The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How to Start Up a High Functioning Project Management Office with Katie McCullough, PMP, MHA | KEV Talks #18

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

In this week’s episode, we’re lucky to have seasoned Information Technology and Healthcare leader Katie McCullough. During this episode, Katie shares her over 25 years of Healthcare and IT experience as Katie, and I talk through her top 5 tips leaders should consider if they want to start up and maintain high functioning ProjectManagement Office (PMO) for their organization.Connect with Katie on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-mccullough-8a75252a/Thank you all for listening. It was great to catch up with one of the best leaders I've had in my professional career.More on Project Management from the KEV Talks Podcast at https://kevtalkspod.com/?s=project+management&orderby=relevance&order=DESCMore on the ADKAR change management model from Prosci at https://kevtalkspod.com/manage-the-change-with-the-prosci-adkar-model/Have a plan to keep teams alignedStay informed with facts, not fear or rumorsGet involved so you can make a differenceGodspeed,Kevin

Hey everybody, in this week's episode, we're lucky to have seasoned information technology and healthcare leader, Katie McCullough. During the episode, Katie shares her over 25 years of healthcare and IT experience. As Katie and I talk through her top five tips leaders should consider if they want to start up and maintain a high functioning project management office or PMO for their organization. I'm very fortunate as Katie gave me a chance when she hired me to bridge the gap between public safety, incident management, and kind of program and project management proper. Hope you enjoy this conversation.

Get your notepads ready. Get these top five things. Start your PMO off on the right foot. Before we jump into this episode, let's hear a little bit more about the KevTalks podcast. Hello and welcome to the KevTalks podcast. This is the podcast for anyone interested in hearing industry-leading best practice processes, particularly from people in the healthcare, technology, and public safety spaces. Lessons learned are shared and knowledge passed on through facilitated conversations or solo episodes with host Kevin Pinnell. That's me.

Kevin shares his 20 plus years of experience as a US Navy veteran, public safety professional, and healthcare IT program and project manager. In the end, this podcast has a little something for everyone, especially those who want to make progress in their personal and professional lives. Of all the things I've done, the most vital is coordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them towards a certain goal, Walt Disney. The goal of today's episode is for me to get a chance to talk to Katie McCullough, who's been in healthcare for over 25 years and who hired me and saw the crossover skills for my time in all hazardous management and public safety and took a chance on me. And I'm very appreciative for that. And it led me to this podcast and to being a senior project manager. And today we're going to learn how to build a better project management office with Katie McCullough. Katie, thank you very much for being on the KevTalks podcast. Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate it. You were one of my best hires, I will say.

Thank you very much. It means a lot. You've done a lot and we'll touch on all the great things that you've done in particular, the evolution that I got to see, which is great of, you know, from the ground up, you know, building a project management office. But can we share some with listeners, you know, a bit about you, where you grew up, what led you to kind of where we met when you were the director of the project management office and just learn a little bit more about you? Yeah, be glad to, um, pretty much from the, from mostly from Virginia, grew up in Virginia and, um, father was a, was a preacher. My mother was a teacher. Um, so it was destined to go into some kind of helping profession. Right. Um, so really went into college, not exactly knowing what I wanted to do, but did

love leading people. And actually, ironically, well, I don't know if it was ironic, but it was funny because I ended up in biology and chemistry. Oh, wow. I just loved the science. But also the college I went to was small and it afforded me a lot of leadership opportunities that I might not have gotten if I'd gone to a big university. So that was pretty neat. So when I got out of the school, with science being a real interest for me,

I kind of went toward, worked for a couple of years and then went towards to get my master's in health administration. As I came out of that, I got into the quality improvement, patient safety, regulatory background and really spent the better part of my career in quality improvement. And I think about quality improvement at, you know, it's based in fundamental project management principles, right. You know, PDSA and Six Sigma and all the different principles that are in quality improvement are also in project management. So really spent 20 years in hospital based quality improvement, process improvement, patient safety and was running projects, leading projects, and then ended up in a leadership role at a senior level. And then saw technology really kind of taking over healthcare and, you know, electronic health

records coming into play and seeing quality being measured by the electronic health record. So I just kind of started turning towards information technology. So and thought, well, I know nothing about information technology, but I do know how to run projects. Oh, there you go. I do know how to run projects. Oh, there you go. I do know hospitals. So I turned about nine years ago towards IT project management. Um, and then just, you know, really enjoyed it in the healthcare setting. Um, and had the opportunity to apply for a director position. Again, my love of leadership roles.

And ended up being the director of the IS IT project management office. For the quality improvement work that you did, kind of pre-heavier into IT or in IT, but still in healthcare and not as measured, I guess, with like an electronic health record interactions and, you know, things like that. How, what kind of work was it that was different than working quality improvement with an electronic health record or when you got into doing more project management leadership with, with a electronic health record? I think, so you're thinking about the differences between the two? I think so.

So when you say you weren't really in IT, but then you started seeing electronic health records really as a way or that could measure the quality or performance improvement or things like that. How did you do this similar kind of work, not necessarily connected to an EMR before you kind of made that transition? So I think what it was, was the project management principles that you apply and the methodology I was applying when, let's say I would get a new regulation or a new patient safety initiative came to play. And so I would plan it out just like I would in a formal project management, you know, position. I think in the QI world, it's not as structured.

Once you start turning towards information technology, it becomes a little bit, you know, you have to really be careful about design, defining your scope. And, you know, there's a clear beginning and a clear end and, and quality improvement. It's just not as formalized, I guess, or as, as having the title of project manager as a formal title. You're doing project management. I always say that, you know, technically we're all project managers, right? Yeah. So some of us just do it as a formal occupation because these are high,

highly complex projects that need to be, you know, managed and carefully led through their, through their life cycle. Yeah. So a lot, a lot of the similar, you know, before I would roll out a patient safety initiative, you know, it would still have the same kind of phases that a that a formal project would like when you're implementing a new system um so would you have to like get metrics a little bit different than you would you know with a say a reporting system that's built into the electronic health record versus you know outside of that it was kind of different tools but still getting folks for through a process it sounds like yeah i, I think there's, there's also a lot of similarities in that. I mean, certainly in performance improvement and

patient safety, you're always wanting to set up those KPIs, we call them more in the business side. But, you know, what are those measures that are going to tell me that I've been successful in this initiative? So let's say it's, you know, we're implementing a patient safety initiative for, you know, two patient identifiers. And every time a clinician is about to give a medication, they're going to ask your name and date of birth. You know, how can we measure, well, beforehand how people are doing on that? You know, are they asking it? Maybe we do a, you know, a study. We do take a two-week time period and we kind of measure and observe and see if people are actually carrying out that patient safety practice. And then we'll implement some interventions, whether it be, you know, education or, you know, new policies or new ways of trying to increase the, you know, the percentage of time that people

are, are using that practice. Um, and so it would be the same in a project. So IT project, you're going to want to say, well, how do I know that this project has been a benefit? Um, you know, what benefits can I gain from implementing this system? So similar type approach and performance improvement. Cool. Yeah. Obviously important to know you're going to get your money's worth, your time's worth and all that kind of stuff. and it's interesting you say you know we're all project managers that was i remember an early discussion we had which um again i appreciate of thinking you know hey i'd like to do this formally um you know and just the crossover of i think two two big things i think if if you're a good leader you could probably

lead a team of almost any skill set and then to to your point about, you know, we're all managing projects like project management, which is funny because some folks are like, I don't know what you guys do. It's like, you know, but when do you, and I don't want to say like, it's not hard because it is, but it also, you know, folks could do it and you're like, here's the things you do. And I, you know, have this foundational five things and there's basic principles and you know, all that. But if you can get people together and get them talking and working together, you know, have this foundational five things and there's basic principles and you, you know, all that, but if you can get people together and get them talking and working together, you could probably do that in any industry, uh, which is, which is interesting. So it's, it's neat to hear you say that now and, and have seen and learned for you how to,

you know, recognize, Hey, you should grab a before. So you can know if the after was, was worth it or, you know, what we got out of it and stuff. That's a huge benefit to project management. I don't want to spoil any of the building a good PMO or any of those tips. But to your point about improving things, there's a lot. Just seeing what's out there, whether it's employment or business growth, entrepreneurs, all these kinds of things. There's a lot of need, I think, out there. I've seen on Reddit, on LinkedIn for companies, organizations, divisions to have structure to build something like a project management office.

And so as we get into sharing from you as the director of PMO and now helping other folks do that. How, just to start off, how, how would you define a project management office for, for folks listening that are interested to get that started, or maybe they're just starting one up and still kind of working through that? Sure. Yeah. I ran across a quote the other day that I thought was a great way to sum up what a PMO does for an organization. That's funny you say that about what do you do? Because my mother, to this day, my mother still doesn't understand what I do. I might use this quote for her, but what it is, is a project management office is the conductor of your project orchestra.

Without a PMO, projects execute independently and in an uncoordinated manner. And I think that really sums it up. You know, it can be a great value to the business. Think of, especially in the technology space, how many dependencies there are amongst all the different technologies. So, you know, when you have a PMO, then you have a group that is, you know, knows what projects are happening, knows what the roadmap is for the future and can help the business. And in this case, IT kind of plan out the strategy for the next few years, as far as what projects will be taken on. Yeah. It seems a huge value that, that 30,000 foot level of everything that's happening

because it's easy I know for me is you know if I'm on a single project and there's other projects going on in parallel I don't always have visibility in the into those let alone different business departments and that and so it sounds like the you know a PMO can really you know if someone has a question on is this already being worked on or is this a need, that's the place that should be able to, to kind of see the whole portfolio and all the different programs that are happening. Yeah. It, it, it also, I think it cuts down on a lot of waste. If you, if you have people that are independently just starting their projects in a silo in different parts of the organization, there could very easily be client where in this organization, it was they're trying to go towards one badge for the entire health system. It's huge health system, huge, multiple facilities facilities 24 hospitals and um they just started

and you know now they're oh gosh they're like three years into their project and they were like oh well we have all these different dependencies on technology um had they had a uhO or a project management office in that IS space, then in governance in place, which we'll talk about in a little bit, you know, that would have come to light before they ever started that project. So now what's going to happen is they've started this massive project. They're probably going to have to pause and wait for is to get the technology on our roadmap um so that's just a shame you know and just kind of wasted wasted energy there right yeah it's amazing how awesome technology is and how easily

it's not included sometimes you know because it's because it's just there and it's not included sometimes, you know, cause it's, cause it's just there and it's so instant. So I've, you know, feel like some of the thought is like, oh, we can just turn that on. We can just connect these things, you know, and it's like, which I guess is good maybe from the customer standpoint that it seems easy. Um, but you know, and not expecting them to know the behind this, you know, with the curtain secrets of how everything works. They just want it to work, obviously. But yeah, it's interesting to hear that, especially years into it. It's quite a delay.

So fortunately, we have you here to help folks avoid those kind of things. So if you or how you uh, and for folks listening, grab your notepads, um, cause Katie's going to share some things on, on what you would consider or what you've done best practices to start up a project management office, uh, to, I think help avoid some of those, those mistakes and, and really help people be efficient. So what, what is, uh, and we're going to do, I think five of these or so, however many of you want to do. So kick us off. How, how, how should we start? Or what do you want to talk about first?

Yeah, well, you know, what we'll start with first sometimes is the most can be challenging. But you do need to find that strong executive leader who is going to support the PMO. When I think about the executive leader, and in this case, you know, defer to IT, in this case, it's the CIO. I mean, you know that we worked with a very, very strong leader when I was there and the CIO position. I think about that leader providing three, three primary things. One, you know, like I said, they can advocate and explain the value of the PMO to the organization. The CIO that I worked for, we worked for,

always said, you know, the project managers are the face of our department. Good point. You know, they're out front communicating with the executives, you know, getting status reports, escalating issues and such. And so it's really, it's an important role. So somebody, a strong executive leader who can advocate and explain

the value of project managers and the project management office to the organization. And the only way they can do that is if they maintain a strong relationship with the rest of the leaders in the organization. They have to be viewed as a partner. This is certainly true in IT. It can't be an us versus them, you know, kind of mentality um and then those two things um really allow that leader to commit to governance at a at an organizational level um and that's where you know the PMO can really help support uh the organization in showing what projects are in flight, what's the project health,

are we doing the right things for the organization? You know, what's our, are we selecting our projects based on our business strategy? Right. And, you know, it's critical to have that governance piece. Somebody needs to say, no, not now. We don't want to have the resources. Or, no, it's not aligned with the business strategy. And an executive leader who's the advocate for that governance is key.

I was going to say, that sounds like when there's, if there's pushback from other executives, that's where the whole, you know, escalation is not a four letter word thing comes in where that advocate can be the one that, you know, that carries that message you were talking about where,

you know, someone in a high position wants something, but it's for like that person versus, you know, 200 people, you know, and people, you know, and balancing that workload seems to be a lot of value in having that advocate to have those tough conversations with the leadership. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah,

I would say that that is definitely number one. And for the, for the governance part, and let me know this is part of one of the other ones, but is that, how would you recommend folks kind of grade? There's probably a lot of options, right? But if you have that, you know, the executive leader and they advocate for governance and you talk about aligning with the business needs. And of course, there's competing business needs across the businesses um what is kind of a a couple quick hits that folks could use or tips to prioritize between everyone's you know high priority business need yeah yeah i think um you know one thing i found successful

um together with the cio doing on the working on the governance is establishing some criteria by which you're going to identify your projects. So there are certain projects that are non-negotiable, you know, maybe a regulatory and day to day. You have to do it. It may be keep the lights on. It may be something that in technology space you have to upgrade. Otherwise you can't maintain the system. So I think defining that with the executives to say, okay, there's a fundamental, there are some fundamental basics that we have to cover before we can start doing the really cool stuff yeah um and we you know we don't have unlimited resources so uh whether it

be human labor or or even dollars so we have to be mindful of that. So I think, you know, the education of the executive leaders at a governance level, like really making sure you're being deliberate about who's on that group. And then it's a group that meets on a standing basis. Really, you can't. So anyway,

the swim lanes that we identified, the must do's, the required's, that helps. And of course, you get to the stuff that everybody wants, which is the cool stuff. You really need that group to have some criteria by which they're going to prioritize their projects. So it may be, you know, it directly impacts our strategic initiatives that could be weighted high. You could have, you know, it directly impacts the customer experience. I mean, you could create all sorts of criteria, but that group is going to prioritize the efforts and you try to make them as objective as you can. Of course, you know, ideally you want to end up with a rank ordered list, but you can still kind of move stuff around.

But you just got to try to make it as objective as you can and with a scoring algorithm. So then that way it's a place to start versus everybody just kind of starting with emotions. Yeah. That's a great point of, you know, taking the subjectivity out of it. And it's, and you know, the big stuff, like you mentioned, especially in healthcare, it, you know taking the subjectivity out of it and it's and you know the big stuff like you mentioned especially in healthcare it you know regulatory safety things uh seem to seem to quickly rise to the top it's like it's hard to argue with those kind of things which is good but then even that you know this could affect our bottom line money you know things that impact money but that's a great point on make your criteria objective so it's it's less of a

argument or discussion or emotional it just is well and even the you know we do have safety as as a swim lane for the must use well it's really important that you get that group to agree upon a definition for that so the definition was, you know, prevents a safety event and based on best practice or based on evidence has to be handled electronically. So that really kind of narrows down what falls into that safety bucket because in healthcare, everything's safety, right? Right. So everything could be number one. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah. And when the safety folks are saying it's safety, then it's already got validity to it. Right.

Yeah. And it, and it's really tough. That's why having that specific definition to kind of refer back to and say, is there a way we can, does it have to be handled electronically? Or like a good example I always get with that is barcode med administration. I mean, it's a best practice that, you know, before giving a med, they've stopped asking the name and the date of birth and they actually scan you, right? So it's best practice. And the only way you can do that is electronically. So that kind of helps, you know, with that negotiation of I want my project to go before your project kind of thing. That makes sense. So we've, we've got our executive leader, or we're working to get that,

that supports the PMO, that's going to advocate the value of it, partner with the org, and commit to a governance model. And we touched on that a little bit on, you know, kind of some ideas to set those up, be as objective as possible. What's our next step to building a high performing and efficient PMO? I think the other thing is showing pictures. So visuals, metrics and data that are showing capacity versus demand to your leaders, to your executives, to that governance group. Now, some people get a little scared by that because there are fancy project management tools that are out there. Microsoft Projects, portfolio module, ServiceNow.

Do I need to do timesheets so I can show actuals? I mean, it can get very overwhelming and complicated, but there, honestly, you can start with a fancy Excel spreadsheet. I've gotten some great tools from, there's an advisory company called Infotech that I've used a lot. You have to be a member of your organization, but they have some great tools and templates that I used before we had a professional project management tool, like a project. And you can show pretty high level demand versus capacity. Demand can be as simple as a t-shirt size. Right. And this project is small, medium, large, extra large.

What does that translate into hours? And then looking on the capacity side, you can look at it at a pretty high level. But what I've seen is that when the PMO is able to provide that, it makes a world of difference to help the organization in deciding, okay, we're going to start this project now versus we're going to start it when we actually have the resources to complete it. And the reason why that translates into the high performing PMO is because if you have no governance and you're not restricting that demand, you're not going to be making anybody happy. You're not going to be completing anything on time within scope or on budget. Good point.

And then that reflects poorly on the PMO, which is not their fault. Right. Right. And then that reflects poorly on the PMO, which is not their fault. They're doing the best they can. But there's got to be some constraints on the demand. And the only way you can explain that really is showing that picture. We had a heat map where we showed red, yellow, green. And okay, our interface team for the next six months is clearly in the red, like they're way over capacity.

So how are we going to address that? Well, we can start this project that's interface heavy in another six months, or we could supplement with contract labors, contract labor. And then you say, hey, governance, if you really, really want to start this now, then we need the budget to hire more contractors. So is that a way to where you can use in a good way, the data and show the metrics and kind of, and then, well, sorry, that is a way you could do that. Cause you just said it really to rephrase my question when you queue up a decision like that would you recommend that folks like for you as a PMO director that that's

building you know the team or once it's established and you just need a high level decision would you take really a recommendation along with that data as opposed to just kind of leaving here's here's the stuff you guys look at it and decide. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Yeah, great point. Yeah, definitely take a recommendation. Matter of fact, it was funny because as our governance group really matured,

and again, in this governance group, the CIO was one voting member. So it was made up of the business. Right. And then the PMO supported it. But I had an executive say, I guess this is the president of the physicians. And he was like, you know, why don't you guys just go ahead and tell us exactly what we should do? Because when I read your slide, I can pretty much tell what you want to do. So why don't you just go ahead and tell us what, you know, just bottom line it for us. I was like, I love that.

Yeah, I'm trying to lead you there. So I'll just say what I think you should do. happen. Or to your point, like all this, you know, a whole office of that or division or something of it seems like executive leaders, one, they're not in the weeds like we are, right. And so they don't have the detail nor have the time to do that. And so I feel like it would be helpful for them and they would appreciate it as opposed to even if you have good data and it's sitting there and nice pictures, which, you know, I love a good PowerPoint slide. And then, you know, to kind of help guide them to your point and to hear that, you know, they said that one and they pick up on it because they're also very smart people, right? So they, they know what's happening, but, but it's cool

to hear the value of that. Yeah. And I think to, when we showed him that visual, it was in the very beginning of when we were starting up the PMO and we were starting up governance. So we kind of shared with them, here's how we're going to make our recommendations for you. So I'm glad you brought that up because we didn't actually show them the picture every single time. It got to the point where once they saw what we were capable of producing and what we were using to try to help guide them, as long as they're, again, it goes back to that executive leader and the trust and the partnership, as long as those executives trust and have a partner in that executive leader,

then they're like, okay, I see how you all are making your recommendations on when we should start this project. So when you make that recommendation in the future i'm gonna know in the back of my head yeah they're using that you know heat map or they're using actual data to make decisions not just whoever screams the loudest kind of thing gotcha that's good so you i mean you built credibility from the start using those tools and with the advocate. That's awesome. Nice. We've got our executive leader helping us drive things. We're using pictures, data metrics, which can really speak for themselves.

And it seems like, too, the challenge before that is what do we want these metrics to be and how will they be most valuable? So it seems like there's some upfront work there before you can kind of use them as a tool to, to get decisions and leverage, you know, buying and things like that. Right. So how do we, what's our, what's our third thing to get this high performing PMO going? Yeah. So hiring the right people. Yeah. Like I said, those project managers are the face of your project management office and your department for whatever PMO it's supporting.

And, you know, in this case, IT from my work with PMO offices. But, you know, I think with this, it's, and I always love it when you give that example about yourself, because I think hiring the right people is about, for project managers, it's really about leadership aptitude. Not that leadership can't be taught, but I think there is a fundamental, you know, there are certain soft skills that I think a project manager, you need to hire for, right? Kind of pick up pretty quickly if there's somebody that is pretty, you know, is able to be assertive when they need to be or what have you. So I really look at when I hire the right people,

I'm looking for skill sets. I'm looking for skill sets in your case that can be applicable easily over into the project world. And a lot of it is about leadership and it's also about communication skills. All right. project world and a lot of it is is about leadership and it's also about communication skills all right um you know everybody's always like oh do you require the pmp do you require the pmp and i'm like you know the project management professional credential is a really good credential and i always encourage project managers to go obtain it. Right. But it won't say,

it doesn't automatically mean you're going to be a good project manager. We 100% align. So if anyone's listened to this podcast for any period of time, they've heard me say that because a lot of folks think that's their, which it could be from a resume search, their entry point in. Right. Yeah. But that doesn't mean you're good.

No. Or not even good but can can do it and not to bust on that because i got my pmp but but yeah to your point it's it's i'm just laughing because i i'm just 100 alignment with that it's it's good to hear you confirm that uh yeah but but yeah i mean a lot of folks it seems, you know, talk about it as a way to get the skills or learn how to do the job versus this is a good credential to have as I mature my career, so to speak. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's well respected. It's recognized. It does teach you fundamentals. And then first to say, you know, you know, you take the project management body of knowledge, you know, you're not going to open up the book and do your project like that.

So what does that mean? Well, that means as a project manager, you have to use that critical thinking skills, right? And those leadership skills to know, okay, well, I'm in the planning phase right now, but I'm also jumping to this phase and that's okay because, you know, or I have this issue. What do I do with it? It's just not cookie cutter, right? You know that. So you got to have those critical thinking skills to be able to navigate that. And it's not a, yeah,

it's not like you can open up the body of knowledge and run your project like that. Right. Yeah. One of the best examples of that, I think, is from there in the exam and it says your sponsor is going to bring you the charter i'm like like yeah that's awesome yeah yeah that's the greatest thing now shout out to any sponsor that's ever done that thank you on behalf of all pms i just as we said before most execs don't have time to do that so like yeah you can you can write them one and make sure it's cool you know does it everything that you need in an executive sponsor but yeah you're you're right on the money there would you to your point about hiring good folks and those critical thinking skills

and being able to kind of know where you need to be and just what you need to do not necessarily tie it to the phase that matches the standard other than, but the balance of that is there are standards, right? So you still got to meet them, but is that something you encourage when you hire folks and as you watch them work to, you know, say, Hey, you know, do we need to do to kind of accomplish the mission and do the required stuff kind of balance that out.

Yeah, that's actually funny. That leads me to my fourth one, which is project management tools and processes. You do have to have standards, but you need to be flexible. You need to meet the needs of the specific project at hand. They're all so unique. And the needs of the organization, you know, I think there are some things that are, you know, non-negotiables, like the branch and charter, you know, let's make sure everybody agrees that this is the fundamental

basics of our scope. There's the general outline of our timeline and all those kind of things you agree upon up front before you ever get started but um but you know do you need a full-blown risk management plan for every project no i mean it depends on the complexity of the project um and so you you definitely need to I think the PMO needs to establish those standards. One, it, everybody's kind of, it gives one look. And so the organization and the business can, as you're presenting, you know, a scope document, or as you're presenting your PowerPoint, you know, it's got a consistent look and feel and the terminology is, you know, similar amongst all your project managers. It just makes it that much easier to, you know, everybody in the business kind of knows the, what to expect and what the

purpose of these documents are. I do think you can go over overboard with documentation. I know our nemesis, right? Right. And when it sounds like, you know, as part of that, it sounds like a, like a branding strategy, right. And that, you know, a standard, it sounds like a like a branding strategy right and a you know a standard so it's but but also shows kind of a a professionalized professionalization i guess of the pmo to your point so like oh every one they have is like templated and it looks good and it's you know so it's so even if you're in like week three of the PMO being stood up, you know, and you have this nice like, hey, here's here's all our tools. Right. You know, that first look is is huge. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

And to your point, and one great thing that you did and allowed us to do was give feedback on those tools. And so your flexibility was much appreciated. But but also your decision to say you know what we don't need all this extra stuff real early with like the charter like because it's so early just here's pretty here's the money we know we have here's the things we're pretty sure we're going to do about by these times and we agree we're going to try and hit these goals and kind of we'll cement those up as opposed to that really locked in waterfall can't change at all. And then mixed with kind of some agility, which it seems like nowadays is kind of the way,

you know, unless you're a, like where my wife used, you know, a software shop where it's just agile and scrum and, you know, or in some other industry where it's just, you're, you're really getting feedback all the time. It seems like, and back to your point, knowing kind of where you are, but what you need to do, um, that there's more of that mix of kind of that waggle waterfall, agile world of doing a mix of things. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I like that term. Yeah. It's yeah. I think it just, it fits great. And, and, and, you know, to the, we're even doing what we call stand-ups. And I think folks started doing that a bit, how per the Agile manifesto it was.

But folks got together, they talked and worked things out, which was the whole point, right? Like to de-conflict things and what are you working on, where are you going and those kinds of things. But yeah, they're definitely i mean i think the industry or not the industry but the uh well the project management as a form formal methodology at least sometimes you know oh we need to be agile we need to be agile. We need to do agile. And it's like, well, it really doesn't work for like if you just take you gotta make it some kind of hybrid between that

and waterfall because it just it just doesn't it just doesn't work and i could definitely see why it was used in software development though definitely yeah innovation projects is that something you to like as a leader whether it was in quality improvement or, you know, leading a PMO had to also kind of balance with your folks and with the organization was not just adopting the trend because it's a trend. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. That's definitely a big one. It is. Yeah. I mean, the agile too, you know know you also have to remember how does that impact the business right right like because you're not going to be like an it we're not going to be implementing

the solutions by ourself in a silo without including business because we're doing it for the business um if you go strict agile um i don't even know how care could staff for that you know right i mean so anyway i think there's a happy medium cool yeah it it seems like waterfall blends itself. Great to start from. Cause to your point, whether you're a PM proper or you're in the business, it's pretty straightforward to say, we're going to start this thing. We're going to plan it. We're going to do it. And then we're going to close it. Like, you know what I mean? So like that's any language. And I know anyone that's hitting me on the language, I know those aren't the phases, but that's pretty much what you're doing, what you're doing. And then, yeah.

And then having to sprinkle in like, oh, wait, this is different. Two months later, let's change it. And that's okay. Do you know two point earlier? But, but yeah, it seems like to go through all the different kinds of things you can do with a pure agile world is one just sitting here talking about it sounds like a nightmare to try and get people that aren't into it to do let alone it seemed like it was a challenge just to do the quote basic waterfall stuff right there you go yeah yeah yeah i think

that's an important point um you you have to have the entire organization on board i mean we've seen how hard it is just to entire organization on board. I mean, we've seen how hard it is just to get people on board with organizational change management, which is another piece of project management that is. So you could probably do a good podcast on that. Yeah, I did. I, I try to I forget a year or two ago so when we did the pro sci right change management training I try and do like if I get knowledge soon after one it's frankly pretty easy content to then get like so it's like I learned this thing I'll type this thing up I'll talk about this thing um yeah but yeah so so I shared that in the ad car model and um you know and that was another great thing that you did and Tim is let's implement that into our work. But I think similar, it's a different thing than agile,

obviously. And but for folks go to KevTalksPod.com, search for change management, did that episode, but, but that's also another new thing you have to teach folks. Because there's steps folks have to do that are part of that process. It's not just we'll manage the whole change management for you. You just show up and make decisions. You know what I mean? Like that'd be great to some extent, but then there wouldn't be that engagement. But yeah, to your point, the change management and, and I think of note that it's not project management, which those seem to be crossed right in discussion sometimes versus kind of i don't know if they're totally overlaid or just working you know in tandem have you seen

organizations in your time that have both a kind of a standalone change management office that partners with a pmo or have you seen it more where they're embedded or the pms or pmo trying to embed that change management work throughout the process i mean i definitely seen it more where they're embedded or the PMs or PMO trying to embed that change management work throughout the process? I mean, I definitely see it more embedded. Like the client I'm at now, they used to have a change management separate group. shrunk but you know because like all of us were constrained right by the economy and resources and all the all the constraints we have um but yeah the thing about like setting up that separate change management you know department where they come and you know become your change manager i mean that really does take a commitment from the top

and they really need to know what they're, why they're doing it and, you know, how they need to be part of the organizational change effort. So that, yeah, that's a big investment when you start going down that route of having a separate change management department. It'd be a nice, it'd be nice to have. Right.

But like I said, you got to have buy-in from the top. It also seems like a challenge then to, I think anytime, you know, we need the skill set, which in this case is change management that isn't, unless it's embedded from the beginning, I guess, too, right? So like knowing or having a good idea of the resources we need on our project or within the program and getting them as early as possible. I guess we would want to do that with change management folks also if we had that first, hey, welcome two months into this. Let's get you up to speed and help us change the organization. Right, right. It's always tough.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes it have it embedded. Or have, like we did, which is great, have your folks get cross-trained. And then there's, but then, yeah, to your point, if it's not a buy-in, then it's what balance of getting the work done do we do with getting the change management done

versus getting other folks to help with it. But good old change management. But yeah, AD car model i've seen seen some of that out there as far as you know folks asking questions and had some some questions when i put the episode out um there's a few that's what other change management models are you aware of other than than pro sci yeah i know there are others out there, but ProSci is probably, yeah, the one that I'm really most familiar with. Cool. Yep. Same. Awesome.

So we are getting that buy-in from our executive leader. We're using pictures and data. They tell the story and kind of show validity. We're hiring the right folks, of course, that have good critical decision and decision-making and thinking skills, being flexible, which is great, depending doing the work on what the org needs, not what the manual says. And what else do we need to do to stand up this high-performing project management office? I mean, I think that the other pieces, you know, just continual work with your stakeholder relationships, and that would go

from an individual PM level to a PMO leader level. And of course, the executive, if you have a strong executive that has strong partnership with the, with the business, they're going to be maintaining that, that relationship. But I think the other, yeah, the other important piece for a successful PMO is for those individual PMs to really, you know, periodic check-ins with stakeholders to ensure that, you know, periodic check-ins with stakeholders to ensure that, you know, you're meeting their needs and that you're communicating what you need to communicate. And that goes for the PMO as well. You know, I think we did those, which if I recall, you performed very well on.

But we did these, you know, just simple project manager. It was in forms. It was in Microsoft 365, a 10-question questionnaire that went out to all the stakeholders after a project. Or you could do it at certain points during the project, just to ask questions about, you know, their participation in the project, you know, how did your project manager perform? Were you feeling communicated with? Did you, did you feel like issues were escalated appropriately? You know, I think that helps. Hopefully it helps the project managers grow. There's an opportunity for comments too, you know, and, and, you know,

getting kudos at the end of a project is always good. That's a great way to show value of your PMO because what, what we did was we did individual stakeholder assessments of the project managers at the end of a project. And then I was able to roll that up at the end of the year and then able to communicate, you know, look, you know, for of people stakeholders felt like they were you know we were communicating effectively or what have you whatever the questions were but keep it simple simple little forms you know

survey and just kind of maintaining that, um, relationship with those, with those key stakeholders. It also seems, uh, yeah, I do remember the feedback, which, which also makes me think of the soft skills individually needed for a PM is some humility because all the feedback you get isn't going to be perfect. So like understand that as clearly or as many times as you think you delivered a message, you didn't deliver the message, right. To somebody or whatever facet. And so I found that like, but both, I found that helpful. Cause you know, sometimes maybe you've got the best of me other times I was, you know, mostly able to supplant that and like, yep, that's,

that's something that I need to work on or do better or focus on or something like that. But, but to your point, you know, after a long or particularly challenging or a lot of whatever it is, it's nice to hear, Oh, okay. They, they appreciated the work. Cause you know, as objective as either They, they appreciated the work. Cause you know, as objective as either the standards are, the work we do, as you know, projects can get emotional. Like people are working their butts off long hours. So that's a, a great tool. And I appreciated that y'all did that. It was, it was nice to do. And I would imagine from a leadership perspective too, it can show why, Hey, we need two more pms for the workload and look everybody said

our people are doing good you know so as opposed to nobody likes our pmo so you know or something or not providing value it seems like it it has both you know the the nice feeling stuff and an objective value to to grow it and improve and for the the people too and i think that's for any you know program or project managers out there realize when you get feedback you have to accept the good feedback and the i like to say strengths and areas for improvement like right that's more flowery right than bad feedback or whatever because the feedback's not bad it just depends on how you how you take it i guess yeah i think um you know the the other the other thing i saw happening too is the pmo matured and always made me feel really great was when people started asking for project managers that was pretty pretty um

pretty nice or they would ask for specific project managers. Can we have Kevin? Oh my gosh. So that, that's a good sign too. I think when the business is saying, Hey, we've got this project that's about to start. I really need one of your project managers. That's kind of the anecdotal, like, you know, the surveys that I talked about are kind of the, you know, the data,

but it is nice when they call up a PMO leader and request a project manager. Yeah, it does feel good. And honestly, for me, in some of the projects or initiatives that are asked to help with, I got to put my emergency hat on a little bit. So I was like, Oh, for me, in some of the projects or initiatives that are on us to help with, I got to put my emergency hat on a little bit. So I was like, oh, I like you. Let's use it. And I use for deploying a bunch of devices, right, for the surge. I use Incident Command System forms because they work. Oh, yeah, that was so cool.

I was like, here's where we're going and what day. And I actually did. And I don't think I did. I think it did a write-up where I prepared it. And so we had this thing called the planning P that was kind of our guide in the incident management world. And it's literally a big letter P. And at the leg of the P the bottom, it's like something happens where there's an event and there's boxes in it. And it's like the,

it's cool because it's kind of the schedule of the meetings you would have or the or the order and then prep time in between each one and i made actually a big template of that with like times on it i remember that and then so there's also a so then i made a project version of that um so that's what i was going to do that one probably for video because it's i don't know if you're if you're're like me, the listeners, like if I talk about something that I'm looking at, but you can't see it, it's probably helpful. But yeah, but yeah, it was, it's, it's neat to do that. So yeah, I was like, Oh, wait, we have to do something really quickly. And it's kind of an emergency. Awesome. Which is, which is kind of weird. But I think to your point, like liking leadership, liking,

you know, those emergent things. Yeah, from my background, I just I kind of sit there and I'm excited to do it. I'm not like excited because I'm nervous. You know what I mean? So it's, I think that helps. And to your point with folks that not just my background, but you know, quality improvement, do high things and folks come from all the different, you know, kind of walks of life. But if they're used to put me in a situation, tell me what it is. Okay. I'll pull the team together and help get them through it. Then I feel like that, or leading, like you could do that in any industry, unless the exceptions I've seen kind of a lot is, is it what construction and engineering seem to want, like construction people and engineers to do project management um a lot of time but even there um yeah i think if you know you had

the relationships with the stakeholders that had the people on the team but you didn't happen to have a technical expert that's also a pm they could get right get folks through that which was neat but but yeah the feedback i i started doing started doing I think asked Tim about this too, but you know, three what is it? 360 degree feedback, right? So I know my wife did that at her company and stuff and same thing. Good old, good old forms to your point. Sometimes simple forms, just get it done. Four questions. How am I doing? What can I do better? What other comments do you have? And I think that's a good tool for individual PMs to use, or if you're leading a program to send

your team plus your stakeholders and you get, it's really helpful, I think, for the development. So yeah, the stakeholder engagement in the surveys was really helpful and should be really helpful for folks. And I feel like that maybe the anonymity of sending them something as opposed to asking in a meeting probably helped get more responses, maybe. Right. Right. Yeah. And I always had them send it back to me. And then of course I would turn it around to the project manager, de-identify it for them. Cause I didn't want them to, you know, hone in on who said what. Right. Of course, you know, occasionally there was somebody like, maybe there was a comment on the feedback and I'd be like, well,

you can pretty much guess who that was. Sometimes you can't totally de-identify who makes the comments, right? Which I guess speaks to having a good relationship with that person or at least knowing them. But yeah, that's funny. Awesome. So just to summarize and then some closing thoughts maybe on, again, effectiveness. So if we're going to build and how you've built high-performing and effective project management offices, got to have executive leadership to pave the way to advocate for you.

Got to, got to have data to back it up. The need, what you're doing, how you're providing benefit, hire the right people, right. They can think on their own, but also work within the standards that are established be flexible, meet the organizational needs, not just conform only to the standard or what has to happen per the plan. Don't fall in love with your plan because things change. And then stakeholder relationships, which is a great point of not just outside the PMO with the business, but also internally and fostering those relationships. I think that it sounds like an awesome foundation for building a great project

management office. And I know works because you've done it and I've benefited from it and seen the evolution of really more challenging starts and then, and that, you know, in reporting and all this kind of stuff. But, but also I think that's a good point too, is when you start up a PMO, it's not going to be a like fine running machine right off the bat, right?

Is that accurate? And so both the PMs hired and the director or leader of the PMO probably shouldn't expect that. Yeah, absolutely. You know, our CIO always asks the question, you know, is it better than what we have now? If the answer's yes, move ahead. Oh, there you go. That's a great checkpoint.

Yeah. Don't, don't let perfect get in the way of better. I think was, was great advice. Uh, the other thing she always said to me was, you know, listen to your gut, right? Well, I don't think we do that enough. Um, but yeah, as far as the PMO, I think it's don't get caught up in making it perfect. Um, because whatever you do, you're, you're moving forward. So that's a great point. Well, folks have questions about this episode or interested in starting their PMO or they're already doing that and they have challenges.

How can folks reach out to you and connect? Yeah. They can connect on LinkedIn. We'd love that. Send me a message on there. Okay. And it's Katie, K-A-T-I-E. And you spell your last name because I don't want to mess it up.

Yeah. McCullough. It's M-C-C-U-L-L-O-U-G-H. Awesome. So Katie McCullough on LinkedIn can definitely get your PMO started, give you some tips. I'm already selling your time for you for free here on the podcast.

I really appreciate you coming on. I know we talked about this a bit ago, but it's great to get this time now with you and talk to you again and again. Thank you so much for taking the chance on me, giving me an opportunity and giving folks listening an opportunity to learn from you. I think there's a lot of benefit here and we'll change organizations through this episode. So thank you so much, Katie. Thank you, Kevin. I really appreciate it. I'm honored to be asked.

And that's a wrap. Thanks so much, everybody, for standing at the end of the episode for listening to this great conversation with katie mccullough who was a great leader um friend and i was glad to get her on this podcast please check out the kevtalkspod.com website there's a lot more resources about program and project management as i mentioned connect with me or follow on Twitter and Instagram at PenelkG, P-E-N-E-L-L-K-G. We have a KevTalksPod Facebook page. And you can support the show. There's a link right on the website. If you'd like to give a little bit, that'd be great.

If not, it's still going to be free. Thanks so much, everybody. And remember, have a plan so you can keep your teams aligned. Stay informed with facts, not fear or rumors. Get involved so you can make a difference in the world. Godspeed.