I interviewed a very accomplished German Project Manager and Customer Experience Manager. Marc started his career as a banker before branching out into Quality Management and Customer Experience Management as a consultant. He is certified in numerous tools and frameworks including by Project Management International (PMI) and Prince2.

The interview is jammed with valuable content and is published on YouTube. The link is in the document attached.

The lessons that I took away from this interview are at page 5 of the document and offer a good high-level view of the interview. Below are just 3 of the most valuable lessons.

. You should actively blend junior and senior people into teams because they approach problems from their different learning levels, and it will result in better decisions.

. Process stability is necessary if you hope to run an international project. Process instability requires training, which eats into your project value.

. Don’t be upset if some PMO guy pulls the plug on your project. It was either too expensive or there was another opportunity elsewhere. Or, you just didn’t define the value well enough.

The link will take the reader to a Project Plan for a military instructor development. The project is fictional although it is related to my work.

This document demonstrates my ability to create a project plan using a waterfall approach.

Content is everywhere. There is too much for anyone to handle effectively when taken in total. Curating excellent content is an important part of not only learning, but of changing behaviors.

Jerry Wellman’s 2012 Eight Habits of Successful Project Teams deserves a prominent place in my self-curated resource list.

I paraphrase the habits below and offer a single thought or connection about each one.

Habit 1. Foster and nurture shared vision. This fits with the lesson that General Mattis taught us all about centralizing a vision and decentralizing its execution.

Habit 2. Translate the vision into performance specs. Writing performance based learning objectives is an essential part of designing effective training.

Habit 3. Create and maintain an integrated plan to accomplish the specs, requirements, and vision. You have to measure it all - learning, transfer, impact.

Habit 4. Monitor performance against the plan. Project baselines, just like needs analyses, are the most important tool you have to ensure successful outcomes.

Habit 5. Acknowledge uncertainty and ignorance. My time in combat shows the folly of trying to stick to a plan when the reality on the ground is shifting. We have to be adaptive.

Habit 6. Embrace but control change. This is the child of Habit 4 & 5.

Habit 7. Influence the future. You are responsible for everything you accomplish or fail to accomplish; act like it.

Habit 8. Strive to over-communicate. Don’t be a motor-mouth with your team, but do communicate continuously with all of your stakeholders. Enable everyone to be heard.