share the real picture and then act however you want on that, however you can.
[00:54:08.400] - PMO Joe
Yeah, fantastic. Well, as we wind up here, I want to let all of you say how can people get in touch with you if they want to, if they're listening to this and they want to reach out and show some support or offer some assistance in any way? What's the best way for folks to connect with you? I'll start with Mariia.
[00:54:27.610] - Mariia Abdullina
Well, we are available in all the communities like LinkedIn, Facebook. You may have our contacts and you also publish them. So yeah, that would be possible. And from the bank perspective, we have our general mailbox, so you may send messages with help, suggest it and it will be analyzed by our team.
[00:54:57.210] - PMO Joe
All right, fantastic. Oleg, same for you, anything?
[00:55:03.090] - Oleg Matseliukh
I am open.
[00:55:07.230] - PMO Joe
Do you have your wedding pictures posted and pictures of the puppy?
[00:55:11.670] - Oleg Matseliukh
Not yet. I will.
[00:55:14.970] - PMO Joe
All right. And Mykola, same for you?
[00:55:18.260] - Mykola Stefanyshyn
Yeah, same for me as well. Maybe Twitter as well.
[00:55:21.570] - PMO Joe
Fantastic. Well, thank you all for joining us. I really do appreciate you taking time to be able to come spend time with us and chat about what's going on there and how you've reacted right. And how the PMO has been such a valuable asset to the organization to try to create business continuity and try to keep operations moving as closely to normal as you can. And of course, all my support to you and your country to be able to overcome this aggression and get back to your life as you used to know it and to have a normalized Ukraine at some point in the future. Thank you again to all our listeners. Right, be sure to https://www.thepmosquad.com/podcast to check out all our shows and guests. We have a great upcoming line up. We've got Konstantin Reibel and Robert Breise joining from Germany. Melissa McDonald, Mayte Siviera. Track Via will be on, talking about the Citizen Developer Program with PMI, Dr. Robert Joslin. KeyedIn will be on. Chris Sprague with some of his folks from the PMO Global Alliance, talking about their healthcare initiative, Sanjiv Augustine, and others. Of course, a reminder we were just live, but we do record these shows, so they're available on your favorite podcast platform.
[00:56:43.820] - PMO Joe
So be sure to subscribe to Project Management Office Hours on Apple, Podcast, Spotify, Spreaker, et cetera. And thank you to our sponsors, The PMO Squad and The PMO Leader. Without them, none of this would be possible. 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.
[00:57:08.430] - Announcer
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