Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the chartered body for
the project profession. My name is Emma DaVita, and I'm
the editor of Project, APM's quarterly journal and your host
today. In this podcast, we're talking
to Antonio Nieto Rodriguez, HBR, author and Vice President of
APM, about his new book, Powered by Projects Leading Your
Organisation in the Transformation Age, which is
published by Harvard Business Review Press in January 2026.
In it, he argues that CEOs must put projects, not operations, at
the centre of how their companies create value.
But where does that leave the project managers in that
organisation? And how can every project
professional future proof themselves?
Welcome, Antonio to the APM Podcast.
Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Emma.
It's always a pleasure talking to you and talking to our APM
colleagues. Thanks.
Thank you. Well, I'm going to dive straight
in there. And in your new book, you argue
that organisations should be organised around projects, not
operations. Why?
It's because what in a business you have two main areas and and
all goes around them, the operations, we call it business
as usual, running your business or your organisation that has
been the focus of the last hundred 150 years.
And then there's the change part in the projects and, and so far
most organisations have been built around operations and
projects are site activities. And then what we've seen is
with, with technology, things are moving much faster.
That's why we saw the, the, the creation of agile and, and agile
organisations. So that's right.
That movement tried to disrupt how things were done in
organising the past and they they didn't do it that part.
So it created new ways of working.
But agile is not the final because a stage for me, the
final story when operations shifts and projects come on, on,
on, on the top, on the core. And that's how I came with the
with the concept of project driven projects are the centre
projects are the value creation of a business.
And and that's how I came with the name.
I know in your book you kind of explain how we got to the
situation, but I definitely remember interviewing project
professionals during COVID and suddenly they were propelled
from being the project managers to keep the business going.
And I think that really did a lot to elevate the understanding
of project management and the status of the organisation, how
critical they they actually were keeping the business going.
Do you? That's part of the reason that
that organisations are shifting more to being project focus to
organise around projects. I think the the bigger shift MI
is the the high level of automation that we're seeing,
robotising and AI, which luckily for the time being, AI and
robots will not be running projects.
They will be very important artner for us, but the main
target is every activity that is reetitive, every role that I
always say, if you're working with the same people all the
time and you do similar them things all the time, that means
that your job is at stake. So all these activities are
going to be replaced by this new technology.
So what is left for people? Where do we need the people?
Where do we need our capabilities is in change in
transformation projects. So I think that's where the
biggest trans change or disruption happens.
And the the only challenge is I don't know how fast this will
happen. Yeah, maybe in six years, maybe
in one year, because these are moving very fast, these new
technologies. This really is like a
transformational shift in the way that we see the management
of organisations and and the way CEO views their organisation.
This is, although I imagine there are some, or you do
mention some organisations in the book that have shifted
towards this way of running things.
But just leaving aside the CEO perspective at the moment, where
does that leave project managers in an in an organisation?
Yeah, let me just give a bit of context also on the book, Emma
and I answer your. So one of the main drivers for
me to write this book was trying to find the formula that will
increase the success rate of projects and transformations.
And there has been lots of books around that.
But I finally understood that if we want to increase or the
success of our projects, numbers can go from 90% of real mega
projects are not delivered on time or on budget to 7060% some
other. How can we do that?
And, and I realised that if we want to succeed on that, you
need to work on three levels. It's not just that you do your
projects better, that you build capabilities around project, you
integrate hybrid methods, you put some AI, you have to do
that, but you also need to work on the leadership.
They are really key players in in terms of launching priorities
in sponsorship and and they mostly don't know how to do
that. And then you have the
organisation. So the hierarchies, the
structures, the culture, which also impacts everything.
So in order to increase the success, you cannot work in one
of the elements or or just two. We need to work holistic on the
three. And that's how I structure the
book as well. And to your question, it's where
do the project managers fit in this?
I think we have a unique opportunity to be become really
business drivers, business leaders.
Like you mentioned, Emma, during COVID, we stepped up.
We believed in ourselves. We drove companies that look
like going to bankrupt into survival and then back into
business. And I think for us, there's an
opportunity to move from that role that many people perceive
as pushing dates or pushing the liver balls and tasks and to
something where we really bring value, we shape the
organisation. So not everybody will be fit for
that. But I think there's that
opportunity that we should be taking advantage.
And that's the message I give in the book as well.
We we've never been in this position as we are today to, to,
to, to get to a higher level. I just wanted to pick up on one
thing that you talked about there around leadership.
Do you were you talking about leadership in general within
organisations or were you talking about project leaders?
I'm talking about general in in leaders, in general, media
managers, executives, they one of the things that strikes me
the most MI is that most senior leaders, executives, they like
to spend most of their time in their comfort zone.
And comfort zone for leaders today is running the business is
their operations. That's what they know, that's
where they have the power. That's how they have
hierarchies, they have their budgets and they play all the
silos. And but this is wrong.
This is maybe good for the past, but this will not take you to
the future. And so where I say the leaders
need to spend more time in their so out so uncomfortable outside
their call, that's transformation work.
That's where there's no hierarchies.
That's where it's more about charisma, leadership, vision and
and there is absolutely a need to force that to happen.
And that means also that we are more comfortable.
That means that we'll have opportunities to take the roles
to, to, to, to, to build the future through this more
uncomfortable zone where uncertainties is this everyday
is a life of us. So that's what I mean about
leadership. These people very important.
They don't like to spend time on what we do because it's
uncomfortable. So then to ask you more
explicitly, what opportunities does a shift towards a project
economy present to project professionals?
But already it's this big recognition that the entire
organisation or the leadership of that organisation needs,
needs to have those skills or at least understand project
professionals will use them in a way, in a better way to
integrate them further up the corporate kind of chain.
Do you want to tell me a bit more about that side?
Yeah, I think we have a role, a new role for me when, when I
teach at the corporates, I say to the project, the project
managers who have already certain experience, I say your
role today is not just to deliver projects on time, on
budget. First.
The, the, the main reason why we do projects is for benefits, for
outcomes. So is really understand the
benefits and the outcomes and think how can we deliver them
not just on time, on budget, but faster.
And that's how you, you work to engage the senior leaders.
But another very important role I see is that many of these
organisations, I'm not talking about really project driven
organisations like construction and consulting law firms,
talking about the ones that have both operations.
But many people are uncomfortable with change.
Many of your colleagues will they go to work for routine
work, they go to work for stability.
They won that 9:00 to 5:00 comfort, not too much shake up.
And these people are seriously at risk.
So I think I see my role as also a coach for all these people to
tell them that change is good, that there's very good things
about working in projects where you meet new people, you have
other challenges. So we have a dual roll off
focusing on on on benefits and delivering value, but also
bringing the organisation along into this journey for stability
to more fast change and constant transformations, which I think
is exciting. Yeah, I mean, and you're kind of
saying that project professionals, this is their
bread and box are dealing with change and being on top of
things the whole time work and maybe different projects at the
same time, but having having that resilience as well.
So, so I, so I think I'm answering my own question when
I, I wanted to ask you, do you think, think this shift away
from operations towards projects is a good thing for project
managers then? I absolutely think it's a, it's
a natural because because this is what organisations are
looking for. And the examples I talk about,
the book goes to the point Higher, for example, this
Chinese company that was struggling completely
transformed how they operate. But in Higher, any project
manager or any employee can be an entrepreneur within Higher.
You can come up with a great idea, you can get funding from
the leadership and you execute that project.
But then you are the CEO of and the, the, the, the entrepreneur
of of your project that will deliver value for hire as a
whole. So we're, we're removing the
very narrow view of project life cycle where the ideas happen
with some other people and the delivery of value happens with
other people. And we just take an idea and,
and build it and, and then so we we go more end to end instead of
just very narrow focus on on what we used to see as project
life cycle. This is this this talk around
how organisations are set up around projects and employees
that's been that's been around for a couple of decades now.
It wasn't called this. It was, I can't remember the
name of it, but there's a gay various gay video games
companies who child that, but it's like anti hierarchical just
everyone's in their own. Yeah.
Holocracies. They call it holocracies.
Yeah, holocracies, that's right. Yeah, yeah.
So it there's a natural evolution of holocracy.
Is this holocracy is not what you?
Think no holocracy is completely cows it's it's it's the strife
on cows yeah. So it's, but there's just, I
think, I think one thing that is very clear again back to the
point of increasing success of transformation is when I tell
this to some senior leaders, they don't like that.
But in projects, there's no hierarchy.
In programmes transformation, there shouldn't be any
hierarchy. There's maybe 2 levels of
hierarchy, right? You have the senior leaders and
the and it's a team that works together to take decisions
together that drives the change. But when you put the 510 levels
of hierarchy, you just slow down.
It's just obvious. It's just you want more people
overseeing than actually executing.
This is not completely chaos or, or lack of, but just flatten up
completely, right. And and that's that there's
still some governance. I talk of different models of of
governance to be more flexible governance, but it's very thin.
It's I'm the project manager. If I need to talk to the CEO of
my company today because I need a decision, I call.
I don't need to ask permission to that person that will ask
permission to the other. And then I can talk maybe to the
CEO in four weeks, no? If the project's economy takes
off, is there a danger that everyone will say, OK, I need to
be seen to be a project manager? And what's is quite common is
for people to call themselves project managers when actually
they're not or don't have no professional qualifications.
Or, you know, it's easy for us for someone to call themselves
that. And conversely, there are people
who are project managing who, who have figured it out their
own way and actually is legitimate.
But what I mean, is there a downside?
Won't won't just everyone want to add project managers to their
job role but not really knowing what it is or haven't been
trained in it? I think the, the danger is
there. I think we're not moving.
I think we're moving away from traditional roles too.
So I think we're going to be working on, on teams and things
will be based on skills and, and maybe interests and, and
aspirations. And there will be a coordinator
or a leader, maybe it's called project leader, maybe programme
transformation leader. But I don't think we all need to
be programme leaders. It's like we'll find roles that
we can play within the transformation initiative for a,
a project and then we'll move to another one.
The case of buyer and the new CEO who said we're going to
transform buyer and they're going to be just teams of people
like 5000 teams that work for 90 days together and they they move
to another type of project. So these are a big experiment
I'm following, but doesn't mean that everyone will be called
project leader. I think there will be natural
leaders. There will be some of us who
maybe move to something more specific to what we like on
people, on communication, on stakeholders, but not everybody
will will be leading this type of projects.
Do you think there'll be a greater demand for kind of
professionally qualified project managers?
I completely believe so, Emma, But we do need to adapt.
We cannot. We cannot keep doing projects
the way we did it so far. We need to understand new
things, obviously integrating AI in our tool set and, and daily
activities. And we need to step up as well
into more leadership and value creation and, and understanding
people. So I, I, I don't see, I always
say there's one word that is, is more use than AI, which is very
difficult, right? Today in business, it's
transformation. And, and for me, that's what I
always call this in terms what I do in companies, I build their
internal transformation muscle, which means the company as a
whole has this capability to transform.
Today will be AI, but maybe in two years there will be
something else. So in so far we've used a lot of
consultants in good sense to do the transformation for you.
But now it's you cannot rely on external resources, you need to
build that. For me, that's the number one
priority for any CEO or board is build that capability to adapt
constantly with pace involving the organisation.
And that's where project leaders can thrive, right?
That's where we can build those capable.
That's what I was saying. We're a bit coaches, ambassadors
to get these skills embedded in the organisation.
Actually, that kind of follows into my next question really
neatly, which is how can project professionals help those outside
of the profession, but within their organisation to better
understand what project management is and how you do it?
Well, and then a kind of corollary question to that would
be how do you get the two to speak to each other in a way in
a kind of common language? Because that seems to be, you
know, there's this every function has its language and
general management business language is different to project
management. Like you say, people, there's a
misconception that, you know, project managers, they just deal
with the data and the Gantt charts, which is so outdated,
but still no doubt a common perception.
So what? How should, what can project
professionals do to really, I get I guess shed light on what
it is they do and what it actually means?
I have a, really my favourite definition, Emma, of what we do
is projects are your future. So what do project manager, They
build the future, they deliver the future within their
companies. You might do it at minor scale
or big scale. If projects fail, there's no
future. That's so clear.
So I think this this should be inspirational because often I
find that we are a profession that doesn't brag.
We were very humble. We felt very critical with
ourselves. We're tough, very tough with
ourselves. We look at people doing strategy
or operations or business like there, there are Big Brothers
there. But no, I think we need to
completely shift that if we are the ones who deliver the future
and if we fail, the future is going to be dark.
So you're all future builders and, and there's nothing more
beautiful as a job than people who build the future.
And, and in terms of alignment is when we learn to speak about
our projects and the benefits that they deliver, not about
what the product will do. I'm I'm sure many of you all are
doing a data project or a new platform or a new application or
a reorganisation. Nobody cares about the things we
need to understand always the why, the purpose and when you
start knowing about the why. And often these projects like an
HR system could be just an HR system.
But maybe the system really purpose is to increase the
engagement of employees who feel really bad for the last two
years. And this system will help us to
create a more community feeling and and with that will increase
engagement. So you see how different it
looks and how much engagement you'll get by learning.
And then the benefits, one thing that I think we've done wrong
for many years, that's why benefits has not worked so far
is because many of the things that we do in projects are done
like operations. That means hierarchical top
down. Forget about all what is
hierarchical in projects. Projects are Co creation and you
start Co creating with the benefits.
I'm going to launch a project and I go to you, Emma, who I
need you because you have a team that works in digital marketing
and said, Emma, listen, this project is strategic, but what
is there something that I can help you with this project?
Oh, Antonio, we can increase Net Promoter score.
I think that's a big priority for us.
So I, I start engaging you, not imposing.
Listen, Emma, the system will do all these things.
You don't care how tall and by asking you what do you think
this project will bring to you? And then you say Net Promoter
score is a big thing for us and we need to go from 60 to 90.
Can you help? I say, yeah, I think we'll put
this a priority. And then you will tell me,
Antonio, how can I help you? Do you need people from me?
So we need to stop running projects like operations and
from the benefits, from the scope definition, from the
controlling to more Co cooperation.
And once you start talking benefits, I get attention
because it's not my benefits, it's our benefits.
So that's the other thing, right?
The the future projects are your future.
And then move from talking to the what and the labour boards,
which are important, but nobody cares.
Do the benefits that people care?
Thank you. There's a lot to take in there.
One of the things that is occurring to me is that if
you're a project professional listening to this and you want
to be part of this project economy, how, what kinds of
things should you be doing to make yourself ready for it?
So I'm talking about mindset or the way you approach projects
because one thing that's jumping out at me recently when I speak
to people who've led successful projects, be they large or
small, is the level of collaboration that that seems so
important now. So it's the kind of people
skills and clarity of purpose and also a greater emphasis on
the exact on, on the benefits, but also has, you know,
measuring them, explaining to them, sticking them around long
enough to to see the benefits. I don't know, there seems to be
a big shift. But if you're if you want to get
ready for this feature that you're describing, what what
should you be thinking about or doing right now as a project
manager? I think mindset is very
important, trusting yourself, being proud of what you do.
Think about that being building the future, the future of your
companies in your hands. So feel the pressure as well of
delivering, right. It's really important and the
mindset goes along. Courage.
I always in my book and in general I say most of the
projects that I see, I will go to 90%, maybe 95% of the
projects that we see all over organisations in the UK and the
rest are incremental improvements.
That means that this project is going to increase the efficiency
by 10%. This project is going to reduce
cost by 20%. So we again, that operation and
mindset so embedded in projects, why do we do projects that are
just 10% improvements? Why don't we say no, we're not
going to do this project with temper, let's think
exponentially. Let's really transform more
business and project leaders have that power that nobody told
them. But you can say no to a bad
idea. You can say this is bad.
And where is the sustainability part on this project?
Have you thought about go back and redo it, right?
Why should I drive a project that doesn't bring value and
it's not sustainable? If that's one of your priorities
and it doesn't create whatever the priority is for you, why
would you just say, yes, I'll do it?
No, we need to learn to say no, we can do better.
So we have that, but we need to step, step up against our
history. We need to step up and saying,
listen, we can do more. We can do a train that never
stops. We can make a car that drives
alone. We can create a rocket that
doesn't disappear but comes back right and reduce it.
Why should BLM masks the only one thinks about that?
Why should not be thinking exponentially?
So that's I think something a capability that we need to
develop, that we need to talk to leaders as leaders and step up
and say this and maybe we can do it differently.
Second, maybe not to go too long, Emma, is the people side.
Another big gap in the way we run projects is that they're run
by groups of people. And the main reason why projects
succeed is because there's a team behind.
How many times you've seen I've been 25 year plus, where you
prioritising a project to create a team and say forget about the
project, forget about the scope, forget about WS backup.
Let's bring the first week to create a team.
All of you, we've never worked together, but this time we're
going to work together as a team.
All of you are important. You all play a role.
This is how I like to to work together.
I want to know each other. We need to know each other.
I don't care about your role. I want to know who you are Emma
and what you like and how's been your life and building that
trust from the beginning and creating that team is nowhere,
is nowhere. We rush.
We go into things that really don't matter.
They're just superficial. So that can you can have a huge
impact if you stop your project today immediately and spend the
next week building a team. Even if people are part time,
when they come to you, they feel they're in a team, a winning
team. People that care that, that
that's really, I just don't know why we've never focused on that,
right? It's just crazy.
But that will need to be a muscle that people need to work
because if you're saying in a project economy teams come
together for 90 days or whatever and it it's it's going to be
necessary that you'd be working with different people.
So to have that ability to get on a long well, understand each
other and to have that team, team cohesion is really
important. I like what you're yeah, and I
like what you're saying around. I think what you're saying is
that you need to think bigger. So project professionals need to
think bigger about well, a appreciate and shouts a bit more
about the work they do because I've never come across such a
humble group of people who are so reluctant to talk about the
successes that they bring. Also, it's because your book is
at is completely around project success.
And I mean, we could talk another hour about that, but one
of the things is around is the project worth doing in the 1st
place? Or if you're on the project
continuum, well, when it becomes apparent that maybe this is not
such a good idea, that it's right to stop that project, move
on to the next, and perhaps that is then tied into project
governance. If you're, if your whole
organisation is just a number of projects, you must have constant
vigilance about which, which are worth focusing on and which are
worth abandoning. And then there's no shame in
that. It's that's the right thing to
do. Yeah, that's one of the other
areas I I work on in the book is we should not see stopping
projects as a failure. On the contrary, it should be an
act of courage that is recognised and OK.
Hey boss, we launched this six months ago.
I think the market has shifted. We have other let's let's stop
it or even post it for the next 3-6 months.
Let's shift priority, let's shift the teams they were and
then it creates more capacity, it creates more focus.
But today projects, if you close them, finish them, stop them,
it's, it's still seen as a failure.
And that that's part of the culture that I say it has to
change. Project celebration.
I wrote an article in HBRA few months ago.
It's how to stop projects. And it, it, it seems simple, but
it's not. How many of you go by by
subscription to go to the gym, especially in January and and
you never stop that subscription even if you don't go right.
So it's the same for projects at work.
It's just very hard. But building that muscle again,
you know, stop it. Like I, I tried, we, we learned
a lot, but now it's time to shift to something else.
And one of the very big message MI want to give is AI will come
and we'll need to stop projects. But I think leaders should not
take the advantage of stopping projects to fire people that
that's like the worst strategy you can have.
One of the approaches that I say is when we stop people, we
guarantee in the next 30 day that everyone in that project
will be replaced somewhere else. So having that safety that the
projects will stop and, and, and, and many should stop, but
we, we keep our people, we, we, we have this safety needs for
that. And that would create such a
positive culture where we focus on what really matters.
That's a really good point. What my final question would be
how big is the gap between where we are, where organisations are
now and where you you see that they could be and and delivering
successful projects within their organisations?
I think it's very big, Emma, and and this is a transformation
that has to be LED from the top. And I hope that having HPR
really position the book for CEOs and executives will help
us. I think we have a role to play
when we professional as where we know how to do this type of
transformation speaking higher up, but I think we're we big
gap, we're slow, Emma. And what worries me the most is
that in Asia, for example, companies are adapting so
quickly and and they're just so fast and they they don't have
these problems that we make ourselves.
So that's my bigger concern is that companies are changing
very, very fast in Asia and and they're coming and they're
playing globally. So I'm I'm a bit concerned on
that part too. Thank you, Antonio.
Was was there any last points you wanted to raise before we
wrap up? No, I think just for all these
project managers, please be proud of what you're doing.
Really be proud and be the proudest because you're really
building the future and and recognise that with your friends
and with your family and it really, if we are not there, the
future will not be looking great.
So just be very, very proud of what we do.
That's that's great words for a January podcast as well when
everyone's thinking about what new Year might bring.
So that's the really positive celebratory night way to end the
podcast. So thank.
Thank you very much, Antonio. That was so interesting to hear
your thoughts. So thanks again.
Always a pleasure. Thank you, Ma.
Thanks again to Antonio for joining us and to you for
listening to the APM podcast. I hope that you've been left
with much food for thought, and remember to get hold of a copy
of Powered by Projects, leading your organisation in the
Transformation Age, published by Harvard Business Review Press in
January 2026. Don't forget to look out for
more episodes or to rate and reviews.
Wherever you get your podcasts. We'd welcome you to get in touch
with your comments, feedback and suggestions by emailing us at
apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk. Spotify and YouTube users,
please do also leave us your comments.
This podcast has been brought to you by APM, the chartered body
for the roject Rofession. For more information on APM,
visit apm.org.uk.