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.

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

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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/

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www.projectchatter.com

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.

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

Listen, subscribe and follow Project Chatter wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this one, pay it forward and share the link.

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

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and share with someone in your network.

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We recently hosted the Controls and Skills Authority Digital Community of Practice Fight Night in Birmingham. This lively panel debate explores the impact of AI on project delivery, jobs, and industry practices. Experts challenge the notion that AI is just a tool or a threat, examining cultural, technical, and structural factors shaping AI adoption in construction and beyond.

3 Fights

1. Culture is the No.1 Enabler for AI Adoption - Ronald Dyer vs Andrew Knight
2. AI is just a tool, it won't replace jobs - Lisa Silander vs Marco Frisenda
3. AI Does Not Improve Project Delivery - Sarah Crawley vs Kashan Ratyal

https://www.controlsandskills.co.uk/

In this episode, Isabela Parisio, a legal expert in AI regulation, shares insights on the challenges and opportunities of regulating artificial intelligence. Topics include regulatory sandboxes, definitions of AI, accountability, privacy, military applications, and the future of AI governance.

Key Topics

• Regulatory sandboxes for AI testing
• Definitions and scope of AI
• Accountability and liability in AI systems
• Privacy concerns and data protection
• Military applications and ethical considerations
• Legal fictions and AI as a legal entity
• Policy development and international cooperation

Chapters

03:59 Isabela's Background and Transition to AI

07:54 Intersection of Law and AI

11:07 Understanding Regulatory Sandboxes

14:44 Experimentation in AI Development

21:00 Privacy Concerns in AI

28:22 The Role of AI in Self-Regulation

34:39 The Human Element in Technological Advancement

39:30 AI in Military Applications: Accountability and Ethics

46:07 Navigating Accountability in AI Usage

56:40 Education and AI Literacy for Future Generations

01:01:41 The Legal Status of AI: A New Frontier

01:11:36 The Future of AI: Ethical Considerations and Governance

Resources

• Responsible AI UK - https://responsibleaiuk.org/
• European Union AI Act - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52021PC0206
• Johns Hopkins University AI Policy - https://www.jhu.edu/
• King's College London AI Research - https://www.kcl.ac.uk/
• Bicentennial Man (Movie) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118571/
• UK Data Protection Laws - https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/
• California AI Legislation - https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa
• AI Summit 2023 - https://aibusiness.com/events/ai-summit-2023/