In today’s fast-paced market, mastering the complexities of hybrid project management has become a necessity. Hybrid project management, which blends traditional and agile methodologies, allows for more flexible and efficient project delivery.
Galen Low is joined by Ann Campea—VP of Operations at TrueSense Marketing & Host of The Everyday PM Podcast—to share her wealth of experience from overseeing iconic toy brands at Hasbro to navigating dynamic tech environments at Amazon and Apple.
Interview Highlights
- Ann Campea’s Professional Journey [01:36]
- Ann started her project management career in toy and product development at Hasbro, working on major properties like Monopoly, Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Star Wars.
- At Hasbro, she learned predictive or waterfall project management.
- She later joined Amazon as a program manager, working on the launch of Amazon Fresh Grocery Stores, coordinating aspects like procurement and construction.
- Ann then moved to Apple, working on the operational side, focusing on supply chain management and delivering products to eCommerce and retail stores.
- At Apple, she gained exposure to agile project management.
- Currently, she serves as VP of Operations at TrueSense, a nonprofit-focused company helping organizations like the Salvation Army manage donor engagement through both physical and digital products.
- Ann’s role at TrueSense integrates her experiences from product development, retail, and technology.
- Hybrid Project Management in Modern Programs [07:06]
- Ann confirms that projects spanning both digital and physical realms are common in project management today.
- Project managers are expected to have knowledge across various areas, blending different methodologies like predictive and agile approaches.
- The Project Management Institute (PMI) now promotes a hybrid approach, where understanding the core foundations of project management is essential regardless of industry or methodology.
- Roles at companies like Amazon, Apple, or Hasbro may involve both predictive and agile project management approaches, depending on the nature of the project.
- Even in industries with longer timelines like product development, incorporating agile elements is becoming more necessary.
A hybrid PM is someone who understands the core principles of project management, regardless of whether they work in technology or any other field.
Ann Campea
- The Role of a Blended Project Manager [10:13]
- Ann believes being multifaceted is a benefit in project management, especially for businesses focused on profitability and speed to market.
- Project managers need to understand how to execute projects from start to finish, including both product development and associated digital components like apps.
- She acknowledges that some still differentiate tech and non-tech PM roles, but her experience has involved blending responsibilities.
- Even though Ann was hired as a non-tech PM, she ended up working on tech-related tasks.
- Managing a brand involves not just product development but also marketing, publishing, and other elements essential for selling the product.
- Ann highlights that project managers often manage both digital and physical products within a brand’s blueprint, dealing with various project life cycles.
- A PM’s role involves ensuring everything is executed from start to finish while also managing continuity across all elements of a project.
- She emphasizes the importance of coordinating timelines and delivery dates, using examples like ensuring products, apps, and marketing materials align with a major release like a Mandalorian movie.
- Managing these elements and their coordination is a significant undertaking and a key part of a PM’s value.
- Skills for Success in Blended Roles [17:41]
- Ann believes that emotional intelligence (EQ) is crucial for project managers, regardless of whether they are working on physical or digital products.
- She emphasizes the importance of working with people, often in non-authoritative roles, to successfully complete projects.
- Ann points out that the core project management phases, as outlined in the PMBOK, remain consistent across different projects.
- She suggests that combining EQ with a solid understanding of foundational project management principles makes someone a suitable project manager for any type of product.
- Ann agrees with the idea of blending different project management methodologies, including waterfall and agile, to get the job done effectively.
- She highlights the expectation for project managers to be adaptable and resourceful, able to work across various processes.
- Ann emphasizes the importance of being able to integrate agile elements into a predictive life cycle when necessary.
- She acknowledges the value of specialized project managers with expertise in specific areas, such as digital or technical fields, for particular projects.
- Ann believes that when hiring, it’s crucial to seek project managers with relevant experience while recognizing that they may need to understand different methodologies in their roles.
Combining emotional intelligence with a solid understanding of the foundational aspects of project management will make you a highly suitable project manager, regardless of the type of project or product you are trying to launch.
Ann Campea
- Strategies for Integrating Predictive and Agile Approaches [24:09]
- Ann stresses the importance of leveraging emotional intelligence (EQ) to influence and work with people effectively.
- She shares a case where she had to manage an 18-month predictive timeline for a licensed product.
- The project had a tight deadline, requiring the product to be on shelves by December after receiving the request in May or June.
- Ann utilized her experience to identify levers for accelerating the process, which included breaking the predictive life cycle in certain areas.
- She implemented daily standups and adopted a sprint-like approach for design and revisions, even though it wasn’t a traditional sprint.
- This iterative process involved creating and refining versions of the product in collaboration with designers and licensors until they reached a satisfactory final model.
- Ann agrees with the idea of using the right tools for the job, emphasizing the importance of adaptability in project management.
- She acknowledges that some may argue her approach was still within a predictive framework, but she believes it was a hybrid method.
- Ann explains that certain rules typical of a predictive life cycle needed to be broken to incorporate agile practices.
- She argues that they infused agile elements while maintaining the core aspects of the predictive life cycle.
- Ann recognizes that the topic of blending methodologies can be controversial, as some might view her approach as simply speeding up predictive processes.
- Practical Tips for Aspiring Project Managers [30:10]
- Ann advises aspiring project managers to leverage their current roles, even if they are not titled project manager positions.
- She suggests creating mini-projects based on personal interests to gain practical experience.
- Ann emphasizes the abundance of online resources and materials from PMI to aid in learning.
- She encourages individuals to seek hands-on experience, as many aspects of project management become clear only through practice.
- Ann highlights the importance of enjoying collaboration and the process of taking projects from start to finish as key indicators for success in project management.
Meet Our Guest
Ann Campea is a highly accomplished Vice President of Operations & Project Management with over 14 years of experience driving operational excellence and enhancing project management practices across diverse industries. She’s experienced in managing large budgets, driving value realization, establishing Project Management Offices, and leading teams. Certified in PMP® and CSM®, and currently pursuing a doctorate in Organizational Change and Leadership for ongoing professional development.
As PMs, we’re resourceful and we get the job done. If that means integrating agile methods into a predictive life cycle, then by all means, you must do whatever it takes to complete the work.
Ann Campea
Resources From This episode:
- Join DPM Membership
- Subscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcasts
- Connect with Ann on LinkedIn
- Check out TrueSense Marketing
- The Everyday PM Podcast
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Read The Transcript:
We’re trying out transcribing our podcasts using a software program. Please forgive any typos as the bot isn’t correct 100% of the time.
Galen Low: Hey folks, thanks for tuning in. My name is Galen Low with The Digital Project Manager. We are a community of digital professionals on a mission to help each other get skilled, get confident, and get connected so that we can amplify the value of project management in a digital world. If you want to hear more about that, head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership.
Okay, today we are talking about a different kind of hybrid project — not the kind where you're working with a mix of remote and in-person team members necessarily, but the ones where the things that you're creating actually have to span the physical world and the digital world — and how you, as a project manager, can navigate the challenges that can come along with that.
With me today to share her personal experience on exactly that is the host of The Everyday PM podcast and VP of Operations at TrueSense Marketing, Ann Campea.
Ann, thanks for being with us today.
Ann Campea: Galen, I'm so excited to be here.
Galen Low: For folks who are listening to this, and I know we're in between having video episodes in conjunction with audio episodes, but I am gazing upon Ann's glorious display shelf of all the coolest toys you can imagine from your childhood and beyond. You've clearly got a background in some physical product and definitely some digital products and some that span both. And so I'm super excited to dive in today.
Ann Campea: Yeah, me too. I'm happy to share some of my background literally and verbally with the audience.
Galen Low: Let's do the professional background stuff first, because as I understand it, your background, it cuts across toys, it cuts across retail innovation and tech. Can you give us a quick rundown of some of the organizations you've worked for and some of the roles that you've held?
Ann Campea: Yeah, I would love to. So I started my project manager journey in toy and product development, I work for a company called Hasbro. And for those that are familiar with toys, we are the ones that were generating your board games like Monopoly. We also worked on Transformers and G.I. Joe and oh, there's this property that maybe some people heard of called Star Wars that we also worked on.
So typically Hasbro and you would hear the other company, Mattel, and people would mix those two up and think that we're all the same company. But all of that to say, I spent many years growing up as a PM at Hasbro, it's where I learned very much the predictive or waterfall approach to project management and the toy development timelines and products and that sort of thing. But from there, I extended my journey, went outside of product to join Amazon. And at Amazon, I was a program manager much more on the readiness aspect of at the time. And to be honest, I'm not sure what happened with the product we put out.
But we were launching the Amazon Fresh Grocery Stores. I believe they are still around, if I'm not mistaken. But there were elements to that were around procurement of all the goods that you would take to stock, a grocery store, there was elements of project managing construction elements to it.
There was just a full facet of things that were happening. And so in the program manager titled role, I was doing a lot of project management across different things that needed to be coordinated as part of creating a grocery store. And then from there, I took my skill sets over to Apple and I had a awesome opportunity to work in much more of the tech space working beyond the R&D side. I didn't unfortunately get to see all the like, really cool stuff that people were thinking of making. I was at the tail end at the operations side, working closely with the supply chain channels, figuring out how do we get product to our ecommerce versus our physical retail stores.
And so getting to do a lot of the elements of not just product development, but then seeing it through to the market. And so I learned a lot about tech and that's essentially where I got some exposure to the agile side of the project life cycle, a lot more sprints and faster turnarounds on things. And bringing that all together in my role as VP of Operations at TrueSense, I get to do a little bit of both.
And so at TrueSense, we work with a donor engagement, right? So we're working with nonprofits, the Salvation Army being one of our clients, for example, and even in some of our clients, they are expecting not just physical product, but digital product as well. All in relation to making sure that we can execute upon the nonprofit's missions, which is to interact in such a way with their donors that would make it convenient for them to support the community.
So some people like to go online and do that. Some people like to receive something in a mail and be able to support that way. So, it's bringing all of my experiences together in this role, which I'm super excited to be sharing with you today.
Galen Low: I love that. Yeah. Isn't it nice that you've worked for a couple of small up and coming companies like Hasbro, Apple and Amazon, Salvation Army?
Ann Campea: Just a few, no, but very fortunate in that. I'm sure there's people in your audience that feel the same way. If you really love project management, I think to me, the best way to get very well-versed in the role is to expand the industries that you get to be a PM in. And to me in my own journey, it was proving myself to myself that I could be a good PM, no matter what industry or what product or whatever it is type of medium it is that I'm working with.
Galen Low: I love that. Yeah. Variety is one of the benefits of being a project manager in some cases.
Ann Campea: Absolutely.
Galen Low: I want to swing back to that in a little bit, but you've mentioned a couple of examples in there. By the way, the Amazon Fresh, that was the grocery store. You just walk in and grab a thing and walk out. There's no checkout?
Ann Campea: Yeah, it's got to do the carts with the scanners. And I only question whether they are around or not, because I had seen some article. I don't know, a few months ago, that said something about the just walk out technology. There's something going on that was painting a negative light on that, I think.
Galen Low: I saw the same article, I think, but futurist me says there's no way we're not going to go there in the future.
Ann Campea: You know what I mean? It's just, there's, if you've been to the bigger sporting events, right? So I don't know if Rogers Centre or whatever, a lot of the marketplaces within the stadiums now are that JWO tech where you can go in, you're able to turn a lot of customers.
Because all they have to do is go in, scan their whatever digital pass that has your credit info in it so that as you walk out with your items, everything gets charged that way. So it's a neat technology.
Galen Low: And anyone who's tried to buy a baseball cap after a baseball game understands that is necessary technology.
Ann Campea: Yeah, no lines, you can just go do it yourself. Yeah, there's something really nice about that, so I agree. It's going to be around.
Galen Low: I really love that.
And what a great example of a project that spans the digital realm and the physical realm. Would you say that programs and projects like this, that you are somewhere in between or across both realms, are these common these days?
And if so, what are some other examples that some of our listeners may encounter in their journey as project managers?
Ann Campea: I love this question because, yes. I think when we were spitballing what the topic could be, I said, Galen, it's like you and me, but we come together. I think that is really the expectation around project management is that you have to know it all, know a little bit about all of it, which is why also when you look at what PMI's been publishing, they used to keep these ideas of the predictive and the agile or whatever, very separate very separate bodies of knowledge.
Whereas we're seeing that come together a lot more, even in what PMI promotes around a hybrid PM is somebody who just understands the core foundation of being a project manager no matter if you're in tech, not tech, whatever space you're in. And so to answer your question, yes, I think that is very common nowadays.
Yeah, you may be applying for a role at Amazon or Apple, but you can very much find yourself in a much more predictive life cycle manner, depending on where you land within those organizations. And then the same thing goes for, you could be going to a place like Hasbro or something where there's product development, longer lead times to get there because you've got manufacturing happening and that sort of thing.
But you still will have to infuse elements of being agile in your processes as well.
Galen Low: It's funny because I totally whiffed on that in the intro when I was saying, Oh yeah, hybrid, not like hybrid collaboration with like in-person and remote. But yes, you're right. The other sensibility is a hybrid project as in hybrid project methodologies.
As in using a combination of different methodologies for different reasons. And of course, something like, designing and manufacturing a toy, that's a physical product, needs a little bit more predictability, right? Then a piece of software per se. I totally missed on that in the beginning.
Ann Campea: I thought you were making a joke of it. So I thought, yeah, of course, like totally went over my head. But I think as things go, when we consider the climate of even just like products, everybody wants speed to market. So even in that comment or that vision for companies that want to get to the market as fast as possible with an idea.
I mean, the predictive life cycle is out the door in many of these cases. So you are really just working with how do you break the elements that we used to be kind of a handoff between different steps of the process, and taking that agile or that digital mentality of okay, well, can we run this in a sprint? Something traditionally where everything was like a marathon and you had to hand off the baton.
Is there a way where we can run this now in a sprint like fashion where you can get the product out, but then you can continue to evolve the product as you go. And so it's really just taking on that type of mentality now.
Galen Low: I love that.
It strikes me that for some of our listeners/me, that in some realms, right, at some point in time, one might make the assumption that Oh, that would be different project managers though, wouldn't it?
Okay, you're like someone managing the software side. There's an app that goes with the toy and the marketing campaign that goes along with it. That's at least three different project managers, if not more. But the thing you said earlier about yeah, project management is about being expected to know it all in some way, shape or form, or at least, have broad knowledge across is this more common now for there to be this sort of blended PM role who's overseeing a program of the physical and digital stuff?
Is that becoming more of a thing? And if so, why is that the case? What's the benefit there?
Ann Campea: Gosh, I think it's just to be multifaceted is always a benefit no matter what you're doing in the case of project management and the different visions around how ultimately we work for business that wants to be profitable, right?
And so as we see things, like I said, speed to market is definitely an area where most organizations want to tap into it because the faster you're to market, as long as your product is successful, you're profitable. All of that to say, how does that walk back to what a PM is doing? You have to know at the very bare minimum, how to execute a project from start to finish.
And so from there, as long as you get the core elements in place, you could be within product development of a board game, at the same time there's a digital app that goes along with it. And so there's got to be enough of project management influence in the foundational aspects of what you do to be able to shepherd any of those types of projects out the door.
Now, I will say Galen, and I think I'm curious to see how the audience responds here, which is I am very much on that side of the coin, right? But I do think there are likely active voices in the community that will say, no, these roles still traditionally are kept very separate. We hire specifically for a tech PM and a non-tech PM.
That's how they were delineated back in my day when I was applying for those roles. So we only hire for this or that. But I'll tell you, at least in my experiences, even though I was hired on as a non-tech PM, I started to do tech stuff, and that's just the way that the product space goes, is that you're always wanting to turn out, whether it's a publishing, marketing collateral, TV broadcasts, commercials, as part of your overall blueprint.
If you're owning a brand, you could have all of those elements as part of what you're developing. So it's not just the product, but it's everything else that goes into selling that product.
Galen Low: It's really interesting because I was involved in the conversation in some forum somewhere about PMs who specialize.
And there is this camp of people who are like, well, no, the thing you said, right? Being able to deliver a project from start to finish is the skill. Whether that's, a toy that's going to be on a shelf or a piece of software, anything. As a PM, you should, your skill is delivery. It shouldn't really matter what you're delivering.
And then on the other side, there was a whole conversation about, specializing in the marketplace because of things like, Oh, there's this role tech PM role do I need to be able to code? If I can code, does that make me a better project manager in the tech space? And I think the thing you said about brands is the thing that brought it all together for me, which is that where it matters, somebody who can be multifaceted becomes very valuable.
And I'm looking at, baby Grogu in the back there and thinking about that whole process of, character design, that's going to, feed film production, especially in the Mandalorian to take a bit of a tangent, where they're using new technology, right?
The volume so that they can do changes on the fly and be very agile about how they are filming, on set to the point where, I'm willing to bet there were character design changes that are happening on the fly that someone needs to be aware of and communicate, as they are designing the toy and creating the baby Grogu voice changer app.
I don't know, but I like the franchise of something like Star Wars, something like the sort of Marvel franchises or on the Mattel side, like the Barbie franchise is like the consumer needs that cohesion. They're going to know there's lore to fall back on. You almost need somebody, yes, on the creative side, but also on the delivery side, who is able to catch and coordinate all those things.
That means that is going to have impact on this other program that we have. So we need to work that in. And then that efficiency piece of yeah, that seems like a big job, and I'm certain that it is. But also that efficiency of communication to have someone in that role. Maybe you are not the sole person also leading, the development of the baby Grogu voice changer app, which may or may not exist by the way.
Ann Campea: I think you should now.
Galen Low: But yeah like someone who's also just has a delivery vision. I think that's the thing that maybe sometimes gets undercut. It's like you just deliver projects. Yeah? Yes, and.
Ann Campea: Yeah, and all these other things, right? So I mean that and look, this is a particular area of an industry that maybe is very specialized to use the word that you're using in terms of you go in as a PM and you own a brand and within that brand blueprint are all these various elements of product that you're churning out, which is either digital or physical product. And in all those elements, you're working with all different types of project life cycles. I mean, that's the reality of it.
And you're there to not just make sure everything gets executed from start to finish, but you are in some ways program managing the continuity across all of those different elements. And even if that means that you are the sole person who understands when all the things need to deliver so that when the Mandalorian movie comes out, you've got product on the shelf.
You've got the voice changing app that's available to everybody. And you've got all the marketing stuff out the door. As long as you are that, if that's the only thing you're focused on as a PM, then that's the ultimate vision and that's the value that you bring to the table as you can play that role to make sure there's continuity across.
Even if it's just the timelines and the delivery dates, it's something like that coordination of that in itself is a huge undertaking. And I definitely see and have experienced that as a PM.
Galen Low: I love that word continuity. I think it like encapsulates it all. And I know that some folks, when they think about program management, it's seen as a cluster of interrelated projects.
But for you to lay it out as, yes, this is why they need to all land on time because it's delivering one big package, not just multiple small things. Yeah, that's what requires the orchestration.
Ann Campea: Yeah, absolutely. And something you picked up on, which was, I would emphasize it too, is you could have a layer of a person that kind of is the continuity piece.
But then within that, you could have different project managers that are helping to execute upon the entire blueprint, right? And so it could be a very large coordinated effort, depending on the scale of what the brand is or the volume of product that you have to turn out in a given timeframe, but all the while the kind of consistency there is that you have project managers that are helping execute from start to finish.
Galen Low: Love that.
I wonder if we can dive into this thing that I've been deliberately dancing around. But you've brought it up and I think it's super interesting because I imagine that the sort of set of skills you would need to be successful in a role that touches on physical product development, as well as digital components.
I imagine that your skill set would need to be quite a bit different. Like, how is this sort of blended role different from maybe a project manager who's only doing physical product or only doing digital stuff? And what skills would someone need to work on to be successful in a blended role like this?
Ann Campea: I know why you're skirting around this because maybe this is your first controversial conversation you've had on The Digital Project Manager. I don't know. Maybe you've had other controversial conversations, but I do think that I have a particular viewpoint on this that I'm sure may be vary from your audience or some people in your audience, which is that it really starts with the EQ piece.
I really think no matter what, you're always going to be working with people. And so if it's a digital product or it's not a digital product, it's a toy or whatever, you're still having to work with people that you may or may not have authority to manage. And so we've heard of these things like non, what do you call it?
Like matrix authority. Oh it's been so long, but you've got all these different ways that a PM is set up. You either have direct reporting relationships with the people you're working with, or you have this level of non-authority, but you still need to work with people to get the work done.
I'm saying this in a very long winded way to say that I think for no matter what product you're putting out as a PM, it starts there. I really do believe that the EQ piece has become more and more of not just our superpower as PMs, but the foundation for what we do. And then you can introduce the core elements of what the PMBOK would teach you, right?
If you've, for those that are certified with a PMP or whatever, is that you've got the phases of a project that typically don't change. Now, depending on what organization you're working for, they might have customized it to their needs, but you still have a foundation of a start and an end point and all these things that happen in between.
And so I think there's the EQ piece coupled with just knowing the foundational aspects of the PM that will make you a very suitable project manager, no matter what type of project or product that you're trying to push out there.
Galen Low: I love that because yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I can imagine that there are a lot of also different types of personalities in some of the projects that you've mentioned, right?
The Amazon Fresh or, anything on the Hasbro side where, you're going to be dealing with creative people. You're going to be dealing with folks, in like the film and television production world. You're going to be dealing with, folks who are more oriented around engineering. There are just so many different people that you will be communicating with and need to understand their perspective, and have that openness to understand their perspective. So yeah, I love that you went there.
The other thing that you went to was the foundations, which I was happy about because I might be reading between the lines here and tell me if I am, but earlier you had mentioned, yeah, some of these projects must be predictive because of the nature of them.
And maybe there are ways to be iterative in those projects to be faster to market. And also some of the tech projects that you've worked on, I'm sure were very adaptive and agile. And then between the lines, I'm like, Oh yeah. So you like blending both. It's not like a blended physical and digital sort of scope.
It's also potentially blended, this is what I think is the other controversial bit, blended sort of waterfall and agile approaches, or at least using a mix of different methodologies in a program to get the job done.
Ann Campea: Yeah, that's exactly it. And to me, I would, I can't wait to hear what your audience says about this because I have lived through it.
And that's the only reason why I feel like many expectations around our role nowadays is to be able to manipulate and like this matrix type fashion, right? We all have to be the neos of the organization where we can like, do all these crazy things with what we're given. And I think ultimately, when you break down a role, that's what we do.
We're resourceful. We get the job done. And if that means that you're working an agile part of your process into a predictive life cycle, then by all means, like you have to, by any means necessary, you gotta get the work done. And I think that there are going to be, on the flip side of this, I also believe that there is tremendous value in keeping the roles separate in terms of if I know, Galen, you are my expert PM that has lived through like SQL for however many years, you've just only worked on that.
And I'm looking for a PM that would be fluent in that particular space, then of course, right, you would stand out amongst all the rest of them. So, yes, you've got a pool of project managers. But from a hiring aspect, when I'm looking for certain things, then that's where you start to narrow down exactly what the other side of this argument is, which is you are looking for does this person have a lot of digital experience that would play well with this space?
Knowing full well that when they come in and if they come in as a digital PM, there may still be aspects of their role that they would have to know, the predictive part of it and then vice versa. So I think the flip side of that is there's tremendous value in kind of seeking out the filtering of what you're looking for in a PM in terms of what type of talent you could get in the door, how long it would take them to get familiar with that particular product that they're going to be working on, and sometimes you do want to target a specific type of PM to get that job done.
Galen Low: I love that notion of you can be a specialist and still be resourceful and still have generalist qualities because, we're PMs who are going to figure it out. You don't really have to pick necessarily. It's just like the kind of opportunities you open yourself up to.
Ann Campea: For sure.
Galen Low: And are attractive to, I guess, as well, right? In terms of how you frame your experience.
Ann Campea: Yeah, absolutely.
Galen Low: I have to ask for my listeners, because I mentioned this whole like, Oh, a program that involves waterfall and agile. Do you have any cheat codes for how you make those sort of streams of work fit together when you've got this like very predictive project, it's manufacturing, but you know, you can't, it's very strong dependencies.
We cannot press go on the manufacturing process until we've gotten this. And then you've got your digital or software or tech like stream running sprints. Do you have any cheat codes for synchronizing those things and making sure that they play together well?
Ann Campea: This might sound a little preachy, but number one, always leverage your EQ. You know how to work with people, you know how to influence people. So when it comes to that particular part where you might need to go faster, you know who you're dealing with and see if you can influence it that way. Now, I'll give an example of a 18 month timeline that I was working. It was a predictive timeline for a particular product that we needed to get out the door because it was a licensed product.
And traditionally, you're going through predictive because eventually you get to manufacturing. Usually manufacturing is overseas, and that in and of itself is weeks and weeks of production, right, to get enough volume of the product to hit the shelves. And in this particular instance, we were in a place where there was this product that was sold, of course, because, we love working with our sales and marketing team, and they are obviously the ones that generate the demand, and so they happen to pitch something, and it happened to catch fire, and people were like, yeah, we love the idea of this product, can we get it in for Christmas?
I believe we got that note in May or June of that year that we needed to put the product on shelf by December. Okay, so if I'm giving you any flavor of our timelines, we're anywhere from 12 to 18 months, generally speaking, to push product out. That was a very slim part. And so, I was fortunate enough that I had been with the company for quite some time to where I've learned the nuances of a predictive life cycle.
And so I knew what levers I could pull to try to get this product out in a shorter amount of time. But then that also required breaking the predictiveness of the life cycle in certain areas, sprinting them. So we actually started having daily standups around it. And so what a tech PM would say is that's not a sprint.
To me it was because we were having our designers design and redesign elements of it in a churning fashion to where we got the correct version out so that we could get that piece over and all the CAD drawn and all the engineering jargon that I'm throwing out here. But all of those things that need to be then handed over to our manufacturing site so that they can make sure they can actually produce the product.
And so in that particular part where we were still very much designing to the final model, I decided, let's just shake that up. Let's just try to do this in a sprint. Every version of it, we were sprinting through, okay, like this is version A, put in front of the licensor. Do they like it? What don't they like? Okay, turn again, another version of it.
And so while we weren't releasing software in that fashion of every sprint was giving us something, a different version to the general public, but we were doing that internally until we got to the right place. And so that's very much an example of how we were able to do that from even just a graphic design standpoint, getting the product drawn up in that cyclical fashion until we had it to a place where we were happy with it.
Galen Low: What a great example of resourcefulness, but also the idea that you have tools in your tool belt, and you have to pick the right ones for the job. And yeah, there's a lot of folks who are, you know, "purists". I don't know if they self identify as purists, but they certainly get labeled as purists in my world, where it's no, you can't do that.
That's against the rules. But like actually, iterative collaboration with transparency and visibility on something to move fast just sounds like a good idea if that's what the project needs. And I love that's okay, let's just let's blend this in, right, and the judgment of a project manager, you know, who has gone through enough of these things enough projects understands the mechanics of the like how the tool works to begin with then has a freedom to be able to blend it in and make it work for that particular project.
Ann Campea: Absolutely. An argument can be made that, oh, well, you basically were still working within predictive. You just made it go faster. But I don't think so. I think there were certain things, certain rules that typically stand true for the handoff kind of nature of a predictive life cycle that we had to break.
We essentially had to break some of those elements of the predictive life cycle, take the agile approach and try to infuse what we could while still maintaining ultimately like the core elements of a predictive life cycle. I think to me, I would argue that was very much an example of a hybrid approach, but I could see how some folks might be listening and think, Oh, well, nah, you guys still did the predictive stuff.
Like you just figured out how to make sure people did it faster. So that's why I think it could be still a very controversial topic.
Galen Low: The funny thing is, at least for me, from my opinion on it is this, is that as long as there's some of these frameworks, they get us on the same page quickly so that we can work together well, quickly. But guess what else? If you have the, I'm going to come back to you, your thing, if you have the EQ to get everyone on the same page and understand and speak the right languages so that everyone gets how we're working together and can get behind that's what's going to make the delivery process work.
Not necessarily a textbook that was printed and is, like the Bible on this sort of thing. It's, are we going to work together well? Is everyone going to know what's happening and why, and when, and that's the EQ superpower as well.
You know, I think to round things out, like you have some very interesting and I think quite magnificent experiences under your belt, having the opportunity to work on these programs. And if folks are listening and they're like, yeah, that sounds cool. That's what I want to do. How could someone go about just developing these skills and maybe even getting some practice under the belt to feel prepared for a role like this, a role that kind of spans, a program with projects that are digital in scope as well as physical in scope?
Ann Campea: Yeah, that's such a great question.
And I think that my first kind of recommendation or guidance to those that are interested is to play within the space that you're currently in. So if you've got a role and it's maybe not a PM titled role or you're not even doing project based type work, ask for something. Create your own project. Okay, well, is there something I am hyper focused on that I could create a mini project out of it just for my own benefit so you can do your own learning?
Obviously, there's a lot of material and resources online at this point. PMI has published so many things that will help inform you, but I don't necessarily think it's until you get some experience, whether it's creating that organically where you currently are, if you are employed right now, or even if you're a student, you could do the same thing.
Create your own mini projects, whether it's part of your professional journey or even in your personal life. I'm sure there's some sort of life milestone that you could create a project around if you're planning to go to a big concert next year, I don't know, Taylor Swift's touring again, and you want to try to project manage a way for you to get to the concert next year. Think about how you could create that organically for yourself, but it's not until you start to get the reps in that you really understand what the role entails.
And I don't believe we said this while we were live recording this, but I think that we said this in our conversation before, which is there's a lot of elements of the role that you don't really know until you're doing it. And so I just suggest you try a few projects out on your own, work with different types of people. If you find that you enjoy working with people and the element of learning how to influence and motivate teams, and you like this whole idea of I can take something from start to finish and potentially have something either tangible or intangible to show for it, I think some of those things are things that you would consider if you are interested in being a project manager, in either space too, digital or not.
Galen Low: I really do like that. The other thing we said in one of our conversations in between, I think, was this sort of like willingness to go out there and make some mistakes. Maybe not always falling on your face, that's probably painful. But I love that idea of just yeah, create a project, ask, talk to people, make some things happen, get exposure, get the experience.
That's going to build your confidence. It's going to build your EQ to ramp up to different levels of complexity.
Ann Campea: Absolutely. Agreed.
Galen Low: Very cool. And thank you so much for spending the time with me today. I think that was actually the highest density of pop culture references on this podcast, so.
Ann Campea: And I was restraining myself from throwing out any more, but yeah, that was fun.
Galen Low: Next time we'll weave them in.
Ann Campea: Next time it's just going to be about that, I think.
Galen Low: Next time we're just going to project manage the baby Grogu voice transformation app. Yeah.
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