PM Today Podcast: Recent Episodes
Amy Hatton, Associate Editor
A Podcast about all things project management related! Hosted by Amy Hatton, Associate Editor of PM Today - the original and still the leading authority on project management in the UK and beyond.
Any project or PMO practitioner knows that resourcing and Resource Capacity Planning are fundamentally difficult areas of the PPM strategy to get visibility and control over. But, this is a crucial driver for strategic growth, operational efficiency, and crucial portfolio pipeline decisions.
Lowell Group, one of Europe’s largest credit management companies, has a compelling mission to make credit work better for all. It’s a mission delivered across eight countries by over 4,000 employees, including 1,500 in the UK. So, for Lowell Group’s PMO, driving effective Resource Capacity Planning is key to business delivery – and the PMO has a crucial role to play!
Led by Tamlynne Chapman, Head of Change Delivery and Jen Spink, outgoing PMO Lead, Lowell Group’s PMO has worked with PPM solutions provider and transformation partner, Planview®, to drive an ambitious transformation from a standing start of cumbersome manual processes to a mature, single source of portfolio truth in the resourcing arena and beyond. Our Associate Editor, Amy Hatton, recently interviewed Tamlynne and Jen to get the low down on their lived experience of the journey, the business benefits, lessons learned and their top tips for PMOs facing similar challenges.
Stream the podcast below to hear Amy, Tamlynne and Jen discuss:
· The visibility journey that successfully took the PMO from running tedious four-hour macro processes to a one-touch, single source of portfolio MI (Management Intelligence).
· How the PMO implemented value-adding, time saving processes across areas including reporting, timesheeting, managed staffing and more.
· How they achieved user adoption and buy-in through intelligent change management strategies, underpinned by Planview’s support and resources.
· The journey ahead, which will focus on developing a leaner, more agile working model supported by LeanKit® and ProjectPlace®.
· The benefits of the transformation – and why sponsors love the outcomes!
Resource management is one of the toughest areas of portfolio planning to get right. Managing and modelling potentially thousands of interdependent moving parts was never an easy task. But, as we see the shape of the workforce changing and deal with post-pandemic recovery challenges, the landscape is becoming more – not less – complex.
PM Today’s Associate Editor, Amy Hatton, recently spoke to Lloyd Norman, Vice President, Strategic Solutions, Tempus Resource by ProSymmetry, about this topic. In this special podcast and webinar serios, Amy had the chance to delve into Lloyd’s 25 year-plus career and experience in the Resource Portfolio Management and PMO space. The podcast and webinar have been released prior to Lloyd speaking at two of the PM calendar’s biggest annual events, and you can register now to see him attend and speak in June, then again in September.
Register to hear Lloyd at House of PMO’s PMO Conference (June, London and Edinburgh)
Register to attend Project Challenge Expo (27 September 2022, free for delegates).
Stream the podcast and follow the transcript below to hear Amy and Lloyd discuss:
· The value flow generated by Resource Portfolio Management.
· How a Lean Portfolio Management approach can bring new pipeline visibility.
· Why we should strive to be Agile rather than to do Agile.
· Why PMOs need to think “stratactically” when it comes to managing the resource pipeline.
· Practical tips to shift your resource management perspective.
· How intelligent resource management drives an internal talent supply chain and powerful retention strategies.
In our latest podcast, our Associate Editor, Amy Hatton, talks to Jordan Kyriakidis, Founder of QRA, and Theoretical Quantum Physicist turned Entrepreneur! Together, they discuss how automation will affect the future of work, the power of technology to drive strategy, relationships and working performance – and when we should (and shouldn’t) embrace technology as an enabler.
QRA is the company behind QVScribe. This powerful, innovative software perform powerful requirements documents analysis, identifying risks, errors, and ambiguities so that these can be eliminated consistently and permanently at the project design stage. This generates requirements documents that express exactly the right intent from day one of project planning, gearing project teams and PMOs up to deliver more efficiently and avoid costly errors and rework right from the start of the project.
Crucially, QVScribe also offers Word and Excel plugins – extremely useful for all those project and PMO practitioners out there who are grappling with the risk of human error that so often derails the best laid project plans and budgets.
As well as discussing QVScribe’s capabilities, Amy and Jordan consider how automation has the power to free project managers up from lower manual tasks, enabling them to focus less on day-to-day drudgery and more on the strategic impact they have the potential to deliver across the portfolio.
Stream the podcast to explore the fascinating world of AI, machine learning, automation, and how it can enhance – not negate – the wonderful world of human endeavour and achievement.
PLUS: Head over to the QRA website, where you can book afree, personalised demo to show you how QVScribe empowers teams with a foundation for confident project development by identifying ambiguities and inconsistencies.
Implementing a PPM solution is about much more than picking the right toolkit. At its heart, this is a change and transformation process with many factors to consider.
In this podcast, PM Today’s Associate Editor, Amy Hatton, talks to David Walton, Founder and Managing Director of leading PPM technology vendor, BestOutcome. They discuss the real challenges of travelling a PPM maturity roadmap, how technology can best serve the changing face of Project and Portfolio Management, and strategic issues to consider when you’re aiming for maturity and implementing the tools to support that journey.
They also explore emerging issues in the PPM technology market - including automation, security, rapid advances in Cloud uptake, and how to choose the right PPM solution vendor for you. Listen now!
In our latest podcast, our Associate Editor, Amy Hatton, talks to James Yeo, Head of PMO at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s Directorate of IT – and Stuart Barker, Account Executive at Planview.
Together, James and Stuart share the story of how the MCGA delivered a PMO transformation, bringing a formerly outsourced PMO fully back in house, rolling out a new PPM tool and achieving full delivery in just six months from developing a roadmap to implementing a satellite PMO model and an enterprise PMO. All of this was achieved not only to a tight timescale, but during the early days of the 2020 pandemic lockdown, creating new and unforeseen challenges.
Stream the podcast to discover how James and his team delivered the transformation, underpinned by Planview’s technology. James also chats to Amy about the importance of stakeholder management, how to deliver what sponsors are really looking for, lessons learnt along the way and his own top tips for a successful PMO career.
In the third of this special podcast series, PM Today’s Associate Editor, Amy Hatton, catches up with Allan Thomson. AXELOS® ProPath™ Product Ambassador, to get the latest on this professional certification scheme from AXELOS® Global Best Practice.
Stream the podcast now to hear Amy and Allan discussing the scheme’s worldwide uptake, the benefits of the scheme for individuals, teams, and organisations, and why ProPath™ is proving so vital as project managers everywhere look to upskill for the future of work.
Launched in spring 2021, AXELOS® Global Best Practice’s ProPath™ certification scheme is providing project professionals everywhere with flexible designation pathways, equipping them to drive change, benefits, and best practice in their organisations.
PM Today first spoke to ProPath Product Ambassador, Allan Thompson, in the first of this podcast series dedicated to AXELOS® ProPath™. In this latest podcast, we catch up with Allan to find out more about how ProPath equips project professionals to deliver best practice.
This episode explores the three certification pathways in detail, how they are tailored to serve different specialisms, locations, and languages, what early adopters are saying about the scheme, and Allan’s personal advice for you and your project management career!
Join PM Today's Associate Editor, Amy Hatton, as she talks to Allan Thomson, ProPath Product Ambassador at AXELOS Global Best Practice. Today, Amy and Allan are discussing the launch of AXELOS ProPath - the new combined professional certification scheme that brings you three new ways to excel in Programme, Project and Portfolio management.
Head over to PM Today for the full transcript and more details about ProPath!
Or, visit axelos.com/propath for more information.