ERP009 - Project Management w/ Rachel Gertz

Welcome to Evolve Radio, where we explore the evolution of business and technology. Today I'm speaking with Rachel Gertz from Louder than 10. Rachel is a consultant and trainer to project managers, freelancers and creative teams. She's also an active leader in the Digital Project Manager community in Vancouver, BC. This episode's going to be a lot of fun. Rachel and I talk about the evolving history of project management and its increasing role in the digital economy. Then we go down a few rabbit holes about finding our higher purpose, machine learning, AI and other futurist topics. Hope you enjoy this one and let's get started. So, thanks for joining us, Rachel. It's great to see you. How are you doing? Excellent, thanks. I'm super excited about today's discussion. We're going to be getting into the deep of business and project management. And overall insights on your your path and your career and your insights on on that business. I often suggest that the project manager is really the unsung hero of both historical business and certainly modern business. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I'd have to definitely agree with that. Yeah, it it in a way a lot of ways it's unfortunate that project management doesn't get the visibility of the the level of impact that it really produces on an organization. It's kind of one of those things that things go well, you're unnoticed and if things go really awful, then, you know, it's it's there's not a lot of congratulatory work. or or commentary on on the work that you've put in. So it's really amazing that the level of visibility really, I think, needs to be amplified. because the effect and the impact of good project management in any organization will create a huge amount of opportunity and efficiency in organizations. I'm totally agree with you there. And I think it's kind of sad that, um, you know, our PMs kind of they don't have any of the limelight. for the projects because there's no ego in project management. Right? You can't be like, I don't know if you know who I am, but I managed the hell out of that project. It just really doesn't exist. So it's it tends to be a lot about just, um, helping the team and being a champion for the team. Do you think that that creates some difficulty in the understanding of what the project manager produces within the organization? And that, you know, a lot of people may view it just simply as task management and communication. And not really a lot of the components that are really critical around, uh, you know, getting the team to work together and conveying needs and requirements. And keeping people on task without, you know, ruffling a lot of feathers. It's a it's a fairly delicate position that requires, you know, a sort of a a skill set that is beyond a lot of people in some ways. Mhm, yeah, absolutely. Um, I think the biggest thing is there's just there's this sort of lack of clarity around what a what a PM role is really about. There is like the task management, the workflow and all of that. But underneath there, there's this emotional intelligence layer. And like you said, if you're doing it well, you don't see it. If you're doing it poorly, everyone notices and everyone talks about just how awful their PM experience was. And, um, I think that kind of in an international way, we have to shift those perceptions of what PM is and how that role functions on our teams. And I think it starts with having more conversations. And also, it it's kind of letting letting like freelancers and even folks on the team who don't play the PM role, understand what the PM had is all about. And making sure that there is a sort of a cross-disciplinary approach so that everyone can understand what everyone else's roles are. And respect and, you know, helps to sort of reduce the, uh, the pain points around those intersections between things like design and dev and content and all of those other roles as well. So how would you feel, what's your your view on how the PM fits in with sort of the other leadership within the the group? Because there are certain elements from, you know, uh, management and leadership and vision. from other components and other leaders in the organization that overlap with the PM. How is the PM's role distinct from the rest of the leadership or the management in an organization? Yeah. I mean, you know, and my background has traditionally been a bit on the smaller to medium-sized businesses. So in terms of like enterprise level, uh, corporations who have those multiple layers of management. I don't I can't really speak to that. Um, I think that for me, what we notice when we work with our clients and we, you know, we're doing consulting and process training. We're we're talking about trying to elevate the role of PM and almost give that PM the ability to be a leader. Right? I think one of my biggest issues with sort of top-down management is simply that, um, people who are in higher roles of power are actually more removed from the on-the-ground work. But the PM's job is to be on the ground with the team through all of the thick of the tasks and the thin of the tasks. Right? They're they're in there. And so if we can allow our leaders to also be able to be champions for the team and like bring the voices of the team upwards. Then I think we're going to have more of an impact as an agency or community. Um, in terms of really shifting that role. I agree, one of the roles I see for the PM is is providing some type of objective view. of both the project and the resources, both people and and, you know, whatever resources get applied to that that project. Do you see that as as an important role in that that, you know, in a way you're you're slightly removed from the team? You're not necessarily one of the contributors or having, uh, you know, tasks specific necessarily to the project deliverables. in in a in a less traditional sense of that. And and having that person that is able to view the project objectively and be able to, you know, call people out. And be able to, you know, provide insights that are outside of the tunnel. Do you think that that that's also an important role? Yeah, I do. I I think there has to be a balance. Um, So when, you know, when you have a PM who is supposed to champion the team. Um, they're still supposed to be able to be neutral. So they can't, um, you know, like climb to the defense of a design if the design is not in. If it doesn't serve the business goals of the client or, you know, even if it's an internal product company. So they do need to remain neutral so that they can objectively kind of add like, hey, are we doing what's best for the project here? Um, but as long as they're just not forgetting that, you know, people are people, projects are people too. Like this is the whole concept, we do things for people, we accomplished tasks. Because at the end of the day, it's about the person who needs it done, right? And it's going to help that person. So as long as we don't lose sight of what we're doing and why we're doing it, then I think, you know, keeping that human factor is what makes our role so so important. Yeah, in my view and seeing some of the presentations that you've given and and hearing the discussions that you've been a part of. Empathy is is something that comes up a lot for you. And how that applies in in your role as a PM, uh, you're kind of touching on that. As kind of one of the more critical roles of the PM. Do you want to expand on your view of why empathy and emotional intelligence is so key for that role? Yeah, for sure. So I think, um, I'd say like the 100% core trait is is emotional intelligence. You you need to be able to read people. You need to be able to read behaviors, you need to be able to anticipate things that haven't yet happened just by looking at a situation. And and assessing, you know, like how people are feeling, what they're saying, what they're not saying. Um, the empathy layer, I think is equally as important, but it's maybe not central. Like I've I've I've heard some interesting arguments around, well, I'm a a highly emotionally intelligent person. But I'm not hugely empathetic, but I still do a good job of being there for the team to make sure that we get the work done. So I do think that empathy is that additional layer, like call it the icing, I guess. And, um, it is it is meant so that you can reduce the friction that happens between, you know, different players on the team. Through things like passive aggressive communication or just those silos that end up happening when we're, you know, we're trying to get work done. But we all have our own way of doing it. And we don't have a system for how we communicate. So, yeah, I think without emotional intelligence, without empathy, I mean, why don't we just hire robots to do our jobs, right? And that's that's the difference. I think that's what that's why this job is so important and will continue to be important long after machine learning, um, takes a forefront in in the work that we do. The evolution of business is something that that we talk a lot about on the podcast. And I'm curious how your view of business has changed through your role as a PM. I think it offers a certain unique perspective in your, uh, you're a consultant, you get to work with a lot of different organizations and see different styles of teams and approach to business. How has that influenced your view of business overall? Yeah. I mean, you know, I look back and I think I've always had a PM brain without realizing it. Like I started out, um, I graduated as an English education teacher. Love drama growing up. But, um, when I came out of it, um, I I sort of I would naturally gravitate towards facilitating and organizing situations and trying to find out what people needed. And so I actually initially when I started to sort of I fell into the agency role. I think we most most of us do in terms of like working on digital projects. Um, it I found her initially very difficult to understand why other shops and owners of shops wouldn't actually try to fill the the PM role. Like so why why aren't they being like open to this idea of bringing in a PM? Or why do they treat it like, oh, you got to stay billable or we can't afford you? What was all this about? And I started to see through my experiences, you know, that when you have a small team, there's there's people wearing multiple hats, right? So someone who might be a creative leader, a designer is also in in that role wearing the PM hat. Without probably even realizing it. Um, And so I just I started to develop empathy for that. Because I was like, oh, okay, okay. So the reason that people are not, you know, integrating PM and thinking PM. Is because A, they don't understand what it's there for. They don't know how it impacts the team. And they also see it as instead of it being an investment or an asset. They're looking at it as an expense. I found out most people aren't billing for PM time. They're like, oh, we can't charge our client for administration. It's like, well, technically, if you're not charging that into the the sort of total budget of your project, then you're essentially setting it up to fail, right? So most projects, um, according to Gartner, fail. Because of a poor project management or poor communication. So if you don't even set it into your budget, like you are definitely setting yourself up to fail. So I look at it like, PMs are like the one person in a dark room of folks who can actually feel for the light switch. So they're super practical, but they're going to calm people down and focus on solving goals and like feel the wall until they get to the light switch. And then it's like, okay, guys, now we're focusing on the right things and the light goes on. Someone once told me, I can't remember who said this. But my job isn't to tell you what to do, but it's to pull the obstacles out of the way and communicate what we need to get done. And I think that's a beautiful way to put what we do. Yeah, that's that's a great summary. I often describe project management, I got this from from a group that I I listen to a lot. And thought leaders in in management. And they say, uh, project management is as simple as who does what by when, but I think you're what you've offered there. Really acts as a great capstone for the the parts that get more complex within that. Right? That's a very simplistic view of it, but, you know, anyone who's been involved in projects. And certainly project management, it gets a lot stickier than that once you start to involve humans. Totally does, right? I mean, there's never going to be path A to B obstacle free. That does not exist in the real world. And I think if we, you know, kind of add to our ability to to solve problems with like we pull obstacles out of our team's way. That's our job. Like we need to be there so they can do the work. Not to just be like, you need to get this done. This is what work needs to get done. That is not that is not our role. Yeah. It's it's a really important point because I think a lot of people end up getting frustrated in projects. When they they they meet an obstacle. And if they don't feel that they're capable of removing it, then, you know, that's sort of the first step towards people giving up on something. Or not contributing to their fullest. And if they're, you know, being managed by someone that doesn't have sort of that that approach of, you know, how can we fix this? How can we facilitate your needs? And they're just really acting as task manager and demanding things from people and trying to influence with role power. Then, you know, that that is a quick road to an unsuccessful team and an unsuccessful project for sure. You know what? I wonder if it has something to do with the fact like, so we're talking a little bit before about like hierarchies. And now I'm wondering. Like if you people fall into the PM role, usually because they're like, they play like a lead role and say they're IT, they're technical. And they move into a management role. But from there, usually if you're a project manager, like in terms of upper momentum, it's kind of tough. You just become like director of PM or, you know, PMO or whatever your role is. Where is managers in the traditional sense where you're like, you know, kind of, how's that TPS report coming along type thing? That feels like it's the ladder climbing. You are you are doing whatever it takes to step on the person below you so that you can elevate yourself above. And then maybe maybe that's around the sort of shifting of of like, I am going to do whatever it takes in in terms of just elevating myself. It's not about the team, it's about getting up higher on the chain. I don't know. Maybe I'm full of it. But I just wondered if there was a difference between the PM role and then like a typical traditional management role in that way. What do you think? I think two parts to management and project management, but the keyword between both of them is management. And I think it's purely a management style. And you're right that a lot of people end up as, you know, they're leading a team and they get sort of elevated. into some type of management role and, you know, they're wearing multiple hats, so they're both managing the team as well as trying to manage the projects. And if they don't have a good background and someone hasn't coached them and mentored them on how to, you know, lead teams with positivity. Then they naturally revert to, you know, just get this done, we need it, how can no one's responding to this? You people don't understand what's going on here. And, you know, the the pressure put on them, you know, as they say, you know, the the SHIT rolls downhill. And they, uh, they they simply apply the relevant pressure to the rest of the team with an expectation that if I bark loud enough, then things will get done. And kind of to your previous point around empathy. If they're missing that and they're missing, you know, the the sort of the soft approach to be able to work with the people to be able to remove those obstacles. Of course, it's going to be a conflicting situation between needs and, you know, the relevant points on the ground. Yeah. Um, and have you ever heard that whole statement is like the opposite of of love is not hate, it's fear. And it's like you can either run your projects with love, which is kind of like an awareness of where everyone's at, what they need. There's no like, you need to get this done because this is what our objective is. It's like, we're running it with with a love with a sense of like where everyone needs to pull together. And instead of fear, which is the other side of that whole thing. Right? Where, you know, it's just like someone's going to tell me what I need to do. So I'm going to tell you what to do. And I don't know, I think that's pretty pretty important stuff. Yeah, definitely, I think that is the evolution of management. Is coming from a from a position of of interest and, you know, interest at the team level and the individual level. And not just focusing on the tasks, but supporting the team. Uh, you know, the the the managers, whether or not they're a team leader or a business owner or a project manager. They're they're going to difficult road to success if they're just simply barking orders and expecting people to comply. Because that only lasts so long. Fear, you know, has to be maintained and if you just bombard people with fear, it will have a diminishing return. You'll just check out. And you'll lose like all of these talented folks who are already in this this current trend. I mean, it's like what an average of two years per company. Even less, I'd say now. Yeah. It's interesting. You know, that kind of touches on, um, the the churn rate tends to be a lot higher in more the younger generation. That don't necessarily see long-term career path and they're want to work on kind of the the sexy projects and whatever's cool. More around the digital economy. And do you see a difference in your experience working with more traditional organizations versus more digital organizations? Uh, you know, tech versus traditional, uh, delivery and product. Yeah, I think so. Because I think we have to remember too, like, you know, in in the more traditional agencies. They're they're they're acting on, you know, who knows, hundreds of years worth of history. That has defined the way that they work and the way that they operate. So, you know, a lot of it was based on sort of an early, uh, capitalist model. That was, you know, came out of like the 15, 1600s after mercantilism. So they are operating and thinking in a way that's like, well, if we do X, then we have to do Y. And so a lot of the processes, the approaches, and even just the, um, sort of the trust that exists. Is been formed out of that historical context. When you have a company that's like say a startup and they're building an app. They're they're going to be rooted in more digital principles. They're going to have, uh, be a little bit more open-minded to new technologies about, you know, new tools that might help them actually, um, integrate that technology right into their workflows. So yeah, I do I do see a huge difference. But I think the key thing there is that, we can't leave these companies behind, you know, the ones that aren't able to think that way. Like our whole mandate is like, meet people where they are, meet companies where they are. Because they're scrambling to keep up. And so they're prioritizing based on again, that historical context. Well, we need to grow, we need to make X amount of profit and generate X amount of revenue. In order to be, you know, to meet our obligations. Rather than, okay, we need to become a sustainable company, we need to make sure we look after our people. Um, I think you'll probably talk about this a little bit more. But like, our workforce is changing. The future of digital is is happening right now. I know that sounds like a one of those crazy ads or something. But it it's here. It is not like, oh, wait for it in five years. Like machine learning is happening right now. It's changing the way that we're working. So we have to keep that in mind and really like respect and honor the fact not everyone's in the same boat right now. We have to work with people to get them there. Interesting. So do you feel the the digital economy will really kind of change the way that that teams operate? Do you or you know, do the fundamentals still apply and that we can still sort of pull some of these pieces together and bring the teams into the future? Uh, do you do you think that that will be a large shift? Really good question. I mean, the principles of teams, right? It's like, it's emotional intelligence, it's having like a really good sense of collaboration and communication. Having a really good business sense, I think. And probably having, I think, um, um, the former director of Twitter. Uh, art director of Twitter was talking about this, he said, you sort of you got to make sure you also have good taste. You got to make sure you know what what's what out there. Right? But I mean, so so those things probably will never change. But I think the things that will change are, you know, we we sort of like, we struggle with, um, the communication breakdowns that happen on a team. And there's a lot of companies like yesterday at our digital project management meetup. Um, there were seven agency owners who are all talking about where, like, what keeps them up at night. And I think six out of seven said resourcing, knowing who's working on what, when and how. And if we have tools that can actually make those processes simpler and we can have more of a predictive ability to, you know, know what kind of scoping and estimating our projects require. That might actually shift where we put our energy. And make it more about, okay, we've solved a lot of social network problems. Like we we're like, we have an app to help people communicate about all the things now. The irony being, we are more socially isolated and lonely than we've ever been in the past. Right? So, do we now take that energy and start to fix some of the global things that are happening in the world? Where we are trying to reach parity, we are trying to have equality in this world and we just haven't got there yet. Because I think, my own personal opinion, we're still focusing on minutia. We're still focusing on little problems instead of big global things that need to need to happen. When you're in a knowledge economy and how you quantify the work and you need to be really thoughtful. About how you're you're collecting those metrics. So do you see, you know, the role of the PM being more relevant as we we shift towards a knowledge economy? I do, actually. Because, you know, it's that that irony. It's like we're selling intangibles. And we're selling the value of those intangibles. And and of course, like just again, based on the sort of global economy. Our the value will decrease overall. Everyone's everyone's who's selling air is whatever the thing they're selling as more people become become, you know, making more of these things and selling more of these things. It's just going to it's going to decrease. So, in that way, um, there is going to be a higher demand, I think, for us to be able to communicate what we need to focus on. What is important? How we do assign value to things that are literally some zero, they don't they don't inherently have value. We create value when we, you know, market them a certain way. And there's a part of it like I really struggle sometimes with our industry. Because as much as I think that we can do some pretty incredible things, you know, um, we get lost. And we tend to put a lot of our energy into, I hate to say it this way, but manipulating people into believing that they need to use a certain product. And so we have to get real, I think, about that. And I think the PM may, maybe could be a linchpin for how that that sort of transformation could happen. Maybe, I mean, I would love for that to be the case. Yeah, very cool. Well, it'll be it'll be awesome to watch and as you kind of noted the the exponential change of technology. And the impact to business is is something that, you know, is starting to move at such a breakneck pace and shows no no sign of slowing down. So it will be interesting to see how that that starts to turn out in as little as two to five years. Yes. Have you, um, do you read the blog waitbutwhy.com? I don't know it. I'll have to check it out. I'll make a note. If you do. There are two articles in there, so, um, I was a little wary of reading them at first. Because the titles alone were kind of scary. One is like the road to super intelligence. So it's about AI and just where we're at. And then the second was, I think it was called, um, like the future of the race. And it's talking about immortality or, um, what's what's instant death kind of thing. Like that was the the two concepts in those articles. Each one is about 20 to 30 minutes. But I think the biggest thing I took away from that, I read that like six months ago. And it still is haunting me. But it talks about how we look at our future the way that we look at our past. And we're like, oh, well, you know, we don't have to worry that much because look, like the car's only been around for, you know, this amount of time and we haven't really done a ton, like in terms of the internet and blah, blah, blah. And like, we're fine. But what we don't realize is that hockey stick of technology goes straight up. And we are we're pretty much at the like the very first step on that staircase and that staircase is just going to get steeper and steeper and steeper. So we won't even see it hit us, it's going to hit us before we even realize it. It's like super fascinating and scary and I'm I'm pretty much. I am so excited to be alive right now. Yeah, a lot of people say that it is absolutely the most exciting time to be alive. Um, you touched on, um, something that that I I put a lot of thought around too as well. I listen to a podcast called Future Thinkers. And they have some amazing guests on that that, you know, really, really visionary people. Around, uh, AI and consciousness and and the future, obviously. And, uh, one of the things that that they touch on is the advancement of of AI. And how quickly that will change the world. You know, Elon Musk and, uh, Bill Gates and a bunch of the other heavy hitters in the tech world. Are are, you know, thoughtfully worried about the implications of tech of AI. And the reason why is that as soon as it becomes sentient, it's a matter of minutes before it exceeds human intelligence. Because it'll be able to process and amass so much information. So it's really anyone's guess what happens in basically the first hour after sort of that critical event. And it's impossible for us to predict. So it's it is a little scary because it's so unpredictable. But it's wildly fascinating to think about. It's like, picture yourself. Like, where are you going to be at that moment? Like, are you going to be like reading a book or like, you know, typing an email? And then all of a sudden, we don't have any idea what that moment is going to be like, you know, 10 minutes from then. Yeah, yeah, it'll be a a pretty poignant point in history for sure. Yeah, if any of us can document it. That's right. If we're not locked out of our our machines by Skynet by then. Totally. So, uh, what are some of the just to go to switch back a bit? Um, what are some of the issues that you face with PMs? I mean, we touched on this as well. A couple of times even around, uh, the the communication. Communication being so important for for the PM. And, you know, you you you rightfully said that it seems to be that we always talk about the tools. But the tools are really just an application of of sort of the process and the idea. And tools can make things easier. But they don't necessarily fix anything. I often tell people, technology is great. But they don't it it has a tough time solving human issues. So, you know, what are what are some of the things that you struggle with as as a PM around the communication piece? Um, yeah. So I think, um, I think PMs often, um, they struggle with. How to deal with maybe indirect or passive aggressive communication. Because like again, it it's an expectation we have to set up from the beginning. Right? But sometimes our sometimes our clients if we're working with, you know, in a sort of more service industry. They may have had like a bad experience. And then they take that bad experience and they sort of project it onto the new company. Like think about all of the, um, historical interactions they would have had with various companies. That were maybe doing new UIs or new web, whatever they're launching together. Because it's seldom feels like agencies stick with or sorry. Clients stick with the same agencies year after year after year. They're like, oh, well, we didn't really get along with them. So we're going to try these guys and we're going to hope that it's going to be better, faster, blah, blah, blah, cheaper. Right? So, um, so I think that PMs kind of have this a little bit of a guessing game where they have to come in. And they have to read the client. A, they have they have to know too, like how much power do they have in that relationship? You know, that's been kind of given by the owner and the company that, you know, the agency or or other company they're working at. Like, if they're not given the ability to say, actually, you know what, when you said this, um, it helped me to outline the following risks and I think that these risks are we should talk about these. Because if we don't, they have the capacity to derail the project. So, especially in like again, it's old world PM and new world PM. And the only reason I say it that way is just because digital PM is a fairly new field. Right? And I think that the the language that we use, the terms we use to refer to things, the ways, the tools we use, the way we communicate. All of those things actually have shifted somewhat. From sort of the I call it the old school way of like, well, you know, if we're we're set to build an enterprise level project or we're building fridges or we're doing mining projects. Like, there's a fundamental, I think, shift in how we're communicating. And so, I do think it's like a PM's job to be on their toes about how how to communicate. And that that is a super challenging, um, um, thing that they have in front of them. Um, some of the other issues are, you know, now we're dealing with multi-generational, um, folks. All ages working at companies together. Everyone has a little bit of a different communication style. Maybe, you know, like there's still lots of folks who aren't comfortable using like Google Drive or, you know, other sort of online tools. Um, and I think too, probably one of the biggest things that PM struggle with. Just like having a sense of, um, what what is the most important thing, like why are we why are we doing this project? And not to get lost in the weeds of tasks, workflows, the oh, the the sort of like drama. of a team that can happen and keeping it focused on the high level like we're building a company. Usually, right, when we're talking about projects now, we're not just building a website or an app. We're actually creating companies for people. So what does this company need in order to be happy, successful and sustainable? And I think that that PMs need to really shift their gaze a little bit and internalize that way of thinking. Hmm. Part-time psychologist for the team, I guess. Nailed it. Yeah, exactly. Right. Very cool. Uh, you know, uh, so you're a PMP, right? I'm no. I do not have a PMP. Really interesting. Okay. So, uh, what, you know, a lot of a lot of project managers as they're starting out kind of feel like that that's the necessary road. And even you see a lot of a lot of, uh, posts and notices require a PMP certification. Uh, you know, I guess obviously you've been quite successful in in the field and in the industry. Uh, do you see that sort of as a necessity or a requirement or, you know, is it is it, you know, a good place to start? But if you have some experience, not as relevant. How would you sort of suggest to approach that as, you know, a junior or an intermediate PM? That's just kind of starting out in their career and and want to kind of take the correct path. What would your advice be? Even if it's not what you did. Yeah, we I mean, we have a lot of folks that come to us and ask us, you know, like they're just interested in transitioning into the digital PM role. And they they do want to know. Should I take the PMP? So, um, I will say this. Um, I do not think that it's fundamental to your job as a digital project manager. I know that they're working on updating their courses and trying to integrate more of a, you know, the digital landscape into that. All projects will eventually be digital. I I just think it's a matter of time. Um, it is there are there are a lot of assets and a lot of, um, sort of benefits to having the knowledge base. And like I have a copy of PMBOK in my on my bookshelf and reference it regularly. It it teaches you a different lens to look through to to understand your projects. And I think that the most critical thing is that, you know, it it may feel to some. Like like the language in it can turn people off because it is very technical. It is very dry and it is, um, it is sort of based on I I think a more traditional tech tech and engineering sort of approach. And I I don't think that's a bad thing. I just don't know that it's fundamental because really when we're boiling it down. 88% of your job is emotional intelligence and soft skills, you need to know how to deal with real people. And if you can do that, the other parts, maintaining your schedules, estimating and scoping. Uh, resourcing, um, planning your projects, all that stuff is stuff that you can learn. People can help you, uh, integrate that. And, you know, I mean, we we train PMs. That's what that's what we do in digital. So, um, there are resources out there for folks who want to do that stuff. So that's that's my. My personal opinion and I think, um, I think a lot of other folks who are doing what we do share that. Yeah, I would see it similar. I come from the technical space obviously and a lot of, you know, fairly good administrators. People that work in in systems and and on back-end, uh, servers and workstations. They have a technical base that is pretty sufficient. And they feel that they don't necessarily need certification. But in some cases it can lend credibility. So, you know, if that's the interest or you like you said, you need a base to start from. It's probably not a bad thing. But, you know, I agree, I don't think it's it's a necessity or some fundamental component. That that, uh, really gives you an edge in some aspect. Beyond other traditional training or just, uh, you know, experience or mentoring from from other folks that you work with. I think I think it's it's similar in that aspect. And suppose I suppose that's similar to any other field, maybe aside from things that have regulatory requirements, you know, being a lawyer or, you know, finance or something that that has severe implications. Right? Um, but as as far as education, education comes in many forms. And some of it is, you know, has official curriculum and you have to work really hard at it. I was really surprised. The PMP is a difficult exam. It was four hours long. I was really shocked by that. Because, I can't think of any other management skill set that I think has such rigor around it. And I mean, rigor is important. It's important to know your stuff. But just again, not to get lost in, okay, well, this is the process we must follow. Because this is what, you know, historically I've I've been taught. It's like what what works for the project. Let's do what works for the team. Yeah, adapting to your circumstance for sure. Yeah. You can't learn that in a textbook. Yeah, exactly. Right? That's that's like intuition. Critical thinking skills. Those things will take you really, really far in life. And yes. If you're maybe approaching or sort of going after a little bit more of a corporate or enterprise level job. And it is a more, uh, what, you know, white collar, maybe a little bit. Not stiff, I don't want to say stiffer environment. But you know what I mean? Like more structured. Structured. Because the creative environment gets like you can wear pretty much like pajamas to work now. And I don't know if that's a good thing either. But, um, you know, like there's probably some balance in there. And I yeah, we just got to focus on the right things. And and support each other. And welcome each other too, you know. Like I I I love talking with folks with PMPs. Because I think they're super smart. And the ones that, you know, kind of acknowledge like different perceptions on that, I think are, you know, they're dialed in. They know what's going on. So, So let's look a bit to the future then. What do you, you know, we've we've kind of touched on this issue a few times. I guess through the conversation, but it's it's something that I like to to kind of reflect on in in each interview. Is what do you see kind of the evolution of the the the PM role and business as a whole? You know, what are projects look like and what does business look like in the future and how's that going to change? Yeah. So I think what's happening, um, more and more is that we're shifting to product roles. I mean, you've probably seen this too. Right? Like it's. People are in this transformational phase where a lot of the older ad agencies are they're falling apart. They're they're just losing steam. And they're they've had a more traditional approach with, um, you know, offline campaigns. So, so we're integrating digital and we're focusing on creating again, intangibles that become businesses. That then, you know, you either subscribe to or you buy courses to or whatever that is. Um, the product management role is going to grow and grow and grow. Now, here's the funny thing. So right now, there's a very big disconnect between a project manager role and a product manager role. And or, you know, team a product owner's role and the scrum master role as well. There's all these like terms get thrown around. And I think we're still defining, um, where those parts need to intersect from a less agile approach. Because nobody's usually doing just agile. Right? They're doing like a blend of waterfall, agile, whatever. Prince two, you name it. They're blending it. Um, and I think I think inherently we need to consider that, uh, there's got to be a layer of that emotional intelligence. Built into that more agile structured role. Because, people are still having the same problems in internal teams and having this similar issues with clients. And setting expectations. And, you know, managing conversations and and talking through tough things without being, you know, letting that break down. So, um, I think I think that we have to really strike a balance now. It's about not over-documenting. And it's good to have a process and a system. But don't get lost in the words, don't get lost in, well, we need to follow the manual. Because that changes and evolves and it will continue to do it and it will do it faster than we can keep up with. Like digitally. We now have more things happening like even with drones and like bio medical. Sort of the advancements in that area. We don't have laws for that yet. And so if we can't keep up, like we're really going to be working on our toes and just trying to trying to keep on top of it. Um, so I think just really clarifying what what we need to do in terms of that broader sense of product versus project. And I think too, things are going to they're going to start going more internal. You you've already you're already seeing this. Banks, uh, big, you know, Deloitte, IBM, all these other companies as well. They're starting to just like buy up creative agencies and other internal digital teams. They're they're just making them happen. Internally in their companies. And in more and more, I think that's going to be a product of what we would say is design thinking. Right? We're we're thinking about the products that we want to create and interact with people. And those will increasingly be digital. So, just if you want to put your head head out in that space, it's like, how how can you learn the skills that you need to be able to understand great UIs? You know, really good UX and user flow. Understand what accessibility is on the web. 10% of our population has has issues with abilities. And needs assistive devices. Considering glasses are also an assistive device, more and more of us are in that in that category. And we need to build products. That work for everybody, not just some of us. Um, and we also need to be aware of, you know, there's a lot of content marketing. And like pay for clicks. And um, advertorial, so you can just get someone to come in and write some fake article for you. And then that article will now stand as the truth and people will buy your product. We need to evolve past that, that is a temporary thing. It is hurting us. And it is making, um, the the things we're creating, it's cheapening them and it's causing just it's basically creating a garbage dump of bad content on the web. We need to get past that together. And I have some strong opinions. So I apologize. But like that's. I think that's just really important. So. Yeah, I I 100% agree. It's, you know, it seems to be, you know, what's happening on the web. And and in some ways I'm fearful that it is sort of the way that business is evolving towards that. And that, you know, the journalism died when money entered into it. And, you know, web content died when, you know, the the clickbait started to come up. And everything has to be, you know, these these scripted interactions. And I I do hope that we do get past that and have more more thoughtful interactions. So I I agree with you. I think we will, hey. I mean, it's only a matter of time. Yeah, I think people will will start to tire of it. Or start to see through some of the charade. And that's not to say, you know, all of the stuff out there is has some level of garbage. But there is definitely a lot of noise to quality ratio. There is. And and it's really. It's so easy to get lost in it now. And, you know, one one influencer publishes a post on when the best time to tweet or do Instagram posts is. And then everyone does them. Does that still work? Like, no, it doesn't work. If we all do the same thing. So we're going to have to be better. Get more creative and just think about what are we trying to do here? We we have a planet. That is literally on it on a collision course. We all know it. And it's like we keep our heads down and we just keep doing work. And we make social apps. You know, like what are we doing? So I again, I I just want to make sure like we focus on what's important. We have to look after each other. And we have to like really, really internalize this this critical thinking and like logic-based problem solving. Yeah, I I agree. I look forward to, you know, the the the thoughts and the effort and the energy being put towards. Really grand scale ideas, you know, and I think that's part of why people are so attracted to. Companies like Tesla and thinkers like Elon Musk because, you know, they're being very, very successful from a, you know, a commerce standpoint. In putting thoughts towards ideas that are well beyond sort of what's directly in front of us. You know, let's put people on Mars. Let's pull everyone off the grid and convert entire cities to solar energy. That's the stuff that I think requires a lot of thought and a lot of of people. And and uh process and and management towards and, you know, the more effort we can pull away from the Kardashians and the clickbait stuff. And move towards things that will produce real tangible, uh, change and positive impact for the world will be a mass benefit for us. So I I think it's it's great. I would love to see more of that. Me too. I suppose it it's part of the, um, people need to find their passion within those spaces and really start to to apply themselves. And and pull their tribe with them to commit towards that. And I think it will naturally attract the rest of the group to to follow suit. Right. Yeah. I mean, like if you look back to World War II, I mean, it was an awful time. But some of our craziest inventions came out of a necessity. And so if we looked at the world right now, And we said, guys, what do you think the necessity is here? Imagine. If instead of the VC capital that's funding all of these apps where only one out of 99 ends up doing anything. We actually put that energy into solving real problems. I mean, we would we would be okay as a species. I worry for us because with all this stuff coming, like we need to put our energy into the right things. Yeah, I hear a lot that, um, you know, the one of the biggest concerns around the tech bubble is that the software and the online companies that are being really successful. Are essentially selling to each other. Uh, and if that starts to burst and then it'll have such a ripple effect on the rest of the industry. So I I think, um, in a lot of ways, there's good concern. That that, you know, tech and the tech space is generally building a bit of a house of cards. And that, you know, the the latest wind on any of those structural components will will cause a really severe cascade. And I hope that's not the case. But, you know, maybe the one benefit out of it would be that it direct forces us to direct our energy to more fruitful ideas. Right? Out of the rebel, right? Yeah, definitely. Um, two books I'd really like to recommend and you may have already read these. But there's the Douglas Rushkoff book and it's throwing rocks at the Google bus. And he kind of talks about like where we're headed in in terms of our technology. And just this idea of selling selling air. And then Paul Mason, um, it's like post-capitalism. I can't remember the exact title of the book. But it talks about just how we've entered this new sort of global phase where, um, we're we're going to be equaling a a sort of net zero in terms of of of salaries and jobs. Because there's nothing. There's nothing left to produce. We've sucked everything up out of the earth. And now we're just sucking up everything we can in terms of people's, um, skills, energy. And, you know, like putting all kinds of legal laws on on copyright and IP and all these other things. So, yeah, it should be. It's definitely a crazy time that's headed for us, but it's an exciting time and we have a lot of power to do something about it. Yeah, very cool. So we'll we'll I think, uh, end it there. And appreciate your time today, Rachel. And really appreciate you coming on and sharing your thoughts with us with, uh, both project management and the business in general. But also, uh, you know, society and tech and got a little off on some of the tangents. Which I think was a lot of fun, really interesting. So I appreciate appreciate that. Thanks so much, Todd. It's just really neat to talk about this stuff with you. And I I I'm I love that you love it too. It's it's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, and feel free. Um, where can people see you if you got any speaking engagements coming up or social media where people can find you if they want to engage and and learn more? Yeah, so come and find us at louderthan10.com. And, um, on Twitter as well, louderthan10. And, um, so we got a few things coming up, we're going to be speaking in Poland in two weeks. And we're delivering a workshop on marrying content and design together. So how does that what does that process look like? When you're doing it at the same time versus content first or or content last. And then we're also doing some neat stuff around, um, um, team collaboration. So, uh, what does it take for the art and science of true team collaboration? And we got some workshops coming up in the fall. So you guys. Those will be posted soon, um, check it out on the site. And we really. We just want to drive home that we can't do this alone, like we everyone needs to kind of participate as a community. In order to make this industry better. And make, uh, this this globe a little bit nicer to live in. Yeah, awesome. Well, we'll we'll rally the tribe and bring everyone forward into the future. Yes, let's do it, Todd. Awesome. Thanks, Rachel. See ya.