September 23, 2025 • 47 mins
The entry-level project management job isn’t what it used to be. With AI automating many of the classic coordinator tasks, the ground floor seems to have disappeared—leaving aspiring PMs wondering how to even get started. In this episode, Galen Low sits down with Benjamin Chan, Founder of CLYMB Consulting, to unpack what this shift really means for junior PMs, hiring managers, and the next generation of project leaders.
Together, they explore how AI is reshaping the role of the project coordinator, what skills and traits are most valuable in today’s job market, and how organizations can reimagine career paths to make sure talent isn’t left behind. Whether you’re breaking in, hiring, or mentoring, this conversation is full of real-world perspective and actionable ideas for navigating the new career landscape.
Resources from this episode:
- Join DPM Membership
- Subscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcasts
- Connect with Ben on LinkedIn
- Check out CLYMB Consulting
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Galen Low (00:00):
How can aspiring project managers break into
the world of project managementwhen there's no ground floor
and no stairs till theyget to the second level?
Ben Chan (00:07):
For those that are trying to go into that
project management area,start looking and building
up those skills as soon aspossible wherever you are.
Galen Low (00:17):
What are the skills and traits that like a hiring
manager could be looking forwith the backdrop of like AI
tools, doing all the traditionalproject coordinator stuff?
Ben Chan (00:25):
Quickness to learn, adaptability, being
able to manage conflict.
Those are thingsthat drive success.
Galen Low (00:31):
Is AI literally taking entry level jobs
or is it redefining whatan entry level job is?
Ben Chan (00:38):
It's probably the latter.
It might be a redefinitionof what does that role
exactly look like?
You need to see new jobs thathave never been thought of.
Network.
Go and talk to people.
In the end, an AI isnot gonna hire you.
People are gonna hire you.
Galen Low (00:58):
Welcome to The Digital Project Manager
podcast — the show thathelps delivery leaders work
smarter, deliver faster, andlead better in the age of AI.
I'm Galen, and every week wedive into real world strategies,
new tools, proven frameworks,and the occasional war story
from the project front lines.
Whether you're steeringmassive transformation
projects, wrangling AIworkflows, or just trying to
(01:19):
keep the chaos under control,you're in the right place.
Let's get into it.
Today we are talking aboutthe impact that AI has had on
entry level project managementjobs and what businesses
as well as aspiring projectleaders can do about it.
With me today is Benjamin Chan,Founder of CLYMB Consulting and
a recovering "project fixer".
At CLYMB, Ben is theprincipal project leadership
(01:42):
success coach, leveragingover 15 years of experience
in project recovery andenterprise delivery.
But he's also a prolifickeynote speaker, a graphic
novel enthusiast, andone of the top project
management voices on LinkedInwithin Canada and the US.
His mission?
To get PMs the support they needso that they can stop struggling
and start climbing towards arewarding career in project
(02:05):
leadership with confidence.
Ben, thanks for beingwith me here today.
Ben Chan (02:09):
Thank you Galen for having me on your show.
Galen Low (02:10):
That's an honor.
You had me on yours.
I had such a blast.
And I'm like, I'mgonna return the favor.
And then several months passedand I'm sorry about, I think
actually it ended up working outpretty good because, you know, I
was saying to someone just well,maybe it was today, we're like.
The world of projectmanagement has never been
changing this fast, not fordecades, and now it feels like
every day is something new.
(02:31):
Is AI has impactedthe job market?
There's different roles,and I think now is actually
the right time to be talkingabout career stuff, career
growth, and especially thissort of narrative around
entry level jobs, especiallyproject management jobs,
but actually all of the sortof knowledge worker jobs.
It's kind of changing.
Ben Chan (02:48):
Yeah, it's interesting because I would say as much
as things are changing,there's also a whole bunch of
things that stay the same aswell that feel like they're
consistent throughout theproject management project,
leadership work stream.
And that's kind of beeninteresting because we have
to kind of dissect how thoseareas intersect, how they
(03:08):
digress, and how they playtogether in today's new market.
Galen Low (03:12):
It's funny because like, as you're
saying that I'm like.
There's this sort ofhistory repeating aspect
thing of things, right?
You know, where if I actuallyhad this idea to have a
historian on all my podcaststo be like, well, during the
industrial revolution thisalso happened and it was fine.
Or maybe it wasn't fine and youknow, we can learn from this.
But I think, you know, Ihear what you're saying.
It's like there are somefoundations we return to
(03:33):
and then there's disruptionthat always comes.
And I guess that's whatkeeps us on our toes.
You and I, we've gota bit of history.
We're LinkedIn buddies.
I know that we can get into theweeds like, you know, when we
were prepping for this and inthe green room, we are tangent
people, but in case that wedo stay on track, here's the
roadmap that I've sketchedout for our listeners today.
To start us off, I wantedto just get one big burning
(03:54):
question out of the way thatlike existentially triggering
question that everyone wantsto know about breaking into
project management in 2025.
But then I'd like tozoom out and just talk
about maybe three things.
Firstly, I wanted to talk aboutthe myths that are driving PM
hiring trends lately, and thenI'd like to dive deep into what
skills hiring managers couldand maybe should be looking
for to secure and supporttalented junior PMs, but maybe
(04:17):
in like intermediate roles.
And lastly, I'd like totalk about the implications
of what people are sayingabout entry-level white
collar jobs, especiallyin project management.
Like what needs to changenow to make sure the next
generation of project leadersis set up for success?
Ben Chan (04:32):
Let's do it.
Let's see where this goes.
Galen Low (04:34):
All right.
Awesome.
So the big cloud that's likelording over the project
management field today isthis erosion of entry level
jobs as a result of AI.
The way I see it, thestory goes like this.
Generative and agent AIhave proven capable of so
many of the typical entrylevel project coordination
tasks, that entry level PMjobs are no longer a thing.
(04:54):
Essentially talented individualstrying to break into project
management are needing tobreak into like the second
floor because there isn'tthe first floor anymore and
there's no stairs going up,you know, from receptions.
No smart elevators, nothing.
So my big question is this.
How can aspiring projectmanagers break into the
world of project managementwhen there's no ground floor
and no stairs till theyget to the second level?
(05:14):
Like what are the skills and themindset that aspiring project
managers need to adopt to playbeyond what they traditionally
be deemed qualified for?
Ben Chan (05:23):
Yeah, and maybe we can examine the current path
that a lot of project managersentry level areas, what they
look at, right, is they come inas a project coordinator, right?
Then they're doing things liketaking meeting minutes, helping
to go and move some of thetasks around on the project.
Maybe they're doing a littlebit of cost control, helping
them keep, I don't know,maybe it's the Project pos
(05:45):
and stuff in order and pullingall of those areas together.
But yeah, now we're seeinga lot of those things
being handled by AI.
And you just have the meeting,you end the meeting, and
then the transcript of allthe meeting summaries, the
action items, all of thatis all put together for
you nicely and away you go.
(06:05):
Right?
And.
That entry level job wheresomeone could be learning
beside you on those typeof areas, they're not
really critical anymore.
But then what happens isthat gap of skill continues
to grow the, we'll saymid-career project managers
and senior level projectmanagers, they'll continue
to move along on their way.
(06:26):
But what's left behind is thatgap of how do we get in then?
Because those people thatwant to get in, they're not
getting the right experience.
Hiring managers will look atthat and say, well, you don't
have any experience on that, andthey're not gonna be able to get
it because there is that leapof talent and experience that is
suddenly created by this new AIthat is making things efficient.
(06:49):
And so I think that'skind of the situation that
we're looking at right now.
And I think for those thatare trying to go into that
project management area isstart looking and building
up those skills as soon aspossible wherever you are.
And honestly, I feel likeproject management at its core
(07:09):
should be a part of school.
It should be part of evenjunior high when you're
trying to go and study.
I mean, how many of us arecramming before exams or
cramming to go and get thatlast minute overnight report
done for your assignment?
That is just poor projectmanagement on our part.
Let's be honest.
Right?
Galen Low (07:27):
I think PMI calls it crashing the schedule.
Ben Chan (07:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then you have the overnightcrash to go and try and get
everything done, and thenyou crash in bed afterwards.
Right.
But those are kind ofskills that we're not really
learning a lot earlier.
And so I would say part ofit is build those skills
early, understand howthey all come together.
Because even understandinghow you work inside of
(07:50):
a group project likethis is something that.
I've been wanting to do forpost-secondary institutions
is talk a little bit aboutwhy group projects in
universities suck so bad.
Everyone goes into them.
You got one personwho's a slacker.
Everyone else feels likethey're trying to go and carry
that pull over to the finishline, and it's exhausting.
Everyone's just like, great.
(08:10):
I guess we got a. Whoop do.
Right.
And everyone'ssweating it at the end.
But these are the tangentswe're talking about here.
Galen Low (08:17):
Yeah.
Well I think I really like that.
'cause it is like, actually,you know, we've groan about
it, but in some ways it's thebest training that we got,
you know, post-secondary.
Is that work is likea group project.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Ben Chan (08:29):
We have no lessons learned from that whatsoever
other than I don't ever wannawork with that group member
ever again on a group project.
Just hazing.
That's the lessonthat's learned, right.
Galen Low (08:38):
I really like what you're saying though about sort
of developing the skill earlyand maybe in different ways.
You know, we talk alot about sort of like
volunteer experience.
I know it's like, it's actuallynot an easy thing to find
volunteer work that is likeproject coordinator work.
I guess the other thing you'resaying is that your ways of
developing these skills arewoven into other things, right?
(08:59):
It's like it's in, you know,the way you work together as
a group for a school project.
It's woven into probably a lotof volunteer roles that don't
say project coordinator likeon them, but you're going to
be developing these skillsof interacting with people
and getting things done so itdoesn't feel like that terrible
group project from university.
And you can start buildingthat narrative for yourself
(09:21):
so that you can say thatyou have this experience.
And in some ways beclearing the line of
this entry level job gap.
Ben Chan (09:28):
Right.
And I think part of it is alsoshifting your perspective, if
that's something you wanna getinto for project management,
is how you take a projectmanagement lens on things so
that you can then translatethat into your next job.
There's an interesting analogythat I like to go and draw
from is when people go into,let's say, an entry level
job at McDonald's, let'ssay people might think,
(09:50):
oh, you're serving burgers.
It's minimum wage,ladi da, right?
And they have all these maybegripes about it and whatnot.
But if you shift your thinkingabout it of you're doing
these processes not justfor the sake of doing them,
there's a lot of research andtechnicality put in from a
supply chain perspective aswell, from a process delivery.
Maybe it's leanSixSigma used into it.
(10:11):
I'm sure the McDonald's peoplearen't gonna release all their
secrets around it, right?
But if you lookback somewhere like.
Hundred years ago to go andsay, I'm gonna serve you a
full meal in less than twominutes, they would look at
you and say, you are crazy.
There's no way you cango be able to do that.
Galen Low (10:29):
Is it gonna be an Apple?
Ben Chan (10:30):
Yeah, I know.
Exactly.
It's like, well, I gottago to the Garin, wash the
apple and give it to you.
Right.
That's probably thehealthiest meal you'll get.
But if you're able to goand understand how all these
interactive pieces come togetherso that yes, you are flipping
burgers, but you're doing ita very specific time in a very
specific way to be able to goand make things happen, and
the more you kind of understandhow that strategic look.
(10:53):
Perspective on it is the moreappreciation you might have on.
Great.
Now how do I fit intothe outcome of actually
delivering a meal?
So yes, you could view it as aminimum wage job or you could
view it as this conglomerationof amazing process improvement
areas to help deliveroutcomes to a customer.
Galen Low (11:14):
I really like that.
Like I my university job,actually, my high school job
was at a Walmart like photo lab.
And definitely, you know,I was young, I was punching
the clock a lot, right?
To just show up and I do my job.
But you know, when I thinkback on it, just even paying
enough attention to realizehow big of an operation you
were working in, and I don'tthink these are trade secrets,
(11:37):
but photo labs, you know, backin the day when there were
photo labs inside of Walmarts,they were lost leaders.
They don't make money.
They lose money.
But when you're waiting for yourphotos to get developed, you
shop, you spend money, right?
So we're part of thislarger operation.
So like actually our unit,the way we operated was like
actually quite different thanthe rest of the store and the
(11:57):
management structure, right?
The culture, the likethese pieces that if
you're paying attention.
You pick up on them andyou can actually start
weaving that narrative.
And I think that's what you'resaying is like apply that
lens when you're in that jobso you can actually zoom out
a bit, see what's going on,understand what's going on, and
then speak to that when you'reactually like interviewing or
trying to break into your entrylevel or early career role.
(12:19):
Because you can learn that.
You can pick up on it evenif it's not sort of part
of your responsibilities.
Ben Chan (12:24):
Exactly.
Right.
There's just so muchyou can go and learn.
Depending on how wide or narrowyou want your lens to be.
Galen Low (12:31):
I wanted to come back to something you said
earlier, because I foundit really interesting.
You're saying that the projectcoordinator role, part of it is
shadowing and learning becauseyou're there and you're watching
more senior project leaders dotheir thing and then eventually
you'll pick up on that enough.
You'll find your own style,and then you'll be confident
(12:52):
and skilled enough tobe doing it on your own.
Part of the project coordinatorresponsibilities, like note
taking and like sendingstatus boards and stuff is
like, it's almost the likecost of sitting around to
watch these projects happen.
It's like, well, yougotta do something.
You can't just sit in a chairand like watch me and I pay you.
Right, right.
But then if that's true, then.
(13:12):
The responsibilities of aproject coordinator do not
make the project coordinator.
They're basically an apprentice.
So whatever is there to be done,that maybe isn't the like top
priority of the senior projectmanager is what the project
coordinator can help with.
It doesn't mean taking notes.
So if AI takes over notetaking, if AI takes over status
reports, I guarantee you thatthey're still a part of the job.
(13:34):
That's like a little bit ofa like, ah, I wish I didn't
have to do this myself.
Oh yeah, project coordinator,could you help with this?
And maybe it's not notes, maybeit's actually, Hey, could you
like call this stakeholder andexplain to them this and that?
Like say that I told youto call you and you know,
explain this to them.
Or like, could you help educate,you know, some of these folks,
like we've got some materialon like how to do scrum, right?
(13:55):
It's like, okay, when wesay user story points,
here's what we mean.
Can you just like.
Talk the stakeholder throughit who like clearly is not
getting it and is frustratedand there's these things that
I don't know, like I wouldn'tnecessarily immediately think,
oh yeah, I'm gonna give thatto a project coordinator.
But like almost that levelis up a bit, but it's still
part of the job where I'mlike, gosh, I wish I didn't
have to do this myself.
(14:15):
I can maybe get somesupport on this.
And maybe that's what theproject coordinator role is now.
Not do these things,but to do what's needed.
Well, you kind of get to bein a bit of an apprentice
and be the mentee.
Ben Chan (14:26):
Yeah, and I think that it is.
Interesting.
'cause I would also say it'slike a knight in their squire.
If we're talking about fictionalpieces, it's like you got
the wizard and then you gotthe little guy, you got the
hobbit following you along tobe able to go on this journey.
And that's where it maybesome of the difficulty comes
in because that maybe meanthat the project manager
(14:48):
needs to delegate more,but there has to be a level
of trust of experience.
But how do you trustthat experience if
they haven't had any?
So there's that weird kindof dynamic that happens
between them that you kindof have to work around.
And this is where for me, whenI do have more junior project
coordinators who are aspiringto be project managers, I'll ask
(15:08):
them, what do you wanna work on?
What skills do youwant to go and have?
And we'll look at how I'mdelivering to go and say, Hey,
can you take these pieces on?
Would you feel comfortable?
And if you run into trouble,let me know and I'll see
how I can help you out.
Right?
How can I assist you?
I think there's also the pieceswhere you're talking about where
they're somewhat shadowing youon the work that you're doing,
(15:31):
but they can't just sit thereand shadow the whole time.
Right.
They have to be able to beinvolved in it, and so there
might be a redefinition of whatthe project coordinator role is.
But from an organizationalperspective, that's also
hard for them to define now.
Galen Low (15:46):
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
I was gonna say, because likein theory, I like this sort of
Knight Squire model, by the way.
I think I'm gonna take itand run with it, but like for
sure, you know, the Squirejob hasn't disappeared, but
like fewer inventing right.
The whatever carry all AIwagon, it's gonna carry the
armor, it's gonna carry thelance and all that stuff.
Great.
Squire, you don't need to likecarry all that armor anymore.
(16:06):
And I'm very specificallythinking Monty
Python here, right?
Yeah.
Backpack, you know, that'slike, you know, to the moon
stacked with stuff like, that'snot your job anymore, but.
There is still a wayfor you to be quire.
You're just gonna bedoing something different.
And then I'm thinking aboutit, I'm like some of the folks
coming outta school at any age,you know, like anyone who's kind
of like entering the job marketor even pivoting into project
(16:28):
management and they weren'tin project management before.
There are somevery bright people.
We kinda have this tendency,I find to be like, yeah,
entry level people likethose dummies, so we gotta
teach them everything.
Frankly, A, I don't think it isever true, and B, definitely,
I don't think it's true now.
I think there's a lot of peoplewith like really great ideas,
you know, really strong skills.
And then I agree with you whatyou said, which is like now we
(16:50):
have job descriptions, right?
In organizations thatdon't fit anymore.
So we're not sure like.
What even to ask for anymore,especially in terms of skills,
but like, I guess I'm thinkinglike the market is ripe now.
People are being toldentry-level jobs don't exist.
Everyone's like strugglingand trying to figure it out.
But like if you're a hiringmanager, you could snipe all
(17:11):
this talent right now becauseas everyone, you know, they're
not getting swept up by allthese other organizations.
'cause the project coordinatorrole doesn't exist.
But you could kind of sweepthem up maybe into more senior
roles, maybe into new roles.
But I think the thing thatyou said is the trick is like
what skills and traits shouldwe be looking for right now?
That it's not like, Hey, you'vetaken notes for a meeting
(17:32):
before, and they're like yeah.
Okay, great.
Come on in.
Like it's new now.
I dunno, like if maybe youhave an opinion on like
what are the skills andtraits that like a hiring
manager could be looking for?
Like how they would supportthem in a role that they're
technically underqualifiedfor, but in the context with
the backdrop of like AI toolsdoing all the traditional
project coordinator stuff.
Ben Chan (17:52):
Yeah.
All right.
So this is definitelygonna throw me into a
rabbit hole here, but we'regonna see where it lands.
So I think there's been a fewshifts, especially from the
educational front of thosepeople coming out of school.
One is they actually knowwhat a project manager is.
Some of 'em are wantingto be a project manager
coming out of school.
And I'd say even for mecoming outta school 20 years
(18:13):
ago, I'm dating myself.
That wasn't a thing.
No one said that theywanted to be a project
manager as part of it.
They wanted to be an engineer,a doctor, whatever it might be.
But a project managerwasn't on that list.
It became more of an accidentalpiece that you were assigned as
you grew through your career.
But now there's people saying.
I want to come outta school andI wanna be a project manager.
(18:35):
And so that means there'sone, a passion for it.
And two, they're probablylearning more details about how
to do project management, right?
All the, we'll say thefundamentals, all the
technical fundamentalsthat are guiding it.
And the other piece isaround with AI doing a lot
of the foundational elements.
There's also that, Iguess, the caution of
(18:55):
hallucinations and where it's.
I would have it similar to theanalogy of like the calculator
of, yes, there has alwaysbeen calculators, but you
want to go and show your work.
Why?
Because the work that you'reshowing shows the logic
you're using to be ableto arrive at the answer.
And sometimes when we getthese answers from AI,
we don't see that work.
(19:16):
So it's up to us if we want todo that check that we need to do
the manual pieces on it, right?
So we have to workthrough the math of it.
Does that actually make sense?
Or is it coming back?
And it's like, why is thedeadline pushed by three months?
I makes no sense.
So there's that AI front, andat the same time, I'm also
looking at my own experiencewhere I'm a generalist.
(19:36):
Where I've managed projectsacross many different types
of industries, many differenttypes of projects where it's
ranged from industries such assupply chain inside of FinTech,
oil and gas, government,agrichemical, et cetera.
Right.
And.
Different projects rangingfrom software delivery,
business process improvement,financial modeling, strategic
(19:58):
planning at the C-suite level.
Right?
All these different things.
And it's been weird for me tosometimes go to market because
people would say, tell me,what's your industry specialty?
Tell me what type ofprojects you specialize in.
And my answer is, yes.
Because I don't have thatspecialty, but I use those
(20:18):
fundamentals to be ableto go and help me deliver.
So I think if the HR recruitersare looking at it from the
perspective of, yes, whattype of traits do I need
rather than just the industryexperience pieces, then we
can have a deeper conversationis what can we do to be able
to drive success, right?
(20:39):
So quickness to learn.
Adaptability, listening, beingable to work with others,
being able to manage conflict,being able to be organized with
schedules and deliverables andall those type of things, right?
Which really doesn'tmatter about the industry
nor type of project, butit's very unintuitive to
think that way, right?
(20:59):
You want a software engineeras of the project manager.
That's kind ofwhat people think.
I need to have someonethat's deep in marketing to
lead a marketing project.
I would argue, so long as youhave a good team and I can learn
fast, I can help you deliver.
Galen Low (21:14):
I also wonder if like.
I don't know if it's beenshifting for you with that sort
of generalist positioning, butin some ways, like there's a
renaissance of the generalistright now because Great.
You deeply specialized in likechemical production or oil
and gas engineering you know,for something very specific.
Great.
Now I can only use you forone thing, but like, actually
(21:37):
we're doing many other things.
You know, like, yeah, ouroperation is supported.
Maybe even because ofAI workflows and tools,
we can do more stuff.
Yeah.
We don't have to justonly do this one thing.
And actually in some ways,a generalist would be more
valuable in like a market that'sconstantly being disrupted.
And I wonder if there'sgonna be this rebirth
where people are like, ohgood, you're a generalist.
That's great.
No, to say no more.
(21:57):
Yeah.
You know, like.
Ben Chan (21:58):
I'm still waiting for it to happen.
I'll be honest.
There are people that dorecognize it, but they need
to see it first, almost.
Right.
It's still hard for a lot oforganizations to, I guess,
feel like that they can trustsomeone that's not a specialist.
Galen Low (22:13):
Yeah.
It's almost like the, coveryour butt kind of thing.
It's like, what doyou mean exactly?
You hired some generalistwho says they are learn
quickly and are, you know,an analytical, like, we need
someone with three years ofdoing exactly this thing.
Which, I mean, it's funnythat, 'cause as you were
saying that I'm like.
What do we expect peopleto learn in like three
to five years, right?
(22:34):
Like must have three tofive years of experience.
Mostly because like, I thinkit's because that's enough
time to encounter a wholebunch of different scenarios
and figure it out so that, youknow, you've made a bunch of
mistakes and now you don't haveto make mistakes on my dime.
You can make different kinds ofmistakes, but I don't wanna pay
for those like early mistakes.
But to your point about.
Like the other one I pickedup, like the critical thinking
(22:56):
skills, especially around likehallucination or you know,
how we wield AI tools andnot just being like, cool,
that's what the answer said.
So I just copied andpasted it into the thing.
Even that, just that likethe wherewithal to be like,
i'm gonna double check this.
I'm gonna go aboutit another way.
I'm just gonna make sure I'mgonna do a little bit of extra
research and make sure thatI'm being the responsible
human in the loop and I'm beingvaluable here because I didn't
(23:18):
just take the answer to anyoneelse could have generated.
You know, I'm likehoning my ability to.
It's a challenge and to thinkcritically about things like
my AI tools and people, right?
Like be like, okay, well I'm notgonna take everything at face.
Value is actually a skillthat most people, if you're
honing it, you've probablybeen honing it for more
than three to five years.
You know, it's like yourcritical thinking skills.
(23:40):
The things that we'resupposed to be learning in
school and in universitylike that also matters.
Could it be the equivalencyof like having three to
five years of experience?
I'm not sure, but it reallyraises that question for me
of like, yeah, what do weexpect people to learn in
that three to five years ofexperience that we want before
they walk into the door?
Ben Chan (23:59):
Right, and you don't get the three to five
years experience until you'reinto an entry level job
that can provide you thatthree, three year experience.
And it's one of those thingsthat I think is really tough
in the market right now becausethe three years experience and
even being able to vet AI, thehallucinations and the whatnot.
There's an instinctual gutfeeling that you can look at,
(24:19):
something you can go and say,that feels off because you've
had been exposed to it a longtime, and do you trust it?
If you're at the beginningand you don't know what's
right or wrong that you'redouble checking everything,
and how much more time is thatadding to your schedule or
just your own sanity on tryingto double check everything
that AI is putting out?
And everyone's justlike, just trust it.
(24:41):
Don't worry about it.
Right.
Until you should.
Right?
Until you should worry about it.
So that's where I'm kindof thinking like even
from an organizationalperspective, they'd have
to think about how they'reable to go and support their
employees to be successful.
A lot of the time I thinkpeople get hired in and say,
you then need to figure outhow to be successful rather
than being supported on it.
Right.
(25:01):
And that's where, for me, Ilove the coaching aspect to
be able to help more projectmanagers be able to understand
it so that they don't have togo through the stars that I did.
They don't have to make allthe mistakes that I did that
people will look at you and go,I can't believe you did that.
This is how much it cost us.
Instead, helping providea little bit more the
guardrails for them whilealso allowing them to be
(25:24):
introspective, to build thoseskills internally rather than
just being told what to do.
And I think the differencesbetween how the training
elements of it, howthey do their day-to-day
experience, as well asthe coaching and mentoring
aspects can come into it.
It's a really great opportunity.
For organizations to build upthat entry level area, right?
(25:46):
Even if they'rethe squire, right?
How do we turn them into nights?
We can't just have themcarrying everything.
It might build that legstrength for a little bit,
but at some point theyhave to wield the sword.
Galen Low (25:56):
The thing I really like about that
is a, I got whole sort ofthe support that's needed.
It's a two-way street.
It's not like.
Please go find some magical wway to get three to five years
of experience, even thougheverything needs three to five
years of experience and they'llsee you when you finally get it.
Haha.
It needs to sort of,you know, that support
needs to be inbuilt.
But you touched on somethingand I this is at least what
(26:17):
I picked up from it, which isthat sometimes what we want
from that three to five yearsof experience is stuff that we
just don't know how to teach.
Even if we could teach it,it's expensive and we don't
really want it to happenon our dime because it's if
we could, we'd be like, goto school to learn more the
hard way for five years.
Yeah, exactly.
It's just like buildthat grit doing something
(26:38):
just not on our dime.
But I like what you saidabout the coaching, because
I think for me, that'swhat bridges the gap.
It's like there's this judgmentlayer that you mentioned, right?
Where you're like, onceyou know, you kind of
know, you don't have todouble check everything.
You just, you're kind ofalmost using your gut.
We don't know howto teach gut yet.
Not like on thejob in a workplace.
Like there's noplaybook, I think for it.
(26:59):
That's why we're like, you justneed to have the experience.
Whereas in reality, evenneurologically, we're like,
we're feeding informationinto our brain of what could
happen and what we do about it.
And I think that coachingis sort of that middle
ground because a coachlike yourself, right, you
have a lot of experience.
You've been doing projectmanagement at a certain
level across multipleindustries for over 15 years.
(27:21):
And that's what peopleare benefiting from, even
just by like working withyou, dialoguing with you.
And it is sort of buildingtheir instinct, like their
judgment on what could happenand how to react to it.
And that mindset of like, whatare the decisions that you'd
make based on experience?
And you're almost givingthem that gut instinct layer.
(27:42):
As part of their journeyinto, or throughout their
like career journey.
The journey through the journey.
You know what I mean?
Ben Chan (27:50):
Yeah, yeah.
No and really it's tryingto go and not just be
theoretical about thesetype of discussions, right.
Of.
Hey, when you put aschedule together, put
all these together.
Guess what?
Critical path, whoop do, right?
And it's great to beable to go and do that.
But what's hard is whenthey're in the trenches and
working it and they find itdoesn't work, what do you do?
(28:11):
And how do youcrash the schedule?
How do you makethings efficient?
How are you exercising yourcreative problem solving?
And that's where, for me, thecoaching aspect is being able
to work with clients in thesituation that they're in.
Just like any projectis different, every
person is different.
Every organization is different.
They have differentpolitical environments.
(28:31):
They have differentwork cultures.
They have different peoplethey're working with.
They have differentobjectives, right?
Some people might care aboutcost while others are really
concerned about the endstrategic objective, right?
What are you tryingto go and do about.
The response can be anymultitude of areas, but
it's helping them to developthat intuition in their
job, right, where it'salongside their piece.
(28:53):
Rather than go to training,pick up one or two things,
I hope you apply it instead.
Let's continually see how itintegrates into your work.
How does it integrate intohow you think and view things?
Does it change your perspective?
Galen Low (29:06):
I think it's really interesting and even the like.
Project ManagementInstitute, right, the pmbok.
I know a lot of folks whostudied PMBOK six, five, or
six, and yeah, knew the words,knew the concepts, right?
Critical path had tocrash the schedule.
But like didn't really comeaway with that judgment of
what to use, when and why andwhen not to use something.
(29:29):
And like they're like, I don'tknow how I'm gonna use all
of these tools and techniquesand processes and inputs and
outputs on every project.
I'm like whoa.
No.
You don't have to use'em for everything.
They're just liketeaching you to use all
the tools in the garage.
But like sometimes you justneed to like screw in a screw.
That's not me dissing PMI.
Because I think for insome ways, like the PMP
certification for me is notan entry level certification.
(29:49):
It relies on havingthat experience.
That's why when you apply,you need to like document
the experience that you'vehad because it should be
that pairing of like the bodyof knowledge and the, you
know, quote unquote standardspaired with your experience.
So that's where you kind oflearn that judgment of what
to use when, which to me,circles all the way back to the
coaching thing, which I like.
I'm still like, my mind's alittle bit blown right now
(30:10):
because I often think ofcoaching as something that
happens later in a career.
Where it's like, cool,I've gotten to the point
where there's no structuredlearning in my job.
There might not even be a manualfor the job that I want next.
And really what I need ismore of a mindset, like a
reframing of just guidance onhow I develop in my journey.
I never really thought of itas like being available at an
(30:33):
earlier stage, almost as partof the like education process.
Which I think for me, I meanif I was to swing it all
the way back, you had at thebeginning we were talking
about this gap, right?
That'll be created.
It's like the intermediate andsenior project professionals,
they're just carrying on.
They're developing in theircareers and meanwhile this
like the new generation, thenew layer can't even get in.
They're not even likegetting into the building.
(30:54):
We're talking a little bitabout education, we're talking
about coaching, we're talkingabout support, but like
what pieces do need to bein place to support the next
generation of project leaders?
You know, knowing thatchanges to our education
system are gonna take time,heck even changes to like
the role descriptions ofwhat people are hiring for.
Like what can businesses do?
To step in and maybe playa role in developing the
(31:16):
labor market when it comesto project management
in various industries?
Ben Chan (31:19):
Well, I think as we talked about what the role
of the project coordinator isredefining what those roles are
and examining a little bit moreof how are they going to add
value to the organization now,either through the project, but
also where are they going to go?
What do we want them to be?
Because if they're all knightsand no squires, guess what?
You're gonna have a whole bunchof knight that are super tired
(31:41):
carrying everything while tryingto go and fight the battles.
Right?
So it might be aredefinition of what does
that project coordinatorrole exactly look like?
And I think it's also seeingwhat are the opportunities
that present itself interms of new jobs that
have never been thought of.
Right?
Because that's always happened.
We have.
Things where, you know, youhad now computer programmers
(32:04):
that back in the seventies andeighties are like, what is that?
Right?
You have typewriters andthings, but now you have
these electronic boxes thatyou type into and stuff.
It's so weird.
And then came internet webdevelopers and whatnot, and it
just continues to go and evolve.
Right?
All throughout crazy ideasthat I've literally just
thinking now, maybe you needa GPT maintainer, right?
(32:25):
Someone that maintainsthe project GPT.
That helps make sure that allthe things are there helps
to ensure that the documentsand maybe the responses are
correct, whatever it might be.
I don't know.
Maybe that's a role.
Who knows?
Galen Low (32:37):
I kind of love it, you know, like, it,
it is funny because like,you know, like when.
Early days of catch GPT andeveryone's like, oh, I guess
now being a prompt engineer isgonna be, you know, the new job.
And then you can be thegeneralist prompt engineer
that engineers the prompts foranything and you're a superhero.
Amazing.
And I think we kind of, Idon't know, at least the
circles I travel in, we kind ofquickly shifted on from that.
(32:57):
It's like, nope, it'sgonna be a skill that
you know, everyone needs.
Not necessarily a job.
I do like that idea.
I was actually gonna ask you,I think I'll still ask you.
I like that idea of someonewho's gonna maintain the
knowledge of a projectand make sure there's like
accurate record keeping, right?
And you know, normallypre AI, guess what?
That was the status reports inthe meeting notes and now it's
(33:19):
something different, right?
And now it's are the toolsthat we're using well-informed,
not just our stakeholders,but like our tools are
also stakeholders now.
Do they know what's going onand are they feeding the right
information to the peoplethat they're talking to?
But the question I wasgonna ask you is that you're
leading projects today, you'releading all sorts of projects.
What is that thing that if youbrought a project coordinator
on right now, what would youwant them to be doing for you?
(33:41):
What would you want themto be taking off your plate
and like what armor do youwant them to hold for you?
Ben Chan (33:46):
All of the AI stuff.
No, I'm kidding.
Honestly, the things around the.
Like the accountingpieces, I'm like please
help me out with that.
Maybe it's a cost controller,maybe it's a project
coordinator, whatever it is.
The things around theaccounting, cost, accounting
for it is where I love togo and have assistance with
because all the time there'sall these different rules that
(34:06):
change around it of what'sexpense, what's capital,
how does that fit within thecurrent structure and stuff.
That to me is like whereit's not really science
and math, it's more aroundhocus pocus things of what's
happening for this budget year.
Galen Low (34:21):
Right, right, right.
Yeah, I understandwhat you mean.
Not the mathematics thereof,but the like economics thereof.
Ben Chan (34:28):
Yeah, and I think to an extent is helping me keep
stakeholders accountable forthat and giving them a little
bit more of that leeway andresponsibility of not only
keeping myself accountable andchecking on the things that
I'm doing, but also helpingthe other stakeholders.
'cause for some of the projects,like there's more than 50
stakeholders that are all doingseparate things that need to
(34:50):
be followed up on, guess what?
An email is not gonna work.
An AI chat bot checkingin on you with agentic AI
asking, you know, this taskwas due, did you do it yet?
I'll be honest, I don't thinkthose are gonna get us that
far, but a human connectionand relationship building and
saying, Hey, what's going on?
(35:11):
I'm seeing this is late.
Do you need support on it?
What's going on?
Those are things that I thinkhelp build the relational
skills that I think projectmanagers and coordinators need.
Also gets them reallyinvolved in that relationship
building and understandingthe impact that it's having
on moving the project forward.
So I'll keep it simple andwe'll say those are the two
(35:32):
areas to kind of work on.
Galen Low (35:34):
I really like that because it speaks to, you
know, financial literacy beingimportant for one's personal
wealth and just on the job.
But I also like the otherpiece because I'm willing
to bet that a lot of projectmanagers and listeners here.
Might resort to broadcastcommunications just 'cause they
have to, but maybe that wouldn'thave been the right idea.
In agency land, it'slike time cards, everyone
(35:56):
do your time sheets.
You know, it's like, it's Fridayat 3:00 PM do your time sheets,
or you know, nobody gets paid.
And it's like this broadcast,you get the megaphone out
and you're like ba. Butexactly what you said is like.
Especially tracking time.
There's sometimes like thoseindividual just like blockers
in people's like mind of like,well, you know, like I feel
self-conscious about my work andlike is it valuable enough to
charge the client 150, $250 forthat one hour of work I spent?
(36:21):
And they're individualsort of like personal
issues and challenges.
That if I did have a choirto be like, Hey, actually,
could you just go around?
Like I could get the megaphoneout and be like, everybody,
here's what's going on withthe project, but I wouldn't get
the right information back forme to help do my job better.
So instead of me resorting tobroadcast communications, and
(36:43):
because I don't have time tohave individual conversations
with everybody, can you havesome of those individual
conversations for me and justlet me know, you know, generally
what's been going on, why isn'tour record keeping up to date?
Why are we working withproject data that is, you
know, old, we can find thatroot of the problem, then
we're cooking with gas.
And then I like the otherthing you said, which
is, by the way, that is.
(37:04):
I think it's a great way.
It might, it feels like feetto the fire, but I think it's
a great way to learn thosehuman skills to be that person
who's like, Hey, not just themessenger, but I'm here to help.
Right.
Not like, Hey, a senior projectmanager wants to know why
that thing isn't done, butlike, Hey, like, can I help?
What's been going on?
My job is actually to justtalk to people and get enough
inputs that we can ideate onways to work together better on
(37:26):
this project, which is frankly,stuff that I never have time to
do when I'm leading a project.
Right.
I'm not going like, how mightwe optimize this machine?
I'm like, Hey, we gottaget this thing done.
Like what is going on?
And I like the idea thatthis Squire role, the project
coordinator role, the dutiesmight be different, but it's
still a helping role, right?
That does actually helplift the project up.
Ben Chan (37:46):
They could be running out to different nights and
saying, Hey, what's going on?
How come you're notat the front lines?
How come I'm not helping out?
Or, what's holding you back?
Right?
Rather than me, youknow, to your example
of broadcasting, right?
I'm not going out theregoing here ye here you
announcement for all, right?
You know, there's differentways to add value.
Galen Low (38:08):
We're gonna get this in the comments of like someone
who's like, I'm a professor ofmedieval history, and you guys
have no idea what a choir does.
I know that's timefor that matter.
Yeah.
I wonder if maybe we canlook a bit into the future
just to kind of round out.
I wonder if it's actuallyperspective, right?
Because there's like headlinesand stuff, right, where
it's like entry level jobsare, they're vanishing,
(38:30):
they're disappearing.
It's doom and gloom.
Some of them are like, don'tworry, new jobs are just
around the corner, like withdifferent titles that you've
never heard of, but theyhaven't materialized yet.
I guess maybe I want your POVon like whether you think AI
is literally taking entry-leveljobs or is it redefining
what an entry-level job is?
And if it's the latter,which I think it is.
(38:50):
'cause I think we've kind oftouched on that throughout
the conversation, butlike what could that mean
for career opportunitiesfor this next generation?
Right.
The Gen Z, the gen alpha,and the future generations
of knowledge workers.
Ben Chan (39:01):
Well, I think, yeah, you're right.
It's probably the latterwhere there's a lot of
different factors coming in.
There's like economic factorsthat are completely out of our
control, political factors,and that are happening inside
of the market that we haveno control over that impact
everything else, right?
There's a domino effect on them,and I think for those that are
entry level, it's be creative.
(39:22):
Think of what role you thinkyou can contribute to that
organizations might need.
Because sometimes theymight look at it and
just say, you know what?
Maybe we do need that.
We need to go and have that.
But that also requires, at leastfor the entry level people,
is have those conversations.
Network, go and talk to peoplebecause you're gonna get
frustrated with the a TS systemsand AI filter, a AI A TS systems
(39:46):
filtering out AI resumes, right?
We know that's happening,let's be honest.
Right?
Galen Low (39:51):
Absolutely.
Ben Chan (39:52):
You gotta make that connection with people.
You gotta be able to goand talk with others.
You have to be able to showexactly what value you are
providing and how you'regoing to go and stand out.
So don't sit behindyour desk just sending
out emails and whatnot.
Go and have a coffee.
Go and talk to people.
Go and meet with peopleonline because in the end,
an AI is not gonna hire you.
People are gonna hire you.
Galen Low (40:13):
Boom.
I love that.
I like the idea that I thinkour generation, I'm kind
of putting us in the samebucket here, but you know,
our generation was like.
Learn what job titles are andthen find them on the job board.
You know, find them on Indeed.
You know that's who you are.
Now you're a project manager.
Only search for projectmanager titles, and
that's all you can do.
That's all you will do.
(40:33):
We asked you when you wereyoung, what you wanted to
be when you grew up and yousaid this, and you only have
the one thing, you cannotstray outside that box.
Whereas like actually I seeit happen a lot in small
businesses and enterpriseswhere they do need inputs about
what a new role ought to be.
But they are shaping rolessometimes to pivot because
of these economic factorsand things beyond their
control that they needto adapt to and react to.
(40:54):
And it actually, it happens alot more than I expected that
yeah, we're actually gonna shapea job around a conversation
and a need that we did have.
Right.
And just kind oflike work together.
I don't think it's the only way.
Or the dominant wayof getting a job.
But I do think it happens alot more than people think.
So when people are like,yeah, whatever, Ben and Galen,
they're not just gonna likemake up a job for me because
(41:16):
I like had a coffee with them.
Actually, they might.
Because that's the two-waystreet of like the bright
people getting into projectmanagement wherever they
are in their career.
And these organizations thatdo need input, they need to be
able to support these peoplecoming into these roles,
but they also need ideas ofwhat the role ought to be to
actually make a difference.
I think that's areally good pairing.
It's pretty poetic.
Ben Chan (41:36):
Thanks Galen.
Galen Low (41:39):
That might be a good place to wrap it.
Just for fun, do you have aquestion that you wanna ask me?
Ben Chan (41:44):
I guess, for you, how does AI you feel like
impact the Digital ProjectManager specifically?
Galen Low (41:52):
Ooh, that's an interesting one.
Okay.
My medium length answer is this.
I find that like on thedigital side of things, we
have like this multi-pronged AIchallenge, which is a. Using AI
to like deliver value, deliverprojects and collaborate.
There's also the like factthat in the digital world
sometimes we are creating, likethe product is being created
(42:15):
in tandem with AI, right?
The team members, you know, onthe creative team are using AI
tools to generate something.
There's like this additionallayer of like, okay, like
I need to understand wherethis is coming from so
that, you know, we're notplagiarizing, we're not like
getting ourselves in trouble.
And then there's the fact thatsometimes what we're building
is an AI product, right?
So you have there likethree levels of AI
to pay attention to.
(42:35):
And I keep getting sortof spun around in it
because there's like AIenhanced ways of working.
How do we get the job done?
There's the like oversight.
How can I make sure thatthe team is being ethical
and responsible in theiruse of AI tools to generate
something of value?
And then it's the thirdlayer of like, do we
actually even know enough?
Is it our responsibility now?
It is.
(42:56):
To actually understand theimpact of the thing that we
are building that is digitaland AI enhanced like it is.
You know, it is powered by AI.
It's not just a website anymore.
It's not just a digitalmarketing campaign anymore.
It's got a lot more pieces.
So can't even remember whatyour original question was.
(43:16):
But I think there's likethese layers of complexity in
the digital world where it'smore than one sort of lens
for AI that we need to be.
Thinking about right now,it's also like super exciting.
Like what a time to bealive, to like be able to be
thinking about those things.
It's a lot.
It's a lot of complexity.
It's like, well beyond what Ithink a lot of folks thought
of their job description asproject leaders in the digital
(43:38):
world, but now it comeswith the territory, right?
Of like, okay, well we almostneed to be more strategic
about the way we thinkabout it because we're so
intertwined in the processdeveloping something so complex.
Ben Chan (43:51):
Great.
Well, if that was the mediumlong answer to hate to hear
what the long length was.
Galen Low (43:59):
Yeah, that's that sounds like me being on brand.
Awesome.
Ben, thanks so much for spendingthe time with me here today.
I've had a lot of fun.
Before I let you gothough, where can people
learn more about you?
And also is there anything coolthat you're working on right
now that you wanted to tellfolks about while you're here?
Ben Chan (44:18):
Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn under PM Coach
Ben, or just my regular name,Benjamin Chan, and feel free to
go and connect with me there.
I am gonna be speakingat various different PMI
events across US and Canada.
I'm going to be out inVancouver, Pittsburgh,
Washington, DC, PMIAlamo in Cyprus as well.
(44:40):
So all over the world,so that's really cool.
Next year, I'm actuallygonna be releasing a
group coaching program, soit's called Project Apex.
It's going to be focused onproviding project managers
with, I'll say, foundationalleadership power skills.
Having them understandwhat they are.
And then it comes along withthree months of coaching where
(45:01):
we come in as a group, we talkabout the real situations and
how they're applying into yourarea and enhancing them, and
really moving the needle onyour leadership skills so that
you can not only just deliverconfidently for your project.
Have the confidence andresiliency to be able to go
and accelerate and lift upyour own career and superpower.
Galen Low (45:22):
Boom.
I love it.
The missing piece of the likecurrent education puzzle,
you know, I'm trying get goodgrades, get a job, but in
between there's coaching or evenduring the journey, while you're
in your job, there's coaching.
I love that.
Honestly, I think that's sucha good perspective on like
what coaching is for not tolike necessarily like zero in
on fix on specific problems,but like as a group to share
(45:42):
knowledge and experience.
'cause that's what's gonnalike help folks understand what
is possible and how to likeexercise judgment and instinct
as different scenarios comeup in your professional life.
Ben Chan (45:52):
Absolutely.
Galen Low (45:53):
Anyways, I think that's so cool.
I will include links to all ofthose things in the show notes.
And if you don't follow Benalready on LinkedIn some of
your content man is great.
It's excellent.
I like the, you know,comic book theme stuff.
I like the memes.
All super relatable,entertaining, and insightful.
Genuinely.
So keep doing what you do.
I appreciate you and thanksagain for coming on the show.
Ben Chan (46:13):
Yeah, thanks so much, Galen.
Happy to be here.
Galen Low (46:17):
That's it for today's episode of The Digital
Project Manager Podcast.
If you enjoyed thisconversation, make sure
to subscribe whereveryou're listening.
And if you want even moretactical insights, case studies
and playbooks, head on over tothedigitalprojectmanager.com.
Until next time,thanks for listening.
How can aspiring project managers break into
the world of project managementwhen there's no ground floor
and no stairs till theyget to the second level?
Ben Chan (00:07):
For those that are trying to go into that
project management area,start looking and building
up those skills as soon aspossible wherever you are.
Galen Low (00:17):
What are the skills and traits that like a hiring
manager could be looking forwith the backdrop of like AI
tools, doing all the traditionalproject coordinator stuff?
Ben Chan (00:25):
Quickness to learn, adaptability, being
able to manage conflict.
Those are thingsthat drive success.
Galen Low (00:31):
Is AI literally taking entry level jobs
or is it redefining whatan entry level job is?
Ben Chan (00:38):
It's probably the latter.
It might be a redefinitionof what does that role
exactly look like?
You need to see new jobs thathave never been thought of.
Network.
Go and talk to people.
In the end, an AI isnot gonna hire you.
People are gonna hire you.
Galen Low (00:58):
Welcome to The Digital Project Manager
podcast — the show thathelps delivery leaders work
smarter, deliver faster, andlead better in the age of AI.
I'm Galen, and every week wedive into real world strategies,
new tools, proven frameworks,and the occasional war story
from the project front lines.
Whether you're steeringmassive transformation
projects, wrangling AIworkflows, or just trying to
(01:19):
keep the chaos under control,you're in the right place.
Let's get into it.
Today we are talking aboutthe impact that AI has had on
entry level project managementjobs and what businesses
as well as aspiring projectleaders can do about it.
With me today is Benjamin Chan,Founder of CLYMB Consulting and
a recovering "project fixer".
At CLYMB, Ben is theprincipal project leadership
(01:42):
success coach, leveragingover 15 years of experience
in project recovery andenterprise delivery.
But he's also a prolifickeynote speaker, a graphic
novel enthusiast, andone of the top project
management voices on LinkedInwithin Canada and the US.
His mission?
To get PMs the support they needso that they can stop struggling
and start climbing towards arewarding career in project
(02:05):
leadership with confidence.
Ben, thanks for beingwith me here today.
Ben Chan (02:09):
Thank you Galen for having me on your show.
Galen Low (02:10):
That's an honor.
You had me on yours.
I had such a blast.
And I'm like, I'mgonna return the favor.
And then several months passedand I'm sorry about, I think
actually it ended up working outpretty good because, you know, I
was saying to someone just well,maybe it was today, we're like.
The world of projectmanagement has never been
changing this fast, not fordecades, and now it feels like
every day is something new.
(02:31):
Is AI has impactedthe job market?
There's different roles,and I think now is actually
the right time to be talkingabout career stuff, career
growth, and especially thissort of narrative around
entry level jobs, especiallyproject management jobs,
but actually all of the sortof knowledge worker jobs.
It's kind of changing.
Ben Chan (02:48):
Yeah, it's interesting because I would say as much
as things are changing,there's also a whole bunch of
things that stay the same aswell that feel like they're
consistent throughout theproject management project,
leadership work stream.
And that's kind of beeninteresting because we have
to kind of dissect how thoseareas intersect, how they
(03:08):
digress, and how they playtogether in today's new market.
Galen Low (03:12):
It's funny because like, as you're
saying that I'm like.
There's this sort ofhistory repeating aspect
thing of things, right?
You know, where if I actuallyhad this idea to have a
historian on all my podcaststo be like, well, during the
industrial revolution thisalso happened and it was fine.
Or maybe it wasn't fine and youknow, we can learn from this.
But I think, you know, Ihear what you're saying.
It's like there are somefoundations we return to
(03:33):
and then there's disruptionthat always comes.
And I guess that's whatkeeps us on our toes.
You and I, we've gota bit of history.
We're LinkedIn buddies.
I know that we can get into theweeds like, you know, when we
were prepping for this and inthe green room, we are tangent
people, but in case that wedo stay on track, here's the
roadmap that I've sketchedout for our listeners today.
To start us off, I wantedto just get one big burning
(03:54):
question out of the way thatlike existentially triggering
question that everyone wantsto know about breaking into
project management in 2025.
But then I'd like tozoom out and just talk
about maybe three things.
Firstly, I wanted to talk aboutthe myths that are driving PM
hiring trends lately, and thenI'd like to dive deep into what
skills hiring managers couldand maybe should be looking
for to secure and supporttalented junior PMs, but maybe
(04:17):
in like intermediate roles.
And lastly, I'd like totalk about the implications
of what people are sayingabout entry-level white
collar jobs, especiallyin project management.
Like what needs to changenow to make sure the next
generation of project leadersis set up for success?
Ben Chan (04:32):
Let's do it.
Let's see where this goes.
Galen Low (04:34):
All right.
Awesome.
So the big cloud that's likelording over the project
management field today isthis erosion of entry level
jobs as a result of AI.
The way I see it, thestory goes like this.
Generative and agent AIhave proven capable of so
many of the typical entrylevel project coordination
tasks, that entry level PMjobs are no longer a thing.
(04:54):
Essentially talented individualstrying to break into project
management are needing tobreak into like the second
floor because there isn'tthe first floor anymore and
there's no stairs going up,you know, from receptions.
No smart elevators, nothing.
So my big question is this.
How can aspiring projectmanagers break into the
world of project managementwhen there's no ground floor
and no stairs till theyget to the second level?
(05:14):
Like what are the skills and themindset that aspiring project
managers need to adopt to playbeyond what they traditionally
be deemed qualified for?
Ben Chan (05:23):
Yeah, and maybe we can examine the current path
that a lot of project managersentry level areas, what they
look at, right, is they come inas a project coordinator, right?
Then they're doing things liketaking meeting minutes, helping
to go and move some of thetasks around on the project.
Maybe they're doing a littlebit of cost control, helping
them keep, I don't know,maybe it's the Project pos
(05:45):
and stuff in order and pullingall of those areas together.
But yeah, now we're seeinga lot of those things
being handled by AI.
And you just have the meeting,you end the meeting, and
then the transcript of allthe meeting summaries, the
action items, all of thatis all put together for
you nicely and away you go.
(06:05):
Right?
And.
That entry level job wheresomeone could be learning
beside you on those typeof areas, they're not
really critical anymore.
But then what happens isthat gap of skill continues
to grow the, we'll saymid-career project managers
and senior level projectmanagers, they'll continue
to move along on their way.
(06:26):
But what's left behind is thatgap of how do we get in then?
Because those people thatwant to get in, they're not
getting the right experience.
Hiring managers will look atthat and say, well, you don't
have any experience on that, andthey're not gonna be able to get
it because there is that leapof talent and experience that is
suddenly created by this new AIthat is making things efficient.
(06:49):
And so I think that'skind of the situation that
we're looking at right now.
And I think for those thatare trying to go into that
project management area isstart looking and building
up those skills as soon aspossible wherever you are.
And honestly, I feel likeproject management at its core
(07:09):
should be a part of school.
It should be part of evenjunior high when you're
trying to go and study.
I mean, how many of us arecramming before exams or
cramming to go and get thatlast minute overnight report
done for your assignment?
That is just poor projectmanagement on our part.
Let's be honest.
Right?
Galen Low (07:27):
I think PMI calls it crashing the schedule.
Ben Chan (07:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then you have the overnightcrash to go and try and get
everything done, and thenyou crash in bed afterwards.
Right.
But those are kind ofskills that we're not really
learning a lot earlier.
And so I would say part ofit is build those skills
early, understand howthey all come together.
Because even understandinghow you work inside of
(07:50):
a group project likethis is something that.
I've been wanting to do forpost-secondary institutions
is talk a little bit aboutwhy group projects in
universities suck so bad.
Everyone goes into them.
You got one personwho's a slacker.
Everyone else feels likethey're trying to go and carry
that pull over to the finishline, and it's exhausting.
Everyone's just like, great.
(08:10):
I guess we got a. Whoop do.
Right.
And everyone'ssweating it at the end.
But these are the tangentswe're talking about here.
Galen Low (08:17):
Yeah.
Well I think I really like that.
'cause it is like, actually,you know, we've groan about
it, but in some ways it's thebest training that we got,
you know, post-secondary.
Is that work is likea group project.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Ben Chan (08:29):
We have no lessons learned from that whatsoever
other than I don't ever wannawork with that group member
ever again on a group project.
Just hazing.
That's the lessonthat's learned, right.
Galen Low (08:38):
I really like what you're saying though about sort
of developing the skill earlyand maybe in different ways.
You know, we talk alot about sort of like
volunteer experience.
I know it's like, it's actuallynot an easy thing to find
volunteer work that is likeproject coordinator work.
I guess the other thing you'resaying is that your ways of
developing these skills arewoven into other things, right?
(08:59):
It's like it's in, you know,the way you work together as
a group for a school project.
It's woven into probably a lotof volunteer roles that don't
say project coordinator likeon them, but you're going to
be developing these skillsof interacting with people
and getting things done so itdoesn't feel like that terrible
group project from university.
And you can start buildingthat narrative for yourself
(09:21):
so that you can say thatyou have this experience.
And in some ways beclearing the line of
this entry level job gap.
Ben Chan (09:28):
Right.
And I think part of it is alsoshifting your perspective, if
that's something you wanna getinto for project management,
is how you take a projectmanagement lens on things so
that you can then translatethat into your next job.
There's an interesting analogythat I like to go and draw
from is when people go into,let's say, an entry level
job at McDonald's, let'ssay people might think,
(09:50):
oh, you're serving burgers.
It's minimum wage,ladi da, right?
And they have all these maybegripes about it and whatnot.
But if you shift your thinkingabout it of you're doing
these processes not justfor the sake of doing them,
there's a lot of research andtechnicality put in from a
supply chain perspective aswell, from a process delivery.
Maybe it's leanSixSigma used into it.
(10:11):
I'm sure the McDonald's peoplearen't gonna release all their
secrets around it, right?
But if you lookback somewhere like.
Hundred years ago to go andsay, I'm gonna serve you a
full meal in less than twominutes, they would look at
you and say, you are crazy.
There's no way you cango be able to do that.
Galen Low (10:29):
Is it gonna be an Apple?
Ben Chan (10:30):
Yeah, I know.
Exactly.
It's like, well, I gottago to the Garin, wash the
apple and give it to you.
Right.
That's probably thehealthiest meal you'll get.
But if you're able to goand understand how all these
interactive pieces come togetherso that yes, you are flipping
burgers, but you're doing ita very specific time in a very
specific way to be able to goand make things happen, and
the more you kind of understandhow that strategic look.
(10:53):
Perspective on it is the moreappreciation you might have on.
Great.
Now how do I fit intothe outcome of actually
delivering a meal?
So yes, you could view it as aminimum wage job or you could
view it as this conglomerationof amazing process improvement
areas to help deliveroutcomes to a customer.
Galen Low (11:14):
I really like that.
Like I my university job,actually, my high school job
was at a Walmart like photo lab.
And definitely, you know,I was young, I was punching
the clock a lot, right?
To just show up and I do my job.
But you know, when I thinkback on it, just even paying
enough attention to realizehow big of an operation you
were working in, and I don'tthink these are trade secrets,
(11:37):
but photo labs, you know, backin the day when there were
photo labs inside of Walmarts,they were lost leaders.
They don't make money.
They lose money.
But when you're waiting for yourphotos to get developed, you
shop, you spend money, right?
So we're part of thislarger operation.
So like actually our unit,the way we operated was like
actually quite different thanthe rest of the store and the
(11:57):
management structure, right?
The culture, the likethese pieces that if
you're paying attention.
You pick up on them andyou can actually start
weaving that narrative.
And I think that's what you'resaying is like apply that
lens when you're in that jobso you can actually zoom out
a bit, see what's going on,understand what's going on, and
then speak to that when you'reactually like interviewing or
trying to break into your entrylevel or early career role.
(12:19):
Because you can learn that.
You can pick up on it evenif it's not sort of part
of your responsibilities.
Ben Chan (12:24):
Exactly.
Right.
There's just so muchyou can go and learn.
Depending on how wide or narrowyou want your lens to be.
Galen Low (12:31):
I wanted to come back to something you said
earlier, because I foundit really interesting.
You're saying that the projectcoordinator role, part of it is
shadowing and learning becauseyou're there and you're watching
more senior project leaders dotheir thing and then eventually
you'll pick up on that enough.
You'll find your own style,and then you'll be confident
(12:52):
and skilled enough tobe doing it on your own.
Part of the project coordinatorresponsibilities, like note
taking and like sendingstatus boards and stuff is
like, it's almost the likecost of sitting around to
watch these projects happen.
It's like, well, yougotta do something.
You can't just sit in a chairand like watch me and I pay you.
Right, right.
But then if that's true, then.
(13:12):
The responsibilities of aproject coordinator do not
make the project coordinator.
They're basically an apprentice.
So whatever is there to be done,that maybe isn't the like top
priority of the senior projectmanager is what the project
coordinator can help with.
It doesn't mean taking notes.
So if AI takes over notetaking, if AI takes over status
reports, I guarantee you thatthey're still a part of the job.
(13:34):
That's like a little bit ofa like, ah, I wish I didn't
have to do this myself.
Oh yeah, project coordinator,could you help with this?
And maybe it's not notes, maybeit's actually, Hey, could you
like call this stakeholder andexplain to them this and that?
Like say that I told youto call you and you know,
explain this to them.
Or like, could you help educate,you know, some of these folks,
like we've got some materialon like how to do scrum, right?
(13:55):
It's like, okay, when wesay user story points,
here's what we mean.
Can you just like.
Talk the stakeholder throughit who like clearly is not
getting it and is frustratedand there's these things that
I don't know, like I wouldn'tnecessarily immediately think,
oh yeah, I'm gonna give thatto a project coordinator.
But like almost that levelis up a bit, but it's still
part of the job where I'mlike, gosh, I wish I didn't
have to do this myself.
(14:15):
I can maybe get somesupport on this.
And maybe that's what theproject coordinator role is now.
Not do these things,but to do what's needed.
Well, you kind of get to bein a bit of an apprentice
and be the mentee.
Ben Chan (14:26):
Yeah, and I think that it is.
Interesting.
'cause I would also say it'slike a knight in their squire.
If we're talking about fictionalpieces, it's like you got
the wizard and then you gotthe little guy, you got the
hobbit following you along tobe able to go on this journey.
And that's where it maybesome of the difficulty comes
in because that maybe meanthat the project manager
(14:48):
needs to delegate more,but there has to be a level
of trust of experience.
But how do you trustthat experience if
they haven't had any?
So there's that weird kindof dynamic that happens
between them that you kindof have to work around.
And this is where for me, whenI do have more junior project
coordinators who are aspiringto be project managers, I'll ask
(15:08):
them, what do you wanna work on?
What skills do youwant to go and have?
And we'll look at how I'mdelivering to go and say, Hey,
can you take these pieces on?
Would you feel comfortable?
And if you run into trouble,let me know and I'll see
how I can help you out.
Right?
How can I assist you?
I think there's also the pieceswhere you're talking about where
they're somewhat shadowing youon the work that you're doing,
(15:31):
but they can't just sit thereand shadow the whole time.
Right.
They have to be able to beinvolved in it, and so there
might be a redefinition of whatthe project coordinator role is.
But from an organizationalperspective, that's also
hard for them to define now.
Galen Low (15:46):
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
I was gonna say, because likein theory, I like this sort of
Knight Squire model, by the way.
I think I'm gonna take itand run with it, but like for
sure, you know, the Squirejob hasn't disappeared, but
like fewer inventing right.
The whatever carry all AIwagon, it's gonna carry the
armor, it's gonna carry thelance and all that stuff.
Great.
Squire, you don't need to likecarry all that armor anymore.
(16:06):
And I'm very specificallythinking Monty
Python here, right?
Yeah.
Backpack, you know, that'slike, you know, to the moon
stacked with stuff like, that'snot your job anymore, but.
There is still a wayfor you to be quire.
You're just gonna bedoing something different.
And then I'm thinking aboutit, I'm like some of the folks
coming outta school at any age,you know, like anyone who's kind
of like entering the job marketor even pivoting into project
(16:28):
management and they weren'tin project management before.
There are somevery bright people.
We kinda have this tendency,I find to be like, yeah,
entry level people likethose dummies, so we gotta
teach them everything.
Frankly, A, I don't think it isever true, and B, definitely,
I don't think it's true now.
I think there's a lot of peoplewith like really great ideas,
you know, really strong skills.
And then I agree with you whatyou said, which is like now we
(16:50):
have job descriptions, right?
In organizations thatdon't fit anymore.
So we're not sure like.
What even to ask for anymore,especially in terms of skills,
but like, I guess I'm thinkinglike the market is ripe now.
People are being toldentry-level jobs don't exist.
Everyone's like strugglingand trying to figure it out.
But like if you're a hiringmanager, you could snipe all
(17:11):
this talent right now becauseas everyone, you know, they're
not getting swept up by allthese other organizations.
'cause the project coordinatorrole doesn't exist.
But you could kind of sweepthem up maybe into more senior
roles, maybe into new roles.
But I think the thing thatyou said is the trick is like
what skills and traits shouldwe be looking for right now?
That it's not like, Hey, you'vetaken notes for a meeting
(17:32):
before, and they're like yeah.
Okay, great.
Come on in.
Like it's new now.
I dunno, like if maybe youhave an opinion on like
what are the skills andtraits that like a hiring
manager could be looking for?
Like how they would supportthem in a role that they're
technically underqualifiedfor, but in the context with
the backdrop of like AI toolsdoing all the traditional
project coordinator stuff.
Ben Chan (17:52):
Yeah.
All right.
So this is definitelygonna throw me into a
rabbit hole here, but we'regonna see where it lands.
So I think there's been a fewshifts, especially from the
educational front of thosepeople coming out of school.
One is they actually knowwhat a project manager is.
Some of 'em are wantingto be a project manager
coming out of school.
And I'd say even for mecoming outta school 20 years
(18:13):
ago, I'm dating myself.
That wasn't a thing.
No one said that theywanted to be a project
manager as part of it.
They wanted to be an engineer,a doctor, whatever it might be.
But a project managerwasn't on that list.
It became more of an accidentalpiece that you were assigned as
you grew through your career.
But now there's people saying.
I want to come outta school andI wanna be a project manager.
(18:35):
And so that means there'sone, a passion for it.
And two, they're probablylearning more details about how
to do project management, right?
All the, we'll say thefundamentals, all the
technical fundamentalsthat are guiding it.
And the other piece isaround with AI doing a lot
of the foundational elements.
There's also that, Iguess, the caution of
(18:55):
hallucinations and where it's.
I would have it similar to theanalogy of like the calculator
of, yes, there has alwaysbeen calculators, but you
want to go and show your work.
Why?
Because the work that you'reshowing shows the logic
you're using to be ableto arrive at the answer.
And sometimes when we getthese answers from AI,
we don't see that work.
(19:16):
So it's up to us if we want todo that check that we need to do
the manual pieces on it, right?
So we have to workthrough the math of it.
Does that actually make sense?
Or is it coming back?
And it's like, why is thedeadline pushed by three months?
I makes no sense.
So there's that AI front, andat the same time, I'm also
looking at my own experiencewhere I'm a generalist.
(19:36):
Where I've managed projectsacross many different types
of industries, many differenttypes of projects where it's
ranged from industries such assupply chain inside of FinTech,
oil and gas, government,agrichemical, et cetera.
Right.
And.
Different projects rangingfrom software delivery,
business process improvement,financial modeling, strategic
(19:58):
planning at the C-suite level.
Right?
All these different things.
And it's been weird for me tosometimes go to market because
people would say, tell me,what's your industry specialty?
Tell me what type ofprojects you specialize in.
And my answer is, yes.
Because I don't have thatspecialty, but I use those
(20:18):
fundamentals to be ableto go and help me deliver.
So I think if the HR recruitersare looking at it from the
perspective of, yes, whattype of traits do I need
rather than just the industryexperience pieces, then we
can have a deeper conversationis what can we do to be able
to drive success, right?
(20:39):
So quickness to learn.
Adaptability, listening, beingable to work with others,
being able to manage conflict,being able to be organized with
schedules and deliverables andall those type of things, right?
Which really doesn'tmatter about the industry
nor type of project, butit's very unintuitive to
think that way, right?
(20:59):
You want a software engineeras of the project manager.
That's kind ofwhat people think.
I need to have someonethat's deep in marketing to
lead a marketing project.
I would argue, so long as youhave a good team and I can learn
fast, I can help you deliver.
Galen Low (21:14):
I also wonder if like.
I don't know if it's beenshifting for you with that sort
of generalist positioning, butin some ways, like there's a
renaissance of the generalistright now because Great.
You deeply specialized in likechemical production or oil
and gas engineering you know,for something very specific.
Great.
Now I can only use you forone thing, but like, actually
(21:37):
we're doing many other things.
You know, like, yeah, ouroperation is supported.
Maybe even because ofAI workflows and tools,
we can do more stuff.
Yeah.
We don't have to justonly do this one thing.
And actually in some ways,a generalist would be more
valuable in like a market that'sconstantly being disrupted.
And I wonder if there'sgonna be this rebirth
where people are like, ohgood, you're a generalist.
That's great.
No, to say no more.
(21:57):
Yeah.
You know, like.
Ben Chan (21:58):
I'm still waiting for it to happen.
I'll be honest.
There are people that dorecognize it, but they need
to see it first, almost.
Right.
It's still hard for a lot oforganizations to, I guess,
feel like that they can trustsomeone that's not a specialist.
Galen Low (22:13):
Yeah.
It's almost like the, coveryour butt kind of thing.
It's like, what doyou mean exactly?
You hired some generalistwho says they are learn
quickly and are, you know,an analytical, like, we need
someone with three years ofdoing exactly this thing.
Which, I mean, it's funnythat, 'cause as you were
saying that I'm like.
What do we expect peopleto learn in like three
to five years, right?
(22:34):
Like must have three tofive years of experience.
Mostly because like, I thinkit's because that's enough
time to encounter a wholebunch of different scenarios
and figure it out so that, youknow, you've made a bunch of
mistakes and now you don't haveto make mistakes on my dime.
You can make different kinds ofmistakes, but I don't wanna pay
for those like early mistakes.
But to your point about.
Like the other one I pickedup, like the critical thinking
(22:56):
skills, especially around likehallucination or you know,
how we wield AI tools andnot just being like, cool,
that's what the answer said.
So I just copied andpasted it into the thing.
Even that, just that likethe wherewithal to be like,
i'm gonna double check this.
I'm gonna go aboutit another way.
I'm just gonna make sure I'mgonna do a little bit of extra
research and make sure thatI'm being the responsible
human in the loop and I'm beingvaluable here because I didn't
(23:18):
just take the answer to anyoneelse could have generated.
You know, I'm likehoning my ability to.
It's a challenge and to thinkcritically about things like
my AI tools and people, right?
Like be like, okay, well I'm notgonna take everything at face.
Value is actually a skillthat most people, if you're
honing it, you've probablybeen honing it for more
than three to five years.
You know, it's like yourcritical thinking skills.
(23:40):
The things that we'resupposed to be learning in
school and in universitylike that also matters.
Could it be the equivalencyof like having three to
five years of experience?
I'm not sure, but it reallyraises that question for me
of like, yeah, what do weexpect people to learn in
that three to five years ofexperience that we want before
they walk into the door?
Ben Chan (23:59):
Right, and you don't get the three to five
years experience until you'reinto an entry level job
that can provide you thatthree, three year experience.
And it's one of those thingsthat I think is really tough
in the market right now becausethe three years experience and
even being able to vet AI, thehallucinations and the whatnot.
There's an instinctual gutfeeling that you can look at,
(24:19):
something you can go and say,that feels off because you've
had been exposed to it a longtime, and do you trust it?
If you're at the beginningand you don't know what's
right or wrong that you'redouble checking everything,
and how much more time is thatadding to your schedule or
just your own sanity on tryingto double check everything
that AI is putting out?
And everyone's justlike, just trust it.
(24:41):
Don't worry about it.
Right.
Until you should.
Right?
Until you should worry about it.
So that's where I'm kindof thinking like even
from an organizationalperspective, they'd have
to think about how they'reable to go and support their
employees to be successful.
A lot of the time I thinkpeople get hired in and say,
you then need to figure outhow to be successful rather
than being supported on it.
Right.
(25:01):
And that's where, for me, Ilove the coaching aspect to
be able to help more projectmanagers be able to understand
it so that they don't have togo through the stars that I did.
They don't have to make allthe mistakes that I did that
people will look at you and go,I can't believe you did that.
This is how much it cost us.
Instead, helping providea little bit more the
guardrails for them whilealso allowing them to be
(25:24):
introspective, to build thoseskills internally rather than
just being told what to do.
And I think the differencesbetween how the training
elements of it, howthey do their day-to-day
experience, as well asthe coaching and mentoring
aspects can come into it.
It's a really great opportunity.
For organizations to build upthat entry level area, right?
(25:46):
Even if they'rethe squire, right?
How do we turn them into nights?
We can't just have themcarrying everything.
It might build that legstrength for a little bit,
but at some point theyhave to wield the sword.
Galen Low (25:56):
The thing I really like about that
is a, I got whole sort ofthe support that's needed.
It's a two-way street.
It's not like.
Please go find some magical wway to get three to five years
of experience, even thougheverything needs three to five
years of experience and they'llsee you when you finally get it.
Haha.
It needs to sort of,you know, that support
needs to be inbuilt.
But you touched on somethingand I this is at least what
(26:17):
I picked up from it, which isthat sometimes what we want
from that three to five yearsof experience is stuff that we
just don't know how to teach.
Even if we could teach it,it's expensive and we don't
really want it to happenon our dime because it's if
we could, we'd be like, goto school to learn more the
hard way for five years.
Yeah, exactly.
It's just like buildthat grit doing something
(26:38):
just not on our dime.
But I like what you saidabout the coaching, because
I think for me, that'swhat bridges the gap.
It's like there's this judgmentlayer that you mentioned, right?
Where you're like, onceyou know, you kind of
know, you don't have todouble check everything.
You just, you're kind ofalmost using your gut.
We don't know howto teach gut yet.
Not like on thejob in a workplace.
Like there's noplaybook, I think for it.
(26:59):
That's why we're like, you justneed to have the experience.
Whereas in reality, evenneurologically, we're like,
we're feeding informationinto our brain of what could
happen and what we do about it.
And I think that coachingis sort of that middle
ground because a coachlike yourself, right, you
have a lot of experience.
You've been doing projectmanagement at a certain
level across multipleindustries for over 15 years.
(27:21):
And that's what peopleare benefiting from, even
just by like working withyou, dialoguing with you.
And it is sort of buildingtheir instinct, like their
judgment on what could happenand how to react to it.
And that mindset of like, whatare the decisions that you'd
make based on experience?
And you're almost givingthem that gut instinct layer.
(27:42):
As part of their journeyinto, or throughout their
like career journey.
The journey through the journey.
You know what I mean?
Ben Chan (27:50):
Yeah, yeah.
No and really it's tryingto go and not just be
theoretical about thesetype of discussions, right.
Of.
Hey, when you put aschedule together, put
all these together.
Guess what?
Critical path, whoop do, right?
And it's great to beable to go and do that.
But what's hard is whenthey're in the trenches and
working it and they find itdoesn't work, what do you do?
(28:11):
And how do youcrash the schedule?
How do you makethings efficient?
How are you exercising yourcreative problem solving?
And that's where, for me, thecoaching aspect is being able
to work with clients in thesituation that they're in.
Just like any projectis different, every
person is different.
Every organization is different.
They have differentpolitical environments.
(28:31):
They have differentwork cultures.
They have different peoplethey're working with.
They have differentobjectives, right?
Some people might care aboutcost while others are really
concerned about the endstrategic objective, right?
What are you tryingto go and do about.
The response can be anymultitude of areas, but
it's helping them to developthat intuition in their
job, right, where it'salongside their piece.
(28:53):
Rather than go to training,pick up one or two things,
I hope you apply it instead.
Let's continually see how itintegrates into your work.
How does it integrate intohow you think and view things?
Does it change your perspective?
Galen Low (29:06):
I think it's really interesting and even the like.
Project ManagementInstitute, right, the pmbok.
I know a lot of folks whostudied PMBOK six, five, or
six, and yeah, knew the words,knew the concepts, right?
Critical path had tocrash the schedule.
But like didn't really comeaway with that judgment of
what to use, when and why andwhen not to use something.
(29:29):
And like they're like, I don'tknow how I'm gonna use all
of these tools and techniquesand processes and inputs and
outputs on every project.
I'm like whoa.
No.
You don't have to use'em for everything.
They're just liketeaching you to use all
the tools in the garage.
But like sometimes you justneed to like screw in a screw.
That's not me dissing PMI.
Because I think for insome ways, like the PMP
certification for me is notan entry level certification.
(29:49):
It relies on havingthat experience.
That's why when you apply,you need to like document
the experience that you'vehad because it should be
that pairing of like the bodyof knowledge and the, you
know, quote unquote standardspaired with your experience.
So that's where you kind oflearn that judgment of what
to use when, which to me,circles all the way back to the
coaching thing, which I like.
I'm still like, my mind's alittle bit blown right now
(30:10):
because I often think ofcoaching as something that
happens later in a career.
Where it's like, cool,I've gotten to the point
where there's no structuredlearning in my job.
There might not even be a manualfor the job that I want next.
And really what I need ismore of a mindset, like a
reframing of just guidance onhow I develop in my journey.
I never really thought of itas like being available at an
(30:33):
earlier stage, almost as partof the like education process.
Which I think for me, I meanif I was to swing it all
the way back, you had at thebeginning we were talking
about this gap, right?
That'll be created.
It's like the intermediate andsenior project professionals,
they're just carrying on.
They're developing in theircareers and meanwhile this
like the new generation, thenew layer can't even get in.
They're not even likegetting into the building.
(30:54):
We're talking a little bitabout education, we're talking
about coaching, we're talkingabout support, but like
what pieces do need to bein place to support the next
generation of project leaders?
You know, knowing thatchanges to our education
system are gonna take time,heck even changes to like
the role descriptions ofwhat people are hiring for.
Like what can businesses do?
To step in and maybe playa role in developing the
(31:16):
labor market when it comesto project management
in various industries?
Ben Chan (31:19):
Well, I think as we talked about what the role
of the project coordinator isredefining what those roles are
and examining a little bit moreof how are they going to add
value to the organization now,either through the project, but
also where are they going to go?
What do we want them to be?
Because if they're all knightsand no squires, guess what?
You're gonna have a whole bunchof knight that are super tired
(31:41):
carrying everything while tryingto go and fight the battles.
Right?
So it might be aredefinition of what does
that project coordinatorrole exactly look like?
And I think it's also seeingwhat are the opportunities
that present itself interms of new jobs that
have never been thought of.
Right?
Because that's always happened.
We have.
Things where, you know, youhad now computer programmers
(32:04):
that back in the seventies andeighties are like, what is that?
Right?
You have typewriters andthings, but now you have
these electronic boxes thatyou type into and stuff.
It's so weird.
And then came internet webdevelopers and whatnot, and it
just continues to go and evolve.
Right?
All throughout crazy ideasthat I've literally just
thinking now, maybe you needa GPT maintainer, right?
(32:25):
Someone that maintainsthe project GPT.
That helps make sure that allthe things are there helps
to ensure that the documentsand maybe the responses are
correct, whatever it might be.
I don't know.
Maybe that's a role.
Who knows?
Galen Low (32:37):
I kind of love it, you know, like, it,
it is funny because like,you know, like when.
Early days of catch GPT andeveryone's like, oh, I guess
now being a prompt engineer isgonna be, you know, the new job.
And then you can be thegeneralist prompt engineer
that engineers the prompts foranything and you're a superhero.
Amazing.
And I think we kind of, Idon't know, at least the
circles I travel in, we kind ofquickly shifted on from that.
(32:57):
It's like, nope, it'sgonna be a skill that
you know, everyone needs.
Not necessarily a job.
I do like that idea.
I was actually gonna ask you,I think I'll still ask you.
I like that idea of someonewho's gonna maintain the
knowledge of a projectand make sure there's like
accurate record keeping, right?
And you know, normallypre AI, guess what?
That was the status reports inthe meeting notes and now it's
(33:19):
something different, right?
And now it's are the toolsthat we're using well-informed,
not just our stakeholders,but like our tools are
also stakeholders now.
Do they know what's going onand are they feeding the right
information to the peoplethat they're talking to?
But the question I wasgonna ask you is that you're
leading projects today, you'releading all sorts of projects.
What is that thing that if youbrought a project coordinator
on right now, what would youwant them to be doing for you?
(33:41):
What would you want themto be taking off your plate
and like what armor do youwant them to hold for you?
Ben Chan (33:46):
All of the AI stuff.
No, I'm kidding.
Honestly, the things around the.
Like the accountingpieces, I'm like please
help me out with that.
Maybe it's a cost controller,maybe it's a project
coordinator, whatever it is.
The things around theaccounting, cost, accounting
for it is where I love togo and have assistance with
because all the time there'sall these different rules that
(34:06):
change around it of what'sexpense, what's capital,
how does that fit within thecurrent structure and stuff.
That to me is like whereit's not really science
and math, it's more aroundhocus pocus things of what's
happening for this budget year.
Galen Low (34:21):
Right, right, right.
Yeah, I understandwhat you mean.
Not the mathematics thereof,but the like economics thereof.
Ben Chan (34:28):
Yeah, and I think to an extent is helping me keep
stakeholders accountable forthat and giving them a little
bit more of that leeway andresponsibility of not only
keeping myself accountable andchecking on the things that
I'm doing, but also helpingthe other stakeholders.
'cause for some of the projects,like there's more than 50
stakeholders that are all doingseparate things that need to
(34:50):
be followed up on, guess what?
An email is not gonna work.
An AI chat bot checkingin on you with agentic AI
asking, you know, this taskwas due, did you do it yet?
I'll be honest, I don't thinkthose are gonna get us that
far, but a human connectionand relationship building and
saying, Hey, what's going on?
(35:11):
I'm seeing this is late.
Do you need support on it?
What's going on?
Those are things that I thinkhelp build the relational
skills that I think projectmanagers and coordinators need.
Also gets them reallyinvolved in that relationship
building and understandingthe impact that it's having
on moving the project forward.
So I'll keep it simple andwe'll say those are the two
(35:32):
areas to kind of work on.
Galen Low (35:34):
I really like that because it speaks to, you
know, financial literacy beingimportant for one's personal
wealth and just on the job.
But I also like the otherpiece because I'm willing
to bet that a lot of projectmanagers and listeners here.
Might resort to broadcastcommunications just 'cause they
have to, but maybe that wouldn'thave been the right idea.
In agency land, it'slike time cards, everyone
(35:56):
do your time sheets.
You know, it's like, it's Fridayat 3:00 PM do your time sheets,
or you know, nobody gets paid.
And it's like this broadcast,you get the megaphone out
and you're like ba. Butexactly what you said is like.
Especially tracking time.
There's sometimes like thoseindividual just like blockers
in people's like mind of like,well, you know, like I feel
self-conscious about my work andlike is it valuable enough to
charge the client 150, $250 forthat one hour of work I spent?
(36:21):
And they're individualsort of like personal
issues and challenges.
That if I did have a choirto be like, Hey, actually,
could you just go around?
Like I could get the megaphoneout and be like, everybody,
here's what's going on withthe project, but I wouldn't get
the right information back forme to help do my job better.
So instead of me resorting tobroadcast communications, and
(36:43):
because I don't have time tohave individual conversations
with everybody, can you havesome of those individual
conversations for me and justlet me know, you know, generally
what's been going on, why isn'tour record keeping up to date?
Why are we working withproject data that is, you
know, old, we can find thatroot of the problem, then
we're cooking with gas.
And then I like the otherthing you said, which
is, by the way, that is.
(37:04):
I think it's a great way.
It might, it feels like feetto the fire, but I think it's
a great way to learn thosehuman skills to be that person
who's like, Hey, not just themessenger, but I'm here to help.
Right.
Not like, Hey, a senior projectmanager wants to know why
that thing isn't done, butlike, Hey, like, can I help?
What's been going on?
My job is actually to justtalk to people and get enough
inputs that we can ideate onways to work together better on
(37:26):
this project, which is frankly,stuff that I never have time to
do when I'm leading a project.
Right.
I'm not going like, how mightwe optimize this machine?
I'm like, Hey, we gottaget this thing done.
Like what is going on?
And I like the idea thatthis Squire role, the project
coordinator role, the dutiesmight be different, but it's
still a helping role, right?
That does actually helplift the project up.
Ben Chan (37:46):
They could be running out to different nights and
saying, Hey, what's going on?
How come you're notat the front lines?
How come I'm not helping out?
Or, what's holding you back?
Right?
Rather than me, youknow, to your example
of broadcasting, right?
I'm not going out theregoing here ye here you
announcement for all, right?
You know, there's differentways to add value.
Galen Low (38:08):
We're gonna get this in the comments of like someone
who's like, I'm a professor ofmedieval history, and you guys
have no idea what a choir does.
I know that's timefor that matter.
Yeah.
I wonder if maybe we canlook a bit into the future
just to kind of round out.
I wonder if it's actuallyperspective, right?
Because there's like headlinesand stuff, right, where
it's like entry level jobsare, they're vanishing,
(38:30):
they're disappearing.
It's doom and gloom.
Some of them are like, don'tworry, new jobs are just
around the corner, like withdifferent titles that you've
never heard of, but theyhaven't materialized yet.
I guess maybe I want your POVon like whether you think AI
is literally taking entry-leveljobs or is it redefining
what an entry-level job is?
And if it's the latter,which I think it is.
(38:50):
'cause I think we've kind oftouched on that throughout
the conversation, butlike what could that mean
for career opportunitiesfor this next generation?
Right.
The Gen Z, the gen alpha,and the future generations
of knowledge workers.
Ben Chan (39:01):
Well, I think, yeah, you're right.
It's probably the latterwhere there's a lot of
different factors coming in.
There's like economic factorsthat are completely out of our
control, political factors,and that are happening inside
of the market that we haveno control over that impact
everything else, right?
There's a domino effect on them,and I think for those that are
entry level, it's be creative.
(39:22):
Think of what role you thinkyou can contribute to that
organizations might need.
Because sometimes theymight look at it and
just say, you know what?
Maybe we do need that.
We need to go and have that.
But that also requires, at leastfor the entry level people,
is have those conversations.
Network, go and talk to peoplebecause you're gonna get
frustrated with the a TS systemsand AI filter, a AI A TS systems
(39:46):
filtering out AI resumes, right?
We know that's happening,let's be honest.
Right?
Galen Low (39:51):
Absolutely.
Ben Chan (39:52):
You gotta make that connection with people.
You gotta be able to goand talk with others.
You have to be able to showexactly what value you are
providing and how you'regoing to go and stand out.
So don't sit behindyour desk just sending
out emails and whatnot.
Go and have a coffee.
Go and talk to people.
Go and meet with peopleonline because in the end,
an AI is not gonna hire you.
People are gonna hire you.
Galen Low (40:13):
Boom.
I love that.
I like the idea that I thinkour generation, I'm kind
of putting us in the samebucket here, but you know,
our generation was like.
Learn what job titles are andthen find them on the job board.
You know, find them on Indeed.
You know that's who you are.
Now you're a project manager.
Only search for projectmanager titles, and
that's all you can do.
That's all you will do.
(40:33):
We asked you when you wereyoung, what you wanted to
be when you grew up and yousaid this, and you only have
the one thing, you cannotstray outside that box.
Whereas like actually I seeit happen a lot in small
businesses and enterpriseswhere they do need inputs about
what a new role ought to be.
But they are shaping rolessometimes to pivot because
of these economic factorsand things beyond their
control that they needto adapt to and react to.
(40:54):
And it actually, it happens alot more than I expected that
yeah, we're actually gonna shapea job around a conversation
and a need that we did have.
Right.
And just kind oflike work together.
I don't think it's the only way.
Or the dominant wayof getting a job.
But I do think it happens alot more than people think.
So when people are like,yeah, whatever, Ben and Galen,
they're not just gonna likemake up a job for me because
(41:16):
I like had a coffee with them.
Actually, they might.
Because that's the two-waystreet of like the bright
people getting into projectmanagement wherever they
are in their career.
And these organizations thatdo need input, they need to be
able to support these peoplecoming into these roles,
but they also need ideas ofwhat the role ought to be to
actually make a difference.
I think that's areally good pairing.
It's pretty poetic.
Ben Chan (41:36):
Thanks Galen.
Galen Low (41:39):
That might be a good place to wrap it.
Just for fun, do you have aquestion that you wanna ask me?
Ben Chan (41:44):
I guess, for you, how does AI you feel like
impact the Digital ProjectManager specifically?
Galen Low (41:52):
Ooh, that's an interesting one.
Okay.
My medium length answer is this.
I find that like on thedigital side of things, we
have like this multi-pronged AIchallenge, which is a. Using AI
to like deliver value, deliverprojects and collaborate.
There's also the like factthat in the digital world
sometimes we are creating, likethe product is being created
(42:15):
in tandem with AI, right?
The team members, you know, onthe creative team are using AI
tools to generate something.
There's like this additionallayer of like, okay, like
I need to understand wherethis is coming from so
that, you know, we're notplagiarizing, we're not like
getting ourselves in trouble.
And then there's the fact thatsometimes what we're building
is an AI product, right?
So you have there likethree levels of AI
to pay attention to.
(42:35):
And I keep getting sortof spun around in it
because there's like AIenhanced ways of working.
How do we get the job done?
There's the like oversight.
How can I make sure thatthe team is being ethical
and responsible in theiruse of AI tools to generate
something of value?
And then it's the thirdlayer of like, do we
actually even know enough?
Is it our responsibility now?
It is.
(42:56):
To actually understand theimpact of the thing that we
are building that is digitaland AI enhanced like it is.
You know, it is powered by AI.
It's not just a website anymore.
It's not just a digitalmarketing campaign anymore.
It's got a lot more pieces.
So can't even remember whatyour original question was.
(43:16):
But I think there's likethese layers of complexity in
the digital world where it'smore than one sort of lens
for AI that we need to be.
Thinking about right now,it's also like super exciting.
Like what a time to bealive, to like be able to be
thinking about those things.
It's a lot.
It's a lot of complexity.
It's like, well beyond what Ithink a lot of folks thought
of their job description asproject leaders in the digital
(43:38):
world, but now it comeswith the territory, right?
Of like, okay, well we almostneed to be more strategic
about the way we thinkabout it because we're so
intertwined in the processdeveloping something so complex.
Ben Chan (43:51):
Great.
Well, if that was the mediumlong answer to hate to hear
what the long length was.
Galen Low (43:59):
Yeah, that's that sounds like me being on brand.
Awesome.
Ben, thanks so much for spendingthe time with me here today.
I've had a lot of fun.
Before I let you gothough, where can people
learn more about you?
And also is there anything coolthat you're working on right
now that you wanted to tellfolks about while you're here?
Ben Chan (44:18):
Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn under PM Coach
Ben, or just my regular name,Benjamin Chan, and feel free to
go and connect with me there.
I am gonna be speakingat various different PMI
events across US and Canada.
I'm going to be out inVancouver, Pittsburgh,
Washington, DC, PMIAlamo in Cyprus as well.
(44:40):
So all over the world,so that's really cool.
Next year, I'm actuallygonna be releasing a
group coaching program, soit's called Project Apex.
It's going to be focused onproviding project managers
with, I'll say, foundationalleadership power skills.
Having them understandwhat they are.
And then it comes along withthree months of coaching where
(45:01):
we come in as a group, we talkabout the real situations and
how they're applying into yourarea and enhancing them, and
really moving the needle onyour leadership skills so that
you can not only just deliverconfidently for your project.
Have the confidence andresiliency to be able to go
and accelerate and lift upyour own career and superpower.
Galen Low (45:22):
Boom.
I love it.
The missing piece of the likecurrent education puzzle,
you know, I'm trying get goodgrades, get a job, but in
between there's coaching or evenduring the journey, while you're
in your job, there's coaching.
I love that.
Honestly, I think that's sucha good perspective on like
what coaching is for not tolike necessarily like zero in
on fix on specific problems,but like as a group to share
(45:42):
knowledge and experience.
'cause that's what's gonnalike help folks understand what
is possible and how to likeexercise judgment and instinct
as different scenarios comeup in your professional life.
Ben Chan (45:52):
Absolutely.
Galen Low (45:53):
Anyways, I think that's so cool.
I will include links to all ofthose things in the show notes.
And if you don't follow Benalready on LinkedIn some of
your content man is great.
It's excellent.
I like the, you know,comic book theme stuff.
I like the memes.
All super relatable,entertaining, and insightful.
Genuinely.
So keep doing what you do.
I appreciate you and thanksagain for coming on the show.
Ben Chan (46:13):
Yeah, thanks so much, Galen.
Happy to be here.
Galen Low (46:17):
That's it for today's episode of The Digital
Project Manager Podcast.
If you enjoyed thisconversation, make sure
to subscribe whereveryou're listening.
And if you want even moretactical insights, case studies
and playbooks, head on over tothedigitalprojectmanager.com.
Until next time,thanks for listening.
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