APM Podcast

We look back at our favourite moments from the podcast in 2023. 

It’s been another action-packed year in which we’ve welcomed guests from across the international project management community. We kicked off 2023 with an episode on bringing empathy into the workplace, and since then we’ve covered topics ranging from the rise of artificial intelligence to the can-do mindset of Icelandic project managers.

But there have been a few episodes that really stood out to us and which performed particularly well with listeners. So in this episode, we share our ‘top five lessons from the year’ in the form of short extracts from these episodes.

In this episode, Emma meets three project professionals with a deep interest in artificial intelligence (AI) to consider what impact this technology is having right now on projects, what it might hold for the future and what project managers should be doing to adapt to this brave new world. Joining Emma are:

• Professor Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, Founder of the Strategy Implementation Institute and author of the Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook
• James Garner, Global Head of Data and Intelligence at Gleeds and Chair of the Project Data Analytics Task Force
• Martin Paver, CEO of consultancy Projecting Success 

In this episode, Emma is joined once again by Professor Darren Dalcher of the University of Lancaster. Few people have studied project management as closely or for as long as Darren. In a career spanning more than 25 years, he has become very interested in the reasons for project failure. When it comes to agile, Darren was there from the start when it was being experimented with in software development. Who better, then, to explore the origins of agile and its impact on projects?

Emma meets three women to talk about menopause in the workplace. Two of them are project professionals – Rachel Jackson of Anglo American and Jo Roberts of the DfT – while the third, Aly Dilks of Simply Menopausal, is a nurse specialising in menopause.

The guests share experience and advice for those wanting to find out how to best deal with being menopausal, and how to support colleagues going through menopause.

Professor Adam Boddison meets Martina Blake of the UK Space Agency. Martina heads up the agency’s Office for Project and Programme Management, which she set up in November 2021. She explains that you don’t have to be an astronaut or scientist to work in the space sector – there is a huge variety of roles in project delivery and beyond. And as with other government departments, the UK Space Agency has signalled its commitment to enabling its project professionals to gain formal accreditation and meet their career ambitions. 

Emma meets Peter Simon, a Director at Lucidus Consulting and a member of the APM Risk SIG Committee. He is co-author of a new APM report looking into opportunity management as part of the overall project risk management process. The findings reveal notable areas where what is defined in textbooks and standards do not match what’s happening in practice. 

In June, APM held its annual conference in Birmingham under the heading of ‘Change Changes’. The event explored how the project profession must adapt to the changing nature of change itself in a world of increasing uncertainty and complexity. It emphasised the enormous contribution that projects can, and do, make to forging a cleaner, safer, more prosperous and more inclusive society. 

In this podcast, we’ve compiled some of the key insights that emerged from the first stream of sessions at the conference, which was focused on the transformative impact that projects can have both on individual lives as well as economic, social and physical landscapes. 

Emma meets Beth West, CEO of East West Rail, a transport project that will open up a corridor from Oxford, through Milton Keynes and Bedford, to Cambridge and connect the UK’s two leading life sciences and tech hot spots.

In this episode, Emma meets Jo Jolly, Deputy Director and Head of Project Futures at the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, who recently spoke at APM's Change Changes conference. Everything is touched by projects, Jo told the audience. The UN Sustainable Development Goals should be actions for all our projects: we can do these things if we want to. Listen to hear Jo share how project delivery can be transformed for the better by embracing data and human collaboration and so improve society and all our lives.  

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Emma meets Dan Jennings, who recently established a project management office at the UK wing of global media agency Wavemaker. His team has worked on everything from Evian campaigns tied to the Wimbledon tennis tournament to delivering product placement within Married at First Sight on Channel 4. As those creative projects have become more complex, whether through multi-platform content partnerships or the arrival of new channels such as smart speakers and WhatsApp, project management skills have become even more in demand. Hear Dan speak about what it's like to establish a PMO from scratch and introduce professional project management processes and expertise into a sector unfamiliar with it.  

Emma meets Carmel McConnell MBE – a change activist and keynote speaker at the upcoming APM Conference on 8 June in Birmingham. Carmel founded the charity Magic Breakfast; she is a tech entrepreneur, mentor to CEOs and best-selling author of Change Activist: Make Big Things Happen Fast.

Emma meets three project professionals (Alex Constantine, Clare Hornsby and Natalie Talbot) to discuss what it’s like to be an introvert in a project profession that seems to favour extroverts, at least on the surface. This situation leaves many introverts having to fake it and suffer the consequences. So, isn’t it time things changed?

Read more about introverts in the project profession in the spring 2023 edition of APM’s Project journal.

Emma meets Adrian Dooley, who has 45 years’ experience in project management. Adrian started out his career as a construction project manager, later becoming involved in developing software applications for construction. In 1984, he set up the Projects Group as a training and consultancy company. He was one of the founders of Project Manager Today magazine and served as an executive council member of APM. He is the founder and lead author of the Praxis Framework. In this podcast, he shares how, in his experience, many fads rise to prominence and then become integrated into good practice. He believes agile will follow that same path.

Professor Adam Boddison (APM Chief Executive) meets Nick Smallwood, CEO of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA). The IPA oversees the UK’s National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline, which contains hundreds of billions of pounds of public and private infrastructure investment. It also supports the Government Major Projects Portfolio, made up of projects with high levels of complexity, impact or risk. Also part of Nick’s remit is advancing the professionalisation of project delivery within the UK government. 

Adam speaks to Nick about his route into the project profession, including four decades at Shell. We also hear about Nick’s decision to move into the public sector, the implementation of a Project Academy within government, and why he believes he is in the best project job in the UK.

Emma meets Haukur Ingi Jónasson, Professor of Project Management at the University of Reykjavik, where he runs its Master’s in Project Management (MPM) course. The MPM is helping create the project professionals needed to take Iceland through its latest transformation. You can read all about it in the spring 2023 issue of Project journal. Haukur talks to Emma about his unusual entry into project management and how the Icelandic mindset is something we could all benefit learning from.

Emma meets Vip Vyas, co-author of Gorilla in the Cockpit: Breaking the hidden patterns of project failure and the system for success. Vip is founder of a company that specialises in breakthrough performance on large projects. He's been a visiting consultant at London Business School and an executive consultant at Said Business School at the University of Oxford. His book is the product of 25 years’ experience of tackling and turning around highly complex projects across many sectors, including banking, FMCG, government, digital technology and renewables. In this podcast, he shares what he has learned about why most projects fail, what makes some projects so successful and how you can become a better project leader.

Emma welcomes back Bent Flyvbjerg to talk about his new book, How Big Things Get Done: The surprising factors behind every successful project, from home renovations to science exploration. Bent formulated the ‘iron law of megaprojects’, which contends that $1bn-plus megaprojects will almost always blow their budget and schedule and yield fewer benefits than promised. His new book outlines how the data shows this is no mystery; it's usually the result of terrible forecasting and planning. The good news is that he explains how every project from a house renovation to the building of a new nuclear power station could be done far more successfully.

This special episode is guest hosted by Emma-Ruth Arnaz-Pemberton, chair of APM’s PMO Specific Interest Group, and Director of Consulting Services at Wellingtone.

She’s in conversation with Catherine Lumb of Openreach. The Fibre and Network Delivery PMO at Openreach was the recipient of APM’s 2022 PMO of the Year award. The judges praised the PMO for “working on relationships and on accessible ways to being benefits” and also for “generating joy through the work itself.”

Listen to hear Catherine talk about how and why the PMO was established, the transformation journey it went on, and also why PMOs have something of an image problem – and how to break the bias.

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‘A sense maker in a daft world’ is how today’s guest, Eddie Obeng, describes himself. Eddie is a Visiting Professor at Henley Business School, an esteemed columnist for Project journal and an APM Honorary Fellow. He's also learning director at the virtual business school Pentacle, a TED speaker and co-founder of Qube. A new edition of his book All Change! The project leader's secret handbook is out this year. In this podcast, he shares his thoughts on the most important trends in project management for 2023, and what you should be doing about them.

Emma meets Belinda Parmar, founder and CEO of The Empathy Business, who was also the keynote speaker at APM’s Women in Project Management Conference in September. Belinda uses the science of empathy to change the way we lead at work, changing cultures to bring more empowerment to people's lives, with a focus on belonging and diversity. Belinda is also the creator of the Global Empathy Index, published in the Harvard Business Review, which is the first index to measure empathy and inclusion at scale. She works alongside CEOs and leaders of large organisations to transform companies using the power of empathy.

In the second of our follow-up podcasts from the APM Women in Project Management Conference, Emma invites three senior leaders from the world of projects who contributed to WIPM. They share their experience to help those starting out in their career and also give their tips for women on how to rise to the top of the profession. Joining Emma are:

• Sam Olsen, DWP
• Estelle Detrembleur, Mace and APM’s Risk SIG
• Sharon Parker-Brannan, Sellafield Ltd

For this podcast, Emma invited three high-flyers from the world of projects who also contributed to APM’s Women in Project Management Conference this year, which was a terrific success and a really buzzy event. This follow-up podcast gathers together their career tips for project professionals so that you can benefit from their wonderful advice. On the panel are:

• Jacqueline Okuyemi-Daniel, Tetra Tech Europe
• Daisy Milton, Bass Rock Engineering
• Bel French, Gleeds

In this episode, Emma meets Kristina Bull, a Partner at QSA Partners, a B Corp consultancy with a mission to help organisations to implement circular economy business models. A project professional with a focus on sustainability, Kristina currently advises clothing brands and retailers and how to become more truly sustainable. She also works on the Cotton Lives On initiative, a recycling programme turning your old cottons into new products.

Listen to find out about her work on sustainability and her advice for every project professional on what more you can do.

This episode sees Professor Adam Boddison, APM Chief Executive, in conversation with the Right Honourable Justine Greening. Justine served as an MP from 2005 to 2019. During her time in politics, she held positions including Secretary of State for Education, Minister for Women and Equalities and Secretary of State for International Development.

In this podcast, Adam and Justine discuss the definition of social mobility, the status of apprenticeships and where project management fits into the levelling up agenda.

Justine also shares her experiences as co-founder of the Social Mobility Pledge campaign, which encourages organisations to be a force for good by putting social mobility at the heart of their purpose.

This episode sees Adam Boddison, APM chief executive, in conversation with Joanna Rowland, Director General for Transformation at HMRC. The pair discuss the evolution of the project profession within government, the skills and experience required to thrive in a project role and misconceptions surrounding the profession.

Jo also shares her career origins, including her time with the police, and her experience of working under pressure and amid intense public scrutiny during the pandemic.

In this episode, Andrew Saunders, business journalist and regular contributor to Project journal, sits down with Mark Wild, ex-CEO of Crossrail.

Mark took over as CEO of Crossrail in 2018 at a time of highly publicised budget and deadline overruns. Fast-forward to May this year, and Mark stepped down as CEO following the long-delayed but much-celebrated opening of the Elizabeth Line. Having successfully turned around such a complex and fraught programme, in this podcast Mark shares his insights into what went wrong in the early years of Crossrail, the changes he made upon becoming CEO and lessons for future complex programmes.

The new world requires a different mindset and skillset to navigate the pitfalls of change delivery. In this podcast, Jo Stanford (Health Education England) and Sarbjit Hoskinson (ThermoFisher Scientific) discuss how they have tackled the cultural and behavioural shifts needed to embed change. They explore the capabilities, team dynamics and mindset needed for project and change managers to deliver sustainable outcomes and achieve value in a complex, evolving environment.

Further reading 

Adam Boddison, APM chief executive, meets Mark Thurston, CEO of Europe’s largest infrastructure project, HS2. The pair discuss the evolution of the project profession, areas for growth and the pressures associated with managing an era-defining megaproject.

Mark also gives his thoughts on the levelling-up agenda, sharing lessons learned and what makes an effective project leader.

In this episode, Project journal editor Emma De Vita meets NASA’s Bill Ochs, project manager for the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest space science telescope ever developed, which was successfully launched on Christmas Day on a journey of close to one million miles from earth. Hubble’s replacement gives humanity a new eye in the sky with infrared sensors that will peer into the farthest reaches of the cosmos to observe the universe’s first galaxies, reveal the birth of stars and planets, and look for exoplanets with the potential for life.

In this podcast, Bill, who is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to lead a project like this and what you need to get right to achieve a successful mission.

In this episode, Project journal editor Emma De Vita meets Simon Fell, director of events, festivals and leisure at London’s Alexandra Palace (or Ally Pally as you might know it). He has significant experience of delivering, programming and promoting large-scale public entertainment events with capacities of up to 50,000. He set up Ally Pally’s Kaleidoscope Festival in 2018, which is a 12,000-capacity boutique arts and music festival set within the grounds of the venue.

In this podcast, he gives us a VIP backstage pass to what it takes to project manage Alexandra Palace and how the pandemic empowered him to take a different approach. Listen to discover what lessons you can learn from the world of festivals and events, which might inspire you to try out new things on your own projects.

In this episode, Emma De Vita asks what mentoring means, what benefits it brings for people and organisations and how to do it well.

Our guest panellists:

• Vicki Griffiths, senior project manager at marine engineering company Fugro
• Ewelina Kruk, associate director within programme and portfolio management at Incendium Consulting
• Jaspal Kaur-Griffin, head of programmes at the Bar Standards Board

All have experience being mentors and being mentored themselves. Vicki was part of the team that set up the Women in Project Management mentoring scheme for APM, while Ewelina was involved with the pilot of APM’s broader mentoring programme, which launched at the end of January.

In 2022, APM is celebrating its 50th anniversary, so throughout the year we’ll be sitting down with some of the movers and shakers who have shaped the project profession across the last few decades. We’ll be asking them how the profession has evolved, where the untapped potential lies, and what the future might hold.

In this episode, Andrew Saunders, journalist and regular contributor to Project journal, sits down with Darren Dalcher, professor of strategic project management at the University of Lancaster.

Few people have studied project management as closely or for as long as Darren, who is also a director of the National Centre for Project Management, and co-editor of the 7th edition of APM’s Body of Knowledge.

In a career spanning more than 25 years, Darren has become a respected voice for innovation in the sector thanks to his fascination with the power of projects and in particular why some fail and others succeed.

If you enjoy this episode, look out for the spring edition of Project journal, out in March, which features extra material from Andrew’s interview with Darren.

It’s fair to say the past year has been another challenging one for project professionals, who have continued to navigate the complexities of the Covid pandemic, with schedules and budgets liable to change last minute and teams continuing to adjust to working remotely. Add to that the teething problems we saw following Brexit – and it’s clear that 2021 was a year in which project professionals had their work cut out.

However, as our podcast guests have pointed out on many occasions, the most powerful lessons often emerge from periods of adversity. Many of the lessons learned during the first 18 months of the pandemic will feed into project plans and personal development goals as we move into 2022.

So, on that note, in this episode of the podcast, Project’s online editor Mike Hine looks back at the past 12 months and presents some of the key project lessons of 2021, as told to us by our guests.

So how did NASA put a rover on Mars amid a global pandemic? What are the untapped opportunities of project data analytics? And what might the UK’s vaccine taskforce programme teach us about how to streamline processes to enable quicker delivery when it really matters?

In this episode, hosted by Mike Hine, online editor for Project journal, we take a look at the topic of dynamic conditions for project success.

Project professionals and organisations are always on the lookout for ways to enhance project outcomes, but doing so can prove elusive. It’s a topic of great interest to researchers, too, and to that end APM has recently published the report Dynamic conditions for project success. The report identifies organisational, professional, and societal dynamic conditions that can enhance project outcomes and explores how project professionals and organisations apply them.

We spoke to three of the research team from the Universities of Sussex and Southampton – Dr Nicholas Dacre, Dr David Eggleton and Vasilis Gkogkidis.

In ‘From the Frontline’, Project journal editor Emma De Vita meets project professionals who are working on cutting-edge projects, and academics whose research is at the forefront of project management techniques.

In this episode she speaks to the researchers behind Project X’s latest report, published by APM, called Rethinking Capabilities: Lessons for policy, scholarship and practice. Project X is an ESRC‑funded research collaboration between government, academia and industry representatives, aiming to generate unique insights into the performance of major projects and programmes in government.

So why do some major projects perform poorly, and others perform well – and what can you do about it? We hear about some of the key findings and what you can do to put them into practice on your projects right now.

On the panel:

• Dr Rebecca Vine is an assistant professor in accounting at the University of Sussex Business School
• Dr Dicle Kortantamer is a research fellow at the University of Brighton
• Dr Jas Kalra is an assistant professor in supply chain management at Newcastle University Business School
• Phillippa Groome is a doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex

In ‘From the Frontline’, Project journal editor Emma De Vita meets project professionals who are working on cutting-edge projects, and academics whose research is at the forefront of project management techniques.

In this episode we meet Gemma Roura Serra, strategic planning director at ABB Formula E. Formula E is the world’s first all-electric single-seater car racing series, conceived to accelerate electric vehicle adoption and demonstrate leadership in the sports world by becoming the only sport to be net-zero carbon since inception. Its races are held in 12 city centres across the world, including London, New York, Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, Moscow and Beijing, where it debuted in 2014. The 45-minute races predominantly take place on 3km circuits and the cars go from 0–100km in 2.8 seconds with a max speed of 160 miles/hour.

With over 20 years of experience in sports management, Gemma offers a strong hands-on background in the motorsports and events industries. In September she was promoted to strategic planning director focusing on calendar and event operations planning and roadmapping.

In this podcast, Gemma shares her experience of masterminding a pioneering project with a sustainable message at its core.