E39 Carole Osterweil with Visible Dynamics and Bruce Kilbourn with Omnificent Systems
Are you familiar with Project Aristotle? It was an internal project at Google working to answer the question, “What makes a team effective at Google?” Listen to hear Carole Osterweil and Bruce Kilbourn discuss the results. We spend the good part of this show discussing teams and how to make them most effective. Carole shares her experiences researching and writing her book, “Project Delivery, Uncertaintly and Neuroscience, A Leader’s Guide to Walking in Fog.” She shares about the Project Stress Cycle, Psychological Safety, and the 3 part brain.
Bruce shares his story as a Leader starting with his time in the US Military and then into corporate America. We hear differences in team dynamics between Military teams and Corporate teams. Bruce also shares his experiences and tools he’s used to help make his PMO successful, providing practical tools and tips.
Tune in for upcoming shows with Project Management leaders and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Spreaker, Stitcher,or your favorite podcast platform! Thanks to our sponsor THE PMO SQUAD. Visit www.thepmosquad.com to learn about the Purpose Driven PMO and all their project management services.
Every year organizations spend millions on change and transformation programs and are dissatisfied with the results. They throw time, effort and money at structural issues, but few know how to address the messy sociopolitical issues where the vast majority of problems occur.
Carole Osterweil is an author, troubleshooter and coach who has set out to close this gap by making the human side of projects less daunting. She works internationally with project directors, leaders and delivery teams who want higher productivity and better outcomes with less stress.
Carole wrote Project Delivery, Uncertainty and Neuroscience – A Leader’s Guide to Walking in Fog to distill knowledge from neuroscience, human behavior and psychology into a toolkit you can grasp quickly and apply always. It provides a clear route map for managing the messy human side of projects.
Carole is an adjunct at Ashridge, part of Hult International Business School. She also works with Cranfield University and PA Consulting to increase the UK Government’s senior project and program management capability. She knows first-hand what leading projects in the midst of turmoil is all about (Brexit, anyone?).
Connect with Carole on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Omnificent is redefining what it means to be a provider of managed IT services, creating relationships that focus on building the right solution for each organization. From small- and mid-sized businesses up to enterprise-level organizations, they understand the importance IT plays in achieving objectives and keeping critical operations running smoothly.
More than just an IT vendor, they provide strategic guidance along with a comprehensive suite of capabilities that suit a variety of industries and requirements. From the start, Omnificent Systems gains a thorough understanding of an organization’s current and future needs, ensuring we create and implement smart IT solutions that optimize systems, maximize productivity potential and scale easily.
As an agile team with diverse skillsets, they can easily flex their time and service offerings to fulfill core needs such as cloud computing, data backup and recovery, enterprise-level systems and ongoing IT needs, along with most IT situations that pop up along the way.
Technology is always changing—and so is Omnificent Systems. Businesses and organizations have more important things to focus on than the latest tech, but at Omnificent, it’s what they’re all about. That’s why they fully support all their technicians’ professional development pursuits, helping them gain certifications, learn new skills, refine existing ones and continually expand their IT knowledge.
Omnificent believes it’s time organizations expect more from their technology partners—and they’re ready to deliver. With a personalized, flexible approach to managed IT services, Omnificent Systems has the tools and experience businesses need to succeed.
Over the last 19 years working in the IT industry, Bruce Kilbourn has had the opportunity to be a part of numerous projects and organizational initiatives that have helped him grow as an IT professional, such as:
- Serving our country in a time of war, providing voice and data communications within a mobile battlefield
- Overhauling the Wide Area Network (WAN) for Phoenix based Healthcare Organization, increasing the WAN bandwidth by more than 17x, while decreasing operational costs for carrier services by more than 30%
- Designing, building, and implementing a new 10,000 sq. ft. data center
- Overhauling Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) for multiple organizations
- Implementing an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system
- Implementing and embracing ITIL and Lean methodologies with focus placed on service delivery, operational efficiencies, and continuous improvement
These experiences coupled with the support and guidance from IT leaders, such as Tom Kuchefski, Steve Tarr, and Robert Slepin, have shaped the leadership skills that he possess today.
Bruce is a seasoned IT Leader who has worked his way up the ranks from entry level technical support to executive level management.
Connect with Bruce on LinkedIn.
ABOUT PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE HOURS SERIES
Project Management Office Hours is intended to provide Project Management professionals a place to drop in and discuss Success Stories, Best Practices, and Lessons Learned. Project Management Consultant Joy Gumz has shared with us, “Operations keep the lights on, strategy provides the light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.”
Each of us has a unique story to tell, but collectively we share a message that organizations who embrace Project Management Best Practices perform better than those which don’t. Organizations which align Projects to Strategy perform better. Organizations with Engage Executive Sponsors deliver better results. Organizations which measure Project Management performance outperform those which don’t.
During our Project Management Office Hours, we hear directly from Industry leaders how to make an impact in our profession. How we, collectively, will Advance Project Management Best Practices, One Listener at a time!
ABOUT YOUR HOST
Joe Pusz started THE PMO SQUAD to bring real world PMO Leadership experience to the consulting space and to advocate for Project Management through his blog PMOJOE.com. The old saying is “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Following this mindset Joe left Corporate America in 2013 to start THE PMO SQUAD and work with fellow Natural Born Project Managers to advance Project Management Best Practices.
ABOUT OUR SPONSOR
THE PMO SQUAD focuses exclusively on PMO and Project Management consulting. Corporate America is full of Accidental Project Managers running projects who haven’t been trained to be PMs. To help solve this problem THE PMO SQUAD is on the Leading Edge with PMO As a Service. PMO As a Service allows our clients to focus on their respective core competencies while THE PMO SQUAD delivers Project Management expertise. Contact Joe at 678-591-7868. Follow The PMO Squad on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.