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.

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Top of his MBA class at the University of Bath, technically sharp, and still firing out 20 to 30 applications a day with little to show for it. Nick Chizuka joins Dale and Val for an honest conversation about what it takes to land a role in project controls and consulting right now, and why the rise of AI has made the graduate market tougher than it was even a year ago.

It is a candid look at the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want, the false choice between technical and soft skills, and where the real jobs of the next decade might come from.

In this episode:

• Why a top MBA no longer guarantees a job, and what changed
• Technical skills vs soft skills, and why you need both
• The graduates' verdict on data, analytics and machine learning
• Robotics and physical AI as the next frontier
• The energy and infrastructure bottleneck nobody talks about
• Using the big firms as a springboard, not a destination
• Grit, discipline, and hiring for attitude over CV
• Nick's hard-won advice: don't get discouraged, get help, and network relentlessly

A reminder that people are not their behaviours. Set the environment for success and the right person will fly.

This episode is sponsored by nPlan.

nPlan AI Day, Summer 2026: Construction SuperintelligenceThursday 25 June 2026, from 3:00pmKachette, 347 Old St, London EC1V 9LP, and online

nPlan's twice-yearly showcase returns with its biggest product moment of the year, including the launch of the nPlan Decision Intelligence Platform. The fireside brings together Peter Hancock, Project Director at National Grid on the Didcot substation, and Dima Pogorelsky, Managing Director and Partner at BCG, for a candid take on delivering the infrastructure behind the AI era. February sold out with standing room only, so book early.

Register: https://www.nplan.io/events/nplan-summer-ai-day-2026-construction-superintelligence

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Stay safe, be disruptive, and have fun doing it.

Dale and Val are joined by Lisa Silander, Global Practice and UK Technical Lead for Project Controls at AtkinsRéalis.

With 30 years leading planning and project controls teams across aviation, rail, water, manufacturing, and nuclear, Lisa has shaped delivery on some of the UK's most demanding capital programmes including Heathrow Terminal 5, Heathrow Q6, the Heathrow Expansion Project, Thames Water AMP5, and Yorkshire Water AMP7.

In this episode we cover:

• Lisa's career journey into project controls
• What attracted her to the discipline and kept her there for three decades
• The initiative she's leading to build UK project controls capability at AtkinsRéalis
• Why humans will always be involved in projects, even as AI reshapes the work
• The daily habits that have shaped her career
• Grit, determination, and the human side of leading high-performing teams
• Perspective as a woman building and leading teams in a complex industry

A grounded, practical conversation with one of the most experienced voices in UK project controls.

Connect with Lisa Silander on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-silander-fcasa-b078645/

Follow the Project Chatter Podcast:Website: https://www.projectchatter.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectchatterpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoudjc2m0ttmAkyvBnf8EnQSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6m6J87LIOHVoY9FlaAXp53Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-project-chatter-podcast/id1869579042

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