The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - This is How Project Managers Can Employ Wildland Fire Leadership Principles | PPP #17

Episode Date: April 18, 2020

Wildland Leadership for Project Managers? You bet! Applying principles from the NWCG PMS 494-2 leadership manual to Project Management.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the People Process Progress Podcast. I am Kevin Pinnell. I really appreciate you all hitting play on this episode, finding me on your various podcast platforms. Today, I am going to cover Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, which is a manual created in 2007 by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group with their training team there and by Mission Centered Solutions Incorporated. It was one of the leadership manuals that on episode 10 in one of the archives from between the slides here, so go check that out, where I covered leadership lessons from Gettysburg and beyond. So this manual, as the title entails, is focused on folks coming up in the incident management world, and in particular in the wildland fire service. And we use this

manual even though we weren't wildland firefighters, because we were all hazards folks. So police, firefighters, EMS, public health, wherever that lives kind of in the regular day-to-day world on the streets of America. But this was a great template and Wild and Fire has been around for a while and they have great leadership stuff set up. So this was a pre-read before that staff ride at Gettysburg National Battlefield. And I thought, you know, we've talked about COVID and public health and those kinds of things. And hopefully that's been helpful, but also want to, you know, my day job is I'm a project manager. And so I wanted to share some of the parallels, which I've talked about before between just good leadership in whatever industry. And in this particular case, looking

through this leading in the wildland fire service manual and applying it to project management. And you all will see whether you're a project manager or not, or you're an incident management or public safety, the parallels. I mean, again, I've said it before, to me, good leadership or a good leader can transcend any industry. Meaning if you're a good leader, I could plop you in technology or public safety or healthcare or farming, but you would be able to bring together teams, you would be able to facilitate some kind of process. You're not going to be the expert in each of those, but that's, you know, often not the leader's job. And so. And so let's get into this book a little bit. I'm going to read some of these things and then kind of comment on them and then look forward to

y'all's comments. If you want to send me stuff directly, I'm at peopleprocessprogress at gmail.com or Facebook page, People Process Progress. You can get a hold of me there or on Instagram, Penel KG. Here we go. So this is part of the preface of the book very early on, and there's a couple statements that I think are really outstanding. And the first is that leadership is the art of influencing people in order to achieve a result. The most essential element for success in the wildland fire service is good leadership. So let me touch on that last piece but switch out a couple words.

The most essential element for success in project management is good leadership. So let me touch on that last piece, but switch out a couple words. The most essential element for success in project management is good leadership, right? There's no difference, you know, saying from I'm a person whose job it is to go out and help put thousands of acres that are burning out that are on fire, or I'm a person that's going to help get an organization, put thousands of devices out that work well. Good leadership is the most essential element. Here's another statement. And this one just applies all around.

Leaders often face difficult problems to which there are no simple, skill, experience, education, values, and judgment to make decisions and to take or direct action, in short, to provide leadership. So project managers out there, think about that, right? You know, part of bringing together a new project team or coming into a project that's already in flight is getting together, looking at solutions that, you know, I've said it ad nauseum, but, you know, I'll say it again, the project management body of knowledge is a great manual. But if you try and manage projects strictly by using that book or, you know, agile guide or six segment, like if you just try and do completely out of the box, and I've seen some of this where, you know, we're trying to apply principles that we would normally apply when it's a sunny day and

there's no pandemic and all that, then we're going to fail. We're going to spin our wheels a little bit. And so be okay with everything not being, you know, exactly like it is in the book. And some of that comes with experience, right? So if you've, if you've been around a little bit in life, you kind of understand that, let alone if you're new in project if you've been around a little bit in life, you kind of understand that, let alone if you're new in project management or have been around there, you understand it's not going to go by the book ever. It's not even going to go by your project plan exactly ever. And that's fine. Just do the best that you can for all the constraints and this and that. So as the manual goes through, then we're going to look at some leadership values

and principles. And these are like human leadership values and principles, right? But think of these as a project manager and the three values that are outlined that this book kind of everything else falls under are duty, respect, and integrity. So according to the, you know, leading in the wild and fire service, which, you know, we could rename this and change some things. It could be leading in project management. So let's look at duty, be proficient, both technically and as a leader. These apply to duty. These are the principles that apply to the value of duty. Make sound and timely decisions. Make sure that the tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished, right? And develop your people. You know, all of those apply directly if you're a

project manager. If you're a project manager, if you're a project manager that's invested in your team, you're invested in being the best person, the best leader that you can be, then all of those should be absolutely, you know, and the proficient new job piece to me is, do you know how to use the tools that your organization uses, right? Or do you stumble through them or refuse to use them? Be proficient in them, get good with them to the point where you can try to then leverage them to make solutions for certain things, like being able to stand up very quickly a way to track phones you've deployed,

or using Excel, or using Project Online, or a SharePoint list, or whatever product you use. Sound and timely decisions. I've talked before, again, on that, I think it was episode 10 from the archive there with Gettysburg leadership about the time wedge, right? The longer the time goes down, the less options we have. So we got to be ready to make those. When we get to the task level and the overall project schedule, do we know that the folks that have, you know, the resources, the people that we have on our team that are assigned to tasks that have taken on those tasks, do we know what they're supposed to do and when we've asked them to do it by and how

to do it? And if the answer is no, then we need to make sure that we can clear that up. And part of our jobs as project managers along the way from day one when you introduce yourself to when you're handed it off to operational support is developing your people. So are your teammates coming out the other end of the project better? Are you also? And I think we should always look at that. The second value here, respect, and here's the principle.

So know your people and their well-being. Now, you know, in this time is an excellent opportunity to develop this. If you're maybe not as heavy in this as a project manager is check in on your team. How are you doing? How's your family? Are you getting enough rest? Do you need any help? Let me know, you know, if you're maybe not as heavy in this as a project manager is check in on your team how are you doing how's your family you're getting enough rest you need any help let me know you know if you need more people do we need to up staff if we can to help give you a break like that should be a constant cycle a constant check-in with our teammates keep your people informed we've all been part of silos or you know I copied these people on the email but not these other

people you know what cut down on emails on the email, but not these other people, you know what, cut down on emails and copy folks. And if someone says, Hey, I don't need to know this, just work with my people. Awesome. Then cut down. But there's really, unless you're actually working in top secret, you know, secured compartmental mental information, skip stuff, like none of this is top secret, right? So we should be open, have good communications and keep our entire team informed at all levels. There's, you know, one thing I've heard a lot on calls have been, and it's when, you know, folks use the term, well, we'll talk about that offline, which, you know,

partially sometimes if you've been on those calls means I don't want to talk about this in front of everyone else. You and I can just talk about it somewhere else. Now, there's utility in that when in a quick update meeting, we're not going to get into a working session. That makes sense. Hey, you know what? Let's dive into this deeper offline so we can work through that. That makes total sense. You should be doing that anyway. When folks don't want to talk about something and you can tell through the conversation that there's already other silos happening in the project, that's something that you should be aware of as a project manager and that you should maybe address. Like, hey, I noticed you guys wanted to talk about this offline.

Is there some information that I can help with or that maybe the rest of the team needs to know? And just kind of reach out. Again, there shouldn't be a ton of separate discussions that don't relate to everybody else on the team and the objectives that the project is trying to meet, right? If it's truly unified, and we'll get into that in a little bit. This other principle that has to do with respect is build the team, right? Your job as a project manager, whether you've been matrixed and they actually report to you, or most often I've found like no one actually works for you, but your job is to build the team up so that folks want to do work for the project or you, if you've built those relationships through you reaching out to them directly, through talking to them, through active listening, all this,

all, you know, some of the other things we'll get into about good leadership. But part of your job is not just build, get people to get the job that it's build the team to be cohesive. Employ your people in accordance the job done. It's build the team to be cohesive. Employ your people in accordance with their capabilities. This is the last of the principles for the value of respect here in this table and leading in the wildland fire service. So, you know, when you work through asking for people for resources for the project, make sure that they're aligned and have that discussion with the resource managers and with them. Hey, are you comfortable with this assignment? Is there any other information you need? Do we need to ask somebody

else and just rely on your experts to help drive, you know, who needs to do what jobs, right? The third of the values was integrity, is integrity. The first principle is seek improvement, right? So as a project manager, every project I try and get better, whether I actively always do that, which I try to do, or, you know, every project you do, you're going to learn something new about some new product or process or the people in the organization or something, right? So by default, you're getting better. And if you can even push that a little further and say, well, you know what, for this time, I'm going to use this new form that we're starting to use. And I'm going to try and fill out every single task or update or, you know, just really kind of refine your schedule, refine your task details or less details, you know, whatever it is to make

your project more efficient. We should be seeking responsibility and accepting responsibility. This is the second of the principles with the integrity value. That to me speaks to the, you know, I've mentioned Jocko Willink, and you all might be familiar with him that That, to me, speaks to the, you know, I've mentioned Jocko Willink, and you all might be familiar with him, that listen, extreme ownership, right? So as a leader, no bad teams, only bad leaders. So if we are project managers that are proactive, that want to be successful for ourselves, for our families, for our organizations, for all those different reasons, then we should seek out chances

to have responsibility, right? We should want to be the person that's chosen to go help other people when they're having issues. We should also openly accept responsibility when we fall short, even if our teammates fall short, right? If it's our team that we're facilitating a process for and that we're helping, you know, some of that responsibility lies on us. The last is set the example. No one's perfect. Sometimes you'll be cranky. Sometimes you'll be tired.

Whether you had your coffee or not, stayed up late, what's going on, especially now, right? We're in this long drawn out time of remote work. And even though I've been working remotely 100% for almost a year, it's a lot to not be able to drive around as much or go different places and, you know, but set the example. So, you know, a couple episodes ago, I gave the examples of good telework of, you know, put yourself in that mode of, I'm going to get up, I'm going to exercise, I'm going to get dressed for the day. I'm going to have my breakfast. I'm going to work like I would if I was in the office. I have three kids at home. My wife's also working from home. So I totally get

it. We're also trying to balance, you know, being school teachers, which on its own is amazingly difficult. So shout out to all the school teachers for helping us keep going. But we have to, we have to have a routine. We have to set the example. And throughout a project, we also should do the things I talked about before, the other principles that apply to the values of duty, respect, and integrity, and try and be that example. Because there are a lot of eyes on us as project managers, both from our supervisors, from their supervisors, from organizational leaders, from the members of the team. And that's fine. That's part of our gig. So the next piece I wanted to touch on has to do with kind of becoming a leader and why people choose to be a leader. You know, and I'm going to read another statement.

And again, I'm going to swap out terms. So fire leaders bring order to chaos, improve other people's lives, and strengthen our organizations. Leading enables us to leave a legacy for the leaders of the future so that they can take our places well prepared for the road ahead. These are the rewards of leadership. Their effects will be seen and felt long after our careers end. So why be a project manager, right? Why do you choose to lead? Why, you know, do we lead because we want to make a difference. How do you bring or how have you brought order to chaos? If you come into, like I have a few times both in my incident management planning session chief hat, but certainly as a project manager where people are ordering stuff, they're doing things all over

the place in different processes and you're asked, hey, go help them out. Let's see what's happening. That is how we as project managers bring order to chaos. Start with the discussion. I've talked a lot and 100% believe it, and I've talked on a few other podcasts, which is cool. That'll be coming out soon about those foundational four, right? At a minimum, help get objectives quickly, see what the organizational chart is, see who's who,

see what resources are available, or get some and communicate. Start there and all the other tools and methodologies and whatever else will come along with it. You know, and you do see rewards from that. You'll see rewards from the order that you've brought to maybe a chaotic situation and you're reducing people's stress and you're making the organization more efficient and you're helping save some money. And, you know And that is a great reward of being an effective leader or project manager in this case. So that first part of the

statement I read about fire leaders bring order to chaos. Well, project managers bring order to chaos. That's a huge part of what we do or what we should be doing. So here's a couple more statements about leadership and bringing teams together. And again, this is the wildland fire service version. In the wildland fire service, firefighters, dispatchers, managers, technicians, support services, medical staff, law enforcement, the military, and others are brought together in rapidly assembled temporary teams to accomplish a given mission. These teams have unique capabilities, limitations, qualifications, and experience. Let's do a switcheroo. In project management, analysts, technicians, financial professionals, human resources, clinical engineering folks are brought together in rapidly assembled teams, dot, dot, dot, right? Same thing.

We are going to show up. We're going to bring together folks that may not normally work together or sometimes they have worked together and that's a great opportunity just like leaders in the wildland fire service do you know our wildfire so to speak and project management is this process we're brought to improve or this this gap in a capability that the organization doesn't have that by you facilitating a good process are going to bring together all these different professionals and subject matter experts to help fill to get these new devices in the environment and really make that difference another thing that i think directly applies and we'll switch it out here is fire leaders must have the ability to

integrate these varied resources into effective and responsive temporary teams. Project managers must have the ability to integrate these varied resources, etc. You have to be able to bring various teams together. So let's look at that for a second. So as a project manager, you're typically bringing a team together, right? Even though it's made of folks from different departments, vendors, internal, external, regulations, privacy, whoever you're bringing together, but it's usually like a project team. And again, I'm a huge advocate for, I don't even like the verbiage of, well, the vendor project team and our project, there's one project team, right? There should always just be one team. If you take that up a level, if you have multiple

projects under the heading of like a program there should also be a program leader a program manager that has clearly defined with leadership here is the org structure overall and the objectives overall here the resources overall here's the communication overall and at the project level here's what's going on with project one two three and four that are all related that that come into a program when you don't do that under a program level you're gonna have these cylinders of excellence or these silos and while the projects may talk to each other there's no cohesiveness in the work that they're

doing so project managers or program managers must have the ability to integrate those teams together or the people on a singular team to stay effective. Here we're going to jump to, again, very heavy on the unity of effort in leadership. So this speaks to we all working together, kind of what I talked about. If you have a program, but you have projects kind of doing their own thing and then, you know, developing their own processes, but they're actually linked together, then you don't truly have unity of effort, meaning everybody's working together. Here's some great statement about that or issues with that is, the longer it takes to develop a unified effort, the greater the vacuum of leadership. Delays increase confusion, which in turn magnify the risk to our people and increase

the likelihood that people will take unproductive or independent action without understanding the larger intent. There you have it. Clear objectives, right? If we all develop clear objectives, and I've talked to some folks and read some comments, I think on Reddit or other places, where some folks are having issues with getting people together to get clear objectives. Well, if that's the case, as a project manager, a program manager, or other leader, just put some objectives together. And ideally, you're developing those with other people. But if you can't get people together, if it's either you can't get folks together

to help develop combined objectives or they're not sticking to them, then help put them together, present them, kind of lead up, which we'll talk about in a little bit, and put some out there. Don't start with just a blank slate. Start with some good examples, and they don't have to be perfect. You can refine them as you go. And this really applies at all levels. So if within your team you have silos, that's not good.

If within different projects under a program you have silos that's not good if in the entire organization you have whole programs or whole departments or divisions trying to solve the same problem and you haven't helped streamline that process yet then you're you're spinning wheels from people's time and money and and you know in a time like now we all don't have a lot of that right So one thing kind of wearing both the project manager and incident management hat, planning section chief hat is, you know, one thing that we should be seeing hopefully, and if not, a good chance to improve on the fly is do we have a truly unified command at our organization? Is there unity of effort where we streamline solutions for big problems that are happening in our organizations or in information sharing? And if not, take a look at that and help make sure that this unified effort, this unity of effort is happening from the individual project level or small team level up to the highest level of your organization with whatever you're working on. As you do this, as you influence, as you help as a project manager come into a situation or talk to leaders in your organization, something that should be very important and you should be conscious of is your command presence. Command

presence in public safety in the wildland fire is no different than it could be with you as a project manager walking into a meeting or doing a kickoff meeting or just meeting with folks. And it doesn't mean you're totally in someone's face in their space, but it does mean, which we've mentioned and Jordan Peterson has a great comments on this as part of his rules of life, is head up, shoulders back, be confident, believe in yourself, believe in your organization. It makes a huge difference on the street, running calls, doing scenarios. It's an absolute must. Sometimes you have to raise your voice so folks can hear you not ask questions as a project manager. Sometimes, you know, we have to be very direct as well in a business environment. It's different. You're

not on the street, you know, in your boots and uniform and stuff, and it's different people. But here's a great statement about that from the Wild Empire Service. And then again, we'll translate this because it directly applies to project manager. More than anything else, the leader's command presence sets the tone for the command climate. Command presence is how we present ourselves to others. The myriad of personal attributes and behaviors that communicates to others that we are worthy of their trust and respect, right? So as a project manager, are you meeting folks with confidence at all levels? If you shake the CEO's hand, are you just as confident as when you shake

the analyst that's going to do the programming's hand? And if you're not, why, right? Is it the environment that the leader has set where, know they're they're boisterous and not making folks comfortable or is it you are you not confident in your skills or in your abilities or just your personality but that's another area as we improve ourselves every time you know and the opposite are you too confident sometimes i know i find myself in there where i have to humble myself a little bit more and take stock in that. But look at how you are. Look at how you approach folks, your body language, how you feel inside before you go into a meeting and balancing, you know, arrogance with being timid.

So where's the middle ground there, right? Don't be a pushover because your job is to facilitate process to make sure folks are doing what they need to do, that we're accomplishing those objectives, that we're on time, on budget, all that good stuff. But then also, it's also not your job to tell everyone what they're supposed to do at every level, right? If you were the expert in everything, you would just do every project instead of having to bring teams together. That's a big difference. When you're a project manager, you also need to take charge when you're in charge, right? So we as project managers are empowered with the either direct, you know, supervision. And some of that's perception, right? There's a lot of folks I've worked with that say, well, you're the project manager.

You tell me. And, you know, one of the first things they say is, sure, if it's a decision on do we spend that money, can we extend the scope? Do you need me to help get obstacles out of the way? Absolutely. I'm going to help do that. If it's a, how do we do something to solve a problem for a task? Or how do you work with your teammate? I turn around and say, no, no, no. I help facilitate the process and put the plan together. You tell me what we need to do. And if there's someone that you need to work with, I'm happy to set that up. But you really need to work directly with them because, you know, as a project manager, oftentimes we are the middle people, right?

That sometimes, though, become a crutch for others. Well, I can't talk to them. You need to do that. You're the project manager. Well, no, I'm in charge. Part of being in charge is I'm going to hold you accountable to do some work yourself. Right. And that's totally fine. But as a project manager, particularly if you're new, you may not be comfortable doing that to someone that's been at that organization for like 10, 20 years, but you need to be right.

Our job isn't to make people communicate with other people from the standpoint of just getting up, you know, and walking around the corner or making a phone call, you know, and I've had the extreme of that every little step I was asked to do first, totally self-driving teams that just took care of it themselves and work with their peers. So as a project manager, you know, and this examples the fire service, you know, when you're in charge, make the decisions and help out. But as a project manager, you know, you do need to be in charge when you're given that responsibility, but you also need to let other people do some of the work because you're not there to really do it. And part of that balance is how are you inspiring your teams without having direct supervision

control? They don't work for you day to day, right? And now all of a sudden they've all come together in a team. So how are you motivating them? Are you motivating them by giving them some space, by setting them up for success, by talking to them, by asking them about, you know, more than just the thing that they needed to do for your project, like a person, right? That's a huge, a huge thing that, you know, project managers need to be able to do is communicate with people. And if you're not a people person, I would imagine if you're project managing and listening to this and you're not a people person, that's quite a challenge. So use project management, if you can, as an opportunity to improve on that.

So moving into now about halfway through the book, as project managers, we are leaders for sure, right? And so when we have that command presence, when we're building our teams, part of making sure that everyone has the same vision, that they know our end state, they know what we're doing, is that our leader's intent is clear. And so this book, The Leading in the Wild and Fire Service, does a great job with three key things, looking at the task, purpose, and the end state, right? And so the first thing with tasks that's here in the book,

and then we'll talk about for project managers, what is the objective or goal of the assignment? There it is again, right? Objectives, right? We all should work from those, and we should work from smart objectives. Every project, every program, every initiative should have those. Some people call them goals. Some people call, you know, they're a little bit different.

Smart objectives are clear cut. That's where we want to do this stuff by this time, within this amount of time, right? Something like that. They're specific, right? Measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based. And that we are managing our tasks. So that's pretty straightforward. You know, it's tasks, but there's task management.

So as a project manager, are we keeping track of the tasks or group of tasks or however you've broken out your schedule and making sure that you're supporting folks that are responsible for getting them done or giving them the resources they need? The other part of intent, the second thing of leader's intent is purpose, right? So why the assignment needs to be done. And in the wild and fire world or even in public safety and public health, it's pretty straightforward. We need to put the fire out so the house doesn't burn down. We need to dig this fire line so that it doesn't go past it and burn the neighborhood down as wildland, right? In project management, the why we're doing something is just as important. And it's a huge principle in that change management, that ADCAR, right? It's A, the awareness of why do we need to change this process?

Well, because there's these inefficiencies, we can save time, we can save staffing. Why do we need these new devices? Well, the other ones are going to be end of life. They won't be supported and they keep breaking, right? There's all these different things. There's also, you know, with Simon Sinek, who I've talked about, he has this golden circle model.

And in the center of that is why, and then there's how, and then there's what. It looks like a target. With his concept, it's very similar or the same, but it's more, I work in healthcare project management and IT. Often, the why is really to improve patient outcomes. You could latch on to any why statement, right? To make nurses gathering vital signs more efficient by automating the process to improve patient outcomes, right? So you could apply that to anything of that in your industry and similar. And so that really is a more meaningful why.

So if we are going to save time and we can have more nurse to patient time because they're taking less time to do a certain, you know, task, then that's huge. Particularly if it's your family member, that's the patient that now has more focus on them that may catch an arrhythmia, you know, an irregular heartbeat or lung sounds or something like that, because we're not overwhelmed. And so that's a very tangible why. So as project managers, consider that also, and it doesn't have to be healthcare, right? Across all other industries, we're not overwhelmed. And so that's a very tangible why. So as project managers consider that also, and it doesn't have to be healthcare, right? Across all other industries, there are very tangible whys that result in a life improvement for someone or something. So maybe think about

how you can tie to that. The end state. So task purpose end state for leaders intent. End state is how the situation should look when the assignment is successfully completed. What is the clear alignment of stuff that's in scope for the project? What is the clear misalignment for stuff that's out of scope? Here are things we're going to focus on or organizations included. Here are things that we are not or organizations not included. And another good addition, particularly in a lot of the stuff you're capturing in your charter early, early on, or even in the business case, whichever stage your development honestly is from your project management office. But if you already know what's in scope, what's out of scope, also, how are you going to measure

success for this? So the end state should look like not just the number of devices in the environment, but also the increase in efficiency of X or the reduction in time spent doing Y, right? So you want to define those early on so that when you have all these objectives with tasks, when you know the purpose of what needs to be done and who's going to do it, then you're working also toward, here's what we want to look at. And some of these end states, some are pretty specific and you'll know right away, like number of new things in the environment, you'll know whether that was done or not. What you may not know are the operational efficiencies, right? So did we actually make it better that for a project, there may be some lag

time for the examples here in the wildfire service, you know, or a wildfire, um, you know, if the fire has gone out, if there's, um, you know, the line has been dug and it's complete and it stopped the fire, that's a pretty immediate feedback. And there's still other factors like weather and things like that. But for a project, sometimes there's a lag in actually seeing the full measures of success or areas for improvement. And so set up some kind of post-project time operational support triggers, if you will, or ways to monitor reports and things like that. And then you can continually monitor that end state. So as a good leader, we know we need to have good command presence. We need to be in

charge when we should be in charge, develop our teams. And that's a part that the book dives into very well, is developing our people for the future. And again, we should all come out on the other side of a project, a program, a response, anything better in some aspect and a great uh portion on mentoring states that leaders also help their people grow by mentoring and sharing experiences mentoring them begins their journey from followership to leadership right and and so here's here's the next paragraph after that is fire leaders coach and then step back to allow people to take on new responsibilities. Providing the opportunity to test new waters and try new behaviors is important in developing people for the future. Switch out fire leaders, project managers, coach, and then step back,

right? So yes, we're going to be pretty active on setting up the regular team syncs. Yep, we're going to keep track of things in whatever system we need to. But we're also going to look at the team and see who's on there. Do we have some folks with pretty good experience that can help drive the entire process because they've done this before or a similar project? Just because you're the project manager doesn't mean you have the last word all the time or need to. A lot of your time should be spent listening and making sure you have the message unless there's a point where things are getting missed. Teams aren't taking responsibility, that kind of stuff. But it's a great opportunity also, depending on who's in your project management office, of seeing if there's other folks in your office that want to help or that you've brought in to help and asking what they want to do.

Like, what do you want to do? What can I help with? And not just coming in and kind of taking over. So, you know, let the teams lead themselves when you can, like we mentioned earlier. And one of the best statements I've heard with that is trust but verify, right? I'm going to trust you because we're on the same team. We're working on the same project, but I'm going to check on things, right? Because I have to. As a project manager, you're ultimately responsible for a lot of the stuff in the project.

So you definitely want to trust folks to get things done but you're gonna have to verify that they've gotten done and you know were they done per the specifications of our project per alignment with our objectives so that's good opportunity there as we're mentoring and again looking for you know folks within our project management office folks within the project team looking at people's skill levels. And some projects have been part in or part of, you know, there was actually official training that was an opportunity to get for folks that were both during the project and afterwards going to be supporting it operationally. So now if you can get them officially trained and certified in a new product,

that's outstanding. That's a bonus that enables an entire team, let alone individual people, you know, on how they can get better for next time. So empowering people isn't just people that I guess you could say are subordinates if they're reporting to us on a project or colleagues, but they're matrix to us. It also is empowering. And those above us, right? Those, those that have signed on that are sponsors that are leaders of the organization of the department of whatever it is that you're helping with. And one thing that I've always done, I think because I've had great leaders that encouraged open dialogue is lead up or manage up. That means you are not the ultimate one in charge, which there's always someone above

everyone really. But as a project manager, are you comfortable giving feedback that isn't always great or perfect or saying no, or I don't think we should to your direct boss, your boss's boss, the C-suite, right? Everyone else. And speaking up when you see clear misalignment throughout a project that you know is already negatively affecting the project or the program and bringing things up on a call or in person, that's a project manager's job is leading up. And so I'm going to read a statement from there on page 48 from leading in the wild and fire service. Looking out for people includes not only those who work for us, but also our leaders and peers. Leadership is about

influencing others to accomplish tasks that are in the best interest of our organization. This often means influencing those above us and leading up. Similarly, we are open to upward leadership and in fact, encourage and reward it. Open to upward, meaning our egos are out of the way. We're not in our silo. So those folks that are the analysts, right, that may say, hey, maybe we could do this a little better. Hey, I'm not getting the communications that your ego as a project manager or your belief that everything is just so clear and you're doing so good doesn't get out of the way of the fact that you have a person on your team that isn't getting the message, there's nothing more clear than that, that your communication is not a hundred percent. Now with leading up, you have to read your environment,

right? Is your environment open where you know that your supervisor or your C-suite is all about open conversation and they're comfortable with it and they're comfortable with feedback. That doesn't mean they're going to have to take action on everything you say. You also shouldn't be naysaying them all the time, right? Or is the environment that they don't really want to hear from you. And that was from, you know, some of the leadership I talked about in Gettysburg where, you know, these lieutenants were telling the generals, Hey, I don't think we can take that ridge. It's not safe for, Oh, we can take it. And then the high level leaders would say, you know what, if I wanted a lieutenant's opinion, and this is like a general breeder general, I would give it to you kind of thing. If you're in that environment, it's a whole different thing, then you have to lead up

a little less directly, right? Lead up through leading your project team and doing the right thing, which may not always be 100% with what exactly that leader wants. Because sometimes the leader may not know best, but the folks on the project team do, and they're closer to it, right? So if a leader comes into a program or a project and they think, well, I heard there was a problem from some people. I'm going to just jump right in here and take over. Well, one, there's probably been a lot of work done already to build off of two that does not help the morale of the team at all. And if people are frustrated and

they start calling out specific people on a call, you know, be the project or program manager that calls them on it that stops that because that's a morale killer, like right there, and you have to be comfortable doing it. And I think most folks will appreciate that later on. But you have to know what the environment is, you it's open or if you're working with folks and they are clearly kind of gun shy about, oh, if I mess up this or that will happen, then you have to think about, okay, they're dealing with leadership that is probably not super supportive, that is maybe jumping on them a little too much. Whether you can change that or not is a whole different thing. But what you can do is make their experience with your project team, the best that it can be and

support them from that aspect and offer to get out there, right. Offer to help be the obstacle or be, you know, the kind of protection between them and maybe some feedback they're getting on leadership that may not understand, you know, Hey, why, why are you not getting this on the project? But they may not understand the full story. And a lot of that just comes back to open communication between all the parties and all the levels involved about, you know, leading back up through you for people on your project team by letting them know, Hey, you know, so-and-so is doing a great job on our team actually. And we really appreciate their guidance here. Here are some challenges that we're running into, you know,

because sometimes folks don't ask for help early enough to help get work done. And so sometimes you do have to step in and help them kind of help themselves and help their leadership. So as we move through about on page 50 out of 60-something of the manual, and I've been going for a little bit. But again, I just want to thank everybody for listening, for reaching out on Instagram at Penelopeg or people process progress.com people process progress facebook group we look forward to hear your feedback on how are your projects going what are challenges

you're facing also on linkedin and the covid19 response or rather knowledge area group or just directly kevin pennell on LinkedIn. So we've talked about building the team. We've talked about leading up. So when I go through some specific examples that are in the manual about building the team, kind of some of the subheaders that are in there that I think are really helpful. And again, as project managers, some steps that we could use that we could consider that we could make actionable as we help now in this, you know, crazy COVID-19 response time.

And then, you know, really forever as project managers. And so building the team that the first one of these subheadings is trust, right? So trust comes from being given, from being earned. There's so many different guides and things on trust. And for me, as a project manager, again, it comes down to just being straightforward with other people and giving them respect and not jumping all over them if they're not perfect. And all the things that you would build trust with any other human, do that as a project manager.

Healthy conflict is the second of these. And that sounds kind of like a misnomer, but there is opportunity in having conflict with others healthily, right? Meaning you can have your opinion, you can have your stress on when the tasks do or when we have to have things do. Or, you know, as a project manager, you just may have a better comfort or insight on some regulatory thing that we have to do that may conflict with other people's schedules, right? Just because a regulation came in that affects a project you have to do doesn't take away all the other work that people on your project team have to do. So sometimes, especially if it's a scheduling or resource conflict, and those are plenty

now, you have to help push and work through that. And sometimes this healthy conflict results in escalation, right? And escalation to the point of where you have to say, you know what, we're going to have to get our leaders to kind of settle this for us and make the decision. But that's what leaders are for, right? Be in charge when you are in charge. And so leading up part of that, when we're building our team is, Hey, we're at an impasse. I'm not getting results. Um, we really need to support in this and, and then, you know, lay out all the facts that your leadership can help make that decision. Commitment, right?

So we have to be committed. The third of these building the team guides from leadership in the wildland fire service, we got to be committed to our projects, right? Sometimes we're tired. We don't feel like it. It's been a long project, long weeks, especially now. But we have to have that commitment because our commitment will show in our documentation and our attitude and the way we speak to people. And again, it'll wax and wane, right?

But just always come back to what's the overall objective of this project and how does it affect the patients, the people, the organization. And a good way to help build commitment within your team is,, that delegation for your teammates. Pure accountability, right? You as a project manager are going to manage tasks, you know, and whatever tools we talked about or whatever tools you use, but you also are going to manage people, lead people, partner with people, and you have to hold them accountable. And this is tough, you know, calling folks out, you know, it's that same kind of human principle is praise in public, you know, punish in out, you know, it's that same kind of human principle is praise in public, you know, punish in private, and you may not be technically punishing someone. But if you need to have a direct conversation, like, hey, we're, you know, we're coming up on this go

live, and the work that you're assigned is, you know, lacking what what's going on, it shouldn't be a surprise, right? So you should see this coming. You should know what's going on if you're keeping track of your tasks. But you need to have that one-on-one conversation and then start that discussion of, well, you know, we really need to do this. Do you need me to help ask for more people to help you? Do you need me to help have your leadership clear your schedule more?

Like what can I do because you don't work for me all the time to basically help you get the job done? How can I help empower that? And if it's still not happening and you're not getting a response, that's when you do need to reach out to their supervisor and escalate and do all the things that, you know, is part of that difficult, healthy conflict stuff, but is huge because we do need to be responsible.

Same thing for you as a project manager. If you're not getting it done and you're getting called out and they're like, well, I told Kevin and he didn't follow up on it to own it. And so, you know what? I did miss that. I'm sorry. I apologize. And you know, trying to get better team results, right? So the whole focus of being a project manager is building a team, fostering a team, facilitating process for a team, you know, team, team, team. And so these are team results. These are not your results. And even when folks say, when we do project reports or I get praise or, you know, punished with whichever, and it's, well, Kevin's project, it's, I am the first to say, this is not my project. You know, the team did this, our project, the organization's project, right?

You know, unless you're the owner of the company, you're the're the startup you're the whatever you don't own any of this stuff that you're being a project manager for right you're in there helping people work together to do something so make sure you always focus on that resilience how are you building resilience in your team or are you right in resilience from are you taking care of each other you're talking to each other clearly defining those roles are you tracking tracking what's happening where are you on those regular sinks and one thing i found that that i think built great teamwork and resilience in the team is is short and succinct check-in meetings every

week and i i mean like 15 minutes right like? Like, because if we're resilient, if we're talking to each other, if we're holding each other accountable, focus on team results, we are, we are talking to each other all the time anyway, not just once a week. And that's the thing I've found too. And you know, project or program calls that I've heard is people try and do everything all on one call, meaning have those difficult discussions, try and move forward with work, like everything, like a call that's a weekly call should be a check-in that's short and efficient, not a long drawn out call. It's clear. It's super obvious when no talk has happened between meetings and they try and have all the talk in the meeting, right. Or so make sure that we're, you know, we're always looking at each other and with that resilience. And I did a whole episode on contingency planning, but that's something each project, each project manager should think about.

What if the staff is unavailable? What if I'm unavailable? How do you have contingencies in place for you? Or do you? Have you talked to your supervisor like, hey, I need to be out or take a vacation or all those kind of things. But we have to set up some resiliency, some redundancy within our project teams to keep them going forward. And boy, is that ever true now, right?

Everybody's in continuity of operations, continuity of a government, continuity of whatever mode. We're running out of stuff. We're running out of people to rotate in because we're exhausted. But there's always a way. Just make sure you plan ahead. You know, how do we staff up? How do we rotate staff and just work through that resiliency in your planning so we are a little bit shy of an

hour about 45 minutes now and i want to just honestly on on one of the last pages of of this manual that's leading in the wild and fire service which i believe could be you know leading in project management if you just change out some of the verbiage in here, is the eyes forward statement at the end. And that's why I'm going to close out this episode. Again, I thank you all so much for listening. Please subscribe. Please rate and review. Please share with other people if this is helpful. Really appreciate the feedback. Contact me directly, peopleprocessprogress at gmail.com. Thank you very much.

Let's look at Eyes Forward. And I'm going to replace wildland or fire service with project management. But no, if you find this leading in the wildland fire service manual from 2007 or newer publications of it, it will say wildland fire service. But I am going to on the fly adapt it for us project managers. Eyes forward. Leaders in project management chose to reach beyond the challenges of learning the craft of project management by stepping forward to lead people in complex and dangerous environments. Project management leaders trade the indulgences of complacency, second guessing, and fault finding for the responsibilities of bringing order out of

chaos, improving our people, and building our organizations. As our careers progress, some move from being a leader of people to being a leader of leaders to being a leader of an organization. At each level, we rise to meet the challenges of adhering to our values of duty, respect, and integrity, and assume the responsibility of instilling those values in others. A leader's accomplishments are measured in lifetimes. Our character, decisions, and actions create powerful ripple effects that continue to influence people and organizations long after we are gone. This is the legacy that each generation passes on and entrusts to our successors

thank you all very much for listening stay safe out there and godspeed