[00:00:01.360] - Announcer
Do you wonder if others are dealing with the same project management challenges as you, not sure where to turn for guidance and Leadership Office Hours are in session as we discuss project management and PMOs with global leaders, hearing their story and learning their secrets to success. Our goal is to empower power you and help you elevate your PMO and project management career to new heights. Welcome back to Project Management office hours with your host Pmojo.
[00:00:30.040] - PMO Joe
Welcome everyone to Project Management office hours. We're the number one live project management radio show in the United States, broadcasting 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're going to be talking project management and related activities with our special guest today. Before we jump into the show, certainly want to encourage everybody to drop a comment out there. Let us know where you're joining from, and of course, during the show, if you have any questions for our guests, please do so and drop them into the comment section. I'd also like to comment on the prior shows we've had, the past couple of ones. I've mentioned The PMO Leader Global Conference that we had going off, and that happened on October 18 was a huge success. I think we tried something new in our industry as a global conference. We followed the sun. We started in Australia, and then we were live for 18 hours consecutive, bringing new content from folks as the earth rotated, we brought on more live people moving westward. So it was over 30 sessions, 40 speakers, and a lot of fun.
[00:01:40.320] - PMO Joe
All of those sessions were recorded, and we'll have those available for you on The PMO Leader website (www.thepmoleader.com) shortly, as well as the presentations that all the speakers have. And of course, membership to that community is free, so you'll be able to go out and capture those sessions if you miss them. Also, today is International Project Management Day, so fitting that we're having a Project Management radio show today. Earlier this morning in the States, it was also the PMO Global Alliance annual awards announcements were made, and for the third year in a row, I came up short on the PMO Influencer Award, but still an amazing acknowledgement to make it to the finals. So very humbled to be included in the great group of other finalists that were out there. And one of our guests who will meet here in a second was also a finalist in the award. So a good coincidence, again to be International Project Management Day and the day of the PMO Global Awards. So I strongly encourage everybody to go out to the PMO Global Alliance, check out the Wall of Fame, which lists the winners each year and all the different categories.
[00:02:53.360] - PMO Joe
Special salute to the winner of PMO of the Year, which I believe this year was in South Africa, if I'm remembering correctly, and then the individual awards as well, and some of the PMO Fellows for honoring careers in our industry. It's a great job the PMOGA does every year. Top notch presentation that was out there. And thanks to Americo Pinto and all the volunteers that put in so much work to make that happen. So we've got someone joining us from West Virginia. Welcome, Chris. Nice to have you here. Also, a reminder to everybody who's out there trying to get your PDUs to extend your certifications out there, each of these shows can really be a selfreported PDU for you. The shows go for an hour. This is show number 113. So we've got you covered for a lot of PDUs. Go back out to the library, take them all in, and I think you'll hear from some amazing leaders in our industry over the past five years and their experiences and insights to help you advance your career. It's not just a PDU grab, it's really a walk through the history of our industry, but some of the folks we've had on and the experiences that they've had so strongly encourage everyone to go forward and listen to those past shows as well.
[00:04:06.160] - PMO Joe
We are live on Internet radio, as I mentioned, but we're also on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube right now, broadcasting live. We're very excited to have our special guests with us today Kris Sprague, Tony Antonios and Mickey Nakamura are joining us. And I'd like to give you guys a moment to say hello and introduce yourself to the audience. Kris, we'll start with you.
[00:04:28.750] - Kris Sprague
Yes, certainly. I'd like to welcome all the visitors. I'm the head of program and project planning at regenerant and we're a biotechnology company headquartered in Tarrytown, New York, about 30 miles north of New York City.
[00:04:44.470] - PMO Joe
Thank you, Kris. You're a past finalist, I believe, as well, right?
[00:04:51.000] - Kris Sprague
I am. I made it, I guess, regional finalist, top 16 in the world as a PMO Leader. So Mickey's following up that you're on top of that award.
[00:05:05.230] - PMO Joe
Fantastic. Well, speaking of Mickey, we'll go to Mickey next. Take a moment, Mickey, just to say hello, introduce yourself as well.
[00:05:12.750] - Mickey Namamura
Sure. Hard steps to follow, Kris. It's an honor for me to be here. Thank you for having me. My name is Mickey Nakamura and I work in the National Healthcare Company. With regards to working in healthcare, I'm excited to have this conversation about health care and leadership and PMOs in general. So thank you for having me.
[00:05:34.210] - PMO Joe
My pleasure is all ours. Thank you, Mickey. And our other guest, Tony, joining us from Australia. So this has got to be some ungodly hour for you. Thank you for looking as spy as you do this early for you.
[00:05:47.660] - Tony Antonios
This is usually the time I go for a workout before I start work at 05:00 A.m., but no, really pleased to be here and thank you for the invitation to participate in this conversation. So my name is Tony and I work for a large healthcare provider here in Australia that operates across hospitals, aged Care, virtual Care, which is a service we stood up in the midst of the COVID pandemic and a range of other activities so similar to Mickey and everyone on this. Just excited to have the conversation.
[00:06:18.190] - PMO Joe
Thank you so much for joining us. And as it sounds, everybody is in healthcare and that's why we're here. I do have some experience in this as well. I ran a healthcare PMO at WellStar Health System, the largest healthcare provider in the state of Georgia for a few years. So I'm not in the group that you're all going to talk about here shortly, but I think I might be able to provide some context for my own experiences. So eager to jump into it. We've talked about healthcare, we've talked about PMO Global Alliance, and there's a marriage of those two things, and that's why you guys are here today. Kris, do you want to give us just an intro as to the group that's been formed within PMOGA and what you guys are up to?
[00:06:58.170] - Kris Sprague
Yeah, certainly. So PMOGA, I guess, was formed, I think in 2017, I believe, and the founder is Americo Pinto. And our group, specifically Tony, Mickey and myself are members of a strategic board that is focused on the healthcare industry. And as leaders, what we're attempting to do is to provide learning and education to other people that work in that area. Some of the activities we've done so far this year, I think we got formed in February of this year. So it hasn't even been a full year yet. But we've put together a couple of podcasts. We've written two white papers. I believe we're doing a project in Africa, and we're looking to do other things, really, to disseminate knowledge out there to all the people that work in this particular industry.
[00:07:58.270] - PMO Joe
Fantastic. And how did you get into health care? Right? I mean, there's obviously so many different industries we can get into. But again, going back to my own experience, I wasn't in healthcare as a long career, and when I started in that industry, I found it to be very unique from all of the other industries I had worked in. So it takes kind of more of a mindset, right, a personality type to be in healthcare because you're providing for patients. It's not just trying to create widgets and make money, right? It's care that you're providing. So what was your impetus, Kris, for jumping into that industry?
[00:08:35.890] - Kris Sprague
Yes, certainly. So I guess I would begin with maybe why I got into project management, and then I can kind of segue into the healthcare area. So in terms of project management, really, I started my career in software engineering, and one of the things that I discovered at that time was that all these software projects that I worked on, I guess I would characterize them as being chaotic. Right and so I figured I could probably do a better job managing the projects. At that time, there really wasn't a true project management profession as it is today currently. And so what I ended up doing was going back to graduate school, getting a couple of masters degrees, and then really starting and focused on project management. From there, I got really good at delivering projects and moved to programs and programs, then got into consulting, helping organizations establish PMOs. One of the positions I had was basically PMO director for a very large hospital, which was really my first foray into the healthcare sector. And really for the last decade I've been working in the biotech pharma space for a number of different companies there and really helping them achieve their strategy through the successful delivery of portfolios, programs and projects.
[00:10:05.980] - PMO Joe
Very nice. And Tony. How about you? You mentioned the COVID experience as well, but were you in healthcare pre COVID or was that the drive to get into healthcare?
[00:10:16.060] - Tony Antonios
It wasn't the drive to get into healthcare, and I'd spent the last decade working in telecommunications, so not too dissimilar from what Kris mentioned. I started off in telecommunications more in a strategy space, and like most organizations, it's great to come up with a strategy, but if you can't execute on it and you can't actually deliver what you're trying to achieve both in that short and long term horizon, there's almost no point. And so I sort of went from being in the team that thought about what we should do, what we could do to let's actually try to do the things that we're putting out there. So that's sort of how I got into project management. But after about a decade in that industry, I thought it was time for a change. I've got a lot of family members and friends that work in healthcare in a variety of roles and so I thought I wanted to, I guess, be involved and try something different. And to your point, Joe, it's very much a mindset change. Caring for patients, that person centered care, being at the forefront of what we do was a very different shift to, I guess, your traditional let's grow market share, let's grow revenue, look at cost, efficiencies, et cetera.
[00:11:25.320] - Tony Antonios
So it's been a very interesting journey and particularly in the midst of COVID Australia had quite significant, I guess, restrictions, lockdown rules, et cetera. And that varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. So launching, I guess from a PMO perspective, working in launching a service into the market to support care needs during that time was a very, I guess in the deep end, straight away see how you're going to go type of experience from a PMO and health care perspective.
[00:11:54.870] - PMO Joe
For me, yeah, I remember my first performance review after I started working in the healthcare system on my performance review, it included a line about ensuring that you wash your hands where you consistently washing your hands. Yes, you spend a lot of time in hospitals. That's why you wash your hands. Right, but it just changed my mind into your point. It was a mindset shift. Right. And another thing you had said, Tony, is about the strategy component. One of my favorite quotes of all time by Morris Chang is strategy without execution is useless. Execution without strategy is aimless. And what we do in the PMO world is bring those two together and deliver on strategy. That's project management, right? On International Project Management Day. That's project management. That's all you need to know. Mickey, how about you? How did you get into healthcare and what's been some of the things that you've picked up over time?
[00:12:57.030] - Mickey Namamura
So I'm kind of a hybrid of Kris and Tony in many ways in terms of their background. So I actually started off in telecommunications. Also I used to work on analog cell phones, Tony, back in the day when the cell phones were like called bricks. Right? And so now, of course, they're all digital and their smartphones. And then from there I got into It and working in It, working with networks, working with data and cloud and software. It was interesting for me and my career journey because similar to Tony and Kris, I had a knack for bringing people together. I had a knack for producing and translating strategy into outcomes and results. And it was really interesting in my career in the sense that I had been working with government and public service organizations and I was exposed to public health. And this was back when there was something called the bird flu and swine flu and it was before clothing. I've been inspired to join organizations where there's like a mission towards helping people in communities. And I think in healthcare, that's what really attracts me to health care. And then I set up EPMO in a hospital and clinical type of healthcare system.
[00:14:20.980] - Mickey Namamura
And the thing for me that really brought it all together and I think our conversation will get there, is that it is different than making widgets like you were saying, Joe, it's different than producing a product because here in healthcare, it's all about the patient centered experience, about how you can provide services around that. And you're working with other caregivers like doctors and nurses and all the folks that provide support towards a patientcentered experience. And so there are differences between the way we run programs and projects and portfolios. And I think there's going to be some more discussion on that. But that's kind of my background. That's how I got into healthcare. And I'm currently working on a specific niche in healthcare, serving senior citizens, which is the largest growing demographic for us in the US. So there's my little story. And I love what I'm hearing from my colleagues because I kept partaking a little bit of each of them. Thank you.
[00:15:26.650] - PMO Joe
Yeah. And I remember back to just again to help people put some context around us. Health care versus corporate project management. How it's different? One of our projects was improving the WiFi within the hospital system, and we were inserting additional repeaters WiFi repeaters throughout the hospital and on one of the floors. The only place that we could fit it, per the infrastructure partner we're using, was in the ceiling of an operating room. So during off hours, we went into the operating room, put in the Wi Fi repeater, and then left. However, the infrastructure partner we used forgot to clean up the operating room afterwards. And when the doctors and nurses went in to get the room ready for their surgery that they had scheduled in the morning, they couldn't have the surgery. And that surgery was an open heart surgery for a heart patient, and they had to reschedule that. And of course, that was affecting lives. Right. In a corporate building, putting a WiFi repeater into a corner, you can do it during the middle of the day, and you always say, I wonder what that guy on the ladder is doing over in the corner.
[00:16:33.120] - PMO Joe
Right. Healthcare is just a different breed of projects. It's impacting lives. Right. And we have to understand those sorts of things.
[00:16:41.670] - Mickey Namamura
Your example resonates, I think, with all of us. All of us, it seems like we all have an It or technical background. But I remind our It partners that in healthcare, the impact of what they do is magnified because at the end of that It service is a potential patient that you can adversely impact, as opposed to making a mistake on some other type of industry where maybe you can go back and correct the dimensions of whatever product you have. In healthcare, it's not a product, it's a person. Right. So I think that's a really good point that you brought up, Joe.
[00:17:18.760] - PMO Joe
Yeah. All right, so we've got the connection to healthcare. Tony, tell us a little bit about how you got connected in with PMO Global Alliance, and then ultimately, after that, we'll end up connecting one to the other and why you guys are here. What was the draw to PMOGA, and what's your feedback and thoughts on that organization?
[00:17:40.610] - Tony Antonios
Yeah, absolutely. So this is going back for me to 2019, roughly around February March time frame, where I met a person by the name of Emira who runs a business here called PMO Solutions, who introduced me to PMO Global Alliance, but more importantly, asked me to come and do, I guess, a keynote presentation at a PMO conference here in Sydney with her to a few hundred people. At that time, I was running more of a professional services consulting style PMO, so effectively, in the telecommunications organization I was in. We work with a lot of the large enterprise, corporate and government clients. So we had over 3000 clients that we supported, running 1500 circus 500 projects concurrently. And my role was to ensure we could deliver on time to budget, manage the client expectation, and effectively transform their It operating environments. So I went and did this, I guess, keynote presentation with Amira, and through that presentation, she introduced me to America at the time, who said, it would be great to have you review our PMO Valuing methodology and provide some insights or some input into what you think about this method. From establishing PMOs and ensuring they add value.
[00:18:56.530] - Tony Antonios
And having read that methodology and looked at PMO Global Alliance as an organization and looking at its mission, so very similar health care, a lot of the people moving into it are driven by a mission. For me. It was the same with PMO global alliance. The mission the organization has trying to, I guess, empower educate across the world, run a lot of these projects to develop key expertise, I would say globally, really attracted me to the organization. And to be a part of that was an opportunity I wanted to pursue. For me, Stem started from 2019 through to now. And when I eventually made, I guess, to switch into the healthcare industry in 2021, america reached out to me and sort of started discussing our Strategic Healthcare Group and his thoughts around that. And it was sort of over the course of a couple of months of discussion that the group was formed and I was able to meet Nikki, Kris and our other colleagues as a part of that group. So for me, it's very much the mission focus and the ability to give back, but also just to learn from industry experts and leaders across the globe about what are we doing in healthcare, how do we, as PMO leaders and professionals, continue to create value for the patient and in many instances, the most vulnerable at that point in time?
[00:20:11.040] - Tony Antonios
So I sort of trusting our physicians, clinicians, both parties, contractors to provide the best care possible. So that example absolutely resonated, Joe, about trying to fix the WiFi sitting in the theater room. The only thing I'd add is, if you miss that opportunity, trying to reschedule something is near impossible because the trade off is always providing care to somebody. There. Isn't this, oh, we can do it after hours at 05:00 p.m.. What if there's emergency in the hospital? It adds a different layer of thinking about getting it right first time? Yeah.
[00:20:43.260] - PMO Joe
Let me put you on the spot, Tony. What's Amira's last name?
[00:20:46.390] - Tony Antonios
Kinsey. I can't do you remember now?
[00:20:48.430] - PMO Joe
No. Amira. Mazari amira.
[00:20:53.140] - Tony Antonios
Sorry, I misread what you said. I can't pronounce her last name.
[00:20:59.740] - PMO Joe
She's been a guest on the show as well. It's a small world that we travel in, right? And I think she just took on the role of President of the PMOGA Australia hub. So Amera has an amazing story and certainly encourage everyone to go listen to that show as she shared her family's experiences in the Iran Iraq War, growing up and how she ended up in Australia. It's the humanity of project management, right. We're all people first. And she has an incredible backstory that I think we all could learn from the different trials and tribulations that we all go through as we advance in our lives and our careers. Kris, same over to you. How did you get into PMOGA? What was it?
[00:21:45.040] - Kris Sprague
Yes. Thanks, Joe. So similar to Tony back to 2019, I think it was Americano Pinto who reached out to me and asked if I would be willing to be a judge. And I asked him, what does a judge do? And he explained about the award ceremony. And so I've represented the United States for the past four years, going through the competition and evaluating each of the different levels. As you kind of go through.
[00:22:17.810] - Mickey Namamura
The.
[00:22:18.210] - Kris Sprague
Matrix of company A versus company B and evaluating them as part of the evaluation process, you identify the strengths of the PMOs, the opportunities for improvement, and then you basically have to provide a recommendation as to which PMO you think is better. And you're not the only judge that is evaluating those two PMO organizations. There's other judges from other countries, and as a result, all of those votes are kind of tallied together, and the winner advances the one who has the most votes from the judges. So that's really how the competition unfolds. And we saw the result of that earlier today when the PMO Global Awards was held not only for the best PMO in the world, but all the four or five other competitions that were held at the same time.
[00:23:16.240] - PMO Joe
Yeah. Fantastic. All right, so now let's bring healthcare, passion for all, PMOGA appreciation, and membership for all. How does it come together that you all form a group and then also not the entire group couldn't make it today. Right. So who are the other members of that group as well? We want to make sure we acknowledge the work they're doing.
[00:23:37.950] - Kris Sprague
Yeah, certainly. So it is a team of nine people. CSI is from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She is kind of the chair for the group. Mickey, I believe, is vice chair. And then all the others are members of the board. We have Michael O'Connor, dean as well. Trying to think of Dean's last name.
[00:24:02.510] - Mickey Namamura
I don't have his last name off my head.
[00:24:04.650] - Kris Sprague
Yeah, I'll have to look that up. And then we have, from Ireland, Jackie Glenn. Let's see, that's three or four right there. We have an individual from Brazil. She hasn't really participated, so I can't comment if she's still involved with us or not. I think that pretty much rounds out the team. Is that right, Mickey or Tony?
[00:24:27.720] - Mickey Namamura
Yeah, you're right. And then one of the things that we're encouraging is that this is a new team. This is a new group, and so we do have a lot of plans to increase our exposure and also increase interest. And I think there's a couple of new members that will be joining us, but that's kind of the core founding group along with the folks who are on the line with us. But you're right, you're spot on.
[00:24:52.170] - PMO Joe
So what's the charter, right, for folks listening in who are in the healthcare profession? And obviously they're involved in PMOs and project management. You know, PMO. Global alliance. Got it. Healthcare got it. What's the connection? So what there's a strategic group, what's the, so what to all this if.
[00:25:10.030] - Mickey Namamura
We can start on that and please chime in, Kris and Tony. But the idea behind this and part of that charter is really to form that community and that professional, both a professional community as well as a grassroots community for sharing ideas with healthcare, sharing ideas in terms of leadership and also change. And this became quite relevant, if not magnified, during the coded pandemic that we all have to go through. The catalyst for change in healthcare was accelerated and maximized. All of us have gone through it. Healthcare became not only the tip of change, but it became required with all the fast developments, with supporting the community and the public, our families, with healthcare. And so I think the timing was right to have a community of leaders, my fellow colleagues and others, to talk about sharing what things we've done, what lessons we've learned, and also sharing some, you know, we termed it in some of our studies and white papers, these new ways of working. And the new ways of working were formerly innovations five years ago. But when COVID hit, these innovations became accelerated and then they became reality. But I really deferred to my colleagues to add on to that.
[00:26:33.100] - Mickey Namamura
That was my take on some of the charter that we have for our team.
[00:26:37.660] - Kris Sprague
I'll expand on that. Dean Miller, his last name, and one other member I forgot to mention is Trevor Nelson. So I believe we have five people from the US. One from Ireland, one from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Tony here from Australia and Juliana and from Brazil. So that really makes up the board. And to elaborate on what Mickey had indicated. Yeah, the goal is really to disseminate and share information specifically about how PMOs can bring improvements and add value within the healthcare sector. And we're doing that kind of through white papers, working on projects, podcasts, whatever means we can kind of communicate the message out there to people who may be interested or working in the healthcare and certainly want to get involved. In addition to the white paper on new ways of working, our other white paper was on integrated business planning. So that was really a little bit more focused on portfolio management and some of the activities related to that and how organizations can do a better job of planning, which in turn would provide more value to the stakeholders.
[00:27:55.320] - Tony Antonios
One thing I'd add on to that. Kris, just to add on to what both you and Nikki said is particularly in healthcare organizations here within Australia, the vast majority don't have PMOs, and those that do tend to be PMOs from people who have only worked in healthcare. They're sort of that specific deep expertise in one industry. So a group like this coming in where all of us are in healthcare, but many of us actually have worked in other industries and are working globally, the ability to bring those perspectives and insights, to effectively help them on that journey, help them through change. COVID was a great accelerator of a lot of things telecommunications was doing 20 years ago. So in the healthcare industry, it wasn't that it was new, say to the PMO team that I had formed. It was new to the entire organization. These hybrid ways of working, all these new tools or new practices we expected people to sort of adopt and work with. So for me, the benefit of this group is being able to take experience, expertise, thoughts in the form of be a White papers, podcasts, other sort of artifacts and just discussions like these and others that we have as a group and feed those insights back not only to my own organization, but broader colleagues and peers within, I guess the industry as well.
[00:29:07.840] - PMO Joe
I think it's fantastic. You mentioned PMOs and healthcare maybe not as prevalent as other industries. Questions open for anyone? Why do you think that's the case? What's missing? Why is the connection out there?
[00:29:25.240] - Tony Antonios
I might offer a quick thought on that and then open to my colleagues, if that's okay. When I think about and I focus specifically on Australian context, although it may be far broader, the focus is on providing care first and foremost. So the investment, resources, time, effort and thinking is about how to provide the best care possible, how to attract entice, the best clinicians, the best nurses staff, how to have facilities that can meet those care needs across the continuum of care from the time somebody is born through, to ensuring their aging well in their later years of life. From that focus, what I've observed is a stronger focus on operational needs as opposed to necessarily projects and planning and more strategic needs outside of infrastructure, strategy and development, given the need to build, expand hospitals, other facilities, et cetera. So it's not to say I think from that lens, especially in not for profprofit organizations in Australia, there are many who provide healthcare services outside of the public sort of system. There's always that contention between do you invest dollars and time in staff to provide care versus sort of these what maybe appeared to be internal, sort of backofoffice type roles that aren't visible to the public, aren't necessarily visible to the person receiving care or providing care.
[00:30:44.110] - Tony Antonios
I think that thinking is somewhat has shifted significantly. But there is still a way to go, at least here.
[00:30:50.620] - PMO Joe
How about other guys? What's your thoughts on that as well?
[00:30:53.560] - Mickey Namamura
So, Tony, if I may add, I'm seeing similar trends here in multiple organizations, including the current one that I'm in. I'll just get a quick background. The current one that I'm in, there was always an Itpmo here, but It to one of your points was primarily focused on technology, rightly? So but in healthcare, you have to make that connection to the clinical service lines, to the physicians, to the caregivers. And so when I was brought in, my mandate here was to elevate the Itpmo to enterprise. And what enterprise means, at least in my organization, is adding capabilities that are not so much project management, but they're more along the lines of organizational change, culture change, people change, adoption. And you do that through other types of avenues. In fact, there's whole just like PMI has PMP, there's entire organizations and certifications and training around organizational change, having organizational change as a part of your PMO and also having a focus on operational excellence. Not everything as a project, not everything as a program. In fact, a lot of the things here in healthcare are continuous improvement using different types of frameworks for orchestration, for coordinating.
[00:32:25.060] - Mickey Namamura
And it's really true servant leadership is what I'm finding in the organizations I'm in, and health care, including the one I'm in now. But that's just piggybacking off of what you just said. But Kris, I'd love to hear about yours too.
[00:32:38.890] - Kris Sprague
Yes, certainly. So I wanted to comment on what you were talking about, Vicky. I'm seeing a big trend across a lot of different organizations with the disciplines of project management and change management, where they're going to be integrated together. Right? So for all the listeners out there, project management really focuses on the processes and activities that are needed to complete a project, whereas change management focuses on the people side of how they are affected by the delivery of the product or service that is generated from the project. Right? So because projects can have a significant and lasting impact on the business and the stakeholders, project and change management are really now working more hand in hand to ensure a longterm success. Right? And so I think in the future what we're going to see is really a blending of these two disciplines where it's not going to be project management and change management, but it's really going to be combined together in terms of delivering value to the organization.
[00:33:42.040] - PMO Joe
What I found interesting was my boss back at WellStar, we were an It PMO, but the CIO was an emergency room physician. So everything we did in It was in 32nd increments, because there was Triage and Go. Triage and Go, and project management is in six months plus increments. Right. So there was always this friction between us of just go do it. And it's like, well, it's sorry John, it doesn't just happen that way. Right, but what it instilled into the PMO was patient care. And what we were doing wasn't again producing the Widget. It was, how can we do a project to improve how we treat our patients or the care that we provide to patients support systems or families and others? And what we quickly found out is listen to itpmo. And the healthcare system doesn't cut it because if you're building a new practice or a new hospital or a new wing to a hospital, it's a construction project that requires It to provide patient care. So now you're not an It PMO, you're really an enterprise PMO, as Mickey was saying. So health care is a unique bird and it's good to see that there is an organization within the Global Alliance right now that's talking to it, right.
[00:34:55.780] - PMO Joe
Bringing awareness to it and putting out these white papers.
[00:34:59.280] - Kris Sprague
Yeah, Joe and I think this will actually be the first of probably several industries that PMOGA is going to look into and establish ports for. I may be not talking, I guess, if that is actually going to happen or not, but I would imagine that's something that America and the other leaders of PMOGA are looking at to capitalize on. Not just to have a single healthcare board, but really to expand it across other industries as well in the future.
[00:35:29.860] - Mickey Namamura
Just to add on to that, I think this is where my recommendation is. You don't have to wait for these trends to occur, right? I mean, you can do it now, right. Whatever influence, whether you have a formal PMO or not, having organizational change, having a lifecycle approach where you combine and embed different types of disciplines, that's really key. Right. Especially in healthcare. And it's not just in healthcare. I mean, change adoption is valid for any type of industry, right? Maybe in different degrees, but it's not just healthcare.
[00:36:07.270] - PMO Joe
Yeah. I gave a talk yesterday to a private company and invited me to come to a project talk for them. And I talked about making pizza and how you can use the process of making pizza in restaurants or at home and related to project management and take a lighthearted approach to this to get people to think outside the box. If you put in an order, you expect it to be done in a certain amount of time. It's supposed to have the same ingredients. It's supposed to come in with a cost that you expected it to be. All of the different factors that we use in project management exist in other industries, but we in project management start using our terms that other people don't understand. So how can we speak their language to help them come into our world? And we then serve that role as translator, right, to be able to talk to their language. So the change management you're talking about, Mickey, for me is always how do we help the organization change their way by using our tools and experience but not our language. Right? And I think that's one of the evolutions we're going through as an industry with a new pinball that come out, the latest version of that, going away from the process groups and towards the principles.
[00:37:24.640] - PMO Joe
What do you see with that?
[00:37:26.440] - Mickey Namamura
Non jargon is key. When I'm talking to physicians, I speak in plain English and your pizza example resonates with me because I tried it on my wife's shoes in her garage. I tried to do a lean initiative, but when it comes to your family, it doesn't work.
[00:37:48.040] - PMO Joe
Tony, what do you see in Australia that are the trends within project management.
[00:37:53.810] - Tony Antonios
So similar to Kris and Mickey? My functions very much as an enterprise portfolio management office or an EPMO, and part of that is also change management coming into the function. There used to be a change manager for an organization with, at the time, 7000 people that spent their time writing process documents. That's what change was considered, this process that you have to follow. Whereas now and it's not just the organization I'm in, but a lot of other organizations within the industry, that recognition that change management is so essential and is part and parcel not just of projects, but an organizational change in organizational culture. So that shift and the blending of the role is something I'm absolutely seeing. I tend to look at it as craft skills. You as a person, that is, I'm going to call a problem solver, build up these skill sets, be in project management, program management, strategy, change management, adoption principles, and you use them to help solve a lot of those challenges clinicians, the organization, care staff and others have across the different services and different sectors of the organization. I think also a trend here is very much the adoption of portfolio management, not just project management.
[00:39:09.280] - Tony Antonios
So the recognition, I guess, and understanding that with so many competing needs, priorities, a lot of continuous improvement activities, projects, programs, long term initiatives, there is that need for, I guess, macro level coordination, but also understanding of the outcomes you're looking to drive. So for a lot of the initiatives. When we think about a business case as an example. It's not just the financial returns. It's what is the patient outcome or the patient experience. What is the resident outcome or experience in the virtual care setting is how are we supplementing the health system. More broadly speaking. In Australia and what does that look like and how do we engage with our peers? So it leads me to another trend, which is far more collaboration and partnerships. I tend to think of it we're operating within a partnership ecosystem. That thinking is only broadening further and further within the Australian market. So it's recognition. You can't have strong capability in every single domain within your organization and in some instances it's far better to partner with others who can bring in that expertise. And collectively you can create greater value for the community. So that's probably the other big trend happening here, that stronger focus on partnerships and relationships with other organizations, be it within the same health industry or adjacent industries as well, to really achieve, I guess, great outcomes.
[00:40:27.270] - Tony Antonios
So there are some of the trends that I'm starting to see within the industry here.
[00:40:30.820] - PMO Joe
Kris, how about you here in the States? What are you seeing over here on this side of the ocean?
[00:40:35.620] - Kris Sprague
Three trends. The first one is remote working becomes permanent for some percentage of employees. Trend number two is really the demand for project managers is going to increase really over the next decade. And trend number three is that project managers are going to need a much broader skill set in the future. So let me kind of take the first one in terms of remote working. And I think this is kind of a result of what occurred from the global pandemic where you now have some portion of the people are still working on site. You have other people that are virtual, and then you have those people kind of in the middle where they're going to be working in a hybrid mode and being in the office maybe two or three days a week compared to what they used to be, which was five days a week. So that's really the first trend. On the second trend is really around the demand for project managers increasing. And I think we saw this, at least most of us, I believe, maybe have read the Project Management Report, institute report that came out last year in 2021. And what they indicated is that the global economy is going to need 25 million new project professionals by the year 2030 to close the gap.
[00:41:55.270] - Kris Sprague
That means 2.3 million people are going to need to be filling project management roles every year just to keep up with demand. And PMI actually identified three reasons for this gap. The first one is that there is an increase in the number of jobs requiring project management oriented roles. The second is that there's a higher demand for project professionals in emerging and developing countries due to the economic growth in those areas. And the third is the rate of retirement of the workforce. So with those three, that's really contributing to this demand that they're seeing based on the research that was done. And the third trend is really around project managers needing a broader skill set in the future. From a technical perspective, projects such as anything to do with artificial intelligence and automation are really happening today. So technologies such as robotics, blockchain data, science, machine learning, these are things that project managers are going to need to have a basic understanding, some knowledge in those particular areas. On the other end of the spectrum, because of the projects, especially in healthcare, are becoming more complex and interconnected, project managers are going to need to collaborate more with a broader group of stakeholders than what they're doing today.
[00:43:21.820] - Kris Sprague
And as a result, some skills are going to become very important. So skills such as leadership influencing, motivation, communication, conflict management, interpersonal skills negotiation, problem solving, team building, critical thinking, decision making, these are some of the soft skills that the project managers are going to need to develop. So it used to be that project managers, to master the triple constraint scope, time and cost, that's no longer going to be enough for the project manager of the future. They're going to need to have that basic understanding of the technical projects that they're managing, as well as the ability to implement some of the soft skills that I mentioned.
[00:44:06.300] - PMO Joe
Yeah, it's been following along. That ties into your comment about the demand. It's gone up and down. If you go out to Indeed.com and just start project manager anywhere in the United States, there's about a hundred thousand open position, and some months it goes up to about 120,000. Right now, I think it's around 98,000, but it's around 100,000 positions. So here's my I'm with you on the trend as we need more PMS, but I think we're searching in the wrong spot.
[00:44:34.690] - Kris Sprague
What's your suggestion?
[00:44:36.640] - PMO Joe
I think the people exist already, and we call them accidental project management.
[00:44:40.480] - Mickey Namamura
Yes.
[00:44:42.490] - PMO Joe
What we need to do is upskill the people that are in the workforce running the smaller projects. We're not going to put them on the big Enterprise Si P installation, right?
[00:44:51.960] - Kris Sprague
Yep.
[00:44:52.390] - PMO Joe
But just like Six Sigma did and made a world full of green belts and yellow belts. I think that's kind of where we'll never meet the demand. If we try to get 25 million more project managers, just not going to happen. But one person's opinion is, mickey, what's your thoughts on trends that you're seeing as well?
[00:45:11.850] - Mickey Namamura
What you said and Kris said, it hits home. I'm also serving for the PMI chapter board in San Diego at a more local grassroots level. Many of our members are accidental project managers. Many of our new members, in fact, one of my key leaders, and she's become a leader all within the past year because she's new to project management. She was a person that did home health, right. Nothing to do with projects. She was taking care. She was a caregiver. But she had the skills there for project management. She had the skills for emotional IQ, she had the skills for influencing. And in fact, what she shared with me, it's not just her, it's her colleagues as well is she never thought project management would be a career for her. Right. But now that she's exposed to project management, I mean, I would argue that her real life skills are going to be more valuable than getting a certification. Great for her to get a certification to fill in. You know, this is the way textbook is and this is the way best practices are. But she has something called real world real life experience.
[00:46:25.690] - Mickey Namamura
And that real life experience and the skills that she has around that, those are the skills that you're mentioning, Kris, right? These soft skills, these skills that are not replaced by AI. Remember a few years back when they said project management is going to go downhill because of AI, but that hasn't happened. And the reason for that is no one can really, no one, not yet at least, can replace the leadership skills of a person, right? At least not yet. So what you two are saying really resonates, I think, with what I'm seeing as well.
[00:46:56.440] - PMO Joe
An AI doesn't have the data because we all say we use these fancy Ppm systems, but in reality we're using Excel spreadsheets. So no one's been able to figure out how to get the AI to work on this stuff yet. Tony, you're going to jump in with something?
[00:47:11.230] - Tony Antonios
I was going to say the key to solving a lot of that challenge, it's accessibility to the content, to our earlier discussion taking. Whilst we understand the jargon from the industry within the best practices, these bodies of knowledge and frameworks for those accidental PMS, it's almost that is one of the barriers to entering the profession. It all seems a little bit too hard. And what I like about sort of Six Sigma Lean and just many other sort of practices is, from my perspective, it's far more accessible to somebody who's not been in that sort of profession before than trying to understand, I guess, project management from a body of knowledge sort of perspective. So I think that's where there's some opportunity to build in those skills.
[00:47:55.690] - PMO Joe
Yeah, I'll do a shameless plug here for the PMO leader community. We've got the website listed there, PMO Global Alliance. I'm a member of that and it does a fantastic job. And then the PMO leader community started up about a year and a half ago because one of the gaps, we're not trying to push certifications or awards or it's where does the community just come together and share and exchange and learn from one another? Or if I provide training, where can I go deliver that training to my industry and not have to go out to just a training site and hope somebody finds it? So creating the PMO leader community to your points about education and bringing people together, that's what we've tried to do out there and strongly encourage everyone to go out there and visit the PMO leader community, become a member if it's a fit for you. And one of the things that we just announced at our global conference a couple of weeks ago is a new tool that we think is going to be really important for our industry called Pmopedia and think Wikipedia, but for PMOs, and most of what we do doesn't exist out in Wikipedia.
[00:49:04.440] - PMO Joe
So where do you go find it? If you're an accidental project manager, you're not looking for a certification. You're not looking for a Prince Two or PMP or a cap on where do you just go find stuff. So we're working on an open source system to be able to have people contribute into it, just like you should with Wikipedia to build this amazing search engine of project management and PMO related tools for everybody. So I'll get off my soapbox on PMO Leader for a moment, bring us back together. We only have about ten minutes or so left. So one other trend that I throw it out to you guys, this wasn't something we had talked about previously, so maybe give you a moment to think about it. As I'm saying is PMO global alliance is formed. House of PMO is formed in the UK. PMO Leader is formed globally, and all of them are being formed because there isn't a PMI version of it, right? Project managers have PMI or APMO or there's different organizations, IAPM and others, right, throughout the world. Why don't we have that spot for PMOs like we do for PMS?
[00:50:11.770] - PMO Joe
What's missing there? And again, that's not knocking any of them. I belong to all of them, right? I'm a member of every one of them out there because I'm trying to fill the gap that I don't see. The industry has given us the one that we need to leverage. What's your guys thoughts on that?
[00:50:25.500] - Mickey Namamura
Joe, if I may share. Back in 2014, I was fortunate enough to be a member of what PMI had that focused on leadership and PMO leadership. And if you recall, there used to be an annual symposium by PMI focused on the leadership aspects, not so much a practitioner serving on those committees. We had Houston, we had San Diego, we had Denver, we had Miami. That was a niche, that there were high aspirations for that to continue, but I don't know the reasoning for that. But that group stopped, especially as COVID came into play. And you're right, I think there is a gap where there's room for the leadership aspect of project program portfolio change management. So I'm glad you brought it up. I'm hopeful that because of the interests that you've demonstrated in your groups as well as the Mo Global Alliance, I'm hopeful that we're all becoming together. And I think we are doing that. We're starting to do that. But that's just some context. I think there is a gap there.
[00:51:38.830] - PMO Joe
Like you mentioned, I'll tease something. I can't announce it, but I'll tease something, right? Laura Bernard and Americo Pinto and Leo Torres and Eileen Rodan and Lindsay Scott and myself are working on something together that individually, we're all doing great, right? But there's something more that we think is out there. So we're working on something that maybe a few months or early next year, we'll come out with an announcement on it. I think it'd be good for the industry. So we'll tease that and we'll say, hey, stay tuned, everybody.
[00:52:13.090] - Mickey Namamura
Okay, thank you.
[00:52:16.690] - PMO Joe
Well, I think the world will be able to help with this one, right? So we'll see. But we're about five minutes out, and I want to give you guys one last opportunity for anything that we haven't mentioned today or talked about today. You could certainly jump in with that. Or how can people get in touch with you if they want to follow up after the show? And Tony will start with you.
[00:52:35.800] - Tony Antonios
So one thing I'll probably briefly touch on is one of the, I guess, the papers we as a group wrote initially about new ways of working in the COVID pandemic. Those hybrid ways of working, they're very much here to stay. So adapting to, I guess, the hybrid mode and thinking about how to upschool yourself, your teams, your colleagues in the industry to be effective in this new, I guess, way that is now the default in many instances is going to be incredibly critical. So if you haven't read that paper, I highly recommend doing so. But also just thinking more broadly about what others in other industries are doing around that topic. So that's probably the one thing I just had.
[00:53:17.340] - PMO Joe
And I'm assuming we can find the white paper out on the PMOGA website.
[00:53:21.720] - Tony Antonios
Absolutely. So if you go to that website, you should be able to find the paper there in terms of contacting us, be it through the PMOGA community, be it at least me through LinkedIn, if there's ever a desire or want to chat or talk to myself or any of my peers, we're all quite open to having those discussions.
[00:53:39.660] - PMO Joe
Thank you so much, Tony, for joining. I know it's early for you out there. And also, this is the reality we live in a global industry and we're all part of global organizations, so I think it's important to be able to bring a global perspective to the show. So thank you so much for joining us.
[00:53:55.150] - Tony Antonios
No problem. Thank you.
[00:53:56.100] - PMO Joe
Jim and Kris, how about yourself? Anything else that we didn't touch on or how can folks get in touch with you?
[00:54:01.200] - Kris Sprague
Yeah, so I'll follow up with what Tony mentioned with our first white paper on new ways of working. One of the things that I think is a challenge, especially for those people, is leading virtual teams. Right. They were kind of thrust into that role as a result of the pandemic, and some are still continuing to lead a virtual team. Some of the challenges we mention in the white paper are dealing with some communication challenges, language barriers, cultural differences. There may be different time zones, right. Core team bonding, because you don't have you're not working side by side, you're not co located with those other individuals, and just the lack of personal connection and social interaction. So those are some of the themes we kind of bring out in the paper in terms of any of the listeners that they're interested in. Contacting me. Probably the best way. It's just through LinkedIn. You can find me out there. Kris Friday, so thanks for having me on the show, Joe.
[00:55:01.360] - PMO Joe
Yes, my pleasure. And then Mickey joe bringing us in. What other items or do we not cover you think we should hit on and how can folks get in touch with you?
[00:55:10.830] - Mickey Namamura
First of all, thank you for having us, Joe, and having me and my colleagues here to us as normal because we're in healthcare. But this is a great opportunity to share with others and we look forward to hearing from others that can share with us as well. I would just add if you go on PMO Global Alliance and type in Healthcare Board, we actually have our own specific site that has all of our names. It also has the different projects that we're working on currently as well as future projects. And if folks are interested in joining us because we are looking to grow our team, that's how you can get in touch with us and see what we're doing. Also, LinkedIn. For me personally, I am on LinkedIn and feel free to just look me up Mickey Nuts tomorrow and just don't type in Mouse and you'll be okay. Thank you so much, Joe, for having us.
[00:56:02.490] - PMO Joe
My pleasure. Thank you all for joining us. I'm a strong advocate, supporter of PMO global alliance. I'm a member PMO Global Alliance, I'm a judge in the judging committees and fortunate enough to be nominated over the past few years for my work in the industry as well. So I encourage everyone to go to PMO Global Alliance, check it out, see if it's a fit for you. There are many, many ways for you to be a contributor and participate in that organization and the work that everyone's doing. Also want to say thank you to our listeners because without listeners, we don't have a show and it's important to recognize and thank you for tuning in with us every other week to keep us going. We are in November, so we just have a few more shows left this year, and one of them is again, I don't have it locked up yet. I've been chasing a show for three plus years. I think it's my dream show and it may be my final show, but I think I've got that one locked up. So if you know me, you know who it is, and if you don't know me, reach out.
[00:57:07.420] - PMO Joe
I'll tell you who it is. I don't want to think so. I've got a meeting on Monday to finalize it, so hopefully that'll be it. We are live, as we said, but a reminder, these shows are recorded and we release them as a podcast. So please go out to your favorite podcast platform, whether it be Apple Podcast, iHeartRadio Spotify, Spreaker, whatever it may be, subscribe to the show, and I think you'll enjoy the content that we've produced over the past five years. Also a special thanks to our sponsors, The PMO Squad and The PMO Leader, both leaders in their industry and making a difference in our communities as well. 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.
[00:57:53.210] - Announcer
Thanks for listening to another episode of Project Management Office Hours with PMO Joe. You're not alone in your project management journey. We're here to help you achieve your goals. Subscribe to Project Management Office Hours on your favorite podcast platform to catch all of our episodes and hear industry leaders share their story and secrets to success.
