PM-Mastery

Discussing Project Hacks, Self Care and Post Mortems With Robert Hean

• Walt Sparling • Season 1 • Episode 72

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Robert's journey from IT help desk technician to systems manager and project management instructor reveals how unexpected career paths often yield the most valuable insights. When tasked with teaching experienced construction project managers to abandon paper for digital systems, he discovered his true calling: bridging knowledge gaps to help people work more efficiently with technology. "The systems we have exist to make our lives easier," Robert explains, "but there are humans involved who have to use them to do their jobs." 

This human-centered approach infuses Robert's three courses created for the PURE Project Manager Credential program. Robert's Project Hacks course integrates real-world experience with theoretical knowledge, imparting practical adjustments that enhance project outcomes without compromising on quality. The Lessons Learned and Postmortems course challenges conventional wisdom by advocating for continuous learning throughout projects rather than just at completion. Perhaps most surprisingly, his Self-Care for Project Managers course addresses an often-overlooked aspect of the profession—how meditation, exercise, and simple daily practices can help manage the mental "churn" that accompanies project challenges. 

What makes Robert's perspective particularly valuable is how he connects these seemingly separate topics into a cohesive approach. The skills to document processes clearly, the wisdom to learn continuously, and the self-awareness to maintain personal wellbeing create a powerful toolkit for today's project managers. Drawing parallels to his martial arts training, Robert demonstrates how teaching others effectively requires both mastery of techniques and understanding of human learning patterns. 

Whether you're an experienced project manager looking to refine your approach or new to the field and seeking practical guidance, this episode offers insights that extend beyond theoretical frameworks into real-world application. Subscribe to PM Mastery for more conversations that transform how you think about and practice project management. 

Links: 


Robert's Pure Courses: https://tinyurl.com/44zknpus

  • Post Mortems
  • Self-Care for Project Managers
  • Project Hacks


PM-Mastery Links:

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 Sparling:

Welcome everybody to the current edition of PM Mastery, and today I have with me Robert Heen. Welcome, robert.

Robert Hean:

Thank you, Walt. I really appreciate being here and having a chance to just chat about project management. It's an interesting field and something that I really enjoy.

Walt Sparling:

Cool, I'm glad you do. I kind of like it too. Awesome. Well, I'm glad we're here. So we have not. We've chatted a few times. We're working on a joint project, or we worked on a joint project and we've interacted a few times I think we were on a video together recently but don't know a lot about you other than what I've learned in our project, so why don't you tell us what it is you do?

Robert Hean:

That is a great question, walt. Professionally, I'm a systems manager, so that means I work with teams to figure out how the various systems they work on or need to use, typically with, like HR, human resources. My career started in information technology, though, so I was the guy who would deliver your new laptop or your monitor and just plug it in and walk away. Technology, though, so I was the guy who would deliver your new laptop or your monitor and just plug it in and walk away. Um, and since then the arc has been like it help desk drone, for lack of a better term Um. And then I got pulled on a project teams within a few months and I was very lucky. The director of it said, hey, I think you'll like project work. And I said, yeah, that sounds like fun.

Robert Hean:

And I became the project management module expert for an ERP, an enterprise resource planning system, and I knew nothing about project management and I knew nothing about that ERP, except how to install it on people's computers.

Robert Hean:

And they told me I had to go to these project managers who have been in the field for 20, 30 years in construction and ship development and building things and tell them they had to go away from paper and go to this new system, and that's that was my introduction to both project management but also like big scale systems, and it really taught me that like I've never seen terror in someone's eyes, like if you look in someone's eyes and you see their people shrink, like in the movies, and like they're terrified.

Robert Hean:

I've only seen that once and that's when I had to tell a guy you can't write down a paper requisition form anymore, you have to use this computer program, and that that reminded me like the systems we have exist to make our lives easier and help us do things, whatever that system is our online banking, our steel requisition computer, whatever, um, but there's humans involved and like somehow these humans have to use the system to do their job. They don't care about the system, and so that's why that's how I've tracked my career is to help people like that steel worker do his job, do what he wants to do, take care of his family and not have to fight with the platform.

Walt Sparling:

I'm with you there. I mean, when I was in IT for many years and one of my goals was to make things easier for the users, you know the the company would say we want them to learn this software and start using this and be like, okay, what kind of training are we going to do? They'll learn as they go. No, that's not going to work. I think we should do training. So we would do training and then I would write I created an intranet at one firm and then I automated a bunch of their paper stuff into the intranet so they could fill out their forms, and it was all about how is it going to make things easier and more efficient? Love that kind of stuff.

Robert Hean:

Yeah, and that's a great point. A lot of these systems, even today, they claim, oh, your users just open it up and they can use it. And, like I, fall into that bucket. Like I like the challenge of hey, here's a system and here's a at the time a paper manual or now an online guide. Like I like that challenge. For me it's I joke, it's like untangling Christmas lights. It just gives me this weird sense of satisfaction. Lights, it just gives me this weird sense of satisfaction. Um, but I also acknowledge that many people don't have the time, the energy to do that. They just want to go in and do their job. Why they shouldn't have to fight with the system. They need that enablement, they need that resource to help them figure this new thing out. That can be threatening, because they might feel like, hey, am I going to get fired if I don't know how to do this thing.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, and there there's so much and there's so much in there's so much science to just the interface. You know how, how do you get, how do you do the prompts. You know what is it going to make this person feel comfortable going through and doing it. So, yeah, different different world.

Robert Hean:

Right, it's um, my, uh. My aunt tells me stories, you know she got into like digital media when she was going through college and she was telling me I forget if she saw this firsthand or, you know, heard someone working on it but some of the first computer mice, they would sit down, someone, you know the people who invented it would sit someone down at a computer and they would take the mouse and they would put it up on the screen over the cursor to like move it around. And all the engineers are horrified, like no, it goes on the desk, like why are you putting it there? Something that the engineer thought was intuitive, you know might not be. And so, to your point, you have to invest in this. And how do you make the system as easy to use as possible, you know, for the average person who has to use it?

Walt Sparling:

No, so it sounds like you have a fun job.

Robert Hean:

Now, that's not all you do. What else do you do? I definitely don't skateboard. Sorry, I gotta call this out. Multiple people have asked me if I skateboard or snowboard. Um, that one my aunt gave me.

Walt Sparling:

Well, before you go too far, and I can edit this out.

Robert Hean:

This is audio only oh, audio only even better. Thank you, yeah, oh, so I can slouch.

Intro/Outro:

Okay.

Robert Hean:

Yeah, you don't have to, and maybe maybe leave this in because it's funny. Um, uh, you know, uh, what do I do in my spare time? Well, that's a great question. Behind me on the wall there's a couple of skateboard decks. So the thing you stand on on a skateboard. Um, and when I have meetings and things, people ask me, rob, you must be a skateboarder. And I say, absolutely not, I like the art that's on them. Uh, my aunt had one. Someone left it at her house, like a house guest just left their skateboard, and so she gave it to me, thinking I might like it. I hung it on the wall. It looks pretty. Uh, I've got another one with an owl on it from a local artist and I figured, hey, I'll support this artist, and it looks kind of neat.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, well, I like it, I can see it. We're just not sharing it on for video.

Robert Hean:

Oh yeah, totally fine. Um, the other thing I do a lot, though, is martial arts, and it's interesting. I started in college as a gym class and this kind of ties back into my arc with systems, and part of this martial art is learning how to instruct and teach. So the idea is, by the time you're a black belt martial artist, you can fight and you know forms and do the flying kicks and stuff. I can't really do the flying kicks I'm still working on that one but you can also teach a beginner.

Robert Hean:

You could take someone who's interested but doesn't know anything and teach them everything to become a black belt, and teach them everything to become a black belt. And that skill of like bridging the gap, taking someone who is at you know at some point of expertise and helping them get more points of expertise has been another common thread, and that can be expressed through that steel worker who needs to, you know, put in the requisition, or other people on my team learning project management, or other people out in the world who want to learn from us on how to better manage their projects. And that connection physically in a martial art is easier because you're right there in front of me, but through the online learning platforms is also very strong, because you can reach out and connect with dozens, hundreds, thousands of people and help them improve as well.

Walt Sparling:

Well, the cool thing with the in-person stuff is, when they don't do something right, you can smack them. But you know, when you're online it's a little harder.

Robert Hean:

You gotta yeah, I, fortunately, you know I haven't had to smack anyone, but you're right. Well, like it's interesting thinking in person and I do a lot of online learnings on like YouTube that are live, so everyone can see me and I just see a chat window and like that's good because many people can interact and hopefully they ask questions and I always encourage them like use the chat, let me know what doesn't make sense. But it's hard to figure out with this one way medium of just you're watching or just listening. How can I help that person improve? And that really shifts how I approach it. Because you're absolutely right. If I see someone do a form and it's wrong, I can point at their leg or whatever and say you stepped the wrong way. If one of my online learning students is following the course and they answer a quiz question wrong, I might never know Right. So how do we set them up for success when we we don't see what's happening?

Walt Sparling:

so, training, teaching, you like, doing that, and one of the reasons that you're on here, or the main reason, is we just work together on a project, and a lot of the interviews that have, uh, been aired in the last probably month and a half have been from other instructors who are in what's called the pure program, the pure project manager credential credential, that's right caught on the certification.

Walt Sparling:

We work together along with all these other project manager management instructors on what was called the pure project manager credential, and it's through pure project management Alliance yeah which is headed by Joseph Phillips, which I believe both of us have quite a history with with Joe over the years super nice guy yeah, I.

Robert Hean:

I bumped into Joe, actually thinking back to my first job in it. Moving on to project teams, the it director gave me a book on project management. It was Joe's first book that went through on project management and I didn't realize that for years after I've been working with him. I pulled it off the shelf. I was like, oh, look at this, here's this book written by you. And he kind of laughed and said, yeah, that was one of the first ones I did.

Robert Hean:

Um, so, fast forward in my career, I was on LinkedIn or something, and his team needed some help you know, proofing questions or doing some small work. And I said, yeah, I'd love to do that. And my thinking was, hey, this will help me understand project management better, but also help me help others understand project management better. So again thinking, how do I help out the other people who, you know, don't have the time or the energy or the effort to suffer through the thing? What can I do to help elevate them in some way? And it's since evolved to your point into this partnership with like 25 other project managers on this credential.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, it's powerful. So you did, I believe, three courses, or I think you got the gold star. Um, there's a gold star. Well, for the most courses, I think. I don't think I think a couple of people did too, but I don't know if I don't know, if anyone else that did three, except for Joe. Well, joe, you know he's got the platinum star, yeah.

Robert Hean:

Well, I'll ask him to send me the gold one. I'll put it up behind the skateboards.

Walt Sparling:

There you go. Maybe you can get it put on a skateboard. Oh, even better. So you, I'm going to probably murder these titles. I'm going to give the brief version of what I recall, and then you give us the actual titles.

Robert Hean:

One was about postmortems and lessons learned. Yes, I think the official title is lessons learned in postmortems.

Walt Sparling:

Oh well, I was close, yeah. And then there's self-care for project managers yes, and project hacks yeah, you got it. How to? Basically how to shorten and make your projects a little faster. I haven't taken that one yet.

Robert Hean:

Yeah, I can't say cutting corners, because that implies we're not doing something we need to do. It's more in the whole point with pure is like you know it's it's experiential instruction, it's not just a wrote by the book which can be valuable, and that has helped me flesh out my my understanding. But the whole project hacks thing was like hey, this is what you know, I learned in my university course that I briefly had on project management, but how does that actually interface with reality? You know what? What do I need to do? Or what can I do differently in in a real world project that still gets the job done and make sure we're compliant and it's safe, and all that that can be quicker to your point or more efficient or different or better for the team.

Walt Sparling:

So could you give us kind of a little like a short summary of each one of these as far as how they would be beneficial for someone that takes the pure management credential and takes your courses? Oh, I'd love to Beside just the PDUs?

Robert Hean:

Oh, of course. So I'll start with the project hacks. I briefly spoke about it, but again, it's applying what I have learned through painful experience in projects and trying to apply the theoretical knowledge I've picked up or have been told with real world expectations and what actually happens, as well as some things that I've just discovered that work better or not. Um, I was talking to Joe about it and I think, if you've read Harry Potter, uh, there's a character in there who writes notes in the margins of this textbook like, no, no, it's better to do it this way, and he crosses things out and changes things, and it's that kind of knowledge. It's someone who's done it who realizes, yeah, this is a good start. However, if we do it a little bit differently a little bit more of this, a little bit less of that, it'll be better for us and more, more good. Bad way to put it.

Robert Hean:

Um, the lessons learned and postmortems to me is kind of closer to my heart. I've realized that projects we tend to fall into this, thinking that projects are about doing the thing build the skyscraper, you know, to launch the ship, implement the system and we forget that there's people involved. Yeah, and those people can also be improved throughout the project. My own experience thinking back, you know joining a project team was a massive shift in what I thought I'd want to do with my career and I feel like it's been a very good shift. You know I can't A B test this and compare them, um, but we need to take time from our projects and stop and sit down on a regular basis, not just at the end of it, as I was initially taught, but throughout the project to learn. We need to stop and review what happened and why so we can be better next time and share that knowledge. Um, we were briefly speaking earlier and we don't want to like keep that to ourselves or realize other people are keeping it to themselves.

Walt Sparling:

Right, and that's one of the one of the things I believe in and I there seems to be an understanding that lessons learned are done at the end of a project and to me that's like the worst time you know if it's a one-off. You know very unique. Yes, all projects are unique, but I mean like you might build the same kind of building 20 times but you learn a little something each time, and it might be five buildings before your change order log shrinks way down, because by then you've got all the stuff implemented into the other buildings that you missed on the first five.

Robert Hean:

Yeah, you finally figure it out.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, so project management is just working and it is a learning experience.

Robert Hean:

As you were describing that, walt, I was thinking on our house, we have a tankless water heater Great, uh, every year or two we have to, you know, do some maintenance on it. And so I had a guy come out and perform maintenance and I was I hope I was smart I actually, like, took photos and video of him doing it and I saved that. So next time I have to do it, I can learn from that. That's a lesson learned. You know very simple example, but now I don't have to call a technician to come out and pay them. You know hundreds of dollars to do this simple thing that I can do. Now, okay, where was I? Ooh, self-care.

Robert Hean:

Self-care for project managers was the first one I started with, and I I proposed that as a topic because I realized in my career that I've been in situations at work where it is stressful and I'm definitely underselling it, but you know, there was one job where I was pulled off a project, an entire department. I wasn't allowed to work with them for some reason. I did something horrible and it took them three months to tell me why, and it's because I posted an update in a way that one person didn't like oh, wow, yeah, it was like. So then we had this like discussion with me, my manager, our senior director and the person who didn't like what I did, and I was like, really Like you. You left me hanging for three months and took this drastic action and denied me a promotion because of this and no one told me for 90 days. And what I realized I started doing in the middle was I had taken from my martial arts training meditation, and started meditating, you know, just 10 or 15 minutes at the end of the day to calm down that stress and that mental like just churn.

Robert Hean:

And then I realized, wait a minute, I bet there's a ton of people out there who could benefit from some of these ideas. And some people have told me hey, rob, these are like things you tell your kid eat your vegetables and exercise. I'm like, yes, that's because it's correct. Yes and yes, because some people don't have that knowledge. Like it's easy to forget that not everyone grows up with these tools or these habits or these understandings. And if we can give them a little bit of that like again, you don't have to do all the self-care stuff, but if you take a five minute walk every day, that can help your mental state and your energy and everything Um. So I realized that would could have a huge impact on project managers because spoiler alert our jobs tend to be a little bit stressful sometimes.

Walt Sparling:

Well, they're kind of almost all of these tie together. You know you've learned uh over time that uh breaks and the eating, your vegetables and the exercise helps you be better while you. That's a lessons learned. Yeah, that may clear up your mind to do some project hacks and make your projects more efficient.

Robert Hean:

I'll see if I can get a little diagram going showing how these all feed each other.

Walt Sparling:

Well, I think probably my second favorite PM topic is probably lessons learned, first being communication, because they're both critical. Yes, my second favorite PM topic is probably lessons learned, first being communication, because they're both critical. Yeah, and for especially if you're doing repeat type projects or you're working on large teams or within companies that have multiple teams, and if your projects whether they're side by side or they're different timeframes anytime you can share information on what you've learned with another teammate on another project, you have the potential to save them stress, money, schedule, etc. So that's one of the reasons I like doing lessons learned ongoing instead of waiting till the end of a project.

Robert Hean:

Yeah, it's. I've had a couple of times where someone has tripped over a note. I left somewhere and said, hey, that was really helpful, and like that feeling of oh, like I didn't even have to think about it, I just wrote this thing down. Two years ago, whenever and someone tripped over this thing, I wrote, um, the silliest example I can think of. I was at a company and we had a coffee machine, one of those automated ones. You can select your drink and push a button and it would jam every once in a while. And so I documented how to unjam the thing. And you know, you open it up and you just dump out the grounds and you put the thing back in. Very simple I left the company and two years later I had a friend who was still there and he said hey, rob, I left the company and two years later I had a friend who was still there and he said, hey, rob, people are still using that document, like years later, to unclog the coffee machine. And I was like there's a win.

Walt Sparling:

Absolutely. I've done similar stuff. We had an intranet. Well, actually, on the last place, we had a SharePoint site and I was the lead, so I would post information on things that the teammates had to do as part of their job. But when they would ask something one of the things you know my managers would say stop telling them how to do it, let them learn themselves. And so I would create a little library of stuff that I would do and I know other people are struggling with it and I would do like little snag it videos or screen captures and little white papers, but I'd let them try. And what did you try? This Did you try? Did you go look up the help? Yeah, I've done all that. All right, here, go here and here's a little instruction video or something like oh my God, why don't you just give that to me in the beginning? I'm like, well, what would you have learned?

Robert Hean:

Yeah, I use a similar trick, walt. I do my best to document and share those process things and I do my best to make sure it's easily accessible. So when someone says, hey, rob, how do I do this, my first like knee jerk is well, what happened when you followed the instructions? And they go? What instructions I go? Well, what did you try looking for? Well nothing, well go look for something Exactly.

Walt Sparling:

Yeah, help you learn, but not going to spoon feed you.

Robert Hean:

Yeah, I teach it. You know, teach someone to fish eat eat for a day. Wait, not how to go. Give him a fish eat for a day. Teach him to fish eat for a lifetime, kind of thing, something like that. Yeah.

Walt Sparling:

All right. So lessons learned and postmortems, self-care for project managers and project hacks they all sound like very usable topics, very useful topics, I sure hope so.

Robert Hean:

You know I say that half jokingly, but those are things I use, if not daily, you know weekly. For sure, the self-care is a daily, if not hourly thing. I'm constantly like how do I make sure I'm okay, so then I can help others? Um, but yeah, all those things I I find myself using all the time, which is why I chose them.

Walt Sparling:

So I got an interesting uh ask. Usually the interviews that I do are kind of who you are, what you do, where you live. You know, favorite, favorite tools, all that. Yours is a little different because we really were focusing on the pure stuff. But one of the things I've done at the end of the normal interviews is do, did you know? And in the conversations that I've had with you over the last year I'd say you seem like a guy that probably has some kind of interesting. Did you know that you could contribute to the audience?

Robert Hean:

uh, I do. Is there any particular topic or slice of my reality you would like a? Did you know from walt?

Walt Sparling:

no, just random, that's the whole point something unique all.

Robert Hean:

All right. Well, I have been to every continent in the world with one exception, and the exception is Australia. Oh, so I've been very fortunate. Growing up, my parents decided, hey, we don't want a big TV. You know, if the TV dies we might get another one, but they're not going to buy the biggest and best.

Robert Hean:

My mom focused on travel. She wanted me to get out and see the world and she enjoyed travel. And my mom focused on travel. She wanted me to get out and see the world and she enjoyed travel. And that resulted in me going to places like the Galapagos Islands I've been to. I've been north of the Arctic circle I can't say the North pole, cause I haven't been, you know, on the North pole but I've been to Svalbard, which is north of the Arctic circle polar bears, 24 hour daylight, kind of thing and I've been south of the Arctic circle, on the other end. So I've stepped foot on Antarctica, traveled extensively, I've circumnavigated the globe on a cruise ship and then spent a lot of time traveling in high school on a tall ship, so sailing, but never managed to make it to Oceania. So I haven't been to Australia or New Zealand yet. That's my next thing.

Walt Sparling:

That is really cool, especially the um the polls. I mean, how many people can say that they've done that?

Robert Hean:

Not many. And it's the crazy thing in Svalbard it's illegal to go outside of the town without a gun, just in case a polar bear comes at you. And we would get off and go on these little X, you know little walks around the shoreline or whatever, and the guides, you would hear them locking and loading their weapons Again, just in case a polar bear decides to come try and get one of us, and we wouldn't go near them. But if one came out of nowhere I was like, oh geez, like they're locked and loaded ready to go, wow.

Walt Sparling:

That is cool. Yeah, I've been to a few continents. That is cool. Yeah, I've, um, I've been to a few continents, but it, interestingly enough and I was watching a screensaver video today the one place that I is on my bucket list that I have not gone is right here in the U? S well, us and Canada is Niagara falls. I, okay, I cannot wait actually to see the good stuff. Apparently, you got to go to Canada, uh side, that's where all the best views are.

Robert Hean:

Oh, I, I haven't been there either. I only know it from you, know media, Uh, but I know the Canadian side is like the top of the falls right, when you can look down and see it all, Whereas the U S side?

Walt Sparling:

you can take the boats out under the falls and, wow, that's pretty exciting. Well, robert, I appreciate you coming on and, uh, I'm thinking we'll probably get you back on, maybe do a more normal interview, get know a little bit more about you and, uh, down the road.

Robert Hean:

How do you think? Thank you so much. Well, I'd love to come back and, uh, just continue our discussion.

Walt Sparling:

It's been great, and maybe next time we'll do video so you can show off your skateboards.

Robert Hean:

Oh yeah, I, you know, I, I shred very hard, I think, is the right phrase.

Walt Sparling:

All right, robert, I appreciate you coming on and, for everyone else, we'll see you in the next episode of PM Mastery.

Robert Hean:

Yeah, thank you all, thank you all.

Intro/Outro:

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