Hi, everyone, and welcome to the APM Podcast.
My name is Professor Adam Bodison, Chief Executive of APM,
and today I'm delighted to be joined by two of my esteemed
colleagues at the association, Sue Kershaw and Yvonne Thompson.
Despite being nearly 100 episodes into the APM podcast,
this is actually the first one we've ever recorded in person
and we're here at our head office in Princess Risborough.
And Nat perhaps should give you a small hint that the format
today is going to be a little different to our usual format,
but more on that in a moment. Perhaps now is a good time for
us all to introduce ourselves. So, Sue, would you like to go
first? Lovely.
Thank you Adam, really pleased to be here as well with your
good self and with everyone. It's a lovely afternoon.
So I'm a civil engineer in the programme manager and I was born
on the construction site in New Zealand, so that was his kind of
indicator of where I'd end up in my career.
So being a civil engineer is something that really excites me
as well as being a programme manager.
I get out of bed every day for difficult complex mega projects,
things that really, really challenged me and they're
really, really difficult. Anything that is easy is too
boring and doesn't work. I've worked in the UK and
overseas, and I'm a great proponent of assurance and
delivery partner roles because I don't think any client anywhere
in the world can actually deliver things unless they have
a delivery partner to help them. And maybe more of that later as
we talk about options on that. A past president of APM and a
currently an honorary professor at UCL Bartlett School of
Sustainable Construction. Wow, I've heard you introduce
yourself a lot of time so and every time I learned something
new today it was that you were born on a construction site at
that's when I shall make a note of and Yvonne, how about you
next? Ohh wow.
Well, thank you for inviting me to be sorry A.
Part of this very special podcast but also I am so
privileged and honoured. For the button to be passed by
Sue to me as the I'm currently still president-elect, but to be
shortly to be president of the APM.
My background has been mostly in marketing and communications, so
I spend a lot of time on committees.
I run a women in Business Network.
I run my marketing and PR company.
My background, or my Forte if you like, is equality and
diversity, for which I've received a Commander of the
British Empire 21 years ago. I have two honorary degrees.
Um, around the work I do. In equality and diversity and I
have 4 fellowships recognising those same areas.
But I'm so looking forward to learning a lot about project
management because this is an area that I am quite new to.
So I'm looking forward to learning a lot.
But I hope I'm able to bring a. Lot as well.
I'm sure that will be true. For those of you who don't know
me, I'm Adam Bodison. I'm the chief executive of AP.
I've been here nearly three years now.
I was saying earlier on that seems like it's gone like
lightning, appointed during the pandemic and still here today.
So as I mentioned, Kelly, the format of this podcast will be a
little bit different to usual. Normally on this podcast, we
kind of interview a guest. But this time, I think we're
going to try and run it more as a an informal roundtable chap
between the three of us. Because of course, as you, as
you mentioned, Yvonne, the primary reason we're here today
is to mark the handover in the presidency at APM from Sue to
Yvonne. And so that gives us a really
good opportunity to step back, reflect on the state of the
project profession more broadly and in particular, some of the
changes we've seen over your time, Sue, as President and some
of your priorities Evonne, going forward for the next few years.
So let's get going And maybe, Sue, just to start us off with
that kind of looking back kind of theme, perhaps you could give
us a few reflections on your presidency and where you think
we are as a profession now compared to when you started
with us back in 2019? Indeed.
I thank you, Adam. It's been a real joy in this
position. They're gonna know you're going
to enjoy it as well. It's a it's a great privilege to
be president of APM and to be the first female one was
absolutely super. And I know you do equally well
in your role. So what what did I sort of think
about in my presidency? One was looking at complexity,
which we all experienced in our everyday life, things more
complex, more difficult. But what does that mean for
projects and programmes? How do we need to deal with it
differently? And we can look at maybe how we
talk about governance in that respect on programme directors.
But there is something we cannot ignore.
Things are getting more and more difficult.
And we've got to find a way as a profession to get through that.
We've moved from mega projects to giga projects and last five
years, trillions of pounds and dollars are being poured into
these things. We must actually deliver what we
say we will deliver. And I think, and I think a bit
differently, but we're getting there.
We're not ignoring it. I think the other thing is
connectivity. And I know with your background,
being a professor as well, Adam, you're reaching into the
universities, actually looking at how we can build MBA's into
delivery MBA rather than business MBA's, you know,
reaching into schools, reaching into other membership,
professional organisations, how can we work Better Together?
That has come a long way over the last few years.
And I'm so pleased that we're now working closely with PMI
and, and the recent announcements made in that
respect really to me is is almost the icing on the cake.
This you know, both our organisations together, we are
going to be the only ones in the world that are going to be
heading up project and programme management.
Well, you know, that was one of the very first calls I made when
I started in the in the role was to try and get that relationship
back on track. But so you you talked about kind
of that move from mega projects to giga projects.
You know, these are enormous. I mean, it's hard to almost kind
of imagine the scale of some of these things that we're talking
about. And presumably these very, very
large projects are there because we're trying to solve some of
the world's biggest problems. I mean, for those people that
maybe are head down getting on with it today, can you give us
some insights into the kinds of problems that these projects are
trying to tackle? Yeah, you're right.
They're huge. They're huge and they're
problems we can't ignore anymore.
It's the human race. So a very UK example is we're
now going to build reservoirs for the first time in 30 years.
No one can remember how to build reservoirs because they will
retired or moved on. If we don't have those
reservoirs, we don't have clean water and it goes on and on and
on. So how do you deal with that?
And how do you, when you're spending billions, how do you
make sure you got the right governance around that spending,
the right risk approach, the right people leading it, the
right understanding of what you're doing, not only in
delivering the project, the programme, but the impact of
that on the environment, on the communities.
You know, the ripples go on and on and on.
We can't just think in silos anymore.
So we have to embrace complexity and ambiguity because you can't
come up and say this is how you do mega giga projects anymore.
There there isn't gonna be a check sheet of it.
It's gonna be how do we talk together to get the best
solutions and the best outcomes? Yeah, it's interesting isn't it
because I think one of the perceptions out there of the
profession is it's all about process.
And one of my own reflections on three years in is it, I hear
more about people usually than I do about process, although you
know process obviously important as well.
If I let let's turn to yourself, obviously just coming into the
role, as you say you've started in a few weeks time, you you've
had a little bit of time to get to know us as an organisation.
I know you came to our annual conference a few weeks ago, but
I wonder if you might share a little bit what you think your
priorities will be as president. Where do you think we need to be
positioning ourselves going forward?
What kind of opportunities do we have that we need to kind of get
hold of? Well, that is a very big
question which commands a big answer, but.
I don't think we have time for that right now.
But you know, as some people will have seen, I've listed my
priorities or what I real are the priorities, which is around
embracing innovation, diversity and inclusion is a must.
I mean, all of these are really important and I think we have to
look at all of them with the same, with the same focus and
the same will to make them. And I I'm being quite ambitious
because I've got 8 priorities I've got.
And I'm I am. Really hoping that if we don't
get all eight, we will get some of them.
So as I said, diversity and inclusion, championing
sustainability in green initiatives, I mean, that's what
the world is all about now, networking.
So it's hugely important. And for me, networking, quite
often people take it as something, just something you
may or you may not do. And for me it's a must because
unless you're networking and you're increasing and widening
your influence, you're just going to be standing still,
which is not good for anybody. Professional development, we all
know how important that is. And that is one of the key
things navigating remote, remote work.
I mean, what what is the next step to remote working?
Will more people remain at home? Will more people come back?
Will we see an increase of people wanting to do more days?
Will we return to five days or even four days a week?
That is such a big question and I think it's something that
everybody has to focus on and the big, big talk again right
now, AI and technology, I mean, but you know, what I really want
to highlight is the point that you just made Sue around
reservoirs and, and you know, how do we prepare today for
success tomorrow? How do we pass all that
knowledge on? How do we keep those
conversations going? How do we make it work?
So for me, although I I have a lot of ambition for APN, I think
all of those points are really important and I'll be talking to
Adam about which ones we prioritise very soon.
I'm sure it's one of the things I enjoy about the relationship
between the CEO and the presidency is you get the, the
Direct Line. Sue certainly made use of that
and I'm sure that will continue with with with yourself.
Yvonne, couple of reflections. So AI, we're going to come back
to a bit later in our conversation, but you mentioned
about the, the kind of remote working, hybrid working.
And, and I just share with our listeners really how we do that
at APM, because we use an approach, which I call the
footpath approach, which you may be familiar with from your
infrastructure work, which is rather than set a policy and
then say this is the policy, you know, all in or all out or, or
whatever combination is, we actually started by looking at
what people did naturally 1st and then built our policy around
that. And what we realised is that if
we did anything, which was just on a kind of a weekly kind of
basis, that wasn't going to work.
And so we ended up going for, we want people in a minimum of four
days per month. Because what that meant is if
you were far away, you might be able to come in and do a block
of four days. Or if you're local, you might do
a day a week and all kinds of other arrangements.
And the reason we call it the footpaths analogy is that on on
buildings, when a build like a new housing estate and so on,
one of the things they do before they build the footpaths is they
look where are people walking and then they build the
footpaths. And I thought that's quite a
good way of building policy in an organisation.
I think more organisations are to do that type of thing.
I think absolutely. You mentioned networking.
I wonder if I just might ask about that with, with lots of
people working from home now, I think particularly those who are
early career professionals, maybe they haven't had that
experience of working in an office with other people before.
Some of them might not know what good networking looks like.
I mean, what advice would you give to someone who's listening
to this now, Yvonne, who thinks, yeah, I I'd like to network, but
I'm not sure how to start or what it looks like.
What? What advice would you give?
Well, I always say find your focus and focus on your focus
and then apply the four P's network with passion, with
purpose, with profile and with positioning.
So with your purpose, you don't turn up to an opening of an
envelope. That's the saying.
So be very focused about. Why your networking, where your
networking and who you're networking with and if that fits
to your career path and helps you along your way, it's almost
like. Making a networking.
Road map in a way, so you decide where it is you need to be and
you map out your journey to get there through networking.
So network with purpose. Why are you going?
Keep Flings 6 serving men. Do you know that one?
I don't know it, but do you know?
It tell me Kipling had six serving men.
They taught him all he knew their names.
Were where, why, when, what, and who.
Ohh, OK. I'm I'm sure I've got that
slightly wrong, but looking up if you just write those things
down and. Apply it.
To almost anything from writing a business plan to writing a
press release to writing a story.
You know what is it you want to do, why you want to do it?
How? It's all there.
So it's. For me it really is.
About passion, purpose, profile, does it help your profile?
What does that do with your profile?
For me, you always try to network upwards.
It's fine networking with your peers, but think about
networking. Up rather.
Than staying on the same level. It's all about just making sure
you're on the right trajectory. OK.
Well, I think that's some really good advice that really good
advice for for for anyone at any stage of their career.
In fact, I think and then and then just lastly before we move
into some of the questions, you talked about the importance of
diversity, equity, inclusion and going into something that we've
we have to kind of two focuses on that APM just kind of an
internal focus as to what we do kind of organisation with our
own staff and volunteers. But there is then also how we
influence the profession and what our expectations are of the
profession. Obviously everybody's talking
about this, but I know from talking to my fellow CEO's and
other organisations think people wake up with a really good
intention around this area. But so many people get it wrong.
Why? Why?
Why do you think that is? If I'm why?
If people really want to get this right, why do we get it
wrong so often? It's it's.
Difficult. And the answer is different for
every company, every CEO, every HR you know, depending on what
your what your company is. But for me, I always feel that
if there is a will, there is a way.
People always talk about hard to reach communities.
There are no longer any hard to read.
Everyone's got a phone, most people have access.
To the Internet. Yeah.
I would say are they hard to reach or are we hard to access?
That's how I always like to turn the question over, Ted, you
know? There you go, and you're
absolutely right. And it's the will to get these
things done. I know I wanted to talk about
menopause, where nobody would ever touch that subject before,
but now it's. All it's.
All that the organisations talk about and for me equality and
diversity is a very much like that.
It's just about getting it into getting into the DNA of the
organisation really. OK, well, I'm sure that will be
a recurring theme as we go through today.
So Sue, let's come back to infrastructure and major
projects. You know, one of the things
we're obsessed about in the project profession, and it's a
good obsession I think is learning lessons and applying
lessons. What do you say over the kind of
past five years, would you say that we've learnt from kind of
major projects in infrastructure and what would we need to change
to kind of successfully deliver the pretty ambitious
infrastructure ambitions that we have for for this country?
That's a really good question and we have learned a lot.
And in fact, the UK is the number one infrastructure
organisation country in the world.
And you think about that, I have tiny, we are now we have people
from the States, Australia, Canada seeing, I'm seeing the
Singapore and Canadians this week, you know, they're coming
to see us to learn how we deliver projects and programmes.
And that's when the general public go, Oh yeah, it's twice
as much since two years late, blah, blah, blah.
And the the basis for all of that is we have to squeeze in
the business case initially into Treasury in such a way that it
will get passed. If you ever did go back and put
the final business case into Treasury, we would never have
got the green light for Crossrail, the Olympics, HS2 or
any of them. So there's a huge you can't get
the politics out of the projects and programmes.
That's the hardest thing because most project and programme
managers aren't naturally political.
So we need a lot of guidance on that and I think we are learning
on it. And then from a practical point
of view, we have ever since the Olympics than a proper lessons
learnt exercise on each one of these mega projects.
And not at the end when everyone's disappeared, but
methodically as we deliver, we capture all of these and we put
them in a decent data set and make them accessible and free to
access. So every single project can
learn from each other, and that is something that's really
special, I think. I think that's where AI can
help, Karna, because, you know, if you've got all of this data
from so many projects and to be able to, you know, how long
would it take a person or even a group of people to go through
those types of things, The lessons learned, that could be
different. And I suppose if we're talking
about infrastructure. So it would be a shame for me
not to let you give a plug for the MBA that you're involved
with, right? So consider that a nudge in the
right direction. Thank you Adam.
Thank professor to professor. It is so exciting and the UCL
Bartlett School is sustainable construction and I when I was
visiting professor, we can't, what can we do that's different?
How can we make sure the next cohort, the CEO's and CFO's in
this area really do know their staff?
And we came up originally what was going to be an MSC, but then
we've actually got for the first time ever in the world, we've
got the agreement to have an MBA in something that wasn't about
business. So it's about major
infrastructure delivery and it's set to for people aged 35 to 45
and it's set so it fits in with their working lives.
So it's 22 week stints every four months.
They all have mentors and they mentor each other.
We have keynote speakers, some of the great and the good.
We talked about Crossrail, Mark Wilds as an example.
He came in and gave his speech. We had an extra small word from
our IPA came and gave his speech.
So it's real time, hands on learning from the experts with
the top of the range backup from academia and also backup from
industry as well. I, I lecture there on assurance,
for example, which is something I think we need in mega and Giga
project. So it is real, it's of the
moment and it's tangible so that when the students do their final
year project, it has to be on something that their company
needs to change or do differently.
So it's totally LinkedIn and, and I don't know if anyone seen
any of the LinkedIn expressions of joy from these students, but
it's quite fundamental and very moving that we've hit the spot
exactly. Right.
Yeah, I've seen that. And I think it's part of a wider
move that I've seen of MBA programmes really embracing
project management. I see that whether it's as a
core part of the programme or as a kind of specialist pathway, I
just see that more and more coming through.
And The thing is just one final thing I just ask you about to in
almost every public sector document that I read at the
moment, I keep hearing about this, the role of the
integrator. This is something that you and I
have spoken about before. People out there may not be
familiar with that. I wonder if you could educate us
and give us the kind of the elevator pitch for the the role
of the integrator. Thank you, Adam.
It's right at the top of my mind at the moment for other reasons.
But yes, it is a very, very resurgence element from Project
13, which had the role of the capable owner, it had the
integrated, it had digital, it had organisation governance.
They were the five pillars of Project 13.
Project 13 was a movement, it wasn't mandated.
So some organisations like Anglian Water, for example, have
totally embraced it and that's how they deliver all their
projects and programmes. So in the very much bit like APM
is very agile fleet of footwear. We're not doing it like this
because we've always done it. But that integrated role works
underneath the client and literally, as it says,
integrates everything for them. So if you were building your
house, if you like, you would then as the sponsor you'd say
I've got this much budget and you're integrated, then go and
do everything else for you and your house would be delivered.
That's the concept and it's come from the petrochem industry who
do it very well and some of the military people do it well.
We don't in infrastructure do it well.
We have silos, whether it's a supply chain consultant,
contractor, whoever, you know you can work on some projects.
We've got 13 different organisations, so if you don't
join them up, you're really not going to succeed.
So I'm very excited about this. I think goes hand in hand with
delivery partners and with programme management.
I think it's something to be hearing a lot more about going
forward and if one obviously you're kind of new to this
world, you know, all this talk of infrastructure and so on.
Sorry, I put you on the spot briefly if I may.
But I mean any reflections coming into this on where you
think we are as a country around major programme delivery
infrastructure and so on. Is obviously you kind of got a
kind of very broad view kind of not the not the APM view
necessarily yet. And any any immediate thoughts?
Yes, I think the most glaring thing or thing that comes to me
immediately is HS2. It's taking so long, I don't
know what the cost is now. And I think our super saying
that's kind of almost the case with every every publicly funded
project because of the nature of the politics involved in it.
But but you kind of touch on another issue that if one, which
is the kind of public perception of projects and and I was
talking about the, you know, do we have an image problem?
Because, you know, I think when do people, the general public
hear about projects, right? It's never good news.
It's always in the media. You know, you mentioned HS2, you
know, that's obviously had a pretty challenging time in the
media. But if it's not HS2, then it's a
government IT project that's overspent or the NHS often takes
a battery and you know, new hospitals and so on.
So the general public has this perception of all projects
overspend, all projects don't deliver the benefits.
All projects felt particularly publicly funded projects, I
would add, because of the scrutiny.
I mean, one, I don't think that's a fair reflection of
necessarily where we are. But again, I just with the
benefits of you as somebody coming into the into our
profession, if you like and joining us is that is that the
perception you think that's out there and what do you think we
need to do with your comes background and PR background to
change it well. Well, I think, I think.
That is the general perception, but I, I would want to kind of
step back and say one that I think was going that way but has
redeemed itself is the Elizabeth line.
I just think that travelling on, it's like a futuristic
experience. So I know you have to kind of
oversell an upsell, but it's almost that we talk about all
these things as though they're going to be the greatest thing
that ever was. It doesn't, it doesn't manage
expectations. Yeah, I suppose.
I was, I would say it's one of the greatest branding exercises
in history because Crossrail was really challenging for all kinds
of reasons. But the Elizabeth lines a huge
success. And I don't know what the secret
sauce was in there, but it seems to me like the answer when we
get to the end of HS2 eventually is give it a really good name
and maybe that'll solve all the problems.
I don't know. So let me ask you about this
perception issue. One of the things I always think
is a kind of counterbalance to some of these perceptions is
chartership, you know, because that is about competence.
It's about saying, look, we've got people here who can deliver.
I wonder if you what your thoughts are on both both
chartership as a tool here and what else do we need to do to
kind of tackle the image problem?
Thank you, Admire. I mean, I was a great believer
in chartership. I remember when we actually were
granted it and we had to sort of get together to celebrate in the
House of Commons with the Speaker.
And that moment in time was was a moment of history because we
finally got in my perspective to be a professional institution.
And that to me is you can't fall lower ever than what your
profession is. And to give people the
opportunity to be a professional project manager or, or, and a
professional engineer or professional accountant, QS or
whatever, that gives you the opportunity to give people two
chances in their careers immediately or a choice of both
and mix it up. And it is being recognised by
clients as something that's super important.
It's been recognised by the individuals and it's been
recognised by the organisations in which they work.
It's, it's a win, win, win completely.
And I just love the fact that we've gone from potentially
perception wise, you know, our volunteering group of people who
do good things into this professional body.
And you know, they were the other big professional bodies
and numbers wise, we get getting there as well.
It's it's fantastic. And once you have that gravitas,
I think you then have the voice and and people will listen,
government will listen and and we will be seen to be that that
go to professional place. Yeah.
I think a key moment for me will be going forwards when the
public perception shifts because they go actually we've got
competent people now delivering projects.
And so we can now have confidence whether it be a
publicly funded project or a privately funded project, we can
now have confidence that these things are going to deliver the
benefits. That would be a big moment.
We've kind of flirted around the topic skills here.
We know you kind of hinted at it earlier, Sue, that there's this
big international ambition, you know, things like the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
There's a lot of things we want to deliver as a world.
We have to deliver in fact, as a world, right?
You know, some extra existential type challenges that we face.
But we know that we haven't got enough project professionals to
deliver on them. And we also know that the ones
that we have got, we need to constantly upskill them because
the world is changing so much and the role is changing so
much. So how do we, how do we tackle
that skills gap? If you like skills challenge,
which is looking like it's going to get harder, not easier over
time. So I'll start with you and then
I'll come over to you. To you, everyone.
I think one is to celebrate the Broadchurch.
We are, so we have project managers who project manage
small, very bespoke projects up to these multi-million giga and
everything in between to celebrate that and, and try and
entice the people within those projects and programmes to bring
more people in that they know. I've seen huge amounts of people
decide to be project managers after they've been on site for a
year, for example, in their, they've been away having a year
out and seeing what it means for infrastructure in different
worlds. I, I think bringing that Broad
church, celebrating at Broadchurch, bringing people in
and then looking at some of the professions that are dying.
So what professions are dying? Well, quite a lot through AI
you're going to change immensely.
So there's a pool of people there you could maybe come
across. I think the beauty of project
management, it's, it's basically common sense.
It is basically common sense and common sense a lot of people
have that we could bring and we could retrain.
We could retrain a lot of the finance people that are now
being not used because things have been done in different
ways. You know, we could actually just
think about things a little bit differently and welcome people.
And the things that we were talking about earlier was the
armed forces, when people finished their turn with three
5-7 years, they are perfect project managers.
So they overlap with other professions, with other sectors
and so on. That can be almost a hook to
bring them in because they already know part of the job.
Yeah. Really interesting and fun.
Your reflections. It's almost like.
Teaching young people about financial competence from an
early age. We need to get them into the
mindset of project management from an early age.
I think also what they then go on to do with what they've
learnt is up to them because I think as we're finding
practically anything you're involved in, there is a project
management element to it. Also.
I feel that we need to be doing lifelong learning.
Refreshing, upskilling constantly because as we all
know, by the time everything is moving so fast, by the time you
take two or three years to learn one thing, it's moved on.
Or even the job that you take now will no longer be a job in
two or three years time. So it really is all about just
keeping that constant lifelong learning and upskilling
constantly. Yeah, absolutely.
I always say we want children in school saying when I grow up I
want to be a project, Exactly. Project Professional.
So. Yeah, that's what we want,
right. Two, two of the kind of big
topics I want to talk about and I think I'll ask each of you,
one of them if, if, if I may. So if I'm going to start with
you and ask you about sustainability, massive topic.
We know that it's often built into projects and certainly when
it comes to the chartered project professionals, it's one
of the things that's there as as a competence.
So they're more likely to have that built into their projects.
But what impact do you think project professionals have on
net zero and could we be doing more?
Wow, that is a big question. I think we could always.
Be doing. More I heard something earlier.
I think we need to be. We need to be more agile in our
thinking, if that's the right word.
And we need to be more open to accepting the, the changes that
come with the change, if you like, of the world.
I mean, where we can, we need to look at everything, examine
everything. And for sustainability, it is.
It's. Crucial.
It's, you know, it's beginning or end of the world, isn't it?
Really. So it's that wide range of
voices. I have a phrase for this, which
I don't know if I've said to either of you before.
I loved it. I I said we need to harness the
wisdom of crowds. Yeah.
Because actually it's a breadth of ideas that you need to kind
of bring in. OK, thank you for that.
And Sue, we hinted about AI earlier on and data analytics.
How are these going to change the profession?
In fact, how have they changed the profession?
Probably already there. And what can those people who
are already practising project professionals do to kind of
prepare for what comes next? That's a really good question.
And it was buzzing in our conference everywhere.
Everyone was talking about digitalization and AI.
And the the big conclusion I came to after listening to some
fantastic speakers was it's here, embrace it.
And The thing is, if you fight, if you cast your mind back to
the bad old days. I had one boss, for example, in
Thailand who said there is never going to be a computer on
everyone's desk. This reminds me of when I was in
school and my maths teacher told me I had to learn how to
multiply numbers because people aren't going to be walking
around with a calculator in their pockets all day, you know?
And now we all walk around with a smartphone, right?
Yeah, exactly right. So so embrace it cuz it does
free up people's time. And I've got examples of that in
terms of bidding. Bidding for major projects costs
millions of pounds and you often lose it because not everyone can
be the winner. If everyone's got AI, everyone's
got access to almost at the end of their at some point in time,
producing almost the same response to that bid.
So then how do you as a client, pick who you want to work for?
Well, it's either going to be the money or the people.
And I think that frees up people to actually add much, much more
to project delivery than ever before.
And it gives you that thinking time as well.
And that's the big thing to me. You can be stuck in process or
stuck in bid writing or whatever and you're not actually on what
you should be on and then bringing what needs to be
brought. Through I'm gonna ask you on,
I'll put you on the spot if I may suit regulation.
Should I be regulated? I don't think you can regulate
it. OK.
I think the cats out of the. Book.
But the reason I'm asking is because one of the facts that I
think was widely reported in the media earlier this year was that
because the immense kind of computing power that's needed to
process kind of AI searches and so on.
The statistics was something like for every 20 to 50 searches
of something like Chappie or Gemini, it takes the equivalent
of a 500 millilitre bottle of water to to do the necessary
cooling in the data centre. And so I suppose that kind of
brings into play a kind of a water security issue.
And do we really understand the true cost of AI?
And when we do understand it, yes, the genie is out the
bottle, as you, as you say, are the cats out the bag.
But you know, so maybe there's no going back.
But I suppose that it just interesting from a business case
perspective, because I suppose you can, you know, if you're
using a I to improve healthcare, advances in healthcare, finding
new, you know, cures for cancer and so on, there's clearly a
business case there. If I'm using a I because I want
to, it's a writer bedtime story for my 5 year old.
Is that worth the cost? And and and and.
I'm using two quite extreme examples there, but you see the
point I'm making. No, I do I, but I honestly do
see as liberation, not regulation.
Interesting. And back in the health industry,
the doctors are finding by having a, I helped them write up
their notes, they get 66 zero percent more time with the
patient. And that's what really sold it
to me, because what you want is a patient.
You want that doctor with you? Well, it's true.
I mean, I, I remember reading some research which said that
the, the the process of talking to the doctor before the
doctor's even said anything already helps the patient to
feel better because they're in the room having that
conversation. And I don't know about you, but
I can't get into my doctor's to have a conversation at the
moment. It's always a phone call.
But maybe I'm in the wrong part of the country, I don't know.
OK. If on any final thoughts on AI
before we move on? There's so many people still
pushing against it, it's unbelievable.
And I really do think that you either AI or you die.
Ohh. Well, a very clear, very clear
statement from you there. OK.
So I think we're kind of, we've asked all the things I wanted to
ask. I think we're kind of towards
our closing thoughts. So what I'm going to do is I'm
going to ask each of you, Sue and then Vaughn to share your
closing thoughts. And that could be kind of your
general thoughts about the profession and where we are or,
or anything that's really jumped out of you about our
conversation today. So Sue.
Thank you, Adam. To me, it's so exciting to be in
a profession that's growing and thriving.
That is the place to be and I defy anyone not to say that
because if you're in something that's dying or decaying, it's
not a good place to be. So that's where we are.
We have agility second to none and we are now renowned not only
across the UK but across the globe and that is just such an
exciting place to be. Their inspirational thoughts
from you there as always, Sue and Ivonne.
Well, I am really excited to be taking over from.
The guardianship of. Sue because she's left us all in
a good place and made my my start the start of my.
Journey very easy, so thank you very much for that.
I'm just looking forward to working and supporting and doing
whatever I can, not only to learn because even during this
conversation I've learned so much.
So thank you both for that. But I would really like to see
the APM as the project management equivalent of the
Institute of Directors. Yes, well, I like that.
One of the one of my things I said, I think I might even said
it in my interview for the CEO job.
I said for me, wouldn't it be great if we, if, if everybody
would have they thought about delivering the project, they
immediately thought about APM. So think project, think APM,
absolutely. I don't know, maybe it's
something in that, right. Well, our time is unfortunately
nearly up for today, but I do want to just extend a huge thank
you to both Sue and Yvonne for joining me today and to all of
those listeners out there. And before we go, I'd also like
to invite those listeners to say that if you do have any
questions off the back of today's discussion, then please
reach out to us at apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk.
We'd be very happy to continue the conversation with you, and
we'll be back in a couple of weeks with another new episode
of the APM podcast. But for now, goodbye and thank
you for listening.