[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.
[00:00:29.870] - 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 from the new Phoenix Business Radio X Studios in Tempe, Arizona. I'm your host, PMO Joe, and for the next hour or so, we're going to be talking project management with our special guest who's in studio with me today. It's always great to have someone here with me in the studio. Before we jump into that conversation, I just want to send out a couple of announcements. I mentioned last week on the show that the PMO Leader Global Community Annual Conference is now accepting registrations. We just announced this week that our title sponsor is keyed in. We're very happy to have them as a global sponsor for us. We have planned we're who is sponsoring the Americas region and the AMIA region, and we just signed on our Asia Pacific sponsor this morning. So we'll have that announcement coming out in the next day or two. So lots of great stuff. The conference, I think, is going to be a little bit unique. We're going to start over in Perth, Australia, at 10:00 a.m. Perth time, and then be live for the next 17 hours, bringing you almost like a New Year's Eve celebration, right?
[00:01:41.140] - PMO Joe
We're going to as we follow the sun across the world, we're going to be bringing you live content from, I think, every continent in the world except Antarctica. So if there's anybody in Antarctica listening and you want to present, it would be awesome to be able to have you join us as well. So you'll be able to go out to our website, get your registration and have that here shown on screen. Registration is free, thanks to our sponsors. They've covered the cost of the conference, so it's free for everybody to go out there and join us. Also want to mention that these shows are recorded and you can use them as a podcast to help you obtain your PDUs. This is Show 110, I believe, so that's a lot of PDUs, so take advantage of that. Not just for the PDUs, of course, but we've had some amazing guests on over the past five years with lots of great experiences and knowledge that they've shared with the audience. So take a listen and collect those PDUs as well while you're doing it. We are live radio, as I mentioned, but we're also streaming right now on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.
[00:02:49.550] - PMO Joe
So really there's no excuse to not be able to join us, other than maybe you've got a busy schedule because most project management professionals do, but we've got access to wherever you need it. So with that, if you're listening in today, drop a comment out there, let us know where you're joining from. It's always fun to be able to see where our different listeners are coming in from. That's it for announcements. Welcome, Milan. Welcome to the show.
[00:03:15.430] - Milan Dordevic
Thanks, Joe. I really appreciate being here.
[00:03:18.030] - PMO Joe
Yeah, it's great to have you here. You've got quite the interesting story. And before we jump into that, I guess if you can just take a minute or two and introduce yourself to the listener so they can know a little bit more about who you are. Sure.
[00:03:31.180] - Milan Dordevic
So yeah, my name is Milan Dordevic, or actually it's pronounced Dordevic. I'm almost 15 years in the project management industry. I was on various project leadership positions and I was involved in implementation of the project management in various companies, PMOs, Transformation, Implementing Change and so on. Mostly focus on high tech companies in Europe or internationally. And now here I am Director of Product Development at Proctorio in Scottsdale based company which is in the industry. And I am fortunate that I have opportunities to be in person here with you in the studio.
[00:04:13.470] - PMO Joe
Fantastic. And thank you so much for joining us. We've connected on the phone and had some conversations and you have quite the interesting background for those. You can obviously hear an accent there. What's the origin story? Right. How did you end up here in Phoenix?
[00:04:31.510] - Milan Dordevic
Yes, I'm originally from Europe, from Serbia, and I started my career there, life. And three years ago I moved with my family to Arizona. So we were a couple of years, maybe five years ago, we came here to discover opportunity for growth, for better life, living. We did pretty much everything that we can in Europe, which was really nice for us. I was really accomplished in the project management area, working for the biggest It companies there, leading enormous projects and implementing PMOs in the in BMW and so on. But I saw that I can continue my career in life here. And definitely I selected Arizona because there is no snow.
[00:05:14.930] - PMO Joe
There's no snow, but it is hot. Right.
[00:05:17.810] - Milan Dordevic
I can build it that with easier than with snow. So you can jump in a pool or chill it.
[00:05:23.100] - PMO Joe
You don't have to shovel sunshine. Right. Exactly. So when I hear Serbia, I don't necessarily think project management hotbed, but that's probably my own ignorance because I've never been there. What is project management like in Serbia? Maybe to compare and contrast to what you've seen here in the States.
[00:05:41.380] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah, so there is definitely a difference. So even though project management is quite implemented as a discipline and as a role profession in Serbia, maybe in recent years when I started my career, I wasn't as majority of the people accidental project manager. So I started on my college as I wanted to be a software developer, so I enrolled in college to be a software developer. But on the second year I discovered some courses and subjects related to management, especially project management, where I discovered myself. So after that, I completely focused on that area and I did my emphasis on project management and bachelor, Masters, MBA and everything else. So pretty much on living the life of the project management.
[00:06:28.520] - PMO Joe
Yeah, that's interesting. I'm speaking September 12 here at ASU to a group of engineering students right. Not related to project management, but they have to do senior projects. So we're trying to help them have a project mindset while they're doing their work. And interesting, that's kind of how you flipped over to join the profession.
[00:06:48.610] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it was interesting back then in Serbia when I tried or was one of the avalanches I pioneers, but one of the first ones who definitely want to change and improve the project management discipline and area in the country. And I had the issues with getting the information knowledge from the local sources. So the first source was the PMI chapter in Serbia, which currently have back then was only 100 people.
[00:07:20.360] - PMO Joe
But we were talking earlier before the show started, and now you're helping plug them into the project management. I don't know the official name of it, but the exchange program, right?
[00:07:30.040] - Milan Dordevic
Yes, exactly.
[00:07:30.940] - PMO Joe
Can you share a little bit about that in this conversation? Yes.
[00:07:34.060] - Milan Dordevic
So since 2012, I was involved as a part of the PMI Serbia chapter. But when I moved to Arizona, I joined the PMI Phoenix chapter. So this year I became one of the four directors of the PMI Phoenix chapter. So officially today voting started. Whoever is listening this one vote for me. And there is as well, so we can take those roles officially. Yeah. Phoenix chapter is a large chapter, huge chapter. I think it's unbrushed diamond. And you are doing the awesome job for project management for Arizona and globally. So definitely your involvement in chapter and all around the project management here is huge, and I want you to do the same. So I did in Serbia, I did in various companies, and I said, okay, I cannot wait, I cannot sit and someone doing the job. I want to influence and I want to make an impact on the project management. So if no one else want to do it or if they can, I can help them, definitely. And I want to commit to that and I want to jump and do as much as I can. So this is something that I joined there, started to cover some roles as a VP for the membership.
[00:08:50.300] - Milan Dordevic
And also I didn't forgot my original chapter or my origins. So today we had a presentation of the exchange meetings between PMI Phoenix chapter and PMI Serbia chapter. And we would like to put that one on a higher level to include them in the official collaboration between chapters that you initiated a few years ago. Is that right?
[00:09:13.070] - PMO Joe
And I think that's up to over 20 different chapters now, right?
[00:09:17.440] - Milan Dordevic
Yes, 24.
[00:09:18.320] - PMO Joe
I think that's amazing. And this is great for this world we live in. Just remove politics because our profession is about delivering strategic initiatives, right? Exactly.
[00:09:30.040] - Milan Dordevic
So, yeah, definitely we need to remove all the boundaries that currently exist or that someone else put on us. So especially during Corona or coveted period, we learn that we can overcome that, that we can connect and be virtually with everyone I don't know, in the world.
[00:09:46.540] - PMO Joe
Yeah. And again I mentioned the PMO leader global conference. That's the same concept. Right. It's a truly global community that's based on how do we exchange information and share information to help our profession be better. The concept of Kobe has been horrible, obviously, but there's been some benefit. If you seek out, you can find the good in anything. Right.
[00:10:14.190] - Milan Dordevic
I'm happy that currently that we have PMO leader and the platform and all the community around that, that now is providing all the benefits, help and support to all project managers or whoever is starting career right now. But I didn't have something like that ten years or 15 years, 20 years ago. So I'm glad that someone started doing that right now. And definitely we all need to support our community, our people, and new generations that are coming.
[00:10:42.650] - PMO Joe
Yeah. Because I'm part of that generation that's going. I'm the one with all the gray and the beard now. How do we prepare that generation after me to be able to have the tools to be successful? So, again, leaders like yourself, who are stepping up locally, like you did in your time in Serbia and now here in Phoenix to be leaders, I think it's a message to the next generation of if you want it, go get it.
[00:11:09.630] - Milan Dordevic
Don't wait, don't wait. Make a change. If you want to see the change, make a change.
[00:11:15.000] - PMO Joe
I like that you mentioned Mercedes Benz, and we had some guests on a few about a month or so ago that we're talking about BMW. What did I say?
[00:11:25.160] - Milan Dordevic
Mercedes.
[00:11:25.790] - PMO Joe
Oh, no, BMW. Sorry.
[00:11:27.830] - Milan Dordevic
Mercedes was involved in the project. They were part of the project as well.
[00:11:31.300] - PMO Joe
Yes, BMW. My mistake. They were talking about less large scale framework that they put in. Were you involved in that as well, or what was your participation there?
[00:11:42.680] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah, definitely. I was involved. So I was hired to the company called TT Tech from Austria to completely implement the project management approach because BMW faced with really nice things in that moment, they discovered that their competition is not Mercedes, it's not Volkswagen, it's not Audio or another company. They discovered their competition or high tech companies, it companies like Google, Apple, they will create new autonomous cars, electric cars, like Tesla is doing so they said, okay, we need to change approach, we need to change ways of working, we need to interrupt the industry. Automotive industry is one of the oldest that never changed for hundreds of years. They are working in the same way. And they said, okay, we want to switch to less large scale Scrum, which is really popular in Europe. Here in the US, more safe is more popular. So yeah, they said, okay, Scrum is really good, but Scrum you can implement on a single team or small number of teams. We need something on a larger base. So definitely save less can help us and they directly approach us and less community. So we need a lot of training, certifications and everything else and implemented large scales.
[00:12:59.490] - Milan Dordevic
So we had the consortium of the couple of companies and I was leading 300 software engineers there. The total number was almost 2000 people.
[00:13:10.230] - PMO Joe
So this is something we haven't talked about previously, but I'm following your career path now. You start in Serbia and University for development, switch over to project management, get involved in the local chapter, and some years later how long was it before you did that at BMW?
[00:13:30.090] - Milan Dordevic
I would say ten.
[00:13:32.310] - PMO Joe
And the reason I say that is for people listening. Right. Who are earlier in your career and you're thinking about it. We're going ten years is not a long time. Especially at the beginning of your career. You went from. I didn't even know anything about project management. To now at an international global brand leader in its industry. An implementation of a brand new process to be able to do things differently in ten years.
[00:13:56.410] - Milan Dordevic
Yes, I appreciate that.
[00:13:59.430] - PMO Joe
Pretty amazing. Think about that for a second. Really. What can you accomplish in ten years from where you are today, right? For people who are listening to mark your time today and go forward ten years? Where do you want to be doing? Where do you want to be and what you want to be doing? And you can do that, right?
[00:14:18.120] - Milan Dordevic
No, definitely that can be done. But definitely discipline, perseverance and putting the time and effort into something is crucial. So those ten years, someone can compact maybe five if they're doing that many hours a day. But you need to have opportunity to implement knowledge or those skills so you can sharpen the skills. I was never afraid of doing some project or taking the project or jumping into something that I didn't know I was learning by doing. In the meanwhile, every night I was reading about it, I was enrolling myself, currently in parallel with my family. I have three kids, one was born a month ago. So first of all, this first month, so I have family and I'm currently enrolled in my third investors. All three were in one or another way related to project management. So I was getting that knowledge. In the meanwhile, while I was working during the day, and implementing whatever I learned during night. And I was trying to implementing and there were funny stories about that, how I tried to implement Crown for the first time and everything else. So that didn't pass well.
[00:15:30.930] - PMO Joe
No. Hey, let's hear the story. The reason I want to hear it is because people can learn from your experiences, right? And the key thing I want to point out just as prior guests talking with Marissa Silva, Carsten, Lee Amira Maza, Harry, they all talked about taking a chance. They all moved to different countries, they all were willing to follow something that they weren't sure about, but they just wanted to go for it and done the same thing. So having the courage to take a chance on something like maybe failing on the first time you implement Scrum so what was that story like?
[00:16:08.340] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah, so the failing is definitely something that some time or be in that position sometime. But if you learn from failing and change the way how you are doing that next time will put you in the right track, that will move you so you can make a progress. I'm completely about making progress and I'm not stopping. So I'm constantly in that high speed and trying to change to implement something because I know that we live in some good direction and of course all of us fail, but we need to fail fast and we need to change fast. So, yeah, the Scrum thing, I was reading about that, it was 2009 or ten when I tried first time implementing Scrum in one startup. So I got really good training from Eric Sund in Finland and from one trainer from Finland. So I said, okay, tomorrow I will use all this knowledge, go to the company and try to convince them and implement this tomorrow. No, it was not like that. So I called everyone in the company, so it was start up, I need maybe 30, 40, 50 people in the company. And I called CEOs because that was mentioned there.
[00:17:19.020] - Milan Dordevic
Oh, you need to get buying from the CEO level, C level and everyone else. So they need to see it here. And I said, hey guys, I have something to tell you. Today we will start implementation of Scrum. They said what's that? Nobody heard about that. So it was still unknown. So there was, I don't know, a couple of books about that. That was twelve years ago. Okay, explain us. And I did really nice presentation, PowerPoints and so on. And I said, okay, I didn't know story about chicken and egg, chicken peak, so how one will be committed, the other one will be so I explained like that and I said, okay, there are stakeholders, CEOs, so there are chickens and we who are involved in a project, we are pigs. So they will drop the egg and they will leave. But we are peaks, we need to be committed. So part of us will stay there and be completely involved in the projects of Hammondex. So let's make Hammondex. And I explained the roles and then in the half of the meeting he said, this is bullshit, so let's have this one. We will never implement this one.
[00:18:27.710] - PMO Joe
Oh boy.
[00:18:28.140] - Milan Dordevic
So that's it. And he said, you cannot mention this anymore, so you're done. Don't mention me. Some hippie stories or something like that. So it's not they need to deliver and that's it. So move that away. So me being me didn't want to listen, or I listen, but after some time I took a different approach. So I started implementing one by one technique and one by one using one by one tool. So I started with a small team, I started with one project. And I said, okay guys, let's meet every morning, let's do things ink, let's see, I think if you have an issue, what you did yesterday, what you plan to do tomorrow and so on, send us that. Okay, let's do it and we start. So one by one, change in a small door, I started implementing and after some time results were there. And they saw those results and said, well, really good, but nobody noticed that change. And we had results. We deliver whatever we plan to deliver. We implemented some products, but they were not aware. So in the end, maybe after six months, a year, I told them, hey guys, you see what we do now, and every Friday or every second Friday, what we do on Wednesdays, how we do the compose those items, do grooming, do implementation, have those meetings when I'm asking you to do this.
[00:19:55.950] - Milan Dordevic
Those are the things that I explained, remember in that presentation one year ago, those are the things I said, well, but it's completely different then. We didn't understood that because my approach was not appropriate. So I didn't jump in, in a way how it should be, but I learned during time, so later with some other techniques, tools, methodologies, because I tried later to get knowledge from all other methodologies and approaches. So yeah, I think all of them are really good. And all you need to know to have a knowledge to make approach on a different side.
[00:20:33.430] - PMO Joe
Yeah, you touch on something, I'm pretty passionate about you. I talked about startup community failing fastest mindset, and I think they've got it wrong, right? Because when you fail, it means it's over, it's done, it didn't work, you can move on to something else, right? But I say it's not. We learn fast.
[00:20:52.160] - Milan Dordevic
Learn fast, exactly.
[00:20:53.230] - PMO Joe
And then the story just shared. You learned fast that the approach you were doing wasn't going to work and you took a different approach. You didn't fail, you actually succeeded.
[00:21:01.810] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah.
[00:21:02.290] - PMO Joe
So this mindset of failure, if you go in thinking we're going to fail fast, you've already lost. It's a defeatist mindset. If we go in and say, I'm going to learn fast and we're still going to come out in the end. Even if your organization doesn't succeed, if it doesn't play out the way you want it to, so many startups don't, you still learn from that and you take it into your next experience and.
[00:21:22.960] - Milan Dordevic
You will not do in the same time next time.
[00:21:25.540] - PMO Joe
Yeah. So that's why I'm a learn fast guy, not a fail faster. Right. We all have enough challenges in our world. We don't have to be thinking about failure. But I love that. I love the story component of that because it's a real world scenario, right. As a consulting firm, the PMO squad has gone in and we've shared with clients, hey, this is the approach we think you should take. And I said, Well, I don't think we really want to go that path. Yeah. And then you have to adjust or you have to learn how to be able to accommodate what your client wants because you're not going to force something. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:21:56.700] - Milan Dordevic
So I think the biggest mistake that people organization do, they read about some methodology, they read about some approach or they hear that one company succeeded because they did it in that way and they want to do the same. So there is one person who succeed. He was doing it the same way and you want to do the same. No, but you are in different industry, you have different products, your story is different. You need to take all those things into consideration and apply to your organization company approach. So you cannot implement. There are probably chances that you will succeed, but there are plenty of approaches, plenty of methodologies, frameworks, and you can select one of them or you can make even better, custom one, select the best from all of them and apply to your organization. Make a custom fit.
[00:22:48.580] - PMO Joe
Yeah, that's I think what the good move PMI has made recently with the latest Pinbock is to get out of the practice of how we're going to do this and now the principles of how we should do that. Right. It allows for that customization to really say there's a beginning, there's middle, there's end, and how do we do that? What fits for your company? And let's work on that. We've been preaching that for a decade. So finally PMI caught up with our mindset again.
[00:23:16.080] - Milan Dordevic
So they are changing and they are learning.
[00:23:18.100] - PMO Joe
So you've been over here in the States, I think you said five years now? Three years. So what's different about project management here compared to what you experienced in Europe? Yes.
[00:23:31.200] - Milan Dordevic
So here is the racist location definitely exists here. And project management is in pretty much every industry. So you have project management in government, you have project management in healthcare here, in insurance, in It, on all kinds of companies, industries or organizations in Serbia or generally in Europe. It's not like that. It's mostly focused on It and construction. So you can choose one of the other and really small. There are certain efforts to implement the project management in some other industries which is not completely implemented.
[00:24:12.330] - PMO Joe
Again, I'll plug the PMO leader conference, right? We're going to have several speakers from Europe and the Middle East and Africa in there as well. And they're going to be talking about those experiences, right, to learn. Because listen, I'm I think doing a good job here locally within the US. But we've never worked in Europe, we've never worked in Asia, and I can learn from those regions just as much as they could learn from me. So now, having that opportunity she talked about with the boundaries broken down, let's listen to those voices, let's hear how they practice project management in Europe and Asia, Africa and around the world and learn from them just as we try to teach them what we know. Exactly.
[00:24:54.050] - Milan Dordevic
So I think that Exchange needed to exist. The project management, as a project management from the farm building, those pyramids and everything else explained in the book started thousand years ago, but as a discipline started in sixty s. And there are a lot of notebooks and subjects and courses and everything else explaining the project management. But it's not spread equally in every part of the world. It's not shared or an example in Serbia, especially in the It industry, scrum Agile is really popular. It's much more popular than here.
[00:25:29.470] - PMO Joe
Okay?
[00:25:30.110] - Milan Dordevic
So pretty much every single company want to have Scrum Masters want to implement Agile and everybody's talking about Agile. Agile conferences are every single month, but there is no such thing for some other industries. So the other industries are, I would say, suffering. They need to know what techniques they can use, approaches, frameworks, so they can implement and improve their businesses. Because that's the ultimate idea. All of them need to deliver something because that's the purpose of the project management. Right?
[00:26:00.400] - PMO Joe
Absolutely. Yeah. Delivery of some stores is a strategic initiative. Absolutely. So I guess the Exchange program maybe is the answer to this. But I was going to say, how do we work with these other regions around the world to try to kind of lift rising tide lifts all boats. So how do we help lift project management around the world? Coming from someone who's far more world verse than I am, yeah, definitely.
[00:26:30.930] - Milan Dordevic
PMI can be one of the ways. Definitely. PMI is everywhere. PMI has 300 chapters and it's pretty much in every state, but PMI through the local chapters is doing that for years and they did to a certain point, but I think we should not align or should not stay there with only them being the one who will be implementing something. So we can take the actions in the other way. So PMO leader is a great opportunity that should be spread pretty much every country, every state or every region. And I think definitely sharing knowledge approaches and having more people involved in communities sharing their experiences, troubles because we are all facing the same things, we are all telling the same story. And I think what is currently happening, what I see is that we have I hope I will not offend anyone, but we have those different methodologies, different approaches, like different I would say churches or different religions and they are all against each other. So we need to be the glue there and I don't know, to make them work together because in the end we want the same thing, which is delivery.
[00:27:46.000] - Milan Dordevic
So we're all working on a project which has a beginning and start. We have some scope what we want to deliver with a certain quality, with a certain resources and certain constraints that we need to jungle. But different methodologies, different frameworks are just explaining from the different perspective we're all saying about or speaking about the same thing. The perspective is from this angle or from this angle and we need to be the one or we need to somehow connect all those dots and to any peacemaker between all those religions, I would say, which are currently, I don't know, everywhere in the world.
[00:28:26.490] - PMO Joe
Yeah, when you think about it, their Agile and waterfall didn't exist when the Great Pyramids were built and somehow they still built things, right? So labels, I think are just horrible if we just call it delivery and there's different techniques that you can use to do that, we don't have to buy in. My company is only Agile, my company is only waterfall. But why? I don't understand that mindset and I think the rigidity that comes associated with that is actually a limiting factor exactly. For organization, exactly.
[00:29:00.710] - Milan Dordevic
So I was facing with those things I know in the conferences, in the conversation or implementing we want to be agile, we want to implement agile methodology only. Or if I'm speaking in front of the PMI or traditional discipline, they will say oh, you're a traditionalist, you are speaking about a PMI. We have closed mindset, we are agile, we are open for everything. We are saying about the same thing. So I said because my first certification was by International Project Management Association, which is popular in Europe as well. And after that I did, I said okay, I want to understand the other perspective. So I did PMI certification, PMP, and then there was a third side which was Agile and said okay, let me get that knowledge so I can understand completely what you're talking about and we can be on the same side. And I said okay, I will do my certification in Scrum as a product owner as well and all kinds of certification that exists. And then those kelled methodologies came or frameworks and I said okay, let me do less, let me do safe. So I got all certifications so I can speak with those people, so I can convince them that they're.
[00:30:13.570] - Milan Dordevic
All good, and we can take the best parts from all of them and implement and make a custom framework which will get the best result for the company.
[00:30:24.120] - PMO Joe
How many certifications do you have?
[00:30:26.420] - Milan Dordevic
I don't know, 810, something like that.
[00:30:29.860] - PMO Joe
Wow, that's awesome. And again, I'm one of those older school guys, right, that got my PMP and helped me understand the value of a consistent approach to delivery and then found what works for me to deliver. Right. So I've never gone out and got any additional certifications, not because I don't participate in those frameworks or methodologies, but just because I don't know, I just haven't had time for it, I guess, which is a horrible answer, because when I interview people and they give me that answer, I said, that's a horrible answer. You should have time for it. But I'm impressed by you. Romi Cobney is another guy that I know that has so many certifications.
[00:31:12.690] - Milan Dordevic
His name and all certifications in the next few years.
[00:31:17.300] - PMO Joe
Yeah. So if we compare and contrast them, not the details of them, but how they've influenced your career and what you've taken from them to put into practice, is there any sort of connection that you can make through your certifications and utilization of that within your work career itself?
[00:31:37.030] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah, I was fortunate that I started with a PMP and with a PMI because they gave me the broad information and that exam was horrible, so it was terrifying. So the other certification later just added additional knowledge to the foundation that I had, and I got through the PMP certification. So all of them just helped me to understand better the thing that I already learned through the PMP. So all of them definitely got me additional benefits knowledge and helped me to understand the changes because we saw that PMI was not changing for years, and they had that approach, which was the same from 70s. Even the environment changed a lot. So that make the opportunity for some other approaches and some other organizations to the opportunity to say, okay, we need to do something, we need to change. So this is the way we had Agile that came from, I would say software industry, original PMI came from military industry or civil engineering. We focused mostly on that. But now we have implementation of all those framework and approaches to various industries. So definitely changing something.
[00:33:04.090] - PMO Joe
We have an interesting webinar series out on the PMO leader. Michael O'Connor was the host for that and certifications around the world, and he went and interviewed some of the leaders from the different associations that provide those global certifications. And what you realize is they all come from the same spot. They're all good hearted trying to make the world better for project managers, but they have their own approach. So certainly I encourage everyone to go out and check out those. Yeah, definitely show and learn a little bit more about those different bodies.
[00:33:36.160] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah, as you said. So all those we cannot call the methodologies, they're not all methodologies. Some of them are just approaches, tools, techniques, frameworks. So they all give you certain knowledge, but some of those you can implement on a small team level or a little bit bigger group or the whole organizational level. So that's something that PMI had as a program or portfolio, but now Safe is doing on the whole organization. So yeah, there are different thoughts of safety, changing names and doing some weird things, but put that one on the side, put the roles and everything else on the side and take what you can grab from that one and what you can implement. Because now we are in the fifth technology industry, on the turnpoint of the fifth technology industry, where everything is changing. So we need to change ourselves, we need to change our processes, if we want to drive, if we want to implement and produce really good products which will be interesting and which will be on the market really fast. So we need to be, I would say agile in certain way. And we need to implement that through the whole organization.
[00:34:44.600] - Milan Dordevic
If the whole organization is not aligned, then there is no sense.
[00:34:49.270] - PMO Joe
You mentioned there this new technology kind of revolution or fifth generation that we're heading into. And AI is certainly a part of that. Every year, usually around November, December time, people start coming out with here's my predictions of what's going to change in project management next year. And for the past five plus years, people have said AI is going to take over project management. And then I write the counter argument and I say, I've been hearing this forever. Not this year, maybe in the future, but not this year. What's your thoughts on AI and project management? Or not many thoughts, but how about your experiences?
[00:35:25.970] - Milan Dordevic
No, definitely I think AI is only here but in a certain way. So I recently wrote an article on Forbes. So it's related to AI decision making in the organization and project management, whoever is willing to read that one. And there are three distinguished groups of the AI implementation. So one is the first one is assisted AI. So assisted AI means that AI is kind of helping you to generate certain data or to process certain data, which we have right now in the project management. So different kinds of calendars, scheduling tools, different kinds of cloud based tools that we are using to process data, to help us to get some decision to track something. So there are plenty of tools currently using AI in that way. The next step or the second step of the implementing AI is augmented AI, which is going to the one more level, which is using machine learning to train certain models and to train action, which is going to happen in the future. So you are not using something just to make some decisions and help you something to process the data. But you are training the system so they can predict something in the future and they can change based on the new inputs and new data, which currently starts happening with some companies, some tools, and providing certain products that can be used.
[00:37:02.270] - Milan Dordevic
And some of them we can develop by ourselves, which I'm currently doing with my team and the company. We are developing our own CRM, which is smart, which is learning during the time, collecting certain information from the leads and everything else. What we do and the action that we took based on those actions that we took can help me. So I can predict what's going to happen with a project that I will start. Oh, you took those actions on the previous project, you did this, and that can help you. You can kind of define a trend line or some actions that you should not take. And then we have the next step, which people, when they are speaking about the AI, they mostly think of the completely full automated AI, which are robots. We are still not there, right? So we are still not there and definitely will take five more years at least. So that we have maybe it depends on if you're thinking about those chips that they must want to implement in the head of the people. So definitely that's something that's going to happen next month.
[00:38:09.830] - PMO Joe
So this is always fascinating for me because I am wholeheartedly supportive of advancing technology to help us improve. And the challenge we see with Pmoscott is we're working with clients and we try to help everybody do better. Of course. What systems are you on? Oh, well, we use Excel. It's like, okay, there's so many different solutions out there to collect data and there's some basic ones like office products that are out there. How do we get data that's usable by a tool that is able to take in all of the different technologies that we use in our industry? I think that diversity of technology is actually limiting our capability to advance to that next level and to that augmented stage because there isn't a common data set that any company can go right to. Again, I'm not a technology guy, though.
[00:39:07.880] - Milan Dordevic
You'Re probably it is definitely that's the issue that we're currently facing with so.
[00:39:13.630] - PMO Joe
How do we do we need to fix that as an industry? Should we be thinking more about this or is what we do so human driven? Right. I think it was Sunnyl's time during PMI leadership where he came up with the power skills that we have to focus on. And I agree with that. Motivation, negotiation, all of those things are extremely important as a project manager, but those aren't AI driven. We're not going to motivate people necessarily, but we don't want to limit ourselves. I can think of utilization where we could motivate people with intelligence that way.
[00:39:48.880] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah, I think in the future, definitely big changes will happen, but not only in project management, but all the industries. So pretty much automation, digitalization will take advantage and we see what happened in the last ten years. A lot of processes are automated, a lot of people, a lot of roles will be turned off. They will not exist. They will be replaced, not with robots, but they will be replaced with a simple AI, as I explained, which will just do processing of certain data because there are no papers anymore. You do not need to sign by your hand, you do not need to go somewhere to take those papers or whatever to grab, to do. Obviously you can do it virtually now. You have cameras, you have technology to send, you have everything. So there are plenty of organizations using that advantage and automating all those processes and keeping people to be decision makers. So we need to keep, and as you mentioned, to use those skills that computer cannot do. And we need to focus on that side more because later, I think the role of the project manager or all kinds of roles in the project management industry will grow.
[00:41:05.030] - Milan Dordevic
And definitely this is role or industry of the future because we will be the one who will be guiding and driving technology. We'll be the one who will be driving changes in the organizations and the ones who will be driving the processes and implementing that to the ultimate product or delivery. We'll be using people to help us and people to make the decisions which are preprocessed and collected digitally with the computers and machines.
[00:41:37.250] - PMO Joe
Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic, right? Because to your point, project managers are on the lead of all of these new implementations. And then the question is, how do we consume what we're leading? Because by definition, each project is unique. So if it's unique, how do we use machine learning and other intelligence to be able to come up with answers? And I think that's the key. We do that because they're still common threads through unique projects, right? You still build schedules, you still use status reports, you still find risks and issues and going back and having automation and intelligence and machine learning evaluate those could be helpful.
[00:42:16.010] - Milan Dordevic
Definitely.
[00:42:16.390] - PMO Joe
Yeah.
[00:42:16.600] - Milan Dordevic
And we'll remove, I don't know, bias, we'll be removed mistake or issues that people can make. So don't forget something, to overturn something or not to think something. So the program is defined to preprocess that one. But people aren't the ones who are defining that program. There will not be some robots which will be on the side and they do whatever they want. No, we are not there. So those are still movies or maybe in the future, maybe not.
[00:42:42.690] - PMO Joe
Yeah, probably the biggest challenge with this is organizational acceptance of project management as a whole. We within the industry, I think, will absorb and learn from this and it will come. But organizations need to be willing to invest in those tools and right now they struggle to invest in project management to begin with.
[00:43:06.350] - Milan Dordevic
So definitely they not only need to invest in the tools and they need to invest in people.
[00:43:11.670] - PMO Joe
Sure.
[00:43:12.310] - Milan Dordevic
And I think PMO as a center of excellence in the company should be the one who should force the change.
[00:43:19.390] - PMO Joe
Well, I agree with that, but the challenge is going to be getting the organization to just accept a PMO to do that. And some companies have. This isn't a truly global issue, but certainly I think there's fewer companies who have embraced the PMO the right way than those that haven't.
[00:43:37.230] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah, but those good stories need to be explained to be shared and all companies need to hear about us. And they implemented PMO because the PMO is the center point of the project management, of the excellence of the governance and everything else that can be helpful for the organization, can support company goals and can support all changes and everything in the company.
[00:43:59.690] - PMO Joe
Yeah, I'm speaking later this month down at the PMI Alamo chapter in Texas and I'm going to be speaking, as I mentioned the ASU, and I'm going to be talking about the language of project management. Not because we in the project management industry need to understand our language. We all speak fluent project management, but organizations don't. And when we bring these concepts to them, they speak operations language and it's like learning a brand new language to them. And we have to be the stewards of language teachers as much as we are as process providers and project leaders. How do we teach the person sitting in marketing the language of project management so they can understand it and not run away from it? Because what we don't understand, we usually back away from.
[00:44:45.010] - Milan Dordevic
Exactly.
[00:44:45.800] - PMO Joe
So I think we've got an interesting next five plus years in our industry to see how we evolve with this new machine learning and technology and AI and all that.
[00:44:55.860] - Milan Dordevic
Yeah, definitely. When you mentioned the marketing or some other departments in the organization, I think that PMO will not be a single unit in the future, will not be one office which is there to help you if you need help, and that you will knock on the door and say, oh, I need some charts, reports, templates or something like that. No, the PMO will be spread through the organization. The PMO will consist of the all members in the organization that can drive change, that can change their department. So we'll be in the marketing department will be in operation, department will be in a sales department. So all those that want to implement something because they're all kind of managing their own projects, even marketing team has a project, build a website and put all those press releases with those blogs, drive some campaigns, marketing campaigns. From their perspective, that's a project. So in the beginning. I was against that. That's not a project. You're not project manager. But it is. They are. And they need what they need. They need support from the project management industry, from the people who are skilled in a project management to help them, to transfer those skills to them, because they are becoming the marketing project managers, healthcare project managers, and everything else.
[00:46:18.000] - Milan Dordevic
They have a huge technical knowledge which needs to be upgraded with the skills of the project management so they can apply to their own projects. And I think that's definitely in the way that all the industry will go.
[00:46:34.250] - PMO Joe
Well, I think a challenge to that is going to be, again, labels. Right? Because the PMO comes with a perceived connotation. Right. It's what it is because everyone writes projects to your point. Correct. Think of Six Sigma. And Six Sigma went throughout the organization to find ways to remove waste and build efficiency. It didn't have to be just a product you are producing. You can go into marketing and use Six Sigma tools, but it wasn't called the Six Sigma Office. It was a tool that you would use or a set of tools that you would use to be able to do that. Project Management Office is now coming in with this. 50 years of established mindset of you're an officer.
[00:47:20.160] - Milan Dordevic
People sit there, and they're full time doing that.
[00:47:22.680] - PMO Joe
Right. So that's where we've, again, PMO, we've changed it. We said, no, the PMO is purpose measure, optimize. What is the purpose of what you're doing? How do we measure our capability on it? And then how do we optimize it and make it be a tool?
[00:47:36.250] - Milan Dordevic
Exactly. I have the other language for that. I call that center of Project Excellence. And I think that every organization should be center of Project Excellence because each department or every team, they all have some projects and they need to deliver something. So the whole organization should be aligned. All activities should be aligned with the ultimate goals of the organization. And if we are all together through the tribes or something like that, sharing knowledge based on the activity, based on the certain area, we all are kind of center of Project Excellence, which is vertically and horizontally implemented through organization.
[00:48:18.060] - PMO Joe
Yeah. What I'd like here is we're not probably too far off in age, but we're certainly probably a generation apart from each other. Right. And you're coming after me, and you're leading the charge for that next generation that's coming. And you've got fantastic experience and great thought leadership that you have shared with us today. I'd say, what is the message, maybe for your generation as you take on new technologies, new principles, new thoughts within our industry? What's the rallying cry? Because I think my generation, and maybe the one before us, the first generation, was, let's get accepted. Let's build consistency and get accepted. We're there. There's now enough associations, enough companies understand it. So now, what do we do with what we have? What's the next generation? What's the message for them?
[00:49:09.560] - Milan Dordevic
I think they need to be open, definitely openness. And they need to implement change. So they need to grab whatever is in front of them. They need to have open eyes with the changes happening into the society. So the changes are happening with the industry, the technology. So if we are not aligned with our surroundings, we cannot progress. We are always stuck. So we should not be in a position where we stock because if we stuck, it will not progress and will not go anywhere. So new generations definitely need to be in the position where they need to see in the future what's going to happen in the next five to ten years and to align their actions based on that and definitely education, knowledge and being involved in community society and with other people that can transfer your knowledge is definitely something that I would advise to anyone.
[00:50:05.930] - PMO Joe
Yeah. And if we think PMI has got the change makers, obviously organizations like Proside, Tim Creasy has been on the show as a guest a couple of times, is so focused on change management because everything we do, every project leads to change. But I also think it's even personal change. Willing to take the risk, willing to go to a different country, willing to take on open minded certifications so you can learn different approaches to things, be willing to volunteer for a chapter and be on the board to be able to lead effort, be willing to exchange with others around the world. Globally, that is changed because you're getting out of your comfort zone. Exactly.
[00:50:45.280] - Milan Dordevic
So whenever you get out of the comfort zone, you are improving yourself because if you are doing the same thing every day, you will definitely go down. You will not do anything from your life or not make an impact. And if you want to do the best for yourself, for your family, for your community company, you need to drive change. So people are usually, definitely by definition, people are avoiding change. So they like a change if they are not part of it. But we learn through the history, through the site, that changes happening whether you like it or not.
[00:51:21.070] - PMO Joe
It's inevitable.
[00:51:21.840] - Milan Dordevic
Inevitable. Exactly. So you need to be aligned with it and sometimes to try to see the change that is coming. And the biggest opportunity is if you understand the difference, if you can make the change or not. So are you able to influence and make an impact or not? To lose the effort if you are not, but also to see the opportunity where you are able to change and how you can do it?
[00:51:48.680] - PMO Joe
Yeah, I love it. I just took a peek here at the clock and we're kind of up on top. I mean, conversations always go so fast. So last kind of question for you is just a tee up for you. Is there anything coming up that folks should be aware of that you're involved in? How can people get in touch with you? Last thoughts you have for the audience as they're listening?
[00:52:14.660] - Milan Dordevic
Sure, yeah, I have kind of my blog, PM Guru, so I'm putting some kind of post related to project management there. I'm also writing the articles for Forbes. I'm part of Forbes Technology Council. Yeah, we'll be involved in ASU event. So PMI Phoenix as well, some of the sponsors and supporting that event. Also, I will be on PMI Global Summit in December in Las Vegas. So yeah, I would like to meet with all people who are willing or have a time there.
[00:52:46.780] - PMO Joe
Yeah, I should mention that. But I'll be there as well, which would be great. All of the new friends I've made globally.
[00:52:53.510] - Milan Dordevic
Globally, definitely.
[00:52:55.670] - PMO Joe
Yeah. This cobb world, I've met so many people and never had a chance to shake their hand. And it'll be fantastic to be able to be in person with people and to be able to put a body in the face to the name. So I'm really looking forward to that. Milan, thank you so much for coming on today. Of course, thank you to all of our listeners because if we don't have listeners, we really don't have a show. Be sure to go out and visit the Pmosquad.com podcast. That's where all of our shows are kept, but also your favorite podcast platform. So Apple podcast, Google Play, Spreaker, Spotify, whatever it may be, or Phoenix Business RadioX, of course, has all of these shows saved. We've got a fantastic lineup of guests coming up in the coming months as we wind up the year. We've got just a few more shows left before this year is over. Mate Sivira will be joining us. We're going to be having a citizen developer discussion. So if you've been involved in the citizen developer program, I think that'll be an interesting one. We're going to have members of PMI joining one of their partners.
[00:54:03.330] - PMO Joe
Track Via will be with us. Then we're going to be speaking with members of the PMO Global Alliance Healthcare Strategic Initiative. I think that's going to be a fantastic discussion. We're big supporters of the PMO Global Alliance and all the good they're doing around the world. So this special group that they have focused on healthcare strategy, I think it's going to be a really fun conversation. Sanjeev Augustine will be joining us and we've got a couple of other surprises that we're working on for finishing out the rest of the year. Also, certainly thank you to our sponsors, the PMO Squad and the PMO Leader. The PMO Squad is the premier PMO and project management consulting firm started in the United States. Of course I'm a little biased because that's my company, but I think we'll deliver better for you than any other company that does that for you. And then the PMO leader I'd mentioned earlier, we have our global conference coming up in October. Registration is free. Thanks to our partners plans, we're keyed in and others that we'll be announcing shortly. We have an amazing lineup of guests planned for that, and I really encourage everybody to take advantage of that opportunity, so we look forward to joining us for that.
[00:55:12.730] - PMO Joe
We'll see in a couple of weeks as we take on our next show. That's it for now. Office Hours are closed. Until next time. PMO. Joe and you've been listening to Project Management office hours.
[00:55:25.250] - Announcer
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