PM-Mastery

Thriving in the Transformative Landscape of Project Execution with Ozias Sanchez, PMP

• Walt Sparling • Season 1 • Episode 53

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In This Episode:

I had the pleasure recently of sitting down again with Ozias Sanchez to get a one-year update on his project management journey. Ozias earned his PMP in March 2023, was interviewed on the podcast in April 2023, and was hired for a new position in June 2023.

In this episode, we discussed the structure of PMOs and their differences and touched on the use of AI for Project Management. 

Since earning his PMP, Ozias has undergone a transformative journey, shifting from healthcare to a remote role that defies the traditional PMO framework he once knew. Our conversation peels back the layers of this transition, revealing the nuanced realities of working from the comfort of home, the dynamics of varied industry know-how versus core PM skills, and the burgeoning role of AI in today's project landscape. Prepare to reshape your understanding of what it means to be a project manager in our current, rapidly changing work environment.

Embark on a collaborative discussion where we dissect the multifaceted nature of modern project management. Through tales of tech-savvy PMs and the intricate dance of juggling project components, we expose the critical need for improved skills and seamless collaboration. Osias and I tackle the all-too-common isolation within PMOs and brainstorm ways to weave a tighter fabric of shared knowledge and resources. Whether you're a seasoned PM or just starting, this episode promises to equip you with the strategies to thrive in an increasingly integrated and supportive project management sphere.

In the final act of this insightful session, we confront the gripping challenges of managing projects in a world of ever-growing AI possibilities. We discussed the journey through the podcasting realm, sharing a glimpse into the world of live streaming, audio levelling tools, and the unexpected project management prowess necessary behind the scenes. Tune in for an eye-opening dialogue that weaves between the ethics of AI in authorship, the artistry of managing expectations, and the orchestration of podcast production.

 Discussion:

  •  VUCA - An acronym that stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
  • Micro decisions - Small choices people make every day that can shape their reality.
  • AI hallucinations - False or misleading results generated by AI models.

AI Software discussed:


Links:

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Ozias Sanchez:

You got it, and that was kind of that's really been a huge thing for me this past year is my work with AI. I mean, I used AI when I was job searching and it was really up and coming because I started job searching in 2022. That's when I was in this five month like span 2022. That's when I was in this five month like span and um and and so I used it for job searching and then I started using it a little more for project management. I was kind of wondering, like, what kind of stuff can I, can I do with this? And and man, maybe this is a terrible thing to say, but, like now I don't know what I would do without it because I use it so much.

Inro/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 Sparling:

Welcome everybody to the current edition of PM Mastery, and today I have back Osias Sanchez. Welcome back. How are you all Good? Good, so I know we chatted a little bit before we got started and some things have been updated since you were last on. So, kind of looking back at the history, you achieved your PMP in March of 23. You came on the podcast in April of 23. And at that point we discussed hey, let's you know you were doing some job searching and you do a lot. You help people with job searches and stuff like that. So we had talked that we would come back in a year and see where you were at. Well, then, in June of 23, you got a new position and changed jobs. So I'm hoping tonight we can talk a little bit about that change. And then some other discussion we had was a little bit about some differences in the old job and the new job related to the PMO. Maybe dabble in a little bit of AI and do some lessons learned.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, that sounds like a plan to me, absolutely. Tell us a little bit about your new job. So my new job is actually really great and I didn't kind of realize kind of the potential that project management had for me when I went in. I had been in health care my whole life and when it comes to health care and working with patients, you always have to work in the office, and so working remotely was something I never really considered before until I started getting into project management and looking at a bunch of different jobs and seeing how many of them listed working remotely as an option.

Ozias Sanchez:

When I was working at the bank last year, I would work two days in office and three days at home, which was fine. I was okay with that. But when I first went into the office, I got there on my first day and I said, okay, so where's the rest of my team? And they told me oh well, no one from your team actually works in this office. To which I replied so I'm coming into the office to work remotely. Um, could you explain that to me? And they gave me an answer along the lines of well, you're on raj's team and everyone under raj is two days in office three days at home. And it made me remember wait, isn't christy in pittsburgh? Why doesn't she work here? Oh well, she's. She's an hour away, so she doesn't have to come in. So the rule only applies to some people and not others. And then it really got me thinking wait, how do they even know I'm coming in? Because no one sees me here? And I was messaging one of my coworkers and she said oh well, do you scan to get in the building? They're probably using that as a way to track whether you come in or not, which was true. I do scan and get going in the building, but I don't scan to get out. And that's what I did. So I would go in at 8am, scan and then walk right back out and was never caught, but it was still quite a drive to get there. So I was still losing time that way.

Ozias Sanchez:

But the PMO at the bank was very, very rigid. They try to come up with a system that could basically turn any person into a project manager, and that system involved having a super structured PMO where, whenever something would happen, you would have to follow a very specific set of rules, and it took any sort of creativity out of project management Projects all had to be managed the same exact way, following the same rules, using the same program, a program which, honestly, wasn't very intuitive to use either. So it was very painful. To manage projects that way, felt very unnatural, almost like micromanaging, and so I knew that this probably wasn't my idea of kind of how I'd envisioned project management. So I kind of started looking for other positions, even though I had just gotten there recently. Some a lot of people would probably kind of scoff at the fact that I was like wow, you are looking for a position so soon.

Ozias Sanchez:

But the it kind of made me come into another sort of realization when I was job searching for the job after that, and that is that when you look at a lot of project management jobs on LinkedIn, what you'll see a majority of the time is, let's say, an IT project manager involve knowing things like coding and SQL and how to build out servers and other things, which is all IT related. But really a lot of those job descriptions match like tech leads, not necessarily IT project managers. Now, don't get me wrong Having that knowledge from IT can be helpful, but I feel like there's a very common misconception that in order to manage projects in a certain industry, you have to be an expert in that industry as well. And I don't think that's necessarily accurate. If you try to get you know an expert IT person and tell them to manage the project, that's a different set of skills and maybe they'll be able to pull it off. But I know a lot of the IT people I work with. If they try to manage the projects I do, they would go down in flames and that's not a dig at them or anything, it's just it's a different set of skills.

Ozias Sanchez:

So, and the reason I bring all that up is because when we talk about sets of skills with project management, for me a lot of what I do on my current company day to day is really creative problem solving. I run into problems all the time and I think about ways on how I can mitigate them or prevent them from having, prevent issues from happening and make sure everyone's on track. And but when I go into a lot of the interviews, they wouldn't ask me that they would ask me technical questions. They wouldn't ask me that they would ask me technical questions. And so my interview with the company I'm working at now is probably one of the best interviews I've had, because, instead of asking me technical questions, they asked me problem-solving questions.

Ozias Sanchez:

My interviewer, who was my boss, told me okay, we've been running projects on our team for a while. We've run into a number of different scenarios when it comes to our projects or different problems when it comes to your projects. I'm going to give you these scenarios and I want you to kind of think and figure out how you would, what conclusion you would come to based on this problem and stuff, which is honestly very stressful because you're put on the spot. He's like okay, this scenario, you got this vendor, you got this happening. What do you do with these contracts and stuff? And I'm trying to think on the spot. Really, I was like sweating, but it was also kind of fun too, because I had never had an interview like that before, and so I was like go ahead.

Walt Sparling:

No, I wanted to step back a little bit.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Walt Sparling:

You made a point of the jobs or job descriptions are written for technical. Of the jobs or job descriptions are written for technical and PMs technically, if they're trained as a PM and they've learned that they can work in almost any industry because there's specific processes. They're not all the same, but there's. You know the start and the end and there's certain things you do in between the monitoring, controlling, communication. All that Right Is I think nowadays you see a lot more job descriptions or titles called project manager and for the industries that are newer or more educated, they know that they need a dedicated PM with a certain set of skills that can manage a project, where, back in the day, you would work your way up from a tech position or a design position and you would become a PM because you had all the technical or design experience and you knew how to do all the stuff, and then you would learn how to manage a schedule and a budget.

Walt Sparling:

But the technical came first. So I think a lot of the companies that were built that way they still think well, you need to be technical to come in here and be a PM.

Walt Sparling:

The smarter ones are the newer, maybe the educated ones or they got new leadership in and going. What we really need is someone who can manage a project. We have technical people that can answer those questions Exactly, exactly right.

Ozias Sanchez:

So really the only kind of issue running in those situations is how kind of how good the technical people are explaining it.

Ozias Sanchez:

Sometimes I I got lucky with one of my first IT projects that I was working on and one of the IT, one of our techs she was amazing at explaining it, super patient, even when I asked, you know, very like ignorant questions like so what does this do? One more time, she was always explaining it. But now I feel like a master at it and everything and I can answer all of those questions. It's just you just kind of like and I don't know like you know the nitty gritty of their job. I'm like I just need to know the basic concepts what comes after this, what comes after this, okay, cool, thank you, and then you know getting there. So sometimes you have good teachers, sometimes that's so good, but but yeah, no, yeah, it's a very good point. It's like you know, I really I really wish these companies would kind of recognize that this is a, you know, dedicated set of skills that you, you can just like hand off to people once they've become a technical expert. But anyway, the other.

Walt Sparling:

The other thing I've seen more so, I'd say, recently in some of the conversations I've had with other folks in larger companies is expectations and expectations. Like I know one group I was talking to, they have these people that were PMs back in the day and they did large projects and they had a team. So you know, I had your PM, your system PM, your project coordinator, your project accountant, your project controls, and they worked together as a team to do these big projects. Well, in a lot of the companies now you have a PM and that's it, and that person is project controls, project risk, project schedule, project budget, project communication, project court, I mean all, and they go, you know, back when I did multimillion dollar projects, we did this report and this report and provided this on a weekly basis and it's like, yeah, but you did one $80 million project. These folks are doing six, one to $10 million projects.

Ozias Sanchez:

Add all that up.

Walt Sparling:

That's a lot of work.

Ozias Sanchez:

And I'm glad you mentioned that because that reminds me of something else I run into a lot, or that I see a lot work. And you and I'm glad you mentioned that because that reminds me of something else I run into a lot, or that I see a lot I should say is that, um, you have teams of projects managers that feel very siloed, so to speak. So when I was at the bank, there was like maybe like 10 other co-workers I had that were project managers, but we all just manage our own projects and that's kind of it Like we don't. There's not two project managers to one project or anything, unless for some sort of special circumstance. And but what ends up happening is like there was one one of my coworkers.

Ozias Sanchez:

I had to get something from him. I can't even remember now, but he's like, oh yeah, let me pull that up. And he pulls up this like Excel spreadsheet, that's like super automated and has everything he needs. And I was like, whoa, where did you get this? And he said, oh, I just I made it myself. And I was thinking, do you know how many of our coworkers could probably benefit from that? So I don't. I see a lot of PMOs with no, like knowledge sharing or anything like that, and some of us have some really great advice. Or for me, when I was working with one of my coworkers, they saw me using ai and they're like whoa, how are you doing all this? This is crazy. And I was like, oh, you don't use this, like just me, okay. So, and I didn't even kind of like realize that that my coworkers none of them use that or know about that and that I could be helping them in that way. So, so yeah, when I that.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, when I first joined the company that I was at recently, they the PMs all worked in silos and one of the tasks that was given was to get them out of that, get them to collaborate. So it took a while, but over a year or so we got everybody to where they were now, working together, supporting one another, and then started sharing how, like this guy, like you said, this guy was using this spreadsheet, this one was using this. Now you know they're using, they're sharing, and then I ended up creating a couple of master files, because I'm like terrible with math, so everything's got to be in a spreadsheet.

Walt Sparling:

So I wrote this, this budget sheet on steroids, and then when some of my teammates saw it, they go oh, we want that. And then eventually it grew and grew and now people in other regions are using it. But it's like, if you don't and our PMO didn't create any of that stuff, the PMs created it on their own and then would share with each other.

Ozias Sanchez:

And how would you kind of, for someone who is in a PMO with a lot of siloed project managers, what would you kind of recommend to them to help? You know, bring these people together to help with knowledge sharing and everything you think. What would be your advice on that? Well?

Walt Sparling:

one of the things is I would ask what people are doing in each region. How are you, how are you guys, managing your budgets? How are you managing your, your templates for RFPs or for risk? Because I see a lot of that and then go, okay, then send me all those tools and take a look at them and say how many people are using a similar tool or the same tool and go, you know what?

Walt Sparling:

It turns out that I've talked to 50 project managers and 15 of them are using this spreadsheet. Yeah, five are using this spreadsheet. Yeah, five are using something they created on their own.

Walt Sparling:

10 aren't using anything, and then maybe have a like a PMO training and talk about it, yeah, and ask questions. You know what would help you with your, with your job, like with your budgets or with your risk? Did you know that in another region or in another office they're using this spreadsheet? You pop it up on the screen oh, I didn't even know that existed, all right. And then you start building.

Walt Sparling:

Now you're always going to have the naysayers. They're going to be like no, I've been doing this stuff for 10 years. I do not need to use any master, and I think the best way unless it's a standardized reporting thing where you have to give it to a client or whatever is give them flexibility. Don't require them to all use it Unless, like I said, regulated or something but offer that to them and then, over time, when I think what you'll find is, people will say I really like it, but there's two things that annoy the crap out of me. What are they? If it's two things, we can fix it, because probably someone else is annoyed by the same thing.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, or you know, at the end of the day we're all one person in one head and someone thinks they're doing something the most efficient way, and then someone else says, oh, there's a button you can press that does all that for you. By the way, it's like, yes, I showed someone.

Walt Sparling:

See, that was my. That's my thing. What I do, I'm always digging into stuff and trying to find ways. I hate wasting time.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, I want stuff to be automated, so I create tools and standards and stuff, so it saves me time, and then I share it with other people. I just did that the other day. There's this, uh, a form that we've been required to do over the last six months and everybody's been manually going in and doing stuff. Well, I discovered that there's a pop-up calculator built into it that you can put in your numbers and then hit the check mark and it populates the cell for you. I showed that to someone yesterday and they're like what and if? If you don't you know, if you don't know, and you're just scrambling through doing stuff if someone doesn't teach them and that's what I think a PMO is for is like standards, teaching and training. If you want your PMs to be productive, you've got to train them.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, and one of the trickiest parts too is that a lot of project management skills are soft skills. It's not like, oh, let me teach you these formulas and then you're all good to go. It's like you have to teaching someone how to, like, manage a schedule or manage a budget or interact with stakeholders. It's not so black and white, and sometimes you kind of have to experience it to get a really good handle.

Ozias Sanchez:

Soft skills are harder to teach yeah, some people don't which doesn't make them any less important. But, yes, sometimes it's like you, just you have. I don't want to say you have the mindset or you don't, because you can learn in over time, but it's not something you learn in like a day or whatever. But when you see people who have that mindset, who have that problem solving they're kind of figuring things out in their head or there must be a better way Then that's a really good find when it comes to hiring someone and whatnot.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, because it's not just about the spreadsheets or the your ability to do good meeting minutes. It's, it's a lot of things. Like you said, the creativity and the thoughtfulness on stuff is like you're doing a job and you go hey, did you guys think about this? Oh, my God, no, what, why? Why would you think about that? Well, it happened to me on two of my jobs.

Ozias Sanchez:

And you know what's actually kind of funny is me and my boss were joking about this. Another I think another really good skill is being able to ask the right questions as a project manager. But sometimes I was telling my boss that sometimes I don't like asking questions because I tell myself if I ask this question, I know what they're going to say and it's going to be a lot more work that I don't want to do, a lot more work that I don't want to do. So it's just, but I care too much. And so I just say, hey, did we renew our NDA this year, by the way? Oh no, we haven't.

Walt Sparling:

Okay, well, now I've got to do that. I think that scenario right there is you have learned from experience and being burned, because one of the things is lessons learned to be able to do. That's why you've got to share lessons learned. You can't keep them in a silo either. Is you have seen that? Oh, if I don't say anything, that's less work for me. But inevitably, two months before the project's set to close, you're, you're, you're kind of rolling down the hill and they go. Hey, we never talked about this, and now that I'm seeing what we're doing, we really need this. Oh, change order, go back for approval for accounting and might be a schedule impact. Why didn't you guys think about it in the beginning, like I did, but I didn't want to say anything.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, right Now you got to do that up front. Exactly. Or sometimes you might be like, well, this could be someone else's problem, I don't mention it, but I couldn't, I don't have the heart to do it. I'm like I gotta see it through all the way. So, um, use checklist. Um, I don't use, I mean yeah I do, but in small kind of pieces. So when I enter my day I'm like this is everything you need to do for this day boom, boom, boom, boom, and then kind of keep it miniature like that. How?

Ozias Sanchez:

do you so more of it that's more of a like a task list, almost like a task list. Yeah, do you kind of do it over a longer?

Walt Sparling:

period of time then Well, no, I'm thinking like checklist. For me it's like certain process, like in a scope development or risk development or whatever. I like to have a checklist of going. Did you think about this? Did you think about this? Did you contact these folks? Did you, did you review this?

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, okay, yeah, and that's a tickler for me to go.

Walt Sparling:

Oh God, you know, I would have never thought of that if I hadn't looked at the checklist. I thought about all the other stuff, but I missed two items.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, and that's true in that case. Yeah, I do so like, for example, one project I'm currently work on working on is technically like six mini projects that all run the same format, and so I have the same kind of like checklist for each one of them yeah, and I learn more along the way, like you know.

Ozias Sanchez:

One vendor asked like oh, what happens if this and this occurs? And I'm like that's a good question. I didn't think about that. Add that to the checklist for next time. One vendor asked oh, what happens if this and this occurs? That's a good question.

Walt Sparling:

I didn't think about that Add that to the checklist for next time we call those programs.

Walt Sparling:

I have one PM that's phenomenal about this. She'll go in and she'll say, okay, I'm doing 10 different sites I need to do, whether it's a generator project or a renovation furniture project or whatever. She'll look for commonalities and then she'll create a spreadsheet that addresses all of those and then in all the columns she'll put whether it's a check, a yes or a no or a dollar value or whatever so at any one time I can go into her base program directory, call it up and see the status of every site, because it's all in that spreadsheet.

Walt Sparling:

Where some people keep that stuff. You know I'm gonna keep this one and this one, this one and this one and I like. It's like she started a process where whatever program one is, everything from one, two, three, four and five are stored in a master spreadsheet in program one and you just look for commonalities.

Ozias Sanchez:

So for this you're right, it's a program that has many projects in it. So for me it's like a program I'm temporarily managing but I have to give it away to another department because it technically doesn't fall under my department and I already know that the first thing is no department wants it because it's extra, it's like extra work or whatever. So they're going to be like well, we don't know how to run this program, et cetera. So I essentially had to write a book on how to run the whole program, which took forever.

Ozias Sanchez:

But after I made it like so nice, like there's links that will take you to certain places, I show you how to do it. There's a frequently asked question. There's a frequently asked question, there's graphs, there's glossaries, I was like, wow, I'm like this is really nice. Actually I'm really proud of myself. So it shows you exactly how to run it. So I think I'm like OK, there is no room for this to mess up. If you guys run this into the ground, that's on you, because I gave you everything you need.

Walt Sparling:

So be careful, dad. They come back and they go. You know you gave us everything except this. We needed this and you didn't include it in your book no right.

Ozias Sanchez:

And I was like, well, if there is a question you have, let me know and then I can add that there. So you're correct. But yeah, yeah, so. So, no, it's um, it's a, it's a good go. So, with a lot of the problems I'm trying to remember, um, oh, yeah. So with the interview with my new job, yeah, they gave me a lot of problem scenarios and I had to kind of solve problems and it was, it was stressful, but it was fun. And you know, I I told him, okay, this is the answer I would come down to, I would do an addendum to the contract, probably for this particular scenario. What did you guys end up doing? And you know, he said, yep, that's what we did too, good job. So I was like, okay, well, you've been there now coming up on a year.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah yeah so, of that interview, have you encountered some of the items that he asked you to walk through?

Ozias Sanchez:

so my, my team of project managers is kind of interesting. We sort of get a lot of random projects thrown at us. It's not like a consistent oh. We're always getting the same build a house type project or anything. So not the same exact scenarios that he gave me, but the the, that type of thinking and the problem solving is is everything that was in the interview. So it was like it's gonna be a rarity for me to say but the job was a lot like how the interview was described to me and everything. So there was like no surprises. In that sense I was like, oh, this is exactly how you described it. So now the tricky part about my I guess, the projects that we see is are you familiar with the concept of VUCA?

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, I don't think so I'm. It's basically familiar yeah, it's v?

Ozias Sanchez:

uca. It's like basically a, a kind of a way of managing projects. I have a lot of like v is for uh, oh gosh, now I'm gonna. I forget. V? U is uncertainty, c is churn, a is ambiguity, but it's like projects that have that aren't very definitive type of thing. I think it started in the military, but my, my projects have a lot of kind of like uncertainty and ambiguity for our team, and so I I think that's a lot of fun because it keeps things different every single day. But then the con is that things are different every single day and so you never know what to expect. One day is great, next day it's like everything's on fire, and so it's like what's going on? But yeah, no, it's now. I feel bad. I forgot the original question you had asked me. Now that I've been here a year, what was it again?

Walt Sparling:

No, you answered it. It was basically like he asked you to walk through how you would address scenarios and my question was during your project execution, did you run into those same scenarios? Because usually when they ask them, they have a reason for it.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, so I never had the same scenarios, but same type of thinking and same kind of expectations, but deep, and I have this conversation all the time with my boss and the head of our PMO about.

Walt Sparling:

They think I want to put in too much detail in processes and I'm like, hey, I think certain processes need to be spelled out. The you know the part. You're talking about the creative thinking, and this is my argument. If those steps are so well-defined that you can check them off as you go, that frees your brain up to be creative and to think about stuff, because you're not trying to remember how do I do this.

Inro/Outro:

You know.

Walt Sparling:

Go to the playbook, look up. How do I do a contract? What critical things do I need to sign and check off? It's all right there. Did I do that? Did I do that? Did I do that? Yes, you don't have to rack your brain going. Oh my God, what are the four things I need to do? That's right. So now your brain's free to be creative.

Ozias Sanchez:

And that's a concept in psychology called micro decisions. So our days are filled with hundreds of thousands of decisions and the more you can kind of routine your life and you don't have to actively think about those things, the more you have that mental energy to put towards other things, like you mentioned, being creative and stuff. So I try to make my day really routine same in the morning, same in the afternoon that I don't even have to consciously think about it, I just automatically do it, and then I can save all my energy for doing things at work and everything.

Walt Sparling:

But put your workout and your work clothes out the night before?

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, you don't even have to think simple.

Walt Sparling:

Put your cup by the coffee maker, you know.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, yeah. And you said you like being efficient. So I wouldn't be surprised if you had that same type of thinking. And when you mentioned the detail too, it's so funny because I was thinking to myself myself oh gosh, I'm feeling very attacked because my boss tells me the same thing. He's like oh, you're like so detailed.

Ozias Sanchez:

And here's my defense, for it is. For example, he might say something to me like oh, can you create just a quick summary of what's going on in the project so I can give it to the vice president or whatever. And I do go into a lot of detail there. And the reason is I don't know what the vice president does or doesn't know. So I know that the moment I don't mention something, they're gonna go. Well, why didn't you mention this? I'm like because I don't know what you know, like maybe know a lot more about the project I didn't realize. So I give him the detailed version and I say you, you talk with the vice president much more than me, you know what she knows. Take out those parts that she knows and just bring it down.

Walt Sparling:

So if you're not the final presenter, that is good, because then they go. Oh, they don't need to know this.

Ozias Sanchez:

They don't need to know that. Yes, exactly so. Executive summary or bluff yeah, exactly right. So I'm like so don't come for me for the details, because I can't, I can't, no, but yeah, no, being very detail-oriented, absolutely, I think that's. That's good, I think another kind of big lesson for me working in this, and I'm really curious to hear about your experience as well, because I've run into this all the time, I feel. But with the projects I manage, it's my expectations for what people do almost have gone down so much. For example, if someone tells me that they're going to give me a certain document on a certain day, my normal self would think, okay, I will go ahead and expect that. But I've come to learn that people don't even do that. I'm like, weren't you supposed to give this to me yesterday? Oh yeah, I got busy with other things and so now I don't even expect to keep them at their word and I can't tell if this is an exception or the norm, or what is your experience been with that?

Walt Sparling:

Yes, we have dealt with that, and where I work now we see it. And I see it outside the industry too. I see it. You know you order stuff for your house or you know someone to come and give you a quote, or whatever. I see it. But at work I think there's an industry issue, and it's not just our industry, it's industry-wide, in multiple industries, where people are under-resourced or companies are under-resourced and people mean, well, they want to do it by then and they look at it like like oh, yeah, that's a simple thing. It's going to take me four hours to do that and they have 20 other people making that same request. And then they get last minute asks and you know something happens. And then you have to file an incident report or you have to do a safety thing or a last minute training comes up, and then all of a sudden they're like and they got no one to share it with, so they fall behind.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, um, we're going through a thing now where a client is saying or my boss is saying, hey, you set a date, it's in a schedule, it's in a microsoft project schedule, stick to that date. And like we just we just moved a meeting, an approval meeting out a week. He's's like why are you doing that? Well, the design drawings came in three days late. The contractor's having some issues with getting pricing from some of their subs. It's going to take, you know, we're going to get it one week ahead of the meeting, but we need time to vet it and we're working on, you know, 10 other projects. We need to have that time. Okay, well, in in the future, think about better about that.

Ozias Sanchez:

Like well, yeah, okay we'll try, yeah, and if it's, you know, if there's this kind of kind of freak nature accident, it's like, oh well, like the like weather slowed down, supply stuff, so it's like okay, that's kind of hard to predict kind of thing, and and and that's even the's even the worst part. One thing you mentioned was like oh well, this, you know, it takes this person four hours to do this and they get behind that way Some things I'm asking for. It takes like 30 seconds and I'm like, am I asking for too much? So so now I've come to this point where, like, if I ask someone for something and they give it to me on the day they say they do, I'm like impressed, which is almost a shame in a way. I feel like I shouldn't be impressed by that, but it's just, I've grown into it so much.

Walt Sparling:

Well, what is it? There's the four quadrant Eisenhower matrix where the thing is what's important to you, what's critical, what's not important? That's all different for what you look at it. What's critical, what's not important? That's all different for what you look at it and what they look at it. So your request to them might take 30 seconds, but they have had 10 other people ask them. Another thing that's going to take 30 seconds, so they have to choose which one.

Walt Sparling:

I keep a running it's old school text pad up on the screen because I don't want to have to go in and put a reminder in Outlook or in OneNote. I just throw it in a text file and I save it. And then the next day I open up that same file and go okay, what did I get done? Oh, I did that. Delete it Did that. Oh, that one I have not done. That's going to take me like five minutes. I'll move it to the top. There you go, and I've still got stuff coming in. But at least it's there and I can say before, before I quit which is about to happen I can go. What have I left open that I haven't done?

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, oh, and looking at this now, okay, I have seen this. I didn't know if that's what it was called, so that's when? Something new today, but but yeah, so so now, with now with, uh, as the year's been going on and I've been using, and I started using ai to help manage my projects and, like I told you before, I thought it was sort of for me, since I use ai every day, it's not really a big deal. And then I start talking to everyone and, like no one knows what I'm talking about, they're like, oh, I'm really intimidated by that, how do you use it? So I did like a a little kind of teaching session for my team on how to use AI to help manage projects and I kept it very like simple, nothing super crazy. And I was a little bit nervous at first because I was like, okay, who here uses AI already? And no one raises their hand.

Walt Sparling:

So I'm like, okay, they don't think they use it, so they do.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, they technically do, you're correct. And so, after I go over everything I've seen there, I'm like, so does anyone have any questions? And their response was wow, this is amazing. Can you show us how to do more stuff with this? This is really cool. I'm like, oh, thank you, okay, so. But then I started thinking, wait, so I'm using AI a lot. I do project management all the time. Maybe there's this kind of in between where I can start working with projects on AI and everything, and that's what I've kind of started to do recently or managing AI projects, because that's now starting to be a bit of a passion for me. So I've been studying a lot about AI and, like I also told you before, it's developing so quickly. Each week there's a new thing?

Walt Sparling:

Oh there is, it's insane.

Ozias Sanchez:

AI can make pictures, now I can do voices, now I can do video, and it's like, okay, okay, let's get it done.

Walt Sparling:

We talked earlier before the show started, and we were talking about Andy Kaufman. So I interviewed him the end of last year or not, no, end of the previous year, no, it was the end of the last year and that was my 50th episode and he's phenomenal individual, big in the project management space. He has an awesome course and I'm going to post it it in the show notes for today that it's very inexpensive I think it's like $50, and it goes into way more detail and a lot more what I would say useful than the PMI course that they offer. So for anyone who's really wanting to get in, that is a great course to go through.

Ozias Sanchez:

And it's a course on AI and project management. Then yes.

Walt Sparling:

So, andy, you need to go back and listen to that episode. I'll leave that in there too. But he also created an AI persona and he interviewed that AI on a podcast and he created the voice that AI on a podcast. And he created the voice. He used different AI tools to build the AI and then interviewed the AI and then eventually now this one I haven't listened to we talked about it, but he had the AI interview another AI and they asked you know the one AI asked questions? The answer just like when you're doing AI. And they asked you know the one AI asked questions? The answered AI. You know, just like when you're doing chat GDP or whatever chat, you know whatever GDP software or AI software you use, there's prompts and then the AI responds. So the AI was basically prompting the other AI and the other AI was answering and it was a whole interview.

Ozias Sanchez:

Oh, to achieve what by chance.

Walt Sparling:

Just to show what could be done with AI.

Ozias Sanchez:

Huh, yeah, yeah, and that's yeah. That's. The best part is that it keeps developing. You keep trying to figure out new things, and I had some people ask me, well, like what can and cannot do? And I'm like, well, that's the thing, like, in a way, like, as far as, as long as you're creative, you can do almost like anything you think of with it.

Ozias Sanchez:

And now there's a new ai this year that I'm gonna get a hold of, called um rabbit ai, and one thing that it can do is like you can teach it how to use certain websites or programs. So if it's not like on, if you tell it to get an uber and it doesn't know what uber is, you can teach how to use uber, so that when you tell it get an uber, it's not like if you tell it to get an Uber and it doesn't know what Uber is. You can teach it how to use Uber so that when you tell it to get an Uber, it's like, oh, I know to click this, that your home is here and do this, and like, oh, I'm looking forward to that. We'll see, we'll see how it plays out, but yeah, so keeping up to date with that and just finding new ways to kind of just make the process more efficient, and not just with project management, but also just life in general.

Ozias Sanchez:

Um, I, uh, I like I will ask the AI to come up with like a nutrition plan for me or a workout plan for me, and it'll give me, come up with lists and recommendations and refine it from there, like I've almost like, implemented it and so many different parts of my life, just because it's just, it saves time, it's efficient, it gets me thinking, so it's uh, maybe I'll. Um, my, my most recent thing I'm going to start working on is using ai to help, um, to help write a book, and so I was like okay, I want to be an author, I want to write my first book. Did you use ai any when you co-authored your, your book?

Walt Sparling:

no, that one was actually an old school. It was an article I had written for my own blog and never published, so I just tweaked it and used it for the book. There you go. But I know people that do, and there's a lot of about people that do books with AI, because is it really?

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, and you know, someone asked told me that and I was thinking, wait a second. Every year, for, like you know, every few years for politics you'll have the presidential campaign. In each presidential candidate will come out with their own book and I'm like, but we know they don't write that, they have a ghostwriter write that.

Inro/Outro:

But their name is put as the author.

Ozias Sanchez:

So is that really their book or no, you know yeah, there's a lot of debate over intellectual property and because ai is basically they take information that's out there and they use it to.

Walt Sparling:

So you could be publishing something that someone put out there that maybe only one or two people in the world know, but somehow AI was able to scrub it from wherever and share it, and that's why our corporate where I work now you're not allowed to use chat GDP. They actually went out and licensed. They got their own engine from I forgot the name of the company that writes chat GDPp uh, open ai, open ai. And they license their own version and that version stays on the on the company network and you have to use that one.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, so that way it keeps their intellectual property within their network and and so that's. That's a problem. And, andy, when I interviewed him, he was saying that he was doing some research and he he prompted it right, asked for a lot of stuff. They came back with answers and it said provide quotes from the material and what it did is it referenced. Hey, this article said this, and the AI interpreted something and made it into a quote because he went back and backchecked, which is one of the things you start using AI. You really got to be careful of. He went back and backchecked. Those quotes were not in the articles. Yeah, he told the AI that.

Ozias Sanchez:

The.

Walt Sparling:

AI said oh, we're so sorry, we'll correct it. And they went back. He did it again and they came back with a different quote and he said that is not in the article either. And they said yes, it is.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, with ChatGPT, whenever it comes to sourcing information, I always keep like a very close eye on it because it'll have AI hallucinations and it'll start making things up. So for that I'll actually use another AI called perplexity, and perplexity. That AI specialty is being able to reference information. So if you ask it something, it'll say, hey, here's everything I can tell you about the topic and here's every source that I use to get information on this topic and you can click specifically the articles and everything. So, um. So if I'm really doing a deep dive into research, it's probably good for, like, students who are doing college papers and everything. Oh yeah, but um, but yeah, when it comes to like asking type tvd, where'd you get that? I usually don't do that because it's not very good at telling me where it's getting its information.

Walt Sparling:

I, I got it. That is cool. I've never heard of AI hallucinations. I love that and that's a great tool to reference At some point, though that you know they can. We talked earlier too. You can read stuff and you, if you do enough AI research and prompting and you can almost tell when it's AI.

Inro/Outro:

Oh, that is so.

Walt Sparling:

Especially if you know the person who created it, because you go oh yeah, there is no way you know their writing style.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, two cents. You didn't write this, just not write this.

Walt Sparling:

They just need one to go okay show. I want you to write this article based on this term paper and I need it to come out as someone who's like a freshman level college student.

Ozias Sanchez:

So that you know they won't know. And I was talking to one friend of mine who's uh, he's like you know, I wanted to finish my degree but I have to do these papers. I was like, oh, we'll just have ai like write the papers. He's like, well, they, they have an ai checker, they'll just double check with the ai. And I was like, yeah, don't copy from the ai and paste it into the thing. You have access to an AI checker as well. You can run it through, see if it detects it, edit it until you know it sounds human enough and everything.

Walt Sparling:

But but yeah, you said it earlier, use it for brainstorming, don't necessarily use it to do the best kind of thing.

Ozias Sanchez:

Having it to do your writing, I don't know. I don't know if I'd recommend it, but brainstorming is top-notch, always kind of, because it's always going to ask you a question, return, and then you'd be like, okay, and then you know now that it has really good memory. You can reference earlier into your projects and be like, hey, do you remember so? And so this stakeholder, how do you recommend I engage with them and everything. Just it's just really really great because you can give it that context and it'll ideally remember. Sometimes it's when I've had to do memory stuff. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's, but it's improving, so yeah. So that's kind of the next thing I've been working on learning about, and then we'll kind of see how it advances, even just a year from now too about, and then we'll kind of see how it advances, even just a year from now too.

Walt Sparling:

So yeah, I would love to hear where you go with that, because I I know that was a focus for me this year and I have not had a lot of time to go out and do that and I really want to before this year is up.

Ozias Sanchez:

So but honestly, hearing you explain it, you've you still use it quite a bit and you're pretty good with it too. So I was worried that you had like never touched at all or something like that. So but no, that's not quite the case. No.

Walt Sparling:

I played with it and I want to. I want to do more because I don't I don't do anything near like I'm not doing all the stuff you're doing. Sure, I'm using it for some things, but I really want to, like you said earlier about using it within project management and I don't know if it was part of the show or if it was prior to the show but Andy had given an example of using AI to create a risk register and by prompting it with certain things and then asking it to also give that. I said it earlier.

Ozias Sanchez:

Also giving like mitigation strategies?

Walt Sparling:

Yes, exactly, and the thing about that is that's really part of the brainstorming aspect is because it will come up with scenarios. You go oh, you know, I didn't even think of that. Oh, that's a great risk right there.

Ozias Sanchez:

Right, yeah, and that's a really good one, especially maybe your slide that the project I had this year was the first of its kind. I didn't have a previous project that I could look at and be like, okay, this was their lessons learned, this is what went wrong. I have no idea, because it's the first kind of its project, so there's only going to be so much that I can see, and the AI has that experience. Maybe it's with a certain industry. The AI might say something like oh well, didn't you get that SFTP server set up first? I'm like, wait, what is that? Tell me more about it.

Ozias Sanchez:

And I can ask more about that. So, yeah, no, the brainstorming is invaluable on seeing things that you can't usually see, and that's my favorite part is being able to bounce ideas off of people, and now I can do that with the, the ai. So, um, but yeah, I have to. I'll have to try it out with the risk, um, and everything as well. There's still things I haven't tried, so that's one I'll have to try. What is the kind of risk?

Walt Sparling:

you see, what do you recommend, and everything so, yeah, I think I've, so I've only really used it for well. My podcast write-ups after the interviews are AI generated, and then I go in and I tweak things because, like you said, some of the language it's like oh, that's just too, that's too formal or whatever, and knock out some stuff, change some sentences. But it does an awesome job at summarizing a conversation and that's really what I'm looking for. Someone reads that and go yeah, that's worth listening to. You know, based on that paragraph or so.

Ozias Sanchez:

What program do you use to record the transcript for the podcast?

Walt Sparling:

So I use something called Magic Mastering through Buzzsprout. It's an add-on service and I used to do all my stuff. I only used buzzsprout for hosting okay, and I used to use otter AI for transcripts. I used uh, I still use audacity for editing the audio, okay, and then I would feed it up to another intermediate uh package on um, a phonic. It's a website and you would upload it there and it would do the leveling.

Walt Sparling:

So if someone was on the other end, didn't have a good mic, and no minds, I got a, I got a nice high quality mic. Yeah, it would level it out. Then I would take that and upload it to buzzsprout. Buzzsprout, would, you know, do the audio. But at that point I had my final WAV file. Now I do it in Audacity, just get it down to where I want it with the words and the audio. I upload that to Buzzsprout. It does all the alphonic stuff, it does the transcript, it creates the show notes, the top, the summary. I do the show notes below and then I proof the transcript to a certain level, because you have to tell it who it tells by voices. Yeah, I say this is the intro and outro, this is me, this is them, and then it automatically assigns. I've had a couple there are some where like it, and this isn't a slam in any way, but foreign speaking sometimes are hard because maybe English is not their first language. Yeah, and you can. You can understand, though, what the AI struggles with it.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, the one, the one I I use sometimes, if you're a little bit farther away from the microphone, it thinks it will be a different person and so I say, oh, who's this third speaker? I'm like no, that's, that's me, it's still the same, and so that's where it's a little tricky. That's why I was curious to ask you. You said originally you used Otter, ai Otter.

Walt Sparling:

O-T-T-E-R and it has a tie-in to Zoom, but I don't use it for transcripts here, because I want it to be my final transcript, because I'll edit out a lot of stuff.

Ozias Sanchez:

Oh see, so that's why I'm asking. I'm always like learning, trying to see what is other people using that I may not have heard about before, because there's just so much out there.

Walt Sparling:

So yeah, it's one of the things I don't like. I don't do video unless someone asks for it. I've had a couple of people ask for it. I'm like, well, you was recommended by John Connelly and he still does those.

Ozias Sanchez:

I was going to say I saw him use it. Have you used it yourself? How was it oh?

Walt Sparling:

yeah, I've done three with it and those are live, so you can't edit. But my plan is to actually and I don't know why I haven't done it, it's just time. I guess I need to sit down. I want to take the live streams and do an audio-only version and post them so people can listen to them on the podcast and then I can put in a show notes link if you want to go watch the video yeah, that's really and it just kind of goes straight from the light.

Ozias Sanchez:

Just take the audio straight from the live stream. No, editing.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, you can within the computer, like audacity can take your input from the computer audio out and it just redirects it straight into audacity and then it it does the recording and then you just clean up any outside edges and I would upload it to uh, the magic mastering and let it do its leveling and boom episode. I wouldn't do, I don't know that. I would do a transcript for that. One would have to see how it is. Yeah, because we have six people on there, so that's a lot of people to go through and figure out who's doing what, and halfway through someone my voice might change. Oh, you got a seventh person.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, and here I was doing all my leveling manually by myself and there was a program that could do it for me.

Walt Sparling:

Oh, it's a and it's like I'll sit on the porch sometimes and I'll, I'll smoke a cigar and I'll sit on the porch sometimes and I'll, I'll smoke a cigar and I'll edit and I'll, when I get done, I'll upload it to a funny who in the house get a, get a drink, whatever come out, and within five minutes it's done and you just download the final file and boom. So I don't use it anymore. But uh, the, the computational stuff with them being able to fix that and clean it up is so fast now.

Ozias Sanchez:

Okay, yeah, and I got to get on it. Someone, a friend and I are wanting to do a podcast and I was like well, I don't know all the programs you need, so I guess, well, I just offered this to Jeremiah because he's doing one.

Walt Sparling:

I'm sure he's going to kill it because he's like a superstar, he's starting his own. Yeah, he's doing a live tonight. Which is it? Tonight he's interviewing Kayla, oh, okay.

Ozias Sanchez:

Kayla McGuire.

Walt Sparling:

He's also doing something on Saturday and I've signed up for everything, but it's like trying to fit it in the schedule. But if you ever need anything I've spent a lot of time building up my platform for this. Yeah, the software what I've changed to the hardware, the whole deal.

Ozias Sanchez:

My son-in-law is actually doing a podcast, so I've been helping him uh, okay, so I did have one question do you use a phantom supply power supply for your microphone or anything?

Walt Sparling:

no, no, there's different. Phantom Power is, if you have a Like, an XLR. Yes, mine is a dual. It can use USB or it can do the the Phantom.

Ozias Sanchez:

Power.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, I can't think of that Now I use the USB. But I just bought a mixer first mixer I've ever had and that has a direct input for the SLR cable and it has like five other inputs so you can plug your phone into it, you can plug a mic into it, you can plug output from your computer into it, output from your computer into it, and then you can have, you can re pre-record sound effects and assign them to buttons and then you could play that sound effect.

Ozias Sanchez:

I so I saw a mixer online and, if I remember correctly, it was not cheap.

Walt Sparling:

Was it was yours pretty pricey. I think I paid two, two, something I don't remember exactly because it wasn't recent. It was like a month and a half ago and it's been sitting on my desk. I bought a stand for it and now you. Now you just look at it all right, yeah, it's like this someday, this thing's gonna be awesome, um but, Um. But it's a, it's a task cam mix mask, mix cast for okay and it's way more than I need. But you know I'm trying to think ahead if I'm going to invest.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, because you cause um. From how you describe it, it sounds like you can have like multiple microphones plugged into it.

Walt Sparling:

Yes, multiple inputs, not just microphones. You can actually have phones and computers and so lots of options. That uh more than I need, but it's a good uh, it's a good starter. If I'm going to, I don't want to buy something in six months that I go oh, I need something bigger or better or whatever.

Ozias Sanchez:

Now, now you're the full on audio engineer, so, yeah, I'll definitely have to hit you off later and be like can you tell me a little bit more about?

Walt Sparling:

that? Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad to help if I can. You know, I have templates and OneNote processes and all that that.

Ozias Sanchez:

I've written up which is like such a nice thing for being a project manager you can just use other projects in your life. It just comes natural. And it's so funny because I kind of take that skill for granted. And then I'm helping someone with a project they're working on and they're like dang, you're really good at this. I'm like, yeah.

Walt Sparling:

I do what do you do for a living.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, and I appreciate the compliment. I don't mean that to throw down the compliment, but I'm like you know, it's not something I think like, oh, like.

Walt Sparling:

I'm so good, I follow a lot. It just comes naturally to me, just like you mentioned. But yeah, well, this has been great. We covered some good stuff, obviously dove into some AI. I think we're going to probably have more conversations on that as we go forward. You're coming up on a year on your job, so congratulations on that.

Ozias Sanchez:

Thank you.

Walt Sparling:

And I think we covered some good stuff, stuff I'm going to look up this. Uh, fuka and uh and the perplexity of that ai hallucinations think that was. That was a new term.

Ozias Sanchez:

I like that yeah, that's what I'll run into and yeah, basically, when the ai just starts making things up that aren't real, aren't true, so yeah, always, yeah, always, keep an eye out for that. Chatgpt can do that. So, yeah, perplexity is a really good one for research. Chatgpt is really great for brainstorming and, yeah, it's like some AIs are really good at just doing certain tasks. So I'm trying to kind of figure out what's good at doing what, or what's better at doing what.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, I use ChatBox. It chat box, it's uh, it's, it's chat gdp powered, but it's a separate app. It's a lot cheaper than chat gdp. So the chat gdp I mean, if you're using it all the time, I think it's what 20 bucks a month yeah, so you get it.

Ozias Sanchez:

You get access to gpt4, which is like the better version, but you can also make your own gpts as well and so I was looking at that.

Ozias Sanchez:

I still am trying to find a way to fit that kind of like into my process. Some people they created a one that I'll use sometime is like a synonym GPT where it's like, if you're writing, you're like, hey, can you give me some synonyms for this word and we'll just give you a list straight out. You don't have to, but it already knows to look for. You don't have to like really tell it, and so I'm still trying to figure out how, how, like, I can make my own GPT or what I would even make. But yeah, so there's some potential to learn there with a pro version that you get.

Walt Sparling:

So what I'm going to do is in the show notes I'm going to do kind of the normal stuff, tools. So under the tools I'll put in perplexity, chat, chat, gdp chat box. Uh, look up the vuca, put that in here and then you link to your profile yeah, what was the other one?

Ozias Sanchez:

you just said and then andy's course and the episode where he interviewed a homemade AI.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Ozias Sanchez:

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that All right, sir.

Walt Sparling:

This was fun. I appreciate it, appreciate the time, and I'll reach out if you think of anything else, like a tool you use or something you have any good resources. It'll probably be a week or two before I get this popped up. I've got three interviews in the next week. I'm coming back, I'll get this posted and so if you have anything, I'll add it in the show notes.

Ozias Sanchez:

Okay, yeah, that sounds like a plan. Thanks so much for meeting with me, bob.

Walt Sparling:

Oh, appreciate it. Thank you and for everyone else, we'll see you in the next episode of PM Mastery.

Inro/Outro:

Thanks for listening to the PM Mastery podcast at wwwpm-masterycom. Be sure to subscribe in your podcast player. Until next time, keep working on your craft.