PMO Strategies

Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers!
PMI Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Organizations are moving quickly to deploy AI. But are they building the adaptability, judgment, and decision systems required to use it well, or repeating the same mistakes that weakened so many Agile transformations?

AI can analyze more data, generate more options, and move work faster. None of that guarantees the organization is asking the right question, assigning the decision to the right person, or protecting the human judgment it will need when the consequences rise.

In this episode, I am joined by Jim Highsmith, Agile Manifesto co-author and a pioneering voice in adaptive leadership, to connect the original purpose of Agile with the decisions organizations are making about AI right now.

Jim explains how Agile was designed to help organizations respond to uncertainty, why too many implementations became rigid and process-driven, and how the same pattern is beginning to appear in AI transformation. Together, we explore the shift from process-oriented management to judgment-oriented management and the role PMO and transformation leaders can play in designing stronger human-AI decision systems.

This is not a conversation about choosing the newest AI tool. It is about deciding what should be automated, where people must remain accountable, how judgment develops, and whether the organization is becoming more capable or simply producing more output.

When you press play, you will hear:
🔹 What Agile was created to solve and why its mindset became diluted as it spread.
🔹 Why doing Agile is not the same as building an adaptable organization.
🔹 How AI transformation can repeat the same process-over-mindset mistake at greater speed.
🔹 How to distinguish automation that removes activity from augmentation that strengthens human capability.
🔹 Why removing easy decisions can erode the experience people need for harder decisions later.
🔹 How PMO and transformation leaders can move forward before introducing more AI.
🔹 Why leaders need enough hands-on AI experience to guide implementation credibly.
🔹 What it means to move from process-oriented management toward judgment-oriented management.

Press play to learn how your PMO or transformation office can help the organization move faster without surrendering the judgment, adaptability, and accountability required to create measurable business IMPACT.

Connect with Jim Highsmith and Keep Exploring
Connect with Jim Highsmith on LinkedIn
Skills Build Teams. Judgment Builds Enterprises.
Your AI Is Working. Is Your Team Getting Better?
What the Dashboard Cannot See
The Next Ethical Frontier: Why AI Can’t Replace Judgment
Stop Picking Sides: Manage the Tension Between Adaptation and Optimization

P.S. Build the Judgment Behind the Next Move
AI can provide more analysis and more options. Your organization still needs leaders who can look beneath visible symptoms, understand what is really happening, and determine the highest-value next move.

That is what you will practice inside IMPACT Engine Practitioner™. Across four live half-day sessions on October 7, 9, 14, and 16, you will learn the IMPACT Engine System™, apply it to one connected case, strengthen your judgment, and build greater clarity and confidence as a PMO leader. Enroll by August 31 for early tuition of $1,750 and four practical resources included with your enrollment.

🎯 Join the October IMPACT Engine Practitioner cohort by August 31.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast!
I welcome your feedback and insights!
I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online!
Warmly,
Laura Barnard
GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers!
PMI Talent Triangle: Power Skills

This episode is personal for me in a way most podcast conversations are not.

For the first time, my son and co-author, Grayson Barnard, joins me on the PMO Strategies podcast. One of my closest friends, Dawn Mahan, is here too. The three of us talk about Projectland, baseball, the books we created together, and a leadership lesson PMO and transformation leaders cannot afford to miss.

You can do everything that looks like good project management and still fail to help the team win.

Your tool may be sophisticated. Your templates may be complete. Your governance process may be consistent. Your report may contain 85 metrics. None of that matters if leaders still cannot see the decision, the team is protecting activity that does not advance the outcome, or the project finishes without creating the business value it was funded to produce.

Grayson recognized that lesson immediately in Moneyball. The goal was not to replace star players with people who looked like star players. The goal was to find what produced wins and organize the team around it.

That is the question at the center of this episode: What is your team's version of getting on base?

In this episode, you will learn:
✅ Why Grayson believed Moneyball was the obvious story for our chapter.
✅ How to distinguish work that looks professional from work that advances the business outcome.
✅ Why individual performance measures can pull people away from the team win.
✅ How Dawn's Projectland characters help teams understand roles, sponsors, stakeholders, and saboteurs.
✅ How both Projectland books make serious leadership lessons more engaging and easier to apply.
✅ Why fun is not the opposite of disciplined performance.
✅ How to prepare a team for the moment the plan stops matching reality.

Connect with Grayson Barnard and Dawn Mahan
Grayson Barnard on LinkedIn
Dawn Mahan on LinkedIn

Explore Projectland
Read the free Moneyball sample chapter
Explore Projectland Goes to the Movies
Explore Meet the Players in Projectland
Browse the Projectland movie list on IMDb

Continue with the Executive Perspective
Continue the baseball connection and watch What Baseball Teaches Us About Project Management

P.S. Once you know what matters, the next challenge is helping leaders understand why they should act. Join me live for Make Your Case on Thursday, August 20, from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. Eastern. Bring one real strategy delivery challenge and turn it into a clear, leadership-ready Case for Change you can use in the room. Live only. No replays. Owners of The IMPACT Engine join free. Your book is your ticket.

Register for Make Your Case.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast!
I welcome your feedback and insights!
I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online!
Warmly,
Laura Barnard
GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers!
PMI Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

A lot of PMOs are being asked to lead AI and agile transformation while still operating as reporting, governance, and oversight functions.

That is where things start to break.

Instead of simplifying work, AI can add more coordination, more noise, more duplicated effort, and more complexity.

The tools may be faster.

The organization may not be clearer.

And that is exactly why PMO and transformation leaders need to pay attention.

In this episode, I am joined by Paul McNamara, CEO and co-founder of Adaptovate, to talk about how PMOs can help organizations cut through AI chaos, redesign workflows, and move beyond pilots that never scale.

Paul has led business transformation across global organizations and works with executive teams to build the operating models, transformation capabilities, and human performance systems required to make change stick. His background spans product management, engineering, marketing, sales, leadership roles at Boston Consulting Group, and experience as a SaaS CFO.

That mix gives him a practical view of AI transformation: the business case, the operating model, the human side of change, and the delivery reality.

Together, we explore why many AI conversations are still stuck at the surface level, why measuring AI success by logins or usage can create the wrong behaviors, and why organizations risk repeating the same mistakes they made during Agile transformation.

What you’ll learn:
Why AI adoption metrics can create the wrong behaviors.
How duplicated agents can increase cost and confusion.
What Agile transformation teaches us about AI pilots that do not scale.
Why PMOs should focus on business enablement, not just process efficiency.
How to start with one workflow people hate and build from there.

Press play and learn how PMO and transformation leaders can bring sanity to AI chaos and help their organizations turn AI activity into measurable business IMPACT.

Connect with Paul McNamara:
Visit Adaptovate
Take the AI Diagnostic
Connect with Paul on LinkedIn

P.S. The next IMPACT Application Lab is Make Your Case on August 20.

Bring one real challenge you need leaders, sponsors, or your team to take seriously.

Inside this free live workshop, I will help you turn that challenge into a clear, leadership-ready Case for Change.

You will leave with a Case for Change you can use in the room.

It is live only with no replays, and it is free for everyone who owns The IMPACT Engine. Your book is your ticket.

Register for Make Your Case.

Already own the book on Audible, Kindle, or in print? Use the same page to upload your proof and join me live on August 20.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast!
I welcome your feedback and insights!
I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online!
Warmly,
Laura Barnard
GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers!
PMI Talent Triangle: Ways of Working

Project management has more technology, training, certifications, and information than at any other point in the profession’s history.

But a better tool cannot rescue a plan the team never built together. AI cannot manage a risk nobody is actively addressing. A credential cannot replace the judgment that comes from applying the work inside a real organization.

That is the tension at the center of this special episode with my longtime friend and mentor Lee Lambert. Lee is a PMP, PMI Fellow, project management pioneer, and one of five people invited in 1981 to help create and implement the PMP certification program. We recorded this conversation as he approached his 80th birthday and reflected on more than 50 years of watching the profession change.

Lee shares what project management looked like before the modern tools and standards, what technology has made possible, and what still gets missed when teams use automation without understanding planning, dependencies, risk, people, and outcomes.

For PMO and transformation leaders, this is not a history lesson for nostalgia’s sake. It is a warning and an opportunity. The future will not reward the team with the most software. It will reward the leaders who know what must remain human, where discipline matters, and how to connect every delivery practice to the business outcome it is meant to create.

When you press play, you will hear:
🔹 Why automation can make weak information move faster when the planning underneath it is incomplete
🔹 What team-built work breakdown structures, dependencies, and critical-path thinking still reveal that a screen can hide
🔹 Why a risk register is not the same thing as active risk management
🔹 How AI can strengthen project work when leaders know what to ask and how to quality-check the answer
🔹 Why credentials and training must be paired with applied practice, mentoring, and continuous learning
🔹 What Lee’s medical diagnostic project taught him about the difference between delivering an output and creating the intended outcome
🔹 The two things Lee wants the next generation of project and PMO leaders to prioritize now

Press play above to hear the lessons Lee believes the profession must carry forward and decide which fundamentals your PMO needs to strengthen before the next wave of technology arrives.

Connect with Lee Lambert
Connect with Lee on LinkedIn

P.S. Make Your Case
The future of project management still depends on helping leaders understand why the right work matters. On August 20, the IMPACT Application Lab: Make Your Case will help you turn one real strategy delivery challenge into a clear, leadership-ready case for change. The workshop is live only and free for everyone who owns The IMPACT Engine. Your book is your ticket.
Get the book and join Make Your Case.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast!
I welcome your feedback and insights!
I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online!
Warmly,
Laura Barnard
GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers!

PMI Talent Triangle: Power Skills

One of the fastest ways to weaken your influence as a PMO, project, or transformation leader is also one of the most common.

It sounds responsible. It sounds like alignment. It sounds like you are reinforcing executive support.

But every time you lead with “the sponsor said,” “the boss wants,” or “executives told me to,” you may be training the organization to look past you for the real decision maker.

That is how capable leaders accidentally become messengers.

In this episode, I share how delivery leaders dilute their own authority without realizing it and what to say instead. Because sponsors matter. Executive support matters. But hiding behind borrowed authority is not leadership. It positions you as the person passing along instructions instead of the leader responsible for helping the organization deliver outcomes.

What you’ll learn:
🔹 Why “the boss said so” quietly damages your credibility and authority
🔹 The difference between borrowed authority, positional authority, and business authority
🔹 How to use sponsor influence strategically without hiding behind it
🔹 What to say when you need resources, decisions, or support from another leader
🔹 How to connect requests to business outcomes instead of hierarchy
🔹 Why executives want leaders who can drive progress when they are not in the room

Press play and learn how to stop sounding like the messenger and start communicating like the leader responsible for the outcome.

P.S. Next up in The IMPACT Application Lab is Make Your Case, where I’ll help you turn one real strategy delivery challenge into a clear, leadership-ready case for change.

If you already know something needs to change but need help showing leaders, sponsors, stakeholders, or your team why it matters now, this workshop is for you.

It’s FREE for everyone who owns The IMPACT Engine. Your book is your ticket.

📚 Get the book here.
👥 Join IMPACT Insiders here.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast!

I welcome your feedback and insights!

I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online!

Warmly,
Laura Barnard
GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS