Elevate Your Project Management Skills

Unlock the secrets to successful project management as we share expert insights and practical strategies to keep your projects on track and within budget. Discover the essential elements of detailed planning through tools like the work breakdown structure (WBS) and learn the art of resource management inspired by the teachings of Paul Henkels. Through personal stories, we'll illustrate the importance of vetting your team members and maintaining robust communication and documentation, all while aligning with the PMBOK framework.

Navigate the complexities of effective collaboration and documentation in project management. We'll provide actionable tips on using emails and no charge change orders to document decisions and avoid costly misunderstandings. By fostering a cooperative environment between installers and designers and conducting joint reviews post-project, you can enhance team synergy and drive project success. Early involvement and kickoff meetings are key to these efforts, ensuring that all stakeholders are on the same page from the start.

Pursue excellence in project management with practical advice on advancing your skills and obtaining certifications like RCDD, RTPM, or PMP. Quality control, without the pitfalls of micromanagement, is achievable through company-defined standards and a culture of feedback. Embrace the power of tools like Procore, Asana, and Microsoft Teams to streamline your workflow. To top it all off, engage with our After Hours Live sessions by sending in your questions through social media, and let us empower you with the knowledge and insights you need to thrive in your project management journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Project Management Best Practices
• 11:46 Effective Collaboration and Documentation Strategies
• 20:36 Strategies for Project Management Excellence
• 30:09 Engaging Audience for After Hours Live

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

and ba-da-bum. Welcome everybody. Wednesday night, 6pm Eastern Standard Time, that can only mean one thing Live after hours with your favorite RCDD. You know that's me, chuck Bowser. We take your questions on installation, certification, design, project management, estimation, even career path questions. So yes, kalen, how's the sound in the TikTok feed? Make sure I got it set up correctly. Let me know, it was in my class a couple weeks ago. Nice, very cool. Tonight we are talking project management, project management.

Speaker 1: 0:56

So, for those who are brand spanking new, we do this every Wednesday night at 6 pm and we go through specific things, specific things, and always start off every show with what are you drinking tonight? What are you drinking? Of course you know me, I'm drinking Zevia, ginger ale. Of course, the best, the best. And I have my own Milwaukee cup with some podcast stickers on it Demina, childbox. What are you drinking tonight? Hey, let me ask you something. I don't do this nearly often enough. You know the podcast needs money to operate, so if you can see it to donate, please donate to the podcast. I got lots of good stuff in the in the wings for next year and that I want to do. A couple industry events I want to attend so I can bring that knowledge back from that event and give to you guys. There's a couple remote interviews I want to do. Of course, I want to finish building out the the podcast studio. So you do that by just looking me up. Go to the let's Talk Cableingcom. You'll see ways to support the show. Please, please, consider supporting the show. I really do need some ways to get some money coming to the show to pay for the things that I want to do. Acronym challenge Do that every night as well, too.

Speaker 1: 2:25

The acronym for tonight is P-M-B-O-K. Put your answer in the chat box if you know what the acronym PEMBOK means. Oh, I got to turn on the messages so I can see people messaging there. It is Zevia soda with vodka. Yeah, no, I don't. I don't. Yeah, no, no, just regular Zevia for me. Thank you very much. As a matter of fact, I hadn't even opened it yet. See, I hadn't even opened it yet, but I still have a previous one in there. So what does the acronym PEMBOK mean? P-m-b-o-k. Give everybody a couple of minutes to answer that one. It has something to do with the subject of tonight's show PMBOK. Going once, going twice. Okay, nobody got it PMBOK.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Pmbok it stands for Project body of knowledge. Yeah, it's essentially a guide or framework created by this place called PMI, the Project Management Institute, and it outlines best practices, standards and processes for managing your projects efficiently. Right, think of it as a playbook for project managers. Now, it doesn't tell you exactly how to manage every project, but it does give you the tools and the principles to adapt to a lot of different kinds of situations. So, whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, the PMBOK is a very good resource for you if you want to become a project manager. So in case you haven't figured out what tonight's subject is about project management, Project management.

Speaker 1: 4:10

Flip over to my notes so I can see the stuff. So I have five, six, seven questions, I don't know. Question number one this comes from Jason Steele via LinkedIn. Jason Steele, via LinkedIn. He wants to know how can I ensure that a project stays on schedule and within budget? So I have probably about four or five suggestions for you, mr Jason.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Number one detailed planning. I used to work for a company called Hinkles McCoy and one of the things they used to say all the time or Paul Hinkles used to say all the time Paul Hinkles used to say all the time. If you plan to fail, you fail to plan right. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Now, keep in mind that any plan that you do develop will go to the wayside almost immediately because you got to be able to adapt and overcome. But start off with a plan, and one of the best ways to start off with a plan is to start off with a work breakdown structure, a WBS oh, by the way, I forgot to mention the podcast has lots of good episodes coming up. I'm right in the middle of a three-part series on estimating. I did part one yesterday, no Monday. Part two will be out next Monday. Part three will be out the following Monday and that part we're going to talk about.

Speaker 1: 5:31

Work breakdown structures, right. The answer to every question includes communicate and document. Absolutely, daryl. The RCDD on the TikTok feed Absolutely. So. Use a work breakdown structure. Hopefully your estimator created a work breakdown structure to estimate the project. That will make your job easier. But if they didn't, then you're going to have to create a work breakdown structure. Right, and that helps with your planning because you can come up with a pretty good schedule doing that If using work breakdown structure.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Another thing you might want to look at is resource management. Do you have the right management? Do you have the right tools? Do you have the right team in place from the start? Don't accept what other people say is true, because I did a project one time where the office sent me some people out to a project I was working on. I assumed they sent me qualified people. Guess what. They weren't qualified. I learned from that lesson that anytime somebody came on my project that I didn't know them or have worked with them in the past, I sat down with them for 15 minutes and had a conversation with them just to kind of find out what their skill levels are and stuff. So that's one thing. And then also make sure that you have all of the tools and all the materials. Make sure you have all that stuff lined up before you actually do your project.

Speaker 1: 6:53

And for as far as knowing if you're going to be, you know, like I said on budget frequent monitoring, always look at how many hours you've used up in the project, how many hours you have left in the the project, how many hours you have left in the project, how much money you have, because a lot of people think those two are tied to each other, but they're not. You might have a project where you might have been estimated to use a more expensive crew, but when you got awarded a project they may not have been available. So you use probably people with less experience who don't cost as much, so you actually get more hours. Well, you need to equate how many extra hours you're going to be able to get out of those people, because they're a lesser dollar value than what was estimated in the project. How do you know this if you don't monitor your hours, if you don't monitor and track the progress? Because you always got to track. You know not just the hours but track the progress, because you always got to track. You know not just the hours but you also got to track the items that have to be done, the deliverables. How many cables did you pull today? How many cables did you terminate today? How many cables have you tested today?

Speaker 1: 7:54

And, as Daryl pointed out, daryl pointed out communicate, hold regular meetings, not just with your crew on the site. I found that the best way to make sure that a crew knows if you're on schedule or on budget or not is to tell them and talk to them. Don't hold that information from them, right, tell them look, hey, we're doing really good, we're ahead of schedule, we're ahead of budget or we're behind schedule, we're behind budget. Clearly, communicate with them. And same thing with other stakeholders no-transcript and even other partners as well. It could be within your company. Hold regular meetings. If you're doing a larger project, you might be actually assigned to go to a weekly project meeting, progress meeting that's where they're doing that with you. But take that information and then you have one as well with your crew and everything else. Daryl, the RCD, says customers are much more likely to sign a change order if they know about it well ahead of time. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 9:10

And I'll say anything else have a good contingency plan, right that you should always have in your budget, especially estimators. Are you listening? Always have in your budget estimators, are you listening? You should have some money in there for contingencies right Now. Typically, the industry average seems to be about 10% to 15% of the total budget. So there's actually a whole process of risk mitigation where you assign different risks and you assign okay, what's the probability of it happening. If it does happen, how much is it going to cost? And there's a mathematical formula that you can go through and you can come up with a dollar value to put in the project and that's going to be your contingency plan. The theory behind that is is if you have enough projects, one, and if one of them goes bad, you've got a contingency plan in there, so that way the company doesn't go under. Goes bad, you've got a contingency plan in there, so that way the company doesn't go under.

Speaker 1: 10:06

Question number two what's the best way to manage scope changes during the project? This comes from Alyssa Chen to me via Twitter and, as Daryl said, I'm just going to reiterate it again communicate and document. The sooner the better, the sooner the better. Make sure every party is on board with the changes before you proceed. Now I'm not talking about just the customer now. Also, make sure that your management knows, because if there's a change that might require maybe, say, doing some core boards where that's going to be some talent that they've got to bring in from the outside of the company, that's going to take some time to get somebody out there to do that. If you don't communicate that ahead of time, that's going to cause you problems. So make sure you communicate with every stakeholder as soon as you know about those changes. Also, make sure that you, at the beginning of the project, that you establish some type of change control process, change control process and with that it sounds fancy but it's really not and you can put this in the terms and conditions or the contract and say, look, here is the process to go through to request and get approved change orders. Right, you can actually have this all lined out and that way it's already written in the document. You can even identify in that who is the correct person to sign, what is the appropriate response time, the turnaround time from the time we submit a change order to the time it's approved. You can put all that in your change control process and that's going to help make your job smooth. If you don't, you might get a change order change best way you know right out of the gate, or it might take forever.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Moe from TikTok is asking, as a follow-up question what is the best way to document decisions and changes? Oh God, that's a great question. 10,000 points, moe. There's a couple ways you can do this. Okay, so it doesn't matter which one you use. I always like using emails. So if the customer goes over, hey, we want to do something and we get this decision. We'll do it this way Make sure that you send that customer an email.

Speaker 1: 12:16

Dear customer, per our walkthrough on the job site today, I want to make sure that I understand our conversation. You want us to do XYZ instead of PDQ. Please confirm. I understand our conversation correctly. Bing send. They're going to read that email and they're going to send it back. Yes, you understand. That's one way to do that. Print that email off, put it in the project file.

Speaker 1: 12:38

Not everybody's good with emails, though. Some people aren't good with email. So what they're going to do is another method you can do is what's called a no charge change order. No charge change order, especially if it's a decision that's not going to cost any any money. So what'd you do? Take a regular change order form and you put in there under the cost and slash C for no charge. And then you put the exact same and you put in there under the cost N slash C for no charge. And then you put the exact same thing. You put in an email and hand that to the customer for them to sign. If you don't get the customer to sign that, they will develop a convenient sense of amnesia. They will Ask me how I know right Document. I got a list of 147 pro tips and pro tip number one on that list is document, document, document. I got a list of 147 pro tips and pro tip number one on that list is document, document, document, pro list number two on that is communicate, communicate, communicate. So establish that control process. Also, evaluate the impact.

Speaker 1: 13:34

How are these changes going to affect the project, not only in cost but in timeline, in manpower, maybe additional resources? Identify that out of the gate and put that in the part as the change order, so that way the customer understands. Here's what customers do all the time they love giving us change orders, but they never give us additional time on the project. Hold on. So this project was supposed to take two weeks and now, because of the change order, there's seven more days. But I'm still supposed to get it done in two weeks. Something's got to give there, right. That means you've got to bring more people in or you've got to extend the schedule, one or the other. So make sure that they understand that. Understand that.

Speaker 1: 14:21

Question number three this comes from Ravi Patel from Instagram, and he said whoops, I'm scanting too far up. I can't see his question how can I improve collaboration between installers and designers? How many times has an installer said, well, yeah, we weren't given enough cable because the estimator screwed it up? How many times has an estimator said, yeah, this project went over budget because the installers didn't do the work the way that I said to do it? How many times has that happened? How many times? Way too many times. So these are some suggestions for you.

Speaker 1: 15:00

Now, you can't always do this, but as an estimator, you know, I spent many years as an installer and a technician. But when I became an estimator, if I had the ability, if I had the time because sometimes you don't have a time when you're an estimator and if the foreman was available, I would bring the foreman in. I'd say, look, hey, when you get done with that job, can you come back to the office. I want to talk to you about a project, and then I would get their input while I was building that project. So then, when I got awarded that project, I'd put that foreman on that job and since that foreman gave me some of his ideas, they got buy-in on the project. So Since that foreman gave me some of his ideas, they got buy-in on the project. So involve the installers earlier, early, right.

Speaker 1: 15:42

And then another way you can do that too is, if you don't, this can be done in addition to right, in addition to what I just mentioned, or sometimes by itself. If you get awarded the project but you didn't have the opportunity to involve that foreman in that project beforehand, have a kickoff meeting. Have a kickoff meeting. Matter of fact, pro tip number one for the day from Chuck always have a kickoff meeting with your, if you're an estimator, have it with your project manager and the crew. Always have a kickoff meeting, always, always. Now, that kickoff meeting, you know small job it's only. You know like a week or two can be done via phone. Heck, in today's environment. We got zoom, do it on a zoom, call Right, right.

Speaker 1: 16:29

And the bigger projects, you know the six month, a year, two year projects. Yeah, you're going to want to schedule a room, a conference room, have the donuts brought in, because you're going to be there all day and go through everything. Go through as an estimator, make sure you go through all the details how you came up with them, what routes you used on the prints, what assumptions you made in a project, because if you made assumptions, for example, it's like I assume that this hallway was going to be clear and then that way, when you have the kickoff meeting, the technician hears that, or the foreman hears that, when they get on the job site and they realize that they can't use that hallway, then that's a legitimate change order and they know that ahead of time, right. So, and then another good thing to do is to get to help improve it. Improve collaboration between the field staff and the office staff is do joint reviews after the project, joint reviews after the project. So, good or bad, you know, matter of fact, it's good to do on both of them.

Speaker 1: 17:28

Talk about what went right, what did you, you know and what went. It's good to do on both of them. Talk about what went right, what did you know and what went wrong, and when you go in. But don't use it as a as a head bashing session. Use it as a process to improve, process to improve, and if you do that, then you'll learn from your mistakes, whether it's from the field side or the project management side or the estimation side. Hopefully, you don't make those mistakes anymore. So, joint reviews.

Speaker 1: 17:53

And here's another good tip for you as well, if you have multiple project managers within your office. How about once a quarter, once a year, have everybody pick one project and come together and hopefully a project that went bad and and discuss that project with the other project managers in the group and then have everybody do a project that they did bad. So that way the group learns. Oh, my gosh, group learning who knew, who knew, who knew. Also, encourage feedback this is a good one here. You know, as estimators, sometimes we get stuck. You get stuck in our, in our who knew? Also, encourage feedback this is a good one here.

Speaker 1: 18:32

You know, as estimators, sometimes we get stuck in our holier-than-thou attitudes and we don't want to listen to the installers. Oh, they're just installers. But I'm telling you what the people on the job site have, firsthand knowledge. You really should be listening to them. They are your on-site experts. Yeah, they may not know as much as an estimator or project manager, but I'm telling you right now you should encourage those feedback loops, solicit that information, because that again, it helps buy-in, helps the projects go better, helps the installers. The installers are more likely to work hard if they feel like they were a part of the solution as opposed to being ignored. And hey, let's flip that. Let's flip that. You know, just because you're the installer in the field and the estimator who estimated, didn't come out to the job site and looked in the ceilings, doesn't mean they can't estimate that job. Okay, it goes both ways. It goes both ways. Make sure that you do that.

Speaker 1: 19:35

Question number four this comes from Mike Johnson via Facebook. What certifications should I encourage my team to pursue to enhance project outcomes? Okay, okay, lots, okay, Lots of them. For the people in the field look at your Installer Copper, installer Fiber, your Bixi Tech certifications For FOA. Look at the CIFOD, the Certified Fiber Optic Technician. Look for manufacturer certifications. Okay, those are good ways to make sure that your teams are skilled and they're up to date with the industry standards. Our standards change a lot. I just had a conversation with a guy today who's going to come on. Well, we're probably going to record in December, so that episode will probably come out till end of December or January. We're going to talk about how the 568.E standard has changed as far as testing for PoE. So we're going to have a conversation about that.

Speaker 1: 20:36

For designers, maybe look at pursuing your RCDD. If you're doing outside plant stuff the OSP certification look at the outside plant design reference manual, the TDMM you also may want to look at. Some of the manufacturers had design courses, so look at those as well. Project managers look at the RTPM, the Registered Telecommunications Project Manager Certification, again. Or the PMP certification from the Project Management Institute those work as well. Pmp certification from the Project Management Institute those work as well.

Speaker 1: 21:12

Estimators okay, well, rcdds. But here's the thing. There really aren't any good resources for estimator certification, though. There's not really good ones for estimator certification. But you know there are again estimating software. They'll give you training and stuff like that. But a lot of people who are estimators estimate with spreadsheets and there's nothing wrong with that. Just there's advantages and disadvantages. I should do a show on that Advantages and disadvantages of using spreadsheets versus estimating software. You know what I'm going to write that down Show on estimating Estimating Versus estimating software. You know what I'm going to write that down Show on estimating spreadsheets versus estimating software. There we go. I'll write it down on my calendar later on.

Speaker 1: 22:03

Next question this comes from Sarah Lopez via TikTok. She says how can I ensure quality control without micromanaging? Nobody likes to be micromanaged. For those of me who don't know what micromanaging means, it means basically that person that supervisor, that manager. They're always second-guessing everything you do. You ask them how to do something and then they'll tell you how to do it and then, instead of relying on you doing it, they will sit there and watch you do it, or constantly being under supervision. I've worked for micromanagers. My wife has worked for micromanagers. They suck, they suck. So quality control without micromanaging.

Speaker 1: 22:47

A couple of suggestions here. Number one have a company-defined standard, a company-defined procedure on how often QAs are going to be done, what they're going to be looking at when they do those QA inspections, how are they going to resolve conflicts if they find a conflict on the job site, and how are they going to use that information to make future projects better? Okay, and not to use it for being a way to beat somebody over the head. Also, you make sure that you use a checklist. I'm a big, big, firm believer of checklists when doing QA inspections. That way it makes sure that you see everything, you look at everything and it makes sure that what you looked at with crew A is the exact same thing you look at crew B when you're doing QA inspections. So that way it eliminates any favoritism that you might come out of there. Also, if you're a supervisor, you should be doing QAs as well, but you can also delegate quality control to your crews. Maybe make the lead tech Say, okay, yes, your lead tech might be running one or two other people. You say, okay, the lead tech, you guys have to get 75 jacks done today, but use the lead tech, I need have to get 75 jacks done today. Okay, but you as the lead tech, I need you to double check 10% of those. Right, that's going to be a random check and that's going to help you out a lot and also promote feedback. Make sure that you develop a culture as a leader or as a team member, where other people feel comfortable in reporting any kind of quality issues or any kind of other issues, where they can do without fear of being, you know, reprimanded, especially when it comes to quality, especially when it comes to safety. So always make sure that you do those. Okay.

Speaker 1: 24:45

Question number six this comes from Erica Gonzalez via YouTube, and she wants to know what tools and technologies can streamline project management. Okay, there's lots of them there. So there's a lot of different variables, right? So any kind of project management software? Right, there's lots of them out there. Project management software. There's lots of them out there, for example, procore, asana, smartsheet. They all help. All those help kind of help track progress and assign tasks.

Speaker 1: 25:25

If you've got a project management software that you can recommend, tell me in the chat boxes. Communication platforms be really good at it. It used to be email was the only communication, or cell phones, but now, with Microsoft teams, I had a call with my boss today, or was it yesterday? I I had to update a document or whatever and instead of calling on a cell phone I called on Teams Boom done. A lot of companies are moving to Slack as a way to communicate. My wife is text messaging me. She's getting her hair did tonight. Yes, also, make sure that the estimator used good estimating software that correlates with that project management software, because if it integrates with each other then it makes your job easier as a project manager, because it's going to make the project seem more manageable.

Speaker 1: 26:16

Question number seven and the final question for tonight. This comes from Omar Davis via Reddit. Question for tonight. This comes from Omar Davis via Reddit. What are the keys I need to develop to excel as a project management? So there are, I don't know six, maybe seven really important keys that I think you need as a project manager.

Speaker 1: 26:37

Number one leadership, leadership. You know, I didn't say boss Leadership. A leader is going to inspire, they're going to guide the team effectively. That's the difference there A leader, not a boss. You got to be good at time management. This is one that I suck at, especially with a full-time job and a podcast, and then the farm and then wife and everything else. I'm not really good at time management, so figure out a way to prioritize tasks and stay organized, and there's tools out there to do that as well. You can put your calendars and stuff like that. Communications is always going to be one. Always learn how to communicate.

Speaker 1: 27:17

Here's the thing, especially for our industry. Our industry has a language all of its own, all of its own with all of its acronyms. That's why I do the acronym challenge. It's got a language all of its own. Make sure everybody's on the same page. This week I'm doing the acronym challenge, and one was the LC, right, and the next one was the SC. See, I didn't say this. I left this alone because I knew it would generate comments on the post. Say this I'll let this alone because I knew it would generate comments on the post.

Speaker 1: 27:45

But there's a lot of different names for the LC connector. Some people will say loosened connector, some say latching connector right you know. Some say locking connector Okay, I've heard them all. They're all right. But it makes it a real pain when you're trying to communicate with somebody. Here's another one for you Closets. We used to call them IDFs, then they went to TC's, then they went to TR's. If you got somebody, an old school person who is an old mob bill guy, who might be working as your customer, and you tell them look, okay, we need to do some work in a TR, they may not know what you're talking about. So make sure you be able to translate those technical jargon right To make sure that everybody on the team understands.

Speaker 1: 28:25

You also have to be really good at problem solving. I call it the cat herder syndrome Cat herder syndrome. As a project manager, you got to be able to manage lots of things because, trust me, it's going to go wrong. And you also have to have good financial acumen, meaning learn how to understand budgets, how to understand cost control, how to understand return on investment. If you want to find out if somebody is a good project manager or not, ask them is your project on budget. And if they say yes, ask them how do you know that? Tell me, how did you come to that? How did you did you? Are you doing the budget of work to be performed or budget of work to be scheduled? See, those things are all in that.

Speaker 1: 29:12

And then also, industry knowledge Stay up to date on the latest standards, the latest best practices and technologies. Go to the industry conferences right, there's lots of them out there. I'm going to be at the bixie winter conference. I'm going to try to be the bixie fall conference in 2025 as well. Um, stay plugged in. Learn it, because I'm telling you, our stuff always changes, always changes. Look at that.

Speaker 1: 29:37

6, 30. Oh, let me. I didn't check over to see I got some a bunch of messages over here. I'm sorry, guys, I didn't not not good see, I got a bunch of messages over here. I'm sorry, guys, I'm not good at doing that. A project I remember was only supposed to take a week actually took over a year. Yes, exactly that. All can happen. It truly can. Okay, I ran out of time. I do got to take care of the farm animals. I got to take care of them. So it's a big thank you to Jason and Lisa and Rabbi Mike and Sarah and Erica and Omar for all submitting those questions. I'm always looking for questions for the After Hours Live, so make sure that you send them to me. Tiktok you can send to me in a message. Linkedin. Facebook send me those questions. I'll gather them all together and put them in a show. And Facebook send me those questions. I'll gather them all together and put them in a show and I hope the answers I gave people tonight give people actionable insights.

Speaker 2: 30:52

And again, remember knowledge is power. Today's podcast we hope you were able to learn something. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content. Also, leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications. Until next time, be safe.