5 minutes with… Dan Richardson
After 9 years in a tech scale up Dan recently joined ITM Power where he is now Programme Manager for green hydrogen projects. Dan lives in Sheffield with his wife and two girls aged 6 and 8.
This article was originally posted on LinkedIn in June 2023 and Dan has kindly given permission for the content to be added here.
Why did you choose a career in delivery or project management?
I got into PMing because I put my hand up when no-one else did. I was living in Kabul at the time, working for an international development charity that did amazing work serving the people of Afghanistan. About a week into working there I was in a team meeting where it was announced that the Projects Director had become terminally ill. The team lead asked, "So who wants to take the lead on projects?”. No one put their hand up and for some reason I did. I’ve never looked back. Loved every moment of it.
So, like many others have said, project management seemed to choose me rather than the other way round.
There are two strands of project management that I particularly love:
I enjoy getting things done. Including tweaking how we do things to continuously improve
I enjoy working with people. I’m fascinated by the whole concept of high performing cross-functional teams and think the PM has a key role to play in creating that culture.
What advice would you give someone starting out in the industry?
For someone starting out in delivery I’d say three things. One piece of advice from me, and two from people much better positioned to give out advice.
Rather than focusing on methodologies, focus on relationships. Yes, learn the right methods. Do AgilePM, Scrum Master, etc. But they’ll only get you so far. The really good PMs know how to communicate. And they adapt how they do that: relating differently to different people for different purposes.
When you doubt your abilities, remember that everyone else is probably doing the same thing. Remember that you can probably help. As Steve Jobs said, “Everything you see around you was made up by people no smarter than you.”. It’s easy to get discouraged and think there’s nothing you can do about something. But to continue the Steve Jobs quote… “You can change it. You can influence it. Once you understand that you can mould life, that’s maybe the most important thing - to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just going to [passively] live in it rather than changing it, embracing it, improving it. No one has the secret formula for how to do this job well.”
Finally, I think it’s important to develop a mindset of ownership. Believe that it’s your job to do something about the problems you see. A lot of people believe it’s their job to complain and point fingers. We Brits love a good moan. I certainly do. But after a bit of a moan it’s important to put the problem solver hat on. When Obama was asked what his most important piece of career advice for young people was he said: “Just learn how to get stuff done… I’ve seen at every level people who are very good at describing problems and people who are very sophisticated at describing why something went wrong but what I’m always looking for is someone who says I’ll take care of it…. Whatever is assigned to you, nail it.”
Have you ever worked on a particularly difficult project? Why was it rubbish/tough/hard?
Two things come to mind.
It was hard when a customer shut down a project without any warning simply because their commercial strategy took them elsewhere. That was tough to take because the team had put a lot of hard work into developing a new product for them which came to nothing.
Seeing Afghanistan today is tough after everything I was involved in there for a few years. The societal regression is sad. Sad for me, but so much worse for the people in the country, particularly the women.
On the other hand, I've generally enjoyed the hard projects. The projects with the biggest problem also have the biggest potential rewards when you work through the issues.
What do you think are the most important skills for a delivery or project manager to have?
Formulaic methodology without relationship and empathy is worthless.
Become an ally & best friend of stakeholders. Do that genuinely. Figure out what they need and genuinely try to give it to them. If a team member needs encouragement, encourage. If a director needs colourful graphs, give them colourful graphs. There’s a limit of course, but the principle of understanding your stakeholders holds true.
Ensure everyone in the delivery team knows exactly what's required of them each day.
Create urgency.
Be crystal clear on the definition of done.
Have an entrepreneurial mindset - believing there is always a way to get something done.
Develop your internal alarm system which tells you when something's not right. Learn how to respond. Responding can include asking the hard questions no one wants to ask, probing, offering help and helping people think things though.
What do you think are the biggest challenges facing delivery and project managers today?
You’ll have gathered by now that I value relationships. I think we’re still figuring out how to do this well remotely. I always think an element of face-to-face work is crucial. It’s not always possible however and that’s a challenge.
Currently I think choosing between all the exciting opportunities out there is a challenge. If you look at the job market there are a lot of very cool opportunities available. That can be tough! 🙂
What projects would you have loved to have been involved in?
I’ve been lucky to have spent 10 years in the tech and scientific engineering world and am now involved in building one of the world’s largest green hydrogen electrolysers. So industry-leading tech is something I find fascinating. Although I wouldn’t change much about my career so far, projects I would have loved to have been involved in include:
The whole Rimac journey. They’ve had such explosive growth, a gorgeous product, and world-leading results.
Rimac Nivera. Image: www.rimac-automobili.com/nevera/
If I could go back in time, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works (see picture below). Although the secretive nature of this work isn’t what I’d go for, I love how the engineers and shop-floor staff all worked so closely together. They were able to close long communication loops by working side-by-side and quickly adapt when needed. They were being agile before Agile became a thing.
SR-71 production at Lockheed Skunk Works. Image: www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/lockheed-martin-sr-71-blackbird.html
This post is from the ‘5 minutes with’ series of articles from people in the delivery management and project management space.