February 27, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode:
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dave Westgarth, a delivery manager based in the northeast of England, where we explore the art of project management mastery. From his rich experience in technology projects to his deep understanding of Agile and Lean principles, Dave shares insights that are crucial for anyone looking to elevate their project management skills.
We discuss the transformative power of Agile retrospectives—how they are not merely a requirement, but rather an opportunity for teams to enhance their collaboration, reflect on successes, and address challenges. Through engaging dialogues, we unpack the myriad of techniques that can invigorate these sessions, ensuring they remain impactful rather than routine.
Moreover, Dave reveals how Lean methodologies serve as the backbone of many Agile strategies, enhancing the efficiency of project delivery and enabling managers to streamline processes for maximum value. His passion for these frameworks is palpable, inspiring listeners to consider how these principles could reshape their own projects.
Communication emerges as another critical theme throughout our discussion, with Dave emphasizing its pivotal role in project success. By understanding diverse communication styles within their teams, project managers can tailor their approaches for better outcomes.
This episode resonates with the principles of community, as we reflect on the importance of learning from peers in the project management realm. We invite you to discover these powerful insights that can redefine your perception of project management. Don’t forget to subscribe for more episodes filled with valuable knowledge and tools that can help project managers thrive.
Links:
- Connect with Dave on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-westgarth/
- Check out Dave's PURE course here: https://www.puremanagementalliance.com/#6758602971391
- Linktree: www.linktr.ee/davewestgarth
PM-Mastery Links:
- For a full podcast episode list, visit here: PM-Mastery Podcast Episodes.
- For a full list of blog posts, go here: PM-Mastery Blog Posts
- Become a PURE PM: https://pm-mastery.com/pure
- Check out Instructing.com for all your PM course needs: https://www.instructing.com/?ref=bd5e5c
- Get your free PDU Tracker here: https://pm-mastery.com/resource_links/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro/Outro (00:12):
Welcome to the PM Mastery Podcast.
This podcast is all abouthelping you master your project
management skills by sharingtips, tricks, tools and training
to get you to the next level,while sharing the stories of
other project managers on theirjourney in project management.
And now here's your host, waltSparling.
Walt Sparling (00:36):
Okay, welcome everybody to the current edition
of PM Mastery, and today I havewith me Dave Westgarth.
Welcome.
Dave Westgarth (00:43):
Hey, walt, thanks a lot for having me along
with me, dave Westgarth,welcome.
Walt Sparling (00:47):
Hey, walt, thanks a lot for having me along.
It's good to have you on.
We're going to talk a littlebit about who you are, what you
do, and then we're going to diveinto a little program that
we've all been working onrecently and dive into the
details of that.
So let's start out a little bitlike where are you from?
I'm kind of thinking you're upsomewhere.
Dave Westgarth (01:07):
Bit of a giveaway.
Yeah, so I'm based in thenortheast of England.
I'm in a city called Sunderland, which is the best city in the
region, but the biggest isNewcastle.
That's the one probably most ofyou listeners have heard of.
Okay, and I work at the momentas a delivery manager, which
sort of straddles a lot ofdifferent strands of delivery,
(01:33):
and the way that me and you metwas through the pure project
management program that we'reworking on together, which has
been great for me to get into.
Through.
More guys like you really roundout my experience and hear from
guys on the other side of thepond in different industries and
different teams, differentorganizations, so really a bit
of an accelerator for me, sothat's been a pleasure as well.
Walt Sparling (01:49):
Great now, you had mentioned earlier, when we
were talking, that you were.
You were either finished with aproject, so you're in between
right now and now.
Dave Westgarth (01:57):
People are just throwing everything at you to
keep you busy yeah, so I work ina consultancy in the uk and
I've recently closed a projectthat I was part of.
It was a a pretty short andpunchy discovery style project,
and now we're just waiting inthe wings for that to come to
fruition, to move to a fulldelivery um, and in the meantime
I'm on what's affectionatelyknown as the bench in
(02:19):
consultancy um, and now I'mworking on lots of internal
initiatives to a keep me busyand B drive some more value into
the business while I've got abit more time on my hands.
Walt Sparling (02:29):
So what is it that you deliver?
Dave Westgarth (02:32):
when you say delivery, so typically I work on
technology projects.
Typically it will be softwaresolutions, products or services.
For example, the last project Iwas part of that discovery that
I mentioned we were looking atdoing a data mining project.
We were working with anorganization that had data
assets spread all throughout theorganization that they were
(02:52):
looking to consolidate intosomething sensible like a
database and then put somequeries, requests and mine out
some insights from that, whichis a fairly typical one for
organizations looking to havethat data transformation.
But we do everything.
Our specialities are mainlyaround cloud, ai and data.
So a couple of other projectsI've worked on we did a cloud
(03:17):
transition for a gaming andgambling company, moving them
from one provider to another sothey could remain competitive
and crack into the Americanmarket, as they're quite big in
Europe but looking to expand thehorizons in America and the one
before that we did a dataplatform for a third sector or
charity client and we weaved inall sorts of different data sort
(03:40):
of assets, visualizations andinsights, but we also embedded
AI-powered features in there tohelp them drive out things like
actionable insights.
So what can we do to makethings better?
What can we do to improve ourways of working.
How can we improve the moraleof the staff?
And that was really exciting.
That was around the time thatChatGPT really popped, so
getting to work with the latestand greatest and try and figure
(04:01):
out how we made somethingprofitable was a really
interesting challenge as well.
So, yeah, apologies, I feltlike I've shellacked you with a
lot there, but there's there'squite a lot of variance in
consultancy, which is, yeah, adouble-edged sword.
Walt Sparling (04:15):
Now, you had mentioned that we we met through
the pure program and, uh,actually over the last few weeks
, uh, we've had various folks onhere, different instructors.
Now you taught two courses forthat program, correct?
Dave Westgarth (04:31):
I did indeed.
Yeah, the first one wasmastering Agile retrospectives,
and retrospectives are somethingthat's very close to my heart.
It was something I posted aboutwhen I first started out on
LinkedIn how to drive effectiveretrospective sessions, how to
embed them as a continuousimprovement habit.
And my second course was aroundlean, lean thinking and lean
(04:53):
delivery, and in Agile a lot ofcommon roots can be traced back
to lean.
It's sort of a grandfather forall sorts of different Agile
approaches, practices andstrategies.
So going back to the root onthat and highlighting how much
value is there was reallyexciting for me personally and
I'm really excited to share thatwith other people who take on
(05:15):
the course.
Walt Sparling (05:16):
So I'm actually taking your retrospective course
right now.
It's about three hours long.
I've been sneaking it in duringlunch trying to get through it
over the last week.
I'll probably finish it uptomorrow, but for someone who
doesn't work in Agile all thetime, it is something I think
I've heard of in the past butnever really understood anything
(05:38):
about it.
Now, going through your course,I'm like, oh okay, yeah, this
is, yeah, this is a lot of stuff, a lot of ways to do, do the
work and, um, I'm trying toremember some of the terminology
that is totally new, that I'venever heard before.
So it's been good.
And the lean, that's going tobe an interesting one.
(05:59):
I might do that one after Ifinish this so I can kind of
keep on the same path.
I'm trying to group all theclasses that are similar.
Dave Westgarth (06:08):
Oh, nice, nice.
And the retrospectives one Ithink will be great and I'd love
to get your views because wewere talking briefly before we
started around how you work in avery different wrinkle of
project management than I do andI think the collision of sort
of my spin on retrospectives andthen understanding how you can
apply that in your context andin your wrinkle would be really
(06:29):
interesting to me, because I'vegot no doubt there'll be some
stuff in there that's good anduseful, but I've also got no
doubt there'll be stuff in therethat you either can't do, isn't
feasible to do, or justwouldn't be useful in your
context.
Walt Sparling (06:40):
So that would be really helpful for me to
understand as well yeah, I think, uh, looking back, I mean
that's a common thing, like yousaid.
Lesson learned I believe indoing lessons learned, but I
believe in doing them throughoutthe project, not at the end.
Uh, because I think you, you,you gain more, you share more if
you do it throughout theproject.
But, uh, that is similar inthat regards, I'm trying to
(07:02):
think of some of those, a lot ofthe uh items that you cover in
there.
They're very structured, butthey're very.
There's a lot of ways.
There's not any one way to doit, and that is what's
interesting and that's what I'mthinking.
When I take the quiz, I'm likeboy.
I hope I can remember all thosedifferent ones.
Dave Westgarth (07:24):
Yeah, and I suppose that's the.
This is one of my sort of hottakes on retrospectives.
A lot of people sort of rolltheir eyes, especially at the
themed retrospectives.
I don't know if you've gottenthat section yet, but we can dig
into that a little more.
But I'm a very firm believer inretrospective sessions.
If we ask the same questionsfor long enough, eventually
we'll just start getting thesame answers back and it's very
(07:45):
easy for complacency to creepinto those sessions and then the
value that you're trying tocapture quickly slips away.
I think by having a catalog ora list of retrospective
techniques, formats andtemplates to pick from, you
really maximize your chances ofcapturing the value.
And the overarching purpose ofthe retrospective is to find
(08:07):
ways to increase quality andeffectiveness.
We're not going to be able todo that if we keep hammering the
team with the same three orfour questions every two to
three weeks.
So I'm a big advocate forkeeping things fresh and moving
it along where you can.
Walt Sparling (08:20):
That was one of the things I thought was
interesting when you explainedthat in there and it was like,
yeah, I like it's easy to dochecklist and I'm a fan of
checklist, but to your pointit's, if it's just the same
thing over and over and overagain, does it become a check
the box exercise as thechecklist?
Dave Westgarth (08:43):
yeah, and one of the sort of common challenges I
get on the themed retrospectivefront is a lot of a lot of
practitioners just don't likethemed retrospectives, and I
fully accept that they're noteveryone's cup of tea.
Not everyone's going to likedoing a themed retrospective,
and the often criticism or theoften challenge that I get back
is I prefer when we do aretrospective and everyone comes
(09:04):
and discusses in an engagingway, and I sort of have to bite
my tongue because I think well,of course I would like that as
well, but people don't comeengaged to these sessions
because we want them to.
We need to coax them into itand coach them through the
session to drive that engagementthrough.
Engagement doesn't just happenbecause we ask for it, and I
think that that's the real sortof thing I'm trying to drive at
(09:27):
in the session.
With the variety that you'vetouched on, there's more than
one way to skin the cat anddrive that value through.
Walt Sparling (09:34):
How did you get actually involved in Pure?
Because I think I don't think Iactually started following you
until after the Pure program andI mean I follow a lot of PM
professionals but you were, andthere's a couple of people that
I've been introduced through theprogram and that's.
The pm community is huge.
(09:55):
So you know, it's like I I knowa bunch, but then when you,
when that peer program came up,I started.
Now I found out about morepeople, so now I've got a lot
more people I follow.
How did you get involved?
Dave Westgarth (10:08):
yeah, I can just imagine they're now looking at
the screen thinking who's thisdodgy character from the
northeast of england who's creptas we into this group, um?
But yeah, I suppose the thefirst way I met joe, who's sort
of the, the head of pure the ceo, joseph phillips.
I took his capm course when Iwas very new to the industry and
(10:29):
that was the firstcertification I ever took, um
and that introduced me to joe.
I then went through his psm1course that I know that you're
going through as we speak aswell.
So big thumbs up for that oneum.
And then just recently I'vedone his pmp as well, but by
being part of joe's communityand mailing list.
I got an email, I think it was,that came through with sort of a
(10:52):
request for collaborators onthis and I I had a course that
I'd already done onretrospectives that I'd
delivered live typically, and Ithought this sounds like a good
idea to sort of replatform thisand get more people exposed to
what I think are some fairlygood ideas on retrospectives.
So I filled the email back outand said, okay, I've got this
course.
This is roughly what it's donebefore.
(11:13):
These are the topics I sort oftouch on.
Does this feel like a good fit?
Um, and thankfully joe andamanda came back and said yes,
and I was.
I was actually really pleasedat that because I I was a little
hesitant to do it because Ithought, sitting on the
outskirts of the pm community atlarge, I'm more sort of in the
agile and the scrum spaces.
I didn't know whether thatcould be perceived as a barrier
(11:36):
or maybe perceived as a bit of aI don't know a splitting of a
splitting of the community or asplitting of the interest or a
splitting of the goals of the ofthe program.
But I one of my sort of guidingmantras, on retrospectives
especially, is if you're atraditional project manager
working in a traditionalenvironment, the number one
agile practice you can embed toimprove your effectiveness is
(11:58):
regular retrospectives, and I'mreally glad I've got the chance
to sort of bring that into aPM-focused area like Pure, which
has been great for me.
Walt Sparling (12:08):
Awesome.
Yeah, I'm looking forward tofinishing that up and definitely
it's opened my eyes to an areathat I have not been involved in
the other course that you'redoing on Lean.
Now, I know that there's a fewpeople that have done a couple
courses and that one was thatjust a.
(12:30):
Was Joe like hey, hey, do youhave any other cool courses?
Dave Westgarth (12:35):
or yeah, yeah.
So I got the retrospective onein and, um, I was asked are
there any others that I wouldlike to do or any other ideas
that I've got?
And then we bounced a couple ofemails back and forth and joe
actually suggested would youlike to do something around lean
and lean thinking?
And I thought you know Ihaven't looked at lean for a
while.
That would be good for mydevelopment personally as well,
(12:57):
and I'm I'm really glad I did,because lean.
I think even when you firstlearn about lean, you are
impressed by it.
But when you go back to it withmore experience and more
projects under your belt, youhave an even deeper appreciation
for the sort of value that's onoffer to you through lean, lean
thinking and lean delivery.
So I was really pleasedpersonally that I did it and I
(13:18):
was really pleased that I wasable to sort of illustrate, I
hope, that lean is sort of thecommon root of a lot of things
that you'll have seen in projectmanagement, that you'll have
seen in agile delivery, thatyou'll have seen in project
management, that you'll haveseen in agile delivery, that
you'll have seen in kanbansetups, that you'll have seen in
scrum setups and a lot of thesort of core principles and
mantras can be traced back tothose lean roots and I'm hoping
(13:43):
people that run through thislean course will sort of see
that and understand sort of the,as I think we we touched on it
as being sort of a grandfatherto these other approaches and I
really do believe that, which isnice.
And another one of my sort ofrevelations as I was doing this
course was if we just take leanand a bit of an understanding on
theory of constraints, I thinkwith those two areas you've got
(14:06):
basically everything you need tobe a truly effective project or
delivery professional, which is, I think, nice.
When you look around now andsee the number of frameworks
that come out every couple ofyears now, I think it's nice to
have something where you thinkwell, if I understand these two
in some detail, I'm largelygoing to get the job done, which
is really nice.
Walt Sparling (14:26):
Now you're doing the two and I know you've taken
some of them.
What is your impression of thecourses that you've taken so far
?
Dave Westgarth (14:35):
I like them.
It's great for me becausethere's a lot of people in
different organizations,different industries and
different wrinkles of projectmanagement who are coming at
this from an angle that eitherI've disregarded because I'm
focused on other things, orthings I would just never have
thought of because it's nevergoing to come into my purview.
(14:57):
So some of the ones I've doneyour communication, one with
Drew I've really enjoyed a lotof it I've sort of touched on
before, but maybe not to thelevel of depth that you guys
have gone to, and a lot of it'sgiven me different things to
think about that I can try andweave into my approach.
But also project managerswho've sort of touched on other
things around adaptive ways ofworking.
(15:19):
So Brooks, for example, hasdone the Adaptive Ways of
Working course and while a lotof that was quite familiar to me
, again it was good tounderstand how Clint, as a
practitioner, leverages hisindividual skills and experience
to sort of complement theadaptive ways of working that
he's trying to embed in histeams.
So I think across the board thething I've really liked is the
(15:40):
personality and the creativityand the style of each instructor
comes through.
It doesn't feel like a staticcourse teaching a core syllabus
which I think is really nicecourse teaching a core syllabus,
which I think is really nice.
Walt Sparling (15:55):
Yeah, it's quite a diverse group and quite a
diverse set of courses.
So, yeah, I'm enjoying it.
Dave Westgarth (16:03):
One of my original sort of project
management coaches.
He had this sort of catchphrase, which was you'll take what
your house gives you.
And what he meant by that waswas it's no good for you to try
and manage projects in the waythat I manage them, because I've
got 20 years experience to leanon that you don't have.
What you need to do is takeyour personality, skills,
(16:24):
communication, style and applythem in a way that allows you to
get the job done, and I thinkthat that sort of
personalization, that creativityand that pragmatic approach
that everyone has slightlydifferent slants on really comes
through on these courses.
So I'm I'm confident.
For example, say, you take mycourse and you think I don't
know what I'm talking about.
The nice thing is you've gotmore than 20 other instructors
(16:46):
and one of them will be able tospeak to you in your style, so
that's another really nice bonus, I think.
Walt Sparling (16:52):
Yeah and there's a lot of uh cross work in the
courses, like, uh, thecommunication.
There's like three differentpeople that are doing something
involved in communication.
Either it's heavier involved on, like melissa's, heavier on the
stakeholder side, um, I believeuh, there's one that I haven't
taken, but I know of that getsin more into the soft skills
(17:17):
which ultimately helps you withyour communication.
So there's a lot of the coursesthat have complimentary
material in them.
Dave Westgarth (17:26):
Yeah, I said the same to Brooke because our
courses, there's a lot ofparallels there.
But even though we are talkingabout the same to brooks,
because our courses, there's alot of, um, a lot of parallels
there, but even though we aretalking about the same thing,
the content is is different,which is nice, and it's the same
.
On the communication ones havedone like, um, I think even
tanya's course touches oncommunications in some ways, but
she's thinking very sort ofhoned in on risk communications,
(17:49):
communicating, riskcommunicating yep, exactly, yeah
, exactly, so that's.
It's really nice to think you'renot going to get on risk
communications, communicatingrisk, communicating trade-offs
Yep, exactly, yeah, exactly.
So it's really nice to thinkyou're not going to get the same
risk management, you're notgoing to get the same
retrospective, you're not goingto get the same communications
lessons from every instructor.
You'll get what they think isuseful.
Walt Sparling (18:06):
Right, and then you put them together and, like
you said, choose what works bestfor you.
Dave Westgarth (18:12):
But understand that a lot of the similarities
are there for a reason becausethey work yeah, it's funny you
pick up communication becauseI've heard communication is
quite important for projectmanagers.
I don't know what you think,but I've heard it's important
yeah I think it's pretty high upthere in a percentage.
Walt Sparling (18:31):
Well, I appreciate you coming on.
I know it took a few weeks toget this worked out Everybody's
schedule is a little crazy butit was good chatting with you
After taking your course.
This was the first time I'veactually got to have a
conversation with you, so thiswas good.
Dave Westgarth (18:46):
Yeah, and I feel , before we wrap it up, I should
probably apologize for myaccent.
I'm a victim of circumstance.
I wouldn't have chosen thisaccent if I had the choice.
So apologies to your listenersand I hope that you can roughly
understand what I'm saying.
Walt Sparling (18:59):
I'm an accent guy .
It breaks things up.
I think it's great.
Dave Westgarth (19:04):
Yeah, there's a lot of the southern accents
within the team that I reallyenjoy.
Those are really cool.
Walt Sparling (19:09):
Yep, yeah, accents are great.
It does.
It adds a little mystique.
We actually on my last team Ihad a pm that was uh, from the
uk and of course, on my podcastI have the intro, and outro is a
female from the uk and when shewas on meetings and she'd be
(19:33):
running meetings, I'm like youknow, everyone would just just
listen and they just loved hervoice, you know.
And then they would say is thatthe same?
Is she the one that does yourintro on your podcast?
Dave Westgarth (19:44):
And I'm like no completely different.
Walt Sparling (19:46):
That was a voice artist I hired, but it was, uh,
it's interesting and it's likethey would just, no matter what,
did you get get all theinformation.
Yeah, it's like I just love thevoice.
Dave Westgarth (19:59):
Where was she from?
Do you know what the accent was?
Walt Sparling (20:05):
Oh, no, no, I'll have to ask her, and I am you.
Intro/Outro (20:10):
Yeah.
Dave Westgarth (20:11):
I would volunteer to do your intros and
outros, but I don't think itwould do any good for the
listeners of your podcast.
Walt Sparling (20:15):
I don't think it would be the same.
Dave Westgarth (20:17):
I don't think it would be the same.
Yeah, there might be a slightdip in the listenership, who
knows?
Walt Sparling (20:22):
Maybe I'll get you to come in and do some kind
of advertising in the middle ofit.
Just add a little interest.
Dave Westgarth (20:31):
Yeah, absolutely .
Walt Sparling (20:32):
All right, Dave, I appreciate you coming on and I
hope we'll have maybe some moreconversations in the future.
Dave Westgarth (20:38):
Yeah, thanks for having me on Pleasure to join
you.
Thanks.
Walt Sparling (20:40):
All right and for everyone else, we'll see you on
the next episode of PM Mastery.
Intro/Outro (20:44):
Thanks for listening to the PM Mastery
podcast at wwwpm-masterycom.
Be sure to subscribe in yourpodcast player.
Until next time, keep workingon your craft.
Welcome to the PM Mastery Podcast.
This podcast is all abouthelping you master your project
management skills by sharingtips, tricks, tools and training
to get you to the next level,while sharing the stories of
other project managers on theirjourney in project management.
And now here's your host, waltSparling.
Walt Sparling (00:36):
Okay, welcome everybody to the current edition
of PM Mastery, and today I havewith me Dave Westgarth.
Welcome.
Dave Westgarth (00:43):
Hey, walt, thanks a lot for having me along
with me, dave Westgarth,welcome.
Walt Sparling (00:47):
Hey, walt, thanks a lot for having me along.
It's good to have you on.
We're going to talk a littlebit about who you are, what you
do, and then we're going to diveinto a little program that
we've all been working onrecently and dive into the
details of that.
So let's start out a little bitlike where are you from?
I'm kind of thinking you're upsomewhere.
Dave Westgarth (01:07):
Bit of a giveaway.
Yeah, so I'm based in thenortheast of England.
I'm in a city called Sunderland, which is the best city in the
region, but the biggest isNewcastle.
That's the one probably most ofyou listeners have heard of.
Okay, and I work at the momentas a delivery manager, which
sort of straddles a lot ofdifferent strands of delivery,
(01:33):
and the way that me and you metwas through the pure project
management program that we'reworking on together, which has
been great for me to get into.
Through.
More guys like you really roundout my experience and hear from
guys on the other side of thepond in different industries and
different teams, differentorganizations, so really a bit
of an accelerator for me, sothat's been a pleasure as well.
Walt Sparling (01:49):
Great now, you had mentioned earlier, when we
were talking, that you were.
You were either finished with aproject, so you're in between
right now and now.
Dave Westgarth (01:57):
People are just throwing everything at you to
keep you busy yeah, so I work ina consultancy in the uk and
I've recently closed a projectthat I was part of.
It was a a pretty short andpunchy discovery style project,
and now we're just waiting inthe wings for that to come to
fruition, to move to a fulldelivery um, and in the meantime
I'm on what's affectionatelyknown as the bench in
(02:19):
consultancy um, and now I'mworking on lots of internal
initiatives to a keep me busyand B drive some more value into
the business while I've got abit more time on my hands.
Walt Sparling (02:29):
So what is it that you deliver?
Dave Westgarth (02:32):
when you say delivery, so typically I work on
technology projects.
Typically it will be softwaresolutions, products or services.
For example, the last project Iwas part of that discovery that
I mentioned we were looking atdoing a data mining project.
We were working with anorganization that had data
assets spread all throughout theorganization that they were
(02:52):
looking to consolidate intosomething sensible like a
database and then put somequeries, requests and mine out
some insights from that, whichis a fairly typical one for
organizations looking to havethat data transformation.
But we do everything.
Our specialities are mainlyaround cloud, ai and data.
So a couple of other projectsI've worked on we did a cloud
(03:17):
transition for a gaming andgambling company, moving them
from one provider to another sothey could remain competitive
and crack into the Americanmarket, as they're quite big in
Europe but looking to expand thehorizons in America and the one
before that we did a dataplatform for a third sector or
charity client and we weaved inall sorts of different data sort
(03:40):
of assets, visualizations andinsights, but we also embedded
AI-powered features in there tohelp them drive out things like
actionable insights.
So what can we do to makethings better?
What can we do to improve ourways of working.
How can we improve the moraleof the staff?
And that was really exciting.
That was around the time thatChatGPT really popped, so
getting to work with the latestand greatest and try and figure
(04:01):
out how we made somethingprofitable was a really
interesting challenge as well.
So, yeah, apologies, I feltlike I've shellacked you with a
lot there, but there's there'squite a lot of variance in
consultancy, which is, yeah, adouble-edged sword.
Walt Sparling (04:15):
Now, you had mentioned that we we met through
the pure program and, uh,actually over the last few weeks
, uh, we've had various folks onhere, different instructors.
Now you taught two courses forthat program, correct?
Dave Westgarth (04:31):
I did indeed.
Yeah, the first one wasmastering Agile retrospectives,
and retrospectives are somethingthat's very close to my heart.
It was something I posted aboutwhen I first started out on
LinkedIn how to drive effectiveretrospective sessions, how to
embed them as a continuousimprovement habit.
And my second course was aroundlean, lean thinking and lean
(04:53):
delivery, and in Agile a lot ofcommon roots can be traced back
to lean.
It's sort of a grandfather forall sorts of different Agile
approaches, practices andstrategies.
So going back to the root onthat and highlighting how much
value is there was reallyexciting for me personally and
I'm really excited to share thatwith other people who take on
(05:15):
the course.
Walt Sparling (05:16):
So I'm actually taking your retrospective course
right now.
It's about three hours long.
I've been sneaking it in duringlunch trying to get through it
over the last week.
I'll probably finish it uptomorrow, but for someone who
doesn't work in Agile all thetime, it is something I think
I've heard of in the past butnever really understood anything
(05:38):
about it.
Now, going through your course,I'm like, oh okay, yeah, this
is, yeah, this is a lot of stuff, a lot of ways to do, do the
work and, um, I'm trying toremember some of the terminology
that is totally new, that I'venever heard before.
So it's been good.
And the lean, that's going tobe an interesting one.
(05:59):
I might do that one after Ifinish this so I can kind of
keep on the same path.
I'm trying to group all theclasses that are similar.
Dave Westgarth (06:08):
Oh, nice, nice.
And the retrospectives one Ithink will be great and I'd love
to get your views because wewere talking briefly before we
started around how you work in avery different wrinkle of
project management than I do andI think the collision of sort
of my spin on retrospectives andthen understanding how you can
apply that in your context andin your wrinkle would be really
(06:29):
interesting to me, because I'vegot no doubt there'll be some
stuff in there that's good anduseful, but I've also got no
doubt there'll be stuff in therethat you either can't do, isn't
feasible to do, or justwouldn't be useful in your
context.
Walt Sparling (06:40):
So that would be really helpful for me to
understand as well yeah, I think, uh, looking back, I mean
that's a common thing, like yousaid.
Lesson learned I believe indoing lessons learned, but I
believe in doing them throughoutthe project, not at the end.
Uh, because I think you, you,you gain more, you share more if
you do it throughout theproject.
But, uh, that is similar inthat regards, I'm trying to
(07:02):
think of some of those, a lot ofthe uh items that you cover in
there.
They're very structured, butthey're very.
There's a lot of ways.
There's not any one way to doit, and that is what's
interesting and that's what I'mthinking.
When I take the quiz, I'm likeboy.
I hope I can remember all thosedifferent ones.
Dave Westgarth (07:24):
Yeah, and I suppose that's the.
This is one of my sort of hottakes on retrospectives.
A lot of people sort of rolltheir eyes, especially at the
themed retrospectives.
I don't know if you've gottenthat section yet, but we can dig
into that a little more.
But I'm a very firm believer inretrospective sessions.
If we ask the same questionsfor long enough, eventually
we'll just start getting thesame answers back and it's very
(07:45):
easy for complacency to creepinto those sessions and then the
value that you're trying tocapture quickly slips away.
I think by having a catalog ora list of retrospective
techniques, formats andtemplates to pick from, you
really maximize your chances ofcapturing the value.
And the overarching purpose ofthe retrospective is to find
(08:07):
ways to increase quality andeffectiveness.
We're not going to be able todo that if we keep hammering the
team with the same three orfour questions every two to
three weeks.
So I'm a big advocate forkeeping things fresh and moving
it along where you can.
Walt Sparling (08:20):
That was one of the things I thought was
interesting when you explainedthat in there and it was like,
yeah, I like it's easy to dochecklist and I'm a fan of
checklist, but to your pointit's, if it's just the same
thing over and over and overagain, does it become a check
the box exercise as thechecklist?
Dave Westgarth (08:43):
yeah, and one of the sort of common challenges I
get on the themed retrospectivefront is a lot of a lot of
practitioners just don't likethemed retrospectives, and I
fully accept that they're noteveryone's cup of tea.
Not everyone's going to likedoing a themed retrospective,
and the often criticism or theoften challenge that I get back
is I prefer when we do aretrospective and everyone comes
(09:04):
and discusses in an engagingway, and I sort of have to bite
my tongue because I think well,of course I would like that as
well, but people don't comeengaged to these sessions
because we want them to.
We need to coax them into itand coach them through the
session to drive that engagementthrough.
Engagement doesn't just happenbecause we ask for it, and I
think that that's the real sortof thing I'm trying to drive at
(09:27):
in the session.
With the variety that you'vetouched on, there's more than
one way to skin the cat anddrive that value through.
Walt Sparling (09:34):
How did you get actually involved in Pure?
Because I think I don't think Iactually started following you
until after the Pure program andI mean I follow a lot of PM
professionals but you were, andthere's a couple of people that
I've been introduced through theprogram and that's.
The pm community is huge.
(09:55):
So you know, it's like I I knowa bunch, but then when you,
when that peer program came up,I started.
Now I found out about morepeople, so now I've got a lot
more people I follow.
How did you get involved?
Dave Westgarth (10:08):
yeah, I can just imagine they're now looking at
the screen thinking who's thisdodgy character from the
northeast of england who's creptas we into this group, um?
But yeah, I suppose the thefirst way I met joe, who's sort
of the, the head of pure the ceo, joseph phillips.
I took his capm course when Iwas very new to the industry and
(10:29):
that was the firstcertification I ever took, um
and that introduced me to joe.
I then went through his psm1course that I know that you're
going through as we speak aswell.
So big thumbs up for that oneum.
And then just recently I'vedone his pmp as well, but by
being part of joe's communityand mailing list.
I got an email, I think it was,that came through with sort of a
(10:52):
request for collaborators onthis and I I had a course that
I'd already done onretrospectives that I'd
delivered live typically, and Ithought this sounds like a good
idea to sort of replatform thisand get more people exposed to
what I think are some fairlygood ideas on retrospectives.
So I filled the email back outand said, okay, I've got this
course.
This is roughly what it's donebefore.
(11:13):
These are the topics I sort oftouch on.
Does this feel like a good fit?
Um, and thankfully joe andamanda came back and said yes,
and I was.
I was actually really pleasedat that because I I was a little
hesitant to do it because Ithought, sitting on the
outskirts of the pm community atlarge, I'm more sort of in the
agile and the scrum spaces.
I didn't know whether thatcould be perceived as a barrier
(11:36):
or maybe perceived as a bit of aI don't know a splitting of a
splitting of the community or asplitting of the interest or a
splitting of the goals of the ofthe program.
But I one of my sort of guidingmantras, on retrospectives
especially, is if you're atraditional project manager
working in a traditionalenvironment, the number one
agile practice you can embed toimprove your effectiveness is
(11:58):
regular retrospectives, and I'mreally glad I've got the chance
to sort of bring that into aPM-focused area like Pure, which
has been great for me.
Walt Sparling (12:08):
Awesome.
Yeah, I'm looking forward tofinishing that up and definitely
it's opened my eyes to an areathat I have not been involved in
the other course that you'redoing on Lean.
Now, I know that there's a fewpeople that have done a couple
courses and that one was thatjust a.
(12:30):
Was Joe like hey, hey, do youhave any other cool courses?
Dave Westgarth (12:35):
or yeah, yeah.
So I got the retrospective onein and, um, I was asked are
there any others that I wouldlike to do or any other ideas
that I've got?
And then we bounced a couple ofemails back and forth and joe
actually suggested would youlike to do something around lean
and lean thinking?
And I thought you know Ihaven't looked at lean for a
while.
That would be good for mydevelopment personally as well,
(12:57):
and I'm I'm really glad I did,because lean.
I think even when you firstlearn about lean, you are
impressed by it.
But when you go back to it withmore experience and more
projects under your belt, youhave an even deeper appreciation
for the sort of value that's onoffer to you through lean, lean
thinking and lean delivery.
So I was really pleasedpersonally that I did it and I
(13:18):
was really pleased that I wasable to sort of illustrate, I
hope, that lean is sort of thecommon root of a lot of things
that you'll have seen in projectmanagement, that you'll have
seen in agile delivery, thatyou'll have seen in project
management, that you'll haveseen in agile delivery, that
you'll have seen in kanbansetups, that you'll have seen in
scrum setups and a lot of thesort of core principles and
mantras can be traced back tothose lean roots and I'm hoping
(13:43):
people that run through thislean course will sort of see
that and understand sort of the,as I think we we touched on it
as being sort of a grandfatherto these other approaches and I
really do believe that, which isnice.
And another one of my sort ofrevelations as I was doing this
course was if we just take leanand a bit of an understanding on
theory of constraints, I thinkwith those two areas you've got
(14:06):
basically everything you need tobe a truly effective project or
delivery professional, which is, I think, nice.
When you look around now andsee the number of frameworks
that come out every couple ofyears now, I think it's nice to
have something where you thinkwell, if I understand these two
in some detail, I'm largelygoing to get the job done, which
is really nice.
Walt Sparling (14:26):
Now you're doing the two and I know you've taken
some of them.
What is your impression of thecourses that you've taken so far
?
Dave Westgarth (14:35):
I like them.
It's great for me becausethere's a lot of people in
different organizations,different industries and
different wrinkles of projectmanagement who are coming at
this from an angle that eitherI've disregarded because I'm
focused on other things, orthings I would just never have
thought of because it's nevergoing to come into my purview.
(14:57):
So some of the ones I've doneyour communication, one with
Drew I've really enjoyed a lotof it I've sort of touched on
before, but maybe not to thelevel of depth that you guys
have gone to, and a lot of it'sgiven me different things to
think about that I can try andweave into my approach.
But also project managerswho've sort of touched on other
things around adaptive ways ofworking.
(15:19):
So Brooks, for example, hasdone the Adaptive Ways of
Working course and while a lotof that was quite familiar to me
, again it was good tounderstand how Clint, as a
practitioner, leverages hisindividual skills and experience
to sort of complement theadaptive ways of working that
he's trying to embed in histeams.
So I think across the board thething I've really liked is the
(15:40):
personality and the creativityand the style of each instructor
comes through.
It doesn't feel like a staticcourse teaching a core syllabus
which I think is really nicecourse teaching a core syllabus,
which I think is really nice.
Walt Sparling (15:55):
Yeah, it's quite a diverse group and quite a
diverse set of courses.
So, yeah, I'm enjoying it.
Dave Westgarth (16:03):
One of my original sort of project
management coaches.
He had this sort of catchphrase, which was you'll take what
your house gives you.
And what he meant by that waswas it's no good for you to try
and manage projects in the waythat I manage them, because I've
got 20 years experience to leanon that you don't have.
What you need to do is takeyour personality, skills,
(16:24):
communication, style and applythem in a way that allows you to
get the job done, and I thinkthat that sort of
personalization, that creativityand that pragmatic approach
that everyone has slightlydifferent slants on really comes
through on these courses.
So I'm I'm confident.
For example, say, you take mycourse and you think I don't
know what I'm talking about.
The nice thing is you've gotmore than 20 other instructors
(16:46):
and one of them will be able tospeak to you in your style, so
that's another really nice bonus, I think.
Walt Sparling (16:52):
Yeah and there's a lot of uh cross work in the
courses, like, uh, thecommunication.
There's like three differentpeople that are doing something
involved in communication.
Either it's heavier involved on, like melissa's, heavier on the
stakeholder side, um, I believeuh, there's one that I haven't
taken, but I know of that getsin more into the soft skills
(17:17):
which ultimately helps you withyour communication.
So there's a lot of the coursesthat have complimentary
material in them.
Dave Westgarth (17:26):
Yeah, I said the same to Brooke because our
courses, there's a lot ofparallels there.
But even though we are talkingabout the same to brooks,
because our courses, there's alot of, um, a lot of parallels
there, but even though we aretalking about the same thing,
the content is is different,which is nice, and it's the same
.
On the communication ones havedone like, um, I think even
tanya's course touches oncommunications in some ways, but
she's thinking very sort ofhoned in on risk communications,
(17:49):
communicating, riskcommunicating yep, exactly, yeah
, exactly, so that's.
It's really nice to think you'renot going to get on risk
communications, communicatingrisk, communicating trade-offs
Yep, exactly, yeah, exactly.
So it's really nice to thinkyou're not going to get the same
risk management, you're notgoing to get the same
retrospective, you're not goingto get the same communications
lessons from every instructor.
You'll get what they think isuseful.
Walt Sparling (18:06):
Right, and then you put them together and, like
you said, choose what works bestfor you.
Dave Westgarth (18:12):
But understand that a lot of the similarities
are there for a reason becausethey work yeah, it's funny you
pick up communication becauseI've heard communication is
quite important for projectmanagers.
I don't know what you think,but I've heard it's important
yeah I think it's pretty high upthere in a percentage.
Walt Sparling (18:31):
Well, I appreciate you coming on.
I know it took a few weeks toget this worked out Everybody's
schedule is a little crazy butit was good chatting with you
After taking your course.
This was the first time I'veactually got to have a
conversation with you, so thiswas good.
Dave Westgarth (18:46):
Yeah, and I feel , before we wrap it up, I should
probably apologize for myaccent.
I'm a victim of circumstance.
I wouldn't have chosen thisaccent if I had the choice.
So apologies to your listenersand I hope that you can roughly
understand what I'm saying.
Walt Sparling (18:59):
I'm an accent guy .
It breaks things up.
I think it's great.
Dave Westgarth (19:04):
Yeah, there's a lot of the southern accents
within the team that I reallyenjoy.
Those are really cool.
Walt Sparling (19:09):
Yep, yeah, accents are great.
It does.
It adds a little mystique.
We actually on my last team Ihad a pm that was uh, from the
uk and of course, on my podcastI have the intro, and outro is a
female from the uk and when shewas on meetings and she'd be
(19:33):
running meetings, I'm like youknow, everyone would just just
listen and they just loved hervoice, you know.
And then they would say is thatthe same?
Is she the one that does yourintro on your podcast?
Dave Westgarth (19:44):
And I'm like no completely different.
Walt Sparling (19:46):
That was a voice artist I hired, but it was, uh,
it's interesting and it's likethey would just, no matter what,
did you get get all theinformation.
Yeah, it's like I just love thevoice.
Dave Westgarth (19:59):
Where was she from?
Do you know what the accent was?
Walt Sparling (20:05):
Oh, no, no, I'll have to ask her, and I am you.
Intro/Outro (20:10):
Yeah.
Dave Westgarth (20:11):
I would volunteer to do your intros and
outros, but I don't think itwould do any good for the
listeners of your podcast.
Walt Sparling (20:15):
I don't think it would be the same.
Dave Westgarth (20:17):
I don't think it would be the same.
Yeah, there might be a slightdip in the listenership, who
knows?
Walt Sparling (20:22):
Maybe I'll get you to come in and do some kind
of advertising in the middle ofit.
Just add a little interest.
Dave Westgarth (20:31):
Yeah, absolutely .
Walt Sparling (20:32):
All right, Dave, I appreciate you coming on and I
hope we'll have maybe some moreconversations in the future.
Dave Westgarth (20:38):
Yeah, thanks for having me on Pleasure to join
you.
Thanks.
Walt Sparling (20:40):
All right and for everyone else, we'll see you on
the next episode of PM Mastery.
Intro/Outro (20:44):
Thanks for listening to the PM Mastery
podcast at wwwpm-masterycom.
Be sure to subscribe in yourpodcast player.
Until next time, keep workingon your craft.
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