HR Vision Podcast #37 – Project Management effective strategies ft. Zenah Hemedan

Ivo:
Hey everyone, and welcome to the HR Vision podcast. I'm your host Ivo, and every week I'm going to have a conversation that matters about HR. So welcome to the season four of the podcast. Thanks for being on that side listening in. We'll keep trying to provide the best value we can with this podcast, and we're really happy to have someone on the other side just listening. So thank you for that. All right, Let's start for this first episode of the fourth season. We have a very interesting guest. So first of all let me say hi to zenna hamidan hi Zenah, how are you doing today?

Zenah:
Hi Ivo, I'm doing great. How are you doing?

Ivo:
I'm doing great as well. Thank you for taking the time to be here with us today.

Zenah:
Thank you for having me.

Ivo:
No problem. It's a pleasure. Zenah works as a project manager for fourvision. She's an entrepreneur and has an impressive 20 year track record as a project management professional for big companies in more than 26 countries. So really happy to be here with her today to talk about project management and how these professionals can be changed leaders. So Zenah, you ready?

Zenah:
I'm always ready!

Ivo:
Good, so lets get to it. Let's start like we always do. Just give us a short introduction about yourself and your professional background.

Zenah:
Yeah so hi everyone. So my name is Zenah Hemedan. Professionally I am a certified project management professional PMP. As you said, if I have more than 20 years experience in multinational organizations, giant oil and gas companies and BIG4 corporates. I moved between different roles whether it's application management, consultancy, project management and ERP delivery dealership. And I'm an entrepreneur so I have couple of business that I started before. But recently I found that a new business for project management and leadership training, under the name of bridging skills. which I'm carrying on in parallel to my work as a project manager for fourvision and other clients.

Ivo:
All right, all right, very interesting. So how did you land in project management? It is a topic of the of our talk today, How did you land there? Was it always like a big, interest from you in there, because I also know that you have a very special pass in basketball. I also know that do you think it started there with all that competition and the leading teams and those things?

Zenah:
I think leadership started there, so I've been the captain of the team from an early age and then I moved on. Played for the national team back home in Syria and then I became a coach. So I think leadership have started from there and I learned valuable skills from sport that I managed to successfully transfer into my business career. However, project management came gradually, so personally I'm motivated by making an impact. And what I enjoyed when I started project management is the positive impact that I can make into the personal and professional life of people. Yeah, so that's why it's something that I enjoy. But then on a wider their perspective, project measurement is usually underestimated. So while lots of people think about project management as tracking progress of projects is actually wider than that, so it's more of people management which I enjoy as well and a lot of creative thinking and problem solving. So that's why itself it's a motivation for me. When you come up with a creative solution, it's kind of this moment where you say: It worked, yeah.

Ivo:
Yeah, that's interesting. Did you always work in the in terms of like your experience with project management and leading teams? Did you always work with software implementation? Did you work in other types of project management? What has been your experience like?

Zenah:

So in term of experience it is mainly an IT project, but we are implementing the software to different industries. So the 1st 12 years of my was actually in the oil and gas industry, not in the IT I was on The client side but always involved in ERP implementation. I was always interested in technology. So since I was a teenager I I knew I wanted to work with technology. But back then I didn't know what to do. And gradually when I joined the business, oil and gas is the same job for me. What chance I was selected to to be part of the team that will implement a new ERP in the in the business. and I really enjoyed it and that was it. So since then I was involved. My career has moved into more software implementation, ERP, implementation and sometimes in the middle I changed industry. So I moved from being the client into being the software implementation partner.

Ivo:
All right. So what is it like for you to be a project manager? What is the most exciting part of it? You already talked about that? Click that you find a solution that nobody was seeing, but tell us a bit more about that position and also the importance of it in any company or especially software implementation companies.

Zenah:
So coming from sport, I always like to say that project managers are like coaches in team sport. So project managers need to, yeah, provide guidance, insight, support their team, but at the end of the day they need to lead the team and deliver through the team members to achieve the project objectives. So it's far from being a routine job, and it's very difficult to put a list of daily activities for project manager, but that's part of the challenge for me, and that's very interesting for me. And as the project measured, I enjoyed being part of the team while leading the team at the same time. I also enjoy meeting new stakeholders. I learned from anyone that I work with. I also enjoy the creative thinking coming up with solutions, but I think the people management part of it is a big part that I enjoy in project management, and I think that's for me that's around 70 to 80% of project management.

Ivo:
So it's actually a big part, is just people Management is 1 would you say it's one of the most common challenges for people to be successful in the position is like how to lead people, how to deal with people and manage those tough conversations that sometimes you have to have, right?

Zenah:
Absolutely so Leadership is part of project management. You cannot be a successful project manager if you don't have the leadership skills. So project management is a combination of management skills and leadership combined, to achieve the project objectives through your team. So absolutely leadership, handling difficult conversations, those are the key skills that sometimes they are hidden from a job description when you read it, but they are vital for the success of the project manager himself or herself, but also the project.

Ivo:

It's not only like. Tracking the changes on a project and making sure that things are executed but is actually leading the team and managing people to accomplish those tasks that you need until the project is finalized and successful, right?

Zenah:
Exactly so you need you need to motivate the team where you need to understand as well. So you need to understand what's happening in the market. You need to understand what's happening with your clients stakeholders, in terms of what's happening in the business. And the responsibility of the project manager to give the insight about all of these elements to the team and make sure that they understand what does it mean for them, and their reminded their work to achieve the objectives or to win or whatever. So yeah, for me it's I think this passion about thriving excelence through people started from sport, but I'm continuing it in in project management.

Ivo:
It's so interesting to see how much can team sport practicing a team sport for a long time actually can impact in every area. I think like people's skills, leadership skills, you know it can. It can really teach and help you become a bit more self aware of what your capabilities are. I don't know, it's just my impression of seeing people around me that practiced team sports for a long time. It seems like it's really helpful.

Zenah:
It is something that I learned from alot, and I learned on a young age, so at the age of 14 I was a team captain already. So learning at that young age, how to lead people. It's an investment that will stay with you.

Ivo:
Yeah, I can imagine I don't doubt it at all. So being a project manager dealing with different projects, different companies, different industries like you said what are for you, you think the most common challenges you know that you face as a project manager dealing with any with any project Of course every project is different. Every company works in a different way, but What do you think are the most common challenges? That people should be aware of.

Zenah:
Yeah, as you said, every project has its own challenges. I'd like to look at them as opportunities so to try new things to learn new things and with your own experience. And we know that there are common challenges. So for example, one of the challenges, especially in IT, is the rapid change of technology. So that's introduced, new ways of working. It also introduced the needs to upskill lease skills, the team member and the need for a proper team knowledge management, whether it's knowledge transfer, maintaining the knowledge, etc. And so that's one challenge in 90. But in general in project management there are things like handling difficult conversations. I think you mentioned that a while ago. That's very common. Lots of people not only project managers in general, as human beings, we tend to avoid uncomfortable conversations. And unfortunately, as a project manager you have to make those conversations, whether it's with the team member, whether it is with the client with other stakeholders, doesn't matter, but there is always a case where you need to handle uncomfortable conversation with someone, that's a challenge and that requires some practice, sometimes to be comfortable with.

And the other challenge that I can think of is maintaining the balance between having proper governance of the project. Versus being flexible and adaptable to change, because again, that's something that is very important in project. Both are very important in project management, so keeping the balance is one of the challenges.

Ivo:
Yeah, I can see that back to the difficult conversations. Do you think people should get training on that conflict management? And what do you mean by difficult conversation is like you're not doing a great job or you're not what is happening. Because I see that whatever. You are playing what is going on there, what? What do you mean by difficult conversations that in that sense?

Zenah:
So it can be any context. It can be. Yeah, as you mentioned, low performers and the project need to provide Constructive feedback. So that's one type of the uncomfortable conversation. The other type of things, like we are behind plan or behind budget and we need to discuss this with the client or there is some scope creep where there is lots of new requests that we didn't anticipate for in the planning phase and they will impact the plan and the budget to put those on the table and discuss them. So there are different types of difficult conversations and as long as it makes the person uncomfortable. That's a difficult conversation. And yes, I mean the second part of your question. There are training on those how to handle the difficult conversation, it's part of the interpersonal skills training. One of the training that I am delivering at the moment is how to handle difficult conversation, and there are some techniques that you can follow so it. It will continue to be uncomfortable. I'm not saying that it will be comfortable.

Ivo:
I think that's an important thing to say, right? It will never stop being uncomfortable because that's just the nature of it.

Zenah:
Not at all yeah, it is uncomfortable, and when even now for me, if I have to have those conversations, they are uncomfortable. They will continue to be uncomfortable. The techniques are to raise yourself awareness so you can deal with them. You don't avoid them because the worst thing is avoid them. So you don't avoid them, but again, when you do it, you don't go defensive. You don't turn into blaming people for example. So there are techniques to raise yourself awareness on how to handle it, how to control your emotions, and how to make sure that you're delivering the right message with the right intention. So the intention is always to fix things to get things better, improve things we should always avoid The blaming culture. So the intention should never be blaming someone and that should be clear in the message as well.

Ivo:
Interesting. I don't wanna keep too much time in this topic, but it's very interesting to me because I tend always something that I keep working is about avoiding conflict and how do you manage those types of difficult conversations sometimes? Do you have any like a couple of tips like how to handle those Conversations, for example, I don't know, it is important to set the context. Why are we having this conversation beforehand? I don't know a couple of tips if you have it. Otherwise we can move to another topic.

Zenah:
Yeah, sure. My first training would take us more than And I think one of the tips is keep the intention in mind and say it in the beginning of the conversation. So when you start the conversation set the expectation of why you're having this conversation. So you avoid Miscommunication with the other party. But then throughout the conversation, if you See yourself going on a defensive mode. Stop the conversation. So maybe you take some time away. Maybe decide. Let's stop here and we continue the conversation later, because if you start going into the wrong attitude during the conversation, it will be very difficult to reset your emotions back to An objective side. So if you feel that you're losing it. It's becoming too emotional or. It's becoming a bit personal to you or to the other party. It's better to stop the conversation. Take some time away. Think about it, put the context again for yourself so you understand it, and then resume the conversation later. All right, very. So yeah, I think those are the very tips,

Ivo:
very insightful and people listening you can always contact Zenah and reach out to her for the full training. All right, let's move on. You know, continue on the on the project manager work. I think an important part, or at least we've talked many times about this on the podcast an important part of software implementation is has to do with change management and I believe you said it yourself on the meet the specialist feature that we have on the website about you I believe and I'm I think I'm quoting you said, I believe that project managers. Are changed leaders. So why first of all, why do you believe that? And can you tell us a bit how you go about this change management process?

Zenah:
Yes of course, you have a good memory and and you prepared well. So yes I did say that project managers are changed leaders because every single project introduces a change. My best, not change or a big change. But every single project introduces a change and change management is vital part of project management. So although different personalities have different reaction to change, so some people are more open to change than other, by nature we are humans that develop habits and we like to stick to them. So projects required to change some of your habits. The ways of working, the tools that you're using. So there is an element of change all the time and project measures need to manage the stakeholder expectations throughout the change and support them, to make the change as small as possible. And I think they a challenge in Project management is that when it comes to change management, you cannot speak about technology activities, timeline in change management. You need to speak about people, value, impact and so on. so in order to convince someone of a good change you need, you need to introduce it in term of what does it mean for the people? What is the value that it introduced and what is the impact from the change? There's no point of going to a group of people working on a old software and tell them one way we have a project to change the software that you're working on and you have to start from scratch by learning how new software would work. Yeah, we say, but why we're working? OK, so you need to explain the value and the impact of the people. But to do that, you have to understand the value yourself. So project managers need to understand the value that is desired behind the project. From a business perspective and from people perspective. So once you understand the value, you can help the stakeholders and your team as well to be aligned around the value and to be aligned about objectives of the project and that by itself will make it much easier to drive the change. Of course there will be some elements in term of communication, so you need to adjust your communication based on the audience, speak their language, make sure that they understand what is it for them. In every change you need to listen so another mistake that lots of project managers, they avoid conversations similar to uncomfortable conversation will be avoided, especially if we know that some stakeholders are not happy. So we try to ignore them. We need to listen. We need to understand the concerns and support them through through the change. One last element that I can advise on, on change management is tailoring project management is. Not about one type, there is no one size fits all, so based on the level of change, I think there is a responsibility of the project measure to tailor the ways of working and tailor the processes to understand how we can support the change implementation the best way we can.

Ivo:
Yeah, it's that's so first of all, thank you. This was very. It was really insightful. I think I learned a lot just on this couple of minutes. But it seems that indeed you you're just making clearer and clearer that project management is a big thing, like you need to have a lot of skills from just from what you said you need to be good at communicating. You need to be good at leading people, which also need to be good at listening and understanding the audience that you have in front of you, because it's not always the same. And you need to know the product that you are the the project and the value of the project that you're dealing with so that there's a lot of components in here.

Zenah:
Absolutely yeah. And as I said, it's it's always underestimated. But Yep, similar to a coach. I mean if you look at sports and there are some examples in some national schemes. Where do you have all the superstars in one team but they don't achieve results? Why? Because there is no harmony because they don't work together enough during the the season. So the coach responsibility is huge because yeah, they need to create that harmony. That's exactly the same for project managers. They need to create a harmony between their team between the stakeholder, the client, management, et cetera. To achieve the objectives, and yeah, it's it's not as easy as it sounds.

Ivo:
OK, definitely. But it's very interesting, just a couple more questions and I'll let you go. The first one is related, Imagine that people listening, never experienced like a software implementation dealing with a project manager. If you could take us in very summarized plan, how do you go about when you start an implementation and when you have a new project in hand, what are the steps you take so people involved know exactly what to expect?

Zenah:
I think I would go back to tailoring. Depends on the project, the size of the project, the background that I know about the stakeholders. I tailor how I stopped the project, but what is important is that, first you communicate, so there is nothing called overcommunication. So communicate, communicate, communicate and tailored message based on the audience. So you need to speak the audience language. If I'm introducing the project. That's assuming Summit project to business team, I need to speak the business language, not that they have a technical terms. So communication is vital. The other thing that is very important is the relationship. So you have to build a personal rapport with stakeholders. And humans again, they are social creators so we like to have a bond and it's always easy when you have your friends on your side. So let's set the expectation that we are one team. We are working together into the journey and the objective is XYZ. So we can explain the objective. But then we need to set the expectation that no one is going in on. We are a team. We're here to support you. We will listen to every single person of you. There is no concern that is not valid. If you think that it's not valid, then convince the people that it's not valid rather than ignore. And and yeah, at the end of the day, if people feel that they are supported by a team, then you will get the buy in. Yeah, whether they know about IT projects, whether it's their first IT project, it's the same, It's all about getting the right support.

Ivo:
All right. Very clear. Last question. Looking into the future of project management. Do you think automation will play a big role in there? Or do you think those social connections, those relationships; there will never be a machine that actually can replace that. Those relationships are human and and it will always be, maybe there will be better tools to support the process, but never to to replace the the work of a project manager. What is your feeling about it?

Zenah:
Yeah, you're right. So there are different parts and project management and project management is evolving by itself and so is the project managers' role. There is more emphasis on the value that the project adds in comparison to delivering within scope, within budget and within resources. So in terms of: Even if we deliver within plan, it's about the value of the project. If it's not of any value, it shouldn't be a successful project.

But then there is a lot of emphasis on two things. One of them is the leadership skills. That's something that technology would not be able to replace 100%. There are some technologies that might help you in understanding the trend and then managing the people, but the interpersonal skills cannot be replaced by technology. And there is more emphasis on project managers to build their leadership skills and then to personal skills. The other trend is the use of technology. Like everything else. So there are different tools. Now there is AI is coming into project management and those will help in the technical side. So I will say if I have the technology if I automate some processes I will save some time in the technical tasks of project management. And that would be able to use this time to lead the team and motivate them. So I will use the same in the interpersonal skills.

The combination of both will guarantee a successful result. But on a wider scale. Project management is also getting bigger in term of global economy is now moving into project economy. So if you're looking into even countries economy, there is more projects compared to operations now. So projects are taking over the operations. Operations are the ongoing work, so things are being organized in projects rather than operations because there will be better monitoring and controlling and better measurement of the results periodically.

With that, there is more responsibility on project managers. There are more vacancies for project managers. There are expectations that in the coming 10 years there will be millions of new vacancies in project management. And so with this change, with projects getting bigger, if you think about EU funded projects, for example huge projects, the different countries involved, et cetera. With this change, the body of the project management professionals are looking into automation to help project managers. But also building proper leadership, because if you want to deliver through 200 people working on product or 2000 people working on a project, then leadership is the number one skill that you need to have as a project manager.

Ivo:
Yeah, I see. Very interesting. Do you also think that those into interpersonal skills that you that you're needing now, but you're going to need also in the future will be impacted, but you know the rise in remote work, for example because I think change is a bit. It changes a bit to game, right? It changes a bit the way you relate to people you build, relationships and all that, right?

Zenah:
Very true. That's one of the new challenges in project management. The remote work. It requires completely different skills. Yeah, it's it's different than having all the team in the old days. They used to advise that if you have a project, put the project team in one loop. No, now we're the referring project with people working from 9 different countries. Everybody didn't want, so yes, that changed the way you need to lead the team. It also changed the perspective; there are different cultures now. Different cultures, meaning different ways of working; different comfort zones for them. So project managers need to understand the cultural aspects in that term in the new world, and they also need to understand the remote work.

So they need to make sure that they understand what is happening in the project without putting the pressure that you need to work 8 hours a day or you need to be online at any single moment. No, that's not the point. You need to have this balance between the governance of the projects, people management, but also the flexibility around all the new challenges. Remote work, the open market. The challenge about talent acquisition. All of those are changes that are impacting project management. Indeed.

Ivo:
Do you have one more minute for one last question? Are you fine with that? Ok! And I just want to to to relate these project management and your expertise with software implementation with a bit of HR technology. So did you work before with the implementations of HR technology? If so, do you see the value there? What do you think? It's it's the value there, and so far as well. Like with your experience working with us. Do you see the value? Do you think it's important that and also: the importance in trying to relate a bit like people skills dealing with people, dealing with people in remote locations, the importance of which are software in your view so far being with us.

Zenah:
I worked in implementation of different modules throughout my career. Obviously HR is one of them and currently with FourVision there is a focus on HR. For me there is always a value when you implement the technology in the right way. So technology when you implement it properly, it helps you to reduce the workload on the people, automate things, raise the quality of the data, processes, etcetera.

Why HR is very personal? It's similar to project management. The interpersonal skills within their HR team is required. But then if they automate things through a good implementation of HR management tools, they will have more time to do the proper HR-related interpersonal job.

Ivo:
Actually dealing with people, right?

Zenah:
Dealing with people, yes. So you don't want an HR person sitting behind the laptop because they need to fill in an Excel file, so they will spend 4 hours just updating an Excel file. If there is an automation process that will take you 5 minutes to finish this, you have almost the whole 4 hours to do other things and meet the people. So I'm always motivated by the impact that the technology can do if it is implemented in the right way, and I think with FourVision, the advantage is that there is a group of consultants that they understand the business. Not only that the software, so they understand how the software should should be implemented. There is an advantage that throughout the project, we can advise the client on the best practice processes in HR. And that is more important than just the technology behind it.

And to be honest I'm enjoying working with very talented team in FourVision. So as a project manager, I don't have to know at all. I mean no one knows it all. And so it's very interesting when you have a team where they have the answer or they can they go the answer if they don't know, and so that's something that I'm enjoying in my current role with FourVision.

Ivo:
I think that's a great note to end this conversation on. I once again want to thank you for coming in. This was very interesting. I enjoyed it very much. I hope you did too.

Zenah:
I enjoyed it myself and thank you for having me.

Ivo:
No problem. It was a pleasure. Thank you Zenah. Once again people listening out there. We'll be back and we'll see you next time.