What I want to do is just kind of explain why we're here.
Right? So, so, um, if you've been to our webinar
before, if you read some of our blogs, you'll know
that we talk a lot about, um, how projects, the only reason
that we do projects, and the only reason we have portfolios
is to deliver business value.
That's it. Nothing else. There is no other reason.
And sometimes people will say, yeah,
but mandatory projects, yeah.
So you've gotta do mandatory projects to stay in business.
That is business value, right? Right.
So, um, so the, it is the only reason we do projects.
And so there is an art
and a science to maximizing how much value you give the,
the organization gets from projects.
And that is the job of the PMO.
That again, that's it, that's the entire,
that should be the entire job description of A PMO is
to maximize the return
that your organization gets from your portfolio projects.
And there is no one does this better than Laura Barnard,
and many of you know Laura,
and a lot of what we talk about, you know, I I I'm one
of the co-founders of Transparent Choice.
We started 11 years ago, same year
that Laura started PMO Strategies.
Yay. Right? Yay. Yay.
And we got to meet two, two years
after that, I think maybe three. Yeah.
It's A long time. So we've known
each other a few years, right?
And, and our, and our friend,
our friend Mike introduced us,
Mike Hannan.
Absolutely. Mike Hannan, Mike Hannan,
super Hannon as he is now known.
Yeah, I know, uh, I, I got a bit creative with, with some AI
and, and on cartoon cartoons.ai
or something I think it's called.
And we got it. We got ourselves a super super mike.
Um, but, but a lot of what we talk about, a lot of
what we've built into the software has come from discussions
with Laura, with Mike and people like this.
So, so this is a session where I say thank you to Laura
for being so generous with your knowledge over the years.
Really appreciate it. It's helped me personally.
It's helped the community a lot. I know that.
And I am so excited
because Laura has finally, hello, done this
right, which means so many more people
can benefit from this, right?
Um, and, and there are other ways to achieve greatness.
Of course there are. But I've seen this work.
I've seen people go through this program.
I've seen people hate their jobs,
absolutely hate going to work.
Be terrified of what they're gonna walk into,
Be in tears with frustration and overwhelm. Mm-Hmm.
And, and, you know, just a few short months later,
walking into work with a,
with a bounce in the step smile on the face, just can't wait
because the whole interaction has been transferred.
The whole interaction with the PMO,
with the organization has been transformed.
I have seen this. And so it is my great pleasure today
to step into the background
and give Laura the platform
to tell you a little bit about what's in here.
How you can get a copy, how you can
get engaged and learn more.
Stuart, thank you so much for having me here.
Thank you to all of you who that are joining us today.
I hope that I will make this fun and informative for you.
Um, and I wanna give a huge shout out to our, um,
uh, impact Accelerator Mastermind students.
I saw a few of you there.
That is the, you know, the only way
to have the physical book in your hands right now is
to be in the mastermind.
Like I saw, I saw Joan, I saw Margaret, maybe a couple
of others, is to be in the mastermind.
'cause every single person in the Mastermind,
our Impact Accelerator Mastermind,
got their own signed copy, uh, or do like Stewart did,
and buy a whole bunch to give to his clients.
Um, or, you know, see me a conference
where they're handing a few out,
like when we're in Saudi Arabia, um, in Riyadh in a couple
of days for the global project management form.
Otherwise, the way that you get a copy is you pre-order it,
but it's not available in bookstores.
And Amazon will deliver it on September 10th.
However, and Stewart knows this about me,
uh, I'm pretty impatient.
I'm actually in a very impatient person,
which means there's no way I would ask you
to order the book now
and then not get you something special.
So when you order it now,
you actually will get a digital copy.
My team is standing by.
So anybody that orders it, they will.
And you upload the receipt right
to our website, it notifies my team.
And they are going to give you access
to a digital copy today.
Like if you order it now,
you'll be reading the digital copy today.
And after you go through some of this here, uh,
you might be very, uh, you might be inclined to have some
of these game changing results our mastermind students have
been having, um, you know, for, for the cost of a book,
which is, um, why I wrote it, frankly.
Because there's people all over the world that can't,
you know, join the Impact Engine system or the Mastermind.
And at the moment,
and I really, as my mastermind students know, I really,
really, really wanted to get the techniques
and the insights that are in this book
into everybody's hands.
And the reason for that is because I was in your shoes.
I have been, it's about 30 years now
that I have been involved in, uh,
strategic business transformation, huge, uh, bleeding
and leading and bleeding edge technology changes
and industry changes and global changes.
Starting really early in my career.
I was in my early twenties when I got
to be involved in some pretty cool stuff.
And what I learned, actually, I don't even guess,
maybe I was 21 the first time,
but I was working pretty early, uh,
while I was putting myself through school,
and I got to be involved in some pretty big change.
And so I fell in love with it,
but I also realized that it was pretty darn hard
and it could be a lot easier.
And back then I was in, um, technology
and I had a computer science degree,
and I was doing tech stuff, but I fell in love
with this thing that you all know very well,
which is getting other people to do stuff.
And it turns out that was project management.
So I fell into project management, and very quickly
after that, I was, um, asked to be a PMO leader
for my first time in 1999.
And that's when things got really, really hard, really hard.
And I found that the more I tried to apply the lessons
from the books and the courses
and the, all the shoulds from the industry standards,
the harder and harder it got, not easier.
And so that I, that was frustrating.
I was like, why is everything getting so hard?
Why is it so difficult? Why is it
that everything I'm trying, the more I try
to give them the best practices
and the things that are supposed to change the industry, um,
you know, or to change what the,
this company is doing in the industry,
or that company is doing the industry the way
that they're supposed to deliver change.
It wasn't working. It wasn't
what we were doing wasn't working.
It was making things harder.
Nobody wanted to work with A PMO.
I remember we, I mentioned Stewart p, you know,
being able to save people from the tears.
I remember being in tears. I remember being so frustrated.
I remember being, you know,
feeling like I was beating my head up against the wall.
Like, why is it that nobody wants to,
you know, let us help them?
And I believe that this industry is filled with PMO people
with big hearts that love to help people.
And it's super frustrating
when everything you do isn't working.
So I learned a lot of lessons the hard way.
And over time, I started pouring those lessons
not only into, um, you know, what I was doing
with our clients, but in
what we call the impact engine system, uh,
which this book is based on.
So we have a training and implementation program
that we've been using for 10 years in this business.
I'll tell you a little bit, uh, more about
and, um, in a, in a moment
and kind of walk you through some of the mindset shifts
and the changes that we've made with that system.
But we all, we put what we could in a book so
that we could start, we could continue to get these ideas,
insights, and new ways of thinking about things in the hands
of everybody, everybody that we could.
So, um, so anyway, so I did this for a long time
and I found that the things that I was having
to learn the hard way I wanted to share with others so
that they didn't have to learn things the hard way,
like I did fewer tears, less frustration,
and actually helping PMO people
get their seat at the leadership table where they belong.
And that's what this, this book does, is it helps you build
or elevate, you know, your, your PMO
and project capabilities
so you can truly accelerate
strategy delivery for your organization.
And when you do, they're gonna pull the chair out for you
and give you that seat at the table.
It'll be right there waiting for you.
Um, so with that, I'm gonna share a little bit.
So at any time while we're going through this, if you wanna,
if you do order the book, make sure you go to the place
where it says to upload your receipt.
And then my team will give you access today, um, to your,
um, to your digital copy.
And this week, even though it's months
before the book comes out, we're gonna start uploading all
of the resources and templates
and, uh, additional goodies that go with the book.
So, um, you'll get all kinds of goodies and templates.
I know we love our templates, just show me how to do it.
So there's a bunch of that in the book as well.
Every chapter has something new, um, to have you do,
to apply what you're learning in the real world.
So thank you for that.
I'll share a little bit more, um, in a moment.
But there's that, if you want to go to the website,
you can get the digital version now.
We read it on your phone and the audiobook.
I finally finished recording the audio books, uh, Stewart,
so that will be coming out in June very, very soon.
I cannot wait, actually. Why has
that been exhausting? So our
Shak was comparing you to JK Row, right?
And, and, uh,
but even she hasn't recorded her own audiobook.
So you're one ahead of JK Rolling.
Well, so you can thank my mastermind students for, um,
me recording the audiobook,
because they all said,
you're in my head all the time anyway, with the podcast
and the coaching and everything.
They're like, you have to record it.
And some of them said, because I wanna sit there.
I wanna have the audio book,
and I want you to read it to me.
And I thought, that's exactly what I do
with my favorite authors.
I'll buy the audio book
and the, um, you know, the hardcover book,
and then I'll, I, I process better that way if I'm listening
to it and reading it at the same time.
So now I have my favorite authors Read me,
read me bedtime stories.
Awesome. So, um, yeah, so that's super exciting.
Um, okay, so, um, so anyway, so when Stewart
and I were talking about this, um, you know,
we were talking about what we wanted to cover today,
I thought, you know, he actually said, you know,
you have a system, you have a way that you do things.
And that way is, um, different.
It's different than kind of the standard,
the typical way PMOs are built.
And that's why you get such great results.
And it's funny because when I was, um,
before I created the Impact Engine system, I actually
had one of my friends, dear friends
and, um, you know, kind of advisors
and a co-founder of our nonprofit Kendall lot.
He said to me, there's a thing you do when you go work
with clients, when you take all these lessons learned from
all of your years of building and running PMOs,
before you started PMO Strategies.
He said, there's a thing you do.
And he said, and it's special.
And you need to figure out how to codify that
and how to communicate that to people
so you can change lives.
And I, I, I got tears in my eyes
and I was like, that's it, that's
what I'm supposed to be doing.
And it's, and it is unique and it is different,
and I'm gonna get tears in my eyes now.
And it's, and it's, it prevents,
I'd rather have the tears in my eyes now than all the people
that get so frustrated and overwhelmed trying
to do this work and save them from that
and make it easier for them. So can
Can, can I just interrupt, Laura?
Yeah. So as a Brit, I listen
to Laura when she says, and I get tears in my eyes,
and I wanna save all of you, right?
And I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
Of course you do. But I know Laura,
she really means this stuff, right?
This is coming from the heart.
This is motivated by wanting to help.
And I just applaud you for that, Laura.
'cause not enough people in the world
have that have that spirit.
So, sorry to interrupt. I wanna
Thank you. I know you
Can be, I want, I want, I want some of this.
I want some of this.
So, well, thank you. And I appreciate that.
And I do mean it. And I, my mastermind students
that are here can, can, can tell you like, we,
I care very deeply for all of them, um,
and wanna help make it easier for them.
And, um, and there is a way, and that's, so Stuart
and I were talking about that a little bit,
and he said, um, actually, why don't you tell him
what you said about grandma's cake?
Well, so, so, um, if I'm remembering correctly, I, I,
but so here's the thing, right?
You've, you've got, when some, when you've got a recipe,
right, grandma's recipe, right?
You just follow the recipe and you get a cake.
You don't need to understand anything in there.
You don't need to understand anything else.
You follow the recipe and you get the result.
And that's what this book is, right?
It's the recipe that tells you how to get a result.
And, and the really interesting thing to me reading this,
comparing this with, um, you know, all of the frameworks
and everything else that you typically see out there, is
that this isn't a framework where you say,
go down this checklist and do these 15 technical
tasks and good things happen.
Right? It's a recipe for how you interact with people,
with the organization, how you think,
and how your mindset needs to be set.
And that's what transforms everything.
So when you just follow the recipe, you don't need
to be grandma, right?
You follow the recipe, you can get that,
you can get the cake at the end of it.
And I'm hungry. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take screenshot.
I have chocolate cake, Right? I'm gonna send this
to my son right now and tell him to go get baking.
Yeah. Right? Go, go make a cake.
But there's something special about grandma's cake, right?
You, there are all kinds of recipes,
but there's the secret sauce
and the secret ingredient that she doesn't even put
on the recipe card.
And you know it, because when you try to follow it,
you'll get a cake.
But is it gonna be as special as grandma's?
And the way I look at it is that's kind of what I try
to expose with the impact engine system and what we do
and what we teach in the book,
and what we teach in our program.
Because there's the special secret ingredients that I expose
that is missing from most, uh, methods
or approaches for building
and, uh, scaling a PMO, getting
that seat at the leadership table, et cetera.
There's a lot of pieces that are missing,
and that's really what I expose.
So you wanna make grandma's cake, you want it to be
that you, you, you've gotta know the secret ingredients.
And I take the time in this program to expose all
of those secret ingredients.
So, um, I'm gonna dive into that, Stuart, if you're ready.
Yeah, yeah. And I, I just want to say, you know,
when you read the book, right?
That's like buying a recipe book. Mm-Hmm.
You'll get a cake and it'll be a good cake.
But you're right, Lori, it won't be grandma's cake.
Not quite. That's what the mastermind's for, right?
That's when you go on the program,
and that's when you really,
because you get to sit down with grandma
and not calling you grandma.
Right? My
Son's only 16.
I'm not a grandma yet.
Uh, I'm not gonna touch that one. Thank you.
Uh, but, uh, but, uh,
but you know, so you get to sit down with grandma
and she will say, yeah, yeah, no, no, no,
don't put your hands in the bowl like that.
Wet them with what called water
before we put them in the bowl, right?
Right, exactly. And it's those little things
that just make the difference.
So, um, so yeah, great. Go, go. Yeah.
The book is, the book will get you a cake, right?
There's a recipe in the book
that that'll get you a good cake.
But the, but grandma's cake comes when you,
when you engage with grandma.
Right? Well, thank you.
I appreciate that. I can use that. And thanks for
The plug for the Magic Mind. I, I can't
wait to tell Michael about that
One, but not everyone can.
Well, so here's the thing.
Not everyone can, you know, can get grandma's cake, right?
And that's why we wrote the book is to get
as close as possible.
Like if I put everything
that was in the Impact Engine system, uh, into a book,
it would be five to six books.
We already determined it
by looking at all the transcripts and all that.
You add the Mastermind to it, you're looking at 50 books.
Uh, because we do mastermind coaching sessions every month,
we've actually created our own artificial intelligence
engine engine called Ask Laura
that the mastermind students have that has all
of the content we've ever created in there.
And so my students end up talking to me through that
and pulling data from all of the different places
that we've taught things over the last 10 years.
Um, we have our own a ai, and it's actually pretty fun.
Sometimes I talk to myself
and I say, Hey, have I done a podcast on this topic yet?
Or is this something we can cover?
So anyway, um, so let me see how quickly,
how closely we can get you to grandma's cake.
All right? Um, so this is our recipe.
This is the recipe we follow.
There are six stages to the impact engine system
that I teach you in the book.
And it's, what we call is an iterative value delivery,
continuous value delivery model, meaning that you go
through it again and again and again,
and I teach you how to go step by step through this process
and get the results that you're looking for.
Um, but there are some things that stand in the way
of most people getting those results.
And that's some of the things I wanna expose today,
and some of the mistakes that we see happen.
And, and the way to get you the better results.
Because when you look at this,
besides the mindset stuff, a lot
of people go in when they set up a PMO
and they're like, oh yeah, you gotta do an assessment.
You gotta figure out what services you're gonna build.
You gotta plan it out. You gotta deliver them.
And then what, right? So the interesting thing is, is
that a lot of people miss this first step
and this last step.
And that's where a lot of the secret sauce is.
Not everything, but that's
where grandma's love can be found, is in here and in here,
and then woven throughout the entire program.
There is something that is woven throughout this program in
a way that I have never seen in any kind
of business implementation program,
whether it's PMOs or otherwise.
And that is the depth with which we bring stakeholders
with us through the change process.
That is one of the secret ingredients we have to expose,
because most people do change to people and not with people
and hit resistance.
You don't when you go through this program.
Um, so I'll, I'll share a little bit of
that in some examples here
that I think might be helpful for folks.
So, and it, it starts with the very, very first step.
When I was, you know, learning a lot
of this stuff years ago,
I remember anytime I would come across like mindset stuff,
I would think to myself, Ugh, that's so fruey.
Nobody has time for that. Nobody's meditating.
Nobody's like getting all Zen here. Just gimme the answers.
I'm busy. I got a lot to do.
And here's the thing that I learned the hard way.
If you aren't thinking about your role in the right way,
there's no way your executives are,
if you wanna have a seat at the table, you need
to understand what it's gonna take to get there
and how you get there.
Specifically, it's the what to do in what order,
why it matters, and how to do it.
And I'm gonna dive into a little bit of that today.
So you can see kind of the fundamental foundational shifts
that once you make these changes,
you will be well on your way to getting
that seat pulled out for you at the leadership table.
And it happens so much faster than you might think,
as is evidenced by, you know, Samantha,
I tell a story in the first chapter of the book of how
horrible it was for her when she started.
And a lot of our mastermind students come
to us when they are a PMO of one, they're struggling,
they can't get support, they can't get funding,
they can't get engagement from them, from their leaders.
Everyone runs and they see 'em coming.
And we can make a shift really quickly,
but it starts with you understanding how
to think about your role differently,
which I'll share with you in a moment.
Did you wanna say something Stuart?
Yeah, just, just this is this mindset thing's really,
really important.
Um, so I had a conversation
with a PMO leader a little while ago,
and, uh, I had been introduced to her by one of her team.
And the briefing from the team on the way in
was, everything's broken.
The world's falling apart, and nobody's listening to us.
And you know, all the stuff you just said.
And I sat down with a PMO leader,
and she was so busy telling me how clever she was
Mm-Hmm.
And how much she knew about project management.
The, the, i I, I thought, okay, you are not going
to be successful unless, and until you change the mindset.
So, you know, it,
it really is the mindset is the biggest barrier
to success in my view. Um, well,
And, and Stuart, frankly, here's the thing.
Nobody cares about how smart you are.
Your templates, your process,
they don't care how right you are.
They don't care about all that.
You, yeah, you can geek out
with your project management friends about it,
but nobody in the business leadership area,
if they are asking you questions about your templates
and your process, it's
because they think they have to, to try
and pull out of you what they really need, which is
how are you gonna help me solve my business problem?
You got it. And that's really
what this program helps you do right from the start.
So, and a perfect example of that is, um, Willa,
when she came to work with us a couple of years ago,
she's one of our mastermind students.
Um, we call her the mindset queen now,
because she understood how to go from the typical,
like you just said, I, you know, I know everything.
Why won't they listen to me?
To, you know, which is the mistake a lot of people make.
They focus so much on getting stuck in a project
mindset and a project focus.
It's exactly, we didn't plan this,
but this is that, that conversation you have with
that PMO leader, this is exactly the problem.
Everyone's so focused on fixing project management,
and that's not actually where the problems are.
If it was, you would've solved it by now,
because project management is not that hard to solve.
We've got standards, we got templates, we got process,
we got it coming out of our ears.
That's not where the problem is.
And that's why Stewart and I kind of connected immediately,
because we both saw the gap that a lot
of PMO people don't even realize is happening.
So instead of focusing on this project first mindset,
you actually need to understand the full strategy lifecycle,
where the problems are and what you need to do differently.
So I'm gonna explain to you what that means,
not from your perspective as a PMO leader,
but from your customer.
Do you know who your customer is?
Your customer is the stakeholders
and the executives that hired you,
the stakeholders you serve,
and the executives that hired you and put you in this role.
Because here's the pain points that they're dealing with.
They don't have their finances aligned with their strategy.
The management is not aligned with strategy.
The people are not aligned with strategy.
And they tell you that.
And they will tell you that their execution is
not aligned with strategy.
If you talk to executives, this is what you find out.
And you know what they all go do is they buy books
on closing the strategy to execution gap.
So whether, and I can, you know,
you all have seen statistics like this.
Basically, strategy to execution stinks. There's a problem.
There's a million books written on it,
nothing ever gets solved.
And I'm gonna show you exactly why
and what you should be doing
and can be doing to help solve for this.
So when you think about strategy
as your business leaders are, I think of that
as like the chess, the chess game, right?
The, and the chess queen in particular,
the most powerful piece on the board
that is determining the direction, the vision
for the organization and how it's going
to serve its customers, right?
Then you have execution
and execution is that delivery engine, right?
And everybody, however, in the organization,
whether it's in a PMO projects all over the organization,
product doesn't matter.
How do people execute on that strategy?
This is what everybody's telling them is the problem.
That there's a gap between strategy and execution,
and that's why nobody can get anything done.
And guess who's getting blamed for that, by the way?
It's all of you. So let's look at the strategy life cycle
and where you can play and where your opportunities are
and what you should be doing differently.
And how I, and I'll,
and this is what we teach in
the book right at the beginning.
This is on the mindset stuff.
You gotta get up and outta the project space
and look at the entire life cycle.
So that would look something like strategy definition,
which is ideas are generated, projects are approved.
That's the strategy game
where most organizations focus on strategy,
defining the strategy, and then what do they do?
They throw it over the fence to the strategy execution.
People that plan and deliver projects, that's
where the delivery engine is.
And that, and, and you'll see in a
minute why that's such a problem.
This is where people are focused.
Strategy happens here, and UPMO
and project people are not invited into those conversations.
You'll be invited when we throw the strategy over the fence
to you, and you have to start delivering on it.
Hurry up, get it done. You're late already.
And by the way, everything's a number one priority.
And then there's strategy realization
where benefits are realized, but not just benefits,
but value to the organization.
And this gap here,
this is the gap they're talking about right here.
This is the perceived gap between strategy definition
and strategy execution.
And guess what?
Nobody's paying attention to, whether
or not the strategy actually realizes its its intended
business benefits, and in a way that ensures
that the organization achieves the highest possible return
on investment for that strategy.
If your projects cost as much as the value they're meant
to drive, you are wasting a lot of time,
yet if anybody's measuring it at all.
Often things that are being measured aren't the things
that actually show if the needle is moving for the strategy
for the organization.
So what do you do about it? Well, this is
where most of you spend your time.
Well, you're in the project space.
You were hired to fix project management, right?
That's what's broken. So you train staff, you put process
and templates and tools in place, and guess what happens?
The executives still aren't happy.
So you spend all this time on all of your templates
and your process, and then you can't even get
the executives to engage.
Or if they do, they're still not happy
because they're not getting the results.
Because nobody's addressing this over here in the actual
impact realization, the strategy realization.
So what do you do when your executives get mad
and they say, go fix project management.
Okay, okay, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going.
More templates, more tools, more process.
Somehow we've been confused that a whole bunch
of stuff equals value.
You know what this looks like? If this is
where your energy is focused, adding templates and tools
and process to the project management lifecycle,
the planning and delivery of projects, regardless
of your implementation methodology, this is where most
of you are being told you should be spending your time.
Okay? And guess what happens?
You don't actually get that return on investment
that your business leaders are looking for.
And the reason for that is very simple,
because the problems weren't in project execution.
They were not in strategy execution.
Most of the problems you have are
because projects are always number,
everything's number one priority, right?
Put a, you know, a yes or a amen
or a Yep, sounds like me in the chat.
If that's you, right?
Anyone have stake or stakeholders
or executives to say, well,
everything is number one priority.
Why can't you just get it all done?
You start projects all at the same time instead
of staggering throughout the year,
resources are over allocated.
Every single time I talk to a PMO leader, they tell me
that they don't have enough resources to do the work.
Anyone put that in the chat?
If that's any of you, any of you have a problem
with resources, not having enough resources to do the work,
Come on guys. Don't be shy.
We've got a couple of,
but I know there's more of you have this the
Man. Yeah, here
we go. Right? Okay,
Everyone, everyone suddenly found a keyboard? Well
Done. Yeah. So here's
the problem though,
everyone, here's the problem.
You don't have a lack of resources.
What you have is e executives that are trying
to shove 10 pounds of projects in a five pound bag.
Meaning, and this is where Steward's software comes in
so well, and why we use it with a lot of our clients is
what transparent choice helps you do.
They are not prioritizing.
It means that they're saying, we want all these things.
And I think somewhere that might help us achieve,
achieve some of our strategic goals,
if that's even made clear.
Sometimes it's not.
And I don't know how many times I've heard
people say, what strategy?
We don't have a strategy here.
Um, so there's all of these challenges are happening,
and you're busy over here trying to fix the planning
and execution, and the problems are happening
before you've ever started the projects.
So we have to fix the front end of the lifecycle,
and that will help projects meet their goals,
not cost more than the benefits, you know, et cetera, right?
But the problem is we keep making the same mistakes over
and over again and expecting different results
because all of you have been taught that your value
to the organization is in project execution.
And it's not, it's not just the planning and the delivery.
There's a bigger game that you should be playing.
So what would that look like?
Well, you can't just have strategy over here.
Throw it over the fence to the delivery people
and expect to get the kind of results that you need to get,
because no one's actually measuring realization of value.
Some of you measure earned value management, which
by the way doesn't actually measure value at all.
Some of you measure benefits,
but who's actually looking from a business perspective
to figure out how much, uh, you know,
how are these projects achieving their intended business
goals in a way
that made them worth doing in the first place?
How do you get to worth doing in the first place?
You gotta actually know
what the business problem is you're trying to solve
and what success looks like,
and not wait until it's thrown over the fence
and everything's already been determined
before you're actually involved in the process.
There's a bigger role for all of you, PMO people to play
that can help address this.
So what does that look like? Well, instead of focusing on
strategy as a thing and execution as another thing,
and having, allowing for that gap to exist, we've got
to remove the gap completely.
There is no strategy versus execution.
There should be no gap in the first place,
because what happens is it's not actually a gap just
between strategy and execution.
It's a gap all throughout the entire strategy lifecycle.
That's the problem. So you cannot just have strategy
at the front end of the process.
You need strategy and execution hand in hand throughout the
entire lifecycle.
I'm just gonna pause there and let you absorb that.
What that means is that you need to be hand in hand
the entire lifecycle from strategy definition
through strategy execution, through strategy realization.
You need to be invited into the conversations at the
front end of the process.
And I teach you how in the book.
And then you need to bring your stakeholders with you
through the change process from start to finish so
that there are no gaps.
Because if you keep strategy
and execution top of mind, hand in hand,
throughout the entire lifecycle, the gaps are gone.
There's no such thing as a strategy to execution gap.
If you're with your business leaders from the beginning,
helping them to clarify the strategy, helping them
to align the work that actually is created from
that strategy, not later taking all the projects somebody
did over here in a budget cycle strategy
that was done over here, and try to match 'em up later.
That's what a lot of organizations are doing wrong.
And don't worry, I've got a keynote
and other resources I'm already putting together
for executives, uh,
because they aren't part of the problem, right?
And so we need to go tell them that too.
If I have it in me, I might write the book for them.
That's a companion to the impact engine
that says, here's what you're doing wrong.
Go do it differently. But in the meantime, I teach you
how to go hand in hand from the
very beginning of the process.
This is the beginning of the mindset shift
that you must make in order to get that seat at the table.
And in order to actually play a bigger game
and not just be focused on the templates, tools, process
of project execution.
And this is not, by the way, for more advanced PMOs,
this is for every P-M-O-A-P-M-O of one
to a PMO of a thousand.
And I guess the biggest I've ever worked with is like a PMO
with 300, 300, you know, people in the PMO.
And it works at every level.
Most of our mastermind students come and join the mastermind
because they don't wanna be in the lonely business
of building A PMO from the ground up.
And they're a PMO of one, some of 'em, not even full-time.
Some of 'em are a project manager,
and they've been given this PMO title
and they're like, okay, I need some help, um, doing this.
And we show them how to do this.
And then once they do, they get the funding
and the resources and everything they need to expand.
But your executives aren't gonna give that to you
until you've shown them
that you can actually lead this journey.
So this is your opportunity to be a,
no matter if it's your first day doing the work,
it doesn't matter how perfect your project management
process is, if you haven't done the work
to set the strategy up for success right from the start.
Go ahead Stewart. You look like you
wanna say something. Yeah,
No, I was just gonna say this
is, this is absolutely right.
And, and it doesn't matter if you are a new PMO leader
or you think you've done it a hundred times this morning.
I had a conversation with a PMO leader.
He's led five different PMOs over the years.
Just started a new job couple of weeks ago.
I sent him a copy of the book and awesome.
He, he is through the first few chapters.
And Laura, he wanted me to let you know how grateful he is
that you've written it, how, how readable the book was.
He said he was really surprised how readable it is.
And, uh, and to let you know, it's,
it's really helping him just sort of think through stuff
that he thought he knew.
Yeah. Yeah. So, and right. And that's the thing.
So thank you, thank you for sharing that for me.
Yeah, that was super important for me, everyone,
because I've read a lot of PMO and strategy books,
and most of them are so boring.
Even if I love the person that wrote the book, I'm like,
my gosh, this is so boring.
I can't, I can't get through it that way. I'm busy.
I got a lot of things to do, but I wanna know like,
where's the secrets?
What are the things to do? And how, so I wrote this book
to be something that you can any,
and actually our publicity company
and we've, my son, my 16-year-old is reading it
and he is like, oh, this is easy.
This is easy to read. I could do this. Right?
And, you know, I have family friends, everyone's reading it
and they're like, oh my gosh, I actually had a, an old coach
who does nothing in PMOs and project management,
and he just posted on LinkedIn.
He's like, I am finding so much in this book that applies
to just making all the things easier and better.
And, you know, and even speaking
of teenagers even maybe help you
raise your teenagers better.
I'll tell you, I have some of these techniques with him.
It's all stakeholder engagement
and bringing people with you through change, right?
That's what it's all about. Um, so Stuart, I have a ton
of other stuff here, but really I wanna make sure
that we have time to Yeah,
So there's Address questions for folks and yeah,
There's, there's a topic. Make
it real. That's kind of come up a couple of times here.
I'm just scrolling back to go find it.
Um, and go back, back, back, back, back, back,
Back. I saw
something pop up too.
Yeah. So, so basically it's, it's, uh, you know,
there are a couple of people who are i'll,
I'll read you Nicole's comment.
'cause it, and it, it ties with Alexis's as well. Okay?
So they've gotta change in executive leadership.
We need to re-pitch the idea of A PMO
and its value proposition, right?
Yeah. So, so, uh, and, uh,
and Alexis had a, a similar sort of thing.
Biggest PMO challenges, uh, need to start over
after things haven't been working for a long time.
Yeah. Currently starting over with tailored services,
developing, uh, develop, uh, based off stakeholder needs.
Brilliant. That's a good start. Um, so, so
what thoughts do you have for people in, in that situation?
Because that's, it's quite common where people are kind
of change of leadership
or we've, we've kind of, we tried a bunch of stuff
and it didn't really work, right?
Right. For sure. What, what do we do?
That's where, that's most of where people come to us,
unfortunately, we try to get 'em when it's their first time.
Like, you know, sometimes we'll get 'em
before they've ever done it before, and I'm
like, I'm so glad you're here.
We're gonna save you from so much headache
and frustration and overwhelm.
And it really goes to, I mean, like, here's,
here's the book, everyone.
Like, you've gotta start here with this mindset stuff.
Understand where your opportunities are,
understand your role,
and then right here in this assessment stage,
this is a big thing that people miss.
This is where, you know, um, a lot of people, you know,
and I could just, I can share my screen real quick
and show you like one more, one more thing.
I guess. So many things that, ugh.
Um, and actually before I do, hold on, this is really funny.
This is my copy of the book
and I wanna show you, do you see all of these, like all
of these markers in the book?
And I've written all over it
and I'm like, oh, I gotta tell people about that.
And oh, I wanna show people that that's all for like, trying
to figure out what to put in the podcast
and you know, what things I wanna share with people.
Which by the way, if you haven't seen the inside,
there's some pretty cool reminders in every, like, lots
of them in every chapter.
And here's a good one I just pulled went to right here.
People are not resistant to change.
They're resistant to having change done to them.
That's one of the biggest problems.
A lot of the reason that these PMOs don't work is
because people completely skip the process
of bringing people with them through change.
People like don't want change done to them.
And in the assessment stage,
it's all about not just asking people what they want, which
by the way, you don't wanna ever let them tell you
what the PMO should do,
but you do wanna find out what they want.
Because the mistake a lot of people make is jumping straight
to solutions instead of investing the time
to bring them through the process.
And as my mastermind students know what I'm about to say,
it's all about giving them what they want
before you give them what they need.
I'm gonna say that one more time. Give them what they want
before you give them what they need.
And how do you know what you, what they want? You ask.
You don't say what star PMO do for you.
You ask them what are the pain points?
What are the business problems that they need solved?
Where are the challenges? What's keeping them up at night?
Not how is project management broken,
but what is standing in the way of you being able
to achieve your business goals?
And that one question
and being able to get answers to
that question will unlock all of the symptoms
that people are experiencing that you then need
to go find the root cause.
And that's where a lot of people, again, I don't know
how many times the reason your PMO isn't working is
because somebody jumped to solutions
before understanding what the business problems were
and said, I know the medicine you need to take.
That's the, and that's what we do in the define stage.
Um, I know the medicine you need to take,
and what ends up happening is you put band-aids on symptoms
instead of actually getting to the root causes
and the challenges that your stakeholders
of the challenges your stakeholders are experiencing.
But when you can figure out what's actually causing it,
which by the way, it's not project management,
usually project management usually isn't broken.
And you know how I know. Because if you put smart people in
a room together that don't have a PMP amongst them
that have never used a template tool
or process, they will figure out how to get stuff done.
And by the way, we have all kinds of certifications
and templates and process and stuff.
If stuff was the answer, you would've solved it by now.
But instead, you have
to go figure out what's happening at the front end
of the strategy life cycle that's causing this problem.
What's making it so that we can't get projects delivered?
Well, well, it's all those things we just talked about
with prioritization problems
and trying to start everything at once
and everything coming out.
You know, having, um, having, uh,
having your business leaders try
and make everything, um,
make you do everything without the resources to do it.
It's about creating that alignment and that focus.
So when you're having these kind of challenges, that's
what I would suggest you focus on.
It's going back to, we'll read the book, go through chapter
with stage one and chapter and stage two,
and you will see a totally different way
and where your opportunities are.
And by the way, at that stage,
before you've ever delivered anything,
you're gonna start building credibility
with your business leaders.
And they're gonna start having different conversations
with you only from stage two, not even
through the whole first cycle,
because you're gonna be asking questions in a different way
that's gonna have them start paying attention.
Oh, this is different.
This isn't a bunch of that project and template stuff.
This is about how my business problems
and they seem interested in helping me solve my problems.
And that changes the game.
And, and interestingly, Laura, I think you just,
you just addressed some of this, uh, Randy asked, you know,
how do, how do you translate that into a 60 90,
a 30, 60, 90 day plan, uh, in terms
of establishing relationships
and having time to assess the current situation?
Uh, yeah. Especially when you've had an unsuccessful
evolution of the PMO before you got there, right?
So hilarious. So you're disillusioned to executives,
and I think you said right here, I think you
said all of that, right?
Yeah. So at the back of the book, you know how most books,
so Stewart, I wrote this book the way I would wanna read it.
There's no dust jacket because I rip those off immediately
and, you know, and I like get
they go in and outta my back pocket.
It's a good book. It's all scratched up
or ripped up everything immediately,
and they're usually filled with sand
and water all over 'em, right?
Um, and in this case, like
with little like markers throughout the whole book,
but in the back, instead of doing an index,
I actually created a very detailed table of contents
that goes through every single, um, concept
that I teach in the book, which is why I was able
to go right to what he just said.
Look at that, right? This is the, we have the, the
what we call 30 90 delivery and reporting.
You go through 90 day cycles
and then at the 30 day mark what you're supposed
to be doing, and then every 30 day mark
and what you're supposed to be doing at 90
days specifically.
And the reason for that is
because that's how your executives think.
They're already doing cycles, monthly cycles,
and quarterly cycles.
So we just join the systems
and the process that they're used to,
and it makes it easy for them to see, oh, you get me
and how I operate and how I'm already measuring
and looking for change to happen.
And that's, that's what this does.
And that's a really important thing, right?
Is that, you know, generally the more senior you go in an
organization mm-Hmm.
The more people are focused on outcomes and, and,
and, uh, execution and action.
Yeah. And they're really not interested in process
and stuff like that, right?
Right. If, if process is your thing,
you don't usually end up as being that c-suite,
A c-suite executive. Right?
But it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean you
Don't have a good career. Right.
And it doesn't mean you don't need process.
That's right. It's what you lead with.
And then what you talk about, if you're trying
to get your kid to do something, do you talk them
through the process or do you talk about the outcome they're
gonna get that they care about?
You're not gonna say you're not, you're not gonna say, well,
first we're gonna go to the store and then we're gonna do
this, and then we're gonna do this, and then we're gonna do
this and this, and we're gonna go here, and then we're gonna
park there, and then we're gonna do this.
You're gonna say, Hey, at the end
of the day, we're gonna get ice cream.
Mm-Hmm. Right? And everyone's,
and they're like, scream, okay, now to get there,
we're gonna have to do these three things.
But you get ice cream at the end.
And they're like, oh, right. Ice cream, they're all excited.
Right? So it's about changing how you talk about it
to shift your focus from the outputs
and the deliverables that you're creating
to the outcomes you're helping the organization achieve
and the impact that has on the organization.
Just changing it to talk about the ice cream changes,
the whole conversation with your
executives, because guess what?
They like ice cream too. They don't care so much about your,
the steps you have to go to get there.
They just want the result.
So, so Ash's taking full advantage of having, uh,
you know, global thought leader on here.
Mm-Hmm. Uh, this isn't necessarily a, a sort
of PMO stand up-y type question,
but, um, agile versus waterfall versus
fall versus all the other flavors.
Um, how do you determine what method's, right?
And I'm gonna throw in there, how much do you care?
That's that last bit is my addition.
Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so here's the thing.
You do what makes sense based on the
business problem you're trying to solve.
Here's the thing. Everyone don't name your PMO
after a methodology.
You don't have an agile management office,
you don't have a waterfall management office.
You don't have, you know,
a you don't have a scrum management office.
What you have is an impact engine.
What you have is an organization
that's all about accelerating strategy delivery.
You know what most of our students
and clients end up calling theirs?
They call it a strategy delivery office. And you know why?
Because they don't name it. They let the executives name it.
And when you let your executives name it,
they usually are gonna call it something
that reflects the results they want from it.
So think about that when you even think about
what you call it, but what you don't wanna call it is some
kind of a methodology because nobody cares if you're using
Agile or if you're using Waterfall,
you know, you might care.
'cause you gotta make sure stuff gets done.
But frankly, you know, most projects
before Agile was really big.
Were some kind of, you know,
water scrum fall approach anyway, right?
Everybody is,
the methodology you choose is based on the business problem
you're trying to solve and the best way to solve it.
Do you want to be completely agile?
If you're building, you know,
doing a big construction project, probably not.
You probably would want some things to happen in a certain
order, but I bet you when you're picking paint colors
and trying to decide on some
of the interior furnishings, you're gonna be agile.
So it's all a little bit of everything.
And that's
where I think you should be spending your energy is
how do I best get from the problem they have to the outcome
and the impact they're trying to drive?
And who do I need
and what way are we gonna use to get there?
And sometimes that's gonna be a combination of a lot
of different methodologies, but either way,
don't start geeking out with it with your executives.
'cause frankly, they don't care if they're telling you they
want everything in the organization Agile.
It's because somebody told them that that was going
to finally address the problems they have, not
because they truly care about Agile.
Uh, Laura, I'm gonna ask a, a really
tactical question from Randy, um,
because it's entirely self-serving.
Sure. Oh yes. So hold on.
I know, like, I gotta go see what page that's on
because we do talk about it
and Stewart has a shout out in the book.
I'm trying to figure out what chapter that's in.
I think that is somewhere in, um,
it's either in chapter three.
I think it might be in chapter three or chapter.
I don't know. I've got a little look.
But yes, we do talk about a HP specifically in the book.
We are on all things methodology agnostic
and approach agnostic, except for, of course,
the impact engine system is our framework for going
through building and elevating PMO
and strategy delivery capability.
But we have found that one of the problems
that organizations have, one of the biggest problems
that they have that prevents the strategy lifecycle from
working well and delivering well is not prioritizing.
Almost everybody that I talk to says
that they have a resource management problem.
They have too many, um, they have too much work
for the number of resources, and that's backwards thinking.
What they really have is an inability
for the executives are not prioritizing effectively
and they keep shoving more in than they have
the resources to handle.
If you want more, then you need to stagger it
and you need to do, you need to prioritize it.
And then you can actually get 2, 3, 4.
We've even seen five times the throughput simply by starting
with a really good prioritization process.
We like a HP specifically
and use it for a lot of our clients and students
because that approach kind
of takes the squeaky wheel out of the picture.
You know, if any of you on your, um,
executive leadership team have like one really loud
voice, right?
That's, um, that's kind of, um,
pushing everybody else aside,
what happens is this a HP approach kind of, it's really fun
to watch and it's not that hard to do.
And we've watched, um, we've taken leaders
through like executives at the top level,
totally not techie.
We take them through this pairwise comparison kind
of approach of prioritization.
And they've found that one, one
of our recent clients said this exactly,
we, this is amazing.
This is helping us have the conversations we should have
been having all along, but didn't even realize
we should have been having them.
And so that alone sets the entire strategy process up
for success, gets everybody on the same page,
removes the squeaky wheel, gets priorities super clear,
and helps ensure that then you can align everybody
with the strategy, with the priorities,
and you're gonna get better results, period.
Brilliant. Thank you for that, Laura, that, that's, uh,
lovely to hear and,
and actually those kind of comments we,
we hear all the time, uh, about, you know,
having the conversation we should have had
all along and yeah.
All all that kind of good stuff.
So, so that, that's brilliant to hear that.
Um, so our shocks on fire, right?
He is banging out loads of questions, so I'm picking
and choosing a little bit.
Um, so this one, this one's interesting, right?
'cause this one speaks a little topol.
It comes back to some of the things you asked
earlier, uh, you answered earlier.
Mm-Hmm. But it goes a little deeper.
So adding PMO governance structure to the business,
governance is the way to go.
But how do you convince the managers
to let you into their meetings?
Ah, and I suspect you're gonna pick
that one apart in a couple of different ways.
Okay. So first. Yeah.
And you probably know what I'm gonna say.
You don't convince anybody of anything. Right.
The problem we have is that most of you have been trained
to sell the value of the PMO, and that's the problem.
You must be valuable.
If you want to be seen as valuable,
you must actually help your
Laura. Laura, sorry, let me just jump
in for a second. Yeah.
Um, Alexis, if you're still on,
please listen to this really carefully.
'cause I think a lot of this is also
the answer to your question.
Yeah. Thank you. So, um, be valuable.
Write this down. Be valuable if you want
to be seen as valuable.
Par I said that a while ago.
Rachel was like, wait, I wrote that down
and now Ra I know Rachel has it on a sticky note.
She's here, still shout out to Rachel.
She has it on a sticky note in her desk
and she reminds me, remember you said this
and it's super important and basic,
but so I, so, um,
I would say I would go so far as to say life changing.
When you really understand this,
it's not about selling the PMO or project management
or yourself, it's about doing something
that actually solves a business problem
that your business leaders know they have and want to solve.
And tying the value you can bring to the table to that.
When you do that, you don't have to sell anything.
You don't have to convince anybody of anything.
You simply say, here's,
and you only know if you're asking, right?
The problem is, is
that if people do an assessment, you know what they do?
They say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
know the medicine you need to take.
And you know, they either ask them, you know,
what should the PMO do for you?
And by the way, never ever, ever do that
because they don't know they're not experts.
Some of you know, you might not even be an expert.
Why would you ask people that know less than you
do about what it should do?
But what you can ask them is the thing they are an
expert in, which is their pain.
So you talk to them about their pain,
and then we have a five step communication process
that I teach you in the book
to go from their pain to the solution.
You can, you, you can put in place
to address the root cause of that pain.
When the pain, when you say re we don't have enough
resources, that is a symptom.
That is not a root cause.
I teach you how to do a root cause analysis in the book.
So you get to the root cause then you
can put a solution in place.
And when you do, you're gonna have a positive ripple effect
through the entire life cycle
because you're gonna actually solve the,
the root cause instead
of a playing whack-a-mole with a bunch of symptoms.
Then once you've done that, you'd,
and you don't geek out on the solution with them,
but you say, I heard you.
'cause you repeat back to them their exact words
When you told me this, that must have been pretty tough.
Or, I understand that this is what you're frustrated by.
I understand that this is the challenge you have when we put
this solution in place, it is going to solve that pain.
Get you the outcome you're looking for.
This is the impact it's gonna have on the organization.
And this is how we will know that last step of the metric.
Step five is how we will know it is successful.
If you do that, you won't have to sell a day in your life.
You won't have to convince anybody of anything
because your executives are gonna see, oh, okay,
well then I need you in the conversations
that I'm having about the strategy.
Because if I have any hope of getting it delivered,
then I need the person that gets what it is going
to look like and what it's gonna take
to get there by my side.
We have taken PMO leaders from all over the world who were
so frustrated, shown them how to do these things.
And before you know it,
they not only have a seat at the table,
they are an integral critical part of
how the organization delivers strategy
from that point forward.
And it's life changing
and game changing for those companies.
And it's, it, every single thing I teach you in here
walks you through exactly how to do that
and gives you templates and worksheets
and resources to help you do it.
Because that's, you know, knowledge alone is not power.
I can tell you all these things all day long.
It's the application of that knowledge
that drives real impact.
So I tell you what to do and then show you how to do it
and then give you the resources to start doing it yourself.
Brilliant. I I wanna pull just one point outta that
'cause there's so much, okay, look, LA Laurie,
you've said this three times today at least, right?
What I'm gonna pull out, but you are so accomplished
and it all just flows so quickly
and smoothly and beautifully.
It's like, like, like melted butter, right? It's beautiful.
So I wanna pull this out
because people might have missed it,
even though you said it at least three times.
Laura does not advocate going to your executives
and saying, what should my PMO do?
She go, she's going and asking them, what are your problems?
What are you trying to achieve?
What's keeping you up at night? Not about the PMO at
All. Not about the PMO
at all.
It's about their business.
Is it growth that's killing you?
Is it a lack of supply chain clarity?
Is it, you know, there's a million things it could be about.
Mm-Hmm. And if you start solving those
problems, magic happens.
Right? And, and,
and again, I'm, I'm sorry to bang on that one, but,
but it's so, it's so integral to
that mind shift change, right?
The change in mindset. Um, that,
that one question illustrates
that mindset change beautifully, right?
So, so I just wanted to make sure everyone had got
that Oh yeah, go, go for
That. And we've been into
been q&a.
I forgot that I wasn't sharing the screen
'cause I wanna make sure people could hear me and see me.
Like, I want you to hear what I'm saying
and see me like I'm serious about this.
But it also doesn't have to be impossible.
It does not have to be hard.
I, the entire reason that my company exists,
the reason this book exists,
the reason the impact engine system exists,
the reason the mastermind exists is
because I wish I had me when I was you.
I wish I had me someone that would be like, don't do this,
do this instead, here's why
everything you've been told isn't working.
And here's what to do differently to make it so much easier
and faster and get the results
and the satisfaction and the joy.
Like this work is so fun.
We have, when we go in and work with clients,
we have the best time.
We are all friends. We are all trying to change the world.
We're all doing some fun stuff and we love our clients.
We truly, we get way
emotionally invested with our clients, Stuart.
'cause you know, Mike does a lot of this work with us.
I mean, we just, we can't help ourselves, right?
Because we really care about the results
and we want these folks to be successful.
And it happens so fast
and it's so, um, it just brings me so much joy.
This is how I was meant to serve
and to help, you know, make lives easier for people.
You know, there, there's a million ways we can do it
and apparently this is the way I'm doing it.
So, but it does change people.
Like they're, they're happier and they,
and they can actually enjoy what they're doing.
And if you love what you're doing
and you're doing it well, you will change the world one
project at a time and your companies, we work with a lot
of nonprofits and, um, you know, organizations that, um,
that are trying to make the world a better place.
And this is an opportunity for us to, um, help them,
you know, do really big things.
So no matter what kind of an organization you work in,
I want you to really love what you do
and make it easier for you to do it. Yeah.
And, and you know what, I I, I'd rather
enjoy helping the organization make a,
make a difference, right?
To, to make a difference to the organization than be able
to tell people that I'm, I'm in charge
of a particular process
and I tick off everything in that process.
Now, now, but here, but just I wanna be clear, Stuart,
we can still geek out on our process.
Yeah. We just don't do it with the executives. Shh.
I like was just, we just hired, um, a COO, uh,
for our company and I told him, I said, listen,
I can geek out with the best of 'em all day long.
I love it. And he was talking about
how he was gonna be putting, um, all kinds of structure
and like operating
efficiencies and things like that in the company.
I'm like, stop.
Um, but as the CEO, it's not where I should spend my time.
I love knowing it's happening,
but as the CEO of my company,
I shouldn't be the one doing it.
So that's why when you go to your executives
and you're like, here's our templates in our process, which
by the way, I can tell you with, uh, for certain,
and I, Stuart, I'm willing
to guess this has been yours case as well.
I have never, ever in my career in about 30 years
of doing this work work had a c-suite executive come
to me and say, wait, wait, hold on.
Can you come back when you have five
more templates for me to fill out?
It's not gonna happen. They don't care.
But they wanna know that the good stuff is happening
and you need to build credibility with them by showing them
that you get them and start delivering results.
Be valuable and you will be seen as valuable.
Do things that actually help connect the pain point they
have to an outcome and an impact they're trying to get to
and solve that pain.
And you will get your seat at the table
because they're gonna need you.
I gotta tell you, the people in my organization
that solve problems, get things done
and get us where we're trying to go faster.
Um, they're the people that are my right hand, my left hand.
Like they're the people that I keep on my side
because that's how we, that's
how we change the world, right?
You got it. So as an executive,
I can tell you that's what we're looking for.
Absolutely. It is. Absolutely it is.
So I've just pasted it into the chat, uh, uh, a link to
a case study with, uh, with Mike Welsh,
uh, which is great.
Yeah. One of our clients. Love Mike. Love Mike.
We talk about Mike in the
book, actually. You can hear his story.
Absolutely. And, and he tells the story
of his journey from, uh, struggling to superstar.
And they, you know, not only changed the PMO
not only changed the whole organization,
they changed an entire industry. Right?
I know. It's so Cool. It's super cool. Super cool.
So go check that out if you like this stuff.
Uh, Mike shares some of the things that he, that he, uh, uh,
that he tripped over on the way
and all that kind of good stuff.
Um, so I, I just have to thank everybody
for jumping in with questions.
I'm sorry we didn't get to them all,
but thank you for jumping in with questions.
It really makes it a far more interesting session.
Laura, thank you for joining and sharing.
It's great to of course.
See you and I will see you in Riyad with a strawberry.
I was gonna say, I get paid in strawberries
Tomorrow night for Strawberries.
I get paid in strawberries.
Strawberries because they're British strawberries. Indeed,
Indeed. So
everybody, well thank you.
Thank you all for joining and, uh,
do reach out if you have any questions
and, uh, you know, if anybody is in Saudi Arabia,
we will see you over the next few days.
Yeah. We'll see you there, connect with me on LinkedIn,
um, and make sure if you do order the book,
upload your receipt, just go to impact engine book.com
and upload your receipt so that we,
my team will send you access to the digital copy now.
So if you're impatient like me, you don't have to wait
until September to start reading it.
And then when you get your book in
September, I wanna see a picture.
All right. Thank you everyone now. Thank
You everybody.
Bye.