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Helping Project Managers grow and master their project management skills while sharing the stories of other project management professionals.
PM-Mastery
Amanda Caught up with Walt, Our Host after a Recent Job Change
Is your job stressing you out? Sometimes you need to make a change. Tune into the current episode of PM Mastery, where Amanda Sherman steps in as host to interview our regular guide, Walt Sparling. Walt dives into his journey from the design industry to becoming a senior project manager, and discusses his recent job change from a leadership role, to go back in the trenches as a Sr. PM.
We further unpack the hurdles of project approvals in massive corporate settings, highlighting the often exasperating delays caused by extensive bureaucratic red tape. Walt shares candid insights into how these bottlenecks can sap team morale and lead to burnout, offering practical advice on recognizing when it's time for a change. From the emotional toll of leaving a long-time team to the critical role of supportive management, this episode covers the emotional and professional aspects of sustaining a fulfilling career in project management. Whether you're struggling with burnout or simply looking to enhance your skills, this episode is worth a listen.
Favorite Tools:
- Outlook
- Excel
- OneNote
- Snagit
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 a special guest. And today I have a special guest actually someone who has been a co-host on multiple episodes, miss Amanda Sherman. Thank you, welcome, amanda.
Amanda Sherman:Hey, walt, thanks, glad to be here.
Walt Sparling:So we're going to something like that here where Amanda, when I started the podcast, amanda interviewed me, which was back in October of 2020. So almost, four years.
Amanda Sherman:Yep, it's been a minute, it's been a hot minute.
Walt Sparling:So, Amanda, you are the official host for the rest of the call I am.
Amanda Sherman:It's exciting Good to sit in your chair. Yeah, it's exciting Good to sit in your chair. So, to catch some of our listeners up, in case they hadn't had the chance to hear the 2020, like, tell them who you are.
Walt Sparling:All right. So Walt Sparling, I am a project manager by day, a podcaster by night occasionally and occasional blogger, and I'm married. I have two awesome grandchildren and got a lot of cool friends.
Amanda Sherman:Yeah.
Walt Sparling:Like you.
Amanda Sherman:Thank you Ditto and back at you. So you say you're a project manager podcaster. So what exactly led you into project management? Was it just a turning point? Was it just how your career unfolded?
Walt Sparling:Good question.
Amanda Sherman:How did you get there?
Walt Sparling:So obviously the money. Now I spend most of my time in the design world, probably between 25 and 30 years, and during that time I worked from design up through like PMing projects within the design world and later in life in my career I was actually at a design meeting and there was a project manager there that was an outsider and he was an owner's rep, so he was basically representing the owner and the owner didn't have to go to the meetings and I was like, well, that's pretty cool and what I found interesting is that he knew a little bit about a lot, which was kind of like my thing.
Walt Sparling:I was like you know, I've done mechanical design, I've done electrical design, I've done architectural design, I've done IT. I'm like I know a little bit about a lot of different areas. So I thought, well, I could do that and I asked him a few questions to look into what it would take to be like a professional project manager, get certified, because at the time I was just by title. Yeah, so I did, and I started looking into my PMP. But before I ever got there I ended up getting weird a full-time project management position for an owner's rep organization.
Amanda Sherman:I see, okay, so all the pieces kind of fell into place, but it kind of drew you in, yes, interesting. And then so at this point in your career, like what is your position and title? Like you know, what is your position and title, what is it that you are?
Walt Sparling:Currently I am a senior PM and I still work as an owner's rep. I just did make a recent transition. Prior to my current role, which I've been in for three months, I was actually a team lead, so I had a team of PMs. I worked on a different account. I've been on that account for just shy of seven years and kind of got burnt out yeah, the constant on the leadership role and I just decided I wasn't, uh, I wasn't willing to continue. So I decided to start looking and, by chance, someone I know told me about a position and, uh, I followed up on the on the uh opportunity and it was interesting cause I've been in the industry a while and so I have somewhat of a rep. And when I called and asked about the position it was a 20 minute phone call and I got offered the job.
Walt Sparling:Well so I was like, wow, that's the fastest. I was like do you want my resume? So it was. It was really interesting and I was happy to transition. It took about a month to transition out of my old job, but I've been there now for three months and I enjoy it.
Amanda Sherman:Nice. It's interesting that basically your reputation as a project manager basically almost superseded, even having your resume. Yeah, just ended out.
Walt Sparling:Like all that work I put in my resume Quality Well done, yeah, awesome.
Amanda Sherman:Thinking about the projects, I guess both then and now I mean now is probably a little, maybe maybe not enough time to comment, but like what was your most memorable project?
Walt Sparling:Well, that's easy. It was my first big project, yeah, and I think within about a year just shy of a year of being on the other account, I had done. They had a, they had a gradual onboarding, which I think is good, and I basically shadowed other pms and did a lot of training and kind of got a feel for how they did things. And then I was given a small fifty thousand dollar project and I killed it. I mean, just did a great job, and I was like, yay, but I was pent up for months, not doing anything except for training. So I just put everything into it and, uh, it went well. And then I was given another project and it went well. And then I was given another project, and it went well, and and I did a few.
Walt Sparling:And then the big thing was they had this large ground up operation center project that was had been in the planning stage for many years and they said, well, you know, you're a senior, everyone else is booked up, our other seniors, so that this is going to go to you. Because of the type of project. I'm like that's fine. And it was, uh, just shy of 12 million dollars and it was about two years and it was. It was awesome to see clearing the ground, pouring the massive footers, erecting the steel building, doing you know, going all the way to close out. And then in the end I got another project that involved finishing the paving and landscaping around that and the rest of the site. So that was almost three years of my life with with that, one or two projects. So it was pretty, pretty cool and I'll I have all kinds of pictures and I was like, yeah, that's, that's my, that's my baby.
Amanda Sherman:Excellent, that's awesome. Um, so, reflecting on just your kind of your history with that, and what is it that? What is it about project management that?
Walt Sparling:That? What is it about project management? That you know that Keeps me going.
Amanda Sherman:Yeah.
Walt Sparling:Draws me in. Yeah, I ask that question a lot to people and I think for me it's. I like to solve problems.
Amanda Sherman:Yes.
Walt Sparling:I like to get positive results. Get positive results Definitely problem solving and making things more efficient, which is why I like to do a lot with processes and things like that you know that 100%. So I really enjoy organizing and pulling things together and making things just execute successfully. And I'm you know that might sound, I don't know, high and mighty, I mean, but that's what a lot of PMs do. That's their superpower is to be able to do that, and do it without getting, you know, freaked out, and you know.
Amanda Sherman:Have everything go really smoothly. Yeah, I mean, I think I mean my experience working with you. It's always been like the managing the job, but you always were, and probably still are, developing tools to help make the process like always improving on something.
Walt Sparling:That's like kind of a thing for me. If I'm not doing something to make it better, I'm kind of bored and I'll admit I am not the best at starting something fresh. But I'll take an idea or I'll take something else and I'll mess with it for a little while and then I'll find a way to make it better, and I love doing that.
Amanda Sherman:Yep, that shows. And then, as far as the tools that you use, what are your favorite tools that you use to manage?
Walt Sparling:So I would say probably my top three are Outlook, excel and OneNote.
Amanda Sherman:Same.
Walt Sparling:Every day I use all three Yep. Every day I use all three and I'm constantly creating spreadsheets and some kind of trackers in Excel, checklists or calculation sheets, and then in OneNote I put all my notes, I save training materials in there. I kind of build my own little personal playbook, which where, where I used to be, I built a playbook for our team. So I'm always trying to do stuff like that and actually probably one of my other most favorite tools that I use every day is snagit yes, so I totally forgot about that.
Walt Sparling:And it's so true and I just I've been on this account for three months and I've already got two teammates that have went out and got it after they saw some of my work.
Amanda Sherman:It could be an advertisement for it oh yeah, I should get. I should get some kind of kickback for sure so, besides the tools, like how do you like, what do you? How do you stay on top of, like project management, Like what, what do you? How do you continue to learn and keep yourself fresh in your role?
Walt Sparling:Well, it's changed over the years. I am an advocate of continuous learning. In the past it was books, podcasts, courses through like Udemy or LinkedIn. Back when I first was doing them, it was what was her name? Linda, it was lindacom or something, uh, but that got bought out and now linkedin learning has it. But great courses all kinds. I mean more than you could ever possibly take same thing with udemy.
Walt Sparling:then, as I got where I was like full-time, pm solid, not a lot of spare time I would tend to listen to more podcasts and Audible books because I didn't have a lot of sit-down time, so Audible books were my next go-to. And then, when I started the podcast, I learned a lot of stuff just from the people I interviewed.
Amanda Sherman:All right, big time.
Walt Sparling:And I've learned some incredible things. I've met some incredible things. I've met some incredible people and now, like on LinkedIn, just going through my feed, I learn stuff just because there are so many people that I'm connected to, that they're sharing stuff and I'm just absorbing that. So, and if it's of high interest, I'll go and check it out or learn more about it, and my big thing right now is AI.
Amanda Sherman:Yeah.
Walt Sparling:Learning. I think learning styles change over time, but always trying to learn something new.
Amanda Sherman:Yep, and then in managing projects this is always a big one. Is the challenge Like? What are some of the challenges then and now that you've experienced?
Walt Sparling:So challenges and so challenges. I I think, as years have gone by, there's we've obviously gone through the covet error and there were some specific challenges there and some of the fallout from that. But within project management, probably the one thing that I have seen continuously and I've seen this and I've talked with other people about it and seen it in other posts is approvals. So when you're a small firm or some small projects, not a big deal, but when you get into the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars and projects and you work for these large corporations, it's like, okay, the approval process takes forever it does and I'm like you know.
Walt Sparling:We could design, plan, design, execute and close this thing in a year and it's taken two years because it takes a year to design it and it takes and and every every step of the way you have to go through approvals. But because of the importance, the critical nature or the dollars, there are so many people that have to approve. Well, those people are busy doing other things, not just, they're not just sitting around waiting to do approvals. And I thought I was frustrated when I left my last role. Part of it was the approval process and the expectations. They expected things to get done really fast but they were part of the problem because they were the approvers. They didn't want to be part of the problem, but it was their process and they were. So I came to a new role and I'm seeing the exact same thing, in some ways on a much larger scale, but it's you know, the bigger the project, the longer it takes to get approval.
Amanda Sherman:Absolutely.
Walt Sparling:It just you kind of lose. You know your, you start out a project, you're energized and you're ready to go, go, go. It's like how's it going? I don't know. I've been waiting six weeks for my approval.
Amanda Sherman:Yeah.
Walt Sparling:What are you doing? Waiting for my approval?
Amanda Sherman:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's frustrating because you're ready to go to the next step and ready to that's just I feel like that's ingrained in us to push and get that ball out of your court and just sit there and just total your thumbs waiting, waiting, waiting. It is a little bit of a challenge.
Walt Sparling:So I think that's probably the biggest one that I could think of lately.
Amanda Sherman:Yeah, you spoke about like something I kind of wanted to go circle back around to was um, burning out and the. And I know that there's like because I feel like I've I've been in the same boat and I know burnout isn't necessarily sometimes it's yours, it's just, sometimes it's the, it's the place or whatnot. But what's your feeling on the change? So when you changed, did it kind of reset you and kind of like a refresh reset? Kind of like a refresh reset kind of or how's? How do? How would you? Because I know there's that I feel like that's probably like, besides not working for the right or not having the right manager, the burnout might be probably the second reason why people leave, or it's like one of the top five at least yeah, and there's people that will stay in low-paying jobs if they're happy.
Walt Sparling:Yeah and uh, so it's definitely burnout stress. Good managers are all important. I've been fortunate to have some good managers over the years. I've had a couple bizarre ones, but um, the the other thing that that I, when I started to get to the point where I felt like I needed to make a change, it's when my friends and my family is like dude, you need to get a different job yeah and the thing is there's other people that did the same job as me and they're not burnt out.
Walt Sparling:So what is that? Well, sometimes it's, you know. It could be the management and the support that you get. It could be the the circumstance of, like, we were very low on resources, so I was supposed to be a manager, but I was running eight projects and it slowly got down to like four, but it was.
Walt Sparling:That was a lot of effort, and all the new processes that were coming out I had to know, learn and teach my team and apply them to the projects and also do all the management reporting and all that, and I tried to keep you, the team, very supported and it was just like I can't, I can't continue to do it. The other thing is, you know, someone told me, well, how long you been there, and I said, well, it's just just shy of seven years. And I go, well, that's kind of your sweet spot, isn't it? Because I typically the most I've ever stayed in a company is six years, which is why I've I've learned a lot of stuff, I've gone to a lot of different roles and it wasn't just because I quit.
Walt Sparling:There was financial things that happened or there were uh, one time was a layoff. So there was a variety of reasons that I changed roles up, promotions, opportunities, but it was like, yeah, is that? Is that part of it? I don't know. Yeah, but yeah, the I know. When I left, I actually got excited near the end because I knew I was leaving and I was anxious too, because I love my team, yep, and we were close and I was really concerned because they were going through the same thing. They were burning out and you hear a lot about you can't save anyone else until you've saved yourself.
Walt Sparling:You're gonna put the oxygen mask on first right and I can't say that I really did it here, because I left so I jumped out of the plane but, um, but I had to save myself yeah because I would have just gone, I would spiral down and made it worse for them and it gave someone else the opportunity to advance and to do their best, to kind of fulfill that role.
Walt Sparling:And I still check in with the team. We chat every once in a while and I do. I actually join a lead call every once in a while on Fridays we used to do every Friday morning and every once in a while every four or five weeks I'll jump on that call they kept me on the invite and just check in and see how things are going and it's kind of nice to catch up.
Amanda Sherman:Yeah Well, you have pride in your work.
Walt Sparling:Yeah, well, that's the other thing. I think, if you, I know people that can go through whatever, but they have that attitude of you know, whatever, you know, I'm getting paid to do, this is what I'm gonna do. And me I'm like I throw everything into what I'm doing and I get very emotional about stuff. I told my boss. I said, do you know what an empath is you know? I said I kind of think that's where I'm at. Like, if my team is suffering, I suffer.
Amanda Sherman:Yes.
Walt Sparling:If they're upset, I'm upset. It's just something I pick up on the emotions around me. So I think I react to stuff a little different, and I'm not the only one like that. That's just my thing. Yeah, me too. Me too, yeah, my thing.
Amanda Sherman:Yeah, me too.
Amanda Sherman:So, Me too. Well, I know I have. I got a couple quotes and some feedback from people vendors, gcs and things like that. So I have a couple wanted to get their feedback. Told them that I was doing the interview so I kind of wanted to share these.
Amanda Sherman:So one of our I had a GC partner and just kind of gave me just some insight on your experience with Walt and they'd said Walt's intelligent, well-qualified PM, his best attribute is his knowledge of the details of the job. Walt's deep understanding of the job allowed for collaboration and problem solving to work on solutions versus the time taking to explain the workings and reasons behind what was or could be the driving issue making my job way easier and more enjoyable. And then from one of your peers, it says our direct report. He was our direct report and kept us informed on changes, not only in our organization but in the construction world, with material market indexes and code updates. He was always improving on the tools we use and improving with his own designs of tracking. I don't know how he did his job and found the time to provide for these updates on all the trackers. Favorite the closing of meetings with the did. You knows that. I'm happy to hear he continues with the podcast.
Walt Sparling:Oh wow, You'll have to tell me who that was.
Amanda Sherman:Yeah so.
Walt Sparling:Oh, that's cool.
Amanda Sherman:Yeah, so with this, with this particular podcast, do you have any? Did you knows?
Walt Sparling:Well, yeah, I do, I do, I hear so many. Yeah, One is something I've been focusing on recently because of health, and that's protein. Okay, so I don't think a lot of people realize how important protein is to our survival, and it's not just for muscles. It's important, obviously, for muscles, but the one thing that I've learned recently is you get older, your muscles do break down. Yeah, I guess they break down to like 1%. You lose muscle mass like 1% a year after, I think, 40.
Amanda Sherman:Jeez.
Walt Sparling:And so protein is vital, but your body doesn't absorb protein as easy when you get older, when you get older, and so you have to eat more protein, and you have to eat good proteins, like animal proteins are better than vegetable proteins. There are some complete proteins that are vegetable, but there's only a few I think there's three where animal proteins have all of the essential amino acids that you need. Animal proteins have all of the essential amino acids that you need, and one of the interesting things I just found recently was the order in which you eat is important. So you want to eat your vegetables first, your protein second and then your carbs.
Walt Sparling:Ah so it's how your body processes that and it's like the most healthy stuff first, protein, second, and then you know the ice cream or pasta, potatoes, whatever. So, yeah, that's been an interesting bit of research. I actually did a presentation on protein to a mastermind group that I'm in a few months back.
Amanda Sherman:Nice, I didn't know. I'll have to practice that moving forward.
Walt Sparling:Yeah, and it's hard sometimes, you know, yeah, you see you're like oh, I want to try the pasta. No, I eat the broccoli.
Amanda Sherman:It's like you have to eat the crust off the bread before you eat. The say in the sense is what it sounds like. Well, I have one for you.
Walt Sparling:I have. Did you know that the was?
Amanda Sherman:the Twitter bird. Did you know that the Twitter bird had a name? No, twitter bird had a name. He was named Larry, named after Larry Bird, who used to play for the Twitter. Co-founder was with Biz Stone's home team.
Walt Sparling:Boston Celtics. That's interesting. I never knew that. Yeah, now you know Two, did you knows all in one show.
Amanda Sherman:How about that? So with that, anything else in closing?
Walt Sparling:or Well, no, but I do appreciate you coming on here and doing that and doing your little bit of research there. That was, that was fun. Yep, and to everyone else who's listening, we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of PM Mastery.
Intro/Outro:Yep Sounds good. Thanks for listening to the PM Mastery podcast at wwwpm-masterycom. Be sure to subscribe in your podcast player Until next time.