This was a great interview with a project management professional who has been involved with many fields that a project manager may encounter across multiple industries. I was impressed with the incredible breadth of David's knowledge. His understanding of key concepts in communication skills like active listening the importance of continuing education, and staying curious were refreshing and important to all project managers planning to grow their careers.
Embark on a transformative journey with David Abodunrin, the project management wizard whose career weaves through the complex fabrics of telecommunications, oil and gas, and the arts. As an engineer turned program manager, David shares the secrets behind conquering colossal projects and steering through the agile ecosystem, all while keeping an eye keenly trained on the future of cyber security. His narrative is a masterclass in combining technical acumen with an almost alchemical talent for creative problem-solving, proving that project management is indeed an art form of its own.
Strap in for a deep exploration of the nuanced dance between methodology and mindset, where David illustrates the pivotal role of communication in the project management ballet. It's about more than conveying ideas—it's about orchestrating behavioral change to hit those high notes of project success. From the subtle art of empathetic listening through active listening to the rapid response needed to tackle cyber threats, this episode is a treasure map for the modern project manager seeking to navigate the ever-shifting sands of stakeholder engagement and the digital landscape.
Join us for a session that promises to leave you equipped with insights that are as practical as they are profound.
Favorite Tool(s):
Links:
PMI Talent Triangle: Technical /Ways of Working - Leadership/Power Skills - Strategy/Business Acumen (Learn More)
Get your free PDU Tracker here: https://pm-mastery.com/resource/
This was a great interview with a project management professional who has been involved with many fields that a project manager may encounter across multiple industries. I was impressed with the incredible breadth of David's knowledge. His understanding of key concepts in communication skills like active listening the importance of continuing education, and staying curious were refreshing and important to all project managers planning to grow their careers.
Embark on a transformative journey with David Abodunrin, the project management wizard whose career weaves through the complex fabrics of telecommunications, oil and gas, and the arts. As an engineer turned program manager, David shares the secrets behind conquering colossal projects and steering through the agile ecosystem, all while keeping an eye keenly trained on the future of cyber security. His narrative is a masterclass in combining technical acumen with an almost alchemical talent for creative problem-solving, proving that project management is indeed an art form of its own.
Strap in for a deep exploration of the nuanced dance between methodology and mindset, where David illustrates the pivotal role of communication in the project management ballet. It's about more than conveying ideas—it's about orchestrating behavioral change to hit those high notes of project success. From the subtle art of empathetic listening through active listening to the rapid response needed to tackle cyber threats, this episode is a treasure map for the modern project manager seeking to navigate the ever-shifting sands of stakeholder engagement and the digital landscape.
Join us for a session that promises to leave you equipped with insights that are as practical as they are profound.
Favorite Tool(s):
Links:
PMI Talent Triangle: Technical /Ways of Working - Leadership/Power Skills - Strategy/Business Acumen (Learn More)
Get your free PDU Tracker here: https://pm-mastery.com/resource/
The real problem with cybersecurity is like the work of a policeman when there is no crime, people don't know what you go through.
Intro/Outro:Welcome to the PM Mastery podcast. This podcast is all about helping you master your project management skills by sharing tips, tricks, tools and training to get you to the next level, while sharing the stories of other project managers on their journey in project management. And now here's your host, walt Sparling.
Walt:All right, welcome everybody to the current edition of PM Mastery. And today I have with me David Abadurin. And David, did I get close on that one?
David:Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me Excited to be here.
Walt:Glad to have you on. So David and I have been trying to hook this up for, oh, probably two months, a couple of months. Yeah, yeah, yeah we had to rescheduling, and then we had some zoom issues, and so I'm glad we finally pulled it together.
David:Yep. Eventually we pulled it together.
Walt:So I'm going to start out, david, with having you tell us a little bit about who you are as an individual, where you're from, maybe anything personal that you'd like to share, and then we'll dive into what you do and why you do it.
David:Okay, my name is David. Thank you so much for having me, walt, excited to be here today. A little bit of cold here, so my voice might be a little bit croaky. Well, thank you, and I'm excited to actually be here. I've got experience. Started my career outright Right after my engineering degree they're about 2003,.
David:20 to 23. My first job really was there about year 2000ish. So I've got above two decades of experience, walked across different industries but started out in engineering, the telecommunications, and they moved into project management consulting, done human capital consulting because I've been involved in rollouts of solutions across different kind of a state. So I got human capital et al experience, but all along the technology IT project axis then forwarded into some very heavy work in the agile realm of project management and the program management. Have a couple of certifications within the project management remate, agile remate. That's within the agile world and also within it.
David:I'm much more recently I went to do a second master's degree in cybersecurity, threat intelligence and cyber forensics. So when it comes to cybersecurity projects or cyber forensics project or threat intelligence project, and very much at home or programs, I'm also I have an MBA from the old international business school that I did in 2021. And then I did a second master's in cybersecurity in 2021-22. Before then, I've been involved in rolling out different complex projects and programs across different domains industries oil and gas, no for profit technology and IT and I've got rich experiences along that remit, with loads of certifications covering the different areas of things I've done over the years. For me, the key is the desire to serve and do quality job and give serious value to whoever my stakeholders are at that particular point in time. This curiosity has led me in my career to do the whatever it's. Whatever people say it's not doable, that's what I try to do.
Walt:OK, so project program management, agile, cyber, a lot of areas in there. That's diverse. And you said you worked in oil and gas. You've worked in technology, Yep.
David:IT technology, telecommunications, oil and gas no for profit manufacturing fast moving consumer goods. And also I had the rare blessing of being the first project management and value director for the largest marketing communications group in West Africa. Ok, and so I was. I have a rare blessing of having worked in the creative industry. Not just the techy, techy background. I have that rare capability and I was that rare experience. And I was in charge of the productive of the creative production shop flow. So the idea, the strategy at the time of the business was to try and use project and program management and value engineering to drive organization and enterprise value for the group, for the marketing communications group. Interesting experience, little beautiful lessons, radical departure from my techy background. But I was there for about five years and I've not lost my love for creativity based on that experience.
Walt:Awesome. So very diverse, definitely a diverse background. Yep, now okay, so you've we've talked, you've done the marketing, you've done technology, you've done cyber. What has driven you to pursue project management and program management and work in these different arenas? What drives you?
David:Well, what drives me is value has always been what are the problems that need to be solved per time? My story into my foreign to project management was that as a young engineer, I was an engineer and there were problems that my engineering understanding. As a young transmission telecommunications engineer, my engineering capabilities could not solve those problems. I tried as much to deliver a lot of value for my customers, my clients and other departments that I worked with at the time within the telecommunications space. But I found that pretty quickly that I had silo silo capability. Silo capability is when you're pretty. In a silo you're strong as a professional. Yes, you know what you're doing, but you could not scale and solve larger problems. This was the and then, while looking around, I saw this PM guys. I got very senior project managers 30 years, 40 years experience at a time who were the seniors who directed the program as a program director. And then he saw my love for reporting and order and strategic holistic thinking and he called me and said have you talked about dream project and program management? Have you told them? That picked my interest and before you knew it, I went to the certification. I got a PMP certification and that was my story. It was because I wanted to solve bigger problems than because engineers were all bumping around their tiny solutions and for an engineer, that's your remit, that's your baby. But it's a small part of the big picture. It's a very small part. So the personal pieces, the big picture together, was one of the strong desires and one of the things that moved me in the direction of project management. So I got into it project and program management.
David:Then, along the line I had some problems again, problems or challenges. Value was threatened in that we delivered the project as designed. Excellent project schedule, done on time. We did well. Some delay, like 10% delay, but that's acceptable in my own world view and the project brought at the time. We delivered on the budget amazing team. We did the documentation, everything was fine. But the product arrived in the market useless as built. The desire of the customer and the market had moved on.
David:That was an eureka moment for me. I remember sitting down and I was beating myself and I was speaking to this mentor who would become my mentor because after we left that company he became my mentor in my career. Then I told him what I went to and how disappointed, just called me one day and said he's not here for me in about six months. What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? You sound quiet, you sound low. You know your bubbly self. I said boss, I call him boss. I said boss just made a very big mistake. And all of that I am saying to myself how come I didn't pick this problem up? It isn't my problem, it is the product owner's problem or the company who is initiating or who contracted us. I felt how did I see that the market was going to move Because the client trusted us so much? And how did we do this? It was not my remit at all. So now I laughed at me and said well, take a hat, ask any doctor who's lost the patient? This is the feeling as a project manager. Some projects will die, some products will not see the light of the day. So please cheer up and let's have lunch and let me share with you some new thinking.
David:Then that's the first time I heard about Agile. Then he told me about Agile and I went to research and he said wow, you mean this existed. We did all this stuff. I said, no, don't worry, you didn't know. You didn't know. That's the year 2010, 2011, 2012.
David:That started the journey into the Agile world and became a scrollmaster advanced scrollmaster then I took the certification right after that. Then I went into Agile coaching. I've helped organizations to move from waterfall to Agile. Because I was a PM core PM myself. I knew the struggles organizations go through to move from traditional waterfall thinking into Agile thinking. So I've been able to. I just love solving problems and adding value wherever there's a challenge. So this is the story of my movement around.
David:I've been for my trajectory into cybersecurity. I've always been in security as a project manager, but for cybersecurity. So I've always been in security. Again, because I witnessed on bridges in some of my telecoms projects and then again I stumbled on the fact that security was going to be a big issue. I went for a conference because then it was a PMI conference and they were discussing. I went to the technology group, the special the room, the breakout room at the PMI Congress of that year, latin American Congress of that year, where they discussed all the emerging trends in IT project and program management and then they discussed some glitches and in mirror, some experiences I was having back home. This led me into this, brought the problem into my radar and I began to focus more. Then I began to notice very interesting unique challenges with IT, cybersecurity, project and program management, particularly that Ajai could solve. There's some things that Ajai would do along would go a long way to help resolve. So this led me into all of that and began to think about it and it got more fascinating the more I dug into it and then that culminated in me going for that second masters because I really was interested in.
David:I saw we will have some serious challenges ahead of us in cybersecurity and project and program managers who can help to deploy solutions faster, quicker in a way that budgets are secured, because the real problem with cybersecurity is like the work of a policeman. When there is no crime, people don't know what you go through. So when you ask for budget and there's no crime, you're like we spent money last month, we bought you vans last week, why are you asking me for more money this year? And then when they say crime, then they say damn, you should not do your job. When there's no crime, they wondering what are we spending money for?
David:As a cyber security works Well, you prevent crime, thank you. We prevent crime, but people don't know what goes behind the scenes to ensure that a burglar doesn't come into a room. So many CSOs and CIOs always battle to explain to execs how to justify the cyber spend. So project managers and program managers who can help articulate that in between the business analyst, the cyber architect, the business analyst and the PMs who can help to implement that and also make it more affordable, using life cycle engineering models to deliver projects and programs in a way and manner that the company has bigger benefits than just deploying servers, which was still gonna pay for next year, will be in high demand. It's an area of huge concern. Technica PMs who know the cyber world from the user and exec perspective and can also deploy solutions in a budget friendly way will be a big issue as we go into the future and we see the emerging threats coming across, different infrastructure and different organizations and businesses.
Walt:You've talked a lot about some items that like the cyber and delivering cost effective solutions in a timely manner. You talked about your one failure, where the product was no longer desired in the market and so you switch. Now you know moving forward, and that's common with software. That's why they do agile, because the features may go away or a new feature comes out and you can't start over. You just have to figure how to roll it into it.
Walt:So, and then marketing you did that for a while, so marketing communications, the creative industry, advertising out of home yes, yes so one of the things I commonly ask is is how do you continue to learn and keep up? Now, most PMs are typically in one or two industries. Many are just in one and that's their focus or a technical, or they're a construction, or they're a marketing or a medical, so they can really focus on what kind of coursework or what kind of personal skills that they can continue to grow in. What do you do to keep up, because you have quite a plate of options there.
David:Okay, what you asked me is a very tricky question because I can't answer for anyone. I wish I had an answer that everyone would buy into, or that's how everyone does it, but for me, I remain curious. When people get comfortable, they get less curious. I maintain curiosity, sorry, I maintain curiosity no matter how comfortable I am. Secondly, I try to use my PM, understand their knowledge to solve problems. I try to apply that. That's what led me to the creative industry.
David:I was discussing with a friend of mine who explained to me the challenges they were going through and how they were having challenges quantifying value. Their clients were asking for return on advertising dollars and as I listened to this, my friend in Lagos, nigeria, talked to me about the problem. I knew I could solve it. I knew I knew what to do. That's not copy him. That is earned value management and how do you use end value management to solve that problem? So, in situ, when you see life happening, are you able to identify the concept from the textbook and recognize that? That's the scenario, define what is SPI, cpi, shadow variance, and you can apply it to a business life scenario, although the context doesn't present itself like a PM moment in the life of the consumer or the business need. This is one of my key capacities. I'm able to take any PM concepts other than scope management. All of them Excuse me.
David:I had the rare blessing of training to be a PMP curriculum From the back of my hand. I can teach and train it. I could teach and train it and I got familiar pretty quickly with the concept. So when I see real life scenarios I'm able to apply it. So my curious mind could just see SPI in any conversation. My curious mind could hear a risk log. My curious mind could hear risk identification, risk quantification both the qualitative analysis and the quantitative analysis the risk response and what it means practically. And how do you monitor and control risks on a continuous basis? How do you institute a good risk culture? All of those things beyond the textbook and the context of a project. I'm able to apply it to different scenarios because my curious mind can match it.
David:One of the beautiful challenges I've helped some organizations of came from that same thing the zone that the traditional waterfall PM or team or organization is in versus the zone that agile exists. How do you make that mental shift when you understand someone's ignorance and where the pulse of the ignorance is situated in the subconscious mind. Making that adjustment in the conscious mind and bypassing all their resistances into the zone of the subconscious becomes easier. So I have the rare privilege of being able to empathize and listen at a very subliminal level to a challenge and then find applicability and also design solutions in a way that the person is able to assimilate, no matter their world view. This pushes me to challenges and I give a caveat what if it doesn't work? We learn to wait to not work. So I'm very bold with taking on challenges. 90% of the time I get it right and you learn if you don't.
David:And then, if I don't, I learn. So what will I lose? I've learned something that will not work. The other thing is that I go to conferences and I do a lot of personal work in futurism. I ponder a lot about what will happen, how industries will pan out Like, for example. We have no choice. We will have most camps in the future because we are getting much more addicted to devices. Sorry about that.
David:Practically, we live online, we live our lives online and the volume of transactions that happen online and we trends like crime as a service, where people are investing $200 every month and they are crowdfunding to detect how they're gonna break into systems and organizations cyber crimes will increase. Now that's a sweet spot and organizations, like I said, would need to deploy solutions faster, quicker, more affordable and they would need to deploy features faster than traditional waterfall can allow us. All of these kinds of bodies of thinking will move me quickly and I'm gonna try something. That's where I think I'll try something new. Once I see something, I'll try something new, and I've had some very bad experiences where some things did not work out, met some people who took advantage of that my curiosity, but the experience with curiosity. I will try again and learn. Most cases have been very positive. So that's how I keep myself up to speed and, like I said, I attend conferences and seminars and learn as much as I can.
Walt:All right. So with that challenges, I mean you've indicated some issues that you've run into and it sounded like there were some challenges along the way. But if you had to call out something, or maybe something consistent that you run into, what would it be? Around the concept of challenges?
David:Communication is the chief challenge of every PM. If you solve the communication problem, you will, and that's what the textbook says. Another name for Proger Manager Communicator. But I've experienced it in real life there is almost no PM problem, no PM challenge, no management issue. That communication was not part of the problem, or good communication would not have been a part of the solution. Or whenever the solution will come, communication communication is actually underrated for people to understand it.
David:When the exact picture in David's mind gets into world's mind, then communication has happened. And what gives? And unworld gives me a feedback in behavior, not audio. When his behavior is modified on a consistent basis to the original intention I had in mind, then that is, the communication has been installed and it requires maintenance. So my concept of communication is that you're trying to build a house in someone's mind that will lead to change of behavior or bring new outcomes. The traditional textbooks stop with understanding. If you can give me feedback to you, comprehend what I'm saying, right. But I would say no. Is there a behavior change that eventually leads to some results?
Walt:Okay, so communication is definitely a challenge but, like you said, if you work that out, that leads to a lot of solutions.
David:Yep, there's no solution that does not include communication. There's no problem that communication won't be a part of solution. There's no problem that probably communication was the part of the course.
Walt:Yeah, and most well when it comes to certain things like stakeholder management, organizational politics, communication. Bad communication can make that worse. Really good communication can make it way better. So yeah, communication is key. It's one of the core. Definitely, I think it's the core skill, but because you can work your way through just about anything if you can communicate well.
David:Yeah, I did a small survey with a group of project management friends many years ago. We were trying to discover whether there was any management problem. That communication was not a part of Males. We didn't find any. We did not find any. Is it a bad decision made by the CEO? There was some misassimilation of information. This person read some signals and misunderstood or further understood, or it didn't work out well. There are few. In fact we got the point where we say maybe first, major are the only things that the causative roots could not be traced to lack of good communication. It's a very powerful one, extremely powerful.
Walt:So what about and this drives also the curiosity with the various fields that you've been in Do you have now? I might typically ask about favorite tools, but I had a good interview earlier this week with someone and they don't have favorite tools. They have tools and they apply them based on the situation. So, whether it be a favorite tool or whether it be just tools that you commonly use for certain things, what would be some of the ones that you use a lot?
David:That's a brief. Whoever told you that is telling you two decades of thinking. That's a brilliant one Lean, kanban, end value management. Any tool, any technique Let me add technique Any knowledge at the end of the day, is as good as the knowledge.
David:It is the problem we want to solve. You won't believe it. For me it's good. For example, good listening, listening intensely to what is said, what is not said and what are the real root causes. I have a solution where I help teams to succeed deeper and better individuals and teams that came only from active listening. If I just listen in a meditative way to what you're saying, I can tell you what the problem is pretty quicker.
David:Many people don't know how to listen. In fact, the first lessons I took a group of 20 pm by active listening. They slept off in the first three minutes they slept off. They were so unused to the energy of totally shutting down their own energy and listening to someone else that they slept off. I shut them. I just show them how to shut down your own self and your biases, your judgment, and simply listen for three minutes and I promise them some of them will be asleep Out of 2015,. We are asleep. The remaining facility of Lynn Grousy. We don't listen. Because human beings regurgitate, we don't listen. People have pains that are unseen or felt. You know the iceberg grew Behind the scene. There's more than they can ever communicate. The pain point. So for me it's active listening, for example, the ability to listen and taking a lot of information non-biased.
David:I was working with a team and I was just the first 30 minutes and I told the CEO you need to listen to your team more. The team erupted in a clap. Just 30 minutes. The CEO had not said a word. I just came into the room and they had had several failures and it was regulatory kind of projects. They had to roll out some technology but they were having repeated failures and someone said talk to David, he has enough for troubleshooting stuff in management. Was that my mentor that recommended me? Can I just be your manager meeting to watch? No, I won't say a word at the first meeting.
David:If I had the first few meetings as a younger consultant, I talk a lot in the first few meetings. Now I don't talk anymore. I would take the only thing I'll be asking questions, a lot of questions. After a while I'll begin to find out what is the venue, the things behind the scene. There are so many layers of errors of judgment behind the scenes including my own errors, by the way, including my own biases, by the way. So one of the things I do is active listening as a tool, for example. So I just told the CEO, I said you need to listen to your people more. The team, the team collapsed physically. They couldn't hold it and at the end of the day it was about three hour meeting.
David:I gave the CEO my feedback about just the first three hours of listening and he showed his deputy CEO and said what do you think about this guy? The deputy CEO said he looks like he's been in meetings for the past two years. Just watching the room, I can see you guys some assaulting on your execution strategies. You will some assault. Let's look at them, their personality, look at everything. Just look at the energy and the fluid and I could tell you some assault.
David:All of that is active listening. So, for example, simple active listening. Another tool for me sound judgment To know what to to now apply, which comes from actively sleep. So do they need to come back? Should they go lean? Should they go agile at all? Should they do safe? Should they stay water foolish as an organization? Or should they even think with their culture and habits rather than a tool or any tool? Because whatever culture and habits, strategy or tools or techniques, it will swallow it up. So should we even be thinking with your culture or other kinds of things? So for me the first place is the active listening and discovery phase. That active listening is for me the most, it is the strongest tool for me that any management consultant or thinker can have.
Walt:Okay, that's a good one, that's a good one. Active listening is to your point. A lot of people will you know they have the answer or they believe they have the answer. So they'll get part of the comment or feedback and they're like oh, okay, okay, this is how we're going to do it. Well, I wasn't finished.
David:Very, very true To the man with hammer every problem is a nail.
Walt:Yep true that. So the last question I have is are did you know? Do you have a? Did you know for us?
David:Hmm, so I have it. Did you know? Okay, did you know that active listening is the most profitable tool you can have as a consultant?
Walt:The most profitable skill as a tool. Okay, as a consultant.
David:Active listening is the biggest, most profitable tool. There's so many. You won't have waste if you have active listening. If you master active listening, you would never encounter waste, or your waste will reduce. Don't let me be superlative. Your waste will reduce. You won't make the wrong decisions. You would even know what brief to turn down Awesome.
Walt:Well, do you have anything that you want to add?
David:Well, the, the motuary and the and the cemetery and the places where learning is not useful. Hopefully because we've not experienced afterlife. Maybe when we experience afterlife. So for me, I think the key is never stop learning. When you stop learning, your muscles, your mental muscles, start atrofying.
David:I was in the gym yesterday. I got pain on my arm right now. I got pain because I did a certain pull. I used the pull machines a lot but I felt some pain in some muscles that I didn't know existed in my body. The coach, just a minute, took me on some directions and some exercises. I didn't believe it, so sorry about that. So these are machines I have used before, the stuff I've done before. But the coach just told me to re-angle my body. She just said turn this way, turn that way, a little this way, and then she demonstrated some things and muscles in my arm.
David:I grew up carrying low water Muscles. Look, I can study. I said what did you do? The muscles in my arm that she told me, which we seldom use them, the majority of human beings but if you carry and she said this is why you will sprain your arm easily, because when you see a sudden pressure on that muscle, but because it's the arm. You think you're using your arm, but wait until you turn it a certain way. And then I'm feeling heavy pain, Like, and she says don't take your pain reliever, Let your muscles get used to it. So don't stay away from the gym. The same experiences, the same places. You don't even need to start from new experiences and new knowledge yet the same places, the same things you're used to. There's something new to learn and your muscles will start atrophying if you don't submit yourself to those new experiences. So that's, that's my counsel.
Walt:Awesome. I think it's great. Continuous learning is super important. Yep, I love the muscle analogy. Yep, all right. Well, david, I appreciate you coming on and dealing with the struggles we've had over the last couple of months, want to thank everyone else for listening and we'll see everyone on the next episode of PM Mastery.
David:Yes, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Intro/Outro:Thanks for listening to the PM Mastery podcast at wwwpm-masterycom. Be sure to subscribe in your podcast play Until next time. Keep working on your problems.