Regardless of industry, job title, or level within a company, people are evaluated on their ability to get things accomplished. For most executives and professionals, that involves completing various projects. This is why many of our clients have told us that they’d like to improve their project management skills.
Project management has been a hot topic over the years, but it remains difficult for many people. In this episode, you will learn more about the essentials of project management skills.
Our host and CEO Porschia, alongside our guest, Yuquan Holloway, will share their insight on the significance of project management skills in your career.
Yuquan Holloway is a leader in the fields of business and IT. She is the Principal Consultant of Holloway Consulting Group, a consulting practice that focuses on helping corporate teams deliver IT and transformation projects, resolve systemic process issues, and train associates on project management and Lean Six Sigma principles.
What you’ll learn:
- Why project management skills are important, even if you aren’t a Project Manager
- The fundamentals of project management and significance of stakeholder relationships
- Tips on how to improve project management skills
- How to explore project management, if you’re considering it as a career path
- Ways for companies to improve their internal project management
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today we are talking about Project Management 101 Project Management Skills with Yaquan Holloway. Yaquan Holloway is a leader in the fields of business and IT. She is the principal consultant of Holloway Consulting Group, a practice that focuses on helping corporate teams deliver IT and transformation projects.
You can also helps them resolve systemic process issues and train and coach [00:01:00] associates on project management and lean Six Sigma principles. She graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology with a bachelor of civil engineering and holds a MBA from Georgia State University with over 20 years of experience and leading large cross functional initiatives.
Your Quan has a track record of driving successful change. Through her work, she strives to demystify project management, create a culture of standard work and repeatable processes. Stabilize and simplify core applications and reduce critical incidents. Hi, Kwan. How are you today?
Yuquan: I’m wonderful. Thank you for having me.
Absolutely.
Porschia: And I’m excited to have you with us to discuss Project Management 101, Project Management Skills. But first, we want to know a little more about you. So tell me about seven year old Kwan.
Yuquan: [00:02:00] Seven year old Kwan. Oh, seven year old Kwan was always trying to find herself, find her way to the library and see how many books she could check out at one time so that she could re read.
And she probably was at her grandmother’s that summer and then her grandmother was pushing her outside to make sure that she played and didn’t spend so much time reading because you could potentially go crazy. That was always my fear. This crazy fear that… If you read too much, you might go crazy.
That’s some fear my grandma had put in my head, but I think seven year old Quan is a lot like today’s Quan. So she just likes meeting new people, likes reading, likes dancing still, and likes doing different things every day. And that’s perfect for a project manager or somebody that works with project managers.
Porschia: I love it. I love it, Quan. I was also a big reader and I was reading a book a day, and I felt like such a nerd. So I love that you were in the library, too, and yeah, books [00:03:00] as you could for, like, the week. I was planning ahead. I don’t know if you were doing that, but.
Yuquan: And, they’d have those little contests, and you just have to write down what you read, and you could win maybe a certificate to McDonald’s or something fun, so.
It’s always nice. The neighbor, the library is like the unsung wonderful place in America. I think
Porschia: I agree. I agree. Libraries are just so serene to me. I just love it. So what did you want to
be
Yuquan: when you grew up? Well, I wanted to be a supermodel, but I never got over five, two and a half, so that wasn’t going to work out.
And then I wanted to be a pediatrician because I really felt like I love kids and I like being around kids and it’ll be a good thing for me. And for whatever reason, I just never made medical school a priority. But I just, I felt like that’d be a good mix of my skills. Yeah. Supermodeling and pediatricianing.
I love
Porschia: it. . So what was your first
Yuquan: job, Fawn?[00:04:00] . My first job was at Macy’s and , I worked in the shoe department in the clearance center, which they put one shoe out and one shoe in the back. Horrible idea. Because it just, it could get all kinds of crazy and there was no organization necessarily to wear that one shoe was, but I loved it because I got to talk to people from all over the world who would come to our wonderful clearance center, trying to get a good deal.
And they try to steal too, because this was back before you really had, you had coding that. spoke to the specific item. So they would switch tags and try to get better discounts. And I felt like I was a great detective. So it was just so fun to try and detect who was doing what to the shoes and clothes at the Macy’s clearance center.
I loved it. Still might be my favorite job ever. Detective crime.
Porschia: So tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started your business. Sure.
Yuquan: I spent a large amount of my working [00:05:00] years at the Coca Cola company. So it’s just an awesome opportunity and place for me to grow up, and to really learn about business and learn about how things work and learn how to get things done in an organization that had a lot of different layers and complexities and people and resources are always strapped anywhere and anything.
I learned a lot there, but I got placed in a project management role really before I had the project management knowledge and that made the very first year of my project management life pretty difficult. And so I had to learn a lot of things the hard way and learn about rigor and why rigor was important.
So it’s just a pivotal time in my career and probably the most important series of jobs I had. At Coca Cola was that a project manager? What would you
Porschia: say has been your biggest career challenge so far before starting your
Yuquan: business? [00:06:00] My biggest career challenge prior to starting my business was being cast in a role as a sales and business planner, which meant I spent hours upon hours playing around with spreadsheets and building models, and that is not how my brain works.
Whereas the project management role, though, I found it challenging at first. After I got my bearings and figured out the best way for me to proceed, I had an awesome time. That, that challenge of being a sales and business planner and an analyst of sorts is that my brain doesn’t necessarily work in data structures.
And I also thrive off of talking to people. And so sitting for hours upon hours building spreadsheets and playing with models and then creating PowerPoints about said spreadsheets to give to salespeople. It was a sad time in my, it was challenging. And then once I got the hang [00:07:00] of it, it was sad because I didn’t get to talk to people.
That was probably my biggest challenge of my career prior to starting my business. What motivated
Porschia: you to start your own
Yuquan: business? I like to consider myself an accidental entrepreneur. Unfortunately, the title of that book is already taken. I would have written it. My mom had a cleaning franchise as I was coming up.
And she worked, that was really my first job, but I wasn’t, I didn’t get any kind of pay for it. She worked from sunup to sundown through the night. And sometimes our people would show sometimes they wouldn’t. Sometimes we have a really great year. Sometimes it’d be a tougher year. And I learned, Oh my gosh, you work yourself.
You really work when you own your business. So I’ll never do that. I got the opportunity at Coke to take a leave and I thought I’ll just go do something fun and determine whether or not I want to go back. And so as I was thinking, what [00:08:00] will I do? I was like, what did I have the most fun doing when I was at Coke?
And I was like, I really liked being a project manager. I gotten promoted and I was running teams of project managers. And then I was looking at system applications and I was like, I just had so much fun being just a project manager. So I went and I got a contract role as a PM and I started attracting more and more work and people would reach out and say, Hey, remember when you did this for me back 10 years ago, do you think.
You could do that or help us do that. And so it just became an organic thing and just has grown into all the things I really enjoy to do. But now with, within an organization where I get to, to lead, so I’m definitely an accidental entrepreneur, but enjoying the journey every day. It sounds
Porschia: like project management was interesting to you, but.
When you think about [00:09:00] starting your own business, sometimes people don’t know what to focus on. How did you decide to focus on project
Yuquan: management? I had a a woman I’d spoken to once a coach and I, she was, somebody was going to call me. I knew there were, somebody had called me and said they wanted me to come in and talk about a potential thing.
And I thought, let me sit here. And I created all this stuff and I was, I’m going to tell her this. And I’m going to tell her that I’m going to tell her this. And a very wise woman said to me, why don’t you go be quiet and listen and whatever they need. That’s an offering and start there. And I thought, that’s brilliant.
And so in a sense. The request that people have made and the work that I’ve done has built the niche of project management. I’m not sure that I answered your question completely, but that’s how I, that’s how I’ve gotten down this particular path of the things that my [00:10:00] company offers. It’s what the clients were looking for, that sweet spot of people that need that service of, hey, I need a seasoned PM for this work, or hey, I don’t mind if it’s a seasoned PM or not, but I need somebody to build, build this out for me step by step, or I need training for my people, that type of thing.
Why do you think
Porschia: project management skills are
Yuquan: important? Oh man I can’t underscore enough how the people, the person or group that leads something has a huge impact on whatever it is you’re trying to do. And, when I first started and I would approach things haphazardly, Things will happen haphazardly, but I’ve noticed that when you approach things with structure and organization and people know what they’re going to experience and people know the [00:11:00] best way to communicate in that.
Framework things can happen a bit more smoothly and organized and you don’t just end up somewhere happenstance, but you have a much better chance of reaching the specific destination that was set in front of you. And I’m a person who fought that at the beginning. Cause I was like, I like being creative, but when you.
Have a framework, then you’re able to be much more rich with your coloring, right? You’re like, Oh, I can build this beautiful picture. If I have this framework. So I think project managers are also important and even not just the them having the structure, but even I’d like to advocate on the side of the personality.
That specific culture needs in order to get things done. In the project management world, we always talk about time, quality, and budget. I like to add a fourth element, and I’d like to say fun. Nobody wants to sign up for a 6 to 19, 6 to [00:12:00] 18 month thing, and it be like a dredge. But That group of people that’s together for that amount of time, there can be camaraderie, there can be respect, there can be excellence, there can be fun, so I think a project manager is very important to an initiative in getting things done well.
So,
Porschia: in addition to time, quality, budget, and fun, Kwon, in your opinion, what are the fundamentals of project
Yuquan: management? The fundamentals of project management. , I love to talk about how things start, right? This is Stephen Covey. Somebody likes to talk. Maybe it’s just people, old people that I know, all that starts well, ends well.
So it’s so key on how you start and Making sure that you’re actually doing and working on what your stakeholders want you to work on. That is so fundamental. As a project manager, you often get your work from some [00:13:00] executive, some muckety muck who has some money and they want something done. And the biggest mistake you can make is often just saying thank you and getting started and not really understanding who the stakeholders are of the initiative.
And understanding what they see as success as well. That leader often has an aerial view of a situation and they might not know what’s really going on. But if you talk to a couple of key people, you’ll learn that. Hey, this is also an issue or that looks like that’s the issue. But really, this is the issue.
So I’d say starting well and really chartering the event is huge in order to really make sure that you’re about to do for that person that requested your services that you’re really about to give them what they’ve asked for. Cause , you might give them what they asked for and it’d be all wrong.
So you need to really know that they know what they’re [00:14:00] asking for. So I think that’s a huge fundamental is starting well, knowing who your stakeholders are and taking those stakeholders along for the ride. There’s nothing like getting all the way to the end of a journey and having a stakeholder come out of left field and just knock everything over.
You spent months. You think you’ve done well. And then there’s this quiet, still voice at the kickoff that says, well, what about such and such? And you’re like, what’s such as such now? Like Joanne and accounting, she needs that. What are you going to do for her? You’re like, I didn’t know about Joanne and accounting.
And then you’re. stepped back. So I think those things are huge fundamentals is starting well, knowing who your stakeholders are and taking them on the journey with you all the way through having just having some routine and rigor to how you approach things. Can you
Porschia: tell us a little bit more about a project charter for anyone who [00:15:00] doesn’t know
Yuquan: that terminology?
Yeah. I love a good project charter because there’s nothing like having. I mean, he’s like, Oh, this sounds like it could be boring, but actually, it’s asking you the questions that you need to ask yourself. And so it’ll have on there, the background, why this is even important. And I’d say that’s one of, that’s a key thing.
There should be a reason why this work is starting. If there is not a good reason for this work to start, you shouldn’t start it because there’s 50 other better things to be done. Every organization I know right now is strapped for resources, time, and or money. And , people are precious commodities.
And for you to take your time and lead this initiative and bring eight or nine other team members along. It’s big. So what is the reason for this and be very clear on it because there are going to be some days where the only reason you keep going is because of the background and the reason we should also know, how will we, what are we [00:16:00] specifically working to achieve?
What’s the specific objective? And I love to use smart the mnemonic smart as to lay out objectives. It needs to be specific. Measurable, achievable relative to this specific organization and time bound. So do I have a SMART objective and do I have, can I measure something to know that I’ve reached it?
Is there a specific amount of waste that we’re driving out? Are we increasing sales by this percent? I want to be at the end of the road, be able to say, yay, I made it. And if I don’t start with a clear objective and clear metrics, then I might not be able to say that. I want to know who’s involved, who are the team members.
And I make that a part of my charter because I want to know who my key stakeholders are. And if possible, I want to take from those stakeholders and have some representatives from them as a part of the project team, there’s nothing like doing a project and then trying [00:17:00] to get other people to accept it.
Nine months later and they haven’t been on board. They haven’t been a part of it. My charter also talks a little bit about the routine of the, how the project is going to be managed. Are we going to meet biweekly on Tuesdays? Just having some organization and rigor and I’m looking at it in my head.
I also have a little bit about finance on my charter. What’s this going to do financially for the organization? And there’s several different ways I can look at finances, right? Am I going to increase revenue? Am I going to decrease cost in the business, am I going to improve employee satisfaction and that’s going to help me with retention?
Am I going to increase my customers happiness or delight so that they buy more? What am I specifically going to do financially? So all those things together help paint a really good picture. And I doubt when someone assigns you a project, all of those things. Most people that are asking you to do a project don’t know those things.
So just you stepping through that charter will put you at being [00:18:00] one of the most knowledgeable people on the topic just by getting those questions answered. And you’re going to have to talk to a couple of people to get those questions answered because there’s not one person that knows all of that. And that’s going to be very helpful too.
So I think my, if I’ve written blogs or talked about it, I think the charter is the most important document. Let me tell you, there’s nothing like getting to the end of a project and realize you did not really work on what somebody wanted you to work on. It’s embarrassing, but it happens so much like communication is key and it puts it in print and I will actually put it on a slide.
Or print it out and walk through it. Each part of it with someone and they’ll say, Oh no. I didn’t mean that. Or that’s crazy because of this or talk to Karen. Cause she’ll tell you that’s not really a problem. So it’s just a really good starter document. That saves you a lot of pain in the future
Porschia: [00:19:00] for breaking that down for us, because I find that a lot of people don’t know what a project charter was.
And I didn’t know what 1 was until I started my own business. And just talk about project management makes me see even more similarities
Yuquan: to change management. Oh, gosh. Yeah.
Porschia: We work with organizations. We. Do some change management, organizational development, depending on what they are looking for.
And I’m just hearing a lot of [00:20:00] similarities.
Yuquan: So believe it or not, I’d say post pandemic, most of the requests that we get are more change related than they are project related in there. And I often make sure my project plans have a good change component. But sometimes I’m like, Hey, you need a change person.
This is bigger than just a line item on the project plan. If it’s a big change, you got to take people from the beginning to the end. That’s back to my stakeholders. I got to be clear on those stakeholders to make sure I’m bringing all of them along for the ride. So I think a lot of similar, a lot of similarities and a lot of a lot of integration could happen between change management and project management.
I agree.
Porschia: So many executives and professionals believe they should improve their project management skills. From your perspective, what are some of the best ways to improve project
Yuquan: management skills? Yeah, if you’re a practicing [00:21:00] project manager, I’d say the best way to improve your project management is to keep working.
And also evaluate the experience, right? For yourself and for others. I love having after action reviews at the end of a project. If it’s been a real messy project, I like to call it the good, the bad, and the ugly. I like to give, let people fill out anonymous surveys. So they can really share their opinions and then for us to step through what worked well and what didn’t work well.
And then from that work to what worked well, I’m like, Oh man, how do I continue to leverage that? And future projects and keep it in my tool set. And for the things that didn’t work well, how do I mitigate that and get better at that in the future? So you learn a lot from evaluating your projects and getting feedback.
If you’re if you practice and you’re a project manager, that works a lot. I can’t tell you how many times I had to learn. If you [00:22:00] don’t have a clear charter. You’re in trouble. Because you often get asked to work and do something and it’s like, hurry up, and you just start putting out meetings and you’re already in a project, but really you’re just having series of meetings and I’ll get halfway in and I’m like, you should take a second and do a charter and really kick this thing off.
But I’d say to get better as a project manager, I’m always working to get better at the specific. Components that can cause the most issues. I think that one I’ve been focused on the past couple years the most is risk and the pandemic really helped me there. It’s just, you never know what’s going to happen.
So I love to ask people to think through what are all the things that can happen so that you can go ahead and determine which one of those are more likely than others. If you’re not a project manager, but you want to be one and, or you’re an executive who just wants to have a better understanding. I mean, I think there are lots of [00:23:00] classes.
That you can take a one day seminar here, a online course there. The catch is as soon as you take a course or as soon as you attend something, put at least one of the things in motion immediately. If not, it’s just something you went to some years back sitting on your hard driver. I got a whole bunch of ’em sitting up here on my thing above and you’d be surprised just taking one thing back.
It sounds, oh, that’s not big. It’s huge. If you do something like that every year, every six months, you learn something new and put one thing in motion. As a PMP, you have to constantly get training and I always, sometimes I wait to the last minute and then I’m like, okay, I gotta take an online course to make this work.
And I’ve committed to myself and know how, no matter how good or bad that material is, I’m going to take one thing and I’m going to start doing it. Or paying attention to other project managers. If you’re not a [00:24:00] project manager and you’d like to be one, getting on a project. There’s always a project.
There are non profit projects. And volunteer organizations, there are projects at churches, there are projects everywhere. Get on a project and see what you can learn from the person that’s leading it. Either what not to do, or what to do. But there, those are a couple of ways You can, there’s definitely organizations where you can volunteer to lead projects if you ever need.
If you need to find some, just reach out. Yeah, I think
Porschia: along those lines, Quan, we’ve seen that a lot of our career coaching clients want to pursue careers in project management. I think you’ve already started giving us some of these, but what would you say are some tips or recommendations that you would share with people to help them prepare for a career in project management?
Yuquan: Cool. And I thought you were going to ask me that how they can potentially transition, but we’ll go with the I have this [00:25:00] list that I’ve been building for a couple of years and I pulled it out. And as I think about, I’m interviewing project managers all the time. And I asked myself this about the person I interviewed.
I said a successful project manager is someone who has a high degree of flexibility and adaptability to changes. When I tell you every day changes, the focus changes at the company, in the industry, and in the world every day, like you thought you were going this way. Now you’re going that way. So, if you struggle with flexibility and adaptability, what ways can you work on that for yourself?
How can work on being a bit more flexible with others is important is a good communicator and you have to be able to communicate with the spoken word and with the written word. And I’d say you don’t have to be the best writer in the world, but you have to be very clear. And people have to understand what it is you’re working to [00:26:00] say.
You’ll find your, a lot of times you’re doing PowerPoint decks, you’re preparing. I’ve even had to prepare speeches for senior leaders for kickoff conversations. So working on your communication is key. If you can get more and more opportunities to speak, if that’s a place where you struggle and get nervous with people, Toastmasters might be good.
Something that helps you with that. Is persuasive and I’m not saying persuasive the type of persuasive where you’re a bit manipulative but persuasive in that. You’re able to take you’re able to look across facts and data and synthesize it and then give people share what you’ve learned with people in a way where they are like, Oh, okay.
I see the facts now. I’m not. I just need you to do this. I, people want to know why, especially. Gen Z. They need to know the why. You’re not just going to tell them to go do something. You need to give them a background. Can function in an ambiguous environment with ill defined [00:27:00] relationships.
Whoa, when I meet somebody that can do that one, I’m like, I’ll hire them to go anywhere. If I see anything that trips up a project manager, it’s cause as a project manager, you get dropped in different places. It’s almost, I’m not saying it’s like combat, but they’ll just drop you here and embed you with this random team of people.
And I don’t know what kind of environment they really have. So I need to know that. You can be somewhere and figure out by paying attention to the people around you. Okay, what kind of Quan do I need to be this week? Okay, I need to be quiet and listen, or I need to raise my hand, step up, and put some order to this conversation because it’s all over the place.
And that’s just I think about that often. Like, how do you teach somebody that? That’s the one I struggle with. And then last but not least, has the ability to manage and resolve conflict relationships. So that’s the one I like the least because I’m, by nature, I’m a [00:28:00] conflict diverse person.
But if you let conflicts Just simmer in the background of a project. It will tear, it’ll tear the team down. So if you have opportunities there, then maybe, taking a quick course on conflict and negotiation and resolution, but that’s my super duper list that I’m always trying to, when I talk to somebody and there’s really no questions you can ask other than tell me about a time when.
That’s the, this is the list of what I’m looking for a great project manager. So in places where you can improve these skills, I think you really have a good shot. Yeah.
Porschia: That was so insightful. And then to your point that you were making at the very beginning, , we’re open to hearing about any tips from a professional who wants to transition into project management
Yuquan: as well.
The best. Tip I’ve had in like, especially when I was working inside of. Coca [00:29:00] Cola. And even when I first left and I was looking at different opportunities, if you can find somebody that’s doing what you want to do or managing a group of people that are doing what you want to do and ask them for an informational interview.
I found that to be just an awesome tool now and truly be prepared and go in and ask them great questions about what they do, how they do it, what’s been the hardest parts of their job, what success looks like in that specific space. And that because project managers look different everywhere you go different.
This organization treats them different and does this that. So if there’s a specific one you’re looking at within a specific company, I’d say go ask somebody do an informational interview. They can’t get more than 20 minutes in that interview before they ask you about yourself. If you really have just been Asking them about them, human nature makes them want to know more about you.
And then you can share, I’m doing this right [00:30:00] now. I’m a procurement analyst. I’m doing this. I’m interested in what you’re doing though. Any tips? And then if it’s in, I think the best place for you to make a transition into a project management role, if you’re not already in one is within the company that you already are.
And so reaching out to people that lead projects in your organization and asking, can I shadow you for a day to see what you do want to see if you even like it? Because maybe they’re calling it project management, but they’re really not doing what you consider to be project management. And if they are doing some things that you like, asking if you can have it.
A seat on a project. Hey, can I, is there a way I can contribute three or four hours a week to this project? If you’re, if your manager’s on board and that team’s on board, people always need help. I can’t tell you how many times I had people come to me and ask me, can I shatter you? Can I do a little something?
I would always put them towards the change side because I [00:31:00] always needed help there. Yeah, you can help with a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Write the weekly reports, blah, blah. And just funny, quick story. I did a training at Coca Cola a couple of months ago and the woman who brought me in, she manages like 20 different PMs.
And she starts off by saying, Hey guys 15 years ago when I was first here, I reached out to Quan and asked her, could I shadow her for a day? And I was like, you did? And I did. And I loved it. Then I asked her for, can I do a little this and a little that, and that’s how I got here. And I was like, wow, that stuff does work.
People will say yes. So I’d say, reach out to people that are doing what you wanna do and just talk to ’em. People love to help people. And then the nonprofit arrange world as well. They always need help in binding an organization and asking them, is there something I can do to help from a project perspective?
Is there a project you need ran and then that [00:32:00] goes on your resume and you’ve been a project manager and you got results to share. And I mean their results, so it doesn’t matter that it didn’t come from a corporation. It’s probably even harder that you did it in a volunteer sense. Yeah, I agree.
Porschia: So tell us more about Holloway Consulting Group.
Yuquan: At Holloway Consulting Group, we do three main things, and the first one that we just talked about is we oftentimes get asked by project management offices, a PMO, you’ll hear that terminology, a PMO leader They may be responsible for all the projects in an organization and they have project managers that work on them, or they might set the standards for that organization on what a good project looks like so that they’re protecting the company’s investment to make sure people aren’t running projects haphazardly.
They always have more projects than they can handle. And so PMOs are a great place that I work with within an organization to help them [00:33:00] staff and run projects or to help guide them on how to have a really great PMO with really great templates and documents that help them deliver great projects. And then the other side of that is we train people on how to be awesome project managers.
We either train them on the principles that you find in PMI. Project management Institute. What’s the international, I always struggle with the eye. That’s weird. I’m a PMP, which is a project management professional. And to get that certification, you follow the PM box, the PM book of knowledge. And so we train people on that book of knowledge a bit, so they understand how to be a great project manager, or we train them on some lean Six Sigma principles.
Married with a little bit of PMP stuff, and we find that the Lean Six Sigma tools are an awesome set of tools to help people solve problems, remove waste, improve customer [00:34:00] satisfaction, and then we have coaches that will work with a person once they get trained, so that they can make sure they’re using the tools the right way the first time so that they have better confidence in continuing to be a Lean Six Sigma type practitioner.
So, we might get involved in problem solving workshops because of our lane six sigma knowledge. So somebody else say, Hey, this process that we have is just broken. We keep messing it up. We need to straighten it out. Can you help us? So those are the kinds of fun things that we get to do. Yeah, it sounds very cool.
Porschia: We’ll be providing a link to your website and other social channels in our show notes. So people can find you online. But what is the best way for someone to get
Yuquan: in touch with you? Yeah, online is definitely great from even from my website. You could schedule a discovery call on my website. You’d also find that the course that we provide typically the big organizations lean for project managers.
I’ve [00:35:00] created the online version of that so that. You can take it. And if you want to coach, say you’re, you got a new job as a PM and you’re like, Oh my God, I need help and stepping through this project, then we can be the kind of behind the scenes coach to help step you through that project. So, the internet is the perfect way to reach me on any of the socials.
LinkedIn, Facebook YouTube. And I just read Twitter for fun. It’s entertainment. I don’t really post anything there. So I know what’s going on in the world and Instagram. So we’re definitely available on all the socials and we respond to messages or emails very quickly. And sometimes we have we’re looking for a project coordinator right now, which is the great introductory role to somebody that wants to be around other PMs and see if this is a, something they really want to do.
So we typically have those types of things available. So in your mind,
Porschia: what is the main [00:36:00] distinction between a project coordinator and a project manager?
Yuquan: A project manager and my and the distinction I’m making a project manager lays out. The project charter, they help kick the project off, they create a plan for the project, and they drive and execute against that plan from origination to after action review.
They’re delivering, they’re responsible for delivery. A project coordinator is supporting that project manager sometimes. There’s some project management type tasks that they might be responsible for, like, There’s nothing like having meetings and then not documenting anything from the meeting and then coming to next week’s meeting and we just keep talking about the same thing and nobody’s done anything because nobody’s digitized it or archived it or something.
And so the project manager is making sure that some of those things that have to happen to keep the project moving are happening. They might even find themselves crunching some data here [00:37:00] and there, if there is something that needs to be crunched in order to make some project decisions. So, I think it’s a great bird’s eye view for someone to really see, Hey, do I want to be a project manager or you may just like the administration part of running a project and making sure documents are well, and that people are doing what they said they were going to do.
So it’s more of the mechanics and the helping support. The project success from the project coordinator role and the project manager role is in the delivery seat. You can find project managers that make 60, 70, 80 an hour. You can find project managers that make, 200 an hour, depending on what they’re responsible for and the.
Industry and the, urgency and the expertise that they need to have in order to make it happen. And a lot of that for some project managers just driven by reputation. They’ve just they have a reputation for being awesome at getting things done, [00:38:00] right? So
Porschia: the last question I have for you on is a question that we asked all of our guests.
Oh. How do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their
Yuquan: career? Oh, wow. By keeping their ear to the street. I think people get a really good edge, a positive one, from listening and connecting with the people that they serve.
All right. I always see executives and leaders. As being in a seat of server servitude, servant. They are there to serve and take care of the people so that people can do an awesome job. And they can do a much better job and making sure that people doing an awesome job if they talk to and listen to the people that they are supposed to be serving.
If you’re never listening to the people, but you’re only listening to those that are in seniority above you. And what the street says, I think you can get very myopic and you can miss some [00:39:00] really big things because you’re focused on the wrong thing. But if you’re listening and you have the right relationship with the people, I think you’ll be able to marry that with the other things that you’re doing.
And I think that it just puts you steps above some of your peers because a lot of them stop listening and they start talking. So I think you got to know how to, when to listen and when to talk, but listening is gives you a huge edge in life in general. I agree with listening. Yeah. So I learned that from middle school ministry, but continue.
I’m
Porschia: an introvert. So I’m a listener observer by Laura, but There’s so much that you can gain from listening, people just open up and like you mentioned, there’s just so much to learn. Juan, you have shared a lot of insights and I think some secrets with us today. I’m sure that our listeners can use it to be more confident in their careers and with their project management skills.
We [00:40:00] appreciate
Yuquan: you being with us. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.
