The Disgruntled PM

Nancy Matter joins the show to talk about why most project leaders are terrified of abandoning a safe roadmap, preferring the comfort of predictable mediocrity over the risk of a high-stakes pivot. In this episode, audio engineer Nancy Matter breaks down her radical leap from mixing cultural touchstones like The Lion King in pristine Hollywood studios to financing her own Top Fuel Funny Car and wr...

Metagyre Founder and CEO Paul Thompson strips away the corporate veneer to expose the real job of being a project profession, taking the blame when things go sideways and being completely invisible when they succeed. From dismantling the dangerous delusion that project managers should act like portfolio executives, to navigating the ethical tightrope of third-party vendors and confidential stakeho...

In this episode, Emily Farray joins the show to strip away the toxic corporate theater of change management, exposing how executives frequently hide behind transformation teams instead of stepping up as the active, vocal faces of the initiatives they mandate. From literally handing out red penalty cards to shut down rambling leadership offsites to diagnosing why a beautifully crafted strategy deck...

In this episode, automotive engineering veteran Jon M. Quigley dismantles the dangerous illusion of project management methodology purists. Exposing the brutal realities of OEM supplier tiers, missing documentation trails, and the arrogance of blind adherence to Agile in hardware development. Jon explains why most project failures start with a misunderstood acronym and end with a catastrophic bott...

Leadership Coach JJ Hardy joins the show to discuss why corporate promotions are fundamentally broken. We routinely strip our highest-performing individual contributors of the exact tasks they excel at, drop them into middle-management meat grinders with zero preparation, and then act shocked when team morale plummets and execution stalls. In this episode, we tear down the toxic fiction of the "na...

Pablo Gallardo joins the show to discuss why building a car is a chaotic, multi-continental scramble disguised as a streamlined assembly line. This episode strips away the corporate theater of automotive manufacturing to reveal the bureaucratic bloat of OEM platforms, the absolute dominance of tier-one supplier mandates, and the terrifying reality that one bad batch of plastic buttons can bankrupt...

Corporate leadership loves to take credit for a successful product launch, blissfully ignorant that they merely caught a lucky wave in a sea of statistical variance. In this episode, former professional poker player and current VP of Public Affairs Christian Stellakis dismantles the toxic corporate habit of results-oriented thinking. He exposes how organizations routinely confuse blind luck with d...

The era of the "Accidental Project Manager" is dying, and the administrative spreadsheet jockeys are next on the chopping block as well. Dr. Tony Prensa joins the show to dismantle the illusion that delivering a project on time and under budget means anything if the actual business outcome is garbage. We tear into the bureaucratic theater of the modern PMO, why executives frankly do not care if yo...

Andrew Fox, a performance marketer with 23 years of corporate experience, steps in to diagnose the systemic failure being able to tell a compelling story. He strips away the toxic vanity metrics of "Going viral," tears apart the fake influencer facade, and explains why slapping a logo on useless conference swag won't fix your adoption problem. Project professionals are obsessed with building out s...

In this solo Q&A episode, I answer listener submitted questions to share my thoughts on a variety of topics ranging from whether submitting a cover letter is just a pointless echo of your resume, how oblivious leaders consistently mistake toxic team environments for motivation problems, and some options on what to do when a massive scheduling miscalculation bleeds into someone else's timeline....

Data expert Tom Hinkle joins the show to shred the illusion of corporate metrics and expose why your project dashboards are filled with useless vanity numbers. Moving past the sanitized corporate speak, Tom unpacks the chaotic reality of ungoverned shadow spreadsheets, the hypocrisy of fake full-time equivalent project savings, and why project teams inevitably figure out how to game the system rat...

Agile Coach and 30-year software veteran Shawn Wallack strips the corporate theater out of product delivery, taking aim at massive "Awareness" meetings, CYA governance, and the delusion that installing software equals an agile transformation. We break down the stark difference between holding rigid ceremonies and actually making decisions, why perfectly logical frameworks fail under the weight of...

The corporate world loves to worship at the altar of the "Lone wolf" executive, but the reality of leadership is usually a lot more nuanced. In this episode, executive coach Mike Howerton tears down the delusion that your job title makes you a superhero. We dissect the difference between a consultant versus a coach. The "Delegation tax" that turns founders into the ultimate bottlenecks and the har...

In this episode, Guest Justin J. MacBale strips away the corporate theater of enterprise project management to expose what actually drives business value. Justin breaks down the systemic dysfunctions of M&A integrations, the fatal flaw of treating PMs like glorified administrators, and why forcing arbitrary personal expectations onto a burned-out team is a guaranteed career killer. We skip the...

Most project professionals treat HR like the corporate principal's office, that we place we all try to avoid until someone makes a bad joke or a hire falls through. In reality, abdicating your talent management to a siloed department is the fastest way to doom your deliverables. Former Sazerac CHRO Joe Bongiovi drops in to explain why positional authority is a complete joke if you lack the influen...

This week, Kayla Quijas tears down the romanticized idea that your experience "Speaks for itself." We get into the trenches of project management in a law firm, where buzzwords die fast and effectively managing highly skeptical stakeholders is the only metric that matters. If you're tired of screaming into the ATS void while tweaking your resume with AI to match every generic job description, you...

In this episode, Conversation Designer Jake McKee breaks down why surviving on secondhand insights from your sales or support teams is the fastest way to build features nobody wants. We strip away the corporate theater of treating users like data points to mitigate risk, and dive into Jake's Conversation Compass. We expose the conversation debt teams accumulate when they prioritize risk abatement...

In a corporate world obsessed with suffocating projects under layers of administrative bloat and toxic positivity, William Stewart wants to strip project management down to its bare, functional bones. Drawing from decades of aerospace engineering and rescuing doomed initiatives, Stewart dismantles the illusion of the solo Project Manager and exposes the absurdity of demanding solutions for every p...

Corporate bureaucracy is where good ideas go to die, suffocated by endless red tape and managers terrified of making a decision. In this episode, Freedom Fitness Equipment owner Ashton Ferrazzo breaks down exactly why he abandoned the Fortune 100 grind to build a physical business where executing action actually trumps endless consulting and planning. He exposes the toxic reality of corporate egos...

We’ve all seen the corporate disaster of tossing a technical expert into a leadership role they aren't equipped for, only to watch them micromanage the code and crush their team. In this episode, former military helicopter pilot and current founder of Spec-C Technologies, Casey Sprague, exposes why trying to be the smartest person in the room is a guaranteed path to project failure. We tear apart...

Martin Ilumin joins the show to strip away the vanity of "Visibility" and expose the soul-crushing reality of modern PMOs. We stop pretending that a flashy status deck is actual work and address the behavioral rot where "alignment" is just a code word for executives who can’t agree on a single direction. From the 50% capacity lie to the danger of turning every subject matter expert into a part-tim...

Ditch the 300-line spreadsheet and start diagnosing the actual behavioral dysfunction destroying your projects. Kate Breed drops in to expose why the corporate obsession with "consulting everyone" leads to massive project paralysis and how you can calculate the bleeding cost of your bloated calendar. It's time to cut the fluff, weaponize the word "informed" to protect your time, and stop letting p...

Trevor Greenberg has an insightful conversation with Lee Lambert, a project management veteran and creator of the PMP certification. They explore the evolution of project management, the impact of AI, certification standards, and the future of the profession. Connect with Lee: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lelambert/ Like, Follow, and Subscribe LinkedIn Show Page:https://www.linkedin.com/c...

In this episode of The Disgruntled PM, host Trevor Greenberg and guest Russ Parker dissect the realities of risk management. They explore the fundamentals of risk management, sharing personal stories, debunking myths, and practical strategies for managing uncertainty in projects and life. Russ's uses his military background to move the conversation past theoretical frameworks helping teams address...

In this episode, Jake Jaworski shares the journey of creating Home Gym Con, a niche trade show for the home gym industry. Discover how he built the event from scratch, managed logistics, grew vendor and attendee numbers, and his vision for its future impact on the industry. Connect with Jake: Youtube: https://youtube.com/@garagegymradio?si=TZtPL598te291lG5 Instagram: @garagegymexperiment Instagram...