Project Podcast

As governments worldwide set targets on reaching net-zero carbon, project professionals are being tasked with rethinking working practices to cut emissions. Everything from planning to procurement to team structures is being re-evaluated to meet sustainability targets. But it’s worth remembering that sustainability encompasses more than climate change. It means balancing the environmental, social,...

In this episode, hosted by Project journal’s online editor Mike Hine, we discuss salaries and market trends within the project profession. It’s been an enormously challenging 12 months for every sector of the economy. Project professionals felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic from day one, with plans, teams and working practices suddenly thrown into disarray. Project and programme managers hav...

In this final episode of the Project Innovators season, Project journal editor Emma De Vita speaks to Bent Flyvbjerg, the first BT professor and inaugural chair of major programme management at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Bent is one of the big names from the world of project management. He works for the better management of megaprojects and this is the subject which we delve...

In this episode, Project journal editor Emma De Vita meets Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, who is on a mission to champion project management as a central issue for every CEO. He is the author of Lead Successful Projects, published by Penguin, and he is also a Harvard Business Review author and has been recognised by Thinkers50 as an influential global business thinker. Antonio is the co-founder of the S...

As with many new digital technologies, the terminology surrounding project data analytics can be confusing or off-putting to busy project professionals. However, as we discover in this episode, the potential of project data analytics is huge – and there are several ways you, as a project professional, can begin to harness the practical benefits today. So what are some of these benefits? And how ca...

In this episode, host Emma De Vita meets Susan Ferry, a project manager for change at Allianz, who led what she calls a ‘big bang transformation’ project that revolutionised ways of working for the global insurance company, fostering innovation through a no-blame culture where trust and honesty were paramount. We spoke to Susan at the start of February to find out more about the Motor Engineer Con...

From Deepwater to drones – in this episode Project editor Emma De Vita meets Benjamin Hooper, programme and project manager at Heathrow Airport, whose project won APM’s 2020 Overall Project of the Year. The project, to create a counter-unmanned aerial system (or anti-drone system) embraced innovative ways of thinking and managing for the project team, who were tasked with finding an immediate solu...

In the Project Innovators season of podcasts, Project journal editor Emma De Vita is talking to project professionals who are leading projects in an innovative way at a time when many of us are hoping the world of work and projects can be reset for a post-COVID world.   In this episode we meet Jo Stanford, head of corporate portfolio office at Health Education England, to discuss how she’s leading...

Resetting projects in a better way for a post-COVID world means capitalising on the best minds. Cognitive diversity, as explained by Matthew Syed in his book Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking, pays.   In this episode, Project editor Emma De Vita discusses diversity and inclusion with Jenny McLaughlin, a project manager at Heathrow Airport, who is also its disability network lead. Jenny is...

In this episode, we look back on 2020 and reflect on some key project management lessons from a turbulent 9 months. Soon after the first UK lockdown in March, we founded this podcast to share the stories of project professionals who were managing, adapting and pivoting their projects to meet the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic. We dubbed series one ‘Crisis Talks’, and each episode was presented b...

In this episode, our topic is how to be a great project leader. We pin down exactly what it means to lead a project and how this role is evolving to reflect the changing nature of projects and obviously in 2020, the pressures of the Covid pandemic. In this podcast, host Emma De Vita, editor of Project journal, asks how a project leader needs to behave to be highly effective, and what mindset you n...

In the ‘Project Innovators’ season of podcasts, Project journal editor Emma De Vita is speaking to project professionals who are leading projects in an innovative way at a time when many of us are hoping the world of work and projects can be reset for a post-COVID-19 world. In this episode she speaks to Matthew Moran, Head of Transformation at The Open University, and occasional lecturer in the OU...

In the ‘Project Innovators’ season of podcasts, Project journal editor Emma De Vita will be speaking to project professionals who are leading projects in an innovative way at a time when many of us are hoping the world of work and projects can be reset in a better way for a post-COVID-19 world.  In episode one, we meet Caroline Raynor, project manager and principal archaeologist for the Costain Sk...

In this episode, our topic is the APM Body of Knowledge. The seventh edition of this core text for the profession was published in 2019. One year on, the book’s co-editors – Dr Ruth Murray-Webster and Professor Darren Dalcher – co-host an episode that reflects on the changes and updates made to the seventh edition. They discuss the considerable challenges and responsibilities of updating what they...

This episode explores the findings from The Golden Thread, a research series by APM and PwC. The first Golden Thread paper was commissioned to throw light on a profession that has been hidden and undervalued for too long, and to prove that the size of the project profession in the UK is significant and growing. Two follow-up reports focused on fast-growth sectors for project management (including...

In the Crisis Talks season of podcasts, Project journal editor Emma De Vita asks project professionals to share their stories of managing, adapting and pivoting their projects through lockdown and now as restrictions are eased. In this episode we meet Joanna Rowland, director of HMRC’s COVID-19 Response Unit, responsible for the department’s strategic approach to the pandemic. Joanna is the senior...

In the Crisis Talks season of podcasts, Project journal editor Emma De Vita asks project professionals to share their stories of managing, adapting and pivoting their projects through lockdown and now during this next phase as restrictions are eased. In this episode we meet Andrew Higson, a project manager at Balvac, part of the Balfour Beatty Group, which is a specialist in the repair, strengthen...

Our Crisis Talks series explores how project managers are adapting and pivoting to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode, Emma De Vita (editor of APM’s Project journal) speaks to Paul Hilton, programme director at global engineering, management and development company Mott MacDonald. Paul lives in Singapore and oversees the delivery of 13 Future Cities projects across nine...

Our Crisis Talks series explores how project managers are adapting and pivoting to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode, Emma De Vita (editor of APM’s Project journal) speaks to Hannah Gledhill, senior project manager at Hotel Chocolat. The British chocolatier has small project team focused primarily on product development. Just prior to lockdown, it had begun a process of...

Our Crisis Talks series explores how project managers are adapting and pivoting to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode, Emma De Vita (editor of APM’s Project journal) speaks to Sonia Sharma, head of planning and corporate PMO at Channel 4. Sonia explains the challenges of working within an organisation of low project management maturity, where staff are sometimes resistan...

What is the future of project management as the world moves into the next stage of the COVID-19 crisis? And what are the risk factors and opportunities going forward, both for individuals and the profession? Taking a future-focused approach, in this episode, we hear from APM’s chief executive, Debbie Dore, and president, Sue Kershaw, about the ‘new normal’. From remote working to people management...

In episode one of our first season, Crisis Talks, Emma De Vita (editor of APM’s Project journal) speaks to Lizzie Meadows, a project manager at Quadram Institute Bioscience (QIB), whose biorepository project went live just as coronavirus hit the UK. The project has since been able to provide crucial resource and support to QIB genome sequencing scientists’ contribution to the COVID-19 Genomics UK...