The Impact Of Return To Office On Project Managers

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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're going to be parsing fact from fiction on a rather controversial topic; return to office mandates. Now that organizations return to office mandates are in effect, are they actually helping teams be more productive than remote work? And naturally, we're going to be putting a project spin on the conversation so that we can examine project productivity and see what's been working better when everyone's in the office, versus where a forced return to office may actually be a step backwards when it comes to delivering projects.

Joining me today is Karla Eidem, the Managing Director for the North America region at none other than the Project Management Institute. 

Karla, thank you so much for joining me today!

Karla Eidem: Thank you so much, Galen. I'm so excited to be here. 

Galen Low: I'm excited too. We were just chatting in the green room about how big of nerds we are when it comes to project management.

So, listeners be warned, we are going to nerd out. We're going to look at the big picture. We're going to zoom out. We're going to zoom in. We're going to be talking about return to office, and then I'm going to spin it at the end. We're going to talk about the project management profession at large. Well, I have you because you are in that role, and you have that perspective, and you talk to all these people, and I'm just dying to know. So, we will get there, but I thought maybe I could just start with a hot question right off the bat. 

Because there's a lot of people saying that people are more productive in the office and it's driving some of these return to office mandates. But in your opinion, do we even have enough data to understand whether projects run more efficiently and productively in an in-person context only four years after the COVID 19 pandemic forced most of us into remote working environments?

Karla Eidem: First of all, I love the fact versus fiction theme here. And yes, we do have data. In fact, PMI's Pulse of the Profession 2024, that's a global research report summarizing findings from more than 2,500 project professionals worldwide.

And that dispels the myth that work location impacts project productivity and effectiveness. And in that report, what we found is that project performance rates for in-person versus hybrid versus remote work actually yield very similar results. Not a significant difference between 73.2% and 74.6%. 

Galen Low: Huh? There you go. I love that you had the percentage right off the cuff there. Definitely interested in that report. I will include some links to it as well. But, I love that. I think that's really interesting because, and we'll dive into it as well, but I think there is this sort of narrative around return to office that is, interlinked with productivity, but maybe fallaciously so.

Maybe it's a bit of a fallacy in some ways. But also, tooting our own horn, sometimes that's just because of great project managers making sure that the ways of working meet and match the work being done and the context that the work's being done in. I love that. Super cool. 

I wonder if we could just rewind a bit because I'm super interested in your background and we're talking about sort of return to office, which kind of forces us to talk about the pandemic at large. And I know your role was a bit different back then, so I wanted to dive in. So let's jump in our DeLorean. We'll take a time machine back to early 2020. So it's early 2020, lockdowns are starting all over the world. What were you doing when the COVID 19 pandemic hit? And what do you remember being the most jarring change in your professional life as we started shifting to remote work?

Karla Eidem: Oh my gosh, I don't know if it's a positive thing to go back to that time, but I would say that there were definitely some core memories that come to mind. I actually was working as an enterprise senior project manager for a health system at that time. So there are a gazillion memories. And in fact, I remember exactly that March 7th, I was doing a war room where I invited 25 different project team members, and we were planning a rollout of the software implementation across over a hundred locations and, they came from all over the U.S. and we were in the room and we had just finished our war room and the following day we were told we need to go back home. 

And so, yes, that memory, and that's why I even remember the actual date because March 8th was like, oh my gosh, what do I do now? I just had this meeting with the team. But what was important, though, is that shift, that mindset shift of wait, no, you still have the same resources. You just got to adjust your way of working. And certainly during that time, we used our systems and our chat functions, our SharePoints, our repositories, TeamSite, et cetera, to our advantage to continue with that project. However, is it more, I would say the most humbling project I've ever had was actually, I was leading the COVID 19 vaccine rollout for the health system.

Galen Low: Oh, wow.

Karla Eidem: And that was definitely a combination of in-person, hybrid, and remote all in one go. And that experience taught me a lot of things, really reminding me that it's not a one-size-fits-all. And truly understanding your stakeholders, we had about 200-250 project team members, and that's just the core.

Clearly there are many, many clinical and non-clinical team members that we had to work with. But even my presentation style or how I present the meeting and how I make sure that everyone is heard because we were hybrid. Most of the time there were 25 leaders, including the COO and directors, chief nurse, chief medical officer, chief physician, all the leaders of the organization were gathered in a room.

And then we had 25 more or 50 more on the call. And we even joked at times that when we do updates, or even kind of part of our discussion, we called it the Hollywood Squares just to make sure we don't miss anybody. Right? And I think that's a very critical part of what project managers do, is ensuring that you are unbiased and that all voices are heard.

And when you are thrown this kind of challenge, you can't just rely on what you've been doing every day. You certainly need to adjust your style and even the way you present information. One clear thing that I had to do was that it was really good to always have something on the screen for people to look at because they can get lost in the discussion and then it's you reminding them, hang on a second, we've got 10 more things critical items to discuss. 

And yeah, certainly that was a very memorable time of my life. And I sat in the same chair in that room for at least 18 months before we went into operational mode. And yeah, so many other stories and learnings, and like I said at the beginning, it was a very humbling experience because I have zero clinical background, by the way. And so I didn't realize I would know so much more about vaccination than I would ever do in my entire life.

But yeah, if I could touch or help one life, what better thing to do. 

Galen Low: I love that. I mean, talk about trial by fire and talk about being in the thick of it. I mean, enterprise PMO, vaccine rollout, in the healthcare space, obviously, with this team, like 200 plus people on your project team, and then the broader stakeholder ecosystem.

But I love that. I know, you frame it as humbling and I get it in terms of, you have to change everything. But I love that insight of just, the project manager's role is to make sure everyone's seen and heard, understood. And these little tweaks, right, to be like, let's just have a visual thing for people to anchor to because this is jarring.

And we can't just rely on, SOPs and stuff we've always done. We need to innovate quickly and it can be simple just to get everyone into that comfort zone so that they can speak and be heard, so that they know they are being heard, right, because hybrid meetings can be awkward to begin with. And just stepping into that role of facilitating the communication and making sure that things are rolling forward. I really do love that. 

I mean, I imagine that at that scale, everyone on the project team is sort of adjusting at different rates. It's uncomfortable for a lot of people. It was uncomfortable for you as well. But what was the thing that kind of made it all click as a team where suddenly it just felt like work was sort of natural again?

Karla Eidem: Well, it wasn't easy. I will be lying if I said, it just became natural in a second. But one thing actually to highlight is that during the experience, the project team didn't even really understand how to work with a project manager.

So I really started at the basic, at the foundation of it and introduce myself and found 10 minutes, 15 minutes, however long they can give me so that I can introduce the work that I do and how we're going to manage the work moving forward. So there's a lot of level setting, and it's almost like we had to re-kickoff because the ways of working are different.

There are documents that we have to update together or individually, like so many moving parts. But I think one of the key things as a project manager that I had to remember is that of course everybody have different experiences with project management. Some even don't know what it means, but I have to make sure that they do understand.

And I don't make any assumptions that, oh, they should know, right? No, I think what I really did was first I made sure that they understood our internal ways of working, which team site to do before we even did a kickoff, they all had access. But before I sent the link, I fixed that already.

And then I sent the link, which project teams are what work streams, because it's a very big project. There were work streams that were created. Who is the owner having a RACI and, but keeping it simple because us project managers know what that is. But if you hit them with acronyms and WBS and RACI and RAID logs, they can shut down and not listen to the rest of it.

But the key thing really that I learned is that I cannot force my own tools as a PM on the team, because it is unnatural for them in the first place that the pandemic is happening. Then add, new tools, new ways of working to that situation, and you won't get anywhere. And so as we started to get to know each other, every day I would choose a few people on my list and I would find five minutes to talk to them.

I think that started making them feel like, oh, I actually know you. I haven't met you in person. We haven't seen each other. But I only saw you on video, but I can feel like I can start to trust you. I think that's what I worked on the most. Not that I didn't have a gazillion other things to think about, but I wanted to make sure first that the project team felt comfortable. Because if they didn't, and if they didn't trust that I know what I'm doing, that I can be relied on, but I know exactly where the data or information that they need.

I can call it, very quickly, then we can't move the work forward and of course we made sure that we had fun. I mean, it wasn't really fun times, to be honest, and a lot of people struggled. I definitely had to check in on my team, especially the clinical teams. Read the room, see if they're having troubles or, if they're tired and have breaks and I just can't be on a speed that I usually have because there are other situations to consider. 

But at the same time, I know I have to push, and we were on tight deadlines, and three different vaccines were being introduced at different times. Every state had a different priority, so it was, we had to move in an agile way, right? Like keep moving forward and keep making changes on the process and making progress.

And I think the more that we did that, the more I could still feel that it's working. The flywheel, it was hard at the beginning, but it started to make traction. 

Galen Low: It's really interesting because what you describe is such a delicate balance of things. And, I can imagine on some project managers being like, okay, need to focus on this.

Then I'll focus on the human stuff. Then I'll focus on, yeah, you did like realigning the processes, but you had this sort of it's all intertwined. You're like, I can spend a bit of time and build a little bit of trust with each person. You get people comfortable because that's the thing that's going to keep them moving ahead.

And then just even just understanding and appreciating that some of the stress, some of the strain is exaggerated in those circumstances that, yeah, like people are going to burn out faster. People are going to be, under a lot of pressure and be faced with a lot of, unpleasant things that, not every project will have in terms of life and death situations, vaccine rollouts, and what have you.

But even just that sensitivity to the stress that people will feel on the team, for any project, in any circumstance, I think that's actually, just great advice in general for any project. I wish more project managers would have the opportunity to do what you did to build that trust, right, to explain how you do your thing, because I think you're right about the assumptions that people come in with, sometimes very negative assumptions about project managers, because, let's face it, there are bad project managers out there.

There are folks who don't come in with that sensitivity or understanding or appreciation for the work and are just, there to crack the whip and even just to explain that here's how I work. Here are the work streams that I've defined. What do you need? Just go so far. And, as you said maybe not like an hour long coffee, maybe a five minute little chat.

Something that took a lot of skill, actually, or continues to take a lot of skill in a remote working situation. That sort of brief interaction, that's not a half hour meeting in somebody's calendar. 

Karla Eidem: Absolutely. 

Galen Low: That's super interesting. I love that. 

I wonder if we can shuttle back to present day, because we're here to talk about return to office. And yeah, it has been four years since COVID changed our world forever. And now there's this big push for teams to return to the office. And you mentioned the reports and you obviously talked to a lot of people in your role based on what you're hearing from PMI's members and, the data and your own experiences what are some of the most valid reasons for pushing for return to office from a project management perspective?

Karla Eidem: Right. Actually, I just came from Seattle and then Chicago, Portland prior to that. So you're right. I think, talking to the community gives me those additional perspectives, and it's been one of the most interesting and fun parts of my job being out there in a community, being with my people, right? Like project manager to project manager.

But there are certainly, some perceptions about collaboration or community building productivity, then that's out there, but we have to remember that not all project management is equal. Well, for some industries like construction or manufacturing, I mean, most of that will have to require people in-person to do the work, right?

It's going to be hard for you to really observe or know what the processes attract the progress from afar. So it is important to choose the right model that will yield the best results. And I just mentioned that I came from healthcare and as a project manager, most of my work can be done remotely, but why did we have that hybrid, right?

I still have the leaders in the room. And then we had other leaders and project team members online, because there were still instances where that in-person human connection and instant collaboration will require that. But of course, there were still instances, for example, where, yes, we designed a process flow and we had the online system created, et cetera, but I also had to be on site at the hospital to do the project work needed.

And a good example I can share with you, and which I've heard from other people too, is that even if you've documented everything and what we PMs do, right? You document and you share and there are many ways to observe process flows and creating other layouts, et cetera. Sometimes you have to be in-person to actually see how it works because there might be some nuances that your process flow is not capturing. 

And it is equally important to note that like how they move from one area to the next and what could go wrong in between and it might even provide you more risks that you can anticipate. And of course, if there are issues, you can course correct as needed. So, I think aside from being able to do some work online, first, there are industries that would require for you to be in person anyway, because not all work can be done online.

But if you do have to do a hybrid and you have to come to the office to do the work that you need, intentionality is key, right? How does that make sure that whatever you're planning for the project will lead to project success can only amplify that project success.

Galen Low: I love that. Even just what you're saying about, as project managers, we document stuff, right?

And it's our headspace, but you know, in a fully remote environment, we're relying on our teams to also document stuff. If it's not written anywhere, we might not know about it. Same could be said about, in person as well. If someone's not saying it, yeah, not surfacing it, then we might not know, but there are these other things that like the sort of in person experience can help elicit.

You can pick up on the body language. You can sort of, walk the halls. You can be, in a room and overhear someone say something and be like, Oh, that's a risk actually you would never have been in front of that remotely. So, yeah, I think that makes sense. Even just what you said at the beginning, right?

It was, would you say it was March 7th you're in the war room, March 8th you're remote, right? I love me a good war room. That sounds like a weird sentence to say, but like that whole being in person, maybe just like with our laptops, just doing work. It's not like necessarily a big meeting.

We're just all together doing all of the different streams of work just in the same room. So we can overhear, we can observe, we can sort of interact with one another informally, or just walk over and, ask a question, check in on something. And it's all synchronous and it's glorious, right?

It is quite glorious. 

Karla Eidem: Only project managers would call it glorious, but I 100% agree. 

Galen Low: Just feels like, mission control, like NASA kind of thing, right? And you were just like, we're there. If something big happens, we're all going to cheer. If a big problem happens, we're all in it together. There is just, these things. 

I wonder if we could look at the flip side though, because, I think that there is a big push right now for return to office and the people I talked to, I've seen it from all sorts of different angles, but I would say that there are some sort of mistakes.

Or maybe even just, not necessarily logical conclusions that some companies are arriving at in their return to office sort of mandates. The people you interact with what kind of mistakes do you see companies making or almost making that are putting unnecessary pressure on their projects and on their staff for maybe the wrong reasons?

Karla Eidem: Yeah, I think our Pulse report also outlines that, that there is definitely a gap in perceptions about the effectiveness of remote work. In fact, 35% of leaders see remote work as always or usually less effective than in person work compared to only 23% of project managers. And this perception could be due to fear of decreased productivity.

So mandating return to work for the sake of better collaboration or innovation may not necessarily be the right path for project professionals. I think organizations should definitely look at how projects are approached. I said it earlier, it's not a one-size-fits-all. You can't be just stuck in one way or the other.

And I see it, frankly, like you're a PM and you're like a mechanic. You look at tools in your toolbox and assess which tool should yield the best result, should be used in what situation. I mean, can I use a screwdriver to pound on a nail? Sure, I can do that. But would I do it effectively or without hurting myself?

Or would it take less effort and have a more accurate result if I just use a hammer? And our data also shows that a hybrid approach is gaining ground as the fit for purpose approach. And this data, I hear it from the community conversations as well, and the winning blend of Agile and Predictive, it looks different for each organization.

And project performance levels wise, whether you use Agile versus Hybrid versus Predictive, I feel like it's the same argument as on site versus remote versus hybrid. The results, the project performance levels are comparable. And instead of just focusing on a singular methodology of projects, I would highly suggest that organizations really empower their teams to select the method or the combination of methods that fit the project at hand.

Galen Low: I love that. Actually, what popped into my head was like a sommelier, right? You're like picking the right pairings of things because there's no wine that's just the best wine. And there's no food that's just the best food.

It's like how these things interact. It's going to be different. It's going to be different for different people. And, you start to imagine the project manager as being the one who owns this, right? The one who can advise and get inputs, ask questions like, what do you need, right?

Coming back to your thing earlier, tell me what you need. What do you like? I'm like, okay, we're gonna craft this approach. And I've been really impressed with PMI, especially in, 7th edition of the PMBOK, where, it has really embraced tailoring, right? It's embraced this customization because, there isn't just one single way.

And, to your point if you're a screwdriver organization but you need to drive a nail don't use a screwdriver. Try and figure on a better way. Just because you've been using a screwdriver for the past ten years doesn't mean it's gonna be the right tool for the future. It's just such a epiphany for me, actually, in terms of, you know, who owns the way of working within a given project when various teams who have their own SOPs, their own ways of working on a day to day basis are coming together. 

And, there's a sort of collision and who's going to smooth that out and make sure that the work is clear, that the methods are clear and that it's like fit for that particular project.

Karla Eidem: And it's equally important for us project managers to be really good storytellers, right? I think it's up to us to also highlight the value of project management instead of focusing on one way or the other. So I think that's a challenge for us project managers too, and not necessarily just the organizations.

Galen Low: Absolutely. 

I wonder if we could talk a bit about data because, we're talking about this report and, we are getting a sense of sort of productivity and we're saying that, yeah, maybe it's not one camp versus the other, right? Maybe it's not in person versus remote. But maybe it's this whole spectrum of hybrid in between, but even for organizations tackling it that way, like what kind of data points should they be focusing on to really understand how well their projects are actually running in this sort of new age where it might not be, Oh yeah, like that project we did in 2019 in person was way better than this, 2024 project.

What are the data points? What are the metrics that people should be looking at when they're looking at, is this working as well as it did, pre pandemic?

Karla Eidem: So from the Pulse of the professional report that I mentioned earlier, I already gave you the project performance, right? That regardless of what you do, there's a 73-74% project performance rate.

So that's definitely one of the data points and enabling teams to adapt is the key factor leading to greater performance. Another thing that I can mention is that four out of five employees who have worked in those flexible work models over the past two years, they want to retain them. So it's important to understand what your employees want.

And more importantly, don't, let's not forget about the project manager too, right? We're focusing on the projects, on the organizational goals, et cetera, but let's not forget about the project managers. And so that's just the key point to make. Another thing that I wanted to highlight is that to improve project performance, organizations can provide critical enablers to help teens become more empowered, build new skills, nurture a culture and resilience, and practice a continuous learning attitude. And our data shows that those organizations that offer at least three enablers, supportive programs, such as mentoring, training, communities of practice and mental health resources, they demonstrate project performance 8.3 percentage points higher than those that don't offer the enablers. 

So that's just key thing to note there that there's definitely benefit in not just thinking about the ways of working, but also providing those tools and resources and even a community, right, for the project managers.

Galen Low: It's really interesting because like, humans are pretty smart, right?

And you were saying like, let's not forget about the project managers. And in some ways, let's not sort of forget about the people and their skills and and what they want from it. And, I see some conversations about return to office that are very mechanical, I guess, like we have humans that work for us.

We need them to be here in this piece of real estate that we've leased. The end of versus the what's in it for me, right? Like actually, when you do think about some of these things coming back to the war room and having fun, right, even if the work is not fun. A lot of my sort of fondest memories of project work are because of that.

It's like this sort of camaraderie, it's learning new skills from people, cause you're sitting next to them and they're doing a thing. You're like, I didn't even know that's how you did your job. And I'm not going to sit here on new, whatever it's Microsoft teams and just watch your screen. That's creepy.

But you know, when we're together, when we're growing, when we're developing together, like that aligns with what we want in terms of gratification from our jobs, spend enough time doing these jobs, we want to be able to grow. And, in some ways I was like, wow eight plus percentage points difference when they are focusing on sort of talent development and, mental health.

And then at the same time, I'm like, I shouldn't be surprised by that. In some ways, no one should be surprised by that because, yeah, it's like taking care of the people and supporting them to do the work so that they can grow, not just staying the same or trying to do, get back to baseline, but in the office.

It's actually much more about humans and growth and actually coming through something like a pandemic, but also just recognizing that the ways that we work change all the time. And, that's coming back to, PMI and the PMBOK. I honestly, I was impressed. I studied the 5th edition. I didn't read the 6th edition. 

Karla Eidem: Yep. I remember. I did the same, 5th and 6th. Yeah. 

Galen Low: That was pretty good. 6th kind of thick. 

But 7 was just such an interesting read. And I know I'm nerding out, but for folks, the 7th edition of the PMBOK from PMI is quite a difference. It's quite a departure and it highlights the dynamic ways of working that there is no sort of camp to belong to.

There's no right or wrong. There's no construction projects need this and healthcare projects need that. And there's, no argument to be had about it. It's about sort of understanding the work, understanding the goals, understanding the people, and just sort of doing the pairings, right? Being the sommelier in some way, shape, or form. I love that. 

I wonder if we can gaze off into the future, but also if I can maybe ask some tough questions. 

Karla Eidem: Sure! 

Galen Low: Because, I think I've been framing this around return to office, right? And I know there's folks listening and there's there's folks in my community as well. They'll be like, this is remote hybrid project management thing.

This is not new. We've been doing it for decades. There's a lot of organizations like tech organizations here, chasing the sun. They've got, people all around the world. So is it a cop out for organizations to say that people need to get back into the office so that projects run more smoothly?

Karla Eidem: It's taking me back really just you talking about, it's not new, but when I started my career in 2005, I was already on a hybrid and remote situation. I was in banking, not a banker, but I was in banking, but my projects were for the UK offices, and I was in the Philippines. So this is not new to organizations.

And in fact, I still remember, but back then we didn't have a video. We had the conference call spider looking contraption. You remember that, Galen? 

Galen Low: I love those. 

Karla Eidem: So I remember that. But just going back to your question, I think if COVID 19 taught us anything, it's that we can adapt to new ways of working and that not every solution is going to work for every organization or project team. And in fact, organizations and project managers are equally responsible for ensuring that projects are successful.

They're meeting, organizational goals and aligned to the strategy. And that to have that knowledge that simply implementing a return to office mandate, again, going back to the data of the research that we did doesn't necessarily bring you a more successful project. Very, very slim difference, right?

But I want to highlight that it's between the project manager and the organizations, we are equally responsible for that. Because yeah, there might be some project managers that are not utilizing their tools, or maybe they don't know it, or maybe they don't want to, but by being adaptable and resilient and working with teams effectively, regardless of location, you can have the work done. You don't necessarily have to lean on one place or the other.

And I just want to share briefly. I had a conversation before I was still doing projects before I got into this role, and I was having a conversation with someone that firmly believed that being in person is the best way for us to do a workshop. But being in a fully remote organization, that was becoming a challenge because we're coming from different parts of the world, even just different parts of the U.S. 

And we certainly had to talk about, well, that's not the only way to go. How can we find solutions? And that's one of the power skills that PMs should have, right? The problem solving, the collaborative leadership, and just thinking about the talent triangle, what else can I do to solve this problem?

And so discussing it with that partner in the workshop, what I realized is that it's because A) if I hadn't asked the question, I wouldn't have known that that person didn't have the background in knowing how to manage hybrid teams. And so I raised my hand and I told the project sponsor, I actually do. I know how to do it.

And can I help the team? And so we did, and we set some ground rules, even on the agenda, if you're having a break, you can't come back to the conversation just because the people in the room are there. But you just told the online people that you were on a break. That's not cool. So we had to set some ground rules on that.

And it just reminded me that we can't get stuck with the problem at hand. Let's find other ways. And that's where I feel like as a project manager, we are in a position to really use those skills that we have, again, on the talent triangle, right? Is it our communication skills, the power skills, right?

It's our ability to relate to other people, or is it a matter of knowing the business, the business acumen? Or is it offering a different way of doing things or a different methodology, a different framework that that's the technical side or the ways of working? So for me, I'm constantly using that. What skill sets do I have so that I can run that project smoothly and I can, again, tell the story, be a good storyteller that regardless of where you are, you can achieve your goals.

Galen Low: Love that. You just made the talent triangle so real. It's this abstract concept, in a book and it's not always easy to see that it is it's this toolkit that you can use to have a voice, to, have influence and wield it with courage. I think that's really interesting. 

I love what you're saying about this sort of joint responsibility between project managers and organizations to innovate on ways of working or, make projects work well. But it strikes me that project managers aren't always at the table in some of these decisions. Like a lot of folks that I talked to, weren't involved in the sort of return to office mandate weren't asked for inputs about work that they are fundamentally leading and have shaped the ways of working and have adapted, over the past few years to really make it work and are being asked. 

And maybe even tying in the talent triangle what can PMs do if they're sort of excluded from this? How can they raise their hand and, provide input and lean on their toolkit?

Karla Eidem: Right. And see that challenge as an opportunity, because that just happens, right? We don't necessarily get involved in all of the decisions in a business. And that's just a fact of life.

If you were given an opportunity to speak your mind, yes, by all means. But when those things happen, how do you turn that challenge into an opportunity and in fact, learn new skills, right? How do you upskill yourself if you're not familiar, or switching your way of working from, Oh, I'm so used to being remote and now I have to go back to the office.

How do you make that switch? How do you learn? I mean, there's a community of project managers, a gazillion people, 445,000 members in North America alone, for example, of PMI and communities that you can talk to and ask for advice or listen to podcasts like this, that, your recent episodes on neuroscience impacting projects, it's like, there's just many resources.

So let's just turn those challenges into gold and see them as opportunities. 

Galen Low: I love that sort of leaning on the community to sort of tackle this because I think you're right. I mean, we're not going to be at the table for every conversation, nobody is. But we can sort of, seek out advice and talk to one another and share knowledge and see what works so that we can arm ourselves with, yeah, the right skills to then maybe just bring it up, right? And find a way to use our influence. We're good at that. We've managed to influence. It's one of the things that we are excellent at and we can find our way to the table somehow. 

For the last question, I thought maybe we could zoom out a bit from the subject of return to office. Because, we're falling on the topic of like the future of project management in a way, and like what the purpose of the role is. And I think it's fair to say that whether it's done remotely or in person, project management as a profession or as a craft, has been changing rapidly in response to things like forced digital transformation and the economy, generative AI, and even just like more complexity and verticals that, yeah, like you mentioned, maybe aren't used to having a dedicated project manager role, things like the creative industries, right? 

Where it's getting, more focused around sort of project management to deliver things that are, quite grandiose, right? Quite elaborate, quite ambiguous, but from where you stand, is project management actually becoming less of a role and more of a skill that we all need to have? And based on that, what becomes of an organization like PMI 5, 10, 15 years from now?

Karla Eidem: No, absolutely. I love that question actually. If only, this is my pipe dream, if only we could have project management as a one of the general courses you take in college, like algebra and psychology, right? I think what we're realizing, and the more we talk about project management is that regardless of your role, whether you are a full time project manager or you're part of a department but you're overseeing leading projects, that skill is very important.

Those skills, the PM skills, again, going back to the talent triangle, they're transferable. So even if you're not a PM in title, those skills are going to be valuable in your workplace. I mentioned earlier, I went into banking, not a banker, and then I went to health system, zero clinical background. I think what it taught me, and then I went into non profit. But what it taught me is that I don't necessarily have to be an expert in that industry, but I needed to be an expert in project management, right?

And I think that my own personal journey across industries and across continents, even because I started in Asia Pacific and Latin America, and now I'm in North America. I think it just tells that story of anybody in their role would, could benefit from project management skills. And the fact that actually, I don't know if you saw this, but LinkedIn named project management as one of the top 10 most in demand skill of 2024.

And there's a reason behind that, right? We're seeing that by definition, a project has a beginning and an end, but we're in a nerd out here, Galen. And everybody does that that results into a service or a product, right? Everybody does that. You'd even do that at home and you do remodeling or planning your own wedding.

And so I think it's not just transferable, but it's valuable to any career industry that you might be in. When you mentioned, creativity, it's very exciting because we're actually, PMI is going to Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. 

Galen Low: No way. 

Karla Eidem: I talk to professionals and I'm personally geeking out about that because my youngest sister is an executive creative director in the Philippines.

And of course she's been my sister my whole life, but only recently she said, Oh, that's what you do as a project manager? Oh, I said, yes, that's what I do. And she said, Oh, I didn't know that was project management. And so really exciting for PMI to really go to those places, those industries where project management as a skill is not quite known yet.

And I bet, many people that say, well, I didn't know I was doing requirement gathering. I didn't know that this is called a work breakdown structure. Right? But they're doing it, but we have the framework. We have the language and the methodology to really put that discipline and running and leading our projects.

Galen Low: I really like that. It's a sort of like ambassadorial role about projects and just how to do them right and the vernacular that you could use around it and it's something that we are actually all doing. 

Spicy question. Do you find that there's any tension between, PMI members who are project managers by title? Compared with folks who are, specialists in some other field and just trying to pick up a skill because projects are important is there any butting of heads there or is everyone friends? 

Karla Eidem: Oh, you know what? I think it's having discussions with your siblings. I feel like it's a lack of understanding and not necessarily, fight between those with titles and those without.

I think there's just the gap of understanding that needs to be closed. Right? And like I said, it doesn't necessarily mean that if you were not a project manager, you're not using project management skills. And through the ambassadorship, through this awareness building, I think that's how we can bridge that gap.

And well, talking about gap, we had a PMI Talent Gap in 2021, and we're anticipating about 25 million new project professionals needed to fill that demand through 2030. So that's about 2.3 million each year and in North America that's 120,000 annually project management oriented positions being available.

So instead of focusing on the difference in opinion, I think we might need to convince more people that either they have the skills already, that they're not aware of that it is actually something that they can use in project management. Because that Talent Gap report, that just tells you how much demand there is and how many opportunities there are, not just for current, but also for aspiring project professionals.

Galen Low: Wow. That's fantastic. I love that you're orienting around like the sort of understanding. And I think actually how you frame it before is really interesting too, in the sense that, yeah, part of what I liked about project management was, I get to cut across and do all these things, right? I wasn't really a transit expert, I wasn't a government expert, but I got to touch all of these businesses and that was sort of my path.

Whereas, it's also okay if healthcare is your thing and the project is a skill that helps you do that thing and you want to stay there. And that's actually, just different paths and different sort of journeys, not necessarily, contradicting one another or colliding or, yeah, just, both can happen.

And yeah, I like that notion that actually there's a lot of opportunity and we're not all sort of fighting for jobs out there. Projects is just becoming part of how work gets done, part of how we innovate, part of how we move forward quickly. And yeah, there's a lot of space for us all to play together.

Karla, thank you so much for spending the time with me today. There's just so many good gems in there. I learned a lot. I think our listeners learned a lot as well. And it's just been a lot of fun. The PMI at Cannes Lions, how could people find out more about that? Because I think people are gonna be really keen.

I don't think a lot of people listening were like, oh, yeah, PMI is gonna, go to Cannes Lions. That's gonna make sense. It sounds quite an interesting thing. When does it happen? How can people learn more? 

Karla Eidem: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we, of course, PMI.org is one of the things that they can check out, but if you're on LinkedIn and subscribed to Project Management Institute page there, our marketing team is very good at providing updates.

And even our CEO, Pierre Le Manh, he's the first one sometimes to put all these new updates. So if the website is not enough, if you're on Facebook, if you're in LinkedIn and any other social media, that's the best place to do it. And if you are a member, and you remember of the local chapter, that's another place for you to hear about all these exciting things that we're doing, PMI's ecosystem is vast, and it's a flywheel, right?

And so we try to activate every partner, every community that are part of the PMI ecosystem. And we certainly try to model one of our cultural values. So together we can add it to there. And so for sharing of information, just check out PMI.org or our LinkedIn page and other social media pages. 

Galen Low: Amazing. Exciting times. 

All right folks, there you have it. As always, if you'd like to join the conversation with over a thousand like minded project management champions, come join our collective. Head over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership to learn more. And if you like what you heard today, please subscribe and stay in touch on thedigitalprojectmanager.com.

Until next time, thanks for listening.