Latest / Project Podcast / Work, health and introducing project management: a scientist's perspective

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Work, health and introducing project management: a scientist's perspective · Project Podcast

• 0:08
  Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the childhood body for
• 0:12
  the project profession. My name is Emma DaVita and I'm
• 0:15
  the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host
• 0:19
  this podcast. I'm speaking to Doctor Miranda
• 0:21
  Lowe, Director of Scientific Growth, Engagement and
• 0:24
  Innovation at the Institute of Occupational Medicine.
• 0:28
  For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the Institute
• 0:30
  of Occupational Medicine is dedicated to enhancing health in
• 0:33
  workplaces in the broader environment.
• 0:36
  Comprising engineers, hygienists, analysts,
• 0:39
  scientists, and ventilation experts, its work spans the
• 0:42
  entire life cycle of hazards and airborne exposures, offering
• 0:45
  comprehensive insights from identification to management,
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  testing, and legal support. Notable achievements include
• 0:51
  ground breaking research on coal miner lung disease, developing a
• 0:54
  handheld dust sampler and assessing the health impact of
• 0:57
  the Montserrat volcano. Miranda herself develops the
• 1:01
  Institute's research capabilities and hazardous
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  substances exposure assessment, health and well-being at work,
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  and Air pollution in the built Environment's impact on human
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  exposure and health. While not formally qualified in
• 1:14
  project management, Miranda is a self confessed big fan of
• 1:17
  project management and takes a formal approach to managing all
• 1:21
  in house projects. Listen on to find out how
• 1:24
  project management can bring value to new sectors and how
• 1:27
  project management can be introduced to an organisation
• 1:30
  not formally familiar with it. Welcome, Miranda.
• 1:37
  Thanks for joining us on the APM.
• 1:38
  Podcast, thank you for having me.
• 1:40
  Why don't we start by you telling us a little bit about
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  the IOM? Sure.
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  So the IOM stands for the Institute of Occupational
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  Medicine and we were started by the National Coal Board in order
• 1:53
  to study the health effects of coal mining on workers.
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  Obviously we don't have the National Coal Board anymore and
• 2:00
  we have, we became a charity. The purpose of the charity was
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  to do research as well as education and promoting
• 2:09
  information to enable the protection of workers health in
• 2:13
  the UK. Before you tell us a bit about
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  your current role, do you want to tell me about your career
• 2:17
  journey? How you ended up at the IOM?
• 2:20
  My backgrounds as an exposure scientist, so that's somebody
• 2:23
  who studies and characterises environmental hazards that
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  people are exposed to and how they come into contact with
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  these hazards. And the purpose of that is to
• 2:32
  better understand the health impacts they may have, but also
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  to look at how we can potentially assess their risks
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  as well as mitigation measures or interventions.
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  Originally, my focus is primarily on contaminants in the
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  air, both in the workplace and other environments such as
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  indoor air. And before the IOM, after
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  Graduate School, I spent some time in various organisations.
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  I worked in Finland, and then I worked in Arizona as an
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  assistant professor. And then I came to the IOM after
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  that. And that was just over 10 years
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  ago. So I started here as a senior
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  scientist. Tell me a bit about your current
• 3:07
  role and your the research you're working on at the moment.
• 3:11
  So I'm the Director of Scientific Growth, Engagement
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  and Innovation. It is a leadership position.
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  So I'm one of the directors and I'm responsible specifically for
• 3:21
  overseeing our sharing of our insights and influence on
• 3:25
  occupational environmental health issues to our
• 3:27
  stakeholders and also for planning the growth of our
• 3:31
  organisation. I think it would be helpful for
• 3:34
  people to understand a bit more about occupational medicine as
• 3:38
  discipline and exactly what kind of thing it encompasses, because
• 3:42
  I think this might be directly relevant to many of our
• 3:44
  listeners who work across construction and architecture
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  and all kinds of different environments.
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  So it'd be good to understand a bit better what that covers.
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  Occupational medicine is actually more traditionally
• 3:55
  focused on the impacts of health from work and sometimes there
• 3:59
  are different terms that are used around here.
• 4:02
  Occupational health is another one.
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  Medicine, I guess if you think about it, is a bit more on the
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  the medical side of things, looking at the clinical side.
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  And so this would be looking at afflictions that might result
• 4:13
  from work, such as injuries or repetitive stress injuries.
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  There are things like in certain industries, you might want to be
• 4:20
  aware of things like allergies to certain substances, but also
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  things like burnout and more psychosocial risks are part of
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  that. You know, mental illness is one
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  of the top causes of ill health at work these days.
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  So obviously we're moving away from being a primarily
• 4:38
  industrial society where things like respiratory disease and and
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  diseases that arise from chemical explosions and things
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  like that, while they still exist, they are not as prevalent
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  probably as they have been historically.
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  So obviously we don't have as much coal mining anymore.
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  So things like pneumoconiosis from coal dust is less of an
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  issue now than it used to be, but there are then other things
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  and a lot of them tend to be musculoskeletal disorders as
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  well as mental health related illnesses.
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  What specifically within mental health is the Institute
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  exploring, researching or providing insights on at the
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  moment? So we have in the past and we do
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  today also look at things like work related stress.
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  So we've done various things like evidence reviews around
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  that area. We've also looked at the impact
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  of of things like technology on health, things like mobile
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  technology. We've done some projects around
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  those. Again, it's one of the key
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  stressors. And, and when we think about
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  workplace stressors that, you know, I use the term stressor is
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  a term that's used sometimes in environmental health to refer to
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  things like physical stressors, biological, chemical as well.
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  So psychosocial. So those are all the different
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  things that potentially a worker may be exposed to at their
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  workplace. And obviously the, the
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  importance of them depends on the type of workplace that
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  they're at. But I think we can probably
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  agree that at most workplaces, whether it is manufacturing,
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  whether it's construction, whether it is an office job,
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  some element of managing stress is important for that.
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  Is it all the obvious stuff around stress and avoiding
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  burnout that you give advice to individuals to follow, or do you
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  also consult with organisations and companies themselves about
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  how to handle this better? So in our organisation we do
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  research but we also do service provision.
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  Our service provision has been focused more on assessing things
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  like chemical hazards at work or things like noise, vibration
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  etcetera. The stress related well-being
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  work that we've done has primarily been more in the
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  research or evidence review sort of building the evidence base
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  for that. One of the things we recognise
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  is there is an importance of looking more holistically at
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  worker health, so it isn't just a matter of managing the
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  physical risks set at work, but also looking across at how work
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  is organised and how that might also influence worker
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  well-being. So that is something that we're
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  looking to build more not just in our research side, but also
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  our services side, Which. Other workplace safety projects
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  are you particularly interested in at the moment or concerned
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  with working on? We have quite a wide range of
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  different types of services we provide and and some of it in
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  what we call our science Insights and Influence group,
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  which does a lot of the research work, is looking at providing
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  the evidence base to help policy and decision makers make more
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  informed actions to protect worker and public health.
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  So as an example, we have done work with the likes of what used
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  to be called PhD Public Health England, which is now the UK
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  Health Security Agency. We've done work with Defra.
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  We'd also do work obviously with private clients, which I can't
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  really share as much about. So a lot of those work.
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  So services work then tends to be more around, although some of
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  our research work also does that, is to assess levels of
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  exposures that workers might face at work and then help them
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  manage those risks. We also do quite a lot of work
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  with hospitals. So in particular we do work
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  around helping them ensure that they have healthy air quality,
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  which is very important, as you can imagine, hospitals.
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  And this is through adequate monitoring of the air and
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  ventilation systems and helping them ensure that they're meeting
• 8:30
  the guidelines that they need to.
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  As I mentioned, we do a lot of work with different government
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  and European agencies. So we review evidence and
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  develop or update guidance. And this can be for various
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  hazards such as as an example, we've done some work around
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  cytotoxic, medical, medicinal products, nanomaterials,
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  asbestos, various other types of hazards like that.
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  Something that's quite for me that I've worked on quite a lot
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  over the last few years is around looking at sensing
• 8:58
  technologies and applying those in occupational settings.
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  So as I mentioned before, my background is primarily in air
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  quality and so there has been quite a lot of interest and
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  implementation of what we call lower cost air quality sensors,
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  which when I started work at IOMI think this was only
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  starting to be something that's come on the market.
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  It really changed how we we measure air quality.
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  You know, before it was primarily these government
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  regulatory air stations around air monitoring stations.
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  And therefore we didn't have a lot of data.
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  It was only in certain areas. But then these lower cost
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  sensors came on the market and they were things that the
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  average consumer could buy. So you could buy one, I could
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  buy one online and then measure their quality in our our
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  backyard or in our homes. And so that is now something
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  actually that I see the government's local councils even
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  implementing to supplement what they have for regulatory
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  purposes. So what one of the things that
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  interests me is translating that type of technology also to
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  looking at managing occupational exposures.
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  If I were to ask you what are the biggest threats to workers
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  health in the UK at the moment, what would be up there?
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  So we looked at what the HSC statistics, it does say
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  musculoskeletal disorders as well as mental health are the
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  top 2 workplace illnesses that are prevalent in the UK.
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  Respiratory 1 diseases or illnesses are kind of still an
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  issue, but they're much smaller compared to those two.
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  And and cancer due to workplace exposures is another one, but
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  that's again relatively small and and that tends to be a bit
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  more because cancer is a long latency disease that's something
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  that doesn't show up till many years after.
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  I know you're clearly motivated by public service and you have
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  an interest in health, so I wondered what you hoped to
• 11:02
  achieve in your work at the institute.
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  I don't know if we really underestimate the impact of work
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  on our health because it has an impact not just on our health
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  today while we're working. And I think, you know, there is
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  a fair amount of awareness of workplace health issues,
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  especially around stress and things like that.
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  But so our health today impacts our health tomorrow, meaning
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  when we retire, how healthy we are is set by the times before
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  we retire. So I think it's important to
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  lead a healthy working life in the hope that we can also be
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  healthy when we're no longer working.
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  And so for me in the institute, I hope that we can help both
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  decision makers, policy makers in the government, but also
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  clients and organisations take an approach in their work that
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  that incorporates employee health and well-being.
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  And part of that is in a lot of what we do is around the
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  environment of work, whether that be the physical
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  infrastructure, the processes that people do at work that may
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  lead to them being exposed to hazards, but also the workplace
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  culture and practises that support their mental health and
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  well-being as well. When you think about the best
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  workplaces from your point of view, so the ones that want to
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  have a healthy workforce, what do you see that they do?
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  I mean, I think to be honest, it doesn't really matter the type
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  of workplace. I think leadership is really
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  important in setting the culture around having a healthy
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  workplace, healthy and happy workplace.
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  It is leadership and culture that is the primary thing
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  because to me then your practises stem from that and
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  that that is a very important thing.
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  It's not the only thing, but I think it is a very important
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  thing. So as a leader as well, living
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  by example. Living by example, setting up
• 13:15
  the organisation such that there are the support mechanisms
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  there. Line managers are very important
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  also because they are, you know, the, the, your senior leadership
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  is not on the ground necessarily, but it is there,
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  you know, having the, the right structure and the right
• 13:33
  training. And for your line managers to be
• 13:37
  able to recognise when there are issues in the workplace or, you
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  know, to, to have a culture such that people feel comfortable
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  speaking to their line managers about issues they may have.
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  And a lot of things, things that happen outside of work impact
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  our health is work as well. So it's not a, a fine, it's not
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  a, a clear line between work and outside your life outside of
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  work. So I think that at IOM, for
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  example, I think we're very much cognizant that any issues
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  someone might have at work isn't necessarily only impacted at
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  work, or it may come from something that's happened
• 14:16
  outside of working their personal lives.
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  And we want to create that safe space that they feel that they
• 14:21
  can speak to to people, others at work about this, especially
• 14:25
  their line managers, and that, you know, appropriate actions
• 14:29
  can be taken or adjustments can be made as needed.
• 14:32
  So I think that is an important aspect.
• 14:35
  We can't solve everything, but I think we can try to create a
• 14:38
  workplace where you can, as much as possible, enable your workers
• 14:43
  to do their best. We're APM, the only chartered
• 14:48
  membership organisation for the project profession.
• 14:51
  When you become an APM member, you'll receive the resources and
• 14:54
  support you need to make an impact, delivering better
• 14:57
  projects with better outcomes. Plus, you'll access exclusive
• 15:01
  training and benefits to support your ongoing career development.
• 15:05
  Find out how we can help you reach your potential by visiting
• 15:08
  apm.org.uk. Because when projects succeed,
• 15:12
  society benefits. I want to turn our conversation
• 15:18
  towards project management. I wonder how you first came
• 15:22
  across project management and what has been your experience of
• 15:25
  the project profession in your career so far?
• 15:29
  So I've never actually had any formal training and project
• 15:33
  management, but I have worked on projects most of my professional
• 15:37
  life. And I think to some extent all
• 15:40
  projects follow this. You know, they follow a plan,
• 15:45
  you've got a Gantt chart with your timelines and your
• 15:47
  deliverables and milestones and things like that.
• 15:49
  And that is, you know, supposed to keep you on track.
• 15:53
  So that was my experience, I would say before coming to the
• 15:56
  IOM and it was still my experience probably through a
• 16:00
  good part of my career here. We obviously did project
• 16:04
  management, but I wasn't really very knowledgeable about the
• 16:09
  methodologies until actually I transitioned into my current
• 16:13
  position a couple of years ago. So I went on a couple leadership
• 16:16
  courses and that was brought up and then I learned more about
• 16:20
  waterfall and agile project management methods.
• 16:23
  So broadly speaking, I think that's how I came into it.
• 16:27
  Then now that I understand that there are kind of methodologies
• 16:30
  around that and different approaches to it, I, you know, I
• 16:34
  see the value of it. With the in house projects you
• 16:37
  have, do you take a formal project management approach
• 16:42
  towards? Them, yes, the scientific
• 16:44
  projects we have, we do track them and obviously we we have
• 16:49
  deliverables that are due at certain points.
• 16:51
  And often times that's also driven by our clients or funding
• 16:56
  sources because we will have to report to them on a regular
• 16:59
  basis and therefore they will want to know things about any
• 17:04
  risks if we're behind. Are there any things that are
• 17:07
  flagged up for being delays or or issues with not being able to
• 17:12
  meet certain project outputs, that kind of thing?
• 17:16
  We have an internal management process in terms of tracking the
• 17:19
  projects and reviewing them, etcetera.
• 17:21
  We're now actually doing a little bit of a review as part
• 17:24
  of our continuous improvement to see if we can, you know, make
• 17:27
  the process a bit more efficient.
• 17:29
  And we've had a couple people go on do like project management
• 17:32
  apprenticeships. So that's been quite helpful
• 17:34
  where I've taken it on and my team.
• 17:36
  So I have a new team now which is the growth and innovation
• 17:38
  team. And what I find actually one of
• 17:41
  the things we maybe suffered from a little bit before is so
• 17:44
  outside of those more formal projects where we we delivered
• 17:48
  to clients or funders, there are things like internal projects
• 17:52
  and they didn't really go anywhere sometimes.
• 17:55
  And I think really why that was, we didn't have it set up like a
• 17:59
  project, right? So there wasn't, there is no
• 18:02
  mechanism for accountability necessarily, which I think
• 18:05
  project management gives you. So it's clearly defining what
• 18:08
  the project is at the beginning, then being able to, you know,
• 18:11
  break it down into your tasks, your deliverables, your
• 18:15
  milestones and and setting those timelines and assigning clear
• 18:20
  roles and responsibilities and then making sure you use that
• 18:24
  plan and check in on those, the progress of those things
• 18:27
  regularly. That is something that I do a
• 18:31
  lot more now with my team and I think that has really helped
• 18:34
  move certain things forward, which I think in the past, you
• 18:37
  know, has just been going on, but not really ever ending.
• 18:42
  And so now, you know, I just use that approach and part and a big
• 18:46
  part of that's the communication.
• 18:47
  Well, I've also realised it's not enough just to set up, you
• 18:50
  know, your plans and all that stuff.
• 18:51
  You have to have a way of tracking it.
• 18:53
  So we now use a planner kind of this Kanban board style planner
• 18:58
  that can go over at our team meetings.
• 19:00
  And when I have 1:00 to 1 so team members and I am much more
• 19:06
  clear about what needs to be then delivered the next time we
• 19:10
  meet or what I expect and things like that.
• 19:13
  I mean, it's not perfect, but this really helps a lot.
• 19:17
  And I just think having the framework and the tools that you
• 19:20
  use for, for project management is really helpful with that, for
• 19:22
  that, but also being able to adapt those according to the
• 19:25
  situation rather than the one-size-fits-all methodology, I
• 19:30
  think is quite important. It's interesting just as
• 19:35
  anecdotally, you know, so somebody that works for me, we
• 19:38
  were going over, he's setting a plan for, for some work.
• 19:42
  And I was following a bit of a, a template, I presume from his
• 19:47
  project management training. And I kind of was like, the
• 19:50
  template's really good because it gives, these are things you
• 19:53
  must consider. But at the same time, I think
• 19:55
  there's an importance to not just follow the template and
• 19:59
  fill it in, but to really think about the, you know, the
• 20:03
  connectivity between the different parts and to be clear
• 20:08
  about what the overarching goals are before you really set them.
• 20:14
  You know specific aims, objectives and then the
• 20:17
  supporting actions. And it's actually, it's exactly
• 20:21
  what we do in proposals, especially scientific proposals
• 20:24
  for large projects. The funny thing for me is I've
• 20:27
  never thought about that as a project management thing, but I
• 20:32
  spent a lot of my time writing proposals for scientific
• 20:34
  projects. So we do it anyway.
• 20:36
  It's just we don't do it in the way, I guess the field of
• 20:40
  project management necessarily. We probably use those tools, but
• 20:44
  we don't necessarily say we're following this methodology.
• 20:47
  If there were people listening to this who were in an
• 20:49
  organisation where project management isn't at the core of
• 20:52
  the organisation, or people have come across it somewhere else
• 20:58
  and perhaps they brought it in, have you got any advice about
• 21:00
  how to start to bring project management into an organisation?
• 21:06
  The biggest thing for us is being disciplined about applying
• 21:11
  it. To me, a lot of it is discipline
• 21:15
  and the managers making sure they hold the teams accountable
• 21:20
  to the targets that are set in that plan, but also being
• 21:24
  supportive of them. And also making sure that the
• 21:28
  teams adequately communicate to you as a manager and that you
• 21:33
  will do the same to them. And, and clarity and, and being
• 21:36
  clear, knowing what you need from them and being able to
• 21:40
  communicate that to them is really important.
• 21:42
  So in terms of bringing it in, I think to some extent it is
• 21:46
  probably intuitive, I would think, but it's hard for me to
• 21:49
  say. But I think it is worthwhile
• 21:52
  probably learning a little bit more about the different
• 21:55
  methodologies and what is suitable for your type of
• 21:59
  organisation. And for example, that different
• 22:02
  types of projects may need different approaches.
• 22:05
  So I don't think actually a course is a bad idea.
• 22:09
  So once you've had some experience of project
• 22:11
  management, are you then kind of converted because of the
• 22:15
  benefits it brings, do you think?
• 22:17
  Yes, I want more of that. I think so.
• 22:19
  I mean, I think that the trick for me coming from a small
• 22:24
  organisation is you have to look at your organisation, whether it
• 22:27
  is that you have people who are project managers and that's
• 22:31
  their job only, or do you train up some of your technical staff
• 22:36
  to have those skills. So for us, I think we wouldn't
• 22:40
  have the resource for having, you know, lots of project
• 22:42
  managers, but there's probably a balance between having kind of a
• 22:46
  smaller number of people who can help do the project management,
• 22:49
  but then also to upskill some of our technical staff who work on
• 22:52
  projects to be able to follow that as well.
• 22:56
  Was there anything you wanted to add about project management?
• 22:59
  For someone who's not, I never thought of myself as a
• 23:02
  particularly well organised person, but but I actually think
• 23:05
  I'm pretty decent now. And it's because you have to be.
• 23:07
  And I think it's really about organisation, time management
• 23:10
  and prioritisation. And I think for me project
• 23:14
  management has helped me. It's not the only thing, but it
• 23:17
  is one of those things that's helped me be able to do that.
• 23:19
  And I think it is really crucial, especially for somebody
• 23:23
  who is a leader, to be able to have those tools or at least
• 23:27
  understand the concepts of them to help manage the team and to
• 23:31
  because my job is to make sure people get things done and, and
• 23:34
  I think these tools do help with that.
• 23:36
  Miranda, it's been really lovely speaking to you.
• 23:38
  Thank you so much. Thanks again to Miranda for
• 23:49
  joining us and to you for listening to the APM Podcast.
• 23:53
  Don't forget to look out for more episodes or to rate and
• 23:55
  review us. Wherever you get your podcasts,
• 23:58
  we'd welcome you to get in touch with your comments, feedback,
• 24:00
  and suggestions by emailing us at
• 24:02
  apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk. This podcast has been brought to
• 24:08
  you by APM, the chartered body for the project profession.
• 24:11
  For more information on APM, visit apm.org.uk.