Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. Everybody out there knows me. But many of you probably don't know our expert and author who wrote this book Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager, the updated and revised edition. Good morning to you, Kory. How are you?

Kory Kogon
Good morning. Nice to see you.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's a pleasure having you on the show. And I don't think there's a soul out there, Kory, who literally isn't affected in some way, especially since COVID. And all of us working on computers, about how we manage our time but projects and things we have to do and you know, for the gig worker, this is there and for every other worker, but I'm gonna let my listeners know a little bit about your background so that they know who you are. Kory Kogon is Franklin Covey's vice president of content development, and senior leadership consultant. She's the co-author of the number four Wall Street Journal best seller, the five choices the path to extraordinary productivity, and addition to Project Management Essentials for the Unofficial Project Manager, our book today. And presentation advantage Kory has been featured in inc.com. And in its productivity playbook online series on Fast Company dot coms, forbes.com, and investor Business Daily. She has over 25 years of business experience from the frontline positions it to serving as the executive team member for global franchise organization. This provides her unique perspective on the application of Franklin Covey's world renowned content within organizations. Kory not only understands the strategy and principles necessary to build great leaders systems and winning cultures. But she also understands Franklin Covey's blending blended learning offerings, deliver practical solutions that enable the behavior changes required, or transformational results in organizations. Well, that's quite an intro. So tell us, Kory, how did you end up being at Franklin Covey for as long as you had 25 years? And really diving into a topic which, you know, when you think about it? Yeah, we've all been doing project management since I don't at some point since the industrial air, right. It's like, hey, we've got to get all this stuff done. How did you get into this?

Kory Kogon
Well, first of all, thanks again, Greg, for having me. And thanks for doing that. That intro that was quite the intro. And they've actually been in Franklin Covey for 18 years. So I'm really dating myself, because I have many years of business experience prior to that, as the, as you mentioned, EVP of worldwide operations for a global franchise organization. And so you know, how how I got to doing this was, you know, when you're a franchise organization, the corporate headquarters is really there to support coach and help, you know, businesses become profitable, and meet their mission and vision out there. And so we were always making things everything was a project. And so even at my level reporting to the CEO, we were always coming up with new marketing campaigns and training programs and all of that. So it was part of my DNA early on, and we were Franklin Covey company, so we had a seven habits, culture and productivity culture. And so just all of that mix together, sort of helped me arrive at Franklin Covey working on a lot of you know, becoming a thought leader around leadership productivity, with real world experience from where I had just been out in the field.

Greg Voisen
And so that's coffee, coffee, coffee recruited you away from the company that Covey had all of its content in.

Kory Kogon
No, they didn't. We had there was a new CEO, we parted ways and, and I knocked on Franklin Covey store, and one thing led to another surprise. So, it's a very interesting story, but ended up you know, you think you're gonna do a couple of, you know, a couple of things and some consulting with them. And the next thing you know, I was full time with everything and all like I said, you know, came to bear and what I was doing with Franklin Covey,

Greg Voisen
I mean, you know, Stephen, Mr. Covey, the Son and Stephen Covey. We're definitely just incredible leaders in, in helping businesses transform themselves. And Steven Covey senior came up with so many great foundational ideas that are still being used worldwide today. So it's a franchise that isn't going away, that's for certain. So, you know, your, your, your book outlines three foundational principles. You call it create value lead people manage processes. Can you explain how someone new to project management or anybody can start applying these principals effectively, to better manage a project with inside their organization? Because we have lots of middle line managers listening to this, and they're gonna want to know?

Kory Kogon
Well, it is, you know, one of the things that Franklin Covey is so well known for is that we, we start with a mindset, what is our mindset need to be? So a lot of people when it comes to projects, their mindset is okay, do I have a process? Do I have a game charge? I have something and then how do I tell people what to do. And that doesn't mean that doesn't make people bad. But that's sort of the mindset that they know of our mindset around project management is we go, Aha, wait a minute. It is about, you know, project success equals, making sure there's value in the project, making sure that we've we have a group of engaged people to do the work. And we have a process to pull it all through. So it's sort of that starting place for any project manager, actually, in this day and age. And it's interesting, because only recently as part of why the book was revised, the Project Management Institute, who certifies the official project managers out there, and we take our guidance from them, changed their standard, what they call pin box 17, where value and the agile project management methods really now are front and center. And value is a huge part of it, because so many projects, started out with good intentions, and ended up being something completely different, or didn't meet customer needs after the fact. And so what's the value? How am I checking in to make sure that we are providing value to the client? As we're making the project? How do I inspire people? And then what process Am I using to manage the pieces and tasks of the project to a good finish? That's

Greg Voisen
a great explanation of that. And, you know, any project manager is trying to align people toward a common vision to get it accomplished, right? And carry them through some projects. Like, you know, the sending the Hubble telescope was a 10 year project and billions of dollars in it ran over extensively, I think the government said it was going to be a billion it was 9 billion more, you know, so you always wonder how these projects go awry, that that much arise. So for many of my listeners, they're gonna find themselves in project management roles without any formal training. And that's what this book is about. What are the most common challenges that they would face? And how does the book help address these challenges?

Kory Kogon
Oh, big point that you're making, Greg is this difference between we're not the audience of myself, you and others. We're not building the humble, you know, space thing, or a bridge or anything like that. We are knowledge workers pay to think innovate, create and execute. And so every day we are, you know, like I said earlier, maybe we're making a marketing campaign or a new process for payroll or a training program or something that has a beginning and an end. And we are unofficial project managers. We haven't had the kind of training that the officials sort of had. To answer your question, what that means is us really talented people, you your audience, very talented people sort of intuitively pushing their way through projects. You said this earlier, we've been doing projects for a long time, even at home if you've I mean, if you think about a project, making a dinner is a Thanksgiving dinner, let's say here in the US, it's a project. A wedding is a project. So we've been doing these things at work has become our work. And what has happened is that the failure list has gotten long, and it's become the status quo. So not having clear objectives, lack of communication, having the wrong people in the wrong roles or not the right people in the right roles, scope creep, which is a little bit of trouble but not quite lack of clear expectations, which might have been in hobble as well, those are sort of the top things that come up. Every time I ask the question of a group of people, whether in an organization or, you know, live event, to brainstorm, what are the challenges, and what I just mentioned, are the top ones. And again, it's the status quo every project we do, we're generally going to run into some of them until we get our arms around. Am I doing project management for an as an unofficial project manager, thinking about value the people in the process?

Greg Voisen
Very well said, and I think I want to ask, throw this question in for you. You know, it's only been in the last really six, maybe eight months, that our world has been changed dramatically. So by artificial intelligence, including artificial intelligence is being used in every piece of software imaginable that you can think of, from a sauna to this to that, to whatever, which in itself, is project management. I've actually seen it integrated, in your humble opinion, as you move forward and see these tools being used. How one will the AI help? And to? How do we need to prepare ourselves for that, as project managers?

Kory Kogon
You know, we're doing a lot of work right now on on this integration of AI and people skills, the human capital side of it, because everybody seems to have a little fear that AI is going and we know, I mean, there's some reality where AI is replacing tasks and stuff like that. The best advice I got, and I recommend for others is to not fear AI, but to embrace it. Yeah. And it is once you start using, I mean, everybody can go up to, you know, I'll name one GPT chat for or, you know, I mean, there's Claude, I mean, there's a lot of different ones. I've got one on Microsoft, I just want to be equitable. I'm not a pilot, pilot, copilot, thank you. Yeah, copilot, Gemini. There you go. It's, oh, it's really fun, actually, because what AI will do is relieve you of some of the burden of the tasks that you're doing as a project manager. So I mean, even brainstorming a list of tasks based on a, you know, deliverable that you have, or how it schedules and again, I don't want to get specific, I'm not an expert in AI. But it's amazing when we get over our fear of AI, how we can partner with it to make it another member of the team. So

Greg Voisen
and it really comes down to Kory I humbly I've been using it a lot. And if you can become a good prompt writer, right? Right, meaning it won't work well for you. Unless you feed it good information, then it works very well for you. You can't be in a hurry with it either. I think people, you know, oh, boom, I want to do this, I want to do that I think you need to think through and then really be prepared for that prompt? How are you going to write the prompt? And it will spit out some amazing factual information. Once you do that, you know, so you in in the book, you emphasize the importance of you talked about scope creep, but scoping the project to accurately. And I think for every project manager, if at some point it becomes about scope creep, did we bid this right? We have this included, the clients asking for more is is the salesperson there to say, Hey, this is going to cost more? Could you share some tips on how to define project scope clearly, and why it's critical for project success because scope creep can take up a lot of time.

Kory Kogon
Because it's like my favorite set of words only because it's a provocative, you know, two words. And it really can create such pain and understanding also that sometimes people are not in situations where they can control everything. So those listeners that are thinking, Well, my boss tells me I have to add it, I get it, I get it. I know that I know that feeling, even right before our time together was stealing with a senior stakeholder that we were negotiating, you know a little bit on things but there's a lot in our control that we can do something about so just want to separate that out for a moment so you don't get distracted out there with things you can't control the so first of all, the the scoping part of project management cannot be missed. So even when we do a workshop on this, we probably not probably I know we spend more time in the scope section than we do in a lot of the other sections. Because if you don't set the foundation, right, it sort of messes with every every other part of it. So you really have to identify, first of all, and again, it sounds like it takes a lot of time it doesn't we like to say, faster, slow, slow, is fast, very famous Stephen Covey statement that the better you do front loading, and the more time you put there, the less pain you'll have down the road, the more success you will have, versus going fast and then paying the price later on. So you want to identify all of your stakeholders. And I know it sounds crazy, because people will say, Well, who are you keep pushing? And you mean, my family too? I'm like, Yes, get out everybody that could possibly be touched by this project, in order to not get blindsided in a few weeks by somebody who knocks on your door sends you a text and says, Hey, wait, you forgot about me. We all know that feeling. And it's, you know, the project is slowed down. From there. It'll also help you identify the key stakeholder group, there's a couple of groups that get left out of the we call it the key stakeholder dance, who makes the decisions, who has the authority, who has the need, so dn and C connections and energy, they're not signers, the people with connections are my people out in the field that have a lot of influence, that are, you know, going to, you know, help with those that have a lot of negative energy or whatever. So I got to identify, and we don't think about those people. So I want to make sure I've got the right people at the table as key stakeholders. And I want to make sure that I'm doing a really good interview. So we have templates, but and it's in the book, but whatever you have, you know, this is not a training session, or a talk on how to fill out forms, but you should have a consistent method of what information do I need? And am I asking really good questions, thought provoking questions? And do I know what answers I'm looking for? Which is a really big thing to think about? For a leader to say, or somebody to say, well, we this is really important. That's why we're doing it is not good enough. You need to get into well, what is important really mean to you? Well, it's going to affect how we you know, you know, set up marketing funds for next year. Okay, now I have more of an answer. So we need very clear, very specific information as answers. And the last thing I'll say, in that interview, my favorite line to go back to scope creep, is the question, what will be excluded? What are we not doing in this project? Because it puts guardrails on at least part of the way to know you know what, we're targeting these customers, but not those in this case. So those are a few tips for how do I do this? How do I scope? Stakeholders, key stakeholders have a good set of questions, know what answers do you want? And make sure you're covering? What are we not doing as a question? So we squeezed out assumptions. Well,

Greg Voisen
and I want to encourage the listeners. So if you go to Franklin covey.com. There is a forward slash speaker's bureau and then Kory Kor, why hyphen, Kayo, Gon, you can go there. Then there's a tab that has resources. And there's a resource center. It's also about the books, and what much of what you're talking about the book is up there so they can learn more about the book, you can learn more about the workshops as well. So we'll encourage all of you because as we speak about this, oftentimes you want more information, how do you find out more? So to find out more, just to go to that, we'll put a link in the blog so that you can get to that. Now, you identified that the, you know, interviewing key stakeholders is really very critical early step. And I would agree you have to identify who they are, right? what their role is, what strategies would you recommend for engaging stakeholders who are resistant or are indifferent about actually, you know, being part of the project?

Kory Kogon
So sometimes the so as a VP, myself and at an executive leadership for many years, I can see it from both sides. Because I might be one of those people that somebody is trying to get my attention and I'm really busy. So if somebody is running after me saying, hey, Kory, we're doing a project, we need some, we need some of your time. That's good. I'm not going to really. And don't judge me on this, I'm just being really honest. I, you know what, in the 50 requests that I get a day, that one isn't going to catch, my eye might let that drop to the bottom of the inbox, right? But when somebody comes to me and says, Kory, we are working on a project, that is an event based project that we're shooting for 20% Higher involvement than last year, in order to help generate 30% more leads for our sales effort. Do you mind answering a few questions? Now you have my attention, because you piece the thing together in a very concrete, tangible way. So I know what my role is. And that stuff is really important to me. So, so I'm going to give you my time. So that's, I'm telling you, Greg, that is the major difference, both to both of those that you said resistant and different. In different, you gotta find what floats their boat, or maybe you don't, maybe it's the wrong key stakeholder, right? So why would they be a key stakeholder on this? And once you answer that question for yourself, then connect the dots for them as to why it would be worth their time to talk to you, you may not get 100% of people based on what I just said, but you will raise the percentages dramatically.

Greg Voisen
Well, I think when you're speaking to someone like yourself, you have to communicate the challenge. In other words, for people like you to get your attention, especially if it's somebody who's working on a project, and they parsed it out the way they parsed it out the way you said it, the communication, it became abundantly clear that that was more of a challenge for you. That was something that you could spend your time wisely doing. And I believe when we do give people in upper positions, a challenge, they rise to the order because they're curious, and they want to have their input put in. And that brings me to you talking about? Let's just talk about this way, our teams. So what, how can the unofficial project manager best engage their team, especially when the team members and here's the big part may have some competing priorities are varying levels of commitment? Which is this is always the case because it doesn't matter what company? Most people are wearing many hats. All right. And those hats, because of other people in there, they're trying to spin the plates and keep them all go. So what do you do to kind of get alignment and get people on the team engaged?

Kory Kogon
Oh, keep in mind this whole time is we're talking about project management. In my mind, we're not ever talking about one project. Nobody, most people out there don't have just one product, at least in the in the larger Well, small organizations, large organizations, if you solo entrepreneur, you are juggling a few things. So I don't want to say it's never one project, we have a lot going on. So it could be six, seven and eight projects that are going on at the same time that these people are engaged in and are being pulled in a million directions. The other thing, Greg, that you set and so so they have a lot of priorities. But the other thing that gets thrown into the recipe is that a lot of of your listeners may not have chosen to lead people, they wanted to do a project and at the end of the day end up having to lead people. And that is, you know, that wasn't the expectation. And so to add to it, it's I need to lead people in today's world in a way that inspires them to want to show up to play and win versus you saying, you know, okay, here, just do it. I mean, that's a really, a really big part of, of this is that people who never wanted to lead people are leading people. And it's why we really distill down to just a few behaviors that if leaders or project managers did really well they have a really great chance of inspiring the people on their team. have to really want to do the work. And the other thing that's sort of the companion to that is that in many cases, these people don't functionally report to the project manager. And so that's so now I never wanted to be a leader. They don't even directly report to me, but I need to inspire them. How do I do it? And it's and so that's sort of the cocktail of it all. And it takes these five behaviors, that if we just get those done really well, we have a good chance of inspiring our people. Would you like to? Well,

Greg Voisen
yeah, and you have to keep them inspired? Let's definitely, but you have to keep them engaged. And yes, I do want to hear them. Yeah.

Kory Kogon
So I mean, because I, you know, I said a lot there because this idea of and so I just want to bring this home. And we always say and then Stephen said this years ago, but well before its time, and it became so apparent, particularly after the pandemic, is that in today's world, people it on teams, we need to lead them in a way that they're willing to volunteer their best efforts, volunteer their best efforts, we can't, because they're knowledge workers. So it's not like we can, you know, you know, count widgets, it's what people want to give of themselves. So that's what I mean by engagement and inspiration. And so the five behaviors are as follows. Number one, you know, we need to, and again, it's gonna sound like what your parents taught you, but it's what you need to do these underpressure, I need to demonstrate respect to the team, I need to listen first, I need to clarify expectations for the team. I don't mean on the project, I mean, even how they their work, is not just a bunch of tasks, but how their work is a contribution to the project. And they can see a line of sight to you know why this project even exists. I need to extend trust to them, I can't do it all myself, I need to delegate to them and trust them. And finally, I need to practice accountability. I need to, you know, first of all, model accountability, and I need to hold the team accountability. Because Greg, if you show up three days in a row to our meeting late, then you know Sandy's gonna go well, I, Greg, nothing happens to Greg. So, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know, take the kids to school today, you know, because what the heck. So those are the five behaviors? Well,

Greg Voisen
I'm glad you outlined the behaviors, because two that stood out for me, and not just because they were the last two. But trust and accountability, I think, on the trust one, a lot of times people who are heads or running the project, they have a challenge with this trust factor, meaning, you know, if I want to get it done, right, I got to do it myself attitude, right. And it's not the way it should be. It should be. If I want to get it done, I have to inspire the team. And I have to trust. And even if they do make a mistake, I have to let them make that mistake. Right. And we have ways or options to correct it. And then I think the account ability is it's really just looking at everybody's ability to be accountable. Right. And and those are really important when you are meeting timelines, deadlines, projects, things you've got to do report to customers and so on. What are some of the best practices for choosing a project? And why is it important to have a formal plan? Or what is it closing? Sorry? Yeah. closing, closing a project to me. I mean, I've closed a lot of projects, but then they come back up and bite me in the butt. Because I thought they were closed, and they weren't really closed. Because the client comes back and says, Oh, yeah, you forgot to do this, or you forgot to do that. And those to me are scope creep, because it wasn't managed during the project. So speak with us about that closing the project? Well,

Kory Kogon
you answered your own question, because, you know, it goes back to the scoping upfront and making sure everybody's on the same page. And you know, I don't know we'll talk a little bit about this, one of the elements is track and adapt. So as we go through just these check ins along the way, that's that's the value part to make sure that and the whole agile thing is instead of waiting until the end, where they call you and say, Hey, Greg, excuse me, you forgot a few things. Not that that would happen, but it was your example, that we are in our planning, really just making sure that we have connection points, checking in making sure we're on target, you know, all all of that the court is when you get to the closing, you know, a lot of times well, you get to the closing everybody's like ready to go on to the other six projects that they will Working on and even I am like closing meeting I will roll my eyes a little bit. But for the client and you it is really important for the reasons that you just gave, let's make sure that we're ticked and tied as of today. So like a balance sheet check in, we're done. And then it sort of gives you a line in the sand when they come back to you. And said, this is important, particularly if you're a really small business, because you don't want this money going out of your pocket. You set that line where Yeah, we got it. So when they call you back, and say, Well, wait a minute, I want this, now you're talking about sort of a new project or an add on. So really important just not to let it just fade away. But you know, you you want to make sure that we have the closing meeting, make sure everything is done as planned. Internally, it's really I say, roll my eyes, the internal one, it is really important for the team to be able to first of all celebrate the good work they did. So go remember what I said about inspiration, engagement, obviously, you're going to hold people accountable in both ways. When they don't, it's going to happen. They didn't meet their commitments. And we have all kinds of tips and tools for how you have those kinds of conversations. The end of the project when it's complete, you even if it wasn't perfect, you want to celebrate the things that went well, and then move into what did we learn? And the Agile world world culture and retrospective? So it's a very key part of it to say, what did we learn? What can we do better next time, and archiving all of those things. So when we do this type of project, again, we're not starting from scratch, I said to you, before I roll my eyes a little bit like oh god, we have a closing meeting, you know, it's going to take time. And you can tell I'm very operational and very black and white. But when we do the meetings are at the end of it, it's it's like a saying, you know, Oh, I'm so glad we went to dinner with Mary and Tom, even though we didn't want to go, we had such a great time. Same thing with this, having a closing meeting, the team is so engaged, and you get a real peek into how inspired they are for the next project. So really important to hold. I'm

Greg Voisen
glad I'm glad you mentioned agile because that word gets thrown around so much in today's world. And you did talk about tracking and adapting throughout a project, what I'd like to know is if you could give a situation or a pivotal case where things didn't go well, and ones where they went exactly as planned. And you felt like the project was a success in a lot of cases, people will finish a project or they think they're finished. And it wasn't a success. Many things went wrong along the way. And you have had so much time to look at so many projects, as somebody who does what you do, I figured you'd have two great examples.

Kory Kogon
Oh, an example well, of a big pivot. And this goes back to the project manager and how they handle the emotions of it as well as the functionality of it. But we have a case study of an organization. So think, you know, the pandemic and all of that a couple years now we're a couple of years out of it, right. And so a lot of organizations are doing live, you know, meetings for their kickoffs, and you know, all of that. So this organization, which is an IT, not a start up, but it's been around for a while, and they were going to have their first live in person meeting outside the United States. So you can get a sense for the scope of putting that together figure about 1000 employees, something like that. And so they went to work on it, and a couple of weeks before, I mean, it's, you know, what goes into the hotels, and the food and the activities and all of that. And about two weeks before the event, the company purchased, it was there was a merger. And the merger had to happen right at the time of the event. And so many of the people that would be in the event would have to work. And so they had to shift the whole project and to another time. And so I give you I give you that example, because just like your reaction, the reaction by everybody was crazy. I mean, everybody was out of their minds and the fear around what about the hotel and the fees, and you know, all of this, and the project manager almost lost her cool with a two inch editor. She lost her pool with her boss, which was okay, right? They were in the privacy of his office, and she was able to let off that steam. And then she got in front of the whole project team, which is a huge group. And you could sense that she almost let it go too far. emotionally because you have to be, you can't be overly optimistic like, Hey, this is great if it doesn't work out. She also couldn't, you know, like, oh my god, this is the worst thing that ever happened, you know, the leader really has to lead out under these kinds of circumstances. So, and they ended up having a great event they managed to mitigate to the CFO was involved in mitigated, you know, some of the additional costs, they, you know, wrote off some of the costs back to the merger, and everybody lives happily ever after. So, you can that's

Greg Voisen
a good, that's a really good example, it really is of someone pivoting. Right. And she had to pivot. Now, can you share an example where you had a project plan? And it went just exceptionally well? You know, it was a, it was like a a plus plus plus, case nn Nn. So doing, what was it that you think made it such a success? Meaning, what were the alignment of the stars that created this project to just go like, it was under budget, it was it completed early, the client was happy, everything went well.

Kory Kogon
You know, those are very few and far between.

Greg Voisen
I was trying to pick back up in the brain to see if I can see if there was one back and I

Kory Kogon
can use. It's probably unfair, but I think that I'm gonna use this but because every project has, has its ups and downs and ins and outs. So so it's hard to say, Well, which one was perfect, I will tell you the project. And this is not fair, the project that went really well was rewriting this book.

Greg Voisen
Okay, there you go.

Kory Kogon
And I say it's unfair, because I have a small team that I work well with, the key stakeholders were completely bought in to what we would do winning. And so, you know, sometimes you do have a couple of people, I'm always careful with saying go to people, because then they end up getting the burden of everything. So that's another leadership moment, conversation. But I have a few go to people that we just work really, really well together and inspire each other. And so it started on time, it went flawlessly ended on time. And, you know, the publisher was thrilled. Well,

Greg Voisen
and they're aligned, you know, this is BenBella book, and I don't know if it was Matt Holt or not. But if it was, then BenBella as being run now by Matt Holt. It's a wonderful book, and it's very well laid out and you guys did a great job. So what tools or resources do you find indispensable for project management? Now, we said, we weren't going to endorse anything. But we realized Gantt charts and all these various tools that are out there, especially for those who are not formally trained in the field. You know, we've got aI now that's actually doing, you know, creating your schedule for you. You know, I see it happening. And I think, you know, I haven't used that software yet. And I think all those who are listening understand which one I'm talking about, but what it what are some of the tools or resources you find indispensable that you speak about in the book. And

Kory Kogon
I know that because I'll say this besides the people, because they're the most indispensable, you can't do this without people. So that's one. The, you mentioned the Gantt chart. So I want to go there for a moment because really, project management revolves around the principles of a Gantt chart. So I know your listeners are shuttering already that I said that word. Here's what I here's what here's what I would say. There's a few things what happens is organizations will say here uses project management software. So I'll name a couple of Microsoft Project or smart sheets on the Google site is Mondego. Asana, there's a few you know, out there that people people work with and a lot of people it's funny when I pull people on what they use, and this is for years now, the number to this day, the number one answer do you want to guess what the number one answer they give me on what they use? Excel? Exactly. Excel number one response because people know how to make columns. They do some formulas and stuff like that. And Microsoft project and name one just like Google is with Google Sheet. is all it is is Excel with some Um, other project management principles embedded in them, for instance, dependencies. So because well, let me go back, what I was saying was that what happens in organizations they might give out and say here, use project, it's gonna make you, you know, very productive, and you open it up and you go not for me, you close it never to be seen again, because you don't really understand it. And what you don't understand beyond what looks like Excel is things like dependencies, this idea of ordering the tasks of the project. But then being crystal clear about Wait a minute, I can't do this task before that task, and hooking them together in the software. And you'll you'll understand that in a moment. So when we're hooking these things together, the software even before AI is doing the work in the background, that's going to help you make your on timeliness based on the way you're scheduling. The second one, and this is demystifying the Gantt chart in three minutes. The second thing that I can't live without is duration, versus work hours. And again, these are time management principles, even if you never open a Gantt chart, because a lot of times what happens is the boss says Kory, can you do? You know, can you pull together that customer list? How fast can you do that? I'm like, Oh, wait, I just need a few hours, I need for three hours. What really, but I need Greg to help me and I need Mary and Greg's out doing his podcast today and Mary's on PTO. And so those three hours, I can't get done for three days. So the duration that I'm building into the schedule is not three hours, it's three days, all of those things, dependencies duration, all get cooked together and calculated together to come out with the critical path, which is the most amazing part of the Gantt chart, because it shows you all of the things that have to be done exactly on time in order to hit a deadline. And it just turns the Gantt chart into a strategic management tool for you. So regardless of what tool it it's named, be open minded to try again sharp because you can do it with a very simple project.

Greg Voisen
That is brilliantly said, now, to throw something in there. You know, when we start something, we have to innovate it, we've got to create it. We were working with something, what are your thoughts around? And I've seen this and there's a company and a gentleman who has been on my podcast, Chris Griffis open genius, the software is a Oh, and I'm not doing this for a plug, I'm doing it because mind mapping can actually turn into a Gantt chart on his software. So in other words, if you were to mind map something, and then you take the mind map, and it actually creates the foundation for the Gantt chart, and then you put in the timelines, it seems like mind mapping to Gantt charting is really a good solution. Do you have any thoughts about that? I

Kory Kogon
think that's amazing, you'll have to tell me, you have to send me the name, I'd like to look that up. Because we do say that brainstorming is an enormous tool. In Project Management, you'll see some mind maps, you know, in the book, as well. Because it's sort of even when you go back to the stakeholders, you want to mindmap you want to brainstorm all of the stakeholders and the key stakeholders. And then you want to brainstorm all of the deliverables and the components that break down under it, you want to, you know, brainstorm all of the tasks. So I love that because that is such a key component. And then of course, not everything that you bring, this is where the human side of AI comes into play. Because not everything you brainstormed shouldn't be included. Right? It was just a brainstorm. So I'm sure there's a mechanism there where a turns goes from the mindmap into the schedule into the Gantt chart, and you're obviously doing some editing to the take out what you don't want, or you're highlighting, which do I think it sounds pretty cool. I'm

Greg Voisen
gonna introduce you to Chris, he's the CEO and founder of open genius, and you guys can take it from there. But my point is, yes, it has AI in it, yes, it does this wonderful thing. But what I'm trying to get to that for people is, you know, when a project starts, all the stakeholders who want to be included in it when you're developing this, mind mapping is a great way to pull in all of those ideas, and then call them out, you know, kind of go through this iterative process to say okay, which is important to this project, and then work from there. So, managing long term projects can be challenging. It's always challenging doesn't matter if it's one month, one year or five years. What advice can you offer to maintain momentum and keep teams motivated throughout the duration? Have a project because, you know, I know that I've managed projects that are long. And sometimes I wake up in the morning and go, Oh, my God, I've got to go back and work on that project again today is that when not done yet? You know, I'm not as motivated anymore. And I know many people when they get long, long duration projects, as I know, we're supposed to see the vision at the end. But sometimes it gets a little hazy.

Kory Kogon
You know, no, no doubt. And myself, too, you know, I work on year long, you know, projects. It's not as I want to speed them up. Again, you can only go as fast as some of the humans, you know, and everything that goes with it. I will say that the first thing and this is a big topic for me, I do think that more should be said around keeping people engaged through the length of a project, because we're going to start with Well, you got to use the five behaviors, you know, so if you demonstrate respect, and you listen, first you do you know, all of that, they'll be inspired all the way through, have so so if you not, if you are not leading that way, you're in for a long haul. And you're going to have remember what I said slow is fast, if you are not leading them in a way that inspires them to want to volunteer the best efforts, six months down the road, you're going to have a hard time finding them, let alone, you know, inspiring them. And so that's that's a baseline, I would you have to be creative, because a few things happen towards the end of a project. First of all, people are tired of it like Greg was talking about. But also some of the more involved stakeholders start to I'm going down a psychological road here, start to get very tense. Because we're coming to the end of the project, we're like in the second half of it, and they get tense. And that is the worst place for scope creep to occur. That's that's the trap. Because what happens when I've seen on every single project that I've worked on, you know, that's even even at dinner, you know, what happens? It's like, well, wait a minute, did I remember the carrots to do Oh, we didn't have enough food? Or we know, maybe we should make some more potatoes, because we knew we had it all measured out, right? And then we start to reach the end, and everybody starts to get a little crazed. Like, oh my god, what if we got it wrong. And so as a leader, you need to be aware of of of those things, I have to keep them inspired, leading them the best way I can add various and having these breaks of milestone check ins, and just stopping and sort of cutting up the project into smaller chunks, gives you a new beginning and ends you have the what we call the primacy, recency effect, where it's almost like, Okay, well, we finish that, let's start again, on this other one. So instead of it just being one long thing, we have these breaks where it's like, okay, that's done. Let's start over. And now that's just the human psyche, and how we think in chunks, rather than long things. And remember what I said, you're gonna have to work at keeping people calm, and not giving into you want to listen to people's feedback, but calming people down as you get towards the end of the project, and they get fear sets in. Did we get that? Right? And so see human response.

Greg Voisen
I think also, in the human responses. We, most people that work on these projects, they're curious, so they're looking for something different, right? And when you when you come every day to the same old thing, you know, and you don't see anything new, anything exciting, anything different. It's like, okay, I'm trying to plod this forward to completion to getting it closed. You you get a bit depressed. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm still here. So in wrapping this interview up, I have two things. One, everybody go out and get project management for the unofficial project manager to I'm going to recite the website again it's Franklin covey.com Ford slash speakers hyphen Bureau, forged last Corey, KR, why hyphen que Ogon. And there you can learn more about that. And I would like to invite you as well, Kory, because I think the predecessor book the five choices, the path to extraordinary productivity. I know we're having David Allen on here in the next couple of weeks. That's and and David and I have been good friends and he's got a new book called teams. And and the thing I want to do is offer that up to you and to any closing words for project managers who are listening right now who you think could you could provide I had a resource with or a tip or an idea, or something you could do that they could immediately apply to the project they're working on today, because they just listened to his podcast. And they're like, Okay, these guys talked about a lot of stuff. But I'm right in the middle of this project, what can Corey, tell me to actually keep me going?

Kory Kogon
Well, I mean, two things. One is a little bit of motivational ones a little more tactical. So, you know, since you, you opened up with this, but since the pandemic, the the level of innovation skyrocketed, because we needed new everything, new systems, and new ways of working, and all of that kind of stuff. So project management is really the in skill set for knowledge workers. So the predictions of how many project managers will be out there in a few years is, you know, really, really amazing. And, again, remember with AI, somebody needs to lead the projects, no matter what. So that human side of that, so you're in a really good place that if you are working on projects continue, because it's the place to be, if you are currently on a project, and you are saying like Greg said, Okay, well, I have everything I heard today, where do I start? I would go back to looking and again, you might be way down the road on it, but it doesn't matter. I would go back and look at your scope, and say, Did I ask the right questions? Do I have all the information? You know, to what I need? And am I do I have a really good foundation here? Or did I leave something out? Or did I lead somebody out that I can catch up with now, that's what I would leave you with?

Greg Voisen
I think that part about something out or someone out is really a good tip. In other words, continually ask yourself questions internally, as you forward the project to progression and closure about who is it that I need? What's the resource I need? Where can I get that? When do I insert it into this project? Because as projects move forward, you don't always you haven't identified all the resources, you have to find resources that can actually add to the value of that project as you move along. And I And that's either people or other resources, or money or software or whatever it might be. But it always seems to happen. And Kory, it's been a pleasure having you on I'd like to have you back on again, for your other book. And thank you for being on inside personal growth and sharing your wisdom, wisdom and expertise. And again, there's the book Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager, updated and revised edition. Go out and get yourself a copy. We'll have a link on Amazon. Namaste to you. Thank you so much for being on. Have a wonderful rest of your afternoon.

Kory Kogon
Thank you, Greg, you too. Appreciate you having me.