1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,360 >> Yeah, welcome to back to the MC65 podcast, 2 00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:06,600 the podcast where we explore everything happening 3 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:10,520 across the Microsoft ecosystem from Microsoft C65 4 00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:12,000 and Power Platform to AI, 5 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:14,800 Co-Pilot, Azure Security and Productivity. 6 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:16,480 Today, we are diving into a topic 7 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:19,440 that almost every organization is trying to work. 8 00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:22,920 How do you manage project without investing in 9 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:25,600 an expensive enterprise PPM platform? 10 00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:27,480 Can Microsoft plan a evolved from 11 00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:30,640 a simple task management app into a complex project 12 00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:32,840 and part of your management solution? 13 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:36,760 Oh, our guest today, believe the answer could be yes. 14 00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:39,600 Join us this Eric Funderhook, 15 00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:42,040 Microsoft experts specializing in project 16 00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:45,680 and portfolio management using Microsoft technology, 17 00:00:45,680 --> 00:00:47,720 Eric helps the media with large organizations 18 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:50,200 build practical planning solutions 19 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:53,800 by extending Microsoft Planner with Power Apps 20 00:00:53,800 --> 00:00:55,880 and the Power Platform. 21 00:00:55,880 --> 00:00:57,880 Wherever you are a PMO leader, 22 00:00:57,880 --> 00:00:59,960 project manager, Power Platform devolves, 23 00:00:59,960 --> 00:01:04,720 simply trying to organize work more effortously today. 24 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:07,200 Episodes, as practical insights. 25 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:10,160 Eric, welcome to the MC65 podcast. 26 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:13,280 >> Well, Mirko, thank you very much for having me on the show. 27 00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:15,840 I'm excited, let's dig in. 28 00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:17,200 >> Yeah, awesome. 29 00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:20,080 Can you, before we deep dive into the topic, 30 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:23,480 I think we are interested to learn more about Eric. 31 00:01:23,480 --> 00:01:25,840 Can you tell us a little bit about your surf 32 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:28,920 and your journey into the Microsoft ethical system? 33 00:01:28,920 --> 00:01:30,160 >> Absolutely. 34 00:01:30,160 --> 00:01:34,640 I am a Microsoft MVP based in the Netherlands 35 00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:39,000 and I work for a company called Context End. 36 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:43,520 We've been deploying project and portfolio management solutions 37 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:46,320 for well over 25 years now. 38 00:01:46,320 --> 00:01:49,920 And myself, I'm a 17-year consultant, 39 00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:53,680 starting as a junior in a local branch 40 00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:59,480 of a local company and growing to implement enterprise solutions 41 00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:01,240 to a cross-to-glow. 42 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:05,200 One of my current biggest customers is actually based in the US. 43 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:10,120 And we're just implementing phase two, 44 00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:12,640 so it's always an exciting time. 45 00:02:12,640 --> 00:02:13,800 Yeah. 46 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:17,840 >> And what first attract you to the project 47 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:20,040 and portfolio management? 48 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:25,120 >> Well, it's funny, I'm actually supposed to be a marketer. 49 00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:31,720 From the college off, I did college for commercial economics. 50 00:02:31,720 --> 00:02:36,960 And I'd or means that you go for marketer or sales. 51 00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:39,680 And it depends if you had any experience 52 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:41,600 before you started working, right? 53 00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:43,800 And after college, did you have experience 54 00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:47,120 then you would go to a marketer's role? 55 00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:49,040 And if you didn't have any experience, 56 00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:52,480 well, the only place that you could land a job was in sales. 57 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:59,400 So I started in sales and I joined a local IT company, as I mentioned. 58 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:05,240 As a sales representative, I made the statements of work, 59 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:08,080 did enterprise tenors. 60 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:11,320 And at some point, there was an issue with the consultants 61 00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:14,600 and not having enough people on board 62 00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:17,360 or having over or on their allocation. 63 00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:22,920 And I started investing in creating this huge Excel macro. 64 00:03:22,920 --> 00:03:26,120 And that kind of worked really good. 65 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:28,280 I pat on my own shoulder. 66 00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:30,240 But it was a good thing. 67 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:32,600 And management saw that and they said, 68 00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:35,480 well, if Eric can do this internally, 69 00:03:35,480 --> 00:03:37,800 maybe he should be a consultant. 70 00:03:37,800 --> 00:03:44,600 And we had a small group of very active Microsoft project consultants 71 00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:45,800 at that company. 72 00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:51,680 And I was put as a trainee for a mentor there. 73 00:03:51,680 --> 00:03:56,040 And he taught me the ropes of Microsoft project server. 74 00:03:56,040 --> 00:04:00,760 And that is just a world that is beautiful, right? 75 00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:04,840 You go to a customer, you listen in what their issues are. 76 00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:07,640 You help them create this beautiful product 77 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:11,880 that grows on you and that grows in the organization. 78 00:04:11,880 --> 00:04:15,960 Yeah, and that's 17 years now in the patch. 79 00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:17,520 But I've never looked back. 80 00:04:17,520 --> 00:04:19,560 It's a beautiful job. 81 00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:20,720 Yeah. 82 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:21,720 Awesome. 83 00:04:21,720 --> 00:04:26,240 And what are the-- I think, Eric, we have these Excel 84 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:29,800 and we have now-- there's a lot of modern tools. 85 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:32,280 A little bit over the end with this. 86 00:04:32,280 --> 00:04:37,400 I'm using more DevOps for project management. 87 00:04:37,400 --> 00:04:40,200 But what are the biggest challenges 88 00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:43,960 you're seeing often inside organization in this time, 89 00:04:43,960 --> 00:04:47,160 especially in project management? 90 00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:50,800 Yeah, so the world is evolving. 91 00:04:50,800 --> 00:04:54,440 And I'm more faster now than ever, of course. 92 00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:57,880 And we will talk about AI as you mentioned already. 93 00:04:57,880 --> 00:05:03,200 But I started off with Microsoft Project 2003. 94 00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:08,840 And at 1, 2, 7, and 13, 17, project online, project server. 95 00:05:08,840 --> 00:05:12,080 Project server first and project online. 96 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:14,320 The whole agile movement came up. 97 00:05:14,320 --> 00:05:16,520 That's probably what you would use DevOps 98 00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:22,640 because that is a more can-ban and agile way of working. 99 00:05:22,640 --> 00:05:26,280 Like you mentioned, there's a vast amount of applications 100 00:05:26,280 --> 00:05:27,680 available to us. 101 00:05:27,680 --> 00:05:30,920 And if you Google Planning Software, 102 00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:35,360 Microsoft isn't even in the top five, right? 103 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:40,320 Microsoft is very much a corporate application software 104 00:05:40,320 --> 00:05:41,560 ecosystem. 105 00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:46,960 But a lot of projects are managed outside of the enterprise. 106 00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:49,880 And that's where most of these search engines will find you, 107 00:05:49,880 --> 00:05:50,160 right? 108 00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:52,480 So Trello might look at-- 109 00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:57,600 show up at monday.com, the smaller companies. 110 00:05:57,600 --> 00:06:01,360 And I'm saying that with a lot of love for these applications. 111 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:10,560 But what enterprises struggle with is one of the components 112 00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:12,400 within project management. 113 00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:14,640 And at the first per organization. 114 00:06:14,640 --> 00:06:17,480 And that's the beauty of being a consultant. 115 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:20,240 You face them all, right? 116 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:25,680 One organization might have trouble finding out all the projects 117 00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:26,520 that they have. 118 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:27,720 They have no clue. 119 00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:29,280 Are we running 20 projects? 120 00:06:29,280 --> 00:06:30,360 Are we running 30? 121 00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:31,360 Or 300? 122 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:33,880 Or 5,000 projects? 123 00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:35,920 I've seen those projects as well. 124 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:39,000 Or companies as well. 125 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:43,280 Then another organization wants to get better grip on their portfolio 126 00:06:43,280 --> 00:06:45,720 on a financial basis. 127 00:06:45,720 --> 00:06:47,160 Or-- 128 00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:49,800 and this is the holy grail and something 129 00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:57,400 that most organizations struggle with is correct utilization 130 00:06:57,400 --> 00:06:59,560 of your resources. 131 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:04,200 How difficult is it to say, OK, we have 200 people 132 00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:08,640 in our project management pool. 133 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:11,160 How are you going to utilize them? 134 00:07:11,160 --> 00:07:12,560 What skills do they have? 135 00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:15,040 Do we have enough project managers? 136 00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:17,160 Do we have enough developers? 137 00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:21,360 Do we have enough scrum masters? 138 00:07:21,360 --> 00:07:24,080 Whatever the case, this is a struggle. 139 00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:25,960 And it's a struggle within an organization 140 00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:29,160 because there are so many dependencies. 141 00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:33,240 Because a project manager doesn't own a resource. 142 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:37,040 The project manager owns the project-- 143 00:07:37,040 --> 00:07:39,840 and not all in all cases even-- 144 00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:41,920 but then you have the resource manager, 145 00:07:41,920 --> 00:07:44,920 or we sometimes call them line managers. 146 00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:48,600 And the line manager owns the resource, 147 00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:50,520 but they don't own the project. 148 00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:54,960 And it's a constant battle between the project manager 149 00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:59,080 and the resource manager to utilize the resources. 150 00:07:59,080 --> 00:08:01,440 And that's enough, but don't overstress them. 151 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:04,360 And the project manager to deliver on time on budget 152 00:08:04,360 --> 00:08:07,000 and with the correct quality. 153 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:11,200 So those are the struggles that I see most within organizations 154 00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:14,920 when it comes to enterprise project management. 155 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:20,200 What my problem I often see is that companies 156 00:08:20,200 --> 00:08:23,440 have a lot of project teams, and sometimes 157 00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:26,320 they develop something similar, or steps 158 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:31,160 of something similar, and then they develop the two times. 159 00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:38,120 And they have no communication or overview how this could happen. 160 00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:40,680 But before we deep dive into the topic, 161 00:08:40,680 --> 00:08:45,760 my last question about, I'd say, project management 162 00:08:45,760 --> 00:08:47,920 and your experience. 163 00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:51,760 And over two decades, you are now in project management. 164 00:08:51,760 --> 00:08:55,880 How have project management changed over the two 165 00:08:55,880 --> 00:08:57,800 decades? 166 00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:03,920 So the scenario that I've seen is project management 167 00:09:03,920 --> 00:09:07,480 maturing a whole lot. 168 00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:12,320 There is a sea there's an ocean of knowledge 169 00:09:12,320 --> 00:09:14,200 available to everyone. 170 00:09:14,200 --> 00:09:18,080 And in my experience, the project manager 171 00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:19,600 wants to learn. 172 00:09:19,600 --> 00:09:23,720 These are eager people that want to have their project succeed. 173 00:09:23,720 --> 00:09:26,600 So these are highly trained professionals 174 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:29,840 that sometimes might struggle with the tool 175 00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,200 choice that you do, but they have expert knowledge 176 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:34,640 on the methodologies. 177 00:09:34,640 --> 00:09:39,000 They know what a resource management needs to be like. 178 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:40,760 They know the budgeting. 179 00:09:40,760 --> 00:09:45,520 They know what IRR stands for, net present value. 180 00:09:45,520 --> 00:09:48,680 They know what a baseline and a critical path is. 181 00:09:48,680 --> 00:09:58,720 So project management, as a profession, has grown since recent years. 182 00:09:58,720 --> 00:10:02,400 The past 20 years has seen a huge upside 183 00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:05,600 on the skills that project managers have, 184 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:13,400 where the issue is the layer above where program management 185 00:10:13,400 --> 00:10:18,480 becomes a profession or portfolio management becomes a profession. 186 00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:26,080 And these are different colors of a same kind of beastie, 187 00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:28,520 a portfolio is not a project. 188 00:10:28,520 --> 00:10:30,960 A program is not a project. 189 00:10:30,960 --> 00:10:35,400 And in most organizations, these are pulled under the same rug. 190 00:10:35,400 --> 00:10:39,240 And even project online and project server 191 00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:46,320 doesn't have a program entity or portfolio entity. 192 00:10:46,320 --> 00:10:48,040 So that's one of the first things that we did 193 00:10:48,040 --> 00:10:51,680 with R2 is create that layer. 194 00:10:51,680 --> 00:10:56,640 Let there be a separate ownership of that record in data 195 00:10:56,640 --> 00:10:59,240 versus as you're familiar with. 196 00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:02,840 You have these enterprise, these entities, 197 00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:05,240 and you can pull relationships in there. 198 00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:10,560 So you can now have a program with five or six or eight projects 199 00:11:10,560 --> 00:11:14,920 underneath and have its own budget, its own risks, 200 00:11:14,920 --> 00:11:18,560 on lessons learned and the whole shebang. 201 00:11:18,560 --> 00:11:22,680 So project management is evolving very quickly 202 00:11:22,680 --> 00:11:28,600 and is a mature profession in that sense. 203 00:11:28,600 --> 00:11:31,920 I think the next big step for learning 204 00:11:31,920 --> 00:11:34,800 is is program and portfolio management. 205 00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:37,240 See that bigger picture. 206 00:11:37,240 --> 00:11:40,960 And I wanted to tag along with something 207 00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:49,440 that you said earlier is, and I lost my train of thought. 208 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:50,640 Sorry. 209 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:52,200 We'll probably pick that up later. 210 00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:57,000 But yeah, that's the thing with learning, portfolio 211 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:02,200 and program management in next in line. 212 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:05,400 Then we'll look a little bit into the Microsoft ecosystem. 213 00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:12,320 And I think like me, many people are confused by the Microsoft 214 00:12:12,320 --> 00:12:15,520 planning tools they have. 215 00:12:15,520 --> 00:12:18,600 I think they are its planner, OK? 216 00:12:18,600 --> 00:12:20,520 Microsoft project. 217 00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:24,240 Then we have DevOps, what I use, but I 218 00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:26,120 does more for the technical guys. 219 00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:28,480 And then we have to do. 220 00:12:28,480 --> 00:12:32,680 So let us start with, I think, Will's planner. 221 00:12:32,680 --> 00:12:38,720 Can you describe what is planner to someone who never used it? 222 00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:39,880 Yeah. 223 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:43,200 So let's do a little bit of a history lesson with planner, 224 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:48,200 because planner is quite a new application. 225 00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:50,440 Where Microsoft project is as old as I am. 226 00:12:50,440 --> 00:12:53,640 I'm not going to give you my age, but is as old as I am. 227 00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:58,320 And has been around for a very long time 228 00:12:58,320 --> 00:13:02,200 in perfecting project management. 229 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:09,600 It is by far a beautiful application of running a single project. 230 00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:12,600 Planner is very new and really took 231 00:13:12,600 --> 00:13:21,640 storm during the pandemic of COVID-19, where offices were empty, 232 00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:24,320 and everyone needed to jump on Microsoft Teams 233 00:13:24,320 --> 00:13:26,320 to communicate to each other. 234 00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:31,440 And there was planner, this lightweight application, 235 00:13:31,440 --> 00:13:35,760 that was capable of creating a can-manboard, light 236 00:13:35,760 --> 00:13:41,160 progress, checklists, the ability to communicate and tag 237 00:13:41,160 --> 00:13:44,360 people within a specific team. 238 00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:49,480 So Microsoft Planner was one of the most popular Teams 239 00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:53,120 applications when Teams took off. 240 00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:58,840 And planner really piggybacked on that popularity. 241 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:01,880 But it wasn't the only Microsoft application 242 00:14:01,880 --> 00:14:05,880 that could do something with project management. 243 00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:07,640 The eternal-- 244 00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:09,560 yeah, I like to call it a parasite. 245 00:14:09,560 --> 00:14:13,400 The eternal parasite called Microsoft Excel 246 00:14:13,400 --> 00:14:16,080 went in building again, chart, right? 247 00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:18,160 It doesn't do product management, but people 248 00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:20,680 tend to use it a lot. 249 00:14:20,680 --> 00:14:24,880 So you have Excel and you had Microsoft Project. 250 00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:27,280 And there's a steep learning curve 251 00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:31,080 when you start working with Microsoft Project. 252 00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:34,360 And as you mentioned, then we have Devolves, 253 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:40,040 Nymor Agile, Nymor TextHavvy, Project Management System. 254 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:43,120 So where does planner fit in? 255 00:14:43,120 --> 00:14:47,080 And when it was introduced and when it was put to marketing, 256 00:14:47,080 --> 00:14:52,320 the most often use case you would hear is the marketing team. 257 00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:58,040 The market needs to have a new campaign. 258 00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:02,960 The marketing team isn't per se a project management savvy, 259 00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:07,400 organizational structure, or department, right? 260 00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:10,840 So the marketing for planner aimed 261 00:15:10,840 --> 00:15:17,200 for the lightweight project manager, the project manager, 262 00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:18,960 but not by name, right? 263 00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:21,480 So these aren't the people that studied it. 264 00:15:21,480 --> 00:15:25,480 These aren't people that I meant when I mentioned that project 265 00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:28,440 management has evolved, right? 266 00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:31,760 So Microsoft had a challenge because where does planner 267 00:15:31,760 --> 00:15:33,760 fit in with project? 268 00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:38,520 So what we get is we create it for planner premium. 269 00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:40,280 And planner premium is an application 270 00:15:40,280 --> 00:15:43,320 that has more capabilities. 271 00:15:43,320 --> 00:15:46,680 It gives you the ability to create a Ganshark, right? 272 00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:50,160 So with the more with the dependency, 273 00:15:50,160 --> 00:15:52,320 it now has baseline capabilities. 274 00:15:52,320 --> 00:15:54,840 It can create that critical path. 275 00:15:54,840 --> 00:16:00,400 And like I mentioned, Microsoft Project is as old as I am. 276 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:05,520 They haven't changed a lot to the base core competence, right? 277 00:16:05,520 --> 00:16:08,600 The basic software is still the same. 278 00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:12,000 And we added on top of that and made it improved it, 279 00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:15,360 but the base functionality is still there. 280 00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:18,120 So Microsoft created planner premium 281 00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:21,000 to be a modern counterpart. 282 00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:24,080 It will never be similar to Microsoft Project 283 00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:27,080 in all its extent because Microsoft Project 284 00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:29,200 is a desktop application very powerful. 285 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:34,040 So that cannot run fully on a browser interface. 286 00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:37,520 But you have planner, lightweight projects, 287 00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:41,400 and you have planner premium where you can have full blown 288 00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:43,400 schedules, real projects. 289 00:16:43,400 --> 00:16:47,720 You would maybe even be able to build the pyramids with it. 290 00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:49,680 I don't know why you would because they're already there. 291 00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:53,320 But yeah, you could do real project management 292 00:16:53,320 --> 00:16:55,560 with planner premium. 293 00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:59,720 And then there's another tool called to do. 294 00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:00,720 Yeah. 295 00:17:00,720 --> 00:17:03,240 Is your personal-- 296 00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:06,680 I like to call it a grocery list application. 297 00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:12,000 It's by no means demoting the application 298 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:15,560 because it's a very powerful tool for note taking 299 00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:18,560 and toss taking on a personal level. 300 00:17:18,560 --> 00:17:22,760 So you have to do planner premium. 301 00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:27,000 Well, Microsoft said during last Ignite session 302 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:29,760 is we're combining it. 303 00:17:29,760 --> 00:17:31,280 That is going to be the future. 304 00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:35,680 There's going to be one planner for everything related 305 00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:38,960 to task management. 306 00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:43,200 And that's where the division comes from what our organization 307 00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:44,800 does, context end. 308 00:17:44,800 --> 00:17:47,000 And what Microsoft is doing. 309 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:49,080 So here's the deal. 310 00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:53,760 Planner is a task management solution. 311 00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:55,240 It does that very well. 312 00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:57,520 All tasks live in planner. 313 00:17:57,520 --> 00:18:01,160 And that will be the future of what Microsoft has seen, right? 314 00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:03,880 At least how I envisioned that. 315 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:07,800 But it's not an enterprise project management solution. 316 00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:11,760 And that's where the Brenham Butter is for our organization. 317 00:18:11,760 --> 00:18:15,240 We surface the PMOs, the enterprise project 318 00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:19,680 and portfolio management offices. 319 00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:23,560 And planner can be a component in that. 320 00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:28,880 But again, no program level, no risks, no lessons learned, 321 00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:31,280 no financial component. 322 00:18:31,280 --> 00:18:34,560 And that's where we bring that into the system 323 00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:37,400 using dataverse and the power platform, 324 00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:41,720 because that is a very flexible application. 325 00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:43,920 Well, platform, right? 326 00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:50,160 So you have power apps, you have power automate, you have Power BI. 327 00:18:50,160 --> 00:18:55,520 And the whole deal there is that you can build that out. 328 00:18:55,520 --> 00:18:59,080 And yeah, it's almost like a block of marble. 329 00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:02,440 And you need to chisel out the David. 330 00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:05,080 And that's what you've been doing. 331 00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:07,600 A lot of people in my-- 332 00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:10,360 in one of my companies, I work a little bit longer. 333 00:19:10,360 --> 00:19:16,600 They say Microsoft Project is a classical project management 334 00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:19,400 tool with a waterfall model. 335 00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:22,080 And use planar-based power and DevOps, 336 00:19:22,080 --> 00:19:24,800 because this is Ed Agile, and it's nothing 337 00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:28,240 what's working in Microsoft's project. 338 00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:29,680 Is it right? 339 00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:33,200 Well, Microsoft Project has an agile component. 340 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:33,700 OK. 341 00:19:33,700 --> 00:19:39,440 But it is really true that it isn't the main focus. 342 00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:44,360 Agile was created for a developer and a software engineering 343 00:19:44,360 --> 00:19:45,920 department, right? 344 00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:49,080 It is not meant for all types of project. 345 00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:53,800 And I think the world is coming to terms with that. 346 00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:58,360 Some projects should not be wrong Agile. 347 00:19:58,360 --> 00:20:02,440 Other projects should, but not every project can run Agile. 348 00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:06,640 If I want to build a house, I'm not starting with a tent. 349 00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:08,440 I'm starting with the foundation. 350 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:12,920 And that is a waterfall project. 351 00:20:12,920 --> 00:20:15,720 So yes, the agile components really 352 00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:19,680 live in the IT departments and software development, 353 00:20:19,680 --> 00:20:21,640 because you pick something up. 354 00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:23,760 You work on it until you don't work on it. 355 00:20:23,760 --> 00:20:25,480 And you hand that over. 356 00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:28,640 And you iterate on these processes. 357 00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:33,760 Microsoft Project is one of the top applications 358 00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:37,480 when it is compared to waterfall projects. 359 00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:40,640 And you have competition, but Microsoft Project is 360 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:45,680 the default within most organizations still. 361 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:48,720 And I see also a lot of companies 362 00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:52,360 they have another project management 363 00:20:52,360 --> 00:20:53,920 to it. 364 00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:56,240 They use Teams in JAPOINT. 365 00:20:56,240 --> 00:20:58,480 Yeah, absolutely. 366 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:05,160 It's a struggle at times to start a new engagement 367 00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:06,400 with an organization. 368 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:12,040 Because most often it starts from a specific department 369 00:21:12,040 --> 00:21:14,280 that has a specific need. 370 00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:19,440 And when we come there, when we join their team 371 00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:24,160 to build this project management software, 372 00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:27,400 it typically happens that other departments look at us 373 00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:29,600 and say, oh, I want you to own a board. 374 00:21:29,600 --> 00:21:34,880 And it can happen that one department will work with planner. 375 00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:38,960 And another department will work with DevOps. 376 00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:41,720 A third one might use JIRA. 377 00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:44,760 And where does our software then land? 378 00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:47,040 Is that middle layer? 379 00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:50,800 We've done that a couple of times where we connect DevOps. 380 00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:52,000 We connect JIRA. 381 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:53,320 We connect planner. 382 00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:57,560 We connect Trello into our software. 383 00:21:57,560 --> 00:22:02,240 Because we don't tend to compete with Microsoft planner 384 00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:06,600 or project management software like Project Server 385 00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:09,000 or Project Online. 386 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:12,600 We are that shell on top of it. 387 00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:13,600 Yeah. 388 00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:21,120 Your software is to getting an overview of all projects, right? 389 00:22:21,120 --> 00:22:24,680 So that is what I mean with an enterprise portfolio 390 00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:26,320 management software. 391 00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:31,440 And we changed that name a little bit. 392 00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:34,680 Our tool is called ProjectMXPM. 393 00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:38,840 And the X is really everything project management. 394 00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,920 And that means that we have a financial module. 395 00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:44,640 That means that we have a scheduling module. 396 00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:49,160 That means that we have risk management in there. 397 00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:53,120 And we do have a scheduling component. 398 00:22:53,120 --> 00:22:58,160 So you could use ProjectMXPM as its own application layer 399 00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:02,800 and as its own full-blown project and portfolio management 400 00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:04,200 software. 401 00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:09,480 But in case you want your financials to come from an SAP background, 402 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:11,000 and we can interact with that. 403 00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:12,720 We can integrate with that. 404 00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:16,700 If you are very happy with planner, 405 00:23:16,700 --> 00:23:18,680 planner has its APIs. 406 00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:23,640 So yes, we can pull that information in using the Graph API, 407 00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:25,880 well, WorkIQ now, right? 408 00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:31,000 So we can pull that in, WorkIQ, because the whole set of APIs 409 00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:33,600 was just released recently. 410 00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:37,520 So we have the capabilities of pulling all that information 411 00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:41,280 in and our tool creating that layer that 412 00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:46,680 isn't provided by Microsoft Stack itself or other stacks. 413 00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,240 So we delivered that portfolio enterprise overview, 414 00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:54,760 that strategic overview of how many projects do you have, 415 00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:56,960 how many budget are you consuming? 416 00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:02,480 Are you getting out of touch with your critical path 417 00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:04,760 or your baseline? 418 00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:07,960 How is resource in going? 419 00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:13,120 Do you have core competencies in abundance? 420 00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:16,120 Or are you running behind? 421 00:24:16,120 --> 00:24:20,640 So that's the conversation that our tool brings. 422 00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:22,120 We're not unique. 423 00:24:22,120 --> 00:24:24,240 In this sense, there is competition. 424 00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:25,880 And that's healthy. 425 00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:31,040 But we have done this since the first red flags 426 00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:32,280 came up from Microsoft. 427 00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:36,280 OK, we are not going to develop project online anymore. 428 00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,200 That happened roughly 16 years ago. 429 00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,080 Well, no, that might be a little bit stretching it. 430 00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:46,000 But it happened a number of years ago. 431 00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:48,360 We jumped on board with a power platform 432 00:24:48,360 --> 00:24:51,280 and have been developing our application since then. 433 00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:53,960 So yeah, enterprise project management 434 00:24:53,960 --> 00:25:00,080 is not the single schedule where that layer on top. 435 00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,120 This is it. 436 00:25:02,120 --> 00:25:03,680 For sure, because have you developed 437 00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:08,680 this completely in your solution in the Microsoft ecosystem? 438 00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:09,960 So XPM. 439 00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:15,680 So our solution is built on a model driven power app 440 00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:22,160 with its own tables, security roles, relationships. 441 00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:24,920 And there are specific components 442 00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:28,840 that we took either PCF components in, 443 00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:33,240 or we had our developers create our own IP. 444 00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:37,160 So I mentioned before that we have a financial module. 445 00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:39,120 We have a scheduling module. 446 00:25:39,120 --> 00:25:41,320 We have a resource management module. 447 00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,160 Those were developed by our developers 448 00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:50,240 as a core component of the whole solution. 449 00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:55,040 So yeah, it's Microsoft plus a little bit 450 00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:57,320 of intelligence from the developers. 451 00:25:57,320 --> 00:25:59,840 And I am absolutely not a developer. 452 00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:02,280 I've been in DevOps. 453 00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:05,040 I've worked with DevOps, but I'm not a developer at all. 454 00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,280 No. 455 00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,920 But how do you see when we talk about this, 456 00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,840 tools, especially from the power platform, 457 00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:18,040 we have power apps, power automate, and also power BI, 458 00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:19,520 I think it could also be interesting. 459 00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:31,920 How did you see these tools extending the project management 460 00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:40,120 towards the best world, the project management project management world? 461 00:26:40,120 --> 00:26:43,120 Yeah. 462 00:26:43,120 --> 00:26:49,120 So the project management world, and for our customers, 463 00:26:49,120 --> 00:26:54,120 to dig into deeper, what we've previously seen 464 00:26:54,120 --> 00:26:58,600 is that the project server and project online environments 465 00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:02,680 were delivered and developed by Microsoft. 466 00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:08,440 And it was difficult for us to add our own coding, 467 00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:09,960 our own specifics to. 468 00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:17,640 Now with the power platform, that flexibility 469 00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:23,240 here that we have, you want a new table that doesn't exist yet, 470 00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:27,240 and you want it to interact with your initiatives level 471 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:31,240 because we have projects, but we also have an agile track, 472 00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:33,640 so we call it initiatives. 473 00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:35,880 Well, OK, within a couple of hours, 474 00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:39,840 you have that whole new table that didn't exist before, 475 00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:41,320 and it works. 476 00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:45,240 And it feeds back into our power hub application, 477 00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:50,640 which is our reporting layer, and that feeds into power BI. 478 00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:55,200 And then you have power automate, you have this whole stack 479 00:27:55,200 --> 00:28:01,440 of applications from Microsoft that make this such a flexible layer. 480 00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:06,640 We have our base product that's called ProjectMXPM, 481 00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:13,080 but once we're done as consultants, it still is ProjectMXPM, 482 00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,560 but it's ProjectMXPM custom name, right? 483 00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:23,680 It becomes a very local version that ties into their needs 484 00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:25,280 as we started, right? 485 00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:29,560 One company might be very financial focused, 486 00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:32,720 and the other might be very resource focused. 487 00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:38,960 And the flexibility with the power platform that you get is immense. 488 00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:48,720 And I think with the whole AI topic, that is going into sixth gear. 489 00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:51,280 It is going so fast. 490 00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:56,960 And I'm very happy that the Dataverse environment and a co-pilot studio 491 00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:03,000 is so close to Dataverse because we're front and center. 492 00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:08,360 We're maybe we already are, or maybe we're still 493 00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,560 becoming a frontier organization, meaning 494 00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:15,560 that we adopt these new technologies as they come out, 495 00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:19,600 and we train our consultants on it. 496 00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:27,320 And having co-pilot studio and an MCP server on Dataverse, 497 00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:31,040 it was a dream working with ModelDriven Power Apps before, 498 00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,560 but now the sky's the limit. 499 00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:35,560 [LAUGHTER] 500 00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:37,040 Absolutely. 501 00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:40,240 Yeah, that's really great. 502 00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,680 I think, yeah, that's-- 503 00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:49,120 I think for me at the start, it's worth all a little bit. 504 00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,120 Yeah, I think, OK, all of these co-pilot doesn't work. 505 00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:54,680 I don't like it, but now they have-- 506 00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:56,760 I think they have got to turn Microsoft. 507 00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,400 So now I use it. 508 00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,760 And I think it's also interesting what they do with this code apps, 509 00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:04,280 and so on. 510 00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,400 And that comes a lot of interesting stuff. 511 00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,480 Yeah, it is a catch-up world, right? 512 00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,840 One organization might invent an LLM, 513 00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,200 and Microsoft and it's about that. 514 00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:21,080 Then there is a time where it needs to catch up to the organization. 515 00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:26,040 And now we have co-pilot, and we have co-work. 516 00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,880 And since co-work was activated on my machine, 517 00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:33,200 I was like a kid in a candy store again. 518 00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,000 Things that that thing can do. 519 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,360 And I'm only hearing this from the developers on our side 520 00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:42,960 that Claude is doing an excellent job for them, 521 00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,720 and they don't use co-work. 522 00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,800 But yeah, it's brilliant. 523 00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:57,480 It just makes so much sense to use the AI in your day to day job nowadays. 524 00:30:57,480 --> 00:30:58,800 Yeah. 525 00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:02,600 I think what I'm really interesting, also, 526 00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:06,480 is this topic project portfolios. 527 00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:10,520 Can you a little bit, how did you work with this, or your tool? 528 00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,320 Now, I'm really interested in it, and it's topic. 529 00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:17,960 Yeah, so in the scenario that you have your project, 530 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:22,560 as a project manager, you might have five projects. 531 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:28,240 Or you're a project manager, and you got some promotion, 532 00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:31,360 and now all of a sudden you're a portfolio manager, 533 00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:35,520 or a project manager, let's start with a program manager. 534 00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:40,000 You're running this huge project. 535 00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:44,800 Let's take a building a nuclear power plant as an example. 536 00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:46,320 That is no longer a house. 537 00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:48,120 That doesn't start out as a tent. 538 00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:54,320 No, a nuclear power plant is this massive engagement. 539 00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:58,040 So if you are in an organization that builds these things, 540 00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:02,720 then I can imagine that building that is a program. 541 00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:06,120 It might even be a portfolio, but let's go for program for now. 542 00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:10,120 Because there will be a department that is dedicated 543 00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:16,600 for the nuclear isotopes and a separate department 544 00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,840 that runs the project of the cooling engine, 545 00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:24,440 and a third project that runs the actual outer shell. 546 00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:29,920 So these are minor projects within that program that you run. 547 00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,040 So that's its own layer. 548 00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:34,880 It has different ownership. 549 00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:40,160 You have different risks that go across those different projects. 550 00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:45,400 And that layer didn't exist previously 551 00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,560 with Microsoft Project or Project Server. 552 00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,000 You needed to create your own tech 553 00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:54,600 that this is a program, not a project. 554 00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,600 But within our tool, we have the program layer. 555 00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:02,360 And you can have its dedicated budget, its dedicated risks, 556 00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:07,000 dedicated stakeholders, its own SharePoint folder structure, 557 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,880 for instance. 558 00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,320 And then there's a layer on top. 559 00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:14,360 That is the portfolio layer. 560 00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:17,960 And this differs per organization, 561 00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:25,400 but you could see a portfolio as a transform portfolio. 562 00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:29,680 Every project that delivers something completely new 563 00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,080 is in the transform portfolio. 564 00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:33,840 It has a project, right? 565 00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:39,560 An organization needs to align 20% of its budget to evolve, 566 00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:41,120 evolve or die. 567 00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:46,480 So having that portfolio and someone that guards that money 568 00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:49,400 makes perfect sense. 569 00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:53,960 Then you also have these scenarios where a portfolio is tied 570 00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,440 into a technology. 571 00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:59,200 We surface a lot of sustainable energy companies. 572 00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:04,200 And typically, these portfolios are aligned 573 00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:08,240 with the technologies of sustainable energy, like nuclear, 574 00:34:08,240 --> 00:34:12,360 like wind, like solar, like hydrogen, well, hydrogen, 575 00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:14,480 and nuclear. 576 00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,200 So you have these different technologies 577 00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:20,200 that could be a portfolio. 578 00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:24,960 Or you have different departments that are a portfolio. 579 00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:28,320 But typically, you have these different layers. 580 00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:30,000 And with these different layers, you 581 00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:36,800 need to have an organizational structure that supports that. 582 00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:41,760 And that's where the project management office, typically 583 00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:44,920 something that lives within a department 584 00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:48,720 and communicates with the project managers in that department, 585 00:34:48,720 --> 00:34:51,840 also has its enterprise counterpart. 586 00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:56,560 So you have your enterprise portfolio management office. 587 00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,760 And that is the group that we love to talk to. 588 00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:02,560 They have a bird's eye view of everything 589 00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:05,920 that happens in the organization, project-wise. 590 00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:12,880 And you can just talk with these people on what information 591 00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:17,560 does need to trickle up to the portfolio, what kind of parabia 592 00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:19,280 reports do you want? 593 00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:24,520 Do you need trend analysis on how risks evolve, things like that? 594 00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:31,280 So the portfolio layer is its own entity, its own table. 595 00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:39,080 It might have similar fields and columns like the project. 596 00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:40,280 But it also has its own. 597 00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:44,640 We can cut the example. 598 00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:47,640 Yeah. 599 00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:52,840 The value thing is because you say this was the nuclear stuff. 600 00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,880 I have Niluva Doga on the last podcast. 601 00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:59,000 And she works at the International Atomic. 602 00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:00,000 OK. 603 00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:01,400 Yeah. 604 00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:05,480 So it's a good-- 605 00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:06,480 Nice trend. 606 00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:07,480 Yeah. 607 00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:20,320 So I think a little bit about the future of PMOs in the AI area. 608 00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:25,840 How did you see AI is changing project management? 609 00:36:28,720 --> 00:36:34,880 All my blog, I jumped on board like so many others with regards 610 00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:39,840 to chat GPT and what was it going to do for us. 611 00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:44,680 I started that conversation with the term, 612 00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:48,560 it's the ideal drafting engine. 613 00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:52,200 It can create beautiful things, but you 614 00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:57,960 should be the end person that evaluates something. 615 00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:01,720 Before the large language models, I've had an interest in AI. 616 00:37:01,720 --> 00:37:09,120 And every time I read about it, it talked about there's 617 00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:13,120 not enough test material for project management 618 00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,120 to be fully adopted within AI. 619 00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:19,240 And what we mean with that is let's say 620 00:37:19,240 --> 00:37:25,480 we want to create an agent that is the ideal project 621 00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:29,560 manager in your organization. 622 00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:33,880 First off, human backfire, because people 623 00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:38,480 don't want to have AI as being their boss. 624 00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:43,960 But then every project is its own universe. 625 00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:48,680 It has its budget, it has its risks, it has its team. 626 00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:51,720 And that is unique, because it's unique in the time 627 00:37:51,720 --> 00:37:54,320 and in the end goal that you have. 628 00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:59,600 A project is a unique endeavor in time budget and with a fixed 629 00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:01,760 end date as well. 630 00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:03,800 You might not reach that end date, but yeah, that's where 631 00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:04,640 deadlines are for. 632 00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:12,320 What I've seen happening is the AI is getting better and better 633 00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:19,920 and better and better in facilitating the project manager, 634 00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:24,040 building a product brief, a PID document. 635 00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:25,760 Brilliant. 636 00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:28,120 If you are a good project manager, you 637 00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:33,680 can instruct that agent to build a very nice template 638 00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:38,360 sensitive document. 639 00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,280 But your project is unique. 640 00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:46,800 It has never happened before, because time and budget 641 00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,480 and resources, all these things change. 642 00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:55,560 So you as the project manager are end responsible. 643 00:38:55,560 --> 00:39:02,960 So it is also very good at reading through all the lessons 644 00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:03,840 learned. 645 00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:08,200 And this is a part of project management that isn't mature, 646 00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:11,280 or is on its way of maturing. 647 00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:15,080 And that is lessons learned documentation. 648 00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:20,760 It is a we have to do it component within project management. 649 00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:21,960 You finish your project. 650 00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:26,440 You need to write that document what you learned previously 651 00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:31,840 that will be printed out, shoved into a box and forgot. 652 00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,040 Theory tells us that we need to learn from the document, 653 00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:39,280 and we need to implement that in our projects afterwards. 654 00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:45,040 With AI, we finally can do that, because AI is tireless. 655 00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,080 And it can read through all those documents 656 00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:51,240 and facilitate the project manager for building 657 00:39:51,240 --> 00:39:54,080 that new nuclear power plant. 658 00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:58,040 Come back to that power plant. 659 00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,200 Let's say we built 10 of those during the lifecycle 660 00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:01,920 of our project. 661 00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:03,680 We have learned things. 662 00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:07,000 We can do this better, faster, with higher quality. 663 00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:13,120 Next time, if only we learned, AI is our catalyst for that. 664 00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:16,680 We will be able to instruct. 665 00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:19,400 And we're working on that at ProjectMXBM, 666 00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:23,520 where if a project manager goes for a new project, 667 00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,840 then there is this subsection of information 668 00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,920 that comes from lessons learned. 669 00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:31,200 I am a project manager. 670 00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:33,840 I'm sitting behind my desk, or I'm talking to my phone, 671 00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:36,440 because I have an agent. 672 00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:39,440 And I'm saying, I want to build a new nuclear power plant 673 00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:42,960 in Chironingen, the Netherlands, where I live. 674 00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:46,280 It would be opposed to that, but yes. 675 00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:51,600 Building a nuclear power plant in Chironingen. 676 00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:55,800 And it looks through all those 10 power plants 677 00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:57,280 that we did previously. 678 00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:00,960 And it will surface all the risks that are associated with it. 679 00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:02,640 Project manager, you're the expert. 680 00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:05,920 But I have surfaced these items. 681 00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:10,280 And 9 out of 10, you will have forgotten one of those lessons. 682 00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:14,360 Or you would have not done this the right way. 683 00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:15,920 It's a massive time safe. 684 00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,480 It's a massive risk safe. 685 00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:25,240 I think AI will tend full the capabilities 686 00:41:25,240 --> 00:41:30,560 of the project manager, but it will never replace it. 687 00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:33,400 Yeah, I'm not a good project manager. 688 00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:34,880 I'm a lazy project manager. 689 00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:40,560 So I do the change log with AI, and then I send it all 690 00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:42,800 automatically to the stakeholders. 691 00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:44,120 Yeah, exactly. 692 00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:46,680 And there's a book, by the way, that's called the lazy project 693 00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:47,480 manager. 694 00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:49,560 Oh, OK. 695 00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:53,600 It sounds something I have to read. 696 00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,160 Yeah, it's a brilliant read. 697 00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:59,960 It's written like you can be lazy, 698 00:41:59,960 --> 00:42:03,040 but it's actually a good roadmap on how 699 00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:04,760 to be good at project manager. 700 00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,320 There's some things that you should do, 701 00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:12,560 and some things that you actually should not do. 702 00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:16,080 In my blog, I've told multiple times about, 703 00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:18,120 don't be a micro manager. 704 00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:19,960 Be a project manager, right? 705 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,360 There's a huge difference. 706 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:24,120 And you're working with experts. 707 00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:28,160 Let them be the experts and let them report back to you. 708 00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:29,160 Yeah. 709 00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:34,120 So also, say, your blog, all the stuff 710 00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,960 from you, the people find on the show notes. 711 00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:40,600 So let's say this, so a little bit marketing. 712 00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:42,400 Yeah. 713 00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:47,400 So you feel back in your study time. 714 00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:51,760 Is there also, I think, or can we say, 715 00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:57,000 AI become a project assistant instead of a project manager? 716 00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:58,000 Or-- 717 00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:00,120 I would love that. 718 00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:03,840 We've talked about the project management office. 719 00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:08,600 And one of the most popular recent videos that I did 720 00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:13,160 was creating a skill for co-work. 721 00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:18,280 And that skill is tied in becoming the best project manager 722 00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:19,680 officer. 723 00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,720 And that is actually the assistant of the project management 724 00:43:22,720 --> 00:43:24,240 office, right? 725 00:43:24,240 --> 00:43:27,120 It knows about project theory. 726 00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:30,120 It knows about research management. 727 00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:35,880 It knows about the broader theory. 728 00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:38,800 But then again, you didn't bring in your own documentation, 729 00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:41,840 so it's very global. 730 00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,840 And the moment that an organization has a good feel 731 00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:51,280 on their own processes, their own way of work, 732 00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:56,320 I think AI can be the perfect assistant. 733 00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,720 I'm saying that lightly, but yes, the perfect assistant. 734 00:43:59,720 --> 00:44:02,120 And everyone could have an assistant. 735 00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:07,040 But still, what do you do then in your free time? 736 00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,720 What do you do in the time that you didn't have before? 737 00:44:09,720 --> 00:44:13,320 Because you were still writing that document that AI finished 738 00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,440 in 30 seconds. 739 00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:23,520 There's a huge gain to be had in quality improvement. 740 00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:27,400 Let's say previously I will be working as a project manager. 741 00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:34,360 I will be working maybe 24 hours to write a status report. 742 00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:37,280 With our system, it's a press of the button. 743 00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:40,040 It picks up the template. 744 00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:44,480 It fills the information that is all updated through the system, 745 00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,160 and it sends that out to the manager. 746 00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,400 As a project manager, that shouldn't 747 00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:52,920 be your main focus, right? 748 00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:57,720 As a project manager, your first priority is your team. 749 00:44:57,720 --> 00:44:59,600 And of course, the end goal of your project. 750 00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:01,760 But your team is the most important. 751 00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:05,440 And you need to be a facilitator for them. 752 00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:05,960 Yeah. 753 00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:07,520 And that's really interesting. 754 00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:11,080 We have-- we can win a lot of time with AI. 755 00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:15,080 So what showed project manager PIMOs 756 00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:20,640 learn for staying relevant in times-- 757 00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,760 the AI world AI times. 758 00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:24,800 Yeah. 759 00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:30,080 I think not everyone will be interested in AI as we are, 760 00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:33,840 as consultants, as solo primers. 761 00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:39,240 We need to know the nuts and bolts of that AI. 762 00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:42,040 We need to know how it takes. 763 00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:46,920 And I think five years from now, AI is a given. 764 00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:51,840 Everyone will be working with AI in one shape of form. 765 00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:55,640 This is the first technology that I saw my parents adopt 766 00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:57,480 sooner than I did. 767 00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:58,680 Can you imagine? 768 00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:02,120 My parents are in their 70s. 769 00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,360 And they adopted this. 770 00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:08,000 And they learned about it. 771 00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:11,760 And of course, I work with a daily. 772 00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,120 So I have an upside because they are retired. 773 00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,560 So I'm still ahead of the girth. 774 00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:22,240 But five years from now, it's a given that you work with AI. 775 00:46:22,240 --> 00:46:28,920 And how you work with AI is either you're interested 776 00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:35,240 in improving the AI or you're utilizing AI to its fullest, 777 00:46:35,240 --> 00:46:39,360 meaning that either you help shape the future version of it 778 00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:44,920 or you work with it and you are a lot more proficient 779 00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:46,480 because of it. 780 00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:51,880 It's almost like having a second Eric or a second Mirko 781 00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:52,920 sitting beside you. 782 00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:58,560 And yeah, you become the manager of you. 783 00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,440 My date of the twin. 784 00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:02,600 The digital twin. 785 00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:03,960 Yeah, now I'm a Gemini. 786 00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:06,120 So I can relate to that. 787 00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:09,360 So yes, the digital twin. 788 00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:14,360 We already have Azure with the twin world, right? 789 00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:18,400 So AI could be your digital twin. 790 00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:21,960 And I hope it doesn't go the way of sky net and determinator 791 00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:28,560 and future versions of that dark mirror, black mirror, sorry. 792 00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:36,040 But in some form, people will lose their job, go for something else. 793 00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:41,000 But I think the general wealth of knowledge in the organizations 794 00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:47,200 and with people internally will skyrocket. 795 00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:51,680 Before we jump in the quick fire round, one last question. 796 00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:56,360 Where did you see the role of governance in project management, 797 00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:59,640 especially the Microsoft ecosystem? 798 00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:03,440 Is there anything you say that's really important? 799 00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:07,720 It is probably one of the more important things 800 00:48:07,720 --> 00:48:12,680 that we need to take account of. 801 00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,080 Because previously you might have been able to say, 802 00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:19,600 OK, a project manager can see all projects, 803 00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:23,080 including its finances. 804 00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,200 And you would trust that the project manager 805 00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:27,160 wouldn't because they didn't have the time 806 00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:28,960 to look at other people's projects. 807 00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:32,120 They didn't care. 808 00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:36,640 But with the scenario of AI and work IQ 809 00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:42,800 so that integrated net that AI can do everything that you can, 810 00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:46,360 now all of the certain security and governance 811 00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:48,640 becomes very important. 812 00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:53,400 You have to scenario that if I have that scenario of opening up 813 00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:59,720 all the projects, all of the projects have higher budget than I do. 814 00:48:59,720 --> 00:49:01,240 What should I do? 815 00:49:01,240 --> 00:49:06,040 Which managers should I tickle and find that extra budget for it? 816 00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:15,160 So AI and governance is one of the key pillars of making this a success. 817 00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:17,640 Please, as an organization, make sure 818 00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:23,480 that you have a clear understanding of where permission is given. 819 00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:31,320 And start from a no permission mindset, zero permission mindset, right? 820 00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:37,440 The AI should have a zero permission access from day one and build from that. 821 00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:41,720 Because if you give it too much information, too much power, 822 00:49:41,720 --> 00:49:46,040 you can end up with a scenario where your complete database is removed, right? 823 00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:51,840 You've probably seen that use case that someone had a clawed agent 824 00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:53,960 to delete the whole organization. 825 00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:56,520 So that is the power of AI. 826 00:49:56,520 --> 00:50:00,920 And it can be used in that sense in a bad way, absolutely. 827 00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:05,920 And yeah, let's jump in the quick fire route. 828 00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:12,520 So you also have a podcast who will your dream guest? 829 00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:17,000 So my podcast is called The Voices of the Neighborhood. 830 00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:22,920 And it's having a next episode today as well, 831 00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:28,120 because I'm jumping on the next guest right after this. 832 00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:37,080 The Voices of the Neighborhood is a group of Microsoft MVPs from the Digital Neighborhood. 833 00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:40,840 The Digital Neighborhood is the umbrella organization of context and 834 00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:48,320 and as such, we have roughly 16, maybe 20 MVPs. 835 00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:54,920 And it was my goal to elevate the availability of these MVPs. 836 00:50:54,920 --> 00:51:02,040 So my dream goal is not a specific person, but at least having all of these people 837 00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:06,040 on my podcast for once, at least. 838 00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:10,920 I'm in season two right now, so I did a full year of MVPs last year, 839 00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:15,560 and I'm on a halfway through this year. 840 00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:24,840 I think the podcast will evolve, where it's not just the Digital Neighborhood MVPs. 841 00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:27,640 But I would love to turn the tables. 842 00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,600 You would be an excellent guest. 843 00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:36,040 Yeah, I'm open for everything in the future. 844 00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:40,040 I don't have a dream candidate so far, Peter Kessinels, 845 00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:45,640 my own founding partner of Projectum. 846 00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:50,640 He was a really successful episode. 847 00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:52,640 He had a really successful episode. 848 00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:57,200 So I would love to add them back and I'm sure that that will happen. 849 00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:02,800 And the Planner or Project depends on the goal. 850 00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:10,480 As we've made it, Planner is lightweight and Project is enterprise. 851 00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,040 My life revolves about the enterprise. 852 00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:16,000 So I would say Project. 853 00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:22,240 When you get all money, time, resources from Microsoft, which Planner feature will you 854 00:52:22,240 --> 00:52:25,760 develop? 855 00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:29,760 Enterprise custom fields. 856 00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:34,320 Enterprise custom fields is something that has been there for Projects 857 00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:36,240 Server and Project Online. 858 00:52:36,240 --> 00:52:41,760 And it is, I believe, the key catalyst of making it an enterprise 859 00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:43,200 solution. 860 00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:49,280 So far, you have your projects and they live in their own bubble. 861 00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:58,560 And if you can have a layer on top that says, okay, region as a field. 862 00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:01,440 The region of the company is always the same. 863 00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:06,480 So why not have that as a field on top of that project for all projects so 864 00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:11,280 that we can have that enterprise reporting? 865 00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:17,680 Enterprise resource, enterprise custom fields is something that we're missing. 866 00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:23,120 And if I had all the power in time and money to push that through Microsoft's 867 00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:24,400 throat, I would do that. 868 00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:27,600 Yes. 869 00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:29,440 Bit of ball or a... 870 00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:31,040 The candle. 871 00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:35,920 Bit of ball if he can tell. 872 00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:38,880 I would say bit of ball. 873 00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:42,960 And the reason behind that is because my wife is a celiac. 874 00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:45,680 So that means that she cannot ingest any gluten. 875 00:53:45,680 --> 00:53:51,760 And since then, you have had hardly any gluten stuff in the house. 876 00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:57,040 And a bit of ball is made with gluten and the freaking bell is without. 877 00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:01,040 So having something of the forbidden fruit would be nice. 878 00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:04,080 Yes. 879 00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:08,160 What did you think is the most underrated Microsoft app? 880 00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:18,240 Most... Oh, loop. Definitely loop. Loop is a little bit of a hobby and a pet project for me. 881 00:54:18,240 --> 00:54:24,320 Where Power BI has taken storm and was my previous hobby project. 882 00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:26,880 Loop is something that is coming for everyone. 883 00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:30,720 Where I'm a huge no-poker. 884 00:54:30,720 --> 00:54:33,360 I have books where I scribble everything down. 885 00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:34,800 I have one note. 886 00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:40,000 And ever since loop, I haven't touched one note anymore. 887 00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:42,560 And that's a big thing saying from my point. 888 00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:43,360 Yeah. 889 00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:47,360 I think it's also become so famous with AI actually. 890 00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:50,320 Yeah, it's piggyback riding on that for sure. 891 00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:51,360 Absolutely. 892 00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:53,360 Yeah. 893 00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:57,760 What did you think is project management in five years? 894 00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:08,000 I think there's this famous saying of 80% of projects fail. 895 00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:10,400 You can just google it. 896 00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:13,200 How many projects percentage wise fail? 897 00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:16,240 And it will be somewhere around 50 and 80%. 898 00:55:16,240 --> 00:55:20,960 Those numbers are not the big deal. 899 00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:28,000 I think that number will go down substantially. 900 00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:35,600 Because we have more time to increase the quality of projects thanks to AI. 901 00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:41,440 And is there any hobby people may not know about you? 902 00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:43,600 Any hobby. 903 00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:47,840 I'm a big fan of reading even though I'm dyslexic. 904 00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:50,720 So I read very slowly and 905 00:55:50,720 --> 00:55:56,800 Spotify now has audiobooks and that's a blessing. 906 00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:03,920 I read a whole ton more than I used to and would have ever been able to do. 907 00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:04,480 So yeah. 908 00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:07,200 I'm a big audiobook fan. 909 00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:08,160 Yeah. 910 00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:13,680 Imagine someone is leading a PMO today and wants to modernize 911 00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:16,240 isishing Microsoft technology. 912 00:56:16,240 --> 00:56:20,560 What is the one piece of wise you will leave him with? 913 00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:31,360 Involve a Microsoft partner fast early in the solution development. 914 00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:38,240 Make sure that you have outside eyes looking at your project management methodology. 915 00:56:38,240 --> 00:56:43,840 Because typically what we see and something that I tell customers early on is 916 00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:48,080 you know your processes better than anyone in the world. 917 00:56:48,080 --> 00:56:53,520 We and then Pat on the shoulder again, no project management. 918 00:56:54,240 --> 00:56:55,520 And our software. 919 00:56:55,520 --> 00:57:00,560 Right? So it involved partners early on. 920 00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:05,440 They've been around for 25 years plus 17 years in my case. 921 00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:10,640 We've seen things that you haven't seen and haven't thought of before 922 00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:16,640 that will change the outcome of your application to the better. 923 00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:18,960 Yeah. 924 00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:25,520 And thank you so much Eric to join me today. It was a really interesting 925 00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:32,560 travel through the Microsoft planner and all power ads power to make power be eye 926 00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,120 and the board Microsoft system. 927 00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:42,480 And yeah, I think we also have sometimes to do a real live stream with video 928 00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:45,760 to see the solution you build with your team. 929 00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:54,240 And yeah, that's, I'm really interested in and yeah, I hope we see us again. 930 00:57:54,240 --> 00:57:57,520 And yeah, thank you so much for staying here. 931 00:57:57,520 --> 00:58:00,960 Thank you, Mirko. It was a blast. 932 00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:08,560 I thought it was very nice being on the show and I would welcome being back another time.