Beyond Tools: Building Trust and Accountability in Remote Project Management with Sri Ganesan

Wayne Turmel welcomes Sri Ganesan, co-founder and CEO of Rocketlane, for a deep dive into the challenges and innovations in remote project management. They discuss the complexities of client-facing projects, why traditional tools often fail remote teams, and how Rocketlane aims to centralize and streamline project delivery to create transparency and trust. Sri shares insights on the importance of proactive systems over "hero" managers, the evolving role of project management without dedicated PMs, and how AI is shaping the future of project oversight. Tune in for practical tips on building client trust, setting expectations, and fostering effective collaboration in a dispersed environment.

Key Takeaways

1. Solving the Silo Problem: Remote project teams often suffer from information silos due to multiple tools. Rocketlane addresses this by providing a centralized platform for project and customer collaboration.
2. Transparency Builds Trust: Sri highlights the importance of transparency in client-facing projects, noting how regular status updates and customer-facing insights can reduce anxiety and foster trust.
3. From Hero to System: Great project management shouldn’t rely on heroic efforts. Instead, robust systems should proactively surface potential risks and keep projects on track without constant manual oversight.
4. Adapting Project Management: Many remote projects lack dedicated PMs, making it crucial for tools to fill this gap by guiding governance and best practices.
5. AI in Project Management: Sri encourages teams to start experimenting with AI to identify project risks early and improve efficiency in team workflows.

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to Long-Distance Worklife
00:36 Introduction to Rocketlane
02:09 The Problems with Current Project Tools
04:00 Challenges in Remote Project Management
06:11 Adapting PM Standards for Remote Work
08:32 Dual Roles in Project Management
10:07 Building Trust with Client Projects
12:18 Moving from Heroic to System-Driven PM
13:16 Gauging Client Sentiment Remotely
15:20 Managing Global Teams and Expectations
18:10 Proactive Project Management Techniques
20:47 The Role of AI in Project Management
22:41 Final Thoughts and Resources
23:48 Closing Remarks

Related Episodes

• Solving the Challenges of Hybrid Teams with AI Technology with Projjal (PJ) Ghatak
• The CEO’s Guide to Thriving with a Global Remote Team with Anatoliy Labinskiy
• ​Project Management Unplugged: Kory Kogon on Leading Without Limits​​​
• ​What is Asynchronous Work?​​​

Additional Resources

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Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Hello
everybody,and welcome to the Long-Distance
Worklife Podcast where we are determinedto help you thrive.
Survivegenerally make sense of the crazy, ever
changing world of remote and hybrid work.
My name is Wayne Turmel.
This is a Marisa-less episode,
because as we do every other week,

(00:30):
we have a really excellent conversationplanned for you.
So I'm going to introduce today's guest,
Sri Ganesan.
Is the boss of all things at Rocketlane.
We're going to talkabout project management,
managing projects,setting up teams in a remote environment.

(00:53):
Tre, how are you today?
I mean, thank you so much for having meon your show today.
I'm doing well. Things are good.
I am delighted to hear that.
We will try not to, mess that up.
So real quickly, tell us, who are you?
Why do we care? And what is Rocketlane?

(01:15):
Sure.
So, you know, as you introduced, I'mone of the founders and the CEO here
at Rocket Lab, and this is my secondSAS venture, built one from 2012 to 2015.
And then, you know,
that company got acquired, went through
a seven and eight yearjourney overall in the previous business.
And had a lot of learningsfrom that venture,

(01:36):
which pushed us, meand my co-founders, the same co-founders
of the last time, towardsbuilding something new.
And we started Rocket Landfour and a half years ago.
We found that client facing
project delivery felt very broken.
We found a category called PSCProfessional Services Automation,
which had a bunch of legacy tools,and we thought, hey, what if we make this

(02:01):
customer centric, modern PSCas a category that we can champion,
we can create, and that'swhat we are on to at Rocket Lab.
So we are a professional servicesautomation tool
which has a customer facing angle to it
and helps both in the backend of operations
for project delivery teams, like resourcemanagement, time tracking, etc.

(02:24):
but also on the front end of it helps you
with the actual project delivery,the governance around it, and so on.
What was
actually broken in the clientfacing piece of this?
What was the problem you were solving for?
So it's say two things.
One is there's a deluge of toolsthat people were using.

(02:47):
So you use one toolfor the actual project management.
You use something elseto collaborate on documents.
You use a conversation toollike a slack or a teams.
You also use a PSA tool for same time
tracking, budget tracking,you know, invoicing, etc.
so information gets siloed acrossall of these and email as well.

(03:08):
You can imagine.
And everyone does also stuff an email.
And then also the work gets siloed,which means, you know, there's
there's tasks, small things that you needto do emerging from something
you documented on email saying, hey,here's the action items from a meeting.
There's something elsethat's in the project management tool.
There's a comment on a documentthat needs to still be resolved.

(03:30):
So work becomes too siloed.
It's spread across toothin in different places.
It's hard for anyone to be on top of it.
And along this journey,
the internal team and the customerare on a different page, right?
Like you have a version of everythinginternally,
you have a versionthat you've exposed to the customer.

(03:51):
Everyone feels it'sa little bit of a black box
as to what's really happening,what's happening in the customer's mind
the customer is anxious about, hey,are you really going to deliver on time?
Because all they see is like a status
update or a weekly status reportyou publish each week.
So a lot of anxiety, mistrustalong the way that builds up.
People are not on the same page,and things do

(04:14):
get dropped as well because of how siloedinformation and what this.
Now, project
management is one of the first areas
that really embracedand figured out remote work.
And when I say figure it outat least enough to make it happen, right?
You remember working on remote projects
back in the 90s and

(04:37):
what?
What has gotten
easier
over the years with remote project teams
and what still remains a bearthat we just haven't done
as well as we might.

(04:59):
I think
what's gotten easier to just meetingmore often,
I think people have just gottenused to the fact that, hey,
there's going to be zoom meetings
every other day that we need to jump onand keep each other updated.
I think the practice of project managementhas evolved so much that those who are
in the know around those practicesdo a great job
of surfacing risk earlier,

(05:21):
being transparentabout where things stand, calling out
you know, things that need to be resolved,across teams, etc.
but it's not necessarilysomething that everyone still does.
Right?
I think those who are
who have embraced project managementover a period of time as a practice
have evolved to a state where they're ableto do a great job of all of this.

(05:42):
But you wouldn'tfind this to be universally true.
What else has become one of the.
One of the things that and I'mthrowing you this curveball.
So if the answer is you don't know,that's an acceptable answer.
But I know that,
Project Management Instituteand the PIM Borg had instituted

(06:02):
a lot of knowledgeabout what project management is.
And I know that plays a role in the factthat people are getting better at it
all the time.
Has the Pim Bork adjusted to remote work
as well as it might, or what's it missing?
I would say the principles are,you know, universal in the sense

(06:25):
that it doesn't matter if it's a teamdoing things remotely versus
a doing team getting together in person,
but it's more about,
I would say noteveryone is going to be a PMP,
the new.
Project management professional.
And my apologiesfor throwing Pim back out there.

(06:48):
Like everybody knows what it is.
That is the project managerBook of Knowledge,
the One Ring to rule them all.
Project management is industry looks at.
So my apologies to the to the listenerswho just went
Yeah.
So like likewise,my apologies to throwing PMP as a term,
but you would see if someone is a PMPyou would see it on their LinkedIn.

(07:10):
Right? Like the. Name.
Oh, they are not shy about telling youif they're.
My what what I've seen iswe are increasingly moving to a world
where people are not specialistsin project management.
Not every project,
a big project has an engagement manager,a project manager assigned.
But very often people are expected to play

(07:32):
that dual role of,hey, I'm, I'm working on
the things that need to get done,but I'm also managing the project,
in which case,I think, you know, the expertise
in projectmanagement is not going to be there.
But you expect that with toolsthat are available, you get the job done.
You you know, there's enough,
that that you have to,

(07:56):
tool systems,
emails, etc., that you still should manageto get the project delivered
successfully without a full time expertproject manager.
And that's that's whereI think things actually break down.
It's true that not every project deservesa full time project manager,
but the systems need to adaptand and help bridge the gap

(08:17):
in a better way around best practicesaround governance for projects, etc.
because the people you know,and then they're running
their first few projects or even laterare not necessarily well attuned to.
If you go to any SAS company, for example,the implementation teams there
typically are not PMP certified.

(08:38):
So you need to deal with that reality
in how you deliver on your projectssuccessfully.
Even without that kind of expertise.
Well, what you just saidis really important because yes, you know,
there are project managersand there are official projects,
but every leader on the planetdeals with projects
and, you know, rangingfrom organizing Alice's birthday party

(09:02):
in the breakroom to huge, you know, system changes.
I guess there are two sides to this.
One is that my experience?
Is that project teams,project managers are not necessarily
the manager of the people on the team.

(09:23):
Right.
So there is a little bit of you'remy project manager, but I answer to Bob.
And so there are these,
conflicting priorities.
Sometimes miscommunication.
Can technology help us address that?

(09:44):
Absolutely.
I think there's a few.
I mean, you made a very good point around
you're responsibleto get things done on time,
but you're not the bossof most of the people on the project.
As a project managerand think about customer facing projects
where you also needinputs from customers, approvals
from customers, thingsto happen on time, from the customer side.

(10:07):
And you'redefinitely not the boss of your customer.
So how do you handle that? Right?
The way I've seen things.
Then when you don'thave the right technology,
the team member is always worrying about,like the project manager
or the person assuming that role forthe project is worried about,

(10:28):
hey, I just asked the customer about thisyesterday.
Is it okayfor me to ask about it again today,
or should I give it a couple of days?
Even for an internal team member, I.
Hey, the last time I asked about it,they said they'll get back in a week.
Should I follow up midweek? About.
Hey, are we on track still or is it goingto get too annoying if I keep doing this?

(10:49):
So there are these soft softwareaspects, right?
And, you know, there's a gentleman,
one of my customers once asked me,how does the project get delayed?
And the answer to that was, you know,
I came up with various reasons, like,why does the project get delayed?

(11:11):
Here are like ten reasonswhy a project gets delayed. And
he said, hey, you know, the question was,how does a project get delayed?
And the answer is one day at a time.
So his input was that
every day matters, right?
And you need to get really tighton your execution

(11:32):
for you to actually deliver on time.
You're not going to manage to keepa project on track if you don't have that
tight governance aroundhow things are happening.
And I think the right toolcan actually help you with that governance
and automation around the governanceso that it's not down to,
hey, I have this hero project manager herewho does a great job

(11:55):
every single time and is on top of thingsand knows
when to follow up,but it's more system driven.
So can we move from herodriven to system driven?
I think that's the responsibilityof a great client.
Facing project delivery to a great PSAwill throw risks at using hey,
this project has a schedulerisk, a scope risk, a budget risk, etc.

(12:15):
so that you get ahead of the problems.
I think
that is such an important point,and I think on remote teams,
because you can't just poke your head oversomebody's cube when there's a problem.
I think that it's really importantto remember that
systems are replicableand heroes seldom are.

(12:37):
It's way easier to build a good system
that people can plug into than it is
to try to create a whole bunchof great project managers.
Absolutely.
And I think, you know,
it's not just for internalwhen you're working with the customer.
It's also about, do you have a sense of

(13:01):
what's what's going on in the customer'smind in a remote world?
You see them on zoom for like one hourevery alternate day maybe,
and you don't necessarily.
You're paying attentionto what you're presenting
and how someone reacted to that.
You're not necessarily gaugingwhat else is running on their mind,
and very often, you know,you think things are going great.

(13:23):
And then there is an escalationfrom the customer.
And by the time that escalation comesin, it's too late to recover from that.
There's there's so muchthat has built up in the customer's
mind aroundwhat's working, what's not working,
why this partnership is good or notgood anymore.
And that's led to that escalation.
Whereas if you have

(13:44):
a great system, the system should capturealong the journey.
What's the sentiment of the customer aswell and help you get ahead of a problem
the first time you have a three starrating for like a workshop or a training
or something else you did withthe customer, is a great opportunity
for your leaderto connect with them, saying, hey,

(14:04):
what could have made thisa five star experience?
And, you know, turn things aroundif you have
if you don't know aboutlike if it's a one star experience,
you hear about it because there's someoneshouting at you already.
Yeah, but if it's multiple three star.
About it very quickly
and then actually,

(14:25):
I think is a pointwhether you're using project
management softwareor not on remote teams,
I think it's really criticalthat there are the big check ins, right?
The the meetings, the conversations.
But there's also this constant feedbackloop of the ability to check

(14:46):
in, the ability to just check a numberrather than call a meeting.
The, you know, that informationneeds to be flowing
both ways all the time.
And that's just true of remotework, right?
If you wait until there's a big challenge,
it's very often too late or

(15:07):
it's createdway more drama than it needs to.
Let me ask you this.
We're going to switch gearsjust a bit as the guy running the company,
right, has the CEO.
And I know
that justbecause people make a certain software
or have a certain expertise, doesn't meanthey always execute perfectly.

(15:29):
So what are the things that you wish
your team did better?
And how do you handle it?
Because you're sitting in Lehigh Utah,and they're not.
Yeah.
So we actually have,
team members globally now,of course, as you would expect.

(15:51):
And I think the way
we've thought about this is
we look at itfrom the customer's perspective.
What is the journey
that a customer is going through with uswhen you are executing on a project?
So our projects, for example, arewe are delivering like we are implementing
our own software as a projectand it is project management software.

(16:13):
Of course, that's it's sort of aI think question over there. But
but weare implementing using our own software.
So we need to come across as the experts.
We need to beone of the best customers of our own.
Software is not the best.
And we learn from our customersall the time.
But we sort of engineered a lot of thingsto get this right.

(16:36):
I would say it startsat making a great first impression
and setting expectations right very early.
So that kickoff meeting,
even right from kickoff and kickoff,I think there's a lot of effort
that's gone into perfectingwhat needs to happen over there.
How do we help customerssee us as experts early on?

(16:57):
How do we help create a few teachingmoments, even from the kickoff meeting
where the customer walks awayfrom that meeting thinking,
hey, I learned something todayfrom the Rocket Lab team
that I can put in usein my projects with my customers.
It's also about, you know,
getting their permission for, hey,we're going to be intense in this project.

(17:19):
That's our style.
Are you okay with that?
So one of the questionswe ask in the kickoff meeting is
what should we do if your team is not
reactingor responding to what we need on time
and with the exec sponsoron the other side,
usually they're going to say, hey,if there's a day of delay on your site,

(17:39):
suffice it to me, I'm
happy to figure out like how to solve thisand move things forward.
But I want to hear earlybecause the exec wants to hear early
and we are thinking about, hey, Will, will
we be throwing someone under the bus,should we escalate or not, etc.
but now you have the
permission from the leader saying, hey,here's the way you're going to operate,
here's what's going to happen every week.

(18:00):
So that's
those are some thingsthat we've done early in the journey
and then throughout the journey,if it's a large project, as you said,
there's like a steering committee meetingthat happens.
But for smaller projects,
we have a set that goes out automaticallyfor every deliverable along the way.
So you catch sentiment problems early.
You also catch like a critical milestone,slipping early.

(18:24):
Yeah.
I want those of you who are listeningwho are not necessarily project managers.
I don't want what Sri just said to slideby because
it's something not enough people ask,
which is you're talking to your customer,you're talking to your stakeholder,
and you want to say, hey,everything's going to be great.

(18:45):
And here's what we're going to do.
But pointing out if there is a problem,
how do you want to handle it as quicklyas you can?
And getting agreementon what that is prevents so much drama.
And and Shree,thank you, because I haven't heard anybody
actually put that into the process.

(19:09):
And I think that's really important.
We are running out of time.
Sri, what is the one thing
that you want to leave with the folkswho are listening?
We will have links to Rocketlane.
We will have links to the demo.
We will have links to Sri in our shownotes, but, Sri,

(19:32):
what's one piece of brilliancethat you want to leave our listeners
with?
I'll say two things, if that's fine.
One is. Oh, fine.I would say just remember that.
I would say one thing for
any project team to rememberis if you're working

(19:53):
with the customer on a project,the ball is always in your court.
You may believe thatit's in the customer's code, but
you still need to internalizethat it's still on you
to hold them accountableand make things happen
because you don't want fingerpointing later.
The exact on the customer side, you know,trusted you to deliver as a team,

(20:14):
and that includesmaking their team do work on time.
So that's one second I would say is
pay attention to what's happeningin the last year and a half around AI,
because it's going to change a lotin this space.
You need to, if you're likein your budgeting season budget for
I need to do someAI experiments to to figure out

(20:36):
how to make my team more efficient,to get more, you know, high quality,
work, focus on
our team versus like the mundane tasksthat people are doing, etc..
Right.
So I think very important for us
to actively be experimenting with newAI tools in this space
and to ensure that we are getting aheadof the game and equipping ourselves

(20:58):
and our teams to to embracewhat's coming our way.
Without going down the rabbit hole.
Because, boy, that's a big rabbit hole.
What is one thing that you thinkAI is going to change
about the way rocket land works?
We already have a bunch of thingsthat have come in

(21:20):
that use AI to make our teams, the teamsthat use rocket, land more productive,
but I feel the biggest thing is, again,
the systemidentifying opportunities, risks,
you know, things to surface for
at a county level, not just one project,
but you're running multiple projectswith customers across a project.

(21:41):
You're playing on different callsand emails and so on.
How do we identify
risks?
Early problems early surfacednot letting it
to be something that someone needsto raise their hand and say, I need help,
but instead the system saying,hey, pay attention.
This project.
Someone needs to look at what's happeningover here so that

(22:02):
a leader can help resolve thingsbefore something goes south.
So catch it while it goes sideways,not after.
Yeah.
So it's surfacing things proactively.
Yeah, that's very cool.
Thank you I appreciate that.
I am going to excuse me for just a moment
while I tell you that, youknow, leadership is an important part,

(22:25):
whether it's project leadershipor traditional leadership.
Kevin Eikenberry in my new book,The Long Distance Leader
Revised Rules for RemarkableRemote and Hybrid Leadership,
that is the second editionupdated for 2024.
You can find out more about that at longdistance.

(22:46):
Kevin eikenberry.com/ldl
or long distance work life.com/ldl.
And the book is now available on audible.
If you enjoyed the
show, please like subscribe,listen to past episodes.
If you have an idea for, topicsfor guests,

(23:07):
if you have comments, questions,vicious personal attacks,
you can contact us directly Wayne at Kevineikenberry.com
Marissa at Kevin I can barrie.comor through LinkedIn for either of us
or the long distance work life page.
You know what?
The world is changing so fast,and that's why we're here.

(23:30):
As I said, we will have links to Straightto Rocketlane.
You can learn more about the software,on our show notes.
Long distance work life.com.
That's it for another week.
I'll be back with Marissa.
Marissa.
Next week we will be having a really funconversation.
You want to check that out?

(23:50):
And in the meantime,my name is Wayne Turmel.
Don't let the weasels get you down.