Welcome to the Everyday PM podcast, the podcast where we
discuss project management principles for your everyday
life. My name is Anne Campia, I'm the
founder and host of The Everyday PM and I'm so excited to welcome
a very special guest, someone that for those who have been
listening for some time may be familiar with.
We have Rich Maltzmann, who is an author, he's a professor, he
is kind of an all around Jack of trades within the PM space.
I know we're doing this as audio only, but I also have the new
book that we will be talking about that Rich has recently
authored, but he has also been on the podcast before, if you
guys can recall, talking about great meetings and and how to
build great teams. And that was such a fun episode
and a highly listened to episode Rich, if you didn't know.
So we're super excited to have you back on the podcast.
For those who have not met you through that or through your all
of your professional journey, can you please take a moment to
introduce yourself to our audience?
Sure. Thanks, and great to be back.
So even though I've been in the workforce for 55 years, I'm
going to make this as brief as I can.
I consider myself a pracademic. Yeah, I'm a master lecturer at
Boston University. I deliver a suite of project
management courses. I develop new courses, even
whole new degrees at the master's level at BU.
So it sure sounds like I'm an academic, but my background is
actually as a practical practicing and practical
electrical and industrial engineer.
And in the latter 2/3 of my 45 or so year old career, I've also
been a project management director and APMO leader.
So I would assert that the academic piece, which is
definitely there, is built on a solid real practicing platform
of real projects and leading real project managers, mainly in
the telecom business. But by getting into academics,
I've worked with people in finance and insurance and travel
and pharmaceutical and medical devices as well.
I'm very proud of the teaching, teaching and mentoring and
coaching I do with master's degree students.
It's great to hear them say I got a job.
And I take pride in helping students turn their weaknesses
into strengths while maintaining their existing strengths.
So that's my brief introduction. If, if, if I were to pinpoint
somebody who's active on LinkedIn that I actively follow
is you because there is nothing short of what you just said
around the fact that you promote your students, you support them.
I've seen multiple posts from you about students who are
either just beginning their journey or just highlighting
things that they've accomplished.
And so I think for what it's worth, you're doing so much good
in the PM community and we're grateful for that.
And Speaking of good, you also let's let's not forget you also
have authored a few books and you're back to talk about your
newest book with me. So your book AI Powered
Leadership, which to me extremely timely.
I'm super excited that you're the one of the authors behind
this book because I've read it cover to cover.
I've actually explored whether or not, you know, this would be
a practical application for students, but for our audience,
let's dive into what it's about. So your book AI Powered
Leadership explores the synergy between AI and human expertise.
For project managers who might be intimidated by AI or unsure
how to incorporate it, what are some practical, everyday ways
they can start balancing AI tools, especially with their
human skills, in their current projects?
Yes, and the keyword there is every day because it's kind of
the name of the podcast. So I have a two-part answer.
This is the academic part. I guess I have a two-part
answer, and Part 1 has two parts.
So part 1A is to know what the power skills are.
This word power is actually quite important to the book
because we use a laser analogy, and lasers basically is light
amplification by the stimulation of emitted radiation.
We don't have to do the whole acronym.
So basically it's about focus and cohesion and and power.
So power skills that PMI names are communication, problem
solving, collaborative leadership, strategic thinking,
relationship building, adaptability, innovative
mindset, accountability, empathy, discipline for purpose
orientation and future focused orientation.
Now I'm not going to go through all of these.
The book does cover these and their relationships with AI, but
part 1B is why are they called power skills?
And as a dual engineering degree person and a practicing
engineer, I know that you know that you sometimes if you're an
engineer or a technician or a scientist, call these people
skills or squishy skills or soft skills.
But really, and this is PM is point there where a project
manager has the opportunity to dig in and become a true project
leader as opposed to a project manager.
In fact, the word manager kind of chafes me a little.
Bit yeah, me too, you know. How are you doing today?
I manage. So manage is almost a derogatory
term. Instead, we lead projects and
often we're not, we're we're not even the highest ranking person
in the team. We have vice presidents and
directors temporarily reporting to us.
So I think you can shine as a leader.
There's another reference to light if you look at these not
as squishy soft skills that are almost kind of parenthetical,
but really belong as a major arrow in your quiver.
So that's Part 1, basically the understanding of what power
skills are and the fact that you have these to use.
Part 2, and this is where the book digs in, is that you
realize you can exercise these power skills without any AI
assistance, just as project managers have done for decades.
I don't think the builders of the pyramids used ChatGPT -5.
So you can, you can do this without AI, but now we can take
advantage of AI as kind of an agent to check ideas for us to
solve problems and even help you ironically with the power
skills, even empathy. And I'll give you an example if
you'd like and. Sure, Yeah, let's dive in.
So this one isn't in the book. This is a bonus for your
listeners, but it's the kind of the flavor of what's in the
book. One of your team members, Pat,
has become detached, hasn't contributed much.
They aren't turning over their deliverables on time.
Other team members are noticing this along with you.
They're frustrated. You, as the leader, are angry
and confused. You start a strongly worded,
rather harsh e-mail to Pat, but instead of hitting send, just as
you're about to angrily hit send, right?
Probably breaking the enter key. While you're in that state of
mind, you take a breath and you ask AI, after providing some
proper context to it, to give its opinion about the e-mail you
were about to send, and even ask it to provide other ways you
might communicate this that might be more effective and
productive. So I tested this myself and
generally it has a better result.
As our book says. However, it requires significant
human 1st and human in the loop back and forth with the AI
system. You probably will be surprised
at how insightful and even empathetic an AI agent can be,
especially if you have and I say this word intentionally in a
staccato way if you have some conversation with the system.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I know.
I would not have guessed that you can use AI in an empathetic
way, or at least in a coaching way, conversational way to get
you to that level of empathy. I did not expect that we would
be putting those two together in this conversation.
And that example was a perfect explanation for those that were
also kind of confused what you were leading into to better
understand how empathy and AI can be, you know, in partnership
with each other. That was great.
Thank you, Rich. There are actually some studies
hand and this this is kind of another bonus and I don't have
the reference at hand, but that that showed that they surveyed
Dr. patient interactions and in some cases they were AI assisted
or even AI generated. And they had a control group
that was just doctor patient. And even the doctors admitted
that the bedside manner, so to speak, of AI was superior to the
doctors, partially because they have hundreds of patients to.
Look at. And the AI system, if it's given
the proper context is working. You know, again, laser focused
on that one patient. So bedside manner was considered
better even by the doctors after reviewing their own responses.
That's fascinating. Pure than purely human
interactions. I'm not saying AI is more
empathetic than humans. I'm saying that a conversation
with a can yield a more empathetic message to, in your
case, a project team. That's really fascinating.
So let's consider this now because I know for project
managers, we also have to think about the ethical piece of AI.
And I know that you've done some work in green project
management. So as a champion of
sustainability and project management through your work on
green project management, how do you see ethical considerations
playing out when project managers try to incorporate AI
into their everyday life or their everyday workflows?
I mean, are there any guardrails that you can that we should be
considering that we established to ensure things like AI usage
aligns with sustainability and the ethical practices around us
probably, you know, within the organization or even just as an
individual as well? Yes, I saw a couple of things
come to mind immediately. One first of all, the book Green
Project Management was written in like 2010 with Dave Shirley.
All my books are co-authored. I I have no books, zero books
that I've authored on my own. I need a project manager to make
sure the book stops getting written.
So yes, Green Project Management as a book came out before the
Green Project Management certification and so forth that
PMI is now properly pushing and this is a really good effort
that PMI has put in place. Secondly, as far as guardrails,
there are some bigger questions here than just project
management. I say that, you know, with all
respect to project management is everything to us, but there's
much more to the world. And there's a, a book called
Nexus by I think his name is Yuval Harari.
It's outstanding. You should, you should consider
taking a look at that book. It's it's a thick book, but it
you mentioned guardrails. So the bigger question about the
guardrails around AI and preventing a not really a
takeover, but but some really disastrous things that could
happen. Doctor Harare puts a lot of work
in into the history and the development of of this tool and
what it could mean to us if it's not, if governments don't step
up. That's a tangent, but it's, it's
a really good book, great examples.
So to your direct question, when it comes to AI and green,
there's some very straightforward, almost purely
mathematical things here, like the amount of energy that AI
systems use, you know, to, for AI to draw a picture for you or
to create an infographic. You know, think about the fact
that some studies show that every image you generate is like
running your microwave on high for several minutes and you
don't even get any popcorn. Oh gosh.
No popcorn? No.
Yeah. But you get a drawing.
But it does, you know, as of now, until they come up with
better ways to more efficient ways to process the massive
amounts of information that are used in AI.
It's a it's a carbon heavy thing.
When you. When you ask make those
requests, on the other hand, if the result, if that infographic
is saving time, saving lives. I mean, it's a worthwhile trade
off, right? So that energy spent might be
quite worth it. However, and I think you were
asking a much less mathematical and obvious question, I think
you were asking a deeper question.
How can AI be more ethical? How can AI help us consider the
long term to help us with triple bottom line, longer term
thinking? And the answer to that is
actually fairly simple. When you prompt and really
prompts are the first part of the conversation that you'll
have with AI and your prompts. Be sure to include these kinds
of considerations. For example, if you're if you're
working on a building project for an apartment building, say a
four story apartment building, indicate that you're seeking a
minimum of lead silver certification.
Lead being AUS based, environmental, carbon based
measurement of the greenness of your building mentioned that say
that you're looking to have a minimal impact on local
wildlife, that you are thinking about vendors and businesses and
pedestrians nearby in terms of social benefits.
And so that this brings the, you know, you obviously you want
this building to be built effectively and efficient
efficiently. You want to make money for the
residents, for the businesses in the building.
So yes, economic, but also ecological and also social
benefits. If you prompt AI to think about
those things, it will. And we're actually working on a
new degree that we have a new degree at BU where we're
integrating AI and we're instructing our students that
when they use AI, these are the kinds of prompts you should be,
you should be putting into AI. So guardrails, absolutely
proprietary guardrails. So you know, letting AI either
search the web or not letting AI put stuff on in public domain
that you might not want to be there.
Let's say you're working on a vaccine, you don't want that
molecule just out there. So there are definitely are
guardrails that your organization will probably have
and then of course ethical guidelines.
That's a little bit bigger question and that's where this
book Nexus is fascinating and and helpful.
Oh, I've got it in my Amazon cart as we speak, so I'm looking
forward to, after reading your book, reading that
recommendation as well. But Rich, I can't help but think
about every time I throw a prompt in there that's not quite
right, that is equating to the the the carbon usage that I
can't get the bag of popcorn out of my head.
Now that was such a good analogy.
Yeah, but again, think, think of the fact that, and I do this
myself, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm creating an image.
Do I really have to have this picture, right?
If it's really goofy or fun, then I I pull back.
But if it's something that actually is going to, you know,
provide benefit to people and in the long run, save energy, you
know that bag of popcorn's worth what's popping.
Yeah, I like that. I like that.
So let's let's talk a little bit about, you know, in the past
you've told me about how you you hyper focus on converting
weaknesses into strengths in particular, you know, like with
the students that you teach and or the the teammates that you
interact with. So could you share a story or an
example of how a project manager might identify their team's
weaknesses and and strategically use AI tools to transfer perform
those perhaps into competitive advantages in their day-to-day
work? Yeah, sure.
OK, here's an example and and the the the problem here are the
weaknesses. Silo fication, if you can even
make that a word, you know, having too many silos.
Makes sense to me. People staying inside their
engineering or marketing or research silo and but by the
way, that happens even in universities, I can tell you.
So here's this example. Well, let's let's name the
project manager Kim. Kim is the project manager for a
new medical device introduction, a brand new medical device.
They noticed there's a weakness in the team's cohesion,
especially between the marketing and the technical parts of the
team. I'm, I'm sure you may have run
into that before. The temptation, The temptation
for Kim, and, and it's a good one, is to meet with each team,
coach them. Hey, watch your jargon.
Don't belittle the other team. Don't have the marketing people
say, hey, just get this. Get that little software
written, right? Little software.
This is my life's work, right? And don't say, oh, you just have
to put out a little ADD and now you're demeaning the marketing
team, right? So you could meet with them and
give them that coaching. You could spend time reiterating
the projects and value. Begin with the end in mind.
Show them what this medical device is going to do.
That's all good. So Kim Kim's doing a great job,
but another way to accomplish this perhaps more effectively is
to get some AI assistance. And I tried this myself.
So I actually put this scenario into GPT 5 and I got a very long
outline, which I'm not going to read to you because no one wants
to read an outline and you don't want to hear me read an outline.
But I pumped the outline back into AI and asked it to
summarize it in a brief, concise, powerful paragraph.
And again, this is that conversation, right?
You what you get out might be beautiful, but not the way you
want it. So you just say, hey, rephrase
this package it differently. And here's how AI responded once
it did that compression. And I can give you if you'd like
and the the full, yeah. That'd be great.
To put in show notes. Yes, we do.
Remember the story? Kim is working with their team
to try to prevent this kind of silo fication, especially
between the marketing and technical people.
So here's what here's what AI put in kind of a conversation.
I didn't even ask it to do this. It put in a conversational mode.
OK. Kim The instinct to remind each
side to cut the jargon and respect each other is good, but
the real breakthrough comes from shared experiences.
Kim You could run a short work group, Oh sorry workshop, where
both groups define the project's value together and have a fun
jargon busting session to build empathy.
You could set up regular joint check insurance so updates
aren't siloed, and even have a buddy system pair people across
functions to shadow each other's work.
Finally, anchoring everyone around the customer journey, in
other words, what the customer's going to get out of this medical
device, helps both teams see that they're part of the story,
not 2 competing worlds. The key is moving from coaching
separately to building habits and rituals that naturally bring
these two teams together. So wow, that sounds like a
mentor, like a seasoned project manager giving you good advice,
right? So now it's back to me again.
That was AI speaking. I want to stress as it is the
theme of our book that you don't just run with this
recommendation from AI. It's very good.
But don't just run with this. You have to think about your own
specific organization, the actual humans involved, right?
Because AI does not know Harry the designer and AI does not
know Mary the, the project, the project marketing person.
So put it in that context, think about and relate to how this
would play in your specific organization for this specific
project. You, you the project leader, you
know the people, you know the culture of the organization.
AI does not know that. Yeah, you can give it context,
but they don't really know it doesn't really know that that
well. Pick and choose the best pieces.
Eliminate the goofy or hallucination stuff, because AI
does that. Eliminate the stuff that won't
work. Continue the conversation with
AI by pumping back your revised ideas and asking for its opinion
on this new, you know, human revised version, always adding
more context about your about your specific situation right
now. And that's the back and forth
that we talk about. That's the laser and lasers work
by bouncing light back and forth to become more cohesive,
powerful and focused. And that is what will happen.
This is the theme of the book. If you have laser like
conversations with AI. And it's, it's, I love the fact
that you continue to promote weaving yourself in between the
dialogue or that conversation to make sure that it's applicable
for you and your organization. That's human.
First human in the loop. Yeah, absolutely.
But you know, I will say what is it, Kim was our fictitious
character or there were some things that the the GPT 5 said
that were very interesting that I probably myself would not have
considered as as a project manager.
So that alone is valued to you as APM.
So, so rich, we started this conversation and when you
introduced yourself, you, you described yourself as a
pracademic, which I may or may not steal from you.
Let's see, I'm joking. But as someone who describes
himself as a pracademic, how do you recommend project managers
bridge the gap between theoretical AI capabilities?
Because I still feel like we somewhat live in that world
right now through discovery and practical on the ground
implementation. And what simple steps can they
take to experiment with AI tools without disrupting their current
workflows? Right.
So I, I can't help it. I have to start with read our
book and that is. You should.
That that's not that's that's not the purpose of having this
conversation is to try to help people.
So here are some kind of bullet point, immediately actionable
things. First of all, be open minded.
Don't reject AI out of hand and by the same token, don't use it
as a crutch. And this is one of the things
that's a challenge for, for teachers at any grade level
when, when students start to use AI as a crutch.
If you, you just automatically go to AI and say, write a, write
an essay about General Lafayette, you know it will do
it. But don't do either.
Don't, don't reject it out of hand and don't let it take over
your work because you won't be adding critical thinking to the
to the mix. So one be open minded.
No rejection, no automatic acceptance #2 and I have this in
all caps in my notes so I won't shout it.
But imagine me shouting this. You have power skills.
Start with them, right? So understand what PMI is
pushing for project leadership in those list of power skills.
Look at how you you might be able to improve them.
First step is self-awareness. Realize you may not be perfect
at all of those things. OK, so start with your own
skills and power skills. And remember as I said before,
human first, human in the loop. Next one.
And I have 406 of these, but I'll only do the first five.
Next one, build your AI conversancy, if that's a word.
Understand what AI is about. PMI has a really good series,
four or five video training programs.
In fact, I was there for the filming of the one that took
place. They, they filmed in Toronto and
Boston and Chicago I believe, and I was there for the filming
and it was they this is very professionally done.
It was filmed in our what we call our Jenga building, where
we. Oh yes.
Beautiful building and it was about construction in AI.
Awesome, right? And even if you're not in
construction, just an outstanding way to understand
how AI can contribute. So take advantage of PM is own.
Of course PMI has its own chat system as well.
Infinity. But get familiar with the terms.
You should at least know what prompting is all about and best
practices for prompting. And the last one, this is number
four O 6. So I'll jump right down to that
one conversation, conversation, conversation like we're having.
Don't use AI like Google or a search engine.
You, you talk with AI and provide context.
This is why it's called ChatGPT, right?
It's a conversation. Consider what it gives you as
only a suggestion. Think of any actions that it
gives you as proposed actions. Continue the conversation by
asking follow up questions like how could we best implement
this, right? Think of it as a, as a mentor or
an agent or a peer that you're just having a conversation with
to kind of round things out as if you approach it that way as
opposed to Google, you know, give me, you know, give me this
answer. You'll be much better off.
This is great. I'm sure at some point you'll
post the 400 other recommendations somewhere on
your website or maybe LinkedIn. I'm looking forward to seeing
those 22. That was a fictitious number
there. The book, the book, the book you
know in In reading the book, you come across all 406.
Conservancy is a word, I'll just confirm that for you.
And while I know Rich, you're very humble in saying that you
came on here to help the community, which I agree with
you always do. I do implore the audience that's
listening to check out and read the AI Powered leadership book
because you are a pracademic. I love the way you write with
your colleagues because you write for it to be practically
used by people. And I think that's what I
appreciate the most about all of the books you put forward for
the PM community is that it's something that a new PM,
somebody who's just interested in PM you don't.
They don't even necessarily have to be APM to read any of the
books that you've published. But I think in AI Powered
leadership, you, you guys do such a great job of bringing
together the PMI kind of power skills with how that that
interweaves with, with AI tools and, and all of that.
So. We, we actually left project
management out of the title semi intentionally because we thought
that this would have a broader reach.
And the, the feedback we've been getting is that yes, no, it's
it, It mentions PMI, it mentions the power skills, it mentions
project management quite a bit. But we intentionally did not put
it in the title because we felt more more than project managers,
project team members and executives could get some
benefit from it. And I can attest to that,
absolutely. So, rich, if folks want to
continue the conversation with you, they want to learn more
about what you've published or what you do.
Where can folks continue that conversation or find you online?
OK, so LinkedIn, I'm very, as you know, I'm very active there.
You can find me. I think I'm the only Rich
Mulsman there. I think I'm under exclaim.
I think that's the profile name. Long story that I'm not going to
get into now, but you can also go to about me, about dot me
slash rich Mulsman. So HTTPS and all the other stuff
slash about dot me slash Rich Mulsman.
Also I blog.regularly@pmisproject-management.com
on people planet, profits and projects.
Been doing that for many years. Probably the best way to really
get in touch with me is to take a course at BU.
You could do that online. We have a large online program.
In fact, I have already 40 something students signed up for
our general project management course, which runs six weeks.
I don't mean this to be an advertisement, but if you ask
how you can get in touch with me, this is this is a very good
way. More often than not, that's
where I find you. It's within the classroom.
So yes, cultivating the next, the future of project, project
managers out there. And, and I have had the honor
of, of sitting in on one of your classes and it's, it's a great
experience. So I highly recommend that as
well. And now it's my turn to make you
blush. You were awesome.
Thank you, Rich, I appreciate that.
So folks, you know, pick up the book.
Again, this wasn't supposed to be about the book, but I also
want it to be about the book because I love it so much and I
think the community will too. So Rich, thank you for giving up
your time today, having this conversation with me.
It's always a pleasure to interact with you, stalk you on
LinkedIn. Sorry to use that strong word,
but you are very passionate on LinkedIn, so I encourage folks
to follow you there too. If you would like to follow me,
you can also find me on LinkedIn.
I'm not as passionate or active as Rich, but you can also
continue the conversation with me there.
You can also subscribe to the Everyday PM Podcast.
Leave us a comment about what you thought about today's
episode. And until next time for Rich and
myself. Take care.
Thank you. Take care everyone.