The Project Chatter Podcast

Hosted by Dale Foong and Val Matthews

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229

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Nov 2026

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About the show

Welcome to Project Chatter, the podcast where project professionals, specialists and experts from various sectors talk about the latest trends in project management and PMO. Listen to Val and Dale as they talk about tried and tested best practices and share their unfiltered thoughts about the industry. Whether you're here to learn how to progress your career, improve your project controls skills, or just want to hear an Aussie and South African rant about projects, then you've come to the right place. Welcome to the Project Chatter Podcast, with your hosts Dale Foong and Val Matthews.

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November 6, 2026Episode 22852 min

S10E228: Shadow AI: Your Free ChatGPT Is a Data Breach with Joe Klich

Someone on your project pasted the schedule into a free ChatGPT account to get it analysed. That is a data breach, and the confidentiality clause they signed does not care that it was convenient. Joe Klich calls it shadow AI, and he thinks it is the most under-discussed risk in construction right now. Joe spent 18 years in commercial construction operations, from the field through executive leadership, before founding Klich Consulting, an operational risk advisory for construction executives. He joins Dale and Val to talk about how fast AI capability is actually doubling (the METR curve has gone from every seven months to every three), why most people cannot keep up and what that gap means for project teams, and how regulators in the US, UK and Australia are all reacting rather than leading. In this episode: why Chinese models at three cents a task will put AI everywhere and magnify the governance problem; the difference between AGI and ASI and why nobody smarter than you will design their own off switch; AI as a hammer, not a colleague; why companies get AI backwards by starting with the tool instead of their people; the cybersecurity parallel from 2010 and why insurers, not legislators, will force AI governance by refusing to pay for AI-related losses; what the jobs of the future look like when a team of ten becomes five; and Joe's closing advice for anyone using AI at work. Connect with Joe Klich on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-klich-96020635/ Hosted by Dale Foong and Val Matthews. The Project Chatter Podcast has been running since 2018 and is free to access, always.

October 23, 2026Episode 22759 min

S10E227: Your Project Is On Time. So What? with Matthieu Sors

Your project is green. Every milestone hit. And the CIO still can't tell the business what value it created. Matthieu Sors has watched that conversation play out inside banks, telcos and software companies for 20 years, and he thinks the fix is a shift most PMOs haven't made yet: stop tracking outputs, start owning outcomes. Matthieu is French, based in Sydney, and has spent his career on portfolio management: NBN, banking EPMOs, and now Planview, where he works with executive teams on what comes next. He joins Dale and Machine Gun Martin to unpack the difference between an output and an outcome, why senior executives are already ready for the outcome conversation (and why the middle layer isn't), and what OKRs look like when they are done well. In this episode: the bank that reported 10 platinum, 6 gold and 5 silver milestones and still couldn't answer "what did we deliver?"; why large programmes are being broken into waves; delegation and empowerment without blowing the budget; the asset lifecycle and the sponsor role on infrastructure projects; value streams and product operating models; why OKR rollouts fall apart after two quarters; AI, quantum and the human in the loop; and Matthieu's final thought for every project manager updating their CV in a panic: you are not going anywhere. Connect with Matthieu Sors on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthieusors/ Hosted by Dale Foong and Martin C. The Project Chatter Podcast has been running since 2018 and is free to access, always. Contains one instance of strong language.

October 9, 2026Episode 22652 min

S10E226: Is Work Killing Your Relationships? with Sabrina Starling

Is your work killing your relationships? For nine in ten business owners, the answer is heading that way. Dr Sabrina Starling started out as a psychologist in community mental health, burnt out, and rebuilt her working life around one limit: a 25-hour week. Today she runs Tap the Potential, hosts the Profit by Design podcast, and has written the How to Hire the Best series and The 4-Week Vacation. Val is travelling, so Dale hosts solo. They get into: Treating your time as worth $10,000 an hour, and what that means for what you stop doing Why there are no "big C" emergencies in business, and what constant availability costs your team Her research: nine in ten entrepreneurs are burning out Serving the top 20% of clients who drive 80% of revenue, and hiring only for that sweet spot Giving every role one clear key result Dale's PMO story: cutting 70 monthly reports to 12, and nobody complained Building up to a fully unplugged 4-week vacation A deeply personal story about why time, not money, is what matters most Get Sabrina's chart of $10,000 an hour activities: https://tapthepotential.com/10k/ FIND SABRINA Tap the Potential: https://tapthepotential.com/ Profit by Design podcast: https://tapthepotential.com/profitbydesignpodcast/ FIND US Website: https://projectchatter.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectchatterpodcast/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoudjc2m0ttmAkyvBnf8EnQ The Project Chatter Podcast has been running since 2018 and is free to access, always. If this episode was useful, share it with one person who needs it.

September 27, 2026Episode 2251 hr 4 min

S10E225: Why Change Fatigue Isn't Real with Tammy Watchorn

Change fatigue isn't real. It's the story you're telling yourself about the change. Dr Tammy Watchorn, the Change Ninja, is back on Project Chatter. A scientist turned healthcare change leader, Tammy learned early that change works through people, not process. Her third book, The Change Ninja vs Zombies, is out on 6 October: a gamified, Top Trumps style guide to spotting the things that drain your time, energy and mojo, and slaying them. Dale flies solo in the host seat for this one. They get into: Why transformation fails when nobody can name the problem it's solving Why you can't put yourself in someone else's shoes until you understand how your own brain handles change Vlad the Macro Zombie, Walter Wrong Question and Wolfie the work-about-work zombie How to answer the awkward question before it's asked "Difficult" stakeholders, and the one word that quietly makes you one Why time speeds up as you get older, and how to slow it down The case for being bored again Using AI as a critical friend, not a ghostwriter Keep listening, keep liking, and keep paying it forward. FIND US Website: https://projectchatter.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectchatterpodcast/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/_fy1ZsKSKgA The Project Chatter Podcast has been running since 2018 and is free to access, always. If this episode was useful, share it with one person who needs it.

September 12, 2026Episode 22453 min

S10E224: Why We Forgive Bad Behaviour At Work with Lisa Martello

We spend a fortune on governance, tooling and RACIs, then lose our best people to one person who nobody will have a difficult conversation with. Lisa Martello has spent her career in rail, from a Transport for London graduate scheme to programme and director roles at HS2 and beyond, with detours into utilities and construction. By night she runs Catching Bees, a 20,000 strong following built on holding a sarcastic mirror up to workplace behaviour: the exec petting zoo, the strategic seagull, talent stretching, the one way flex. In this episode she makes an argument most organisations quietly avoid. We are far too forgiving to the people behaving badly, and far too demanding of the people on the receiving end. The victim gets a list of actions: gather examples, prepare, call it out in the moment, call it out afterwards, book the meeting. The culprit gets the benefit of the doubt. We also get into: Writing bids and then wishing you could deliver them, and what changes when you become the client Why the fun is seeping out of projects at exactly the point teams need it most The five step slide from benefit of the doubt to resignation, and where leaders usually intervene too late How "below the line behaviour" gets weaponised to shut down anyone who says the project is in trouble Code switching, unprofessional hair, and the role model who arrived at exactly the right moment Skanska's two word intervention, "not cool", and why sitting in the discomfort works better than a meeting Three steps out of dickhead territory, including the "is it me" moment that stopped Lisa from performance managing someone out of a job she has since excelled in Imposter syndrome as a preparation engine, and a healthy disregard for authority A serious conversation with a lot of laughing in it. FIND LISA AND CATCHING BEES Catching Bees on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catching_bees/ Catching Bees on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/catching-bees/ Lisa Martello on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-martello-2b65463b/ FIND US Website: https://projectchatter.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectchatterpodcast/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectChatterPodcast The Project Chatter Podcast has been running since 2018 and is free to access, always. If this episode was useful, share it with one person who needs to hear it.

August 22, 2026Episode 2231 hr 6 min

S10E223: Robots on Site - Why Humanoids Won't Build Your Project with Eliot Dixon

Every robotics demo looks the same: a humanoid doing kung fu, a humanoid dancing, a humanoid folding laundry. Eliot Dixon has spent his career in the parts of robotics that never make the showreel, and his view is blunt. The humanoid form factor exists because human environments are a compromise, not because it is the best way to get work done. Eliot's route into robotics started on a farm and a deep dislike of tractors. Physics, then a robotics degree, then years at Dstl working on sensing and UAVs, then Tata Motors building an autonomous vehicle for UK roads that was ultimately headed for the chaos of Indian ones. From there into ag tech, leading robotics and AI at Agri-EPI Centre, and now into infrastructure and construction. That path gives him an uncomfortable message for our sector. Agriculture has already run the experiment. Brilliantly engineered robotic systems, well funded, technically successful, and commercially dead, because they demanded that the entire farm change around them. As Eliot puts it, you are not designing a robot. You are designing a farm. Swap in construction and the warning lands the same way. So what actually works on a site today? Inspection and monitoring. Quadrupeds running nightly LIDAR scans, compared against the BIM, feeding tomorrow's work plan instead of a six-monthly architect's report. And the economics are shifting fast: platforms that cost well over £100,000 are now available at a few thousand for smaller sites. We also get into why drones are effectively grounded by UK airspace rules, why robotics almost never reduces headcount but changes the job mix instead, where the real return on investment hides, what data poisoning and teleoperated "autonomous" systems mean for trust, and why a dynamic construction site is a genuinely harder problem than a road in Delhi. In this episode: Why the humanoid is a compromise, not an endpoint The agricultural robotics failures construction is about to repeat Inspection and monitoring: the only mature site use case right now Nightly LIDAR against BIM, and the decision loop it creates The collapse in quadruped pricing and what it unlocks Why UK airspace, not technology, is the drone blocker Where robotics ROI actually comes from when nobody loses a job Autonomy 2.0, visual models, and the behaviour problem Strawberries, dexterity, and why touch feedback is so hard Eliot's closing advice for anyone briefing a roboticist Guest: Eliot Dixon, Roboverse Reply UK Hosts: Dale Foong and Val Matthews The Project Chatter Podcast is free to access and always will be. If you get value from it, pay it forward and share this episode with someone who needs it. Connect: Eliot Dixon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliot-dixon/ Project Chatter: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectchatterpodcast/?viewAsMember=trueWebsite: https://projectchatter.com/

August 7, 2026Episode 22253 min

S10E222: Why Great Project Leaders Go to the Movies with Dawn Mahan

What if the fastest way to align a project team wasn't another 47-slide deck, but a two-minute film clip? In Episode 222, Dale and Val sit down with Dawn Mahan, project leader, educator and author, to unpack why movies are surprisingly powerful tools for project leadership, communication and team alignment. Dawn coined the term "Project Land" to explain why the world of projects behaves so differently from the day job, and it has stuck with thousands of people since. We get into: Dawn's origin story, from Y2K coder to accidental project manager after one out-of-the-blue phone call Why Apollo 13, The Martian and The Matrix explain iteration, problem-solving and belief better than most training courses The real reason projects fail, and why the root cause almost always traces back to the start "Are you good?" vs "How do you feel?" and why that one change transformed how Dawn led teams Why communication is everyone's job, not just the project manager's Assessing people on ownership rather than leadership, and why that is fairer Trust, vulnerability and healthy conflict, drawing on The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Whether you are being parachuted into a live project or just trying to explain what you actually do to your family, this one is full of practical, human ways to lead people better. Dawn's books: Meet the Players in Project Land: Decide the Right Project Roles and Get People on Board Project Land Goes to the Movies: 22 Blockbuster Strategies for Project Success Connect with Dawn: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dawnmahan Instagram: instagram.com/dawnjmahan Project Guru Academy: linkedin.com/showcase/projectguruacademy PMOtraining on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/pmotraining PMOtraining on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCLYJDA7-15rotZyEDEv8gyg PMOtraining on Facebook: facebook.com/PMOtiger This podcast is free and always will be. If you got value from it, pay it forward and share it with someone in your team. Stay safe, be disruptive, and have fun doing it.

July 21, 2026Episode 22149 min

S10E221: Scaling a Consultancy: Mindset, Margins and the 30% Rule with Josh Stone

Most consultancy owners can tell you their revenue. Very few can tell you their net profit. That gap is where the money quietly leaks out. In this Australia-only episode, Val sits down with Josh Stone, who grew a civil and structural consultancy from £3m to £30m over a decade, sold out, and now coaches 70+ engineering, surveying, architecture and town planning founders on how to build businesses that actually pay them back. We get into the commercial side we rarely cover on the show: Why 30% net profit should be your benchmark, and what to do if you are sat at 12% How to escape the generalist "red ocean" and charge what you are actually worth Why winning the work is only half the job, and how to stop client relationships living and dying with the founder The four-stage path from technician to conductor to lifestyle or investor A grounded take on AI in engineering, and why the founders experimenting now will outbid the ones who wait If you are stuck being the bottleneck in your own business, this is the practical, no-nonsense conversation to fix it. Guest: Josh Stone More from Project Chatter: www.projectchatter.com Free access, no paywalls. Keep liking, keep sharing, keep paying it forward.

June 26, 2026Episode 2201 hr 5 min

S10E220: Is Project Controls Behind on AI? | Yash Desai, Movar Reply

Most data scientists have never touched a project. Yash Desai looked at the project controls world through the data first, and what he found says a lot about why this industry lags behind others on AI. In Episode 220, Dale is joined by returning co-host Martin and first-time guest Yash Desai, Head of Data and AI at Movar Reply, for a practical conversation on where data, AI and robotics actually fit in project delivery. We cover why project controls sits behind other industries, what an orchestration layer really is, how to future-proof your role, the data scientist vs project controller debate, hiring for drive over a skills list, robotics on site today vs the hype, and the Fable situation. No buzzwords, just useful insight. Chapters:00:00 Welcome back01:38 Who is Yash Desai?04:09 Why project controls lags on AI09:44 What is an orchestration layer?14:23 Future-proofing your role22:48 Data scientist vs project controller33:26 Grads and the assurance layer36:17 Why robotics is getting interesting46:21 Robotics in one to two years52:10 Should governments regulate robotics?57:23 The Fable situation and 'Pragmatic'01:01:01 Final thoughts Connect with Yash: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yash-desai-00847216b/Subscribe to Pragmatic: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/pragmaitic-7347631768201535488/ A free-access podcast. Pay it forward and share it on. www.projectchatter.com

June 17, 2026Episode 21955 min

S10E219: Why 88% of Schedules Fail, and What AI Still Can't Fix with Michael Pink

88% of project schedules don't follow best practice. So why are we so keen to feed that data into AI and trust the output? In this episode, Dale and Val are joined by Michael Pink, Founder of SmartPM, for a sharp conversation on the forensic side of delay and the state of AI in project controls. Mike has analysed hundreds of thousands of schedules and built a career on working out who delayed what, and why nobody could ever agree. His core message: clean data is not the same as honest data. A technically tidy schedule can tell you a story that never happened, and if you point AI at it, you don't get insight, you get a confident wrong answer at scale. What we cover: Mike's route into construction, from a study-abroad debt to KPMG's construction consulting group 25 years of change in the people and process side of scheduling The shift from reactive forensic work to proactive project controls Data honesty vs data quality, and why integrity is the combination of both (framing credited to Isaac Dyer and Carlos Sanchez) The 88% problem: missing logic, inflated float and moving dates The compression factor, and the exact point a schedule becomes infeasible Why a weekly update beats a monthly one, for almost no extra time P6 vs Microsoft Project, and grading schedule quality across 35 metrics Where LLMs genuinely help, and why quantitative AI is still the long game The future of the scheduler: less building and cleaning, more strategy A genuinely optimistic look at where the profession is heading, and why this might be the best time yet to be in project controls. This episode is proudly sponsored by nPlan.nPlan Summer AI Day 2026: Construction Superintelligence takes place in London on Thursday 25 June 2026, with a fireside featuring Peter Hancock, Project Director at National Grid, and Dima Pogorelsky, MD and Partner at BCG. February's event sold out with standing room only. Register here: https://www.nplan.io/events/nplan-summer-ai-day-2026-construction-superintelligence Connect with Michael Pink at https://www.smartpm.com or on LinkedIn. If you enjoyed this episode, help us pay it forward and share it. Stay safe, be disruptive, and have fun doing it.