THE VALUE OF GREAT PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Hello, this is Les Goldberg, and welcome to The Road Ahead. The Road Ahead podcast is dedicated to the future of the live events business, bringing together industry experts. Hello, production world. This is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Today, I have three amazing guests. I have Bethany Forbes. She's the co-owner and CEO of Apex Production Services. Today, I have Casen Doherty, and he is the owner and technical director for Hold Fast Production Management. And I have Wes Warren, the technical director and production manager from Warren Event Solutions. Everyone, welcome to the show. Today, I'm going to talk about something that's near and dear to our hearts, is the subject of production management and the value of great production management. And today, I have three great production managers and people that do this. And I don't necessarily know if people really can appreciate what happens when you all are on site, and how you add, and what the essence a production manager does, and project managers, a project. So today, I'm going to ask lots of questions and hear what you all have to contribute. My first question is to Bethany Forbes. Bethany, how would you describe the work a project manager does? Like, exactly, how would you describe the kind of things that you do and the amazingness you bring to the job? Well, many people have asked me this question, Les, and for me, it comes down to two different concepts. One is I try and bring quiet to the noise, meaning, you know, a lot of times when our technicians get involved or agencies start to create a show, they kind of spray the world with ideas and spray the world with technical concepts and there's seven ways you could do four things, right? As a project manager, you try to take those and make them organized for one, but also try to help guide the ship in where you make the right thoughtful decision for your end client, but you also make it something that's possible and executable for not just the agency, but also the technicians involved. I have done project management on a very large scale, meaning hundreds of technicians and, you know, more than 20 trucks and, you know, more than 30 production rooms and things like that. And some people have asked me, you know, I don't know how you do it. There's just chaos everywhere sometimes. And what I've always told people is, is don't ever be part of the chaos. See it, know what it is, positively contribute to making it better, but don't let it get in you because that's where a project manager can become in some way impaired because you're now part of it. You can't see yourself away from it and make objective decisions to create positive impact to a project. And then the other concept I've always had is there's two phases to project management. There's the project and then the product. And for me, the project is the minute I'm assigned to it or the minute I'm engaged in a project, I get to be a part of making that project the best it can be from that moment until the truck backs into the loading dock. Then it's time to switch gears and deliver the product that I've been managing for so long. So that's kind of a couple of concepts I've always kept in my mind when it comes to not just the importance of project management, but what it actually means to be a project manager. That was a very thoughtful response. I would like to know, Wes Warren, could you add, agree, or give us your thoughts on exactly what you do in the form of project management and your thoughts on how important it is? I agree with everything Bethany says. I will say that I keep two words in mind through my process, and that is anticipation and mitigation. So, as Beth says, in the planning process, the anticipation of things that will come to light in the planning process from the producer's perspective, from the end client's perspective, from the technician's perspective, resolving those issues before the show loads in. And then from load in forward, you're looking at mitigation or mitigating small surprises or large surprises even that might come up through the process. Part of the mitigation, I have fun with it. I like to call it the good idea fairy. When the good idea fairy comes to town from an end client or a venue and helping them realize those ideas, but also running interference between the client or the producer and the technicians and maybe bringing some of those ideas back down to earth. Got it. Okay, Casen, it's your turn. Tell us what you think about the work you do as a project manager and the uniqueness to it, and any thoughts regarding what Bethany said or what Wes said. Well, to start off with, Bethany and Wes definitely hit exactly the main points and functionality of our job, right? We come in, we're essentially dream makers and problem solvers at the end of the day. We take a nightmare on paper sometimes and we make sure it's a beautiful product at the end of the show. And I think to the extent of what makes our job unique is that we interact with people all different walks of life, all from wherever, and especially since we travel so much for this job, we get the opportunity to work in amazing places, different countries, and you just get to meet some really interesting people and most of the time create lifelong friendships or relationships with just wholesome people. And I think that in itself makes our industry unique and really special to me, at least, is that you get to see the best of people, you sometimes see the worst of people, but we all at the end of the day support each other and we try and get through this craziness, right? So I think in addition to the role of our job from problem solvers and dream makers and things like that, it's also just being good humans to each other and just putting out that positive energy because it is a crazy world we live in, in general, and the event industry itself is just insane. People don't really understand what we do until they see it firsthand or do it. So I feel like part of our job as project managers is when things are going tough on site, like I'm just wrapping up a show now where there was plenty of AV gremlins that we had to snuff out, but it's keeping everybody's composure under wraps and just coming in every day with a positive mindset and a smile on your face. And so it's also like we're almost grief counselors, in a sense, or mental health therapists on show site. Wow. Grief counselors. I've never heard of someone in our industry. I like the dream maker, problem solver, but grief counselor is a new level for me to understand. So very thoughtful answers from all of you. So I'm going to ask this question. If I wanted to be a project manager, what would the attributes of a great project manager, what are the qualities someone would have to be that you're looking for when you're interviewing a project manager? What are the attributes you would look for? Bethany, if you were interviewing for someone, what would you ask for or what were the questions you would bring forward to really identify someone who you think could be a good project manager? If I were looking for a project manager, to be honest, a lot of the skills are trainable, some are not. You are looking for someone who understands communication on a level that needs to be pretty clear, but also the understanding that you are communicating not just to an internal team, but you're also communicating to clients and it's internal and external dialogues. So communication skills are incredibly important. Truth be told, grammatical skills are a good one. Can they write a proper email? Do they understand punctuation? Do they make lists in an email to where a four-year-old could read the email and get through the information somewhat easily? I think I would be looking for someone who understood timeliness and timelines and in a way understands when is there a sense of urgency or when does there need to be a sense of urgency? So someone who understands timeliness and timelines, so time management is a good one. I mean, really, those are the top two that I can say I would start with, communication skills and time management. Sure. Sure. Hey, Wes, can you add to her list? Sure. But a very quick aside to Bethany. When I read her emails, I want to be on her show. Good. I think that's a compliment, Bethany. Good job. I love broad-based technical exposure. Project managers, technical directors, supervisory roles all come from different backgrounds, right? We have the scenic design types and the draftsman. We have the lighting designer types. We have the more broadcast tech managers. We all come into these supervisory roles from very, very different paths. But everybody brings a very broad-based technical exposure. So no, I don't need you to know how to fly the LED wall, but I would like you to know the concepts of how an LED wall goes together. I don't need you to be that technician. Same thing, audio, I would like you to know the structure behind flying a large distributed PA and what sort of cable infrastructure has to be implemented because the more I know the general concepts behind every discipline, the better I can help those departments execute. So I like to know that the technical directors or project managers that I'm working with have a pretty in-depth technical exposure. Got it. I got it. Casen, how could you add... What are the attributes in a great project manager? Well, I think Bethany and Wes definitely hit a lot of the same points that I would say. I think the only thing that I could add to the mix would be I look for somebody that's solution-based because this industry is so crazy and we get problems do arrive. We can plan for the most perfect show in the world, but little things always pop up. So the way that I go about it is that I, especially if it is a technical piece that I'm not entirely sure of or maybe I do have the insight to, before I go to a client or before I bring it to somebody else's attention, I always like to at least have one or two solutions in my back pocket that I can say, look, this is what's going on, but these are two routes that we can go to make this better. And I think if I have a project manager on site with me or even technical directors or even technicians or stagehands, anyone that comes to me with a problem, if they're like, hey, this is what's going on, but this is what I think we can do to fix it, and even if they can give me a timeline, those to me speak volumes because this position has. You're juggling so many other things, client, the AV, the scenic, or whatever. So if somebody is helping you take some of the, take that issue away and give you some support right off the bat, I think that's important, but that's also what us as project managers should act as as well for our clients. It's like, if something comes up, but hey, sorry to bring this bad news, but this is what we're gonna do to fix it. And this is what it's gonna either cost or how much time it's gonna take or what we need. So I think all of you at some point wear those fire hats for firemen because you're putting out these fires that pop up and solve problems. So let me ask this question. I'm gonna throw this to Wes. Wes, how can a production be impacted positively by having great project management? And I'll ask the other, the converse of that is, how can it be affected negatively without project management? Some people don't see the value in it. And I'm completely sold and I think you all are rock stars, but I just wanna, for this discussion, what happens when someone maybe decides not to invest in that and what are the potential consequences? And then what's the upside by having great project management? I'd like to go with the upside first. And I think some of my most successful experiences have been paired up with a show's account executive or sales team, right? So you've got a sales team and an end client and they're selling a concept, but having a project manager behind them earlier in the stage than load in allows you the opportunity to really see small holes in the plan, for lack of a better word, right? And maybe some areas where technical teams can anticipate changes or things to better achieve the client's vision that the AE may not see all the way through to the execution stage. Negatively, one of my least favorite things is to be called into a project late in the game when the plan is already solid, the gear is already procured, the crew is booked and then realizing that some of those decisions either based on equipment or staffing choices or even venue layout, we could have solved problems ahead of time earlier in the planning process than when we're unloading trucks into the venue. But that's really not the ideal time to try to solve or react to those things. Beth, your thoughts? Positive, great project management. Negative, maybe no project management. And those people who think they're saving money by not... investing in that project management. So give me your thoughts. So I'm going to come at this from two directions, Les. I did a lot of project management and was actually part of designing project management at LMG. So I want to talk about that. But I also want to talk about being the client TD, having a project manager on the show, because I've had both hats on. Now I wear the TD hat and have project managers more often now, but I've been on both sides of that coin. As a project manager, I sat alongside my work wife, Greg Heflin, many, many years, among other AEs. I bring up Greg because he and I did a lot of the really big ones. And he would bring me in as soon as the contract was signed. And he would put me in front of the client and we would really start to drill into drawing, staffing, schedules, gear lists, all the things. I have a TD brain. And so I would go through and say, have we thought about conversion? What is our frame rate? What's resolutions? I would kind of dig in on the broader scale as well. And what that gave us was an opportunity as a gear vendor to show up with the bag of tricks at load-in to fulfill the scope of work that we said we could. Versus not asking the questions, getting there and having a bunch of curveballs, delaying the timeline, having guys working in crazy late overtime because we didn't think about something, we don't have the gear, we're flying it across the country. All these things where our internal dollars are racking up. We're incurring costs, both on the production side, but as a gear vendor to make the show happen that we didn't forecast. And so it can impact a show's budget on both sides, both as the vendor and as the production itself. As a TD, I love involving my project manager. And I'm actually going to call out a show I did this year. I was the client TD that was working with Greg Heflin. Wes Warren was my production, my project manager. And it was a show that we did down in Miami. Now, Miami's close to a big LMG shop. It still costs money to get something from Orlando to Miami. And that's a six-hour process at times. From pulling it, prepping it, getting a truck, getting it in the truck, getting it out of the warehouse, onto a highway, and back down to us. Now, there were times where we had to do that. There were curveballs. But I had a project manager that I could say, okay, we've had an oh, by the way, and I need to go from plan A to plan C in one day. Let's talk through what I need. Yes, it's billable, all these things, but I don't have the bandwidth to stop everything, call my account executive, work with his operations team to get me what I need, and keep the show on the tracks on site. So I have to watch the global project and make sure we're hitting milestones from start to finish. I've budgeted a show with a specific timeline in mind. Does that mean that surprises are going to come up? Absolutely. Do we have contingency plans? Absolutely. But my project manager helps me stay within the timeline and meet the milestones I need while also handling those things that that contingency bucket cover. So I could keep the show going while Wes was helping me with the surprises. It was like I had a second me there, and that is incredibly helpful. I now know and trust that I've got somebody managing something I don't have to do. I can keep the show moving forward. One of the key things, Bethany, that you said was trust. If you have a person who's acting in that capacity, there has to be a high level of trust and transparency for you to be able to do what you have to do. And then some jobs that we've when we're taking over the town and there's multiple venues. Casen, give me your thoughts on the idea of great project management and the lack of great project management or no project management. Yeah. I mean, again, everybody's saying the same exact points. I think great project management is looking at it from a... You do need to pull yourself backwards and think of it from looking at a 35,000 feet view. You need to understand what's the client's objective, what's the client's dream, and how does it all interact. So where my little piece of this puzzle be an AV or a scenic vendor or anything like that as a project manager, how do I fit into this puzzle and how do I work with simultaneously. Bad project management is doing the complete opposite and not playing nice with others, obviously, because things... When it comes to loading in, no, my trucks go first and that's all that says. And nobody gets my help. Or even to loading out, blocking docks, not letting people go out. Or even on building the show. If you're working in a... If you're project managing only disciplines, say audio or video or lighting, and then you're not working with the rigging team or you're not working with... As a video project manager, if you're not working alongside audio to make sure cable pathways are done the correct way and clean and in conjunction or how you can dovetail off each other, that makes time just completely get eaten up on show site. It makes the crew unhappy and things of that nature. So I think that's the catastrophic side of the project management is when you just are so self-centered or self-focused that you don't pay attention to the full project. Because even if you are just a project manager on one piece of the puzzle, you really should look at the bigger picture because that's what your client wants from you. So it sounds like everyone's trying to keep the train on the track. And I have one more thing to add, Les. I do have one more thing to say. When you're on the side that has to figure out how to pay for everything, there are times where you start to look for opportunities to save. What I will say is in the post-COVID world, we are challenged with gear that is in high demand, meaning it's coming and going faster than we've ever seen it come and go before. Technicians are exactly the same. There aren't as many of them, so they're working twice as hard. Local labor, same thing. The labor pools are shallow. The talent is not quite where it used to be, and they're moving four times as fast. A project manager, to me, is one of the last things I would cut out of a budget, depending on the scope. And the reason why is it does have a massive impact on a budget in a way that can be unexpected. And what I mean by that is for pennies on the dollar, meaning one more body there that is doing what the project management role is, you are saving so much time and money on-show site because that person is helping to solve some of the things that as a technical director, I don't even know about until the problem is solved. It's like it didn't even exist. For example, a pair of camera sticks shows up and they're broken. I don't hear about it. All I know is Wes says, not going to get that camera up today. I got a replacement coming in. It'll be here at 10 tomorrow. Perfect. I don't even need to paint cameras until two o'clock tomorrow, Wes. And he'd say, I know because I looked at your production schedule and I knew when we needed to have cameras fully operational, I took care of it. Versus me running around handling 14,000 things, not even understanding that something's broken with no one catching the fact that there was a deadline that we needed to hit. So there are some massive savings that you don't even understand you're going to get until you're getting them in the moment. And I think that's something that's hard to communicate when you're trying to sell the position, Wes. I would tell you this, that on-site labor is such a big expense that every company has committed to. And sometimes if rigging is behind and there's obstacles from whether it's load-in or the push or all the elements to deliver the show, I think project management is essential. They had this thing, essential workers, that I think it's an essential role for the success of a show. And maybe the super small shows with a single screen and there might be a few exceptions, but in general, I think the best money spent is making sure you stay organized and that labor, that big expense that is impacting a show is being managed. And crews can go into overtime or double time or penalty meal penalties, all these things, having somebody watching that store and making sure they integrate with whatever the technical director is or team of TDs and the producers, because there's economic reality to this. And in the post-con for a show, everything has to be explained. And, well, why did this happen? And why did that happen? Was it a bad plan? And I really believe in having contingency plans. And I think these are all the pieces of a formula to deliver a great show. And I think you can't always predict what's going to happen. I would tell you, we went through a period of time where people were getting COVID and getting sick and we'd have to replace people. And, you know, all of this kind of happens in real time. And especially if you're not in an A or a B tier city, there's just not a pool of people waiting to run the Go Save Your Show. I mean, these are some of the kind of interesting things. That goes to what Kacen was mentioning, deal with personal conflict, personality conflicts on site between two people. And it seems like a project manager or related to the TV position have to be like a referee in some instances. How do you deal with that, Kacen? So I think it's again, it's just coming in with like a good mindset. So I pride myself in trying to like have like a positive mindset every time I come onto a show site or just in my normal day life. And also just seeing people as a human being. We're all in this world together. We're all on site together. So when people are having conflict, the first thing I want to do is not jump in and disrupt what's going on. You want to disrupt it, but at the same time, you don't want to escalate it. So it's coming in with a calm disposition, talking to them and seeing what the issue is. And then if it is really escalated, you want to separate and calm everybody down and discuss it. But the hardest part, I think, is sometimes these things happen when the client is around. So I think if you are so proactive in showing like, hey, what's going on? Let's take a breath. Let's breathe. A client will be like, okay, at least he's got this under control and I don't have to worry about it. But those things happen. Again, this industry is intense. It's stressful. Things happen. Gear gets messed up on site or things of that nature. So you just have to roll with the punches. But it is, again, it's just keeping a calm disposition. And that usually trickles across the board with your entire crew, in my eyes. Wes, have you had a situation where you've had to deal with a personality conflict? And what was the outcome? Or can you just give us some scenario you could share with us? Don't use any names. Protect the names. No, exactly. I think that we've all had scenarios where you have, hopefully not your trusted key positions, but you've had somebody down the line. You've had an A2, you've had a video assist, you've had some utilities or local stagehands not communicating on the level that we would prefer. And we all have diplomacy tricks in our toolboxes to either resolve those or, in a worst case, you have those positions replaced with the clients in the room. Like Kacen said, I put a lot of effort and take a lot of pride in my ability to establish a rapport right off the bat with either a local labor lead, a hotel labor lead, maybe a partnering vendor on a show that isn't in your And I think that in this day and age, the hotheadedness and the older school rock and roll mentality is really expiring. And we're seeing a lot less and less of that in the industry. And most everybody that is coming to work wants to come to work and is coming to work with an attitude that we can work with. I'm not running into a lot of bad eggs. And I do know what Beth is talking about when you're getting to the bottom of the call list of local labor or unexperienced labor. But I think if you're really putting the effort in from a leadership perspective to kick off the day with the right attitude, most everybody is going to follow you with that same perspective. And maybe I've just been fortunate, but I don't have a lot of war stories to talk about here. Hey, Bethany, any thoughts on personality conflicts and how you've dealt with that on site? Yes, I've dealt with several, many, too many to count. I think one of the things that I do right off the bat, no matter what role I play in is I make sure people understand that they're important, that they matter. We as human beings, when we're under duress or stress or pressure, our need to feel heard and our need to want to be understood is heightened because we feel like we're not. And sometimes that just makes situations harder. And when multiple people are in that ecosystem feeling those things, tension arises. I am very good at being a diffuser of these situations. And I think one of the reasons why I am so good at it is I'm compassionate and I try to make people understand that I'm trying to listen to understand to their perspective before jumping in and trying to find a solution. I want to hear what you have to say. I want to know where your head is at. I respect your perspective. Let's find a solve. And I think that that has helped me a lot. A lot of times, before I go into diffuse a situation, I do one of those, if it were me in that situation, what would I need from someone trying to help me get out of it? So I've always tried to approach those heightened situations of tension and argument and or disagreement with compassion and understanding first, and then a let's us find a solve not I'm here to make this I'm here to make the problem go away. Here I am with my project manager or leader staff, and I'm going to tell you what the solve is. It's I want to know what you have to say. I want to respect your perspective. Then let's us find a solve. So so this is my first I've got from all of you is the fire hats, the psychologist, psychiatrist, the the master planners, the you know, there's so many qualities that a great project management has, and you all exude these qualities. And it's so great to hear it from you, because when we're on site, you're you're in the middle of the battle of the war. You can't have the and to be very calm and rational under, let's just say, challenging circumstances, especially when everyone starts to get there. How do I say they're the they're kind of like worried about the outcome and the voice of calm is is priceless. I think I think that probably would be the the number one thing why project management is so important to jobs, especially to produce great results. So this is my last question. And I'm going to start with I'm going to start with the case in first case. I just want to know, what's the most fun about being a great project manager and doing what you do on a regular basis and going on site and conquering the world and being the fireman or firewoman? Like, what is it for you? What makes your exciting for what you do as far as your working career? So it's so funny that you ask this question. So literally, like for me, I stumbled into this industry when I was 13. I had a band I wanted to put on or play shows. There was an audio engineers. I fell into mixing my own bands, going on tour and things of that nature and just fell into events. So it was it was kind of just natural where I never thought it would be a real career path. So I love this industry more than anything. I mean, it keeps me excited. There's always new technology coming out. There's always new creatives that are coming into the mix that want some new thing to happen or pop up in a show. And it's just like that to me is exciting because it's like putting a huge puzzle together. And it's like there's so many complexities and intricacies inside of it. But on top of that, again, to a point I said earlier, like you do travel a lot. You get to meet all these new people. I have friends that I still am connected to that I worked with in the south of France that are from the UK or from France and things of that nature. So it's just over, you know, it's overexpanded and ever evolving. So and again, it's an adrenaline junkies dream because like from that second where right before you go live in a show and that beat drops to, you know, for opening music or whatever, you're just pumping and hoping every, you know, hoping that everything that you plan so hard and put so much time and effort into goes smoothly for you, for your client, for your team and everything like that. So I think in terms of project managing events, that to me is like the only reason why I still do it. And the and I've always said and I've said this to everyone I've met, even this week down in Miami, is that, you know, when this stops being fun, that's when I know I need to step away because I only have fun on these in these shows and on site. And it's been my entire career, 20 plus years now. And when it stops being fun, that's when I know I'm ready to retire. Well, that was a very thoughtful answer. And I just want you to know, I share a lot of the feelings that you do, the excitement of what happens on show site. Bethany Forbes, would you share with us the most fun about being Bethany Forbes, project management extraordinaire? Well, I, too, like Casen, started in this industry very young. I came from the theater communities where I was stage managing and managing teams of people that were twice my age at 15 years old. Some of those people that I stage managed at 15, I'm still friends with. I have 24 plus year long friendships in this industry. And every time you meet that person, no matter how many gigs there have been in between the last one you did or months or years that you haven't seen one another, it's like no time has passed. And it truly is like having a chosen family. You know, we get to do really cool things in this industry. We get to solve really big, challenging. Things, situations, I don't know, I don't like calling them problems because they're not. We get to we get these really cool technical puzzles to play with and we get to be a part of solving them and telling someone's story and making people happy. And we get to do that together. And some of my fondest memories have and funniest memories have come out of some of the most stressful shows, lasting friendships with memories that are truly, you know, they're they're invaluable. And I don't know, I don't know quite what I would have done had I decided to stay in theater and become a performer. But, you know, I love making people laugh and I'm good at it when they're stressed out. And some of our our funniest stories in some of those 20 plus year long friendships that I have are from massively difficult situations at three in the morning when some Russian backs into the Mandalay Bay Arena with a thing in his Toyota Camry that we have to save the show with. You know, I mean, these are stories that we tell. These are things that we laugh about. There are sayings and inside jokes that have come from those days when we were in short term because we had to be there to figure out how to make the color right or whatever. I mean, it's just it's it's like nothing else. And it's hard to explain to people who aren't in the industry how like because I think I think a lot of people look at our industry and go, oh, my goodness, I couldn't work those many hours. That that amount of stress would make me go bald, all those things. But there's so much fun we have in it, too. Are you making fun of bald guys? I'm not sure about that. That must explain what happened to me. That must be said. That explains it. I was going to say, it looks like you've managed a lot of stress, Wes. Oh, my goodness. It's not measurable with modern technology. You know, it looks like we've lost Wes, so I would throw the question, the last question to him. But I think our connection has gone down. I want to tell you, I am just I feel a sense of pride to be on a call with the the professionals that I'm talking to. And what I really take away from what everyone has said is the passion you have for what you do. It's simply about being the best, creating amazing spectacle things, solving the puzzles, not problems, as Bethany says, they're puzzles like Rubik's Cubes. And and and really having a sense of pride and coming out. And, you know, when the audience applause, that really should be for all the crew and the people that work on those shows, because sometimes I don't think they know really what goes into it. But we know as people in our industry, we're helping deliver the message and deliver this incredible show to the audiences. And I think it's great to be part of that. I think that's why I'm in the business as well for that joy. So I would like to thank Wes, Casen and Bethany. You all are amazing. I look forward to seeing you in a ballroom and a convention center in any space on a truck dock having doing what we do. And thank you all for joining. And this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Thanks, Les. That was great. Thanks, Les.