Project Managers' Coffee Chat with Tim & Merv

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome discuss the pursuit of value when delivering results for your customers. They consider the importance of aligning project goals with meaningful business impacts and the personal needs of team members and stakeholders. Through topics like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, stakeholder satisfaction, and overcoming challenges such as resistance to change and sustaining commitment, the hosts share practical tips and strategies for project managers to ensure successful project delivery that resonates functionally and is pleasing to your end-users. The episode underscores the significance of early communication, requirements gathering, and continuous improvement in realizing long-term project success. Main Take-Aways Project leaders have an incentive to deliver value to their stakeholders. Some thoughts on the pursuit of value: providing meaningful business impact understanding organizational needs personal needs fulfillment aligning project value with organizational values and business objectives delivering customer-centric solutions long-term sustainability continuous improvement measuring value delivered challenges to implementing value and mitigating those challenges sustaining team member commitment to delivering value Show Notes Today’s Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leaders Pursue Value 00:27 Pursuing value in project delivery means providing meaningful business impact, understanding and meeting organizational needs. 01:51 Pursuing value also helps fulfill the personal needs of team members and stakeholders. 03:29 Aligning project values with organizational values, taking into account not just functional values but also emotional values of the team and stakeholder community. 04:12 As professionals, you have the obligation to guide your customers in achieving the best value from the product you are delivering, to align results with business objectives. 07:22 Taking a customer-centric, human-centered design approach often results in satisfied customers, end-users. 08:54 Pursuing value in long-term sustainability of the delivered product benefits your customers. Designs with continuous improvement in mind add to this value. 11:04 Measuring whether you have provided value can be determined from post-project assessments, customer response, return-on-investment analysis, and comparing what was delivered to what was requested. 12:56 Challenges in implementing value include resistance from individuals within the organization, change (disruptive to the status quo), ambiguity in goal setting and translating executive objectives to the project team, inadequate communication, misaligned results when compared to organizational values. 15:19 Participating in the up-front analysis to gather organizational needs and understand objectives can help mitigate challenges to delivering value over the life of the project. 17:33 Sustaining commitment in longer duration projects helps deliver value through ongoing reminders of the project objectives.

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome dive deep into the concept of value in project management. They discuss what value means, how it differs from benefits, and why it's crucial for project success. They address the importance of value-based goals, tangible business results, and the human-centered approach to design. They also explore the challenges of aligning stakeholder expectations with project outcomes and the methodologies to measure and validate value delivered. Join them for insights on how to enhance project delivery by focusing on the human aspects and ensuring that projects meet both functional and emotional needs. Main Take-Aways Everything you do to develop the human aspects of your project leadership skills is designed to deliver value to your customers: defining value focusing on value-based goals considering the benefits of enhancing project value delivering tangible results human-centered design identifying value measuring value building value considerations into your projects Show Notes Today’s Project Managers Coffee Chat: Leaders Create Value 00:27 Season 4 of the Project Managers’ Coffee Chat is focused on developing the strong human factors that will make you a more effective leader. And it all boils down to creating value for our end-user community, 00:58 Defining value as it pertains to project management. 02:01 The PMBOK emphasizes value creation. 02:31 Focusing on value-based goals and tangible results. 04:24 Benefits of enhancing project value: better decision making, motivated teams, shared goals, improved bottom line, etc. 06:30 Delivering tangible benefits in addition to the required functionality. 08:56 Designing systems from a human perspective (human-centered design) is critical to adding value. 09:52 How to identify value – by listening and understanding user needs. 13:41 How to validate that you have delivered value – “as measured by …”. 16:40 Building value considerations into every aspect of the project, beginning with the tasks on the project plan. 17:57 Value is a human component of what we do as project leaders, as well as a direct goal of how we manage projects.

Hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome explore the importance of self-learning and self-directed learning for project managers. Emphasizing the learnable nature of learning itself, they discuss cultivating a learning mindset, the benefits of adaptability, and how making and reflecting on mistakes contributes to growth. The conversation touches on strategies such as practice, active reading, effective notetaking, and time management. They highlight the value of curiosity, motivation, and setting up a conducive learning environment, along with the significance of emotional intelligence and self-awareness. The episode concludes with a discussion on creating guardrails and recognizing the importance of learning from failure to provide value to oneself, teams, and customers. Main Take-Aways The benefits of self-learning: to keep up with the changes to understand that mistakes are not bad to apply emotional intelligence to use your natural curiosity and motivation to increase your self-confidence How to learn how to learn: put your learning into practice immediately apply learning strategies consolidate new learnings into a journal cultivate a growth mindset follow your natural curiosity learn to self-reflect apply lessons learned learn to contribute to and share ideas in group situations learn from your mistakes focus on what you don’t understand develop strong learning habits embrace your failures establish guardrails analyze failures and mistakes and identify areas for change and growth don’t berate yourself for failures or mistakes Show Notes Today’s Project Managers Coffee Chat: Why Self-Learning is Important 00:27 Introducing the importance of learning and cultivating a learning mindset. Learning to learn is learnable! Yet so often we are taught to learn through memorization which is less effective. 01:33 The benefits of learning how to learn: 02:21     … to keep up with the fast pace of your changing world 02:45     … to understand that making mistakes is not a bad thing; it helps you learn 03:55     … to apply your emotional intelligence to spur on learning 04:21     … to use your natural curiosity and motivation to aid in self-learning 05:38     … to increase your self-confidence 06:06 Ideas you can implement to help you learn how to learn: 06:24     … put your learning into practice immediately 07:34     … apply learning strategies such as active reading, note-taking, time management, organization 08:18     … consolidate new learnings into a journal 08:47     … cultivate a growth mindset 09:18     … follow your natural curiosity 10:04     … learn to self-reflect to determine how you best learn 10:46     … consider lessons learned (and learn from them!) 11:28     … learn to contribute to and share ideas in group situations 12:08     … learn from your mistakes 13:07     … focus your studies on what you don’t understand 14:01     … develop strong learning habits that work for you (e.g., dedicated time and place, quiet time, Pomodoro technique, etc.) 16:01     … embrace your failures as learning opportunities 16:28     … establish guardrails to guide your actions 17:46     … analyze failures and mistakes and identify areas for change and growth 18:40     … don’t berate yourself for failures or mistakes

In this episode, hosts Merv Jersak and Tim Jerome explore the importance of learning in the realm of project management. They emphasize the pivotal role of self-directed learning in improving project delivery, not just for project managers but for leaders across various fields. Drawing from personal experiences and industry insights, they discuss the concept of 'learning to learn' and its impact on careers, teams, and customer satisfaction. The hosts also dive into the challenges that hinder effective learning, such as work pressures and unsupportive organizational cultures, and suggest practical strategies for overcoming these barriers. This episode kicks off a reflective week aimed at equipping listeners with valuable tools and techniques to enhance their project management practices. Main Take-Aways The entire Season 4 focuses on the human factors that enhance your ability to lead. Self-learning or learning to learn is important in developing these people-related skills: why you should never stop learning defining what we mean by self-directed learning leaders are not born; leaders know how to learn having a sense of curiosity modalities for learning barriers to learning Show Notes Today’s Project Managers Coffee Chat: Self-Learning for Project Success 00:28 Reflecting on the Season 4 journey of podcast episodes focused on leadership topics for the project leader and for leadership in general. 01:48 Learning to learn – the core concept. 02:32 The importance of self-directed learning – why you should never stop learning. 03:41 Defining self-directed learning to put the next several episodes in context. 04:53 Leaders are not born. You can learn to be an excellent leader, and some of that comes with your ability of learning to learn. 05:52 Curiosity is critical to your ability to learn to learn. Curiosity leads to effort and focus. 09:09 Individuals learn through a variety of learning modalities (e.g., auditory, visual, kinesthetic, etc.). 10:59 Strategizing self-learning using the what, why, how, tools, and stories (i.e., reviewing the many episodes of this podcast’s Season 4). 12:20 Some barriers to learning and learning to overcome these barriers: 12:33     … project pressures and time constraints 12:57     … communication – and the noise in our heads that prevents you from completely learning 15:18     … organizational culture that doesn’t support learning 16:47     … lack of mentorship and limited feedback 17:05     … lack of motivation 17:39     … lack of self-awareness