120 - How smart teams talk themselves into Failure, with Dr. Bill Brantley

More from Project Management Happy Hour

1. 

   14 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 1 min

   123 - Hungry Hungry HPPOs - managing loud personalities with Evan Unger

   If your weekly calendar looks like the loser in a state fair quilt competition - just solid blocks of mismatched colors with no room to breathe - this episode is for you. Today, we're joined by facilitation expert Evan Unger to talk about a topic that Kate and Kim geek out over: meetings . Specifically, why most of them are terrible, how they drain organizational productivity, and exactly what you can do to fix yours. We also tackle one of the most delicate situations in project management: how to handle the HIPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion) when they barge into your meeting and try to…

2. 

   E122 · 3 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 14 min

   122 - Kate puts Kim through the worst meeting hells our listeners could dream up: a PM HappyHour role play

   Boss fights and boardrooms. Kate puts Kim through meeting hell in this tabletop roleplay episode. Kate: "Help me torture Kim." That was the prompt. What followed was a meeting dungeon built from listener-submitted horror stories, tabletop chaos, and the exact kinds of project meetings that make smart people question their career choices. In this April Fool's episode of Project Management Happy Hour, Kate becomes game master and throws Kim into a gauntlet of cursed kickoffs, bloated status meetings, executive dodging, and stakeholder nonsense. It's funny because it's absurd. It lands because…

3. 

   24 Mar 2026 · 45 min

   121 - Top Shelf Replay: Embracing the Escalation

   Escalation : it's a word that can make even experienced project managers tense. But what if you approached it as a tool rather than a threat? In this Top Shelf Replay of Project Management Happy Hour, we revisit the classic episode " Embracing De-escalation, " exploring how savvy project managers use escalation to enhance visibility, make informed decisions, and navigate risk—without losing their cool. Hosts Kim and Kate dive into the nuances of escalation, showing how the best project leaders balance assertiveness with thoughtful communication. Far from being a reactive panic button,…

4. 

   24 Feb 2026 · 1 hr 2 min

   119 - TSR: They told me I'm 'too nice'??

   Have you ever gotten feedback that made you want to flip a table because it was both insulting and totally useless? In this Top Shelf Replay , we revisit "They Told Me I'm Too Nice" and break down what that kind of vague feedback is really doing (sometimes gendered, almost always inactionable), why it hits so hard, and how to respond without spiraling - or people-pleasing your way into a personality transplant. Then we go beyond the original episode with practical, real-world tactics: how to ask better follow-up questions, how to force examples without sounding defensive, how to "prime" your…

5. 

   E118 · 10 Feb 2026 · 24 min

   118 - PM Turf Wars: Sharing your projects with other Project Managers

   "Three PMs walk into a bar: a business PM, an IT PM, and a Vendor PM…" Sounds like a bad joke, but if you don't get it right - the joke will be your project. Very often, you aren't the "one PM to rule them all" on your project - you may have other PMs involved that you need to work with. But how do you decide who does what, and how do you prevent turf wars from turning your project into a slow-motion train wreck? In this episode, we ditch the corporate fluff to dive into the messy reality of projects with "too many cooks". We discuss how to navigate the friction between different project…

6. 

   30 Jan 2026 · 44 min

   117 - Top Shelf Replay: Say No by Saying Yes

   Project managers are constantly told they need to "learn how to say no." But in the real world—especially when the ask comes from a sponsor, executive, or important customer—just saying no often isn't productive, strategic, or even possible. In this Top Shelf Replay episode of Project Management Happy Hour, Kim Essendrup and Kate Anderson revisit one of the show's earliest "Appetizer" episodes: Say No by Saying Yes, originally aired in 2017. Short, deceptively simple, and still painfully relevant, this episode breaks down a technique that helps project managers protect scope, schedule, cost,…

7. 

   15 Sep 2026 · 33 min

   133: The Introvert's guide to Communication for Project Managers

   Why "over-communicating" isn't about saying more — it's about knowing exactly what your stakeholders need to hear, and when. What happens when a project manager goes silent? According to this episode of Project Management Happy Hour, nothing good. Left in an information vacuum, stakeholders don't assume the best — they assume the worst. That single insight sits at the center of a conversation about project leadership, stakeholder communication, and the quiet skill that separates good project managers from great ones: knowing exactly what to say, to whom, and when. If you've ever been accused…

8. 

   25 Aug 2026 · 52 min

   132: Why Your Most Supportive Stakeholder is Ruining your Project, with Dawn Mahan

   Projects rarely fail from a lack of templates — they fail because of people. Author Dawn Mahan reveals the animal avatars that help you spot the cheerleader, the finicky fan, and the saboteur before one of them bites you in the ankle. Why do projects really fail? Not, as guest Dawn Mahan argues, from a shortage of templates or Gantt charts — but from the people around them. In this episode, Kim and Kate dig into the human side of project delivery: the stakeholders who love your project, the ones who quietly want it dead, and the "style under stress" that surfaces when the pressure cooker of…

9. 

   12 Aug 2026 · 51 min

   131: Don't be the PM everyone hates, with Rachel Losser

   Your worst project management habit might also be your superpower — the trick is knowing which one you're wielding, and when. What actually separates a great project manager from the one everyone dreads seeing on their calendar? It's rarely a certification or a prettier Gantt chart — it's behavior. This episode of Project Management Happy Hour digs into project leadership, accountability, team dynamics, and the everyday habits that quietly undermine project delivery. The uncomfortable truth running through the whole conversation: our worst project management habits are usually just our…

10. 

    29 Jul 2026 · 39 min

    130: Rigged bids, fake deadlines, and going 181x over budget

    A $6.9 million estimate. A $1.25 billion catastrophe. How fake deadlines, a rigged bid, and a steering committee allergic to bad news turned a routine payroll migration into one of the biggest project disasters in Australian history. What happens when project leadership treats risk management as optional, decision making gets diffused across committees, and a hard deadline turns out to be completely negotiable? You get one of the most instructive project failure case studies in project management history — and in this episode, Kim and Kate pour it out one painful lesson at a time. The…

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