208 - TZL - Justin Smith

2022 program that you guys offer. You offer an online program now that you started doing with Zweig during the pandemic because as we all figured out, we didn't want to stop learning but we also didn't want to catch the virus. And so we wanted to figure out a safe way to do that and one of the ways to do that was to create really well-thought-out intentionally created courses that could be offered online in a lot of different formats. And so I would love for you just to kind of walk through the offerings and the ways that you are distributing project management training now because you're both doing it online, but you're also doing it in person. So I'd love for you to share that. Justin Smith [16:11] So we got a couple of different formats that we work within but I think the best way to describe it is to start back at the beginning. When the pandemic started we were in the process of delivering a revamped project management training or a new or different project management training that got the brakes slammed on right before it got started. So we were building a program that was a little bit different than some of the offerings that are out there, to begin with, which is, rather than start with Justin's experience, we'd like to call it an ā€œNā€ of one, Justin's experience and we're going to build our project management training around an ā€œNā€ of one. What we did is we said, let's look at the available body of research into project management for engineers and architects, and let's see what's being studied what's working and what's not working. And we found amazing research into AEC organizations across the world. So in addition to the over 2 million data points that Zweig is collecting every year about domestic AEC firms, we're able to reach out and look at research organizations that had been studying similar companies across the world. And what we found is that the research was able to boil down some common elements of successful project managers that almost regardless of their place in the world, and the type of environment that they work in, there were these common attributes or these common competencies that rose to the surface in successful projects, almost no matter where they were located, or the specific type of project. So what we said is, well, this just makes sense to build a training around these skills that have been proven to be the keys to success. And as simple as it might sound it boiled down to time management, the ability to manage your own time and properly structure the work of your team. The second piece is communication and not communication, meaning be good with language, the ability to understand and to be understood. The ability to relay and receive information in a relatable way. And then leadership, the ability to lead your internal project team and lead the client, and do it in a way that enables open and transparent communication. And then the fourth piece is problem-solving and conflict resolution. So identifying sticking points in a project where conflicts commonly occur, and then creating a structured process through which you can solve those problems. Now, we didn't plan it this way but it worked out nicely. These four topics allowed us to take what was going to be a one-day training, and break it up into modules that

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