Integrating Project Management to Strengthen Cybersecurity Outcomes with Steve Curry | Ep. 34

In this episode of the Med Device Cyber Podcast, host Christian Espinosa, a Project Management Professional (PMP) himself, interviews Steve Curry, the founder of Mustard Seed, a firm dedicated to improving project management within the life sciences. The central theme of the discussion is the critical intersection of project management, cybersecurity, and medical device innovation. Both Espinosa and Curry argue that many of the challenges MedTech innovators face, particularly roadblocks related to cybersecurity, could be mitigated by adopting a structured project management framework from the outset, rather than treating these crucial areas as afterthoughts. Steve Curry shares his extensive background, explaining how he transitioned from the high-stakes defense industry to the MedTech sector. He details his experience managing multi-billion dollar, firm-fixed-price helicopter programs, an environment where rigorous project management was not just a best practice but a necessity to prevent catastrophic failures and massive financial losses. Upon moving into the sciences, Curry noticed that these disciplined project management principles were often neglected, presenting a significant opportunity to help innovators improve their execution. This led him to establish Mustard Seed, a company whose name serves as an analogy: like a tiny mustard seed growing into a large tree, a small, well-implemented project management plan can yield an immense positive impact. Curry's company now consists of a team of project managers who support MedTech, biotech, and pharma companies in their developmental efforts, helping them navigate the complexities of bringing a product to market efficiently. The main argument of the episode is that proactive planning is essential for success. Both speakers emphasize the mantra, "plan the work, then work the plan." They discuss the common failure of MedTech startups to integrate cybersecurity into their initial project plans, which often results in costly delays and redesigns just before pre-market submission. Curry advocates for creating a comprehensive, executable plan, such as an Integrated Master Schedule, that accounts for all aspects of development, including regulatory and cybersecurity requirements. Tackling the simple, foundational elements of planning early allows teams to build momentum and conserve the energy and resources needed to address the more difficult, unexpected challenges that inevitably arise during development. The conversation also highlights that while various project management software tools exist, the specific tool is less important than the discipline of creating, maintaining, and executing a well-thought-out plan.

Host: Hi, welcome to another episode of the Med Device Cyber podcast. Today I'm here with a guest Steve Curry. Steve works with project management. And project management is one of my favorite topics. I am a project manager, a PMP myself, project management professional. And I think our lives would greatly improve if we implemented some project management principles in our lives as well as our business and pretty much everything we do. So I'm excited to talk about project management today and tie it to cybersecurity because I feel like if people applied cybersecurity in a project management framework, we wouldn't have as many challenges as we do with medtech innovators getting roadblocked by cybersecurity because they forgot to put it in their project management plan. So welcome to the show, Steve. How's it going today? Guest: Yeah, thanks for uh, having me today, Christian, appreciate it. Excited to be on the podcast and uh, talking to your audience. So thanks for the invite. Host: Awesome. And where are you uh, coming from today? Where you? Guest: I'm based out of Westchester, Pennsylvania, beautiful suburb of uh, Philadelphia. Host: All right, awesome. Yeah, a friend of mine uh, lives in Philadelphia and he says that they grow a lot of mushrooms in Philadelphia. Is that true? Guest: I don't know. I don't know anything about that. Perhaps. Host: All right, cool. Um, and you're with Mustardseed. Can you tell us a little bit about Mustardseed and maybe the name and kind of what, what you do in medtech and a little bit about the background? Guest: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I started Mustardseed four years ago with the idea that project management in the sciences needs to be better. So I really cut my teeth in the defense industry working on big uh helicopter programs. Programs that were generally firm fixed price a billion or two billion dollar uh price tags associated with those programs. And so when you have large scale firm fixed price contracts, the project and program management best practices have to be good or else your company might put lives in danger and or, uh, you may have a loss of a couple hundred million dollars on that program, right? So the rigor was uh, was something that I took with me the rest of my career. Left that uh, that industry and went into the sciences um, and in the sciences I noticed project management best practices are infrequently utilized and there was a real opportunity to make a difference for those scientists and innovators that are making a making a huge impact on our on our world. So I wanted to help where I could and so yeah, the last four years, um, we've been uh bringing on uh, project managers and we have been supporting Medtech, biotech and pharma companies in their developmental efforts, and it's been a lot of fun. So, we've got a team of about 15 project managers today supporting uh, a little over a dozen clients in a variety of different ways. Host: Awesome. And where does the company name come from? It's a very unique name. Guest: Yeah, so if you've ever seen mustard seeds, they're about the size of a grain of sand or even smaller. Um, but they can grow as plants to be eight or nine feet tall if properly cared for. And so for me, that was a analogy of project management in the sciences where uh, it's often overlooked, but if you know uh, what you're looking at and properly integrated into your team, uh, it can be a uh, differentiator and an important part of what you're trying to do. Host: Awesome. Is that where mustard comes from? The mustard plants actually? I don't even know. Guest: Yeah, I believe so. Host: Yep. Guest: Okay. Host: Cool. Guest: I'm more of a mayonnaise guy, but uh, Host: Awesome. Guest: yeah. Host: I, I prefer horseradish. I used to live in Illinois where the horseradish capital of the world was. So yeah. Cool. And so you've been, you're, you're originally worked with a DOD, it sounds like with some of the big defense contracting. Uh, a lot of my experience was, was in DOD as well, um, with project management also. What are some of the biggest challenges in medtech when it comes to project management, you feel like? I know you mentioned a lot of people just don't even consider it. Besides that, what are some of the bigger challenges? Guest: Yeah, you're right. The first hurdle is just consideration. so we always say, um, plan the work and work the plan. So I'm not so bothered if you want to put that plan down in Smartsheet or in Microsoft project or Primavera P6 or if you want to draw it in the dirt, uh, it doesn't really matter as long as you think through what needs to happen in what order. Uh, that's really the critical piece there. So so often, um, teams say, well we don't have a project manager, let's take an organized, you know, engineer and make them the project manager. That may or may not work, but the key is let's get down on paper what needs to happen when and who's responsible for those activities to make sure that we've got a comprehensive plan that's executable. And so we would call that an integrated master schedule. It's basically a schedule that outlines what everybody agrees the to-do's are and the timelines associated with those. Host: Yeah, it's interesting to me because I, I feel like a lot of medtech innovators don't really have like you said, a project management plan, they just try to have somebody else do it or like that's an engineer. But if you're gonna set a timeline or a deadline, it's important to work backwards and see if you can actually hit that deadline with the resources, you know, all the things you have to get done, like the work breakdown schedule. Um, and I'm amazed by how many people that don't do that. Guest: Yeah. Yeah, we, we, we call that the forward pass and the backwards pass, right? So the forward pass would be, let's schedule everything out as if we had plenty of time. And then the backwards pass would be, our investors are kicking dirt into this plan. We've got to, um, shrink eight months out of it. And then you figure out what you can do in parallel to uh, to make it work for the timeline that you have, right? But, um, I would say most companies are not going through that exercise, but it's so critical because you could be, um, you know, marching towards a plan that's either unachievable or, um, that you haven't accounted for everything because you didn't write it down in the first place and I think, you know, as you and I have got to know each other better over the last year, that's what our conversations are centered around, which is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And how do we make sure that, um, things like cybersecurity, regulatory, all these sort of uh items that everybody knows need to be taken care of, by focusing on one at a time, it really can set yourself up for extended runway and um, and and timelines that are not met. Host: Yeah, I think we're both on a similar mission is in terms of raising the awareness because a lot of medtech innovators forget about cyber security until the very end, like, like two months before a pre-market submission. And, we're trying to raise awareness that says to to let them know like, if you consider this earlier on, it'll be less frustrating, less costly and your time to market will will improve. Uh, so that, that's like one of our core missions is to raise that awareness. I think from a project management perspective, it's probably very similar because I, I think if you're managing or not really managing properly a big project such as bringing a product to market, it's going to cost a lot more than if it were managed properly. Guest: That's right. It's kind of like, um, what what these founders and CEOs in medtech are trying to do is incredibly difficult. And in some cases, the technology doesn't exist to accomplish that task in the near future, right? So, the only chance there is of achieving the end state of commercializing this, this product is by doing the easy or simple tasks well and without much effort, right? So, you may say, well, server security is not easy or simple. What could it be? Could it be by integrating it in early in your planning when you've developed the full schedule, cybersecurity is accounted for, there's uh, there's a subject matter expert that you're in constant communication with. That's a much easier path than getting a few months from FDA submittal and realizing we've got to backtrack a little bit and figure this out, right? Then it's difficult. So, I think as these companies kind of sprout out of academia or of just great ideas, um, you know, I just encourage founders to think, what's the the best team I can put in place to make sure that this um, this goes as well as possible? because we don't have if we do the simple things and make them challenging, we will not have inertia to do the challenging items and there's certainly going to be challenges along the way, right? So, by doing the easy things easily, it allows us the the inertia, the time, the money, the resources to execute those difficult tasks when they do come up. Host: I like that analogy and that philosophy because there's only so much energy and resources than if we waste it on like you said, the simple things because we don't have it managed properly, then we don't have the inertia to handle the the more complex things. I think that's that's that's excellent. I I think also, it's more of a philosophy of mine, but I believe like project management should be something we apply to our lives in general. You know, we have an outcome we want to seek, we reverse engineer that outcome and we have steps we have to take and we block off our calendar and set up the time and the resources to accomplish those things and I, I think if more people actually approached their life through that lens, uh, they would make more progress. What do you think about that? Guest: Yeah, 100%, you know, starting your day with a to-do list, clearing your items from the day before, cleaning, keeping a clean email inbox, um, those are some simple things that everybody can do even if you're not a project manager and those really make a difference over time. Um, and it makes it more fun, right?Startups are difficult. They're very challenging. And it's not a whole lot of fun if we're making it harder than it needs to be. And so um, I would just encourage people to think about, do we have the right uh, team and resources in place to make sure that we execute this uh, as easily and, and best as possible. Host: Yeah, I was talking to an investor not long ago and they said in their portfolio, seven out of 100 startups and Medtech succeeded. That's 7%. And I wonder and I think it's shifting that investors are now starting to look at cybersecurity to see if, if a medtech innovator has on the road map because that's the reason a lot of them aren't succeeding. And I wonder if they're actually looking at project management on that road map to see if the innovator actually has a project management framework in place. Have you noticed that? Guest: It's a great point. Uh, we've been talking to more investors in the last six to nine months than we have in the past three years, three, four years. So I think they are starting to to look at that and and their capital is valuable and they've got lots of options. And I think a project management framework or you know, phrase another way, an execution framework is really got to be critical as we uh, as we move forward, right? If if these uh, organizations are putting millions on the line, uh, they certainly want to understand how is the team going to accomplish this? What's the what's the structure of the organization? Do you have the right, um, consultants and employees, not just employees but consultants supporting as well because it's a, it's a team sport and we have to make sure that we have the right team in place to do that. So I think you're right. Uh investors are starting to pay attention to the execution side. You know, I talk about a project management, what, we're talking a lot about is is helping these companies execute. and it's kind of, you know, project management has in some circles a negative connotation of, well, they just schedule meetings and take meeting minutes and things like that, but what a project management office really should be doing is um, operating from the ground level, like, yes, the planning the schedules, they're driving the schedules, holding people accountable. And then they're bubbling up that data so that decision making can be occurring on a regular basis either through dashboards or meetings. The data's for decision making and the more uh, easily the leadership team can make those decisions, the more successful the, the company is going to be. So, it's really that entire eco system and without a, without a project management office or even a project manager each function is really challenged to integrate with the other functions and other consultants on their own. and that's asking a lot. So, um, Yeah, we have seen a shift towards uh, the venture capital world starting to lean on on PMO support more. Host: Interesting. And and you brought up uh, a good point. Uh, we have a client that has a project manager on their side and we have a project manager on our side uh, and there's a a little bit of tension periodically because their project manager wants to have meetings all the time just to get minor updates. and I think like you alluded to, if you have like poor project management it gets a bad reputation and people almost want to like, steer away from project management. and I think it's because people maybe don't know how to manage a project efficiently or don't have the right tools in place. Um, but we had like we would have these meetings with 20 people in there to get like a 30-second update on something. and when you think about the waste of resources, it's kind of ridiculous. so we, we've tried to manage their project manager and say, okay, if it's a little update, you can send us a slack message and we can tell you like the status of this particular um, deliverable through slack message and and filter through one person versus have eight people on the, on a call. Uh, how do you manage uh, those situations with with your team? Guest: Yeah, it's a, it's a good point. There's a, a phrase I heard, uh, once when someone was talking about an ineffective project manager, they said, with help like that, who needs help? And I think that's, uh, that's very true for a lot of experiences that folks have with with project managers. I mean, project management is a, is a job just like any other where there's, there's excellent operators and there's some folks that haven't treated it as a career path. And so, if, if the listeners out there say I have a project manager, I, I don't know if I'm really getting the value out of it. I would say it's probably just not the right person or they just don't have the right training in place. Um, but don't give up on the function. The function is, is likely very critical. you know, really high-end project managers to your point about, you know, how long it takes to get status. the, the difference isn't just, all right, I pay a junior project manager X and a senior project manager Y. That's the, that's the cost difference. The cost difference is really the 20 people in the 30 minute meeting every week, every other week that slows everything down. Like that's, that's the cost difference. And so I would just encourage people to expect more from their project management function, um, because it, what it should be is an indispensable part of your team that you really can't live without. Host: I agree that. um What do you think about uh, the certification of the Project Management Professional. And in general, I would say I'm not like a big advocate of certifications. I will say that was one of the hardest ones I've ever done. I've probably done like 30 certifications. Um, so I'm just curious what your thoughts are. Guest: Yeah, yeah, so I've been uh PMP certified for almost 15 years now and, uh, I, I think it's, it's important for project managers to kind of go through that and, and to, to show their commitment to the profession. I've seen very good project managers that do not have the certification. So it's not a requirement for us to, uh, for hiring. Um but it does show that that level of commitment. But I've also seen people that have PMP certifications, they're not very good at managing projects. So it's certainly not uh an indicator of proficiency in my opinion. But, uh, it does show a commitment to, to the role. Host: Cool. And with cybersecurity, when you take on an engagement, when does cybersecurity enter that project plan or does it typically, or how does that even happen? Yeah. Guest: It's a great question. Usually, uh, too late or when we bring it up. Right. So we get engaged. Host: You, you often bring it up, the client doesn't bring it up? Guest: On on occasion. Uh, depending because there's a lot of companies we deal with that are not uh, you know, pure medtech like going to be in a, in a hospital, right? It might be a little bit more medical technology or, uh, for for research, uh, purposes. Um, so yeah, it, it does depend. but a lot of cases it's, uh, it's coming up that all right, we're, we're six months out from from submittal, let's start to to talk more about it. um, and i think in some cases they can get away with it right, but in a lot of cases it might require redesign or things like that so i I would say that, uh, you know, if we look at kind of the engineering design cycle, um, I would just encourage more and more companies to, even if it's just one, one item that they look at early on the process before the first phase gate review, if they have a phase gate process, that there's a line item in there to, to make sure they have it accounted for either internally or they've met with a consultant or two and they've got a clear path forward. It's, it's going back to that prevention versus cure piece, right? And it's really important to make sure that the, uh, the timelines are not extended unnecessarily. What they're doing is difficult and we've, we've got to make sure that we have all the scope accounted for. and cyber security, unfortunately has been one of those that uh, that falls down to the bottom of the list at least in my experience. Host: Yeah, I one of the challenges that I notice is a lot of people try to consider cybersecurity in a block of time, kind of like a biocompatibility study. Whereas cybersecurity is really an iterative process, it should be considered throughout the life cycle of the product, not just a chunk of time on a, on a, you know, in a quarter or two month window. And I think that is like one of the biggest turtles a lot of people don't understand and from a project management perspective, I think organizations try to say, okay, we're going to do cyber security like this quarter towards the end of our product versus realizing it needs to be iterative. Guest: Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, there's a, there's a, the iterative part of project management is, is agile, right? But, um, you can still have a waterfall schedule that's finished to start type relationships, can't charts, things people are used to seeing that has both agile and waterfall components in it. you have to have the entire scope outlined. If you had a a work breakdown structure at the beginning, a lot of companies don't, but if you were to have a proper scoping document of what needs to be done, experienced teams are going to have the cyber security component outlined in there. And if they do have a proper phase gate process, four or five steps, um, each phase should include a cyber security component to it, and that should be a forcing function along the journey to make sure that, you know, phase one, it's considered, phase two, it's, it's, it's in design, phase three, it's in a development, and so on. Host: Yeah, I agree. What does a typical engagement look like, uh, when a, you know, a prospect engages with you and you come on board, like, what does that look like typically? Guest: Yeah, it depends on the size of the organization. Larger organizations utilize us to upscale their current teams. Uh, smaller organizations, mid-sized groups, maybe 200 employees or less, generally look to us to outsource the function. Um, so we'll set up a project management office for them. And most times there's not a project management software in place. So we will, uh, make a recommendation based on what they're working on and, and the outline of their team. And then we would implement, um, that software and put all the schedules in place and roll that up into dashboards. And so it's really a centralized hub, kind of like a heartbeat of the organization, right? One beating heart that all the schedules are project based, but they can also easily be toggle to be functionally based. So it's easy to digest, but at the same time it rolls up for the C suite and they can provide board of director updates easier. And that's really key. All this work is happening today. It's just taking, uh, mostly it's top heavy. It's, it's the C suite working a lot of hours to put together board pitches and to figure out exactly what the team's progress looked like last week. Uh, we try to simplify all that. Uh, once that's in place, it's, it's the working the plants, right? So, if we did have to develop schedules, we would have done that, but those in the software tool, and uh, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun being efficient. and helping companies go from point A to point B. Um, that's what we're good at. Host: What, uh, software is like your preference for project management? Guest: Yeah, it's a great question. So, uh, I'll flip it back to you with a trivia question. I have looked at what I think are all the different software options for project management out on the market over the last three years. Uh, how many do you think are available that I found? Host: Well, some of them are, from my experience, some of them are really task management versus project management. So if you're actually talking about project management, I would say a dozen. Guest: Yeah. Host: Yeah. Guest: So if we include the task management ones, the project management, Host: If we include the task management, there's probably 50 decent ones. Guest: So we've looked at, I think the number's 120 today. That we've looked at. So there's probably 20 or 30 task management ones, as you mentioned. Uh, there's dozens of projects and portfolio. So, really, uh, there's a lot of options and that's problematic because if you're a 50 person Medtech company, you know you need a project management software, even if you don't have a project manager. So what do you do? Well, the Monday.com ads are relentless. So we'll give them a shot, right? Or we've got some engineers that like Jira, we'll base the entire company system off of Jira. Neither of which are probably the best approach. I would say for most Medtech companies, I would actually make the recommendation of Smartsheet. Smartsheet is, um, it's user-friendly enough for companies that are getting started. But at the same time, you can grow with it for years. There are more high high-powered software options out there, but the barrier to entry to entry on those is significant. Cost, implementation, time, uh, usability once you have it. Those I would say, unless you're a a few hundred employees or more, I would say you do not need to spend that that sort of uh time and money. So, yeah, for that reason, is an imperfect system like all of them in my opinion, but smart sheet works for more uh than most. Host: Okay, cool. I used to use smart sheets in the past. Right now we use a Sonna, which is a more task management. It does have a feature to show some gant charts and dependencies and other things now, finally, but that's what we use because I've have experienced this sonna for many years and just the learning curve has already been accomplished. Guest: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Host: It's hard to switch systems. Guest: And that's why it's a big decision because once you get everything loaded in, you've probably been frustrated but it's loaded your schedules are loaded in and then you're used to it. and it's like, okay, well we'll go with that, but a lot of those task management software options, teams grow out of, and that's the challenge with those, right? Is some of those once you get schedules that have 200 line items in them, 300 line items in them. they're just not very usable and that becomes a real challenge. So, um, yeah, it's, it's a difficult landscape out there, but encourage folks to just be diligent about that first decision because, um, you're probably stuck with it a little bit longer than you realize. Host: Yeah, because we've got templates in Asanana, we've had to add features to it, uh, customize it, you know, add the portfolio feature, all those things. So like you said, it's super hard to switch if we wanted to switch to something else at this point. And my whole team knows how to use it. Guest: Yes. That's right. Host: Yeah, because smart sheets might be might be a I don't know if it'd be better or not. Um, because we have to do all the same work, customize and everything and teach my team how to use it. Guest: Yeah. Host: But yeah, I think your point is be wise about what you choose because you're going to be sort of stuck with it for a while. Guest: Yeah. And that become, you know, that's my recommendation today, but all these companies make changes and in a year my recommendation may change. So, I think that's where it becomes difficult for small the mid-sized teams that have one project manager and they rely on that one project manager to either accept the software option that was chosen before them or to choose one. That's a lot to ask of one person that might be spread thin. So, um, is there a better way to to fulfill those needs? Um, and I think, you know, cyber is the same thing in my book is that's a lot to ask of a cyber security professional and a Medtech company is to keep up with the industry as much as they would need to. Um, and and they just wouldn't have the reps that that a company like a BlueGoat would. Host: Yeah, well, we focus on specific things. Plus we have a team. You know, one person can't do everything right. And like, even on my team, one person can't do everything. We have people that specialize in specific things for a 5-10k submission is an example. It's interesting, um, we're talking about SmartSheets and Osana like one of the largest clients of ours, uh, a publicly and trade company, they use Excel for their project management. And it is like not efficient at all. It's linked to all these other documents on a, um, Google Drive and it's I don't know, I guess they, they chose that and they're stuck with it at this point, but it'd be hard to maybe change, but it's just seems like it's very antiquated way of doing things. Uh, I imagine you've seen similar? Guest: Absolutely. Excel is is is kind of everyone's default these days. Um, which is interesting because 15 years ago, that the the standard was Microsoft project and I think Microsoft has just it really invested in the Microsoft project brand that much. There's there's uh, certain iterations that are web-based now, but they certainly have not, uh, been aggressive about, um, evolution of that, uh, that standard software package, uh, from 10, 15, 20 years ago. And so Microsoft Excel is just kind of everyone's default. And I would be, uh, I I'd actually would imagine that there's probably a very expensive software, project management software at that publicly traded company that just is too difficult to use, which is why they're using Excel, right? So that's, that's another challenge is if you over purchase a project management software that the project managers don't have proper training or don't know how to use or not, they're not encouraged to use, then the challenge becomes, well, not everyone's using it. And if not everyone's using the software, then it defeated the purpose of getting the high-end software in the first place. Host: Yeah, that's a challenge. We have sometimes in my company with a sauna is like you said, people have to use it. So if we're expecting updates, then the person working on a specific deliverable needs to make sure they update that. Otherwise, we have inefficient project management and I have a project manager reaching out to that person via slack or phone call or some other method versus them just updating the project management software. Yeah. Guest: Yeah. And there's creative ways to do that now either with uh, you know, an integration tool like Zapper or um, there's some other ways to get inputs from the team in slack and get that integrated into your project management software so that it's, it's less of a burden for them to log even log in uh, and and remember their password and and fill that out, right? So, there's some creative solutions for teams that need it. the technology is kind of endless. Um, as long as you have a little bit of time and an expertise to to think through, what's the best way for this team to provide status. Uh, that's super useful because that is, as you've mentioned more than once today, it's a time suck. It, it really takes away from the work that the engineers and scientists are working on. and it really needs to be focused on their subject matter. and we do need to extract the information from them, but we need to do it almost in the most painless way possible. And that's how a project management office gains credibility is by giving time back to those that they work with. Host: 100%. And maybe I'm just obsessed with efficiency, but when I see meetings with 20 or 30 people and half the people are in every meeting and their mic is on mute and they're off camera, I'm thinking, what are these people actually doing? And then I have calculating my head. What's the average salary of everyone in this meeting? And how many people are in this meeting? And this meeting last for an hour, this meeting actually cost this much money. And I wonder if like you probably do this and I do this. if we're like the exception, like everyone else just thinks this is normal, you know, day-to-day, but I'm thinking, what is the opportunity cost here of all these people in this meeting where we could do this much more efficiently. I don't know. Maybe just a few of us think that way and everyone else just assumes that that's just normal operations. I don't sure. Guest: Yeah, no, it's absolutely true and we we do that with clients. Um, not everyone, but but a number of them where once a year, twice a year, we'll do math on the meetings and look at all the meetings we have, do meeting hygiene, do the cost per meeting and see where we can lean folks out and and so we'll work with our our uh, our sponsors, um, and see sweet and say, you know, we're the co-pilots here, you're the pilots, but but what do you think about this data and and do you want us to run these meetings differently. And I think that's Host: Awesome. Well, thanks so much Steve for being a guest on our podcast. We appreciate your time today. And thanks so much for everyone for tuning in and we hope to see you on the next episode. Guest: Yeah, I would just say that that it's all about execution in 2025 and beyond, right? So, how do we set up the teams to execute the best? Uh, let's not settle for mediocre. If uh, if it's personnel or if it's planning, um, there's a lot of great ideas out there. and the ones that are winning and will win are the ones that're executing the best. And so, um, the way I look at it is that's proper planning and scheduling and then managing to that schedule. Uh, there's a lot of risk management improvements that that kind of need to be made in the industry. and that's not super complicated risk management. everyone knows they need to do it. Uh, venture capital always says we got to de-risk this, right? That's, that's about the one line that comes out of their mouth every few minutes. And, um, so yeah, being able to execute well is a differentiator and, um, I would just say for those out there that might be struggling a little bit just just feel free to hold your teams accountable, um, or find folks that that meet your expectations. Host: I agree that. What are the, what is your theory? Because, um, one of our clients, there's a person at every single meeting, and I've, they're on mute, they're off camera, and I've intentionally, I had to stop saying, 'hello, so-and-so, how's it going?' Nothing. And, and, so, in my company, they said a lot of people today will work six jobs or four jobs, and they'll have like four laptops, and they'll be in all four meetings at the same time, but they never say anything, so, or at someone, if someone calls them, they jump to another meeting. And, uh, I hope that's not what's going on, but I didn't even realize that was something people are doing today. But, I guess, you can get away with it if, uh, you don't have that good meeting hygiene as you were talking about. Guest: Yeah, yeah, certainly possible. Um, I haven't seen that either. But, uh, I imagine that that there's a little bit of that that that goes on. The organizations we work with are way too busy for anyone to hide. It's, it's usually a matter of everyone's just trying to do their best but they're completely maxed out, and they don't want to be disrespectful to the to the team leader or the project manager if they need to be there, but, you know, maybe they don't need to be there every single meeting. So, it's a balancing act for sure. Host: Yeah, that's a challenge we have, which is, you know, we're the copilot, you're the pilot, but what do you think about this data, and do you want us to run these meetings differently? And I think that's, Host: I have this theory because in, um, one of our clients, there's a person in every single meeting, and I've, they're on mute, they're off camera, and I've intentionally asked, 'Say, hello, so-and-so, how's it going?' Nothing. And, and some of my company said a lot of people today will work six jobs or four jobs, and they'll have like four laptops, and they'll be in all four meetings at the same time, but they never say anything, so, or if they're, if someone calls them, they jump to another meeting. And, uh, I hope that's not what's going on, but I didn't even realize that was something people were doing today, but I guess you can get away with it if, uh, you don't have that good meeting hygiene as you were talking about. Guest: Certainly possible. Um, I haven't seen that either. But, uh, I imagine that there's a little bit of that that goes on. The organizations we work with are way too busy for anyone to hide. It's, it's usually a matter of everyone's just trying to do their best but they're completely maxed out, and they don't want to be disrespectful to the team leader or the project manager if they need to be there. But, you know, maybe they don't need to be there every single meeting. So, it's a balancing act for sure. Host: Yeah, I agree. Uh, what are the, what would you say the top three misconceptions, uh, about project management with med tech innovators, um, you've noticed? Guest: Yeah, so, I think a lot of times, uh, med tech innovators are in a tough spot. So, you know, they're, the funds that they have at their disposal are limited. And, so they generally spend those funds on SME roles. You know, people that are supposed to do a given task or a given role. And, so the project management often falls between the cracks, falls to the founder himself or herself, or goes to a very organized member of the team who can carry the torch for a period of time. So, I feel for them because that's a difficult spot. I would just encourage them to think the funds that they were given are for progress, and the best chance at progress they have is to, to properly plan and schedule the work. So, you know, a few years ago, the options were, 'Do we hire or do we not?' And now with a ton of fractional talent or outsourced companies like Mustard Seed, there's, there's more options. And, so that is an advantage for today's med tech innovators. So I would say, you know, just encourage folks to think outside the binary box of, 'Do I hire or, or do I wait to hire for that position?' Um, so that's certainly one. Another one is, is that, you know, project managers don't really move the needle. And I would say that, that that's a misconception that's certainly been earned by the industry or by the function of project management. But we can do better. And in pockets, there's teams of people that are doing really good work. So, I would encourage folks to just to be very selective because just like not all cyber professionals are the same, not all project managers are the same. So, um, yeah, I would, if folks have a bad experience, I would encourage them just to continue to look and and be very selective about who you're adding to your team. Host: Yeah, I, I agree. I like what you said about hiring versus not hiring or waiting to hire. I think, you know, as an entrepreneur myself, I, I would rather outsource my accounting function to a team, uh, that costs less actually than hiring one individual because now I have a team of experts. I have a bookkeeper in account, a fractional CFO, uh, and, and they have back end support versus me hiring one individual to try to do all that, which is kind of a recipe for disaster because the CFO role is different than a counting role, different than a, uh, bookkeeping role, right? So I'd rather outsource that function until my company's large enough where I can hire all three. And I think as a MedTech startup, uh, I think that's a, probably a smarter way of looking at things, at least initially, because if you hire a cybersecurity professional, they're not going to know as much as the team of professionals. Same thing with project management. Um, and the risk is greater there too when you hire somebody because now they're on payroll and the cost is more versus, uh, you know, something, somebody fractional or a contracted individual. Guest: Yeah. And, back to your point on ROI, I mean, we talk with clients all the time and and and sometimes they're hesitant to move forward. And, I would, generally the rule of thumb we use is the project management time needed is generally between 2% and 5% of total employee/consultant time. So, if you have 100 employees, depending on how innovative the work you're doing is, you may need between two and five project managers to support that team, probably on the lower end, probably closer to 2 or 3%. But if you're a 25% MedTech company, what do you do? That, that's still less than one person. And so, now there's options for fractional or outsourced. You can hit that number just right um, while not overpaying or maybe you pay the same, but you get three times the output as you might by bringing someone internal. So, um, I, I mean, I say that because it's, it's a situation where, um, if you're spending an extra 2% on a project manager, you expect 2% of savings. Well, 2% on a on a MedTech innovation is, uh, you know, it could be a a couple of weeks, right? But, a good project manager is going to save you a couple months. And I would imagine, you know, the calculus is very similar for, for for cybersecurity. Uh, the ROI is not very high for the project manager or the cyber professional to make up for the cost of that individual. Host: That's right. And we can certainly facilitate bringing things to market much faster and much more cost effective than hiring somebody. And and and that, we know that that's where we're competing with as well, that decision. Um, awesome, we're almost up on time here, so any last minute words of wisdom for our audience? Guest: Yeah, I would just say that it's all about execution in 2025 and beyond, right? So, how do we set up the teams to execute the best? Let's not settle for mediocre. If it's personnel or if it's planning, um, there's a lot of great ideas out there. and the ones that are winning and will win are the ones that are executing the best. And so, um, the way I look at it is that's proper planning and scheduling and then managing to that schedule. Uh, there's a lot of risk management improvements that that kind of need to be made in the industry. And that's not super complicated risk management, everyone knows they need to do it. Uh, venture capital always says, 'We gotta de-risk this, right?' That's, that's about the one line that comes out of their mouth every few minutes. And, um, so, yeah, being able to execute well is a differentiator. And, um, I would just say for those out there that might be struggling a little bit just just feel free to hold your teams accountable, um, or find folks that that meet your expectations.