Transcript
This has been generated by AI and optimized by a human.
(00:04):
The power of data is undeniable and, unharnessed, it's nothing but chaos. The amount of data was crazy.
(00:11):
Can I trust it? You will waste money. Held together with duct tape. Doomed to failure.
Jess Carter (00:16):
This season, we're solving problems in real time to reveal the art of the possible, making data your ally, using it to lead with confidence and clarity, helping communities and people thrive. This is Data-Driven Leadership, a show by Resultant.
Today we're joined by Kelly Vega, program director at VML and the genius behind Not the Worst PM on social media. She has over a decade of experience wrangling complex digital projects, keeping teams aligned, and somehow surviving the chaos of deadlines, stakeholders, and the occasional impossible request. She has worked for some major brands that if I said them out loud, you would definitely recognize them. I tripped over Kelly's account, Not the Worst PM on Instagram, and I was immediately taken with how well she can tell a story that innately gets at the value prospect of a project manager. If you are a project manager, you work with a project manager, or you might need a project manager, this episode is for you.
(01:13):
It takes the PM and helps everyone here understand the strategic role project managers play at managing your assets, which is either your resources, your applications, your time, your money, and I think she really helps clarify and she's very poignant in her storytelling, just exactly how important that is. She also addresses the transitions that we don't always talk about or have the data around about what makes a project manager successful in one area and how that might not be setting them up for success in this other area. Whether you are a PM or work with one, this episode is for you and there are a couple really interesting stories that she's telling in this episode and then in future areas in her account. So you should make sure you follow her. Let's get into it. Kelly, welcome.
Kelly Vega (02:04):
Thank you. I am so happy to be here, Jess.
Jess Carter (02:07):
I don't think people understand. This one was like, I tripped over your Not the Worst PM account on Instagram. I watched your, so this tells you I was deep scrolling. I saw something that was funny, but iPass, iMovie, what is it?
Kelly Vega (02:20):
Yes, iMovie.
Jess Carter (02:22):
IMovie. That story came up and I was like, this is a movie pass, movie pass, movie pass. It was so well done. And so I kind of fell into this realization that in this podcast, we talk about data all the time. We've never actually paused to be like, let's talk about the value proposition of a good project manager. Never. We've never done it. And I was like, if we're going to do it, we got to do it with Kelly.
Kelly Vega (02:50):
Yes. Oh, I am honored. Honored. Yes. All those stories have been so much fun to make.
Jess Carter (02:55):
Seriously if people haven't watched it, and we'll put a link to your Not the Worst PM on our show notes so people can access it really quickly. How did that all start? You're creating this content that is really, it's high quality and I can tell it takes some time to put it together. How did that all begin?
Kelly Vega (03:12):
My TikTok started in 2021, I believe is when I started posting. And so working from home, had been doing so since 2020 with a lot of others. And I was on TikTok myself because of my teenage girls. And I'm like, okay, what's this about? And I loved the lip sync voiceover snip bits, and so many times I'd hear those and I'd be like, this could be corporate. This could be applicable to a corporate or PM thing. So I started making some, and it wasn't until I think almost a year later in 2022 that somewhere in the spring my Michael Scott voiceover for sending one email and something like, I don't even know what the voiceover was, but it went viral and that was the first one that hit one million and had all this engagement and a bunch. For some reason, 20 brands commented on it. And I was like, oh, okay.
(04:03):
And then of course the usual, once you have something viral, then it's like another wave of a lull, whatever. But I started, I don't even know when I hit 10K. It was somewhere in that year and it's really most of what I was putting out then was the lip syncs. Something funny about being corporate, working from home and being a PM and being in the tech space. And then once I hit out unemployment though, now fast forward another year and I had a lot more downtime and that was unemployment by choice. I stepped away from that role and wanted to reassess where I was going. So I doubled up my PM presence or Not the Worst PM presence to be both talking about, a little bit, my unemployment journey and through humor as always, right, coping my mechanism or otherwise for better or worse, and then doubled with that.
(04:46):
I was like, I want to make this longer-form content. I have to use my brain and organically comments were sprinkled throughout my videos, but have you ever heard about this or this? And I simply took from comments and ran with it. And the first one was about, it was something related to a secret file on the Pentagon shared drive that was leaked, allegedly, and that had all this information that someone who wasn't supposed to see it saw it. And actually that one was like I just came up with that, did the story, and then I ran with it with other examples that commented onto it and it became this part, I think, ten series that I did over my unemployment. And now I haven't had as much time to carve out, but with the engagement and reactions I've gotten, I got to get back into that.
Jess Carter (05:31):
Yes, you do.
Kelly Vega (05:32):
Yes you do. I even have a couple of examples today if we get to it.
Jess Carter (05:34):
Well, and I was going to say, some of it gets really complicated because I imagine so. Okay, this is one of the things that I wanted to ask you about. I imagine that your daily life is input into things that you could probably jest about, but does it get tricky where you're like, I need to bury that for six months, or someone's going to know that I'm jesting about literally the meeting we had yesterday?
Kelly Vega (05:58):
Right, exactly. I mean, definitely I think that it's been a balance of I have this humor as an outlet, and a creative outlet no less, but also there's very much a 40-hour a week job that I am doing. And I think if anything, the busier I am at work and in more challenges, I mean, I always have content coming to my head. I mean, if I hear an audio, it's something within the last week that literally just happened, may have brought me to tears, mind you. And then I'm turning around and being able to be like, okay, but how funny is this? Because at the end of the day, we're humans and we're just doing our best. And that's really where I found my niche with Not the Worst PM was maybe making it more human and being like, we're all a little nervous in this crazy wild, wild west of digital anything tech and old PM practices have been shoehorned into digital and we've had to make it what we have.
Jess Carter (06:50):
Right? Really, I think it's genius content. Because one of the things that comes through for me is in the humor of your content, it is very clear that you understand what the value of a PM is if they're well-trained and equipped with the right tools and resources. Without you ever having to prove it or say it, you demonstrate it through some of your content.
When I first started in the PM world, I had this experience where I had a leader at the company I was working for at the time who quite literally referred to their technologists in calls with all of these people as value add resources, and they referred to the PMs as non-value add resources.
Kelly Vega:
Oh, whaaaatt!?!?
Jess Carter:
I know!
Kelly Vega:
It just keeps getting worse!
Jess Carter:
It keeps getting worse. There is a night where I stood between that leader and the door and I said, you are not allowed to go home to your family until you promise me that you will never do that again.
(07:52):
Because that tells me innately, that says so much more about you than it does about our PM team. But it was the inception of me starting to appreciate and process what does it look like to be a high-value PM? Because we probably all have horror stories about people who aren't, understand really the impact. And so I wanted to hear your perspective on when did that switch flip for you or do you have a story now about this is a great example of a value added PM or somebody who's kind of missing it. Do you know what I mean?
Kelly Vega (08:26):
Gosh, yes, absolutely. I mean, I think I was blessed with an opportunity when I, because I was in publicity when I was first approached in 2013 to be the first PM at this agency. They had people that were doing PM jobs, but they split the couple, two people, those two roles into solutions analysts, BA more or less, and PMs and both of them chose the solution analyst route and they needed to have someone start being the "PM" PM. And I didn't know what the word scope meant. But my friend who was the head of back-end dev, there was like, “She manages publicity for however many cities across the U.S. for Sesame Street Live. I'm pretty sure she can just try to figure out how to do that here.” And I'm like, huh? And it worked out after that. But my point to answering your question was I was given the opportunity with no straight “PM, this is what I do.”
(09:19):
But my friend was like, “Well, she's doing things that are scope, budget and timeline over here.” Now when I was there and I ended up, when I left, I believe I had a team of five PMs and two interns. We had really built out the PM team there and one of those PMs, one of my really most senior operating PMs you could say, but she had the most junior experience was someone who came from real estate. And she had been looking for something for months I believe it was, and I don't remember if I knew her through her connections, but I met with her for coffee and I just had to talk to her and see how she thought about things, see how she strategized with even her job search, but also how she strategized her other job. And I'm like, she's got the chops.
(10:00):
And she ended up being, I worked with her to another place somewhere else and now we are still connected. And I think those are examples where you have someone who understands how to efficiently address a challenge that's in front of them without getting in too much of the minutiae of process while also adhering to process enough. I don't know, it's a balance, but I think my radar for that, I'd like to say it's pretty high. And that's why I've noticed when maybe the good ones don't get recognized or the not so good ones push forward and it's like, hang on here, but why? And those reasons can vary.
Jess Carter (10:32):
So I have had this experience, too, where I have met people who have done this for 25 years. They are PMBOK certified. They have a thousand certifications and they are really good at checking the box in the process and the outcomes aren't good. We really struggle. Have you experienced that too?
Kelly Vega (10:52):
Definitely, definitely. And it might be like, for an example, someone who is super structured, checks all the boxes, but maybe they're on a program or a client who's like, Hey, we're agile. We've got 15 projects going at once and I want this to be on a Kanban board or a sprint calendar. And they're like, well, hang on a second. I'm in this waterfall structure from four years over here. And not that you would hire them into that position, but sometimes at an agency you're handed something and you're like, okay, this client is expecting this. Now that person might be really great on something that's like highly regulated, slower moving, but super visible. And if they are really able to check those boxes, let's put you on a SOC 2 certification initiative. Find what works for that person. Don't put them on the client that has six marketing tech campaigns going at once and needs constant changes and they will not play well there.
Jess Carter (11:43):
Well, the other sort of experience that I feel like I've struggled with is when I look at PMs who are running projects and I realize it's not like I need everybody to know what a critical path is or what a work breakdown structure is, all of these terms, I get it. They're very PM-y. To your point about raw talent who just understands how to achieve a goal, there's a little bit of, I use the phrase PMs who read you the news and PMs who write the news, and we want PMs who drive the project towards the right outcomes. They don't just manage what we all said to a cliff that we all fall off of. And I do think the industry is a mixed bag of those two things.
Kelly Vega (12:27):
Big time, big time. And in tech and digital, I feel like the transactional PM is less applicable because I mean unless you have what it be a campaign or just a maintenance site or something that has kind of a churn of regular stuff that goes by a process, doesn't have much strategy or it's running how it's running, but you don't find that as much. People want the ideas and the strategies to go alongside the maintenance that they're doing or what have you. So, I feel like more so I'm seeing PMs that are successful have a strategic mindset, not even background, but just mindset. You don't have to turn into a salesperson, you don't have to turn into a strategist, but hopefully you're kind of thinking like that. They want that because when you manage all this stuff or even recap a meeting, you'll see the difference if someone's thinking strategically in that recap or if they're just copy and pasting the transcription recap.
Jess Carter (13:17):
Okay, so here's my question for you. Nature or nurture, can we coach people from one to the other or do you think people are just innately wired one way?
Kelly Vega (13:27):
I do think that nature equals whatever previous PM they experienced they had if they've had it.
(13:34):
So if they're coming in fresh, I do think that nurture can go such a long way if they have the skillsets largely. But if that nature of even two years of a PM experience, that could look pretty rough for someone if they were in an agency or if they were even in-house where a PM is seen either as a pencil pusher, a note taker or maybe strategist, content entry person, blah, blah, blah. And they might be like, ooh, jaded or whatever, that it's going to take more nurture to get them out of it. But again, it depends on the personality. If they're like, no, I'm willing to adhere to a process that works and I feel respected in and there's accountability, I definitely think that nurture is like 90% of it.
Jess Carter (14:16):
That is so helpful. It gives me hope that the answer can be both, but maybe the road is longer or more arduous if you're not given… because I do think also size of projects and portfolios. If you have some giant portfolio where somebody at the top is dictating the scope and the strategy and you're not having to do that, you kind of are used to just executing with what you've been given. You're not taught to actually drive the train and see when we need to turn left or right. And so then to your point, I think it's really helpful to hear, for any PM to hear, when you take on a new project, you should treat it like a new job. You to shake off some of the stuff that you had before, shake off the assumptions or context and look at the new opportunity and understand what are the new ways you're going to grow, what's the new experience you're going to get and what's the stuff that you should pull forward because it's going to serve you there. You know what I mean?
Kelly Vega (15:05):
Yes. And notice what doesn't work, so you're not just, I think a PM, especially in today's just economy, right? They're like, give me the first job that's available. So if you have to do that, you have to do that. But if you are in a larger agency where you have someone overseeing you and they're like, hey, are you thinking this? Are you thinking this? We have this down the pipeline. Be more mindful of what didn't work, a plan that maybe is a set number of hours a month, maybe that's too mundane for you or maybe it's feeling too like a crunch for you. You want something that's like a two, three year project. Not that everybody can choose or has the ability to choose, but in your next job, if you're looking for another job. I don't think I was as mindful because I would be prompted or someone would approach me and I'm like, hey, looks cool. Let's try it. And this was actually the last time I shifted on my own and was like...
Jess Carter (15:51):
I'm just, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, that agency is pretty powerful. Right. Okay. One of the things I want to ask you, do you have any net new exciting stories you're working on that you want to tell us?
Kelly Vega (16:02):
I do. I do. I have two of them. I do because I am motivated again and I want to get these out so we get to talk it through and I'll probably...
Jess Carter (16:13):
I'm so excited. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Okay.
Kelly Vega (16:17):
So the first is, it's about BBC Digital Media Initiative, DMI. And I'm going to read a bit here because...
Jess Carter (16:24):
Do it.
Kelly Vega (16:24):
Yeah. So 125 million, I think it was like a hundred pounds, a hundred million pounds. So 125 million was lost to governance failures. They launched this initiative, the DMI, in 2008 to digitize and modernize its vast archives, which was about 15-plus-million items including TV and radio broadcasts, photos, sheet music, and even vintage tapes. No pressure.
After five years and nearly 125 million U.S. dollars, the project was scrapped in 2013 and a report by the PwC, which is the PricewaterhouseCoopers, they're one of the big four audit and consulting firms. The issue wasn't tech but governance. There wasn't steering board, it was weak reporting, excuse me, and little accountability. And it remains one of the BBC's most expensive public project failures. And the sources I had—this is Guardian and BBC Trust with the sources. I got these. So the PwC found no executive steering group.
(17:23):
They didn't challenge progress on cost time or quality. The reporting wasn't found. Finance committee relied on the CTO running the project, and we know what any executive, an executive is an executive up here for a reason not to manage the project down there. I think, oh, bless them, poor transparency. A six-month gap existed between the red flags emerging. So 2011 there were red flags and the escalation to leadership didn't happen until 2012. Heck of a delay there. I think I mentioned one of my recent videos that an old boss would tell me, wine doesn't get better with age and neither does bad news. And the reporting lacked clarity on budget progress and delivery of benefits. They stress it wasn't sunk by tech and possibility, but poor management. So all those archives, it was just 125 million attempted to move them, didn't work what their current solution is today, I don't know. That's what I have to find out. Perhaps they're still recovering from that deficit.
Jess Carter (18:24):
This is like, oh, this is a dream. I'm so excited to talk about this because I'm like this. Isn't it crazy for people to understand what good status reporting can do?
Kelly Vega (18:38):
It's underestimated. Yes, yes. And I think it's seen as a mundane thing or it's seen as I go, we all have to talk about what we all know and it's like, no, we all have to talk about what we all know. We certainly do, and I'm big on status report. I mean, you have your internal syncs 15 minutes a day, you have your internal status that you're like, okay, this is what we're doing. Okay, all the cliff notes and whatnot, but then your team status to the client and then your executive status, so you don't have their only involvement being escalations so they can know what's going on and defining like, hey, who is your stakeholder? If someone told me our CTO, I would be like, okay, if you're a company of two, maybe, but I don't think they are. I'll have to confirm that piece too. Can't say the count. But I don't think the BBC is two.
Jess Carter (19:22):
I'm curious what you think about this. So one of the things I have noticed in project management, and maybe that was part of it too, was there are patterns that people bring to new projects that aren't the right cadence or types of patterns where I'm like, hey, I had somebody yesterday that was working on this project and getting ready to kick it off, and it's like building something brand new that their company has never had before. We had this great kickoff where they were like, hey, we really got to focus on, we cannot get over complicated, brilliant basics is what they said. We just got to get the value prop out the door. Something had happened and I had one more meeting with them a week later, and suddenly there's all, here are our KPIs and here are all these things, and here's the timeline that shows nine different corresponding timelines happening at the, and I was like, you took advice from some leader that you shouldn't have taken.
(20:10):
You should have told them to pound sand because there are no KPIs on something that you're rolling out that's new that has had zero time. The KPI is we'll build the thing, and then we'll decide what the KPIs are. And so there was this for the value proposition in that circumstance, sometimes it makes sense to build out a very thoughtful plan with KPIs, but in this circumstance it was like, hey, the best CIO I ever worked with, he said, hey, stop with the chaos and the games. We are building a fence and I want to know how many fence posts you put in this week. Do not color more than that. Did we do three and we planned on putting three in or did we plan on three and we put seven in or one in? But do not over complicate it and confuse me with non-progress that looks like progress.
Kelly Vega (20:55):
Why is that so hard? I know, it's funny. I know when I came on speaking of over-engineering, a large migration project and simply how it was thought was over-engineered because of the, I don't know how the mentality started, but they were going by discipline of this large migration across many clients. They were chunking it by discipline, so tech strategy, IT even for some things. And they had kind of a waterfall. And I'm like, wait a minute. And I'm looking at all the subsections and I'm like, oh, they're all working on the same thing in these subsections. And I just kind of tilted it on its side, scrapped it obviously, but it was like, okay, here's all the sections of what you're working on and each section has its timeline. And now we have these chunks of not disciplines, but by the phase of this migration that we're working in.
(21:42):
And I think everyone was afraid to mix everybody's teams up. And I'm like, no, I will sit down with each of you for one hour a day if I have to get this, and it'll just be one hour for each of you, but for me, it'll be 40 hours of putting a Gantt together that now we can just {snaps} because it took that upfront time. But yeah, I think that to your point, whether it be from executives or other leads of disciplines, it becomes cardboard boxes on a castle and you're like, back up, slow down, hang on.
Jess Carter (22:11):
Well, and even the other, I just coached somebody on this and it felt so weird. I've not said it, I've never said it out loud, I've never said it consciously, but they kind of had this moment where they're like, I've been reporting this risk for nine months. Why is everyone suddenly freaked out about it? And my coaching was like, hey, if you're ever running a project and there's a big fat bomb that's going to go off, one of the most important things you can do is just change the cadence, momentum or tone in which you're talking. Put a new slide in the deck, literally pause for 30 seconds to say, “We have an important topic that must be addressed.”
Kelly Vega (22:51):
Exactly. And what's the impact?
Jess Carter (22:54):
Yes. If you normalize looking at a risk register, and we talk about it as if it's fine because I'm like, there is real strategy behind, you've really said it on this call. There's real strategy behind being a great PM to say, okay, here's all the topics we typically talk about. I need to blow this one up this week. I need to spend more time on this one. What's the why behind the time you're spending with your stakeholders? Right?
Kelly Vega (23:17):
Exactly. Exactly. And I think, yeah, risk logs can become white noise pretty quickly if you're just making it a list of to-dos. It's just going to look like a list of to-dos then. But yeah, it's an art. PM is a art of communication.
Jess Carter (23:31):
Yes, it is. Well, and it's like one of the things I was going to ask you, too, is I think part of why we've even gotten connected is the content you're producing about project management, it's cathartic. It's like people are feeling like, oh my gosh, yes. Somebody understands why this can feel like it's a drag or it's really hard. Do you get that feedback from people when people are why they're connecting with your content?
Kelly Vega (23:57):
Yes. Big time. I mean from something as small as a comment of relatable on video that it's something stressful to someone sending a paragraph even in a comment or a DM like, hey, I came across your page. I'm here for this niche of tech craziness, PM craziness. Or they'll tell a story. And that has been unexpected that I don't know why I didn't realize with having Not the Worst PM is with this following, it's not just a following of people who think I'm funny or just my stuff. It's a following of people who do the same crap and feel the same way and are on the other side laughing with me about it, or inspired with me about it. I will sprinkle in sometimes I've been doing new PM musings where I'm just answering some questions, but I didn't expect how much people did feel like me. I did feel like I was the only one with impostor syndrome or the only one who felt like I was faking it part of the time to just get through something and then learning it later. There's a bunch of us who are pretty scrappy in the best way.
Jess Carter (24:58):
When you talked about highly-federated entities or highly fast-agile, fail fast. Part of me is, I also think, and I don't know if you've done content about this, but one of the things I needed coaching on when I first started is I tend to PM technical projects. So app dev, science, engineering stuff I don't do. I don't know how to do it. This moment when I knew I arrived, where I stopped gaslighting myself—because I was constantly gas lit. I was 23 female running teams that were much more mature than me, much more experienced than me and didn't always love that. And I had a hard time because sometimes I was trying to understand their estimates or understand how it was going, and they would be really cagey or they would talk, it’s they talked right above my capabilities so that I couldn't follow them.
(25:47):
And I had a really great mentor who was like, hey, you are smart. Stop thinking you aren't, and if they can't explain it in a way that makes sense, that's on them and you ask them to try again. And it was really helpful for me. And I had this really momentous moment in my career where I had a dev I was working with and I was going through his estimates and I was like, I just don't understand what this one thing is, what is this thing? And he smiled at me and he was like, I made it up so we had a week of buffer. It's not a real thing. And immediately our whole relationship changed. It was respect that I could call out what was not making sense, but I feel like that advice of you do have to get into it. You have to get into whatever the thing you're PMing is and understand it effectively. You cannot sit above it and dictate timelines if you don't know what the things are. Right.
Kelly Vega (26:41):
It is so true. You do not need to understand how to do it, but you need to understand how to explain it. And that's what I'll tell devs is like, do you prefer I explain this or you? And more or less that'll get them on board and it's like, I promise you can ramble to me. I'll have the transcription on and then I'll leave you on your merry way for the next three days. Just explain this thing to me so I can go have this battle for those three days while you don't have to. Big time. And I think that cageyness as you mentioned, I have come to believe that from, as I mentioned before, the traditional more waterfall approach, traditional project management, then being applied to the wild west of digital and tech project management, people felt that in the worst way of this doesn't make sense with how we code, how we release, how we fill in the blank with anything technical.
(27:29):
And so PMs, we’re en force now, we have Agile and we have all these methodologies and certifications, which is wonderful, but we're still feeling a little bit of that. It's gotten better in my experience, but I don't know if that's because of who now I'm coming in as a program director, maybe that I want to believe that the cageyness is going away because they're seeing, they being tech folks are seeing tech PMs putting effort toward understanding the trade and adhering as best we can and as most efficiently we can to manage that trade. That was long-winded. I hope it made sense.
Jess Carter (28:04):
No, it does make sense and I think it gives me hope. I think you're right. We also only have our vantage points, and I've had some technical people who love to design. They don't want to just be given requirements and told to dev. They want to play on the left side of it so that they can own it. And I have some that are like, I want to leave my headphones in, give me the requirements and let me dev. That's all I want. And so even just figuring out it's not just the scope and the content, it's also the people. Who are you leading and how do you make sure you're leading them in the ways that they want to be led? And also you understand their aptitudes and attitudes and you're setting them up for success. Every new project is usually new people. And I feel like that can be challenging, right?
Kelly Vega (28:45):
Yes. I came on a team and there was a team offshore and then a team onshore, and we had one operating tech lead, and it was fine, but it could be better. And I noticed that, and I talked to, and this is the importance is that sometimes PMs might think, okay, you're this role, you're this role. And it's like, well, hang on. At least in my case, there's other things at play. So I'm talking to this person's manager, this person's manager like, hey, I see an opportunity for both tech leads for here, near shore and for offshore, and is that okay? You have to think about politics, too, that you might not be aware of, Emma, I don't want to make anyone else step on anyone's toes. Is this appropriate? Does this person want this? And they're like, and the consensus was yes. Yes. So then I was like, okay, I'm going to talk to those people next and now, and I always have those two tech leads and they're both full-time on the project, so it's like, however I split their time, it's up to me. And if their managers agree, and I think PMs underestimate maybe their ability to recognize those appropriate roles. Actually, what do you need for this client with these roles? Because it’s more than just tech creative strategy PM?
Jess Carter (29:54):
Yes. Yes. Well, and I think what you're getting at too that I think is really important is if there's one thing I want for all PMs is to, if they could appreciate the actual level of leadership that they are responsible for, this is employee engagement, it is client experience, it is delivery. You are literally leading a little micro company and there's a lot of weight on that, but it's also really cool that you get to do that. And I can even tell, it's so interesting to hear your journey because your passion for this has maintained regardless of you stepping back or stepping away. So it's just interesting to me that obviously you are really passionate about this career. Has that always been there? Okay.
Kelly Vega (30:39):
Yes. I mean, once I started at that first company and then I was PM director when I stepped away, and actually that was a different time that I didn't get approached, but I did step away because I was like, I feel like big fish in a small pond and I was only four years old at that point of being a PM. And so I actually went after a tech PM position. I got turned down and I ended up getting hired months later as their second tech PM that ended up being the lead tech PM, which was very fulfilling. At first it was that impostor syndrome, and then it was like, no, you do have this. And I was setting the precedence of what requirements documentation needed to look like, that was more of a content entry, also BA writing requirements, also PM and QA. So that was one of those.
(31:23):
So that was in a learning space. We had a proprietary learning tool, and once I felt like, okay, now I'm writing requirements, I kind of want to be back at a program level, because I got to be on some bigger like L’ Oreal and things like that. And that was cool, and that was a lot of traveling, but then I kind of wanted something downtown and I had someone reach out, wanted this big migration project, came in as it was funny, an executive producer, which that was just the name of their program director. And I was like, I don't care. I've never cared about people call me. They've since changed that. But I was there and then program director was my next after executive producer, my next role. My point is I was being on these different very different types of projects than in pharma. And I've been in the tactical e-commerce space, firearms e-commerce. That was a little short stint. So I feel like every time I've jumped to something, it's for a new challenge I need, but I've always had a team, even if just one, that I've been able to mentor or have report to me, and that's always been a big part of my passion.
Jess Carter (32:23):
So one of the things I wanted to ask you too, so you mentioned that you have a team you've enjoyed that. Can you tell, how do you walk into a company? Because you’ve had a lot of these experiences. How do you quickly assess if the PMs are set up for success? Can you quickly tell if somebody is over their skis? You can.
Kelly Vega (32:45):
Yeah. My first question if I'm inheriting a team is what one-on-ones exist and how often? And not just as like, hey, whatever. And what reporting does or doesn't exist because if reporting doesn't exist, someone's not keeping them accountable to have that exist. If it's like the tertiary reporting, and I shouldn't even call it tertiary, but it's the stuff that the project team otherwise might not know is going on or not. Truly. And that can be budget reporting and whatever. So if that is not in place, also, you see how they talk about the project. If they're coming out, it's stressful, it's this, they aren't doing this, they aren't doing this. If it's whether it's kind of the victim type card or the blaming or what it is, you can tell, and it's not like they're a bad person, but you're like, oh, you're feeling some sort of way after a pattern of this going on. And it's usually pretty quick to get to the bottom of it. It's usually communication.
Jess Carter (33:39):
Oh my gosh. Sorry. What's fascinating to me about what you're saying is this is why I like talking about this, the data-driven leader, nothing you just said is, well, I look at their EAC. I look at their earned value metric. You can; those things are fine. But there is this human element of, is the PM nervous and are they high energy either excited or nervous in one way or another, which it's like, is this about to go live or is this the middle of the project and for some reason you're up here? That's interesting. Are they super leaning back and you're like, do you understand what's happening literally this week? Yes or no?
Kelly Vega (34:17):
Right, right. And sometimes, yeah, yeah.
Jess Carter (34:20):
But it is interesting to me because that data, it's not in a source system somewhere. Your source system is your people. And so there's this sense of, even for me, it's like I will try to meet with some of the team. I want to join your internal status updates and see how they're going. If you have that cadence, I'm going to see what's on the agenda, what's not on the agenda, what are we not talking about that we should? What are we? I think as people are thinking about how they deploy PMs, I think making sure entities acknowledge the actual portfolio of revenue that person is holding in their hands, is that the right amount and the right level for that person's skills and abilities? I think digging deep on how is the project going? Is it on time, is it not? Are there major risks? There's just a few questions we can ask, but then to your point, I just think some of it is like, PM, how are you feeling about it? Are you engaged? Are you defensive? Those are really important insights into the portfolio. That cannot be in your project management system of record.
Kelly Vega (35:28):
Yeah. There's no tracker for that.
Jess Carter (35:31):
No.
Kelly Vega (35:32):
I mean, yeah, we can put red, yellow, green, but that's not going to suffice for me. There's more to it than that. And I like to approach a PM with like, hey, we have this grace period because I’m new here, and if there's something that is bubbling up that you're afraid to tell me, I get it. I promise I won't get mad. I've literally never yelled during a working hour in my life. Tell me what the issue is and if I can help spin that as like, hey, I'm putting this process in place. We've caught this. This is what we're doing about it. Here's the impact. Next steps, it's done. I think it's not common to run into that because it has turned, a lot of this space is dog-eat-dog and prove yourself, to each their own even more. So kind of when we're working from home, it does feel a little more like to each your own. So it's really important to make sure a PM knows they are heard and that they're not in trouble. You just have to hear what the issue is and we'll have a plan for it.
Jess Carter (36:31):
You said in a more psychologically safe way what I've been starting to explain, which is just no surprises. It's okay if there is bad news. It is not okay if you catch me off guard the same week that it occurs. You do. And I think teaching PMs, it's not just about scope, schedule, budget; it is also about anticipating risk and that piece is like, I need to know that you're getting better at forecasting where your project is going so you can start to get better at anticipating that and getting ahead of it. I feel like that's been, there's some secret sauce there that's not in the PMBOK training, it's not in SAFe. They don't explain that. You know what I mean?
Kelly Vega (37:10):
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's true.
Jess Carter (37:13):
What a breezy job. What a breezy job we have. Right? Okay, so I know we didn't get to your other story, so that'll be an encouragement for listeners to go find your Instagram and follow you. Is that the best place for them to keep up with you?
Kelly Vega (37:26):
So TikTok, I have 20K followers there. IG, I just got to 10K ish or something recently. I am more active on TikTok, but it's like you could compare it to a dumping ground. Half of it's my dog, so do with that what you will Instagram is where I put the prime stuff.
Jess Carter (37:42):
Okay. Alright. We will do, we’ll put whatever links you want in the show notes so that people can follow you. I follow you on Instagram and I have deeply enjoyed it, so I'm looking forward to it.
Kelly Vega (37:51):
Thank you. It's been wonderful. I have absolutely loved talking and I could do it for three and a half more years, not hours.
Jess Carter (38:00):
Well, invitation to bring you back maybe in a future episode?
Kelly Vega (38:04):
Yes, I would love that.
Jess Carter (38:06):
Cool. That sounds great. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This is so exciting.
Kelly Vega (38:10):
Thank you. You are so welcome. Happy to be here and thanks, everyone.
Jess Carter (38:14):
Thank you for listening. I'm your host Jess Carter, and don't forget to follow the Data-Driven Leadership wherever you get your podcast. And rate and review letting us know how these topics are transforming your business. We can't wait for you to join us on the next episode.
Insights delivered to your inbox