Al McBride 0:01
Al Welcome to the dealing with Goliath podcast. The mission of dealing with Goliath is to strengthen the psychological edge negotiation, ethical influencing and high impact conversations for leaders who want to be more effective under pressure and cover hidden value and build greater connection in business relationships, all while increasing profitability. This is the short form espresso shot of insight podcast interview to boost business performance using our five questions in around about 15 to 20 minutes format. My guest today is Paul Koetke. Paul is the Founder and Managing Partner of Koetke Consulting a firm specializing in implementing smart sheet PMO solutions for organizations seeking transparency and actionable intelligence in their project management offices as a certified smart sheet Platinum Partner with nine years of experience, Paul has designed and deployed over 100 PMO solutions for industry leaders such as Cushman and Wakefield Johnson and Johnson lineage, logistics and public storage, a control center specialist, Paul empowers pMOS by transforming fragmented processes into scalable automated workflows that provide real time visibility and strategic insights his expertise help business leaders manage large project portfolios, gain complete insight, optimize decision making and enhance their team’s project management capabilities. Welcome to the show.

Paul Koetke 1:30
Hey. Al, thanks for having me on today. Great to

Al McBride 1:33
have you here, Paul. So let’s dive straight in. So just clarify for the audience there, who’s your ideal client, and when you’ve done that, what’s the biggest challenge they tend to face Absolutely

Paul Koetke 1:43
So typically, I find myself working with people in VP and director roles who are managing some type of project work. Now, when I say project work, this doesn’t mean you have to be a certified PMI project manager, but if you are managing anything that has a defined start and end date to it that is technically defined as a project, whether you have that in your job description or title or it’s just been thrust upon you as part of the things you got to do to get through your day. Gotcha.

Al McBride 2:15
Gotcha. And just give us a scale there, because there’s some huge companies that were mentioned there, um, past client and the current client. This what’s kind of what kind of scale Do you tend to operate? Do you have multiple, multiple client types? Yep,

Paul Koetke 2:32
I tend to operate on the larger side of the spectrum. So if you’re saying, Hey, we have, you know, 50, 100 1000 projects in our portfolio, that’s really the sweet spot of where we can see a lot of efficiency around how these projects be managed and reported, versus saying, Hey, we’re running two to three major projects are going to take the next couple of years. That’s more a quality over quantity, slower velocity there, but a lot more depth on each one of those.

Al McBride 3:00
Gotcha. Okay. So with that in mind, what are some of the key challenges that your clients face, that if they’re listening to this, they might recognize some of the symptoms and think, Ah, this guy be able to help me? Yeah,

Paul Koetke 3:14
oftentimes it’s Hey, you know, I’m dealing with all of these different projects right now, people are managing them differently. And I’ve got one person using a certain platform, someone else is using Excel. Someone else is tracking everything on, you know, a notepad, on their on their phone or something, or even just, you know, a physical Notepad as well. And every week, I’m going around asking everyone, hey, could you give me a status update on the handful of products that you’re managing, collecting all this information across the board and then trying to boil that down to then take that to leadership and say, Hey, within our department, here’s the major products we’re working on, here’s the status of each of those. And that process can be very, very arduous when it’s a little bit of the Wild West in terms of how it’s being managed and how people reporting, because you don’t have that apples to apples comparison, to be able to say, hey, we have the standard process. These are the ones that are struggling and need help, and then everything else is going well, we can cut right to the chase. Outstanding.

Al McBride 4:12
It sounds like then you you’re giving an awful lot of clarity to people who are having to manage these large scale projects. Is that is clarity and just everybody’s on board required,

Paul Koetke 4:23
okay, exactly. That’s That’s exactly what it is to be able to take this big, you know, this big amount of projects and little bit of chaos mixed in, and be able to say, within about a minute or two, hey, here’s the status of the world as it is right now in real time. Not have to go around searching for the information, trying to make assumptions or comparisons, but to be able to give that to the right people at the right time. Okay,

Al McBride 4:51
excellent. So what are some of the common mistakes people make when they’re trying to solve this problem? So this is just before they meet you. Well. Have they tried that has not worked for them?

Paul Koetke 5:03
Yeah, I think a lot of the common mistakes are really around missing the missing the standardization component, and not communicating as thoroughly as they should be to set a strong foundation. So one of the big questions that people come to me saying they’re like, Hey, Paul, I want to talk to you. We’ve got a big problem here. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s driving me nuts. I’m spending all of my time just trying to, you know, herd cats and figure out what’s going on where. And you know, the first question I ask is, hey, do you have a standard process with your team? Have you spoken to them about what this could look like, and oftentimes it’s like, Hey, we’re coming to you as the expert to tell us what the answer is. I’m not going to be able to tell you what your answer is, because everyone’s the business is different, and the people working there are all different. It’s going to be unique every single time. But we can work together to come up with a common set of definitions and structures to make sure that we have the best solution for you.

Al McBride 6:06
Outstanding, outstanding. And what would be one valuable free action that someone listening could implement that will help with this issue? So it won’t solve it, but it’ll get them just even thinking in the right direction.

Paul Koetke 6:18
Yep, I would say, organize a team meeting with your key stakeholders, both your team and and leadership as well, and start to define three key points. First, is going to be your terminology. So when you say project, what does that mean? Are we talking the same thing? Or is someone saying a project? Is a multi month thing, and someone else is saying a project are, you know, weak bits of intervals of work, and that that holds true across the board. There’s all gonna be a lot of company specific jargon there as well, too. So let’s make sure that we have agreement about the words that we’re using just

Al McBride 6:54
to just to interject there for a second. Well, because that’s a great point that people have to make sure they’re actually speaking the same language, even if they’re technically speaking the same language. And I didn’t realize it came so fundamentally down to, as I said. I mean, I always thought a project, as you said, by definition, is a start and an end, and a series of projects is a program. And, like, like, you know, play school level stuff there, but, but as you said, some people might have confusion or just disagreements on even the level of definition, that’s incredible. Exactly,

Paul Koetke 7:25
if you’ve ever read, you know, a legal contract, oftentimes they’ll have a definition of terms at the bottom. So you can say, hey, this is what we mean when we say project. This is what we mean when we say stakeholder. Or, you know, deadline is it? Is it flexible? How? By how much? Or the big one is actually statuses. What does a red, yellow, green status mean

Al McBride 7:48
outstanding, yeah. And what if they ask, Well, what should, or in your book, fall a red,

Paul Koetke 7:55
green status mean, yeah. And then it gets really philosophical. Does red mean you’re behind schedule. Does red mean that progress has stopped? So these are kind of the questions that that need to be need to be answered through, through those conversations. Or

Al McBride 8:08
the other thought is just red mean how important the task is? Yeah, importance, rather than urgency, like it’s a minor thing. So it can go red, fully red, or what is it? You know, okay, so it’s just even having these conversations and deciding on definitions.

Paul Koetke 8:24
Yep, amazing. Yep, that’s the first step. Set that foundation, agree about what you’re what you’re going to speak about, and then from there, be able to start defining those formats. So now we know what words we’re using. How are we actually going to structure these? Are we going to use a start and end date? Are we going to call that, you know, back to the terminology, are we going to call that a beginning and finish date? Are we going to track actual dates versus planned dates and a variance between them, or do we just care about one set of dates, because that’s good enough for us. We don’t need to get lost to the minutia of at all. Right? And then from there, the third step is starting to build out your process within that framework. Are we going to have key milestones? What? What defines a product, a project that is, you know, in the in the early, earlier stage, versus the middle stage, versus the ending stage. How do you know that a project has been successfully delivered? Are we tracking metrics to say, hey, if you’ve achieved all of these five steps, then you can move on to the next stage. Or is it just a hey, looks good enough. Let’s keep it going.

Al McBride 9:28
And it’s interesting. You mentioned the good enough because that was what was going through my head. It’s also the agreement on quality level. I mean, that’s always a trade off in time, resources, quality, right? It is so and this is often a question with a lot of organizations I work with with culture, is, are we in values wise, you can all have the same values, but it’s the hierarchy of how you live them that matters. And the point I just kind of ask you on that one is, do you ever find that where people have different. Definitions of we deliver on this date no matter what like obviously, we want the quality to be as high as possible. We ship on this date versus no, no. We need it to be excellent, and we will delay if need be, but it needs to be outstanding.

Paul Koetke 10:12
Yeah, yeah. And so that that’s really important, you know, this is a trap that I fell into when I when I first entered the workforce, is I wanted to show off to my manager, you know, how good I could, I could be at doing, doing what I was doing, and I went way into the deep house, it is going to be perfect. You know, a couple weeks there, my manager is just like, Wait, you’ve still been working on this, like it was good enough two weeks ago. So have those conversations, agree what that target is, and then we can all work towards it together, rather than having a misalignment on quality versus timeline and when everything’s going to be delivered in what statement

Al McBride 10:50
love it? So you decide on what needs to be optimized and what’s diminishing returns, what’s worth that extra stretch and what’s not good? 8020, thinking there excellent, really good stuff there. Paul, thanks for that. So what would be one valuable free resource that you could direct people to that will help it with this? Yeah, I would say,

Paul Koetke 11:09
if you’re listening to this podcast right now and you’re and you’re going through these processes with your team internally, and want a little bit of help, feel free to reach out mention the dealing with Goliath podcast, and I will spend a 30 minute session with you to talk about your process and the tools that you have today, and how we can apply some of these best practices and fundamentals to that process and maximize what you have today to really be able to reduce some of this chaos, get some more of this, more of The more of this clarity and visibility across all the projects in your portfolio. Outstanding,

Al McBride 11:45
outstanding. It’s a hugely valuable thing to do. Is that 30 minutes with you. Excellent, yeah, just Yeah. I’m not. I’m just curious, you know, do some people like the chaos, or does everybody hate the chaos, you know? Or what do you find just in some of the as you probably know, I’m always interested in the psychological side, because I would imagine most people would loathe it, but some people have that, oh, I thrive under the pressure type of thing. Do many people actually enjoy that? Or so

Paul Koetke 12:19
I see a little bit of the split. I don’t know if people necessarily enjoy it, but I see a split between kind of the engineering side of the world and the creative side of the world. There we go. Yeah, I work with a lot of people who are very, you know, engineering, engineering backgrounds, and are saying, hey, I want to be able to measure everything. Everything has to have its place. And then I work with people who are in marketing teams and running ad campaigns, and it’s just like, hey, we’re going to make this work. It doesn’t have to be perfect and all clean behind the scenes. I want to not be restrained by a certain process. And at the end of the day, everyone needs a process that’s going to work for them. And whether we kind of take it loose and fast or, you know, slow and regimented, produces different outcomes, but the right outcomes for those people. I don’t think anyone enjoys the chaos and stress, but everyone has a different optimal spot. That’s

Al McBride 13:14
a very, very good point, and I love that. It sounds like, you know, a process, a system, is actually what sets them free, so they can then explore to the level they need to, or innovate to the level they need to, or whatever that process is exactly.

Paul Koetke 13:30
Everyone has a day job, and your day job shouldn’t be managing the work behind that. That should be as simple and as and as standardized as possible, so that you can really dive into whether it’s designing, you know, designing a building, or creating your next ad campaign and not being covered by the Oh, I gotta check all the tasks to make sure that everything’s going to get done on time, right,

Al McBride 13:54
right? Exactly. That’s getting into the minutia, and it can drain people. I think that’s probably why people often resist those systems. As you say, particularly more creative in whereas, actually it’s the system that can help them do it better. Yeah, yeah. And

Paul Koetke 14:08
for better or worse, project management sometimes has a little bit of a, you know, people hear it kind of cringe. Sometimes like, oh no. That sounds like it’s going to be so much effort they have to put in, they just don’t want to do, but if you get it done, then everything else operates so much more smoothly.

Al McBride 14:25
Oh, absolutely. As in a previous life, I was an art dealer, and I used to work with a lot of project managers doing these huge constructions, you know, and I was helping with that small section of the art, and it was fascinating to see the level of planning, as one of them put it, and I never forget it their plan. It was a whole new airport terminal. We do all of this planning so that we won’t have all of those delays later on, they managed to do it almost within budget, which for, for that’s impressive. Was, was unheard of, you know, so, so I. I have always seen the value of project good project manager. So what would be your number one insight or principle on how people could negotiate, build rapport or connection, or uncover hidden value with clients? That bit better? Yeah,

Paul Koetke 15:14
at the end of the day, what I found has worked most successfully is just be proactive. Go out, ask questions, understand. People don’t make assumptions on what they want to see, what you think they want to know, or what they need to do their job correctly as well, too. So if you’re reporting up to leadership, ask them what’s important, what do they need from you to be able to make the decisions that they need to you know, to to operate the organization and maintain profitability. And then, you know, the same thing goes for your team. Ask your team what support they need, what tools, what methodologies, processes they need, to get you the information to do your job as well, too. And you know, being, being proactive never hurts. I think waiting till someone asks you for something is when it’s already too late.

Al McBride 16:06
I couldn’t agree more. I’m so glad you said it, because discovery conversations are one of the most valuable things you can do. Is that in any level of business, whether it’s negotiation, whether you’re, as you said, trying to find out what the client needs, whether you’re trying to find about your team needs. And the second thing is, the big what is it? The second question in the most fundamentals of project management always appreciated is, what our assumptions are we basing this on? Yep, first one is usually like, what’s the value of doing this project in the first place? Right? The business case, actually. But after that, then it’s, what are our assumptions? Because that’s, that’s where the traps are. That’s all area. And I love that you’ve copied and pasted that thinking into the social realm of all the people. It’s like, what am I assuming? What do you need? I don’t want to assume what you need. It’s hugely valuable, hugely valuable, outstanding stuff. Well, look Paul, thank you so much. Where can people learn more about you? Yeah,

Paul Koetke 17:06
go to my website. It’s ketchi consulting.com that’s k, o, e, t, k, e, consulting.com

Al McBride 17:14
outstanding. And you’re quite active on LinkedIn as well. Are you? Yep.

Paul Koetke 17:18
Feel free to look me up on LinkedIn. Search for Paul ketchi And feel free to shoot me. Shoot me a friend request there.

Al McBride 17:23
That’s sounding stuff, Paul. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks

Paul Koetke 17:27
for having me on. Al Cheers. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai