The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Don't Just Rinse and Repeat Your Projects | Foundations Friday 87

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

Sharing lessons I learned while reading Jack Kelly's book Band of Giants. More specifically, George Washington learned NOT to fight by watching the rigid British Military and then went on to adapt and stay dynamic as a leader while fighting for America's independence.Check out Kelly's book at your local library or purchase it at https://www.amazon.com/Band-Giants-Soldiers-Americas-Independence/dp/1466893281

It's time to lace up, chalk up, get logged in, and get locked on to the KevTalks podcast. Get ready to hear compelling interviews with extraordinary people, hear industry-leading best practices that will help you and your teams make progress together. Now let's get to this episode in 3, 2, 1. Hey everybody, welcome to this 87th edition of Foundations Friday. Don't just rinse and repeat your projects. And this is inspired by a book that I'm reading called Band of Giants by Jack Kelly, the amateur soldiers who won America's independence.

And the inspiration comes from early in the book where we learn about George Washington, where he's actually part of the British Army. This is before we start breaking away to do our own thing as america and he's learning quickly in a failed attack up north that doing the same thing getting in line sending your men uphill standing in a row against tails of bullets and not adapting to your surroundings to the environment to the equipment to the logistics is not the way to go and he learns this the hard way as part of a battle and he gets injured and his commander is killed and they lose tons of men in the French and Indian War. And so he takes that with him.

And fortunately for us in America, he remembers that and hires and promotes and puts people in position in the American army as they raise it and raise the militia and begin fighting in Boston and New York and places and then of course on throughout the colonies that they need to adapt and he brings in folks that are riflemen early like special forces kind of guys that wear green not bright uniforms and they don't just stand in the line they'll shoot you from the bushes and they'll hide and get cover. People that are really good at logistics that took, gosh, cannons, these super heavy cannons and mortars through the whole length of the state of Massachusetts over mountains, right? People that got stuff done. And so when we have our projects, it's great to

have lessons learned, man, they're so valuable, but it's not great to say, well, let's just do this because we did it like this before. And I think I've talked about this for special event planning and incident management. But the same holds true for planned projects or programs. Now, can we use some of the outline? Can we track things with the same tools? For sure. But we shouldn't just say, well, we do it this way over here. We set it up that way five years ago. So we're going to do that again. You all probably know and have seen examples of that. It just doesn't work well. And if Washington would have done that, we probably would have lost.

And maybe we'd still be under British rule. Who knows? But he adapted. He recognized that, man, those mistakes, those I'm going to hold fast to this and just be rigid kind of mindset doesn't work. And in project management world, of course, you know, that's kind of where Agile came in for those sprints and scrums and standups and all that stuff. But it works in waterfall and the traditional project management and for special event planning and the planning P. You got to pay attention to the past, use the lessons learned,

and then don't just rinse and repeat it, right? So I think you all though, for rinsing and repeating and coming back to the KevTalks podcast, more great stuff on the way, more guests lined up. I know I've done some solo issues or episodes rather lately, but have more guests in the pipeline. Really looking forward to sharing their stories and sharing more efficiencies, you know, people's stories, efficient processes, not just my favorites, but what are industry-leading practices, and hope you all can make progress. Also asking that in addition to liking, subscribing, following, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts for this show, that you listen to the EMS One or EMS One Stop podcast with my friend Rob Lawrence. He used to be my chief of operations

when I was an EMS captain, and we just did an episode, how to thrive despite whatever's thrown at you. That's on Apple podcast. It's part of a great series for public safety folks with, you know, mind, body and spiritual wellness. Myself and Mike Tagman, who's an EMS legend, are on there and have a good conversation with Rob. So please check that out. And remember to go to KevTalksPod.com for more project program management stuff, even a little bit of wellness and jiu-jitsu. Welcome, Jiu-Jitsu Podcast fans, over to the main channel here. And follow me on at P-A-N-N-E-L-L-K-G, Penel KG, on Instagram and Twitter. And we also have a Facebook page, KevTalks Podcast.

Remember, everybody, have a plan so that you can keep your teams together. Stay informed with facts, not just for your rumors. And get involved so you can make a difference for yourself and your teams. Godspeed, y'all.