#143 | Transforming PMOs into Strategic Powerhouses with Laura Barnard

Ever wondered how to transform your PMO into a strategic powerhouse? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Laura Barnard, a trailblazer in integrating PMOs and project management with organisational strategy. Laura shares her extensive experience working with industry giants like JP Morgan, LinkedIn, IBM, and Amazon. 

Reflecting on the evolution of PMOs from the chaotic early dot-com days to today's strategic assets, Laura sheds light on the transition from technical roles to project management and the essential advice for balancing personal and professional lives.

Moreover, we discuss PMO leaders' challenges in proving their value to executives and the necessity of continuous value delivery through agile-based methodologies. Laura emphasises the importance of alignment with business goals, effective reporting systems, and addressing the human element in transformational efforts. 

In this episode, we cover: 

• 16:04 Evolution of PMO Leadership
• 23:25 Improving PMO Impact and Value
• 32:18 Strategy Alignment for Project Success
• 38:29 Prioritization and Executive Communication for Transformation
• 44:26 Organizational Change Management Collaboration
• 49:51 Embracing Organizational Change Through People
• 1:01:24 Driving Accountability and Progress Through Reporting
• 1:04:42 Simplifying Decisions and PMO Leadership
• 1:13:11 Journey to Sharing PMO Strategies
• 1:24:57 Inspiring Action for Impact Drivers

You can find Laura at:

https://pmostrategies.com/ 

Her book is here: https://www.amazon.com/IMPACT-Engine-Accelerating-Strategy-Transformation/dp/1774584522 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurabarnard/ 

Transcript

Evolution of PMO Leadership and Value

Fatimah Abbouchi 0:00

You're listening to Agile Ideas, the podcast hosted by Fatima Rabouchi. For anyone listening out there not having a good day, please know there is help out there. Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Agile Ideas. I'm Fatima, ceo at AMO, mental Health Ambassador and your host. On today's podcast I have Laura Barnard. Laura has been a driving force behind the integration of PMOs and project management into organisational strategy for nearly 30 years, creating sustainable business transformation with organisations including JP Morgan, linkedin, ibm, amazon and more. Over the past four decades, laura's company, pmo Strategies, has been dedicated to helping organizations maximize their return on investment by unleashing the full potential of project management and PMOs. She's developed a powerful system for helping organizations achieve high impact outcomes for every project. Now she's sharing this system in her new book, the Impact Engine Accelerating Strategy Delivery for PMO and Transformation Leaders. Laura is also the host of the popular PMO Strategies podcast and organizes the longest running PMO specific virtual conference, the Impact Summit. So please join me in welcoming Laura to the show. Laura, thank you for joining us.

Laura Barnard 1:23

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to share all kinds of fun stuff with your audience today.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:30

It's interesting because I know we've spoken a few times, but I was thinking about where I wanted to start the conversation today and as I was reading your bio this morning, I thought 30 years is a really long time to be doing PMO, probably a lot longer than many people. So I want to know, thinking about from when you started your first PMO I think it was 1999 till now, going back what did PMO actually? What was the fundamental definition Like? What was it? What did PMO mean back then then, and how's it changed and evolved over the years?

Laura Barnard 2:06

sure, yeah, and so if anyone's doing the math and listening to this, in 2024, that's not quite 30 years, that's more like 25. Because I had a lot of experience inside. You know, big strategy and transformation and leading and bleeding edge things that I was doing in organizations before I actually was tapped on the shoulder to build my first PMO. So with all the business transformation and really big organizational change work I fell in love with and I fell into quite accidentally. And so then when I got my chance, I was actually a senior project manager, but before that, fatima, I was. I have a computer science degree. I had a hardcore technical background. I was doing technology stuff, coding and, like you know, stuff like that. Before I fell into project management and you know how I fell into it was that I saw that I was actually the one in a room full of the tech people and the business leaders watching them talk at each other.

Laura Barnard 3:02

And nobody understood what the other side was saying, and I would just go get the whiteboard marker and go up to the whiteboard and say, okay, we got to go solve this problem. Let's figure out how to do this together, right? So I fell in love with this thing called project management and was doing that for a little while, and then in 1999, I was it was in the middle of thecom craziness, right Remember. It was just like everything was new. We were working.

Laura Barnard 3:24

I was working in this organization that was taking brick and mortar stores and helping them get their first online presence and their first e-commerce presence online, so to be able to sell their products that they could only sell in stores before that were now online, and so it was a really exciting time. But we're managing all of this portfolio of projects for our clients and our executives aren't happy because things aren't going as smoothly as they should. It seems like we're reinventing the wheel every time we have to deliver a project, and there wasn't a lot of consistency with the project, people and how they were doing things and their different skill sets, and everyone was just kind of the wild, wild West.

Laura Barnard 4:05

And it was kind of cool being in tech at that time because you know, lunch was brought in every day, we had pool tables and gaming going on Like it's. You know it feels very like a Silicon Valley today, like that's what it was like back then. But we had a lot of work to do and somebody needed to kind of herd the cats or herd the cat herders, if you will and that's, I think, what happened with me is they said hey, and I was a senior project manager at the time. They said they didn't call it a PMO In fact.

Laura Barnard 4:32

I wouldn't even have known that's what it was called. They said, uh, we need someone to make sure that all of these projects get delivered as well as yours are and your project people need help. Go, like that was it. Like there wasn't a whole lot of instruction. My ceo was like 27 years old. Like there was just go fix it right, that was the advice I was given. Just go fix. But I didn't know that it was called a pmo.

Laura Barnard 4:58

And then I remember being at a pmi chapter meeting later and was joking because over the years you figure out, okay, this is what we're doing, right. I was joking with some colleagues that I knew from way back then and I said it was a PMO, right, like that's basically what we're doing. It was the traditional, the process and structure and those kind of you know like the frameworks and templates and resources and all that. But it was also how do we as a team move the needle for this organization? So it was kind of you know like the frameworks and templates and resources and all that. But it was also how do we as a team move the needle for this organization? So it was kind of it was both. And all of my colleagues from back then were like, yes, it was definitely a PMO, but we didn't know that's what it was called.

Fatimah Abbouchi 5:36

And yeah, that just underlines the whole. You know, the debate goes on and on and on, and I'm seeing it every day on LinkedIn people commenting on the title and the name. It's not about that. It's actually about what it is they actually do, and so it's good that you figured that out quite early. But why is it so hard for executives to understand that? You know, I find many executives typically don't sort of start or end in that space, and so maybe they don't understand it well enough. Why do you think it's so hard for executives to understand the value of PMO brings?

Laura Barnard 6:08

Well, because I think a lot of PMO leaders are so busy trying to sell the value of the PMO instead of show the value of the PMO, executives are left guessing what is this done? For me lately it seems like it's a lot of stuff, but I don't see a lot of results, right. So I think part of the reason executives don't understand the value is because they're not seeing it Like it's just. They're not seeing it. They see a lot of activity. They see that nothing really improves in a lot of organizations right Like. This is a brand. If you're going to talk generally about executives, they're feeling, and a lot of the ones I talked to, the brand is just.

Laura Barnard 6:46

It's been tainted by a lot of problems and a lot of executives have had a lot of bad experiences with PMO and so, and and frankly, a lot of project people and PMO leaders included, haven't really been taught. How do I show value Right? How do I do this in a way that doesn't have me constantly begging and pleading and chasing and selling Right Like? I think that's the problem is, you can't sell it, you have to just deliver it, and that's why we teach the impact engine system and that framework and why I wrote the impact engine book was specifically because I want to make it easier for people to shift their thinking about what the PMO should be doing and have it focused on driving better business outcomes and solving business problems, not just project problems. If you want to get closer to your executives and if you want them to see you as being valuable, you have to be valuable to them, which means you need to solve their problems not with the medicine you think they need, but giving them what they actually want.

Fatimah Abbouchi 7:53

And do you think that in the show not sell concept which I think you're right Most people probably might hear that and go selling is showing, isn't it? But really it's not, because a lot of the work that we do in PMOs typically is behind closed doors and really we don't share or show that often enough. Anyway, do you think that when we're talking about show not sell, why do you think that PMO leaders are hesitant? Is it because they're not aware that what they're not doing then they need to be doing? Or is it maybe they're a bit, maybe uncomfortable to not be sharing things that maybe are not complete?

Laura Barnard 8:28

Well, so there's well, there's two parts to that. So first I want to address the last part, which is the not complete. And you know and this is what I love about frameworks and approaches like agile and iteration is because you're never. If you're doing it right, you're never complete, right? It's a continuous value delivery model, right? And one of the little secrets that some people pick up on when they read the book is that the way that we recommend that you build or elevate your PMO or your strategy delivery team or your transformation team whatever you want to call that delivery engine in your organization we call it an impact engine, but that delivery engine is the way we design our whole framework, is an agile or continuous value delivery approach, meaning you're iterating, not about you know.

Effective PMO Leadership for Business Success

Laura Barnard 9:21

This is where a lot of people get in trouble is they'll spend a year or more trying to create a bunch of stuff templates and tools and process and and all of this stuff without actually showing any value, right? And so the executives are saying what have you done for me lately? And instead of being able to show something right away, there's a they're, they're waiting and waiting and waiting, right, and so I like what you said about. You know, like showing things that are incomplete. Yeah, heck, yeah, I even teach people in the book, like you know. Hey, the MVP concept right, get a minimum viable product. Go fix one thing. Solve one problem. Not that you think they want solved, but something they're actually asking for. Going back to my first PMO go fix the fact that it's taking us too long to get these client projects finished. Let's go get these projects finished faster. Better results, higher return on investment, you know, higher, higher revenue coming in, higher profit on the other side, because we're not spending it all. Like it was very clear they wanted to be making more money and getting better results for the customers.

Laura Barnard 10:27

A lot of companies want that right. Like, so that's how I designed what they wanted. Instead of saying, well, hold on, let me put 65 templates in place and buy some really expensive tools, you know I was like okay, let's just go solve it with a whiteboard and a few simple frameworks and let me get the project people together and figure out what they want. Right, let me get the executives together and ask them what they want, like not how to do it, right, not what should the PMO do for you, but what's the problem you're trying to solve Right. So I think part of it is we have this sense of having to be perfect, right and and get everything perfect before we start showing it to anyone, and I will say that perfection is the enemy of progress. We've got to keep making progress and I think this is why the whole agile mindset and the way you think about the work you do and thinking of it in iterations is valuable, because every executive I've ever met would rather see something sooner than perfect Never.

Fatimah Abbouchi 11:27

Right.

Laura Barnard 11:29

So I think that's part of it is that the part of it is the PMO people, or the people in these roles, are waiting for it to be perfect, and I think the other part is that nobody's teaching them that this is what success looks like. Right, like their executives don't even know that they can have conversations with them. Like this. The executives see them as you know, the box checking, administrative function in the organization. That's just like oh, they'll just go fix it and they'll just go. You know they, they'll just go take care of those things, or we can. Why can't we put them on 65 programs at once? Right, no big deal. Like they, just they don't get it because they don't get it, and I don't think we should be wasting a lot of time trying to get them to value the PMO as much as it is. The PMO needs to learn how to solve the business problems and then the value is going to be obvious.

Fatimah Abbouchi 12:20

And then like thinking about the fact that there's probably questions executives should be asking of their late PMO leaders, and the PMO leaders themselves should be asking questions of their executives. What sort of questions should a PMO leader or a project leader or a transformation leader be asking of their executives to make sure that they are, in fact, supporting their strategic goals?

Laura Barnard 12:43

Yeah, well, so there's two things. First of all, on the simplest question, I just finished my impact accelerator mastermind a little while ago, a coaching session that I do with PMO people from all over the world, and we were talking about this very problem and I one of my students was over-complicating it and she said, well, how do I know what to put on the report? And I don't want it to be too complicated and you know, she was like worried about like what do I put on the C-suite dashboard? And I just paused for a second. I said I said hold on a second and I won't say what her name is, but hold on a second.

Laura Barnard 13:21

What did your executive say when you asked him? And she said, oh, I haven't yet and and it's not remember, it's not what should the PMO do for you or what should be on this report. But she knew. And then she made this like, oh, yeah, I have to ask what's keeping him up at night. I have to ask what the business problem is they're struggling with. I have to ask what would make you know like what? What do you? What are your challenges, what are the pain points? What are you experiencing right now?

Laura Barnard 13:49

And I think that's the problem is that we overcomplicate it instead of just going back to the basics, like how's it going, you know, like what's working, what's not, what's your experience like Right? And I think if we start with just asking better questions, which are simple questions, we don't have to spend so much time fretting over whether or not we're, you know, doing the right things. We'll know. Just go fix their problems right, not not the thing, not the medicine we think they need to take. Give them what they want and then, when you do, they'll give you a chance to give them what they need. But first build that trust and credibility because you're a problem solver of business problems as opposed to project problems that they may or may not even care about so this?

Fatimah Abbouchi 14:34

this then circles the fact around identifying some of those quick wins and balance quick wins versus like sort of like that sustainable longer-term goals. How do you sort of teach identifying those quick wins, like, where do we focus on that versus the things that are maybe longer term?

Strategy Delivery and Project Prioritization

Laura Barnard 14:52

Oh, okay. So I love this because this is one of the frameworks that we teach in the book, right In chapter one, with that strategy delivery life cycle and the framework that says, like listen, traditionally project people and PMO leaders are really busy in the execution stage, and when I say execution stage, I mean strategy execution, right. So I ask them to take a step back and look at what's actually causing the problems that you're seeing, because it's probably symptoms, not root causes. And I can give a perfect example and I know that this will resonate with a lot of people. So executive says projects are taking too long and costing too much. So what is the project the PMO person do? Well, they go focus on doubling down on. Well, if the project management is broken, let me go hire better project managers, let me train them, let me put some templates in place, let me put some process in place, let me go buy a tool. And they just keep shoving all of this stuff at project execution or the strategy execution stage.

Laura Barnard 15:57

But here's the problem Nothing actually gets better. Why? Because those projects are all number one priority. Nobody knows what the strategic goals are in the organization. Nobody knows how their project work is tied to those strategic goals. There's no. Like you know, you've got project people being split across 55 different projects, so you've got like one 16th of a critical resource on your project. You don't even have enough to get the project done, well, right, and so all of that is going on outside of the project lifecycle, affecting the success of those projects. But if you just keep going after and trying to, you know, hit down all of these symptoms, you're never going to solve the problem. So what we recommend is take a step back and look at the whole strategy delivery life cycle, and this is where, in some cases, this can get you into more of like a product thinking mindset, not just project mindset, right, and, by the way, for anyone that's like, well, we don't need project management because we do product management, I'm just gonna say yeah, exactly.

Fatimah Abbouchi 17:05

Oh, okay, yeah, okay.

Laura Barnard 17:07

It's basically the same thing, but yep so yeah, so so, but this, but, but this is what I think our, our audiences are. You know our audiences shared for both of us need to understand there's the strategy and then there's the products that are the means to achieve that strategy. And then the projects are the changes to build or modify those products so that you can achieve the customers, the customers experience, the customer goals, not just stakeholder management, the customer right, like that's why we're there. The products are to serve a market, a customer and solve a problem of that customer right. So one take a step back and look at the bigger picture of the strategy that the organization is trying to implement, and then the quick wins are the first things to fix, are the things that are going to set those projects up for success before they ever start. So one is and I hear this a lot I'll say, well, make sure your projects are aligned with the strategic goals. And they'll say what strategy? I don't even know what our strategy is. Okay, if anyone in your organization is saying they don't know what the strategy is, go fix that, because if they don't understand why they're doing the work they're doing, they're not going to do it, as well as if they understand what success actually looks like, right?

Laura Barnard 18:29

So, first, find stuff in the beginning of the strategy lifecycle, when we call that the strategy definition stage. Go, look in strategy definition. Let's put things in place like better decision making frameworks, aka governance. Let's put in project prioritization. Let's do portfolio management. Let's stagger those projects to happen when you actually have the resources to do them, which, by the way, everyone that thinks that they have a resource management problem and they don't have enough resources, that's the. I'm going to flip that on its head. I don't think you have a resource management problem. I think you have a shoving 10 pounds of projects in a five pound bag problem. You have the resources you have. You're trying to do more projects than you have people to do them, and you can't really fix it by just throwing more bodies, more people at it.

Laura Barnard 19:15

You've got to go back and say what's important, how is this aligned with our strategic goals and how do we organize the people we have with the funding? We have to do the work in a way that matters most to the organization, right? So, like, if you do all those things don't require a bunch of templates and tools and process and I'm not saying that they're like evil, right? Like we want to use them for good instead of evil. You do want them, but, but that's not, that's the means to the end. So what's the end we're actually trying to achieve?

Laura Barnard 19:48

And it doesn't matter how perfect your project execution is, if everything's a number one priority, because you're just going to do these projects which are going to take forever and none of them are actually going to get finished, right? So I'd much rather do the most important things first and do those well and stagger the rest of the work throughout the year. You'll actually get far greater throughput than if you try to do everything at once anyway. So when you're looking for the quick wins, I say it's not even in project management. But that's why our that's why I love your podcast and everything you all are doing with the Agile Management Office, because it encourages people to think outside of a project planning and execution phase into more of the product world and the strategy world and like how this all fits together so that we're actually achieving the business goals and the strategic goals of the organization. We're not just doing projects for the sake of projects.

Fatimah Abbouchi 20:48

A hundred percent. So there's a couple of things that I wanted to sort of elaborate on a little bit or, I guess, circle back on. So one of the things just to be really clear for everyone when we sort of giggled around product and project are the same thing. I'm sure there's going to be some product product enthusiasts. I had one recently that's probably gonna go.

Fatimah Abbouchi 21:04

It's not the same thing, but just conceptually, from a life cycle perspective, you know products, as you pointed out, are not the only things that projects deliver, but there are the things that are delivered, whether it's like red, compliance etc. There's a number of things that sort of relate. But so those that are listening they're thinking product and projects are not identical. But in the context of many agile environments, product itself effectively follows a very similar life cycle, with a go-to-market sort of aspect that's not typically in your normal project. So I just wanted to call that out because you and I are on the same page. Yeah, yeah, we knew where we met, exactly exactly. The other thing is, you know, when you talk about like quick wins I think one of the ones that stands out a lot and I really appreciate the emphasis on prioritisation you write projects.

Fatimah Abbouchi 21:53

We had a recent client who had asked us to do a review of the number of projects they had. We worked out they had 97 projects, but they only had about $4 million budget. Now, in size of projects and budget, there was at least 60 projects on there that were pet projects or things happening in the business that were actually not part of the strategy or not even on the radar of the sort of the MD at the time. So I agree, I think, out of all the things I've seen in the last eight years, I reckon that prioritization area and, like you said, the strategy definition, 100% Getting that right, because if you as a PMO leader don't understand it, how can we expect our projects, our customers, our business to understand it? So, yeah, I think really important, call out for sure, absolutely.

Laura Barnard 22:40

And there's one thing that I think could be helpful to your listeners too. Well, you know cause they might be thinking yeah, but you know my executives aren't going to prioritize, they're just going to constantly say everything is number one priority, et cetera, and the way I would. Here's one one thing I know executives are looking for, but they maybe haven't seen it from a lot of PMO people, but they maybe haven't seen it from a lot of PMO people, and that is to you know. I was talking to my coaching group today and one person who's been in our mastermind and gone through and gotten certified and she's been in our program for a long time. She's actually implemented our framework in three different companies over the many years and one thing I pointed out about her is that she's always had her like first thing she said to me when I met her years ago. She's now a coach in our programs, but she said, laura, I have my seat at the table and I need to keep it. And one of the things that I was using her as an example in the group today because I said she's now gone to three different companies over this time and every time she gets her seat at the table quickly.

Laura Barnard 23:48

How does she do it, she? She treats herself as a peer to the executives. She's not worried about saying what needs to get said to those executives, when and how it needs to be said. So things like why haven't we updated our strategic plan in the last decade? Let's spend some time working on that, because we need to make sure that we're doing things that need to get done. And she'll just go in and she'll do the she'll. She'll do the hard things, which, frankly, aren't really that hard, and that's why she gets respected so quickly is because she says the things executives wish that somebody would say to them, and she does right, like I know.

Laura Barnard 24:29

I was an executive, you know, before I started my company, 11 years ago. I was an executive in a high leadership position in my organization and many times before that, and I would love it if people would just tell me what I needed to know instead of trying to make me guess. So there's. So I say all of that as a preface to if your organization and your leaders are not prioritizing, you need to tell them that all those pet projects are actually. You know. Those projects are making it such that you are sacrificing the ability for you to get the important things done. So those important things actually aren't very important to this organization because we're doing all these other things that are preventing those things from being successful.

Fatimah Abbouchi 25:14

Right.

Laura Barnard 25:14

And so if you can have a conversation with them to say listen, I know you think this is a nice thing to do, but because we have $4 million, limited resources, you know, limited time, limited energy to focus on this, we better make sure we do the things that truly matter most first, or we will sacrifice them and they will not be successful. So are they important or not? Right? And so I think those are the kinds of conversations I definitely have now with clients, right, when I coach the C-suite, I'm like listen, either it matters or it doesn't, right. So you decide right and and you don't need to say it like that, like all your listeners, they don't have to say it like that, but frankly, just give it to them straight and just show them what they need to see, to see how obvious this challenge that they're creating is Right.

Laura Barnard 26:04

And I, I I'm not sure if I will ever write another book, because man, writing a book is hard and it's pretty and it turned out really well and I think it's got a lot of good stuff in it, but it's like birthing a human. I think it feels quite as just about as hard. And but if I was to write another book, it would be for the C-suite to tell them all the things that they're doing wrong. Like on behalf of all PMO and project people in the world, here's your book to tell you everything that you need to stop doing or start doing Right A hundred percent.

Fatimah Abbouchi 26:35

I'd love to read that. That would definitely be, I think, very well needed in this environment, considering how these many executives are the ones making decisions on how many people are in a PMO, whether a PMO is going to happen. Yet they're not there to support or to provide that ongoing sponsorship that's needed effectively.

Laura Barnard 26:55

For sure.

Fatimah Abbouchi 26:56

When we think about um, you know, when we think about the sort of the let from, the, from the lens of transformation, when we think about the areas that are mostly often overlooked, what would you say? Those areas that are most often overlooked when? When an organization's you know whether it's in the PMO space or at the executive space. What are the areas that are most overlooked when it comes to transformation?

Navigating Organizational Change for Success

Laura Barnard 27:24

All right. Well, I would say the people right, like I think so the areas that are most overlooked, like, especially when we get really excited about this new, the transformation, the change we're trying to create. A lot of people executives and otherwise get so caught up in the excitement of that future state or the change they're trying to bring and everyone's geeking out on that and and oftentimes not always, but often the, the organizational change management required for that transformation to stick and becomes a sustainable future state is not done in a way that actually is bringing people with you through the change process. So so it's either we've got this big transfer Well, it could be both We've got this big future state we're trying to get to. We're doing this big business transformation, we're all excited about it, and then we hold a town hall and send you a PowerPoint and then we expect that everybody gets it and they're all on board and all you know I mean, you've seen it I'm sure you've had clients where you're like, listen, this is not how you do this, right? You have so much more work that has to be done right To like to, to make it real for people in every level of the organization in the work that they're doing, and I think that's that's a really big part of.

Laura Barnard 28:45

I think what's missing is just it's the bringing people with you through the change process and weaving that through every conversation. How you measure people on their performance, how you talk about why you know, connect people to the why of that transformation. Right, it's some strategic goal that you're trying to hit. Do people understand that? Well, I think that you know the data says no, and this is. This seems wild to me, but Harvard Business Review reported that 95% of the typical workforce does not understand their company's strategy. And I mean, can you?

Fatimah Abbouchi 29:22

I mean like Well, what I'm trying to work every day and doing is a question. But you know what? Just on that point that you made just before, I think it's interesting because you're right. When they come in, they do their town hall, they send off a PowerPoint. We have to remember that those executives or those leaders have probably just spent the last six months developing that plan. So, and then they expect people to get it in five minutes. And most people think transformation means um, I'm losing my job, because transformation it means restructure and all that sort of thing as well. But whose job is it? Who's accountable for bringing people on the journey? Is it the PMO? Is the executive? Is it change management?

Laura Barnard 29:59

well. So you bring up a good point, so, um, so, yes, it's everyone, and that's the thing is. I don't. I believe that, um, change management in an organizational change management, bringing people through a change process, is everyone's job.

Laura Barnard 30:18

I really get concerned when I see that an organization has set up a change management team and then and the reason for that I'm not saying that they're not important or valid, and in fact they can be an incredible force for securing the change, making sure that it's real and understood. But I would see them more as guides, advisors and educators, not as the people that own responsibility for the change. And that's why I get concerned, because I can't tell you the number of times I've seen in organizations where project teams and sponsors and executives will be like oh yeah, we have a change department for that. They're the ones that handle making sure this change actually, you know is is is absorbed by the people in the organization. And when you have that mindset and you outsource change management and make it somebody else's job, then you're probably going to fail, and fail Meaning you don't achieve the desired business outcomes for the change you were driving. Might it be on time on scope, on budget, sure, but nobody cares if everybody's ignoring whatever the change was and pretending like it never happened.

Fatimah Abbouchi 31:28

Right.

Laura Barnard 31:28

So you have to actually make sure that you're achieving not just the outputs and the deliverables and the time, scope, cost triple constraint You're actually achieving the business goals that that change was meant to drive. That requires the people, and that's where I get so concerned. When I hear people like whenever I see an org change department, I immediately get nervous because I know that means people are gonna be like oh, that was their problem, they should have dealt with that and that's why it failed Right. And so I immediately want to work with those people to say you have now, you now must become the advisors, guides, the educators and the support mechanism that teaches these folks in this organization how to be a part of the change process and own it. They must own it, everybody must own it.

Fatimah Abbouchi 32:18

I think that's a good point. I think, yes, it's no one team, even though change management's role, but I sort of the way I also think about it as sort of saying so the executives are there, driving the strategy. 100% makes sense. They're accountable for that. But ultimately, to meet the strategy, they need to bring their people on the journey. You've got your change people and I see them as the connection to your business as usual teams, your operational teams. They're like the conduit into that space, but I think they need to work closely with PMOs as well, who the PMOs are then a conduit to the delivery team. So are you seeing, I'm seeing it and I'm wondering if you're seeing it in your side of the world. Are you seeing a shift with the relationship between change management and PMO, and has that changed over the years?

Laura Barnard 33:02

Yeah, so all right. So here's a little secret about the book and our Impact Engine system and everything that we teach. So in here, in almost every single page, there is some organizational change management woven throughout the entire process. Everything I teach is about bringing people through change. I tell people that change resistance, you know, like if you're hitting change resistance on your projects, you know then that's on you, not them. Like you aren't living in some fairytale land where everyone is resistant to change. And that's the thing is everyone.

Fatimah Abbouchi 33:39

Everyone believes, fatima, that, that people are resistant to change and it's easy to say that and you say in the book it's a lie. So tell us why you can change. Resistance is a lie okay.

Laura Barnard 33:51

So, um, okay, very, very simply, I believe that what people are, that people believe, like you said, it's easy to have a scapegoat that people are resistant to change, and it's a way to be able to disassociate from accountability of actually ensuring that the change is properly adopted. And the reason I believe that people are not resistant to change is because I've met people, and I know quite a few of them, and you know what those people do. They get married on purpose, they have children on purpose, they change jobs, they try new restaurants, they learn new skills, they move. They, you know, change their lives in so many ways Every single day. They take a different route to work. They want to try something different.

Laura Barnard 34:45

People do change themselves on purpose, intentionally, every single day. What people don't like is having change done to them. That's, I think, the difference. Think about it. You know, if I, if you were, you and I were walking down the street, but you're looking in another direction and all of a sudden, I yank your arm really hard. What are you going to do? Right, like your first response, what are you going to do? What would you do?

Fatimah Abbouchi 35:11

You probably want to turn around and punish the person if you don't know them to do. What would you do? You'd probably want to turn around and punish the person if you don't know them. I'm getting a bit violent here, but no. But if you didn't know the person and someone's, you want to question why they're doing that.

Laura Barnard 35:23

I love that you said that because, like that's how people in your organization feel when you're yanking them in a direction they don't want to go. But what if I was pulling you out of the street because there was a car coming and you were about to get hit?

Fatimah Abbouchi 35:35

I'd say the benefit in why you're doing it.

Laura Barnard 35:38

Yes, but that's the thing is that you wouldn't know because I didn't, I didn't go stand next to you and say, hey, watch out, there's a car coming, right, let's move over here, let me get you out of the way, let me help you, right?

Laura Barnard 35:56

So what we do to people is we show up like and that's the whole transformation thing, and we get so excited about the change but nobody's saying, well, wait, people might think they're going to lose their jobs.

Laura Barnard 36:02

And you know, and you know how, like you know, when there's gosh, I remember these years and now I'm inside those conversations and you know I get really concerned because you know those conversations, like you're in an organization and you know that there's going to be a reorg and you know there's going to be change coming and there's all the executives are meeting and everyone's talking around the water cooler about what's happening and who's going to lose their jobs.

Laura Barnard 36:26

And I heard this and I heard that that like vicious, like rumor mill and all that drama going on, all could be avoided if executives could get their act together and more quickly figure out what's the problem we're trying to solve. And we actually might be able to solve it faster and better by either bringing people into the process or doing this as quickly as possible, so that we don't lose control of the narrative of what's going on, because oftentimes in those conversations it's not about people losing their jobs, but people make, you know, these assumptions about what's happening, and so a transformation is taking place. They might think they're going to lose their job, when in fact, if they were leaning into the change, understood it more, part of it could ensure that not only is it more successful, but they might get a promotion as a result. Right, but that's the thing is that people don't know, because what we do to people is we position them to want to punch us false change, I think, is what I read you recall.

Fatimah Abbouchi 37:23

It's interesting because this is another reason why I think one of the biggest um shifts and you talked about it by by embedding that change. You don't have to be a change manager wearing change manager to bring change and some of the change capability process, insights and learnings into the PMO. So I think doing that probably is going to put them, those people, at an advantage over those that maybe don't, because you are putting people first. Then we know if we want something to happen. We need to bring those people people on that?

Laura Barnard 37:51

well, yeah, that's the point of all of this. Is people right? And I think we just lose sight of that. It's all about doing change with people and through people, not to people. If you can do that, you will be far more successful and get those better business outcomes that you're responsible for driving anyway.

Fatimah Abbouchi 38:08

A hundred percent and I think you know, as part of that first few steps and I think I read something about this as well the the part of the process is actually talking to people, meeting them where they are understanding where we are starting, whereas a lot of PMOs, to your point, earlier, might come into the organization and just start by thinking about all of the frameworks and processes that worked really well somewhere else and then they start to focus on building them because they get pulled to work on the things that are maybe urgent but not important.

Fatimah Abbouchi 38:36

so I want to ask your thoughts on from a sequencing perspective. You talk about sequence matters, what. What are what? If I'm if I'm sort of maybe I'm not a senior in the pmo space, maybe I'm a practitioner that's kind of climbing that pmo ladder. Where would I start if I'm building a new PMO and what's the sequence that matters?

Building a Community of Practice

Laura Barnard 38:54

Sure, okay. So, first and foremost, the foundation upon which our whole impact engine system model sits is the gear in the middle, like in our graphics, which is mindset, and we talked a little bit about that, about understanding your role isn't just about the templates, tools and processes and solving project problems. It's about solving business problems and if you want your seat at the table and you want to be treated like you belong there, like they must have you and your support, even if it's your first time doing it, which we've had several successful stories, I tell a couple in the book of people that didn't even have project management experience. We turned them into highly valued and successful business leaders in a PMO leadership role and an SDO strategy delivery office leadership role. So if you're starting early and you're trying to figure out where to focus, it needs to be not on just thinking about yourself as the project management solution provider, but understanding that whole strategy life cycle that we talked about. So that's what the mindset work is all about. Think about shifting your focus from deliverables and outputs to outcomes, right, we wanna measure outcomes, not just outputs, right? So once you understand that your role is actually to solve those business problems, then the very first thing that you wanna do is assess the organization. We call it. Assess the organization for impact opportunities.

Laura Barnard 40:19

Ask good questions. That's where you start. You know what happens is a lot of people. Fatima will immediately start putting things in place right, Whether it's the medicine they think you need to take. Or even if they asked, executive executives said go fix this or go put this tool in place or go do this thing. Executive said go fix this or go put this tool in place or go do this thing you have.

Laura Barnard 40:38

You can't, you can't start by solving problem, like like putting things in place. You have to go understand what those problems really are. So you have to have some good conversations, ask some very basic questions. What keeps you up at night? What are your challenges? And then I mean there's so many like. That book, by the way, is filled with like every hard lesson I've ever learned, right, like my, my like do this, don't do. That is because I did it the hard way. I realized and I and I had to learn the right way. And then we practiced all of that with our students and clients for a decade and I'm like okay, okay, trust me, this will work better, It'll be a lot easier for you.

Laura Barnard 41:11

So one of the other mistakes we see people make is that once they go ask those questions, they say, okay, well, now I see a list of problems, I'm going to go solve those. But what's going on is that they're probably actually looking at symptoms, not root causes. I'm told that project management is broken, so I'm going to go fix project management. Now, honestly, if you put a bunch of smart people in a room together and you ask them to solve a problem and you give them everything they need to solve that problem, they'll probably solve it just fine without your template. Right? It's that we are.

Laura Barnard 41:46

It's all the other things we talked about with prioritization and all those other things that are preventing those projects from being successful. So first you've got to get to the root cause, then you go fix that and that goes back to your asking about, like the low hanging fruit or the early wins or the where do you focus first? We, oh yeah, we believe that a lot of things you really need to fix are somewhere in that strategy definition stage. First Sequence matters means go fix things that are preventing those projects from being successful before they ever start, and you will see this positive ripple effect of change that, like magically, certain problems just go away right, like, oh, look at that, when you actually give us the resources to do the project and you don't spread us so thinly, we can't get things done. We got our projects done, yeah On done, yeah on time, on scope, on budget, but also with much better business outcomes, faster, right so and build up in the culture as well.

Fatimah Abbouchi 42:44

You think this thing. I think a lot of the times. I find there's many pmo leaders that will neglect the delivery teams to please the executives.

Fatimah Abbouchi 42:55

But if they don't have the delivery teams backing them. I heard one the other day a pmo recently um was shut, has been shut down, and they're basically at the decks with everyone in this epmo and they're starting again in this company. And the problem is they wouldn't have done that if the delivery teams themselves have accepted the positive things that the leadership team has brought in and actually vouch for it. You know like the delivery teams are cheerleaders your cheer squad, basically Right and I don't know why they neglect them to only focus on the executives. There's only one part of the equation, isn't it?

Laura Barnard 43:35

Oh for sure. Well, I mean, that's the thing, isn't it? Oh for sure? Well, I mean, that's the thing is that, first of all, you got to know your audience and you need to be serving multiple masters, right, like everyone that needs to be clear that this PMO function is a service function, right, and the goal is to serve the organization and the people in it so that we can achieve the business goals we're trying to achieve, right, we together, all of us.

Laura Barnard 43:59

But if you're only like a reporting function up and out, and you're like the process police, and every time the delivery team see you coming, it's you know, you're coming like, you know, chasing them down, say you didn't do this or you didn't, you know you didn't do that, then you're going to have your. Of course, they're not going to support you, right? I've seen this so many times. Instead, instead, we need to say listen, I got your back, you know. And when you're trying to talk to them about change that you want to bring, if you, if you can frame it for each of those audiences in the way that they need to understand the value from their own perspective and we'll see it as a valuable thing, great, but you can look at the same thing, like, let's say, we're putting reporting in place.

Laura Barnard 44:41

When you're talking to the executives, you're saying listen, you told me you did that you didn't have any transparency. I'm going to give you that transparency so you can make educated and informed decisions quickly and move on with your day, get things done, and we're going to get the projects done faster as a result. But the delivery teams might say I don't want you in my business. I don't want you like you know, stop like getting in all my details. Well then, but what do the delivery teams care about?

Laura Barnard 45:08

You know, what they're probably having to beg for resources. They're not getting executive support. They're not. They're raising problems and nobody's listening.

Laura Barnard 45:16

Well, guess what? That same reporting can solve their problems too. Right, you can say I totally have your back. I'm going to make sure that the executives are making the decisions you need in a more timely manner. I'm going to make sure that you do get the resources that you need to solve the problems. And how about this? Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to do 15 projects at once? What if we could make it so that you were? Your resources were allocated effectively to get laser focused on the top priorities? Get those done first, before you start anything else. Then they're going to be like oh my gosh, you hear me, you see me, you want to help me solve my problems? Right, and it's the same thing. We're creating a dashboard report to drive accountability and decision-making, right. So it's, it's that's.

Laura Barnard 46:01

I think the problem I think you have a really good point is that there's a lot of problems with, you know, the they're, not the PMO. People aren't really sure, like where do I focus my energy Because there's so much that I want to accomplish? Or I think that you know well, they're paying my, they're writing the check to pay for me to be here, so I better just focus on the executives. That's not the case. You really need to build a community. We call building a community of practice. Like all the people that are responsible for the delivery of the strategy, those people need to be working together and supporting each other, and when you find a way to create that community, then everyone has each other's back and you're going to get better. You're going to still accelerate the delivery of the strategy because everyone's moving together in the right direction.

Navigating Metrics and PMO Evolution

Fatimah Abbouchi 46:47

It's so interesting that community practice. There's a lot of organizations I see that have that, but then they still have their PMOs. It like in the bank, in our banks. We have dozens of pmos within the banks and they're all doing something completely different, even though governance is governance and risks is risks and issues and issues, reporting, reporting. It's so unusual to me why they do that, but anyways, that's another day. But speaking of speaking of reporting, how do you advise leaders to distinguish between vanity metrics and those that actually indicate progress?

Laura Barnard 47:21

so this came up very, very recently this week with a client where we're actually so oftentimes, when we're brought into organizations, what we find is that they have so much stuff that none of it means anything anymore, right, and so there's some organizations we work at work with that they, they have nothing, they're starting with nothing, they don't have a single person in their organization trained in project management and they want to build project management culture and capability and elevate and, you know, do all of those things over time so that they can achieve their strategic goals.

Laura Barnard 47:54

Other times we go into organizations where there's so much stuff, so much, so many data points, that the executives are suffering from decision fatigue and information overload, and so what we're often talking about in the mastermind is pretty colors and some numbers, maybe even some arrows or some icons and like keep it simple, baby, because the people that you're asking to make a decision probably have made a thousand decisions in the last two hours. Right, and I'm not joking Like I was on a walk the other day listening to a podcast and I can't remember the number, but for some reason there's, I swear. They said like the average person makes 30,000 decisions in a day and a lot of it's just like turn left or turn right, or, you know, have this for lunch over this, or when should I call this person back. But you add all that up and it's a lot of noise in your head. I mean, I'm sure you feel like that yourself.

Fatimah Abbouchi 48:52

Yeah, I'm sure it's a new baby. I'm like, um, there's no place for thinking about anything. But you're right, I had a very similar stat actually recently. It was a ridiculous number. But then when they elaborated on you know what, like you said, you're right, or you know, do I eat this? They're all small things, but they add up and it's. It's that tax hold on an executive to make another decision right, so, so what case the?

Laura Barnard 49:15

the question that I ask is what do you really care about and what do you need to know, like, what matters to you? Right, and you know, sometimes, when we're teaching kind of project management to people that haven't been doing it a lot before, is we make them rank, order, the like? Is it time, is it scope, is it budget, is it customer satisfaction? Is it like, what's your, what's your? So, what, like, what are the important things as to why you're doing this? Right, it's not just a triple constraint conversation, but what are the things that matter to you? And let's create a way for you to see how that needle is moving right. Right, because not every organization or every project or every portfolio needs to say, okay, well, this is the thing we measure.

Laura Barnard 50:04

And, frankly, things like earned value management and triple constraint time, scope and cost are not nearly as important, and I know this is going to upset some of our traditionalists, but nobody cares if it's on time on scope, on budget, if nobody uses what you created. Right, like, if you build a software system that is supposed to drive revenue for the organization and you, like, you fought tooth and nail to keep that triple constraint triangle, like in the perfect spot, which meant you said no to some critical changes. That would have actually made it usable. And if you told the executives, listen, we can do this, but it's going to cost you X dollars and this much time, but you'll actually get the business results you're trying to get to they probably would have said, okay, I'd rather have that than something nobody's going to use.

Laura Barnard 50:54

But now here you are with nobody using that software, no money was made by the company and the project team is like patting themselves on the back because they got on time on scope, on budget, and the executives are all worried about whether or not they're going to have a job Right. So it's like we had that, that gap in understanding of, like the project world and the business world. We need to close that gap so that our project people actually understand why they're doing what they're doing and how that is aligned with the strategic goals and that customer right, the customer we're trying to serve. And if we're not doing that, well then what is the point Right?

Fatimah Abbouchi 51:33

I think it's probably why Agile is becoming so much more popular, because we're flipping that triple constraint triangle, basically, and saying our time and cost is fixed because we've got these persistent teams and these you know ever-evolving requirements.

Fatimah Abbouchi 51:49

So, rather than fixing our scope, we're actually saying let's be flexible and let's bring our customer in, so we're not going to wait until the end to see that they get what they want, to bring them in on the journey all the way throughout. Let them keep changing their minds. And I think that security process is probably why, when done right, regardless of what methods and tools and frameworks you want to use, the concept of agility actually is becoming more prevalent, and I think more pmo should maybe spend some time learning about that continuous development, continuous improvement, so that they can get that in their functions as well, and I think you teased that earlier as well For sure and I think it's something your audience might appreciate when we go into work with organizations, we never let the PMO leader name their organization, because they might be like should we call it a project or a portfolio or a product or a program management office, or should we call it a?

Laura Barnard 52:43

you know what? Should we call it Right? And and I, I personally believe that it isn't about the that team naming it, it's much more about their customer naming it Right. And so we'll go into the C-suite that asked for this organization to be established in the first place and say what do you want as a result? Like, what is the outcome you're trying to drive here? Well, you know why does this PMO exist? And invariably they will say something like to achieve our strategy Right. So I have a friend, jenny Fowler, who will call it a strategy realization office, and I was like you know what? That sounds pretty great. And when we let executives name it, they often call it a strategy delivery office, not a project management office, because they understand that from their perspective, from the executive's perspective, that from their perspective, from the executive's perspective, that it's not about project management as the result that is the means.

Laura Barnard 53:42

What I want is the delivery of our strategy, the realization of our strategy, the outcomes that that strategy needs to achieve. Right. So I think people you know, I think your community will appreciate that is it's not so much like, it's not the traditional project management office. That's not what you do. That's what you do. That's not why you do it.

Fatimah Abbouchi 54:04

Yeah, 100%. Actually, it's probably a good call out because there is a lot of debate on names and titles and all of that and I think people might think that and even I think have thought that at times that the PMO community can't agree on a name. It's not that it's not like we can label PMO with something we label project management as project management. So I think personalising it to suit the organisation makes sense. I've seen investment management offers, portfolio management, value realisation offers and it's like that doesn't matter as long as what you're delivering is going to achieve those outcomes. So yeah, I think it's a good it's a good call out.

Laura Barnard 54:39

So it's what it means to them. Right, like, I don't care, you could call it the blueberry farm, I don't care what you call it, just make it. Do what makes sense to you. And that's how you kind of move toward the value, like the seeing the value. It's like, oh, what does this do for me? Oh, this helps me get my strategy delivered. Oh, this helps me get a return on my investment, for you know what we're trying to achieve. Whatever this is the customer, you know, delivery office, whatever it is, call it, like, what, like what you want people to be thinking about from it and let them name it, because then it's their idea and they take a greater sense of ownership of it.

Fatimah Abbouchi 55:15

Just don't do it aesthetically. Don't just change the name because it was really shit. Change the name and then expect it to be better and do exactly the same thing. That frustrates me, laura, you created the Impact Engine book Very, very nice, very, very good Partway through it. Why now? Why this book? And why now You've been in PMO for a long time? Why have you decided to write?

Laura Barnard 55:38

this book now. So so funny story, um, yeah, well, so you know I did, okay. So I did the PMO thing, and sometimes it was a strategy office, a transformation office, a PMO like I. Did that inside organizations for 15 years and one of the things you'll notice in the book is that I refer to the people that I'm talking about as delivery leaders, because I don't want to be like project managers versus product managers versus scrum masters versus that. You know, forget it. Call yourself whatever you want to call yourself. You are a delivery leader responsible for helping your organization deliver. That's the goal, right? So that's how I refer to this community, because it is a much bigger community than people that identify as project managers, right? So what I? So here's what happened is that I spent all that time inside organizations building and running these functions, and then I was also on the board of PMI chapters.

Laura Barnard 56:32

And when I was on the board of PMI chapters, I you know we would be putting together our big events and somebody would be like, hey, we need someone to come talk about PMOs. Laura, you know PMOs, can you even do PMOs for a long time? Can you speak on this panel? Can you do it? You know, and I started I scared to death by the way, totally terrified of even being on a panel discussion. I've come a long way, but it was a rough road. But I I realized, as I would start to share things, I would say do this and don't do that. No, no, no, no, don't do that. Well, of course, that's not going to work. You got to do this.

Laura Barnard 57:06

And what I started to realize is that the things I now took for granted because I knew them to be true, were things that other people didn't know, and so I would talk to people after, I would be on a stage or I'd be talking to a friend, or I'd be at one of those PMI dinner meetings and share. I'm like no, no, no, that's not going to work. Your executives are going to hate that. Do this instead. And I started saying I wish I had me when I was you, and I said that again and again and I was like oh, so that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to go help the old Laura that was learning everything the hard way and make it easier for her and all the others like her. Like, do it easier, because I like, truly like who I am is I love to help people and I want, I want to, I love to solve problems and I love to make things easier for people, and I and I started realizing the best way for me to do that is that's where my company came from PMO strategies.

Laura Barnard 58:03

But, funny, the funny story is I have a friend his name's Mike Hannon, and actually I was just talking about him, so I have his book here right next to me, which is a really great book for Project Portfolio Performance, and he and I wrote our book, or talked about writing books at the same time. That was over 10 years ago. We talked about writing books. I was like I, you know, we were just brainstorming about, okay, how do we get our ideas into like a framework and a system, and you know, and how do we get our ideas into like a framework and a system, and you know, and, and so I have been writing my book for 10 years. He wrote and published his book frankly, following a lot of the throughput techniques that he teaches, in like two months and it took me like a decade. Oh, wow, and I know well he like just locked in and he just and he has a couple of coauthors and they just and it's really good.

Laura Barnard 59:00

But you know, in fairness, it's not quite as thick as mine, but it is a really good book and I joke that. So. So he did it in like a matter of months and it took me another decade and I finally figured out why. And because I kept asking myself, you know one, I know a couple of things. One, I didn't make it a top priority. One of the things I talk about in the book is pick three, and and I won't give it all away but essentially you have to prioritize right, like you can only do so many things at once.

Laura Barnard 59:32

And you know, for years I was a single mom and I was, you know, starting a company, and I was, you know, I started, I was a single mom and I was, you know, starting a company and I was, you know, I started a nonprofit project management for change with my friends. And you know, like all these things, I was doing it never really, I was never really making it like my number one focus Right, and so I. But I have probably 50 versions of the book that I had been iterating on over the last decade and what I found is there was two things One over the last decade, and what I found is there was two things One, I had to pick three, meaning make it one of my top three priorities for my business and what I was going to focus on. And two, I had to really feel like I was ready because I had enough data and stories and experiences to back up what I was saying and be sure it was true.

Laura Barnard 1:00:21

Hmm, so what I mean by that is in the book I say, excuse me, that I have probably a good idea. Yes, um. In the book I say that I had a hundred. In the book I say that I had a hundred. Sorry, it's allergy season here. In the book I say that I have a hundred percent success rate with applying this approach. And I needed to actually have a hundred percent success rate, meaning what our students will tell you is that if you do the work, it just works.

Laura Barnard 1:01:00

And we say that every day and all the time and with all my clients and all my students if you do the work, it works, and I needed to be a hundred percent sure that that was true Meaning. I wanted this system to be foolproof and to be something that anybody could follow, be something that didn't only work for experienced PMO leaders, but would also work for people that were doing it the first time. It had to work in every environment, in every type of organization, in every country and everywhere in the world. Anyone that wants to try and do this. I needed to know that they could do it and to be able to say if you do this, it will work. I know it will. You just have to trust the process, trust yourself and just go do it. I think that's one of the biggest problems that people have is that they learn a lot of things but they don't apply it Right. But knowledge alone is not power. It's the application of that knowledge where you make a real impact. So my goal was to nothing's foolproof and I can't do it for you, and it's not about an easy button, but, man, I've made it as easy as I possibly can, right, and I've broken it down into very practical steps, and so I just needed to truly believe myself that it would work, no matter who you were, no matter where you were. So that was really important to me and I needed to have enough years of case studies and examples. I mean, you know, we are kind of. You know, we're a certain breed as project type people like we want to make sure that it's as good as it can get, and while nothing will ever be perfect and I kept reminding myself, perfection is the enemy of progress, so keep making progress I had to get it to a place where I felt like it would change lives and and I wish I had that, and I wish I had this book back 25 years ago when I built my first PMO and man, imagine where I'd be if, if I had had that. So now I get to share what I do with my mastermind students and those that are in the impact engine system, our training and implementation program. They're having wins, like we just talked about it today. It's it.

Impactful PMO Leadership Strategies Conversation

Laura Barnard 1:03:13

There's a place in the book where I say, uh, where what some of my students and clients said you should come with a disclaimer that, um, the results like that I achieved with them, with like two promotions in a matter of months. Results are not typical and I thought that was really funny. And then I thought you know what actually they are. So that's how I know I'm ready, because these are the typical results we get. If you just trust the process and you follow it, it just works. And so we have this kind of thing where you say in the group it, you know, if you do the work, it works, you will get the results.

Laura Barnard 1:03:47

So it and that took a lot for me because I am probably hardest on myself, right, and what and what's so bad to help people. You know, like you're in the business of helping people, like you just want it to be as good as it possibly can be, and I think it took this long to convince myself right, and have enough data to say it'll work for you. I feel so confident that it will. And that's that's when you know you're writing a book that's going to change lives. And that's where I had to be in order to feel like this was ready for prime time well, you've done a great job on it.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:04:19

It's very good quality and, I'm there's a lot of value in there and, you're right, it's very, very detailed. So, um, I I agree with you. I think 20 years ago there was nothing that I can remember that I had right. I actually can't. I'm sure that there was people we worked, we worked with in organizing, but I don't remember no, no book, nothing I can remember. That was 20 years ago, so I agree.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:04:43

And you've made me feel better because I've been working on something for a really long time and I thought like two, three years is too long, but you've done it in 10. So I think it shows.

Laura Barnard 1:04:53

Don't do that. Don't do that Like if you get it out in the world.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:04:58

Don't do that. Don't do that like if you get it out in the world top three, but it's not but. But you like to say perfection over a prerogative of perfection. So yeah, for sure. Well, and that's and that was probably.

Laura Barnard 1:05:04

I mean it frankly, there was there. I am sure I know there was some imposter syndrome in there, right, it's like. And that's what it was like. The first time I got in on stage many years ago, I was like who am I to to be telling all of these other people how they should do things? And then once I finally it finally Fatima took for me to finally see people struggling and not make it about me at all, like I realized it's not about me, it's not about me up on the stage, it's not about me here on this podcast, it's not about me in the book, it's actually about the people that need help.

Laura Barnard 1:05:38

And once we, once I finally like that I finally got that, I felt so free to be able to say, okay, okay, I definitely can help you, and I know it because we've done this all over the world and it just works, so that it was very freeing, but it took a lot. And so I think it's important for us to kind of acknowledge you know, because some people will look at someone like you or someone like me and think, oh well, they've, you know, they've done so much and they've got it all figured out. Oh, we don't. We don't have it all figured out, but we we do have a lot of things figured out and the things we have learned to experience through the mistakes and the challenges.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:06:12

the opportunity it's like, this is a this, this it's like this is a this.

Laura Barnard 1:06:16

This is like every single page in this book. It may have a lot of organizational change management, but there's a lot of battle scars in here too. It's like, okay, I learned the hard way, right, but that's so that they don't have to. That's why you do this podcast. That's how you serve your clients. It's all the things that you do in this world. It's the same thing. It's just because we actually want to help people have it easier than we did, and now there's so much information that it can actually be quite confusing. So if we can, you know, give them something to make it easier, then I feel like I'm doing my yeah.

Laura Barnard 1:06:51

I feel like I'm doing my life's work.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:06:52

Well, a hundred percent appreciate it. So, thank you, I am. We are almost at the end of our time together today, as I said we probably. At the beginning I said we could speak for hours. We don't have that today, but we can. Our last question Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners, a call to action, a piece of advice or a question to ponder before we wrap up today?

Laura Barnard 1:07:13

Oh, that's a good one. Oh, that's a good one, let's see. So I think so. First of all, I not everyone can afford to be a part of our impact engine system training and implementation program or our mastermind or you know, or be one of our clients, but we've made the book as accessible as possible. One thing that people will notice about is it's not 50 or $100 US dollars like a lot of PMO books and books in our space. We've made it very reasonable, as low as my publisher would let me price it frankly, so that I can make it as accessible to people as possible. And, like the Kindle version is even less expensive, I mean, although it is kind of pretty and fun to look at, with lots of cool stuff inside, you know and purple.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:07:59

I love the purple.

Laura Barnard 1:08:00

Yeah, exactly, I know we have that in common, but you know. So I definitely would encourage everyone like go get the book, start reading it, and then this is the one thing that I would challenge your listeners to do is to actually do something with what they learn At the end of every chapter. We have two steps there's a chess queen for the think and then there's a the gear for the do. So think and do think about your world a little bit differently and then go do something about that. Go take action. Imperfect action is so much better and you will see and feel the progress and the wins and the results. Just go do something with what you're learning.

Laura Barnard 1:08:41

I think that it's so easy to take a class or read a book or, you know, listen to a podcast and be inspired and then fall back into the habits that leave you exactly where you are. So my challenge to listeners is, whether it's this book or this podcast episode or anything, if you're going to invest the time to put that knowledge in your brain, remember that knowledge alone is not where your power comes from. It comes from the application of that knowledge. So go do something to make an impact and the minute you do, you will know it, you will feel it and it will cause this positive ripple effect of reinforcing that good adrenaline rush and acknowledging the win and making some change. And then go do it again, and do it again and again and that's where you become an impact driver is that you're actually starting to feel the benefit of making a difference in this world. So that's my call to action is, whether it's the book, the episode, anything, whatever it is, just go do something to make an impact and watch the positive ripple effect happen.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:09:46

Thank you so much. I'll make sure I include the link to the book and to your LinkedIn and website in the show notes as well. Otherwise, thank you, Laura, for joining us today.

Laura Barnard 1:09:56

Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate being a part of your audience, having this wonderful conversation with you, and for all the work that you're doing to make an impact and make a difference in this world. It is noticed even from our side of the world over here. We really appreciate you and thank you to all of your listeners today and going and to do the hard work to make a difference in this world. I'm grateful. So, thank you.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:10:23

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Please share this with someone or rate it if you enjoyed it. Don't forget to follow us on social media and to stay up to date with all things Agile Ideas, go to our website, wwwagilemanagementofficecom. I hope you've been able to learn, feel or be inspired today. Until next time, what's your Agile idea?