What does it really take to lead change inside a business? In this episode of The Knoodle Founder’s Hour, host Rosaria Cain sits down with Joe Pusz, founder of PMO Squad, to uncover the hidden power of project management—and why it’s becoming one of the most critical business disciplines in the modern economy.
Joe explains why every major business transformation—from launching new products to entering new markets—is actually a project, and why companies that master project management gain a massive competitive advantage.
From his early career managing complex initiatives at major organizations to launching his own consulting and staffing firm, Joe shares the entrepreneurial journey behind PMO Squad, including the risks, setbacks, and breakthrough moments that shaped his success. He also reveals how a simple push from his wife inspired him to build the company from scratch—and why persistence through uncertainty ultimately paid off.
Along the way, Joe and Rosaria explore:
- Why project management drives innovation and change in every industry
- The biggest misconceptions companies have about project managers
- How talent shortages and staffing challenges are reshaping the field
- The role of marketing and brand awareness in scaling a consulting firm
- How AI and emerging technology could transform project management careers
- Why the next decade may require millions of new project managers worldwide
Joe also opens up about leadership, company culture, and what many people misunderstand about entrepreneurs: behind every successful business is a founder who deeply cares about their team and clients.
If you’re a founder, executive, or leader navigating growth, innovation, and change, this conversation offers practical insights on building teams, leading transformation, and staying competitive in a rapidly evolving business landscape.
Keywords:
project management, leadership, entrepreneurship, business transformation, PMO Squad, project manager careers, AI and project management, business innovation, consulting business growth, talent acquisition, change management, business strategy
Full Transcript:
Rosaria Cain 00:00
Well, hello, Joe. So glad to see you. Thank you for coming by and welcome.
Joe Pusz 00:05
Yeah, thank you, Rosaria. It’s great to be here.
Rosaria Cain 00:08
So burning question, what is project management anyway, and why is it relevant to business?
Joe Pusz 00:14
The $64,000 question. Project management exists in every company around the world, it doesn’t matter what industry or how big or how small your company is, and it’s every time there’s change to what you do in your business, it’s a project, and the project manager is simply the person that helps lead that change initiative. So if you produce widgets, that’s your operations. Your company is good at that. You know how to make your own widgets, but if you want to create a newer version of that widget, or you want to get into a new industry, that sort of change is where a project manager comes in. So simply put, for me, project management is a change initiative, and the project manager is the person that leads that initiative to try to make it successful for your company.
Rosaria Cain 01:02
Well, is project management for all businesses, or is there a certain size and above that someone needs a project manager?
Joe Pusz 01:09
Yeah, we like to say it’s for all businesses, but the level of sophistication changes based on the size of your business. A smaller firm, maybe a $1 million revenue firm doesn’t need the same sophistication as a billion dollar Fortune 500 company, so aligning the amount of maturity and discipline you use makes smart sense for your company. Don’t go over engineer something that doesn’t need to be engineered, but recognize there’s probably a way to do it more efficiently and better that fits your company size.
Rosaria Cain 01:44
But I bet there’s a difference from one project management company to another. What’s your elevator speech?
Joe Pusz 01:50
Yeah, certainly. I think for us, we help companies deliver projects better, plain and simple. If you need better talent, we provide that. If you need a better process. We provide that. And if you need help with project management technology, we offer that. We’re one of probably only a handful of companies in the entire United States that does all three. So you don’t have to go shop for multiple vendors. We’re a one stop solution to help you deliver projects better
Rosaria Cain 02:19
Well, and you’ve recently up upped your staffing end of your business. Tell us about that and what you look for in staffing.
Joe Pusz 02:28
Yeah, great question. We reach a certain point of our lives where it’s no longer about your own personal growth, it’s about how I can help others. And PMO Squad has been around for 13 years now, and we’ve been successful, whatever that means. And what I noticed was there were so many project managers on the market hurting. They just didn’t have an advocate. It was generic staffing firms trying to get them into positions, but those staffing firms didn’t have the deep expertise to help sell that candidate. And after talking to so many of these resources out there, I said, “We need to make a change. We have to be able to be an advocate, to go get project managers back to work”, and that’s what we’ve been doing now for about the past, I’d say, six to nine months, been focusing not just on the consulting work we do, but the talent that’s in our industry. With all of the economic downturn, there’s a lot of unemployed PMs, and it’s our mission to get them back to work.
Rosaria Cain 03:26
Well, how does one get into project management?
Joe Pusz 03:29
Yeah, great question. When I was in college, they didn’t even offer degrees in project management. You would stumble your way into it. Now universities ASU here locally, has a great project management program, and you can get a degree in project management. So you could kind of stumble your way in through a formal educational pattern. But typically, what we find are people who are leaders. They were kind of the high school sports captain of whatever sport they played. People gravitate to them as leadership, and they’re organized. If you start with those two elements, and your boss notices that you’ve got those two items, they’re going to then ask you, “Can you lead this change that we have to do?” Maybe you’re a subject matter expert on the change or not, but they want you to be able to lead that team through that change. So, for me, it’s a lot of… we’re in a transition period where education is starting to line up with experience, whereas prior to educational systems adapting this, it was really all just an experience play.
Rosaria Cain 04:36
Is it natural to be a project manager? So are people born project managers, or can they be taught? Or both?
Joe Pusz 04:45
Yeah, for me, it’s natural. What I came to find out I didn’t know about project management, and one day, my boss, Dennis Dickinson, had said, “Hey, Joe, how’s the project going?” I said, “Dennis, what are you talking about? I didn’t know I was working on a project”, and he explained project management to me, and I said, “Well, what you’re explaining is just the way I think about things”. So what I recognized, as I was born a project manager. Others, they have to work at it, right, and they have to get there. What we try to do is find the natural project managers and then coach them up. Trying to convert and make somebody be something they’re not. It’s possible, we see that all the time in different business functions, but when you can get a hold of a natural project manager and get them the coaching they need, that’s where you see some really strong growth in their career.
Rosaria Cain 05:36
What kind of characteristics make a project manager? Persistence. Follow-up.
Joe Pusz 05:42
Both of those. Patience, right? Leadership and being able to see the big picture. Every project that’s out there is important, but it’s not a standalone item. It’s within the business’ overall objective, so, can you see the big business picture as well? So having an understanding of business acumen is really important for a project manager. And then the ability to lead and motivate. Not everybody wants that front row seat. Some people want to be in the back end. They want to be the person that’s being led. A project manager is the person that steps out front leads the team to accomplish this important goal or objective and drives that forward. So you have to be a motivator, a negotiator, a bit of a salesperson. Has got to be part of that as well.
Rosaria Cain 06:32
What misconceptions are there about project managers,
Joe Pusz 06:36
that we only care about our projects and that we don’t know anything else, right? There’s this feeling that a project management or project is overhead and that it’s wasteful spending. And what we find is that when project managers don’t have those positive characteristics we just talked about, it helps perpetuate that through the business, and therefore people don’t want to do projects. They don’t want to be on the project team. The company doesn’t want to do projects, and all of a sudden the business stops innovating because they don’t have anybody to lead those change initiatives. So the misconception out there, I think, primarily, is project management is waste, project management is overhead, project management is cost. You said at the beginning, project management can be sexy. Yeah, it can be very sexy, because when you have a new product or service introduced to the market, that’s sexy, and a project manager is the person who led that initiative to make it happen. Everywhere we see change in the world, there was a project manager behind that making it happen. And to me, that’s an amazing, amazing position to be in.
Rosaria Cain 07:51
It sounds like it. So, in your project manager years, how did you have your first entrepreneurial moment?
Joe Pusz 07:59
Yeah, this is a great story, i think, at least for me, it’s great story. I had run project management functions in several big companies, Cessna Aircraft, Bell Helicopter, WellStar Health System, and everywhere along the way, we would need outside help, consultants to be able to support us, staffing firms to be able to provide staff augmentation, and we would reach out to those resources, and they didn’t have the same level of knowledge that we had internally. And we were paying a fairly high ticket to get those services delivered for us. After complaining about that for a decade or so, my wife finally, one day, just said, “Well, why don’t you just go start a business and create it yourself?”, and I looked at her and said, “Well, you’re a stay at home mom. We have four young children. What if it doesn’t work?”, And she said, “Well, then just make sure you don’t fail”. And at that moment, it was almost a permission slip from her to be able to go try it. I had never had a business before in my life, I didn’t know what I was doing, but with that permission slip and that freedom to be able to go explore it, I said, “How do I not try to do this?”
Rosaria Cain 09:10
How old were you?
Joe Pusz 09:10
What was that?
Rosaria Cain 09:12
How old were you?
Joe Pusz 09:13
I was… Let’s say it was 13 years ago. So I was 45 at the time.
Rosaria Cain 09:17
So you’ve built all this in 13 years.
Joe Pusz 09:19
Yeah, right. And not early in my career, right? I mean, see, I’m 45 right? I’m mid-career. I should be locking into what I’m doing, but I just knew there was a better way to do it, and not relying on some other consulting firm to figure that out. I already knew what was needed, because I was the customer. So by turning that around and becoming the service provider, we could deliver it in a way that I knew would work. And you know, knock on wood. Here we are, 13 years later, it’s still working for us.
Rosaria Cain 09:50
Well, how natural was it? So? Were you born an entrepreneur? Did you have like, a lemonade stand and a paper out as a kid? Or did you develop as time went on through your business ventures that you were involved in, and your project management that you were involved in?
Joe Pusz 10:05
Yeah, I think I always had a little of it in me, right? I had two paper routes. I used to take our family lawnmower, and my cousin and I would put it in the back of his truck, and we’d drive around the neighborhood and go mow lawns for people. So there was always something there, but I didn’t think that I’d ever own a business. I didn’t come from a family of entrepreneurs. My mom was a librarian. My dad worked in at General Electric’s main plant. I mean, so it was there was no motivators. There were no people who inspired me into this path, but I always had this urge to go create and kind of go build my own path. I didn’t want to be dependent on somebody else, right? I always appreciated the mentorship and the guidance and coaching from my bosses, but I always had something in the back of my mind of one day I think I’m going to be one of those bosses. And sure enough, here I am.
Rosaria Cain 10:59
Tell us about the highs and lows of being a boss. Fun, right?
Joe Pusz 11:03
Oh, yeah, be careful what you wish for.
Rosaria Cain 11:05
Right, right?
Joe Pusz 11:06
I started the business back in Atlanta, Georgia, and then moved here eight years ago. In that first year in Phoenix, I thought it would be easy, you know, going from a big city to another big city, we’d come into a new market, and we’d hit the ground running, and I think we might have sold one deal that first year. And my wife, who had given me the permission to start this, said, “When are you going to go back and get a real job?” and I said, “What do you mean? I’m the CEO of the PMO squad. I already have a real job”, and she said, “Yeah, but that’s not paying the bills”. And that was probably the lowest moment where I felt like I let my wife down, and again, four young children at that time, to be able to say, “Man, is this the right path?”, but I knew it was because it worked in Atlanta. I just had to, you know, figure out the model to make it work here in Phoenix, and we’ve done that. But that was the lowest moment, right? Like, how do we make this work? The highest moment? There’s been so many highs, but I think probably the one that stands out the most was back in 2022 here in Phoenix, where the low happened, we were named by the Phoenix Business Journal, Small Business of the Year, and to me, that was kind of the confirmation that I made the right decision to stay with it and to ride out that storm and see that there was a pot of gold, perhaps at the end of the rainbow. So anytime there’s an acknowledgement for not just what I do, because I’m leading the team, but I don’t do the work our team does the work when it acknowledges that that’s paying off, it’s like a proud parent moment, right? What we’ve created has been a success. So there’s a couple of examples. I think highs and lows.
Rosaria Cain 12:52
Well, there are highs and lows in business.
Joe Pusz 12:54
Oh, yeah.
Rosaria Cain 12:54
that’s for sure. And recently, you came to write chapter 10,
Joe Pusz 12:59
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 13:00
And I’m not sure if this is a facetious title. I read about it on LinkedIn, so Projectland Goes to the Movies. Is that actually the name of the book?
Joe Pusz 13:08
That’s the name of the book.
Rosaria Cain 13:09
Okay, I just wanted to be sure.
Joe Pusz 13:11
Yeah. So it’s an interesting concept. Dawn Mahan and Jerry Manas have the idea. They’re the editors, and they had created a book a couple years back about Projectland, of being a cast of animals, and what is, how does the giraffe represent a different type of project manager, or an elephant a different type of project manager? And that book was fairly successful. So they came up with the idea, what about movies? What are there certain movies out there that have a project management story to them, and what could we take away from those lessons? So my chapter is about the old movie, 12 Angry Men, starring Henry Fonda from back in the day. And I love this movie because it tells a story of 12 strangers coming together, and it’s a murder trial for a boy who supposedly been he’s been accused of murdering his father, and these 12 strangers have to determine is a boy innocent or guilty. And what we recognize when they come into the jury room that almost the entire movie is in the jury room, and this is back in the 1950s so it’s an amazing way. It’s been written and captured how people interact with each other and the back story, how much it influences our current story. And that’s what happens on a project. Every project is a group of strangers coming together, or maybe you know each other, but that’s not your regular job working on that project. And when we, you know, complain about Jane or John Doe having to leave early on a Friday and they don’t get that project done, well, did we think about maybe they have a child at home who’s disabled, and they have to get them to a doctor’s appointment, and if you viewed that person in that light, do you think about them differently? Instead of being frustrated, you actually encourage them to get home to their family and maybe try to help them get their work done early. So that’s what 12 Angry Men is about. It’s that interaction between people and how you can collectively, once you get to know each other, come out with the right verdict or the right project to be able to be successful.
Rosaria Cain 13:11
Sounds like a lot of perspective searching? Y
Joe Pusz 13:11
Yeah, absolutely. So 22 different people from around the world pick their movie that they write about and then compare it to project management. So it’s not a textbook read. It’s actually a fun read about stuff that we familiar with. Jurassic Park is one of the movies. There’s a movie from Italy that’s in there. It’s it’s just a collection of really fun reads that you can then bring back to your day job and see if it can make you be a better project manager.
Rosaria Cain 15:46
I’ll have to pick that up, and it’s a top Amazon seller. Yeah.
Joe Pusz 15:51
I mean, it’s great. I think that helps that you’ve got 22 different co authors, right? The contributors to that, so you have 12 different marketing engines at work to make that happen. And I know quite a few of the different authors, it’s great to be able to collaborate with them and not have to feel the pressure to go write your own book, you can do it together. It was really fun exercise.
Rosaria Cain 16:11
So what kind of milestones have you seen in your career? Anything to come to mind that be really big things that have happened that changed your life or your direction?
Joe Pusz 16:22
Yeah, it’s funny. We’re on a podcast right now, and I think probably the biggest one would be, I hosted a podcast called Project Management Office Hours, and over a five year stretch, we had over 40 million plays and downloads of that show. It was absolutely insane and amazing and all again. That was by chance. I was at a local networking event, riding down the elevator, and Karen Nowicki happened to be in the elevator and said, you ever thought about being on a podcast? I said, not really, but I’ll certainly be a guest. And she invited me to be a guest on her show. Afterwards, she said, “That was fantastic, and you had a nice presence to you. What about hosting your own show?”, and I said, “Not my thing. I’m a project manager. I’m not a podcast host”, and Karen, along with my wife, convinced me to host a couple of episodes. We started doing two a month. Did that for five years. Ended up over 110, 120 different episodes. Spoke to project managers from around the world. Did it live as a business radio talk show, plus podcast that was recorded and that opened me up to the world, and also exposed me to the world. So now I speak around the world. I get invited to attend events. We have clients that are familiar with us because of that show. And had I not had a chance encounter on an elevator here locally, I don’t think PMO squad would be where we’re at today.
Rosaria Cain 17:59
A Twist of Fate, yeah, well, tell us about some of the places you’ve been, because I read about your exploits on LinkedIn. And you’ve been in the Middle East, you’ve been around the world. Talk about some of that success you’ve seen.
Joe Pusz 18:11
Yeah, the most exciting for me, I think, is a trip to Paris a couple years back, and it’s great because now I bring my wife along with me on these trips.
Rosaria Cain 18:21
I’m sure she doesn’t mind.
Joe Pusz 18:22
She doesn’t mind we’re going to London later this year, but we were in Paris, and it’s something that her brother had lived in Paris for a few years, and she never had the chance to go visit him while he was there. And so now that I had a chance to go over there for work and attend an industry event. It gave her a chance to come over, and we spent a week or two after the event to just explore. We actually went to his apartment that he no longer lives at, but we found his apartment so she could see where he lived at the time, and explored all over Paris. It’s an amazing, amazing city. Been to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, going back again this year for the third consecutive year. It’s a different place. You know, there’s good and bad to it. There’s a lot culturally and values wise, that doesn’t line up with Western culture. But I also salute the fact that they are trying to learn from Western culture and trying to explore and invite different thought leadership out to to guide them and lead them. So it’s, at times, it’s been a bit contentious with others to say, Why would I go there and support them? But I think we have to embrace differences and try to find common ground when we do that. And I think everybody can benefit from that all over the Caribbean and North America and Canada and elsewhere. I mean, it’s London later this year, and it’s just it’s a great opportunity to use an industry status to be able to learn from others, because I’m often invited to be an expert at these. Sense, and what I find out is how little I know and how much I still have to learn from others around the world. Because how we do it here in the US isn’t always the only way to do it. So I get to be able to take those learnings and then bring them back to the states and use that with our clients as well. So local and US based clients are able to take advantage of what I’m learning from conversations around the world.
Rosaria Cain 20:25
So every country does project management. It’s nothing unique to Americans and their way of life and the way that they work.
Joe Pusz 20:33
Everybody does it. Yeah, it’s all over the world again. It doesn’t matter size of company or what industry you’re in, they all do it. I’ve met people from Iran who have sanctions on their country, from the United States and others. So how they procure resources is very different than how we do that. Here. We take it for granted that you can pop out to Amazon and go buy something. Well, in a lot of countries around the world, you can’t do that. So how do you get that piece of equipment that you need? It’s just different, right? It’s all project management, but there’s different things at play. In parts of Africa, there’s political bribes that may or may not necessarily be required to get influence to get your projects completed. It would never happen at that sort of accepted level in the United States, but the way that that works locally in some of the different countries over there, that’s how they train you to make sure that you’re aware of what’s the political environment, not that they’re advocating for a bribe, but if you want your project to be successful, understand the circumstances that you have to work with and make the right decision for your business. Based on that different things for different elements in different locations are so important,
Rosaria Cain 21:53
it’s about getting the job done.
Joe Pusz 21:54
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 21:55
with what the tools that you have to work with?
Joe Pusz 21:56
That’s right, absolutely.
Rosaria Cain 21:58
Well, now tell us how you evolved into staffing?
Joe Pusz 22:02
Yeah, so…
Rosaria Cain 22:04
because your name has changed, your company name has changed just a little I saw on your website.
Joe Pusz 22:09
So still PMO squad staffing. We do offer, still PMO squad consulting services, and ultimately, we’re the PMO squad. It’s, you know, kind of I’d like to just consider different factions of the business, a different division we have, and for us, a consulting business is great, as I’m a Vistage member, for those who are familiar with Vistage and it as an executive, I’m always learning right? I’m trying to be coached up. I’m trying to gain knowledge and experience. And one of the things I recognize is I’m not going to be around forever, and the PMO squad eventually will move into somebody else’s hands. And for that transaction to occur, I want it to be as successful a transaction for me. I want to I want to get as big a sale as possible for our business. When we do consulting work, which I think we’re one of the best in the world at what we do, we’re almost working our way out of the job, right? We’re helping the company become better, and it’s very difficult to get repeat business, but in a staffing situation, we can bring a great resource to a client, and when we do that, they want to come back and get more work from us. So we’re building that recurring revenue model from consulting plus staffing and partnering with our technology partners. It makes the business more attractive when we come time to sale at some point down the road. So it’s a diversification opportunity for us to be able to offer different products and services. It’s a way to stay still specific to project management itself. And I think we have an edge over a generic staffing firm because we have a deep understanding and appreciation for project management, so we can find talent faster, I think, more in line with the company’s culture and what they’re looking for, and we’ve had a great start to that side of the business.
Rosaria Cain 24:05
Well, tell us about your company culture. How would you define it? Because I think that’s a big deal about the leader portraying his company. That culture is a very big part of what you have.
Joe Pusz 24:18
Yeah, you know, I, I grew up playing sports when I was younger, and so I’ve always been drawn to the culture of a team and the sports mindset. We’re not successful because of me. We’re successful in spite of me. I’d like to think I’ve helped lay the framework for who we are as a business, and then the team works right? Just like a baseball field has room for a pitcher, a catcher and all the infielders and outfielders, we have people that are in their team, they’re in their role within the team, and we’re only successful when they do their job. So very team driven, I didn’t want to be a corporate culture, because that’s where I left, and I wanted to build a business that was more reflective of my mindset. So simple stuff, as you know, a lot of most businesses, you have 10 days of sick time. Well, what happens on day 11? Are you allowed to not be sick that day, or is an unpaid day? So we don’t do things like sick time and vacation time. It’s just time to work and time not to work if you’re getting your job done, I don’t care if it’s at home. I don’t care if it’s at the client site. I don’t care if it’s after hours or during hours. Make sure we’re serving our customers and our communities, and get out there and do that. And then on top of that, how do we serve I mentioned communities. We’ve got five years running now of earning the platinum medallion from the Department of Labor for our work with hiring and retaining veterans. So giving back to those who’ve served us is critical to our culture as well. So how do we serve How do we do it in a team friendly environment? And how do we empower people to be adults and professionals to make sure that they have the freedom to explore their capabilities, as well as giving them the tools and support they need to successfully serve our customers.
Rosaria Cain 26:10
How do you approach marketing?
Joe Pusz 26:13
Yeah, great question. I think I’m here because of our relationship with you, and we didn’t know a lot about marketing. I’m a project manager by trade and by nature. So I guess what’s probably about four years ago, three or four years ago, we reached out to Knoodle and said, Can you help us understand this better? We don’t even know what we need. What are we doing? Is it working or not working? What do we need? More of less of and I tried to approach it like a project, and we spent at least six months, if not more six months to a year working with you, just to try to understand what marketing even is, and how we could utilize it, and what was our messaging, and was that coming across clearly or not? We understood at that point we needed marketing. We didn’t know how we needed marketing. After working with Knoodle, what we recognized was marketing to us was almost as important as our project management capability, because if others couldn’t understand project management and what we were doing, it didn’t matter how good we were at it, and when we tried to move into high growth mode, what we recognized is project management wasn’t holding us back. It was our ability to get awareness and let others know what we offered. So to us, marketing is an absolute core critical component of our business.
Rosaria Cain 27:40
Is it one of the ways you future proof PMO squad?
Joe Pusz 27:44
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the whole shift into staffing was a marketing play, right? We understood from surveying our industry and our communities and understanding what was necessary and what they needed, and feedback that we had received as part of that that talent was necessary and there was a gap with talent, so we understanding marketing and understanding awareness and understanding need we utilize that to be able to say, let’s go address the marketing situation and provide that service to the community.
Rosaria Cain 28:12
Well, that’s what’s known as an insight.
Joe Pusz 28:14
Yeah.
Rosaria Cain 28:15
And you found it.
Joe Pusz 28:16
In the reality was, 80% of our revenue was being driven by staffing. Only 20% was coming through our consulting work, but nobody knew we provided those staffing services. They only thought of us as a consulting business, and we did focus groups to ask people, “What does PMO squad do?”, none of them, at any point, ever said that we did staffing, yet 80% of our revenue is coming from that. So we took that leap of faith to be able to say, what if we just tell them what we do? What if we raise the awareness so that they actually could put one and one together and have it equal three, as opposed to two? So we utilize marketing to identify the gap, and now we’re utilizing marketing to help fill the void.
Rosaria Cain 29:00
And what trends do you see going forward in the next couple years where you’re taking that insight and using it?
Joe Pusz 29:07
Yeah, I think there’s the one big trend that’s got a giant question mark attached to it by all companies, is AI, and I don’t know what that one is yet. I actually had a call this morning with a project management leader out of Toronto, and he wanted to get my perspective on AI. And I said, I don’t know yet. I wish I knew. I think our industry in the project management space is at a generational shift. Perspective, we’re being managed and driven industry wide by a lot of folks my age and older, and this next generation now has university degrees in project management technology that we never had, and I think there’s an evolution coming for project management that’s going to be faster. I think it’s going to be more technology integrated, and I don’t know what it looks like yet, but I think that’s coming
Rosaria Cain 29:59
And that’s what you probably see in the next few years, actually, now,
Joe Pusz 30:02
Yeah, it’s starting now. The analogy I paint with this is: the caterpillar to butterfly. That’s a transformation. You were a project manager, or you may have been a software developer or a marketing resource, and you transformed your career to become the butterfly, the project manager. The way it’s perceived today is, you went from a little caterpillar to a big Caterpillar, you’re still just a project manager. I think AI is going to have a transformational aspect to it, that project management is not going to be just a bigger caterpillar. It’s going to become a butterfly. I don’t know what the motivation is for that yet. I don’t know what the butterfly looks like yet, but it’s coming. And I think the organizations that are stepping into that unknown will come out on front and the ones that are waiting to see are going to be playing catch up, probably in the next three to five years.
Rosaria Cain 30:58
Does it subtract the workforce, or does it add to it being in the staffing business?
Joe Pusz 31:03
Yeah, I actually think it’s going to add and I know a lot of people push back on that and say, AI is going to take jobs. And I said, No, I think AI is going to create an industry full of job opportunities. It won’t be today’s jobs. It’s going to be something new. And I don’t know what the new is yet, right, talking with somebody who had insight into Microsoft, and one of the things Microsoft was doing with their copilot team and removing all project managers with an expectation that you were using copilot and AI to bring an MVP at the beginning part of a Business Case, whereas the project manager would have taken probably months to get you to that MVP. Now, there was an expectation that it happens before the project even starts, so the person who needs to do that is going to have a different skill set. It doesn’t mean that a role disappears. It’s just a new role, right from the horse drawn carriage to the automobile. You took away some blacksmiths when you created some auto mechanics. I think we’re going to recreate the role. I don’t think we’re going to eliminate the workforce.
Rosaria Cain 32:12
Are there any other areas besides AI that you see coming down the pike that’s going to change the trajectory in the next couple of years?
Joe Pusz 32:21
Yeah, I think geopolitical always has an influence on projects and spend. Is manufacturing going to come back to the United States in full force and if so, we’re going to need manufacturing project managers to do that. Is alternative fuel supplies and solar. Here, we’re in Arizona, so solar is such a big component of what we do. I think those elements will obviously make a big impact. And then economic, you know, are we, or are we not in a period of uncertainty or growth as an economy? And how does that then affect the rest of the world and their economy, the more economic growth that we get, I think the more investment in projects, the more investment in projects, the more demand we have for the transformation to be able to build projects faster, smarter, better use technology and what comes after that.
Rosaria Cain 33:15
Where do you think the temperature of businesses right now?
Joe Pusz 33:21
Yeah, I still think uncertainty is out there, but I think people are starting to come on the other side of it a little bit. Last year, at least for us in project management, was a slow year. Uncertainty led companies to not invest in innovation, change and projects, but they can’t do that for a long time. They have to eventually get back to innovating, and when they do, there’s a demand for project management. So last year, whether it was the tariffs or regulations or whatever it may have been leading to uncertainty, I think companies are like regardless of that, because we see the stock market going up. Companies have money. They’re being profitable, but they’re holding that cash to understand, do I spend it on payback of tariffs, or do I invest in change? With interest rates coming down, they can then borrow money to be able to go innovate and create change. So it looks like rates are coming down, unemployment seems to be stabilizing. Project Opportunity and investment seems to be growing. So I think 26 is a rebound year for project management, after an off year in 2025.
Rosaria Cain 34:28
And project management is on the rise.
Joe Pusz 34:30
Absolutely. It’s absolutely on the rise. The project management institute is kind of a governing body in the United States, and they have a projection of a need of 25 million project managers that are going to be needed over the next decade. It’s a great time to get into project management, building that experience as a junior resource and gaining that so that over the next four to five years, as that technology changes and shifts, I think. Is going to well position you to a long, long career in project management.
Rosaria Cain 35:04
So when you’re not doing project management, which is probably never, what do you do for fun? Project management?
Joe Pusz 35:11
No, not so much.
Rosaria Cain 35:12
Manage your vacation schedule.
Joe Pusz 35:14
Yeah, that’s, you know, I like to be organized and planned. It’s by nature. That’s who I am, but for me, it’s, it’s fun, right? I’m a husband, I’m a dad with four kids. Were younger when I started, but now my oldest is graduating college this year.
Rosaria Cain 35:27
Congratulations. You just got a raise,
Joe Pusz 35:29
Yeah, exactly. But I’ve got two more in high school that are go. One’s going in next year, so I have two in college. So everything with my family traveling to get around the US and around the world to see new sites. Music, movies, sports. I mean, there’s not a dull moment. I just enjoy life.
Rosaria Cain 35:49
Well, you have four kids. Are any of them interested in project management?
Joe Pusz 35:53
Not one. None of them. The none of them following in my footsteps. But that’s great, because they’re their own person, and then I think it means my wife and I did our job to help them be independent and go find their way. What works?
Rosaria Cain 36:06
So what will Joe Pusz be doing five years from now?
Joe Pusz 36:10
I’m going to be on a ranch in Montana.
Rosaria Cain 36:12
Ah, that sounds good.
Joe Pusz 36:14
During the summers, not during the Montana winters. But yeah, I think within five years, I’m probably retired, fully retired, and just relaxing, enjoying my wife, enjoying my grandkids, if they happen to be around by that time, and just going out to help people. You know, I found out this past year that my purpose in life was to help people. And everybody will say, help them do what? And I said, it’s not up to me, it’s up to them. It’s whatever they need help with. So if it’s professionally, it’s project management, if it’s personally or spiritually, or whatever it may be, I just want to be an asset to people to live a better life and help them be better at whatever it is that they want to be better at. So I’ll be doing that at some relaxing ranch in Montana with a view of the mountains and in the sunshine and enjoying my life.
Rosaria Cain 37:07
Well, all right, last question, what about you would surprise people?
Joe Pusz 37:16
That I care, and I say that in the sense well, don’t you think people care about what you do? I think people perceive business owners as in it just for the business. That we’re a capitalistic society and we’re trying to make money and we’re trying to advance, and there’s an element of truth to that. But I think what people don’t really understand about small business owners is that you care so much about the people who work for you and for the success of the clients that you work with, that I literally feel, it’s almost like I have neuro mirroring, that I feel what they feel, and when they’re down, I’m down. When they’re up, I’m up, and I care so much about what we do. It’s nice to have the money that flows through the transaction, but I almost am at that point of I do it for free because I just want to help people. And I don’t think people get that about business owners. They just have a misconception about who we are and why we do what we do.
Rosaria Cain 38:16
And on that note, let’s end it, because I completely agree with you, and I appreciate your time, your expertise and your wisdom today.
Joe Pusz 38:23
Thank you, Rosaria, this has been great. I appreciate it.
Rosaria Cain 38:26
I enjoyed it too. Thank you.
Joe Pusz 38:27
Thanks.