October 21, 2025 • 44 mins
Project delivery leads at agencies and consultancies are being called to do more than just manage timelines and budgets—they’re being tapped to think like business leaders. But how do you actually make that leap from tactical execution to strategic influence? Galen sits down with Mark Orttung (CEO of Projectworks) and Pam Butkowski (SVP of Delivery at Horizontal Digital) to unpack the real shifts in mindset, behaviors, and expectations that define this evolution.
They explore what “thinking like a founder” really means in a delivery context, why hybrid roles are becoming the norm, and how to identify who’s ready to step up. Whether you’re trying to grow your own career or help your team level up, this conversation brings clarity to a path that’s often vague and unspoken.
Resources from this episode:
- Join DPM Membership
- Subscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcasts
- Connect with Pam and Mark on LinkedIn
- Check out Horizontal Digital and Projectworks
- Mark’s podcast: The Z Suite
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Galen Low (00:00):
Why is it so important for small and medium
sized professional servicesfirms to cultivate their top
talent into business leaders?
Mark Orttung (00:07):
There's a lot going on right
now in the market.
I feel like technologychanges weekly or daily.
One of the things we foundwas that for us to succeed,
we really needed theproject manager to become
a trusted partner of ourclient, and that drove a
lot of the new work we got.
Galen Low (00:25):
What signals are leaders looking for when
they're deciding who is readyto step up and what can project
delivery leads do to stand out?
Pam Butkowski (00:32):
The first one is folks who are ready to step
up stop asking "what aboutme?" It's not, what about me?
It's what about us?
The second thing isreading the room.
If business is not great,don't ask for the moon.
Galen Low (00:45):
What is the biggest shift in mindset between being
someone who delivers projectsversus being an executive?
Mark Orttung (00:51):
To me, it's like just a bigger puzzle.
Now you've got multiple projectsand you have leadership who
may or may not be billable,and you have people that are on
the bench who are not billable.
Galen Low (01:01):
How do we avoid generalist traps,
but maintain efficientdifferentiation of labor?
Hey everyone!Welcome to our session on how
project delivery leads can levelup using a founder's mindset.
For those who don'tknow me, I'm Galen.
I'm the co-founder of TheDigital Project Manager, and
(01:23):
I will be your host for today.
This session is all abouthow project delivery leaders,
project managers, projectprofessionals can level up
into more strategic rules.
But first, before I gettoo deep into it, let's
meet our panelists.
First up is Mark Orttung.
Mark is the CEO of Projectworks,and he's helping consultancies
grow profitably through smarterresourcing and delivery.
(01:45):
He previously scaled Nexientinto the largest US based
Agile services partner.
He led Bill.com as President andChief Operating Officer, and he
drove SaaS innovation, honestly,before the term existed.
Mark, speaking of levelingup, you were telling me in
the green room that there'sfolks that you worked with at
Nexient as someone that you hadactually promoted three times.
Can you just talk a little bitabout how she like reset her
(02:07):
mindset through all that change?
Mark Orttung (02:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you for having me andI'm really excited to be here.
I've got a podcast called TheZ Suite and I had a guest,
Vicki Papa, she worked for meat Nexient and we promoted
her from account directorto client partner to general
manager to chief revenue officerover a period of five years.
My favorite quote was, we weretalking about sort of how does
(02:30):
her mindset change and howdo we change the mindset of
clients as she gets new roles?
'cause it's quite difficult.
And my favorite quote was, shesaid, it broke my brain a little
bit every time you promoted me.
But also that's how I knewI was taking on the right
challenges and pushingmyself in the right way.
So there's a whole in depthdiscussion that the people
are welcome to go watch.
(02:51):
But anyway, it wasjust a, it kind of felt
like it fit in as well.
One of the favorite moments I'vehad from our Z Suite podcast.
Galen Low (02:57):
I love that.
Can I first say that I lovethe idea of the Z Suite series?
It's like frank conversationsof how people have like grown
and developed in their careers.
Folks who are like very high up.
And by the way, that likereaction from me, my facial
reaction was genuine.
That's the first timeMark told me that story.
I'm like, wow.
Like up to the C-suite.
We've talked about it,but like we didn't have
any examples of it.
(03:18):
I love that.
Who should I pick out next?
Oh yeah, Pam.
Pam, you are the SeniorVice President of Delivery
at Horizontal Digital, andI have described you as a
tough mutter to dozens ofagency project professionals
who have ascended the ranksunder your guidance fam.
You have a historyof just like leveling
people up over the years.
You are somebody whogets people promoted.
(03:38):
I can say it without yousounding braggadocios, but
it's true, and I've seenit happen over the years.
I was wondering if maybe youcould just tell us a bit about
some of the shifts in mindsetthat you've seen for the folks
that you've been leveling up.
You know, maybe toecho Mark's stories.
Pam Butkowski (03:52):
Yeah.
That question is very timelyand very relevant to what we're
talking about today, right?
10 years ago when I washiring, promoting, mentoring,
managing project managers,it was very focused on
the iron triangle, right?
It was very focused on,here's what I have to deliver.
This is what good lookslike for me by myself,
my slice of the pie.
(04:14):
Now we need our deliveryleaders to understand the
entire pie and be responsiblefor the overall success.
And so we're seeing kind ofa shift in where delivery
professionals are going in thatthey need to care about a lot
more than just their own remit.
Right.
I'm sure Galen, you've probablyheard me say this before, but
I tell my teams it's not yourjob to solve every problem,
(04:36):
but it is your job to make surethat every problem gets solved,
and that remit has expandednot just for project delivery,
but at an organizationallevel now for delivery leads.
Galen Low (04:45):
I love that sort of zoom out, and I like that
it's not necessarily just forproject delivery leads, but
also it's that holistic viewand like we start hearing so
much about it now, it almostbegs the question like, how.
And I know folks under yourleadership and guidance get
the how and hopefully wecan steal some of that fire
today in this conversationbecause I think it's the
how that really matters.
Everyone's like, yeah.
Understand the whole pie.
Pie.
(05:06):
But then it's like thewhole, like how do we
then mobilize that?
How does thatchange our behavior?
How does that, you know,give us better visibility
for our own self?
And how does that helpus advocate for ourselves
within an organization?
Love it.
Love it.
Awesome.
Solid panel.
Let's maybe just dive into it.
Let me sort of tee up theproblem the way I see it, and
then we can we can discuss.
(05:27):
So, here's the way I see it.
Nurturing top performingproject leaders into more
strategic roles isn't alwayslike top of mind, especially
for like small and medium sizedprofessional services firms.
We're talking agencies,consulting firms.
It's kind of like justlike doing the work.
But you know, mostly ifsometimes the only way to
climb the ladder as a projectprofessional project manager is
(05:48):
to work hard, deliver resultsand trash talk that are equally
ambitious colleagues andadvocate for their own growth at
every annual performance review.
These days, leadershipteams need all the strategic
support that they can get,and they all almost certainly
have that unspoken echelonof top performing PMs that
have massive potential tobecome bonafide leaders
within their organization.
(06:09):
The only problem is thatthe path from, say being
a project delivery lead ordepartment head to joining the
management team, or even justplaying a role in strategic
planning is pretty murky.
Typically, there's no courseor like rising stars or top
talent programs at thesemedium sized consulting firms.
It's still kind of like theschool of hard knocks, taking
a chance on someone andspeaking to them in a foreign
(06:31):
language until they understandor maybe don't, but that
doesn't need to be the case.
At least I don't think so.
And frankly, most agenciesand professional consulting
firms need to take action nowto support their businesses.
So today we wantedto explore that path.
From three different angles.
As I mentioned earlier, wewanna be thinking about how can
C-suite executives, like Mark,within professional services
(06:53):
firms benefit from additionalstrategic firepower by, you
know, leveling up their highimpact project professionals.
How can senior leaders play fromthe middle to drive that growth?
And of course, how canambitious project leaders do
more to carve out a path forthemselves so that they can
sit at the strategic table?
I thought maybe I mentionedit in my spiel, but I
think it's worth talkingabout the question of now.
(07:14):
I think in my conversationsthere's always been that whole,
okay, well how can I level up?
How do I progress in my career?
I wanna be more strategic.
I wanna sit at thestrategic planning table.
And from the other side, youknow, a leader saying, okay,
well listen, I wish folkswere more ready to step up.
I wish they would engagemore with the business.
I wish they'd understandhow our business operates.
But there is this sort ofmoment in time and so I thought
(07:36):
I'd just ask the question,why is it so important right
now for small and mediumsized professional services
firms to cultivate their toptalent into business leaders?
And also what doesthat even look like?
Mark Orttung (07:48):
Great question.
There's a lot going onright now in the market.
I feel like technologychanges weekly or daily.
If you're keeping up withall the new tools that are
leveraging AI and how they.
Change what's possible.
So there's just a lot ofnoise and a lot of complexity.
One of the things we foundat Nexient was that for us to
succeed, we really needed theproject manager to become a
(08:10):
trusted partner of our client.
And that drove a lotof the new work we got.
And so we needed our projectleads and account leads to
be both deeply expert indelivery and sort of design
and development of software,but also willing to think like
a salesperson at some level.
So they need to do sort of,and these two things don't
(08:32):
normally go to togetherin the same person, right?
It's usually you haveone skill or the other,
and you almost, you know,allergic to the other one.
So we wanted to get ourbest delivery people into
selling mode and givethem effectively a quota.
So we did that over a periodof many years with them as
they became the senior manageror the account director on
(08:55):
an account, they would startout by finding opportunities
for new things, new projects,and then handing them off to
a client partner who was muchmore comfortable selling.
But over time, we wantedthem to go up that curve and
become comfortable themselves.
Galen Low (09:09):
I really like that.
I'm revisiting my past herebecause I've always been a
hybrid, and yes, it has alwaysbeen smuggle and golum, like two
different perspectives fightingone another in my brain.
What's interesting is I hear alot about going that way, right.
Project delivery leads,project managers being
encouraged to sell.
Have you had it happenin reverse, like account
managers becoming projectmanagers, is that something
(09:31):
that happens would happen?
Or is there something that'sactually a quality of project
managers that sort of lendsitself to being really good
at sales Or vice versa?
Is there actually somequalities of an account
manager that makes them goodproject delivery leads if you
were to sort of hybridize.
Mark Orttung (09:45):
Yeah, I've seen, so one of the things that we
pitched a lot at Nexient wasthis idea of a growth mindset.
That pretty much anyone can doanything if they're willing to
be humble and sort of do all thepractice and learn, and you're
bad in the beginning, but youcan learn pretty much anything.
And so based on that, wehad some peer sales people
come in and say, I wannawrite a statement of work.
(10:07):
I wanna write a proposal, Iwanna think about project scope.
Not because I wanna becomea practitioner, but because
I wanna understand it andI wanna experience it.
And to me, thatwas awesome, right?
They just became so muchbetter at selling because they
wanted to dig into some ofthe project management work.
I loved that.
That kind of surprised meat the time, to be honest.
I've seen a lot ofpractitioners move into selling.
(10:28):
I hadn't seen thatmany salespeople move
into practitioners.
Galen Low (10:32):
I like that tie in of the growth mindset, or as Pam
put it, understanding the wholepie, you know, I think is the
sort of thematic tie in here.
Pam, how about you?
Like I know you and I, we'vetalked a little bit about
hybrid roles over the years.
We've started seeing a trendmore, or at least maybe it's
one of those things where you'relike, you're thinking of buying
a yellow car and suddenly yousee yellow car as everywhere.
I don't know, but are younoticing more hybridization?
(10:55):
Are you noticing a greateremphasis on almost this
like commerciality, thiscommercial understanding
for delivery leads?
Like across the board?
Pam Butkowski (11:04):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think part of it islike control the things you
can control perspective, right?
And so for project leads forfolks in delivery, I know
we're not at the metrics partand spoiler, this one won't be
on there anyway, so I'm justgonna introduce a new one.
Client retention andreducing attrition is one
of the biggest things thatwe can control, right?
Which directly impactsthe bottom line.
(11:26):
Our revenue to Mark's point.
He actually startedgiving revenue targets and
giving delivery leads andproject managers a go get.
The easiest way to do thatis through delivery and
through retaining clientsyear over year, and you
can't do that without agrowth mindset, without some
account management skills.
So yeah, we're absolutelyseeing that kind of more
(11:47):
accountability or responsibilityin revenue targets in growing
the business, in having astake in client retention
and reducing attrition.
We're also seeing when we'retalking about hybrid roles,
not just project management,account management hybrids,
I think that's a piece of, ormaybe a result of some other
roles becoming more hybridlike client partners and
(12:08):
strategists are starting tobe a little bit more hybrid.
We're starting to be a littlebit more nimble in other
areas of the business, whichthen trickles down to project
management needing to be alittle bit more nimble as well.
Right.
So I think there's definitelysome hybrid stuff happening
and just more generalizationaround capabilities regarding
both growth and delivery.
Galen Low (12:27):
Oh, I like that.
I think some project people,PMs specifically, don't
always fully appreciatethat they are, in some ways
the economic engine for aprofessional services firm,
like an agency or consultancy,those projects drive dollars
and those relationshipscontinue to drive dollars.
And so there is that sortof relationship there.
Diana was saying, I'm alsoseeing due to staff reduction,
(12:47):
that PMs are expected tojust become client facing,
to become the account lead.
And I thought maybe I'd getthe two of your perspectives
on that because in some ways.
It does really feel thatway, and maybe it is the
case where it's like,listen, margins are thinner.
We need people doing more.
You know, there's the AIsort of variable here.
It's like, do we needto hire more people or
(13:08):
actually can we just getpeople to do more things?
Is that a driver or is it morepure play in terms of like
that cohesion of delivery?
Probably the true slidesomewhere in between.
Mark, what's yourperspective on that?
Mark Orttung (13:21):
A couple things.
Services firms areso much easier to run
when you're growing.
If you are adding clientsand adding projects, then
there's opportunity foreverybody to get promoted.
There's, you're right.
And if they're flat orshrinking, it's really painful.
All these things come outta thewoodwork that are problematic.
And so for me, the, we kinda,I feel like I stalled this
(13:42):
model from eccentric 'causethat's where I started.
But this idea of accountleads who are practitioners
who get to work so ofthe holy grail happened.
And one of our clients, itwas a large utility, gas and
electric utility, so lots ofmoney, and they got to the
point where they pulled ourproject lead into their annual
budgeting process and they wouldshow us the list of all of the
(14:04):
projects for the next year.
This one's 10 million,this one's 20 million,
this one's 5 million.
And say, what do you think?
Which ones do you wanna bid on?
Can you help us write the RFPs?
Right.
And that to me was like, theydid that, not because she was
such a great salesperson, butbecause she was such a great
practitioner, they trustedher as part of the team.
(14:24):
But if you're selling, I mean,that's like the holy grail.
They're like, here'sthese buckets of money,
which one do you want?
And how do you wanna frame them?
That to me is what you're tryingto do is get the two to come
together in a really good way.
Galen Low (14:35):
I love that.
Pam, you gave it a thisin terms of growth.
Pam Butkowski (14:39):
I did.
Listen, everything iseasier when you're making
noodles of money, right?
But I don't think it'sever a bad thing to have
a project manager ofclient facing skills ever.
When we're talking aboutgrowing our future leaders
and cultivating ourfuture leadership talent,
client facing comes withthat territory, right?
I talk to clients every day.
(15:00):
I don't lead a single account.
And so you have tohave that skillset.
And so I think learning itearly is never a bad thing.
Galen Low (15:07):
I concur and then actually like, you know,
Mark, you're taking me back tothe my Accenture days where,
you know, like walking thehalls is a skill and what
we mean is like go on clientsite and while you're there,
look for opportunities forus to sell more through.
There's two waysto look at that.
There's the icky way, you'relike, oh, you know, I'm
like, I'm a salespersonnow and we need to like
give into capitalisticgreed, which is not untrue.
(15:29):
But also that handon the lever thing.
Right?
And I think a lot of the timeI talk to project managers
who are like, oh, we just getpast the scope of work and
are expected to deliver it.
Like we're never consultantduring sales, you know, of
course it's unrealistic.
They haven't asked usto come to the table.
Well, guess what?
Those two things, those are twopuzzle pieces that fit together,
is if you are, quote unquote,walking the halls or client
(15:49):
facing, A, Pam, to your point,you're like learning those
skills when it's not necessarilyyour job, which by the way is
great because then you're alsonot necessarily measured on
that while you're learning.
But also you have your hand onone of the growth levers, maybe
not the growth lever, right?
You're not choosing whether ornot to give up lease hold space.
You're not choosingwhat the rates are.
You're not necessarily likepicking and choosing, you
(16:10):
know, which staff to keep on.
You have your hand on one ofthe levers that drives revenue,
and then the ideal visionis everyone is like pushing
towards that growth so thatit's like prosperous times.
Because Mark, to your point,like not prosperous times in
professional services is pain.
And I think if you guyswill let me, maybe let's
just use those two lensesbecause I wanted to dive in
(16:32):
Pam to what you're saying.
The skill sets and the signals.
Mark, we've been talking aboutthe growth mindset, and I'll
put a optimistic and slightlypessimistic spin on this,
and what I'm gonna say is.
If you wanna be the one whogets promoted and stays in
a time of relative hardship,not necessarily prosperous
growth, but also from amore positive light, how
(16:56):
can one sort of developtheir career in any climate?
But what I wanted to ask waswhat signals are leaders looking
for when they're decidingwho is ready to step up?
What can project deliveryleads do to stand out, you
know, in prosperous timesor in times of hardship?
You know, maybe you'rein survival mode.
Maybe you're just happygo lucky, growing your
(17:16):
career, that's fine too.
But I think coming back towhat I said originally, like
it's sometimes really gray,but I haven't met a single
leadership team yet that doesn'thave that group in mind going.
That person's like almost ready.
It's not like writtendown anywhere.
There's no like listin the cafeteria, like
the break room wall.
It says if you want to getpromoted, do these seven things.
Like it's kind of gray.
(17:36):
Pam, what do you look for?
What do you think leadersought to look for folks who
are ready to kind of level up?
Pam Butkowski (17:43):
I think there's really two things for me, and
they're gonna seem very generaland a little bit lack in tact,
if you will, but let me explain.
The first one is folks whoare ready to step up, stop
asking, what about me?
And it used to be, again,this is a trend kind of 10
years ago, the folks thatI was promoting were the
ones who fiercely defendedtheir projects and didn't
(18:04):
care what it meant to otherprojects or other accounts.
They delivered what theyneeded to deliver and right.
They were good soldiers andthey did what they needed
to do in order to deliveragain, their slice of the pie.
Now, that is not the name ofthe game anymore right now.
If you need something foryour project or your slice
of the pie, again, you areunderstanding how that impacts
everybody else and you'reworking towards solutions.
(18:24):
Okay?
So it's not, what aboutme, it's what about us?
How are we, right?
The people who are ready tostep up are the ones who care
about the impacts to the restof the organization, care about
how the work that they're doingaffects other people or other
accounts or other teammates,and they're looking out kind
of for the greater good.
The second thing isreading the room.
(18:45):
Again, to Mark's point,if business is not great,
don't ask for the moon.
Right.
If your organization's havinga hard time and you're not
meeting your numbers, then youjust need, like, revenue is more
important than margin right now.
You need to understand that,and you need to be okay
with discounting strategies.
You need to understandwhen those are appropriate
(19:05):
and not fight back.
So again, it's kind of a whatabout us mentality there,
but read the room, understandthe temperature of the
leadership team, understandthe temperature of the
organization and how you canimpact that in a positive way.
Galen Low (19:19):
I love that.
I want to go back thereeventually, 'cause something you
said, you tucked it in there,you're like, revenue is more
important than margin sometimes.
That's one of the thingsthat I, for me, it was
brain breaking, right?
So like, you know, cash flowversus like mega profit.
Anyways, we'll get thereeventually because I think
it's one of those things that.
Each person looks at ita little bit differently.
And Pam, to your point, youknow, you could be a good
(19:40):
individual contributor, butreally it's kind of like
zooming out and being ableto a, see that whole pie and
the pie came back and Yeah.
I'm so hungry.
I know.
Like, we should haveeaten breakfast, Pam.
Mark, does thatresonate with you?
And like, you know, yeah.
You know, promoted the chain.
Like what are the signalsthat you look for?
Mark Orttung (19:59):
So a couple things.
One is mindset.
So it's really things arenot gonna go well and how
are they gonna handle it?
How do they handle challenges?
Because it's, most people thathave been involved in client
projects know there's likejust challenge after challenge.
And you have to be resilient.
You have to be creative,you have to be willing to
learn from it and get better.
And I think the best leadersdemonstrate that over and
(20:22):
over again, and they're readyfor whatever comes their way.
My second one, I was gonnasay is I think kind of
goes along with Pam's readthe room, which is, I was
gonna say really high EQ.
You want people who reallyare empathetic to the
client, and specificallyto the client's business
and how it operates, right?
So have an understanding ofhow the client makes money,
(20:45):
what's good for their business,what's bad for their business.
In a very large organization, weoften have people sit down and
say to the client, how do youget your bonus for the quarter?
And it's often like reallyfascinating what comes out.
It may be what you thought,maybe not, but now you know
what they're trying to doand you can help them do it.
And it often kind ofreframes your project and
(21:07):
what success looks like.
So yeah, so I think it's verysimilar to Read The Room, but
it's sort of that EQ and reallyhaving empathy for the business
and the people in the client.
Pam Butkowski (21:18):
I was trying to be with mine, yours is
a better way of saying it.
It's not about youand read the room.
Cute.
Galen Low (21:24):
But honestly, I think it's the right, you know, a
sometimes we need to be told thesame thing in different ways.
B. It's amazing.
What kind of clicked in my headwas that connectivity between
EQ and being a team player.
Like for some reason theyhadn't connected for me in
my head, but Pam, when youwere like, yeah, you kind of
need to be thinking about thegreater whole, the whole pie,
not just you your slice of pie.
And in order to do that, youneed to understand and like
(21:46):
have the sort of emotionalintelligence and the observation
skills and the growth mindsetto be like, okay, well
what do other people want?
How are they gonnaget bonused out?
And how can I help in a way thatserves me not necessarily like.
Maybe it's logical andobvious, but it's like.
Not, I'm gonna help you makeyour bonus and I'm gonna miss
all my targets in the process,but also seeing how it all
(22:07):
connects like that mesh, whichI think is really interesting.
Which actually bringsme to my next sort of
thought or question.
I want to go back to thatbrain breaking thing because
I think with each of you, I'vehad conversations about, you
know, what it feels like tokind of get to that next level.
Then you kind of lookback down, right?
You're like, you climbed up onerung of the ladder and you look
back down, you're like, how didI not see it that way before?
(22:29):
It's kind of like theseepiphanies that sometimes feel
like they came too late, but I'mjust wondering, in your opinion,
what is the biggest shift inmindset between, you know, being
someone who delivers projectsor project delivery lead versus
being an executive or you know,sitting at the VP or SVP level?
Like how do you look atprojects and long-term
vision differently?
Mark Orttung (22:51):
I think a couple things.
One is from your ownperspective, to me it's
like just a bigger puzzle.
You're trying to figureout as a project lead,
you've got all the thingshappening inside your project.
When you take on, say, awhole practice or maybe
a geographic region.
Now you've got multiple projectsand you have leadership who
(23:14):
may or may not be billable,and you have people that
are on the bench who are notbillable, and all of that fits
together into your puzzle now.
So you're trying to work witheach project lead to make sure
that each project is awesome.
But now you've also got allthese other pieces, like
what are, and we used to callit rural schools and tools.
So like what's themethodology you've got?
(23:35):
How are you training your team?
How are you constantlyupleveling them?
And all of that timeisn't billable typically.
So you're kind of trying tobalance the whole thing so
you can make all of that work.
One way to think about itfrom your own perspective
is it's a bigger puzzle.
Another one, and I talkabout this a little bit with
Vicki on that podcast, is theperspective of the client.
(23:56):
Has to change and it'salmost impossible to do.
So, you know, this is somebodywho is your account director and
now they're your client partnerand they will constantly go
back to them in the role of anaccount director, even though
you've changed their role.
We actually got to the pointwhere we would just pull
people out of a client andput them in a new client.
(24:16):
Because if you introducethem to a new client and say,
this is your client partner,they buy it and they just,
they go to them in that way.
It's so hard to get your client,to treat them differently.
Actually, I'm curious, Pam,if you figured that one out.
We never figured out how to saythis is no longer the person
who does these three things.
They now do these things.
Pam Butkowski (24:34):
Right?
No, the, I mean, we canunpack this all day.
I totally agree with you, andI think the same is true for
project managers leveling intoa more program role, right?
Like it's natural forclients to wanna go to
them for PME type things.
I do the same thing a lot oftimes if I elevate someone
to a program lead they'regoing somewhere else.
Galen Low (24:51):
Yeah.
It's interesting too,because where my head
goes is like, okay, yeah.
Like it's hard to change howother humans perceive you.
Because we're kind of wired thatway as a survival skill to be
like, okay, I figured you out.
Moving on.
That's who you are.
That's the role you playin our, you know, social
fabric or in my world.
If that's all true.
Then also internally, do youhave that problem internally
(25:13):
where it's like, okay, yes,we've promoted this person,
they are in a new role,and they're like, oh yeah.
But also, can youmanage this project?
Like how do you deal withthe backslide internally too?
Like have you found it tobe a challenge or is it
as simple as being like,companywide memo, this person
is in this role now by.
Mark Orttung (25:28):
One thing that I've found is sort
of a failing as a leader.
You promote someone, youfeel great about that, but
did you backfill them or dothey just have two jobs now?
Right.
So, that's the other challengeis you've got to actually have
someone else take their oldjob or you've just given them a
second job and it's easy to do.
You feel great.
(25:49):
You're like, you're promotingsomeone, you're doing all
this great stuff, but.
It's so hard for them ifyou don't give them a strong
person to slot into whatevertheir, the old role was.
Galen Low (25:58):
I love that.
I wanna revisit some of thosethings too later because like
some of the things I set uptop where I'm like, usually
there isn't any program to helppeople, you know, get promoted
or, you know, support andit's all like, you know, 85%
billable hours and utilizationseems to me like you actually,
it didn't have that problem.
You actually had a wayto get people promoted.
Sorry, Pam, I cut you off.
Pam Butkowski (26:16):
I think just to layer onto that a little
bit too, I mean this is endingup being the theme, right?
When things are good, but Ithink that like when you promote
someone, and maybe we're ina tougher economic climate.
People do need to be alittle bit more nimble.
And so it's awesome to getpromoted in that kind of an
environment, but sometimeswe need you to slip back
down because we don't havethe resources or we can't
(26:37):
hire right now or whatever.
And so we need to we need tomake sure that we're really
intentional about when we askpeople to kind of step back down
and play a different role, andthat we are able to pull them
back out and let them do thejob that they're supposed to do.
Galen Low (26:50):
I love that because it brings us
kind of full circle.
You know, first thingI asked was like, why
is it important now?
And I said AI and probablysome other things.
And I think going back tosome of the comments into chat
right now, I don't know ifit's clear for everyone slash
anyone if this is a permanentshift or a temporary shift.
I do wanna weave in thisquestion as well because
(27:11):
with all this sort ofhybridization going on, like
what becomes of our titling or.
Mark to your point, likewe're thinking of sort of
two different perspectives.
We're thinking of, you know,health of the business,
health of the project.
We're doing multiple jobs,we're account managers for
project managers, and then likeour role shifts dramatically.
The title doesn't evencapture it anymore.
So like that will probablyevolve, but maybe even
(27:32):
to kind of zoom it outeven a little bit more.
Are some of the things we'retalking about today, is it
just because of like timesof hardship or will these
things become permanent?
Is this like the price of gaswhere you're like, oh, oil's
expensive now and the price ofgas goes up, but then somehow
it never goes back down?
You know what I mean?
Like or is this kind oflike a temporary thing?
Pam Butkowski (27:52):
No, I don't think this is going anywhere.
I think this is justkind of the evolution of
services organizationsof being more nimble.
I mean, we've seen recently,and I don't think that this
is going anywhere either withthings like AI and expectation,
like clients are way morecost conscious, but it's not
just about how much they'rewilling to spend, it's their
expectations around pricing fromservices organizations, right?
(28:13):
They expect us tobe more efficient.
They expect us to findfaster ways to get work done.
I mean, I think.
Gone are the days when wehave resourcing plans with
42 roles on them, right?
And so I don't thinkthat's going anywhere.
I think that's an expectationfrom clients that will
continue to be there, andwe need to figure out how to
deliver to those expectations.
So I don't think that thehybrid thing is going anywhere.
(28:35):
I also don't think thatthe project manager
title is changing.
I think the expectationsof that role will evolve.
I don't think that we're gonnaretitle an entire set of people
internationally who do this for.
Like, no, the expectationsin that role will change.
I don't think that we'regonna retitle everyone
who's a project manager.
Mark Orttung (28:53):
I would echo that.
I would say I, I was talkingto somebody who runs one of
the top 10 US consulting firms,and he said that clients have
just cut their budgets in half.
Yeah.
For what they're willingto pay, so whatever they
used to bid, they now aresupposed to bid half of that.
And it's just on theconsulting firm to figure
out how to deliver the samevalue and half the price.
(29:16):
And it's just assumed that theywill because technology and
AI and that's it like that.
So I think it's fascinating andI think, but I also think sort
of as my role, I, you know,I started out as a developer
and I've gone through a lot ofdifferent things in my career.
What I think the theme is I'vegotten a broader perspective.
Like as you become CEO oras different levels, you
(29:37):
just need to think abouteverybody's perspective
and pull it all togetheras you work on the puzzle.
I think that is gonna happento everybody sooner in their
career, but every levelyou're gonna be expected to
understand, appreciate, andtake into account all these
different perspectives.
Because in theory, you'renot doing any like boring
work anymore 'causethat's all done for you.
(29:57):
I don't know if that'sreally true, but that's
sort of the theory ofthe whole thing, right?
And so now you've gottime to really understand
everybody's perspective andreally pull it all together.
I think that's whatthe expectation
placed on you will be.
I don't know howthat will play out.
It'll be fascinating to see.
Galen Low (30:12):
Yeah, I agree.
I am, for better or forworse, it will take time
for us to like figure outwhere the dust settles.
Ideally it is that way, right?
Where it's like, yeah, all thatboring stuff that was taking up
your time, it gets automated,you know, AI does it and, but
I think the other thing it'sbeen coming up in a lot of
conversations, not necessarilythat like AI is changing stuff.
It is, but also it's thissort of trigger moment
(30:34):
for us to like rethink howwe think about thoughts.
You know what I mean?
Like to be very abstractabout it, is this
moment in time to like.
Go.
Okay.
But like I should zoom out.
I should look at the pie.
I should look at the puzzle.
That's always been true.
It didn't suddenly become true.
It's just that it wasn't apriority and now it kind of
is and might be forever, isthe kind of, I think where
(30:57):
we're landing here, which is.
It's a big thing towrap your head around.
It is not necessarily new,it's just the moment or it's
become very important andthat's, I don't know, I'm
finding this flattening out.
Right?
Or I've had the privilege inmy career of like standing
out in some way, havingpeople who like push me out
to front of stage and giveme visibility and help me
(31:17):
understand the puzzle, you know?
And I was like yeah.
I'll just go along.
Like I was a loose logging ina river, just going wherever
it goes and getting lucky.
And now it's almost like, no.
Those are things that you needto have for your career health.
Like don't justaccidentally come upon them.
Seek 'em out.
So you got the people whowill teach you about the
puzzle, who will do thetranslation, who will, you
know, help you understand andmaybe consume the entire pie.
(31:39):
But, you know, I think that'sthe important thing Now.
Which I think leads meactually to, I think we've
been talking from theviewpoint of the, you know,
project manager a lot here.
But Mark, you mentionedsomething important, which is
that, you know, having programsin place and having this sort
of the non-billable upskillingstuff as part of the fabric
of your organization, I don'tknow that every team lead
(32:01):
thinks that's even possible.
I thought maybe I'd zoom outfrom that and say like, what
role can, like a founder oran executive or leadership
team play in supporting thistransformation of their top
project leaders into, youknow, ideally the firm's next
generation of business leaders?
Mark Orttung (32:18):
Yeah.
At Nexient, we're veryintentional about that,
and so what we did is wecreated a wiki page that had
sort of the requirements ofevery job in the company.
So you could see whatevertrack you were on, you could
see your level, what weexpect for you to be great.
And the next level up, youcould see the CEO, you could
(32:38):
see the general managers, youcould see the client partners.
You could think aboutwhat skills do they need.
And you could also lookhorizontally, like if you're a
program manager, but you wannabecome a product manager, what
are the skills that they haveand how can you go get them?
So we were trying to be verytransparent about, here's
all the things you coulddo and here's what you need
to be good at to do them.
And then please, we also kindof made it, you own this, so
(33:02):
if you wanna switch roles,come to us and tell us that.
Tell us what you wanna learnand then give us your plan.
And so we were always tryingto push people to own it,
but with the informationof what's possible.
And if you're trying toget to this other box,
what do you need to know?
What skills do you need to have?
Galen Low (33:19):
I really like that sort of core capabilities model
and also the fact that, 'causelike what I was gonna say is
that I've seen it sort of quoteunquote backfire of like, I
meet all these requirements,give me my promotion now please.
It's so you can pitch it.
It's transparency and visibilityinto how things work so that
you can pitch it and you know,it might not be a yes just
'cause you tick all the boxes.
(33:40):
Yeah.
There's just so much that goesinto this and even the sort of
leadership teams I've workedwith where it's just like.
If they wanna be a productmanager, but I just don't
think they're gonna begood product manager here.
Then yes, they're tickingthe boxes and yes, they have
ambitions and yes, they'repitching this, but like we
don't think it's the right fit.
And on the other end thatsounds like, oh, you gave
me a map to a treasure.
And then you're like, sorry,princesses isn't another castle.
You know, like it seemslike a bait and switch, but
(34:02):
actually it's not an automaticpromotion because you fulfilled
all these requirements.
Yeah.
Like it does give youvisibility into what it would
take for you to make a case.
Mark Orttung (34:10):
And hopefully if there were something
missing for that person,it would be in the box.
Like, you're not gonna begood at this because of X. And
yeah, like ideally it wouldbe part of the transparency
that whatever that is.
Galen Low (34:22):
I mean, Pam do, have you had similar systems?
Like does the sort ofBillability thing come up?
You know, you've workedin some large agencies.
And I still think that's kindaone of those things where it's
like, yeah, but billable work.
Like do we really need totrain this person so that they
can become a better human?
Or can we just get paid?
Like how do youfind that dichotomy?
Especially as like whereyou sit in the organization
(34:44):
where someone above youmight be like no, Pam, just
work 'em to death please.
And everyone below you islike, Hey, we can be excellent
and we can help drive growth,but we need some help.
Pam Butkowski (34:53):
Yeah, no, completely.
I think unless that tone isset from the top level of the
organization that everybodyis responsible for growth.
Everybody has a CEO mindset.
Everybody needs to careabout this, then it's not
gonna resonate, right?
Like that is the tonethat we need to set at
an organizational level.
We've got a lot ofopportunities to do that, right?
We've got town halls, we'vegot company wide meetings,
(35:13):
we've got, and the way thatyou approach those is so
critical for the tone thatyou've set around priorities.
What people care about.
Galen Low (35:20):
I love what you said there because I know so many
organizations where like townhall and like having values
and a mission statement isjust like a box tick exercise
and they don't give it thetime and attention and care
to realize that every time youhave a town hall and you're
talking about what matters,it's building this cultural
fabric within your organization.
It's shifting people'sunderstanding.
It's giving them the informationmark to your point about like
(35:41):
what is the way you need tothink to be successful here.
Or at least the way you need tobehave to be successful here.
And like I just see so manyorganizations, they're like,
we cobbled together some slidesand got the staff together
and we're like, blah, blah,blah, forecasted revenue.
Bye.
You know?
And it's like, okay, actuallythat was your moment.
That was an opportunity tolike upskill everybody for
free because you would'vespent that time anyways.
(36:03):
That mindset shift, I thinkit's really interesting.
Pam Butkowski (36:05):
As someone who is kind of the voice of leadership,
but also the voice of the teams.
One thing that I really tryto encourage my teams to
do is look at their remitas a book of business.
It is their tiny businessthat they are running.
It could be two small projects.
If you're a more juniorproject manager, it could
be $20 million in revenueacross one large account.
(36:27):
Right?
But look at it as a bookof business that you are
running for the organization.
I try to empower my teamsto make smart calls.
But I also make sure thatthe calls that they're
allowed to make are inline with the organization.
Right?
So I think that folks atthis kind of layer that I'm
representing here today, we'rereally critical in translating
(36:47):
the needs of the business tosomething that will resonate
with our teams, but then alsotranslating the pain points,
the objectives, the thingsthat our teams are going up
against to leadership in away that is going to resonate
and land with them as well.
Right?
And so being kind of thattwo-way street of what the
organization needs and what theteams and individual projects
(37:09):
need is really important.
Galen Low (37:10):
That I think is so cool because like, especially
even, you know, coming backto that, how, and like Mark, I
think you described it well insaying that, you know, you need
to understand the puzzle andhow it fits together, but then
the practicality of that, Pam,that you just hit on is that.
It's like that's whereit happens every day.
Not like at a two dayworkshop, not at a, you
know, online trainingthat you did after hours.
(37:33):
It's actually on the job, andit's the people you've got
and the culture you've got.
That creates the ecosystemfor people to be empowered
to make good decisionsbecause they understand.
They've been giventhe whole puzzle.
And I do, like, I see thenote in our notes doc and
just as transparency, andI'm like, I get it now.
Pam Butkowski (37:49):
No, it's impossible, especially at
an enterprise level foreverybody to understand, right.
The tippy top of the pyramidand the lowest level of the
pyramid for both of thoselevels to understand each
other's priorities completely.
And so middle management VPlayers, like, that's where
it becomes so critical to do.
Be the connection pointsbetween all the layers.
Galen Low (38:11):
That's a fantastic segue into our bonus segment.
Mark, I was wondering if youcould tell me as CEO, what
does gross margin mean to you?
Why is it important andwhen do you look at it?
Mark Orttung (38:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
I, now that I run Projectworks,we're all about metrics, so
this is, for me, this is fun.
So gross margin isreally at the core of how
healthy is your business.
So the way to think about itis for the revenue that you're
getting, what is the profityou're making on a given area?
(38:42):
And actually, I think to reallyunderstand that you need to
separate it from project margin.
So when you run asingle project, it's
a very simple thing.
You have the billable revenuecoming in, the cost of the
people, and possibly there'ssome other direct expenses
that you need for that project.
As simple as that,the project margin is.
The difference between how muchrevenue you get and your cost.
(39:04):
If you take zoom out a littlebit, as we talked about earlier,
take five projects and add upall of their project margin.
The other costs you need toadd in for gross margin are
other people that, or othercosts for delivering your work.
So it could be your leadershipof a given practice.
It could be people who are oftenbillable but are not currently.
They all get thrown into thecost side of gross margin.
(39:27):
So it's all your accountrevenue, minus all your account
costs and your practice costs.
And so if you have a great grossmargin, that means the core
of your business is healthy.
You might still spend toomuch money on marketing
and sales or finance andaccounting, but that's a
different part of the margin.
This is the coreof your business.
If this is good.
Then you're in greatshape as a company.
Galen Low (39:48):
I love that as I sort of zoomed out to
see the rest of the puzzle.
Right.
Talked about like individualproduct profitability doesn't
mean that the whole businessis going to be healthy and
there's other things, right?
We talk a lot about utilizationand billable time and for all
the folks who are billable, butthere's also folks who aren't.
And yeah, thatimpacts the overall.
Pam, do you discuss grossmargin in your role?
Pam Butkowski (40:10):
Sure do.
Yeah, all the time.
I think, I mean, mark talkeda lot about gross margin
at an organizational level.
I think there are various, I'mliterally looking through the
rest of the metrics to makesure we're not gonna cover this.
Yep.
Okay.
So understanding margin asyou can affect it as a project
manager or as a programmanager, or as a practice
(40:31):
lead is really important too.
Right?
There are various layers ofmanaging margin as well, right?
There is an account levelmargin, and maybe that is
something that you should starttracking at a program or an
account level if that's theway the organization is set up.
But.
No, we're looking atmargin all the time.
Galen Low (40:48):
Cool.
Love it.
Maybe I'll shift on to thenext one, utilization rate
and utilization target.
Pam, I'm gonna throwto you on this one.
What does it mean to you?
Why is it important andwhen do you look at it?
Pam Butkowski (41:02):
Okay, so I got the one that we all hate.
I look at it every day.
I wanna back us up a littlebit on this one because
it's, this is one whereeverybody in a billable role
feels the pain of it, right?
It's this like loominggray cloud of like, but I
have a billability target.
I have a utilizationtarget that I have to hit.
I need more workbecause of this.
(41:23):
We sometimes forget thatit's not just a target
that's tied to you.
It's something that then informsa lot of the revenue targets.
A lot of the decisions that wemake in as an organization, a
lot of literally at a baseline,utilization targets are what we
use to then feed up all of theother metrics that determine
(41:44):
how much we need to sell ina year to keep this business
going, the baseline, right?
And so it is really importantand it feeds everything else.
So I know it sucks to track tolike an 80% utilization target,
but it's so important everyone.
I look at it every day.
I look at it through anumber of different lenses.
I look at it around wherewe're gonna assign new
projects and how utilized orbillable folks currently are.
(42:07):
Or I look at it on a weeklybasis to see if allocated
to actuals are in line.
If on paper it says that myteam is supposed to be 80%
billable and we're tracking to110, there is something wrong.
I look at thismetric all the time.
I think it's really importantfor everybody to understand
what the word utilizationmeans to your organization.
To some organizations,it is just billability.
(42:31):
To some, it's a combinationof billability and
non-billable work aroundgrowth, around sales counts
towards positive utilization.
So understanding what yourorganization actually uses to
measure utilization is reallyimportant so that you know
kind of what good looks like.
The other thing to keep inmind when you're looking at
this or when you're personallytracking to utilization is.
(42:53):
The timeframe over which yourorganization views utilization.
Is it a yearly target,an annual target?
Is it a quarterly target?
Is it a, every weekyou're expected to
hit this utilization?
Understanding kind of how theyuse these metrics to inform
larger goals is also important.
So, that's a question that youcan just ask your managers,
ask your practice leads, whatdoes utilization mean to us?
(43:15):
How often are you looking at it?
My utilization target is 85%.
Am I expected to hitthat every single week?
Or is that something that we'regonna look at the end of the
year as my success metric?
Galen Low (43:26):
I also love it as a one thing that we
think we all know what itmeans, so we don't ask.
So it's like thatsimple action of asking.
Even just in the past, youknow, minute and a half, I
was like, oh, that's why I getasked about it all the time.
Not just at the, you know,like once a month or once
a quarter because it'simportant for planning.
Our panelists, let'sgive it up to them.
Thank you everybody.
Pam Butkowski (43:45):
Thank you.
Galen Low (43:45):
Thank you.
Alright folks,there you have it.
As always, if you'd like tojoin the conversation with
over a thousand like-mindedproject management champions,
come join our collective!Head over to
thedpm.com/membershipto learn more.
And if you like what youheard today, please subscribe
and stay in touch onthedigitalprojectmanager.com.
Until next time,thanks for listening.
Why is it so important for small and medium
sized professional servicesfirms to cultivate their top
talent into business leaders?
Mark Orttung (00:07):
There's a lot going on right
now in the market.
I feel like technologychanges weekly or daily.
One of the things we foundwas that for us to succeed,
we really needed theproject manager to become
a trusted partner of ourclient, and that drove a
lot of the new work we got.
Galen Low (00:25):
What signals are leaders looking for when
they're deciding who is readyto step up and what can project
delivery leads do to stand out?
Pam Butkowski (00:32):
The first one is folks who are ready to step
up stop asking "what aboutme?" It's not, what about me?
It's what about us?
The second thing isreading the room.
If business is not great,don't ask for the moon.
Galen Low (00:45):
What is the biggest shift in mindset between being
someone who delivers projectsversus being an executive?
Mark Orttung (00:51):
To me, it's like just a bigger puzzle.
Now you've got multiple projectsand you have leadership who
may or may not be billable,and you have people that are on
the bench who are not billable.
Galen Low (01:01):
How do we avoid generalist traps,
but maintain efficientdifferentiation of labor?
Hey everyone!Welcome to our session on how
project delivery leads can levelup using a founder's mindset.
For those who don'tknow me, I'm Galen.
I'm the co-founder of TheDigital Project Manager, and
(01:23):
I will be your host for today.
This session is all abouthow project delivery leaders,
project managers, projectprofessionals can level up
into more strategic rules.
But first, before I gettoo deep into it, let's
meet our panelists.
First up is Mark Orttung.
Mark is the CEO of Projectworks,and he's helping consultancies
grow profitably through smarterresourcing and delivery.
(01:45):
He previously scaled Nexientinto the largest US based
Agile services partner.
He led Bill.com as President andChief Operating Officer, and he
drove SaaS innovation, honestly,before the term existed.
Mark, speaking of levelingup, you were telling me in
the green room that there'sfolks that you worked with at
Nexient as someone that you hadactually promoted three times.
Can you just talk a little bitabout how she like reset her
(02:07):
mindset through all that change?
Mark Orttung (02:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you for having me andI'm really excited to be here.
I've got a podcast called TheZ Suite and I had a guest,
Vicki Papa, she worked for meat Nexient and we promoted
her from account directorto client partner to general
manager to chief revenue officerover a period of five years.
My favorite quote was, we weretalking about sort of how does
(02:30):
her mindset change and howdo we change the mindset of
clients as she gets new roles?
'cause it's quite difficult.
And my favorite quote was, shesaid, it broke my brain a little
bit every time you promoted me.
But also that's how I knewI was taking on the right
challenges and pushingmyself in the right way.
So there's a whole in depthdiscussion that the people
are welcome to go watch.
(02:51):
But anyway, it wasjust a, it kind of felt
like it fit in as well.
One of the favorite moments I'vehad from our Z Suite podcast.
Galen Low (02:57):
I love that.
Can I first say that I lovethe idea of the Z Suite series?
It's like frank conversationsof how people have like grown
and developed in their careers.
Folks who are like very high up.
And by the way, that likereaction from me, my facial
reaction was genuine.
That's the first timeMark told me that story.
I'm like, wow.
Like up to the C-suite.
We've talked about it,but like we didn't have
any examples of it.
(03:18):
I love that.
Who should I pick out next?
Oh yeah, Pam.
Pam, you are the SeniorVice President of Delivery
at Horizontal Digital, andI have described you as a
tough mutter to dozens ofagency project professionals
who have ascended the ranksunder your guidance fam.
You have a historyof just like leveling
people up over the years.
You are somebody whogets people promoted.
(03:38):
I can say it without yousounding braggadocios, but
it's true, and I've seenit happen over the years.
I was wondering if maybe youcould just tell us a bit about
some of the shifts in mindsetthat you've seen for the folks
that you've been leveling up.
You know, maybe toecho Mark's stories.
Pam Butkowski (03:52):
Yeah.
That question is very timelyand very relevant to what we're
talking about today, right?
10 years ago when I washiring, promoting, mentoring,
managing project managers,it was very focused on
the iron triangle, right?
It was very focused on,here's what I have to deliver.
This is what good lookslike for me by myself,
my slice of the pie.
(04:14):
Now we need our deliveryleaders to understand the
entire pie and be responsiblefor the overall success.
And so we're seeing kind ofa shift in where delivery
professionals are going in thatthey need to care about a lot
more than just their own remit.
Right.
I'm sure Galen, you've probablyheard me say this before, but
I tell my teams it's not yourjob to solve every problem,
(04:36):
but it is your job to make surethat every problem gets solved,
and that remit has expandednot just for project delivery,
but at an organizationallevel now for delivery leads.
Galen Low (04:45):
I love that sort of zoom out, and I like that
it's not necessarily just forproject delivery leads, but
also it's that holistic viewand like we start hearing so
much about it now, it almostbegs the question like, how.
And I know folks under yourleadership and guidance get
the how and hopefully wecan steal some of that fire
today in this conversationbecause I think it's the
how that really matters.
Everyone's like, yeah.
Understand the whole pie.
Pie.
(05:06):
But then it's like thewhole, like how do we
then mobilize that?
How does thatchange our behavior?
How does that, you know,give us better visibility
for our own self?
And how does that helpus advocate for ourselves
within an organization?
Love it.
Love it.
Awesome.
Solid panel.
Let's maybe just dive into it.
Let me sort of tee up theproblem the way I see it, and
then we can we can discuss.
(05:27):
So, here's the way I see it.
Nurturing top performingproject leaders into more
strategic roles isn't alwayslike top of mind, especially
for like small and medium sizedprofessional services firms.
We're talking agencies,consulting firms.
It's kind of like justlike doing the work.
But you know, mostly ifsometimes the only way to
climb the ladder as a projectprofessional project manager is
(05:48):
to work hard, deliver resultsand trash talk that are equally
ambitious colleagues andadvocate for their own growth at
every annual performance review.
These days, leadershipteams need all the strategic
support that they can get,and they all almost certainly
have that unspoken echelonof top performing PMs that
have massive potential tobecome bonafide leaders
within their organization.
(06:09):
The only problem is thatthe path from, say being
a project delivery lead ordepartment head to joining the
management team, or even justplaying a role in strategic
planning is pretty murky.
Typically, there's no courseor like rising stars or top
talent programs at thesemedium sized consulting firms.
It's still kind of like theschool of hard knocks, taking
a chance on someone andspeaking to them in a foreign
(06:31):
language until they understandor maybe don't, but that
doesn't need to be the case.
At least I don't think so.
And frankly, most agenciesand professional consulting
firms need to take action nowto support their businesses.
So today we wantedto explore that path.
From three different angles.
As I mentioned earlier, wewanna be thinking about how can
C-suite executives, like Mark,within professional services
(06:53):
firms benefit from additionalstrategic firepower by, you
know, leveling up their highimpact project professionals.
How can senior leaders play fromthe middle to drive that growth?
And of course, how canambitious project leaders do
more to carve out a path forthemselves so that they can
sit at the strategic table?
I thought maybe I mentionedit in my spiel, but I
think it's worth talkingabout the question of now.
(07:14):
I think in my conversationsthere's always been that whole,
okay, well how can I level up?
How do I progress in my career?
I wanna be more strategic.
I wanna sit at thestrategic planning table.
And from the other side, youknow, a leader saying, okay,
well listen, I wish folkswere more ready to step up.
I wish they would engagemore with the business.
I wish they'd understandhow our business operates.
But there is this sort ofmoment in time and so I thought
(07:36):
I'd just ask the question,why is it so important right
now for small and mediumsized professional services
firms to cultivate their toptalent into business leaders?
And also what doesthat even look like?
Mark Orttung (07:48):
Great question.
There's a lot going onright now in the market.
I feel like technologychanges weekly or daily.
If you're keeping up withall the new tools that are
leveraging AI and how they.
Change what's possible.
So there's just a lot ofnoise and a lot of complexity.
One of the things we foundat Nexient was that for us to
succeed, we really needed theproject manager to become a
(08:10):
trusted partner of our client.
And that drove a lotof the new work we got.
And so we needed our projectleads and account leads to
be both deeply expert indelivery and sort of design
and development of software,but also willing to think like
a salesperson at some level.
So they need to do sort of,and these two things don't
(08:32):
normally go to togetherin the same person, right?
It's usually you haveone skill or the other,
and you almost, you know,allergic to the other one.
So we wanted to get ourbest delivery people into
selling mode and givethem effectively a quota.
So we did that over a periodof many years with them as
they became the senior manageror the account director on
(08:55):
an account, they would startout by finding opportunities
for new things, new projects,and then handing them off to
a client partner who was muchmore comfortable selling.
But over time, we wantedthem to go up that curve and
become comfortable themselves.
Galen Low (09:09):
I really like that.
I'm revisiting my past herebecause I've always been a
hybrid, and yes, it has alwaysbeen smuggle and golum, like two
different perspectives fightingone another in my brain.
What's interesting is I hear alot about going that way, right.
Project delivery leads,project managers being
encouraged to sell.
Have you had it happenin reverse, like account
managers becoming projectmanagers, is that something
(09:31):
that happens would happen?
Or is there something that'sactually a quality of project
managers that sort of lendsitself to being really good
at sales Or vice versa?
Is there actually somequalities of an account
manager that makes them goodproject delivery leads if you
were to sort of hybridize.
Mark Orttung (09:45):
Yeah, I've seen, so one of the things that we
pitched a lot at Nexient wasthis idea of a growth mindset.
That pretty much anyone can doanything if they're willing to
be humble and sort of do all thepractice and learn, and you're
bad in the beginning, but youcan learn pretty much anything.
And so based on that, wehad some peer sales people
come in and say, I wannawrite a statement of work.
(10:07):
I wanna write a proposal, Iwanna think about project scope.
Not because I wanna becomea practitioner, but because
I wanna understand it andI wanna experience it.
And to me, thatwas awesome, right?
They just became so muchbetter at selling because they
wanted to dig into some ofthe project management work.
I loved that.
That kind of surprised meat the time, to be honest.
I've seen a lot ofpractitioners move into selling.
(10:28):
I hadn't seen thatmany salespeople move
into practitioners.
Galen Low (10:32):
I like that tie in of the growth mindset, or as Pam
put it, understanding the wholepie, you know, I think is the
sort of thematic tie in here.
Pam, how about you?
Like I know you and I, we'vetalked a little bit about
hybrid roles over the years.
We've started seeing a trendmore, or at least maybe it's
one of those things where you'relike, you're thinking of buying
a yellow car and suddenly yousee yellow car as everywhere.
I don't know, but are younoticing more hybridization?
(10:55):
Are you noticing a greateremphasis on almost this
like commerciality, thiscommercial understanding
for delivery leads?
Like across the board?
Pam Butkowski (11:04):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think part of it islike control the things you
can control perspective, right?
And so for project leads forfolks in delivery, I know
we're not at the metrics partand spoiler, this one won't be
on there anyway, so I'm justgonna introduce a new one.
Client retention andreducing attrition is one
of the biggest things thatwe can control, right?
Which directly impactsthe bottom line.
(11:26):
Our revenue to Mark's point.
He actually startedgiving revenue targets and
giving delivery leads andproject managers a go get.
The easiest way to do thatis through delivery and
through retaining clientsyear over year, and you
can't do that without agrowth mindset, without some
account management skills.
So yeah, we're absolutelyseeing that kind of more
(11:47):
accountability or responsibilityin revenue targets in growing
the business, in having astake in client retention
and reducing attrition.
We're also seeing when we'retalking about hybrid roles,
not just project management,account management hybrids,
I think that's a piece of, ormaybe a result of some other
roles becoming more hybridlike client partners and
(12:08):
strategists are starting tobe a little bit more hybrid.
We're starting to be a littlebit more nimble in other
areas of the business, whichthen trickles down to project
management needing to be alittle bit more nimble as well.
Right.
So I think there's definitelysome hybrid stuff happening
and just more generalizationaround capabilities regarding
both growth and delivery.
Galen Low (12:27):
Oh, I like that.
I think some project people,PMs specifically, don't
always fully appreciatethat they are, in some ways
the economic engine for aprofessional services firm,
like an agency or consultancy,those projects drive dollars
and those relationshipscontinue to drive dollars.
And so there is that sortof relationship there.
Diana was saying, I'm alsoseeing due to staff reduction,
(12:47):
that PMs are expected tojust become client facing,
to become the account lead.
And I thought maybe I'd getthe two of your perspectives
on that because in some ways.
It does really feel thatway, and maybe it is the
case where it's like,listen, margins are thinner.
We need people doing more.
You know, there's the AIsort of variable here.
It's like, do we needto hire more people or
(13:08):
actually can we just getpeople to do more things?
Is that a driver or is it morepure play in terms of like
that cohesion of delivery?
Probably the true slidesomewhere in between.
Mark, what's yourperspective on that?
Mark Orttung (13:21):
A couple things.
Services firms areso much easier to run
when you're growing.
If you are adding clientsand adding projects, then
there's opportunity foreverybody to get promoted.
There's, you're right.
And if they're flat orshrinking, it's really painful.
All these things come outta thewoodwork that are problematic.
And so for me, the, we kinda,I feel like I stalled this
(13:42):
model from eccentric 'causethat's where I started.
But this idea of accountleads who are practitioners
who get to work so ofthe holy grail happened.
And one of our clients, itwas a large utility, gas and
electric utility, so lots ofmoney, and they got to the
point where they pulled ourproject lead into their annual
budgeting process and they wouldshow us the list of all of the
(14:04):
projects for the next year.
This one's 10 million,this one's 20 million,
this one's 5 million.
And say, what do you think?
Which ones do you wanna bid on?
Can you help us write the RFPs?
Right.
And that to me was like, theydid that, not because she was
such a great salesperson, butbecause she was such a great
practitioner, they trustedher as part of the team.
(14:24):
But if you're selling, I mean,that's like the holy grail.
They're like, here'sthese buckets of money,
which one do you want?
And how do you wanna frame them?
That to me is what you're tryingto do is get the two to come
together in a really good way.
Galen Low (14:35):
I love that.
Pam, you gave it a thisin terms of growth.
Pam Butkowski (14:39):
I did.
Listen, everything iseasier when you're making
noodles of money, right?
But I don't think it'sever a bad thing to have
a project manager ofclient facing skills ever.
When we're talking aboutgrowing our future leaders
and cultivating ourfuture leadership talent,
client facing comes withthat territory, right?
I talk to clients every day.
(15:00):
I don't lead a single account.
And so you have tohave that skillset.
And so I think learning itearly is never a bad thing.
Galen Low (15:07):
I concur and then actually like, you know,
Mark, you're taking me back tothe my Accenture days where,
you know, like walking thehalls is a skill and what
we mean is like go on clientsite and while you're there,
look for opportunities forus to sell more through.
There's two waysto look at that.
There's the icky way, you'relike, oh, you know, I'm
like, I'm a salespersonnow and we need to like
give into capitalisticgreed, which is not untrue.
(15:29):
But also that handon the lever thing.
Right?
And I think a lot of the timeI talk to project managers
who are like, oh, we just getpast the scope of work and
are expected to deliver it.
Like we're never consultantduring sales, you know, of
course it's unrealistic.
They haven't asked usto come to the table.
Well, guess what?
Those two things, those are twopuzzle pieces that fit together,
is if you are, quote unquote,walking the halls or client
(15:49):
facing, A, Pam, to your point,you're like learning those
skills when it's not necessarilyyour job, which by the way is
great because then you're alsonot necessarily measured on
that while you're learning.
But also you have your hand onone of the growth levers, maybe
not the growth lever, right?
You're not choosing whether ornot to give up lease hold space.
You're not choosingwhat the rates are.
You're not necessarily likepicking and choosing, you
(16:10):
know, which staff to keep on.
You have your hand on one ofthe levers that drives revenue,
and then the ideal visionis everyone is like pushing
towards that growth so thatit's like prosperous times.
Because Mark, to your point,like not prosperous times in
professional services is pain.
And I think if you guyswill let me, maybe let's
just use those two lensesbecause I wanted to dive in
(16:32):
Pam to what you're saying.
The skill sets and the signals.
Mark, we've been talking aboutthe growth mindset, and I'll
put a optimistic and slightlypessimistic spin on this,
and what I'm gonna say is.
If you wanna be the one whogets promoted and stays in
a time of relative hardship,not necessarily prosperous
growth, but also from amore positive light, how
(16:56):
can one sort of developtheir career in any climate?
But what I wanted to ask waswhat signals are leaders looking
for when they're decidingwho is ready to step up?
What can project deliveryleads do to stand out, you
know, in prosperous timesor in times of hardship?
You know, maybe you'rein survival mode.
Maybe you're just happygo lucky, growing your
(17:16):
career, that's fine too.
But I think coming back towhat I said originally, like
it's sometimes really gray,but I haven't met a single
leadership team yet that doesn'thave that group in mind going.
That person's like almost ready.
It's not like writtendown anywhere.
There's no like listin the cafeteria, like
the break room wall.
It says if you want to getpromoted, do these seven things.
Like it's kind of gray.
(17:36):
Pam, what do you look for?
What do you think leadersought to look for folks who
are ready to kind of level up?
Pam Butkowski (17:43):
I think there's really two things for me, and
they're gonna seem very generaland a little bit lack in tact,
if you will, but let me explain.
The first one is folks whoare ready to step up, stop
asking, what about me?
And it used to be, again,this is a trend kind of 10
years ago, the folks thatI was promoting were the
ones who fiercely defendedtheir projects and didn't
(18:04):
care what it meant to otherprojects or other accounts.
They delivered what theyneeded to deliver and right.
They were good soldiers andthey did what they needed
to do in order to deliveragain, their slice of the pie.
Now, that is not the name ofthe game anymore right now.
If you need something foryour project or your slice
of the pie, again, you areunderstanding how that impacts
everybody else and you'reworking towards solutions.
(18:24):
Okay?
So it's not, what aboutme, it's what about us?
How are we, right?
The people who are ready tostep up are the ones who care
about the impacts to the restof the organization, care about
how the work that they're doingaffects other people or other
accounts or other teammates,and they're looking out kind
of for the greater good.
The second thing isreading the room.
(18:45):
Again, to Mark's point,if business is not great,
don't ask for the moon.
Right.
If your organization's havinga hard time and you're not
meeting your numbers, then youjust need, like, revenue is more
important than margin right now.
You need to understand that,and you need to be okay
with discounting strategies.
You need to understandwhen those are appropriate
(19:05):
and not fight back.
So again, it's kind of a whatabout us mentality there,
but read the room, understandthe temperature of the
leadership team, understandthe temperature of the
organization and how you canimpact that in a positive way.
Galen Low (19:19):
I love that.
I want to go back thereeventually, 'cause something you
said, you tucked it in there,you're like, revenue is more
important than margin sometimes.
That's one of the thingsthat I, for me, it was
brain breaking, right?
So like, you know, cash flowversus like mega profit.
Anyways, we'll get thereeventually because I think
it's one of those things that.
Each person looks at ita little bit differently.
And Pam, to your point, youknow, you could be a good
(19:40):
individual contributor, butreally it's kind of like
zooming out and being ableto a, see that whole pie and
the pie came back and Yeah.
I'm so hungry.
I know.
Like, we should haveeaten breakfast, Pam.
Mark, does thatresonate with you?
And like, you know, yeah.
You know, promoted the chain.
Like what are the signalsthat you look for?
Mark Orttung (19:59):
So a couple things.
One is mindset.
So it's really things arenot gonna go well and how
are they gonna handle it?
How do they handle challenges?
Because it's, most people thathave been involved in client
projects know there's likejust challenge after challenge.
And you have to be resilient.
You have to be creative,you have to be willing to
learn from it and get better.
And I think the best leadersdemonstrate that over and
(20:22):
over again, and they're readyfor whatever comes their way.
My second one, I was gonnasay is I think kind of
goes along with Pam's readthe room, which is, I was
gonna say really high EQ.
You want people who reallyare empathetic to the
client, and specificallyto the client's business
and how it operates, right?
So have an understanding ofhow the client makes money,
(20:45):
what's good for their business,what's bad for their business.
In a very large organization, weoften have people sit down and
say to the client, how do youget your bonus for the quarter?
And it's often like reallyfascinating what comes out.
It may be what you thought,maybe not, but now you know
what they're trying to doand you can help them do it.
And it often kind ofreframes your project and
(21:07):
what success looks like.
So yeah, so I think it's verysimilar to Read The Room, but
it's sort of that EQ and reallyhaving empathy for the business
and the people in the client.
Pam Butkowski (21:18):
I was trying to be with mine, yours is
a better way of saying it.
It's not about youand read the room.
Cute.
Galen Low (21:24):
But honestly, I think it's the right, you know, a
sometimes we need to be told thesame thing in different ways.
B. It's amazing.
What kind of clicked in my headwas that connectivity between
EQ and being a team player.
Like for some reason theyhadn't connected for me in
my head, but Pam, when youwere like, yeah, you kind of
need to be thinking about thegreater whole, the whole pie,
not just you your slice of pie.
And in order to do that, youneed to understand and like
(21:46):
have the sort of emotionalintelligence and the observation
skills and the growth mindsetto be like, okay, well
what do other people want?
How are they gonnaget bonused out?
And how can I help in a way thatserves me not necessarily like.
Maybe it's logical andobvious, but it's like.
Not, I'm gonna help you makeyour bonus and I'm gonna miss
all my targets in the process,but also seeing how it all
(22:07):
connects like that mesh, whichI think is really interesting.
Which actually bringsme to my next sort of
thought or question.
I want to go back to thatbrain breaking thing because
I think with each of you, I'vehad conversations about, you
know, what it feels like tokind of get to that next level.
Then you kind of lookback down, right?
You're like, you climbed up onerung of the ladder and you look
back down, you're like, how didI not see it that way before?
(22:29):
It's kind of like theseepiphanies that sometimes feel
like they came too late, but I'mjust wondering, in your opinion,
what is the biggest shift inmindset between, you know, being
someone who delivers projectsor project delivery lead versus
being an executive or you know,sitting at the VP or SVP level?
Like how do you look atprojects and long-term
vision differently?
Mark Orttung (22:51):
I think a couple things.
One is from your ownperspective, to me it's
like just a bigger puzzle.
You're trying to figureout as a project lead,
you've got all the thingshappening inside your project.
When you take on, say, awhole practice or maybe
a geographic region.
Now you've got multiple projectsand you have leadership who
(23:14):
may or may not be billable,and you have people that
are on the bench who are notbillable, and all of that fits
together into your puzzle now.
So you're trying to work witheach project lead to make sure
that each project is awesome.
But now you've also got allthese other pieces, like
what are, and we used to callit rural schools and tools.
So like what's themethodology you've got?
(23:35):
How are you training your team?
How are you constantlyupleveling them?
And all of that timeisn't billable typically.
So you're kind of trying tobalance the whole thing so
you can make all of that work.
One way to think about itfrom your own perspective
is it's a bigger puzzle.
Another one, and I talkabout this a little bit with
Vicki on that podcast, is theperspective of the client.
(23:56):
Has to change and it'salmost impossible to do.
So, you know, this is somebodywho is your account director and
now they're your client partnerand they will constantly go
back to them in the role of anaccount director, even though
you've changed their role.
We actually got to the pointwhere we would just pull
people out of a client andput them in a new client.
(24:16):
Because if you introducethem to a new client and say,
this is your client partner,they buy it and they just,
they go to them in that way.
It's so hard to get your client,to treat them differently.
Actually, I'm curious, Pam,if you figured that one out.
We never figured out how to saythis is no longer the person
who does these three things.
They now do these things.
Pam Butkowski (24:34):
Right?
No, the, I mean, we canunpack this all day.
I totally agree with you, andI think the same is true for
project managers leveling intoa more program role, right?
Like it's natural forclients to wanna go to
them for PME type things.
I do the same thing a lot oftimes if I elevate someone
to a program lead they'regoing somewhere else.
Galen Low (24:51):
Yeah.
It's interesting too,because where my head
goes is like, okay, yeah.
Like it's hard to change howother humans perceive you.
Because we're kind of wired thatway as a survival skill to be
like, okay, I figured you out.
Moving on.
That's who you are.
That's the role you playin our, you know, social
fabric or in my world.
If that's all true.
Then also internally, do youhave that problem internally
(25:13):
where it's like, okay, yes,we've promoted this person,
they are in a new role,and they're like, oh yeah.
But also, can youmanage this project?
Like how do you deal withthe backslide internally too?
Like have you found it tobe a challenge or is it
as simple as being like,companywide memo, this person
is in this role now by.
Mark Orttung (25:28):
One thing that I've found is sort
of a failing as a leader.
You promote someone, youfeel great about that, but
did you backfill them or dothey just have two jobs now?
Right.
So, that's the other challengeis you've got to actually have
someone else take their oldjob or you've just given them a
second job and it's easy to do.
You feel great.
(25:49):
You're like, you're promotingsomeone, you're doing all
this great stuff, but.
It's so hard for them ifyou don't give them a strong
person to slot into whatevertheir, the old role was.
Galen Low (25:58):
I love that.
I wanna revisit some of thosethings too later because like
some of the things I set uptop where I'm like, usually
there isn't any program to helppeople, you know, get promoted
or, you know, support andit's all like, you know, 85%
billable hours and utilizationseems to me like you actually,
it didn't have that problem.
You actually had a wayto get people promoted.
Sorry, Pam, I cut you off.
Pam Butkowski (26:16):
I think just to layer onto that a little
bit too, I mean this is endingup being the theme, right?
When things are good, but Ithink that like when you promote
someone, and maybe we're ina tougher economic climate.
People do need to be alittle bit more nimble.
And so it's awesome to getpromoted in that kind of an
environment, but sometimeswe need you to slip back
down because we don't havethe resources or we can't
(26:37):
hire right now or whatever.
And so we need to we need tomake sure that we're really
intentional about when we askpeople to kind of step back down
and play a different role, andthat we are able to pull them
back out and let them do thejob that they're supposed to do.
Galen Low (26:50):
I love that because it brings us
kind of full circle.
You know, first thingI asked was like, why
is it important now?
And I said AI and probablysome other things.
And I think going back tosome of the comments into chat
right now, I don't know ifit's clear for everyone slash
anyone if this is a permanentshift or a temporary shift.
I do wanna weave in thisquestion as well because
(27:11):
with all this sort ofhybridization going on, like
what becomes of our titling or.
Mark to your point, likewe're thinking of sort of
two different perspectives.
We're thinking of, you know,health of the business,
health of the project.
We're doing multiple jobs,we're account managers for
project managers, and then likeour role shifts dramatically.
The title doesn't evencapture it anymore.
So like that will probablyevolve, but maybe even
(27:32):
to kind of zoom it outeven a little bit more.
Are some of the things we'retalking about today, is it
just because of like timesof hardship or will these
things become permanent?
Is this like the price of gaswhere you're like, oh, oil's
expensive now and the price ofgas goes up, but then somehow
it never goes back down?
You know what I mean?
Like or is this kind oflike a temporary thing?
Pam Butkowski (27:52):
No, I don't think this is going anywhere.
I think this is justkind of the evolution of
services organizationsof being more nimble.
I mean, we've seen recently,and I don't think that this
is going anywhere either withthings like AI and expectation,
like clients are way morecost conscious, but it's not
just about how much they'rewilling to spend, it's their
expectations around pricing fromservices organizations, right?
(28:13):
They expect us tobe more efficient.
They expect us to findfaster ways to get work done.
I mean, I think.
Gone are the days when wehave resourcing plans with
42 roles on them, right?
And so I don't thinkthat's going anywhere.
I think that's an expectationfrom clients that will
continue to be there, andwe need to figure out how to
deliver to those expectations.
So I don't think that thehybrid thing is going anywhere.
(28:35):
I also don't think thatthe project manager
title is changing.
I think the expectationsof that role will evolve.
I don't think that we're gonnaretitle an entire set of people
internationally who do this for.
Like, no, the expectationsin that role will change.
I don't think that we'regonna retitle everyone
who's a project manager.
Mark Orttung (28:53):
I would echo that.
I would say I, I was talkingto somebody who runs one of
the top 10 US consulting firms,and he said that clients have
just cut their budgets in half.
Yeah.
For what they're willingto pay, so whatever they
used to bid, they now aresupposed to bid half of that.
And it's just on theconsulting firm to figure
out how to deliver the samevalue and half the price.
(29:16):
And it's just assumed that theywill because technology and
AI and that's it like that.
So I think it's fascinating andI think, but I also think sort
of as my role, I, you know,I started out as a developer
and I've gone through a lot ofdifferent things in my career.
What I think the theme is I'vegotten a broader perspective.
Like as you become CEO oras different levels, you
(29:37):
just need to think abouteverybody's perspective
and pull it all togetheras you work on the puzzle.
I think that is gonna happento everybody sooner in their
career, but every levelyou're gonna be expected to
understand, appreciate, andtake into account all these
different perspectives.
Because in theory, you'renot doing any like boring
work anymore 'causethat's all done for you.
(29:57):
I don't know if that'sreally true, but that's
sort of the theory ofthe whole thing, right?
And so now you've gottime to really understand
everybody's perspective andreally pull it all together.
I think that's whatthe expectation
placed on you will be.
I don't know howthat will play out.
It'll be fascinating to see.
Galen Low (30:12):
Yeah, I agree.
I am, for better or forworse, it will take time
for us to like figure outwhere the dust settles.
Ideally it is that way, right?
Where it's like, yeah, all thatboring stuff that was taking up
your time, it gets automated,you know, AI does it and, but
I think the other thing it'sbeen coming up in a lot of
conversations, not necessarilythat like AI is changing stuff.
It is, but also it's thissort of trigger moment
(30:34):
for us to like rethink howwe think about thoughts.
You know what I mean?
Like to be very abstractabout it, is this
moment in time to like.
Go.
Okay.
But like I should zoom out.
I should look at the pie.
I should look at the puzzle.
That's always been true.
It didn't suddenly become true.
It's just that it wasn't apriority and now it kind of
is and might be forever, isthe kind of, I think where
(30:57):
we're landing here, which is.
It's a big thing towrap your head around.
It is not necessarily new,it's just the moment or it's
become very important andthat's, I don't know, I'm
finding this flattening out.
Right?
Or I've had the privilege inmy career of like standing
out in some way, havingpeople who like push me out
to front of stage and giveme visibility and help me
(31:17):
understand the puzzle, you know?
And I was like yeah.
I'll just go along.
Like I was a loose logging ina river, just going wherever
it goes and getting lucky.
And now it's almost like, no.
Those are things that you needto have for your career health.
Like don't justaccidentally come upon them.
Seek 'em out.
So you got the people whowill teach you about the
puzzle, who will do thetranslation, who will, you
know, help you understand andmaybe consume the entire pie.
(31:39):
But, you know, I think that'sthe important thing Now.
Which I think leads meactually to, I think we've
been talking from theviewpoint of the, you know,
project manager a lot here.
But Mark, you mentionedsomething important, which is
that, you know, having programsin place and having this sort
of the non-billable upskillingstuff as part of the fabric
of your organization, I don'tknow that every team lead
(32:01):
thinks that's even possible.
I thought maybe I'd zoom outfrom that and say like, what
role can, like a founder oran executive or leadership
team play in supporting thistransformation of their top
project leaders into, youknow, ideally the firm's next
generation of business leaders?
Mark Orttung (32:18):
Yeah.
At Nexient, we're veryintentional about that,
and so what we did is wecreated a wiki page that had
sort of the requirements ofevery job in the company.
So you could see whatevertrack you were on, you could
see your level, what weexpect for you to be great.
And the next level up, youcould see the CEO, you could
(32:38):
see the general managers, youcould see the client partners.
You could think aboutwhat skills do they need.
And you could also lookhorizontally, like if you're a
program manager, but you wannabecome a product manager, what
are the skills that they haveand how can you go get them?
So we were trying to be verytransparent about, here's
all the things you coulddo and here's what you need
to be good at to do them.
And then please, we also kindof made it, you own this, so
(33:02):
if you wanna switch roles,come to us and tell us that.
Tell us what you wanna learnand then give us your plan.
And so we were always tryingto push people to own it,
but with the informationof what's possible.
And if you're trying toget to this other box,
what do you need to know?
What skills do you need to have?
Galen Low (33:19):
I really like that sort of core capabilities model
and also the fact that, 'causelike what I was gonna say is
that I've seen it sort of quoteunquote backfire of like, I
meet all these requirements,give me my promotion now please.
It's so you can pitch it.
It's transparency and visibilityinto how things work so that
you can pitch it and you know,it might not be a yes just
'cause you tick all the boxes.
(33:40):
Yeah.
There's just so much that goesinto this and even the sort of
leadership teams I've workedwith where it's just like.
If they wanna be a productmanager, but I just don't
think they're gonna begood product manager here.
Then yes, they're tickingthe boxes and yes, they have
ambitions and yes, they'repitching this, but like we
don't think it's the right fit.
And on the other end thatsounds like, oh, you gave
me a map to a treasure.
And then you're like, sorry,princesses isn't another castle.
You know, like it seemslike a bait and switch, but
(34:02):
actually it's not an automaticpromotion because you fulfilled
all these requirements.
Yeah.
Like it does give youvisibility into what it would
take for you to make a case.
Mark Orttung (34:10):
And hopefully if there were something
missing for that person,it would be in the box.
Like, you're not gonna begood at this because of X. And
yeah, like ideally it wouldbe part of the transparency
that whatever that is.
Galen Low (34:22):
I mean, Pam do, have you had similar systems?
Like does the sort ofBillability thing come up?
You know, you've workedin some large agencies.
And I still think that's kindaone of those things where it's
like, yeah, but billable work.
Like do we really need totrain this person so that they
can become a better human?
Or can we just get paid?
Like how do youfind that dichotomy?
Especially as like whereyou sit in the organization
(34:44):
where someone above youmight be like no, Pam, just
work 'em to death please.
And everyone below you islike, Hey, we can be excellent
and we can help drive growth,but we need some help.
Pam Butkowski (34:53):
Yeah, no, completely.
I think unless that tone isset from the top level of the
organization that everybodyis responsible for growth.
Everybody has a CEO mindset.
Everybody needs to careabout this, then it's not
gonna resonate, right?
Like that is the tonethat we need to set at
an organizational level.
We've got a lot ofopportunities to do that, right?
We've got town halls, we'vegot company wide meetings,
(35:13):
we've got, and the way thatyou approach those is so
critical for the tone thatyou've set around priorities.
What people care about.
Galen Low (35:20):
I love what you said there because I know so many
organizations where like townhall and like having values
and a mission statement isjust like a box tick exercise
and they don't give it thetime and attention and care
to realize that every time youhave a town hall and you're
talking about what matters,it's building this cultural
fabric within your organization.
It's shifting people'sunderstanding.
It's giving them the informationmark to your point about like
(35:41):
what is the way you need tothink to be successful here.
Or at least the way you need tobehave to be successful here.
And like I just see so manyorganizations, they're like,
we cobbled together some slidesand got the staff together
and we're like, blah, blah,blah, forecasted revenue.
Bye.
You know?
And it's like, okay, actuallythat was your moment.
That was an opportunity tolike upskill everybody for
free because you would'vespent that time anyways.
(36:03):
That mindset shift, I thinkit's really interesting.
Pam Butkowski (36:05):
As someone who is kind of the voice of leadership,
but also the voice of the teams.
One thing that I really tryto encourage my teams to
do is look at their remitas a book of business.
It is their tiny businessthat they are running.
It could be two small projects.
If you're a more juniorproject manager, it could
be $20 million in revenueacross one large account.
(36:27):
Right?
But look at it as a bookof business that you are
running for the organization.
I try to empower my teamsto make smart calls.
But I also make sure thatthe calls that they're
allowed to make are inline with the organization.
Right?
So I think that folks atthis kind of layer that I'm
representing here today, we'rereally critical in translating
(36:47):
the needs of the business tosomething that will resonate
with our teams, but then alsotranslating the pain points,
the objectives, the thingsthat our teams are going up
against to leadership in away that is going to resonate
and land with them as well.
Right?
And so being kind of thattwo-way street of what the
organization needs and what theteams and individual projects
(37:09):
need is really important.
Galen Low (37:10):
That I think is so cool because like, especially
even, you know, coming backto that, how, and like Mark, I
think you described it well insaying that, you know, you need
to understand the puzzle andhow it fits together, but then
the practicality of that, Pam,that you just hit on is that.
It's like that's whereit happens every day.
Not like at a two dayworkshop, not at a, you
know, online trainingthat you did after hours.
(37:33):
It's actually on the job, andit's the people you've got
and the culture you've got.
That creates the ecosystemfor people to be empowered
to make good decisionsbecause they understand.
They've been giventhe whole puzzle.
And I do, like, I see thenote in our notes doc and
just as transparency, andI'm like, I get it now.
Pam Butkowski (37:49):
No, it's impossible, especially at
an enterprise level foreverybody to understand, right.
The tippy top of the pyramidand the lowest level of the
pyramid for both of thoselevels to understand each
other's priorities completely.
And so middle management VPlayers, like, that's where
it becomes so critical to do.
Be the connection pointsbetween all the layers.
Galen Low (38:11):
That's a fantastic segue into our bonus segment.
Mark, I was wondering if youcould tell me as CEO, what
does gross margin mean to you?
Why is it important andwhen do you look at it?
Mark Orttung (38:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
I, now that I run Projectworks,we're all about metrics, so
this is, for me, this is fun.
So gross margin isreally at the core of how
healthy is your business.
So the way to think about itis for the revenue that you're
getting, what is the profityou're making on a given area?
(38:42):
And actually, I think to reallyunderstand that you need to
separate it from project margin.
So when you run asingle project, it's
a very simple thing.
You have the billable revenuecoming in, the cost of the
people, and possibly there'ssome other direct expenses
that you need for that project.
As simple as that,the project margin is.
The difference between how muchrevenue you get and your cost.
(39:04):
If you take zoom out a littlebit, as we talked about earlier,
take five projects and add upall of their project margin.
The other costs you need toadd in for gross margin are
other people that, or othercosts for delivering your work.
So it could be your leadershipof a given practice.
It could be people who are oftenbillable but are not currently.
They all get thrown into thecost side of gross margin.
(39:27):
So it's all your accountrevenue, minus all your account
costs and your practice costs.
And so if you have a great grossmargin, that means the core
of your business is healthy.
You might still spend toomuch money on marketing
and sales or finance andaccounting, but that's a
different part of the margin.
This is the coreof your business.
If this is good.
Then you're in greatshape as a company.
Galen Low (39:48):
I love that as I sort of zoomed out to
see the rest of the puzzle.
Right.
Talked about like individualproduct profitability doesn't
mean that the whole businessis going to be healthy and
there's other things, right?
We talk a lot about utilizationand billable time and for all
the folks who are billable, butthere's also folks who aren't.
And yeah, thatimpacts the overall.
Pam, do you discuss grossmargin in your role?
Pam Butkowski (40:10):
Sure do.
Yeah, all the time.
I think, I mean, mark talkeda lot about gross margin
at an organizational level.
I think there are various, I'mliterally looking through the
rest of the metrics to makesure we're not gonna cover this.
Yep.
Okay.
So understanding margin asyou can affect it as a project
manager or as a programmanager, or as a practice
(40:31):
lead is really important too.
Right?
There are various layers ofmanaging margin as well, right?
There is an account levelmargin, and maybe that is
something that you should starttracking at a program or an
account level if that's theway the organization is set up.
But.
No, we're looking atmargin all the time.
Galen Low (40:48):
Cool.
Love it.
Maybe I'll shift on to thenext one, utilization rate
and utilization target.
Pam, I'm gonna throwto you on this one.
What does it mean to you?
Why is it important andwhen do you look at it?
Pam Butkowski (41:02):
Okay, so I got the one that we all hate.
I look at it every day.
I wanna back us up a littlebit on this one because
it's, this is one whereeverybody in a billable role
feels the pain of it, right?
It's this like loominggray cloud of like, but I
have a billability target.
I have a utilizationtarget that I have to hit.
I need more workbecause of this.
(41:23):
We sometimes forget thatit's not just a target
that's tied to you.
It's something that then informsa lot of the revenue targets.
A lot of the decisions that wemake in as an organization, a
lot of literally at a baseline,utilization targets are what we
use to then feed up all of theother metrics that determine
(41:44):
how much we need to sell ina year to keep this business
going, the baseline, right?
And so it is really importantand it feeds everything else.
So I know it sucks to track tolike an 80% utilization target,
but it's so important everyone.
I look at it every day.
I look at it through anumber of different lenses.
I look at it around wherewe're gonna assign new
projects and how utilized orbillable folks currently are.
(42:07):
Or I look at it on a weeklybasis to see if allocated
to actuals are in line.
If on paper it says that myteam is supposed to be 80%
billable and we're tracking to110, there is something wrong.
I look at thismetric all the time.
I think it's really importantfor everybody to understand
what the word utilizationmeans to your organization.
To some organizations,it is just billability.
(42:31):
To some, it's a combinationof billability and
non-billable work aroundgrowth, around sales counts
towards positive utilization.
So understanding what yourorganization actually uses to
measure utilization is reallyimportant so that you know
kind of what good looks like.
The other thing to keep inmind when you're looking at
this or when you're personallytracking to utilization is.
(42:53):
The timeframe over which yourorganization views utilization.
Is it a yearly target,an annual target?
Is it a quarterly target?
Is it a, every weekyou're expected to
hit this utilization?
Understanding kind of how theyuse these metrics to inform
larger goals is also important.
So, that's a question that youcan just ask your managers,
ask your practice leads, whatdoes utilization mean to us?
(43:15):
How often are you looking at it?
My utilization target is 85%.
Am I expected to hitthat every single week?
Or is that something that we'regonna look at the end of the
year as my success metric?
Galen Low (43:26):
I also love it as a one thing that we
think we all know what itmeans, so we don't ask.
So it's like thatsimple action of asking.
Even just in the past, youknow, minute and a half, I
was like, oh, that's why I getasked about it all the time.
Not just at the, you know,like once a month or once
a quarter because it'simportant for planning.
Our panelists, let'sgive it up to them.
Thank you everybody.
Pam Butkowski (43:45):
Thank you.
Galen Low (43:45):
Thank you.
Alright folks,there you have it.
As always, if you'd like tojoin the conversation with
over a thousand like-mindedproject management champions,
come join our collective!Head over to
thedpm.com/membershipto learn more.
And if you like what youheard today, please subscribe
and stay in touch onthedigitalprojectmanager.com.
Until next time,thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Medal of Honor: Stories of Courage
Rewarded for bravery that goes above and beyond the call of duty, the Medal of Honor is the United States’ top military decoration. The stories we tell are about the heroes who have distinguished themselves by acts of heroism and courage that have saved lives. From Judith Resnik, the second woman in space, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice, these are stories about those who have done the improbable and unexpected, who have sacrificed something in the name of something much bigger than themselves. Every Wednesday on Medal of Honor, uncover what their experiences tell us about the nature of sacrifice, why people put their lives in danger for others, and what happens after you’ve become a hero. Special thanks to series creator Dan McGinn, to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and Adam Plumpton. Medal of Honor begins on May 28. Subscribe to Pushkin+ to hear ad-free episodes one week early. Find Pushkin+ on the Medal of Honor show page in Apple or at Pushkin.fm. Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plus
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com