Fiber Optics and Leadership in Project Management

Could the smallest bend in your fiber optic cable be sabotaging your network performance? On tonight’s episode of "After Hours, Live with Chuck Bowser RCDD," we explore the intricate world of fiber optic cable bends. Starting with our ever-popular "What are you drinking?" segment, we quickly transition into the nitty-gritty of micro-bends and macro-bends. Learn how these seemingly minor deviations can lead to significant light loss and compromised fiber performance. Chuck offers practical advice on using Visual Fault Locators (VFL) and Optical Time Domain Reflectometers (OTDR) to keep your fiber in top shape, ensuring your network runs smoothly.

But it doesn’t stop there. We delve into the backbone of successful project management—scheduling and communication. Chuck highlights the importance of verifying schedules with customers to prevent project derailments and discusses how to manage unexpected changes like additional tasks and change orders. For those looking to step up their game, the episode offers valuable insights into earning relevant certifications like PMP and RTPM. Finally, Chuck shares wisdom on developing leadership skills essential for transitioning from technical roles to junior project management positions, emphasizing the importance of proactive engagement and continuous education. Tune in for a wealth of knowledge that bridges the technical and managerial aspects of your career!

Chapters

• 0:00 Fiber Optic Cable Bends
• 11:45 Importance of Scheduling and Communication
• 19:23 Developing Leadership Skills and Project Management

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Thursday night, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. That can only mean one thing After Hours, Live with Chuck Balzer RCDD, your favorite, your favorite RCDD. So tonight's show we? Um, we got a few questions we're going to go through tonight. Um, put your questions in the chat box, I might get to them. But you know we always start off every episode with what are you drinking? And Chuck is not drinking anything because my thing's empty. I drank it all during class today. Yep, just a little bit of water left in there. Tell me in the chat box what are you drinking at night? Kaylin's drinking water. What are you drinking over here in LinkedIn world and YouTube world? Nobody's even answered yet. So, okay, yeah, I'm drinking water tonight.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Oh, and let's also do the acronym challenge. This is going to be a good one. This is going to be a good one because it's kind of an oldie. The acronym is RBOC RBOC. What does that acronym mean? It's pronounced RBOC, rboc, r-b-o-c. What does that acronym mean? I'll give you a hint it's a telephony acronym, an old one at that RBOC. Do you know what that means? Put it in the chat box, okay? Nope, nobody seems to know. So we'll go ahead and close it out. Regional Bell Operating Company. That's what that means Regional Bell Operating Company. So you had Ma Bell, and then you had Ma Bell, you had, like C&P Telephone, southwest Bell. Those were the regional Bell operating companies, right?

Speaker 1: 2:14

So tonight's show, like I said, we're taking questions, so make sure you put your questions in the chat box. The first one is I'll give you my notes here, chuck what are micro-bends and macro-bends in low-voltage fiber optic cable and how do they impact performance? So first let's talk about the definitions of micro-bends and macro-bends. Macro bends so a micro bend is going to be a small microscopic deviation or deformity. Right, it's on the core. It can happen during manufacturing. It can also happen during mechanical stress, for example, like pulling. Typically, though, micro bends are not visible to the naked eye. Then you have macro bends. These are larger bends or curves in fiber optic cable that have a greater radius when you've exceeded the bend radius and they are visible, and they occur when the cable is bent beyond its design specifications. When you look at fiber optic cabling, there's a couple of different numbers that you need to know. When you're pulling cable, pulling fiber optic cable, you don't want to exceed 20 times the outside diameter while you're pulling it, when it's at rest, just laying in the tray, that's going to be 10 times the diameter. The reason it's smaller when it's just laying in the trays because it's not under stress.

Speaker 1: 3:39

So what the what does micro bends and macro bends? How do they impact performance? Well, they cause light loss. That's the simple thing. Light loss basically equates to attenuation within the fiber right. Attenuation within the fiber and macrobands result in significant light loss. Now here's the thing Because fiber operates at wavelengths that we don't see with the human eye, you don't see it.

Speaker 1: 4:10

The only way you can see it is to put a VFL on it, a visual fault locator. Somebody says wrap it around the pencil if it's too hot. There you go, there you go. Well, actually, you know there is a thing called a mandrel, some of your older multimode fiber. You had to strip out the high order modes to get more consistent results when you're testing. So it was a wooden spool that you would wrap five times, not overlapping on the transmit side. So you're not too far off fiber flipper. So what causes?

Speaker 1: 4:42

Let's talk about the causes and the preventions for micro bends and macro bends. So micro-bends and macro-bends. So micro-bends, poor handling during installation. You pulled on it too hard. You over-tightened your tie wraps and your cable clamps. Those can all lead to micro-bends. There's some manufacturing things that can cause it too, but you can't really control manufacturing other than buy from a reputable manufacturer, right? So we'll just stick with that. Macro bends are typically what most people run into. Again, you've exceeded your bend radiuses. You didn't follow the 20X or the 10X rule that I talked about. So what you do to prevent that is make sure you don't exceed those bend radiuses. And those bend radiuses are found in the standards. They're found in the best practice manuals. They're found in every fiber class that you can take. They're all over the place. All over the place.

Speaker 1: 5:32

Now, the way that you see them is you put a VFL on it. The VFL puts a light on the fiber in the visible spectrum that the human eye can see. And if you have a macro bend, it will literally cause that fiber to glow red. Now you could open it back up. It should go back to work. And finally, dandy, as long as you didn't damage it, as long as you didn't damage it, if you damaged it, you're replacing it. So the VFL is probably the easiest way to detect it.

Speaker 1: 5:58

You can also use an OTDR, an optical time domain, reflect opportunity, detect and locate those bends. So if you've got a really long run and you suspect there's a macro bend, you might want to put the OTDR on it first to find out where that is, then put the VFL on it and then go look at it and verify where it is, because you might be able to fix it. You might not. You know, there are some times where you have to fire up.

Speaker 1: 6:24

The cable has to go through regular inspections, regular inspections, especially, you know, when you're connecting buildings together. One of my customers was a building and it was owned by the very let's just say, one of the government agencies and it had multiple fibers going into that building. We had to check the fiber every year. We would shoot it with an OTDR, and then it was compared to the previous years, quicktek if he's in the house how you doing QuickTek. So for micro-bends, rerouting the cables, relieve that pressure, make sure you do proper cushioning as well, and also for macro-bends, just relay the cable. Again, as long as you didn't damage the cable, you should be able to fix it. The best practice, though, really for micro-bends and macro-bends is not to do it wrong to begin with, because when you do it wrong, you're taking the chance on damaging that fiber and once it's damaged it's got to be replaced. That's not cheap, so the best practice is get training on it. Pay attention to what the installation manuals say. Pay attention to the leading training organizations like BICSI or FOA. Pay attention to what they say as far as installing FHIR. That way it's better to deal with it before it becomes a problem than after it becomes a problem, just saying.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Next question is Chuck, what should I consider when applying for a junior project manager position in low-voltage cabling? Now, the person who sent me this, I actually know them and I reached out to them and they are currently a lead technician and they want to climb the corporate ladder and they want to become a project manager. They may want to go beyond that and become an estimator or maybe even area manager, but a project manager is a good step. A good project manager, you still have one foot in operations, one foot in management. So for those people who are afraid to come out of the field, project manager is a good small step. Well, actually it's a big step, but again, you're still somewhat involved in operations. So when considering about becoming a junior project manager.

Speaker 1: 8:47

We need to talk about your relevant skills, your educational background, your soft skills, understanding the standards, some of the tools like project management tools, networking with people, and if you're going to be applying to a different company or actually sometimes companies make you interview for internal positions too you need to talk about that interview process. So let's talk about experience first. Make sure that you have good technical knowledge. Make sure you understand low voltage cabling system installation standards and best practices. A good project manager will have respect from the crews because they understand that that project manager knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 1: 9:34

I can tell you right now, as an installer in the field, there have been numerous times that I've been on projects run by a project manager and the guy had a degree in literature and knew nothing about cabling. He only got the position because he had a college degree. There's nothing wrong with college degrees Let me point that out there right now. I've got several of them but when you're trying to manage people, you have to have good knowledge. What good is it if the project manager doesn't understand the difference between multi-mode and single-mode fiber, or why you would choose fiber over copper, or why you would use Velcro over tie wraps.

Speaker 1: 10:15

You need to familiarize yourself with project management skills and if you don't know what skills are required for project management, go on Indeed or one of the job search engines and look up project management and telecommunications and start reading job descriptions. After you read about a dozen of them, you'll start to notice similarities between all of them. That's going to help you understand what you need to do, because, as a project manager, you're going to be jostling lots of different hats planning, scheduling, budgeting, resource allocations, dealing with all of the stakeholders, from internal stakeholders to to external stakeholders, like the customer, to people who you don't even think are stakeholders, like, maybe, distribution. So, a good project manager, first off they're going to be. Let's talk about the budgeting first. They're going to be tracking material budgets, labor budgets. So, with budgeting, you better be familiar with labor rates, how to calculate labor rates, how to calculate margins and markup. There's a difference between margins and markup, by the way. Huge difference, huge difference. You need to know those differences and you have to be able to be able to track them to tell if you're on target or not. Let's talk about scheduling. That's another place where and these are all things that you can practice and go to, you can take classes on and you can read about.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Scheduling is really, really important, because when your project manager is handed a project, they're going to be given a schedule. Well, the first thing to do is verify that schedule with the customer, make sure nothing's changed and watch out for what I call schedule acceleration. Right, because what happens is quite often the customers say, oh, and it shows up a couple of different ways. Oh, they'll say, well, we don't have three weeks to do this now, we only have two weeks. Well, I'm sorry, it wasn't estimated that way. Now we need to put more people on the project. How does that change the crew? For as far as my hourly rates, does my average hourly rate go up? Does it go down? Am I going to have to work overtime Again? That all impacts that Scheduled compression. That's a big one, huge one. And what happens a lot of times too is that's not usually what happens. Usually, what happens is the project manager gets assigned a project and then now all of a sudden, change orders come. They start issuing you change orders. Well, you know like, for example, they might want to add more cabling, more equipment. Well, guess what? It takes time to do that. Well, that adds to the time of the project, which means the schedule needs to be bumped out. But a lot of customers don't do that.

Speaker 1: 13:03

Resource allocation. You know resource allocation for project management. So you have to worry about resource allocation for as far as manpower, equipment and other stuff as well. So manpower, you know, are you going to need fiber optic technicians? Are you going to need just cable pullers? Do you need somebody like the Beard of Knowledge or Ed the old tech guy to come in and do the network stuff? When can they come in?

Speaker 1: 13:35

This kind of ties in heavily with the scheduling, because the schedule will tell you okay, you're going to pull cable from day one to day 15. Day 15 to 21, you're terminating. 21 to 27, you're testing. So on day 27, then I need to have my network guys come in and start placing the equipment. And that resource allocation has to be bounced against schedules by other trades, especially if it's new construction, if it's new construction, if it's new construction.

Speaker 1: 14:04

So, for example, you can't build out the closet if the walls aren't there yet. You can't build out the closet if the walls haven't been painted yet, because if you start building out telecom rooms before the wall is painted. They're going to get paint all over your stuff. They're going to be all over your stuff. Hey, the beard of knowledge is in the house. Hello, beard of knowledge, how you doing, my friend? So another thing you need to worry about as far as relevant skills Excuse me, certifications and education.

Speaker 1: 14:40

Run the cable and configure the network. There you go. Well, a lot of people. What they'll do if they're smart, they will. There's a term for it and the term's escaping my head at the moment where they will fire up the equipment back at the office and let it burn in time. That's what it is burn in time, and they'll schedule it that way. When they hit the site with equipment, it's already been burned in, the software's already been loaded. It's literally just a matter of plug it in, power it up, hook it to the network, boom off and running. It's literally just a matter of plug it in, power it up, hook it to the network, boom off and running. That falls under scheduling.

Speaker 1: 15:14

But getting back to my relevant experience and skills because again this person is currently not functioning as a project manager I'm going to tell you now, as anybody in the field, except for the people who have less than six months, because the first six months you're really kind of getting used to everything that they do in the low voltage world. But after that you start thinking about where you want to go and if project management is one of the ways you want to do it, start paying attention to what other project managers do, start reading project management articles. Start to do project management webinars. You may even want to consider certifications like the PMP certification or the RTPM certification. I had an interesting conversation with John Daniels about that a couple weeks ago, coming up in an episode on the 17th. Yeah, I got to interview the CEO of Bixie. It was so cool, so cool and it was just like two old cable guys just sitting there talking. It was a really great time. I can't wait for that show to come out. I'm trying a whole bunch of different camera configurations too. So again, so get to you know.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Some of your local colleges, also your community colleges, offer project management classes. Don't wait until you're a project manager to start learning project management skills. You can learn them now. You don't have to wait, and what will happen is your company will notice that and they might even help you with that when they realize, hey, this guy's really investing in his career. That kind of falls back with the educational background because, you know, I mentioned the one project manager I worked for had a degree in literature. It had absolutely no relevancy with what we did. But if they have a degree in electrical engineering or how about like the beard of knowledge, information technology or some other type of related field, that could be very advantageous, related field, that could be very advantageous. So if you've already got those kinds of degrees or that kind of education, that's a fast track for becoming a project manager and coming out of the field. You also need to make sure that you are always educating yourself, always educating yourself. Okay, I already mentioned a few methods already. You know taking classes, webinars, stuff like that. There's some other ones too, but we'll talk about those when we get to them.

Speaker 1: 17:31

The next major area that you really need to pay attention and this is the one that you can do while you're still working as a lead project foreman. That doesn't cost you any money Communication skills. Improve on them. You know a good project manager is going to have to have strong verbal skills, strong written skills, because they're going to be dealing with people at all different levels, from the clients, to internal and external stakeholders, team members and the team members could be anybody, from somebody who literally has only been in the ICT industry for two weeks or somebody who's been in the industry for 40 years. So you have to be able to communicate with all those different levels and you can start this now. You don't have to wait for that. You can start this now. Practice by you know talking to people and talking to other people. Start going to network events Again, we'll talk about that down a little bit later on.

Speaker 1: 18:26

But you need good communication skills and where a lot of field technicians run into problems is written skills. Written skills practice writing. Practice your written skills. I taught a class today and I tell every class this words have meanings. Be very careful as to which words that you pick, especially as a project manager, because you choose the wrong word it can impact your job and cost you jobs, right? Somebody asked in TikTok what is everyone working inside of cybersecurity and high-risk threats and low-risk? What is everyone working inside of cybersecurity? I donrisk threats and low ones. What is everyone working inside of cybersecurity and high risk? I don't understand your question there. Also, you need to start. You know another soft skill talking to the guy I asked about becoming a junior project manager, getting out of the field.

Speaker 1: 19:23

Start developing your leadership skills. You know there's good leaders and there's bad leaders, and you know, just because you're a boss doesn't mean you need to be bossy. A good leader is going to inspire people to follow them. They're going to lead them. That's why they're called leaders. They lead them in the directions that you want. They tell them here's my vision and they get their buy-in. They get them to follow their, their, their, follow their vision. That's what a good leader does. A good leader doesn't say, hey, do this or you're fired. That's not a leader, that's a boss. And you can start developing those now. Now, again, there's lots of free information out on the Internet, lots of great quality information out there on the Internet right now, actually. And so once you start learning that, start demonstrating your leadership potential through the different types of roles and responsibilities. Don't wait until your company gives you a position for you to start showing them that you can take on additional work, because that will get you to notice and then they might give you the raise and the job beforehand.

Speaker 1: 20:29

There's a lot of people in our industry who are functioning as project managers, but yet they're not project managers. What I mean by that is we're horrible at hiring people and are promoting people and say you're the project manager, but yet because they just want to give them a title so they can justify a pay raise, but they're really not tracking the budgets, the schedule, they're not doing risk management. They're not really project managers. Our industry is horrible about that, absolutely horrible.

Speaker 1: 21:00

Another soft skill and this is the last soft skill before we move on is problem solving. How can you fix things? When I say problem solving, I don't necessarily mean okay, how do I get this cable down this wall? That is. That is an example of problem solving, obviously, but but again, looking towards that position that you want a junior project manager, start thinking about okay, well, we have x amount of days to do this. Here's the task that we got to do. Here's the issue I'm running into what can I do to work more efficiently? What piece of equipment can I bring in that'll have very little cost to the project, that will increase productivity, to help us meet those goals, help develop those solutions? That's the kind of thing I'm thinking about, and you don't necessarily have to do them. You can think about them and then, maybe after the project's done, talk to the project manager, say, hey look, I was just thinking, if we'd done this, this or this, how would that have helped? Soft skills.

Speaker 1: 22:02

The next thing that you really, really, really going to want to know especially, you know, coming out of the field and becoming a junior project manager is have a good, thorough understanding of the NEC, the ANSI standards, best practices and safety protocols. You want to have a good, thorough knowledge of all those protocols. You have the good, thorough knowledge of all those. Again, where most people fall down is a good grasp of the NEC, the National Electrical Code, nfpa 70. You know where's mine. I got mine right here, just to show you how much of a geek I am. I've got mine. Yeah, I got it, but you don't have to go buy the book. You can actually read it for free.

Speaker 1: 22:43

Go to the old Google machine and type in free NEC access, and you can read the code book. What I would do first, though, is type in NEC adoption map, because I don't remember where you said you were from. Type in NEC adoption map, find your state. There's a map of the US that tells you which states follow which code books. Then, once you know which map of the US and it tells you which states follow which codebooks, then once you know which version of the codebook you're following say it's the 2023, then type in free NEC access and then you can read the 2023 codebook and make sure you read it.

Speaker 1: 23:18

Now, you don't want to read the whole entire codebook, okay, and the codebook is written not written in layman's terms but there are some sections that you might want to read and understand. For example, article 725, 726, 770, 800, 805. And there are several others in article 800 as well, too. Make sure you read the definition section. And there's also some things in article 300, like 300.11, 300.7. Make sure you read those and make sure you understand. That's the problem Read them and understand. You may need to read them several times and then read the standards. Now, not everybody can go out and buy a set of standards. I get that. I get that because a set of standards is 1500 bucks. I got that. But there's a lot of great resources out there, like Annexter and a bunch of others, that they take the standards and they boil them down into little pamphlets that you can download and read and that gives you, while it's not perfect and it's not complete. It gets you a good understanding and didn't cost you anything other than a little bit of research.

Speaker 1: 24:27

Best practice manuals Make sure you know them as well. Now, those ones, I do recommend you buy the TDMM, the ITSIM manual. I highly recommend those. The pocket field guides Highly recommend that. Read through them because that's going to tell you, it's going to serve as a roadmap for the most efficient way to do the work, because just because that's the way your granddad did it doesn't mean you should do it that way. Also, be knowledgeable in all the safety protocols OSHA, 10, right and, and you know, appropriate PPE. You know you can be dealing with, with, with, with general contractors. A lot of times you're going to have to sit in their safety classes.

Speaker 1: 25:11

You also need to make sure that you get familiar with project management tools and software. A lot of people will track projects just with Excel spreadsheets and stuff like that. Okay, great, fine. But there are other things out there Microsoft Project, asana, trello. Those help you manage those tasks and timelines and resources. A lot of those have free 30-day trials. 60-day trials. You can download them and play with them. So that way you kind of know them a little bit, because when you start applying for that position whether it's internal or external they're going to ask you about that and start to understand how to document everything. That's that's you want to.

Speaker 1: 25:54

The number one tip I can give you for being a project manager is get good at documenting stuff right Document weekly reports, document your budget, your costs, your schedules, request for information. Find a way to organize all that documentation so you can find stuff quickly and easily. Again, these are all stuff that you can start doing now, before you become that junior project manager. And if you're applying for a junior project manager internally, your company is going to see you doing this stuff and that's going to make it more likely that they'll pick you for that junior project manager position. Another good thing to do is to network, and by that I mean go to the conferences. They do regional conferences and stuff. Go to trade shows Graybar, antics they put on stuff all the time. I forgot I was just at who was it Vantage up in Atlanta they had their own little networking event. I went up there and attended that, got to meet some people, and a lot of times it doesn't cost anything and you can also ask for mentorship. So, if you're going to want to be a good project manager, if you know a good project manager, talk to them. Ask them hey, what's some good tips? Ask them if they'll mentor you. A lot of people say yes, they absolutely will. And then the last thing to do is start thinking about the interview process.

Speaker 1: 27:24

If you're applying for a junior project manager in a different company, make sure you do your research, make sure you understand what kind of projects those companies chase, what is the culture there, and you can find that pretty easy by going by their website. I can't praise LinkedIn enough. You can go on LinkedIn. You can type in the name of a company. It'll pull it up and it'll pull. And then you can pull up people who actually work for that company and then find a project manager within that company, or two or three, and befriend them and then start talking to them. And then, well, the thing with linkedin is not everybody is on LinkedIn, like they are TikTok and Instagram. There are some who just have things there, anthony's in the house. But start reaching out to project managers and start, you know, asking them about the company. How's that company to work for?

Speaker 1: 28:21

Then you need to start thinking about examples, because you know when you go do that interview, you know they're going to ask you questions about project management. So start thinking about some of your past projects, some of your past experiences. Somebody asked all chapters of the NEC? No, don't read all chapters. Don't read all of them because they don't all apply to us. I should do a show on relevant NEC chapters. Maybe I'll do that next Thursday. Next Thursday's live stream. I'm going to write that down. Next Thursday's live stream Relevant NEC sections I'm writing it down. Relevant NEC sections I'm writing it down. Okay, there we go, because it changes. It depends on which one it is. So start thinking about some hurdles you had and how you overcame relating to project management. Start thinking of some examples of how you led teams, how you solved problems, because those are going to be the kinds of questions they're going to ask you. So what you need to do is, if you think about it ahead of time, when you're sitting in front of the person and they ask you, that's going to help you respond to that question quicker, more fluidly, and it's going to help you respond to that question quicker, more fluidly, and it's going to help you sound more experienced. And then also remember the interview process is a two-way street. Yeah, exactly 6.30,. It's time to stop the live stream.

Speaker 1: 29:41

You can ask them questions as well. You absolutely can ask them questions. Ask them about their project management processes. How do they handle change orders? What all duties does the project manager do? How is the company set up? Is there an estimator who estimates the project and then it transfers to operations of the project manager, or does the project manager have to estimate and project manage, or does the project manager have to estimate and project manage? Don't be afraid to ask those questions. Don't be afraid to ask questions about team dynamics. What kind of crews do they have? And, most importantly, ask them what is the expectations for that role, for that junior project manager position? What expectations do they have for that? And you know a good way to phrase that would be you know what skills or talents would you expect to see in somebody who's successful in that junior project management position? Let them answer that and, as they're answering, start thinking in the background, in your head, how you can use that and incorporate that in your conversations. Incorporate in your conversations. Now. You can use that and incorporate that in your conversations, incorporate in your conversations.

Speaker 1: 30:48

I actually have one more question about best methods for addressing patch panels, but we're already at 631. So I can't answer that tonight because that's going to be a good five or 10 minute question, five or 10 minute answer there. So I'm going to go ahead and cut this short here. But next Thursday I'm going to do relevant NEC sections to the low voltage install. That's a great show Next Thursday night. That's what it's going to be. All right, you know what? I didn't check my chat, so let me flip over to the chat. See who all is saying hi here. I'm sorry, I totally forgot that. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Rtpm, the next step after RCDD, if you're going to become a project manager. Yes, I would, absolutely, it's a great certification to have. I know there is a DC, dc and an OSP also. Yes, there is Absolutely the DC, dc, the data center design, credential certification, design, data center design. Can't think what the other C is off my head. It's a hard, it's a hard certification, absolutely hard certification. Free seminars online in person that comes from Jason Jane is in the house Soft skills.

Speaker 1: 31:52

Everyone laughs when I talk about this. Yeah, I get it. I truly get that. I truly get that. Oh, my gosh, that is it right there, right there. Spot on, james, spot on. Don't let them see you sweat. You know I teach classes all the time People say, man, you're so good at that, they don't see the butterflies in my stomach and me getting all nervous because I'm good at hiding it, very good at hiding it, right. And let me see hey and the CEC, us north of the border, very good, yep, all righty everybody. It is past 630, 633. I got to eat dinner and get ready for the RCD study group tonight, so tonight I'm teaching that class. So I'm going to have to cut this a little short. So until next time, everybody, remember, knowledge is power.

Speaker 2: 32:43

That's it for this episode of today's podcast. We hope you were able to. Is power.