Listen to this episode to hear how Tracey took that grenade and used it to reshape how she lives and works, and came out the other side feeling stronger than ever. It's a deeply personal and life-changing story that comes with many lessons.

Episode highlights:

• [3:00] Introducing the "shit sandwich".
• [6:00] Tracey drops, "If you want real change, you kind of have to change yourself."
• [8:00] Tracey talks about defining—or redefining—herself.
• [14:00] If you're feeling it, it's real.
• [21:00] Brett and Greg discuss their grenades, and how people help with recovery

• [3:00] Crystal's first story about a missing projector begins
• [8:00] Brett is asks, "wait, what's the failure here?"
• [10:30] Crystal dives into a story about a toxic manager who wants to play a game of telephone
• [14:00] We talk about the value of observing the situation before acting
• [16:00] Being your true self helps you to manage and diffuse situations
• [19:00] Crystal shares her favorite Maya Angelou quote, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

About our guest

Crystal J. Richards, PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM 
Crystal is the Principal and Owner of MindsparQ™, a talent development consulting firm dedicated to helping organizations better their teams' skill sets in project management, communications, and leadership.  

Crystal’s focus is to train people to be better project managers so they can consistently deliver projects with clarity, confidence, and courage. She maintains an online community on project management and better leadership practices.  To learn more about the community, go to www.themindsparq.com/community.   
 

• [2:00] Welcome back...to failure. Er, a new focus.
• [4:00] The lessons that failure presents span industries and roles. We can learn a lot from one another's experiences.
• [6:00] The connection between Seasons One and Two.
• [8:00] Shocker! We both fuck up, too, and we'll talk about that.
• [9:00] We're so lucky to have Audience Ops producing this for us!

About your Hosts—

Brett Harned is one of the founding voices of the growing digital project management community. He launched the Digital PM Summit in 2012, and over the past decade has since hosted and spoken to audiences globally. His first book Project Management for Humans was published in July 2017, and his podcast Sprints and Milestones launched in April 2018. His wealth of successful online classes, a YouTube series, and numerous bylines further underscore his experience in digital PM consulting.

He applies his breadth of knowledge and experience to help clients solve complex challenges around people, process, and culture. Brett served as Vice President of Project Management at award-winning web design agency Happy Cog and as a senior PM at global digital agency Razorfish. As a project manager, strategist, and consultant, he's led capital campaigns, managed enterprise website redesigns, and produced new iOS and Android products for Zappos, MTV, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Pfizer, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Harvard University.

Greg Storey brings a wealth of industry experience and wisdom to his work as a founder and leader gained through 25 years of experience in the industry. His work with agencies, medium-sized companies, and enterprise organizations like IBM, USAA, InVision, Stanford University, Sundance Film Festival, AMC Theatres, and BBVA Compass has given him a unique and valuable perspective on what makes design successful in a variety of conditions. He's a willing collaborator ready to partner across teams and loves to break down silos and build people and teams. Greg is known for bringing unique perspectives to problems that help get teams unstuck.

Greg is an active leader in the digital community, providing leadership for Dribbble, Creative Mornings, and Amazing People Design List communities. In 2011, he co-founded the Bureau of Digital, a supportive community for studio owners, operators, design and project management leaders. He is the co-host of the podcast Sprints & Milestones and is a co-author of the book Remote Work for Design Teams. To date, Greg’s single best achievement is the direct mentorship and growth of hundreds of designers worldwide.

Did you know that Brett and Greg are working together again? Check out loupecollective.com and reach out if you want to partner!

Several questions about project leadership came in, so we sat down to share our two (sometimes different) perspectives. At the direction of our listeners, we cover:

• The PM career path
• How to scale your PM tasks on projects of varying sizes
• Questions to ask PM candidates in job interviews
• How to develop trust with a team
• Managing people without being their “manager”
• And more!

And before you go, please take a few minutes to give us some feedback! Rate us on the iTunes store, and send us feedback via twitter or email at sprintsandmilestones@gmail.com.

In episode seven of Sprints & Milestones, we talk about how project managers can move on from that rigid, box-checking way of working to being more open-minded, and strategic about the way they handle projects and teams. A few topics discussed include:

• The evolution of the project management role
• Having operational awareness, no matter your role
• How having a better understanding of your work and team help you to make better strategic decisions
• Doing more and being more helps your career long-term
• Tools to help you to think more strategically

In episode six of Sprints & Milestones, your hosts talk through the hesitation, challenges, and clear benefits of being completely honest when it comes to project challenges, mistakes, and straight-up issues. Get ready for stories with so-so outcomes, and ideas on why honesty is important in business no matter your role. Here are a few topics covered in the episode:

• Delivering bad news
• Bracing yourself for the worst response
  -How others view transparency, and how that can affect you (or how you’re viewed)
• The positive impacts honesty can have on project teams
• Dealing with scope (and money) and the uncomfortable conversations related to change, or even unexpected increases in project budgets needed

As project leads, we expect change on projects because we understand that business goals evolve and change. Processes fail. Stakeholders come and go, and new ideas arise. When asked to change, we use project goals as a basis for discussion on whether or not the change is acceptable. We wade through comments and feedback and analyze and discuss change to help guide our teams and clients to the best decisions given our focus on project goals.

In this episode of Sprints & Milestones, Brett and Greg talk about how project managers stay laser focused when projects are being pushed and pulled in many different directions, sometimes by many people. Here are a few of the themes discussed:

• Creating a project environment that is conducive to alignment with clients and a team
• Finding a moment to pivot on a project to make a positive change
• Setting expectations to get what you need out of projects and making agreements to do things successfully
• The value of setting work agreements and running retrospectives to keep those agreements true

In this installment of Sprints & Milestones, Brett and Greg share their personal stories of how they landed in design and project management careers. They also discuss the importance of continuous learning and teaching in the digital space to push yourself - and others - to be better. It's not about learning everything in school, in fact, it's all about learning on the job.

Some topics discussed include:

• Finding your role, but also finding what you love to do and continuing to grow within that role
• The value of certifications Being a part-time project manager when your focus is in another area of a project
• Resources for learning about project management for PMs and non-PMs alike
• The value of community How teaching can bring about learning opportunities

In this episode of Sprints & Milestones, Brett and Greg explore what it means to be a “loveable hardass” and how difficult that can actually be. Some topics and scenarios discussed include:

• Does the PM have to be the B.A. Baracus of their project team?
• Will you ever succeed in leading teams if you play the role of “the enforcer”?
• Building trust and good relationships on projects
• Setting expectations for how teams work together
• The “Trust Battery” and mutua work agreements
• Safe words for teams

Some topics that are touched on in this episode include:

• Digging in to understand confusing language and company-speak
• Figuring out what unwritten expectations exist in projects
• Establishing trust and using it as your superpower
• Speaking up justmenough as a DPM
• Setting expectations for what the DPM's role is on projects
• Feeling empowered as a junior DPM
• The DPM's role as the the undeputized enforcer of accountability

So take a break from your current chaotic episode, and listen to this episode of Sprints & Milestones to find better ways to solve problems and stay chill when things get nuts.

In this first episode of Sprints & Milestones, Brett Harned and Greg Storey introduce you to digital project management, the principles set forth in Brett’s book Project Management for Humans, and how they apply to anyone leading projects. This episode is just a taste of what’s to come in future episodes, which will be a review of each of the seven principles, which are:

• We Are Chaos Junkies
• We Are Multilingual Communicators
• We Are Loveable Hardasses
• We Are Consummate Learners and Teachers
• We Are Laser-Focused
• We Are Honest, Always
• We Are Pathfinders

Each episode of this first season will deep deeper into the principles and your hosts will share their opinions, war stories, and tips and tactics on how to address many curve balls that come your way while working on digital projects. This episode is just a taste of what’s to come in future episodes, so take a moment to get to know your hosts and the basis of this first season before we dig in.