Richard Broo
Project Management Turnaround Specialist and Founder of True North PMP Consulting
About Richard Broo
Richard has expertise in product management, project management, new product development & commercialization, and operations. He has served clients in the plastics, flexible/rigid packaging, automotive/heavy truck, consumer goods, electrical/electronic, building & construction raw materials, industrial manufacturing, and medical equipment industries. Based upon his career accomplishments, he became an expert to resolve projects experiencing budget overruns, scheduling delays, scope creep, stakeholder issues, poor team dynamics, and projects failing to deliver intended results. He has guided organizations through high-risk inflection points, including stabilizing a failing medical packaging business, leading it through a controlled bankruptcy to a successful $22.2M sale.
What has shaped Richard’s approach to project management is not theory, but pattern recognition and fact-based solutions that address the root cause of project management issues After seeing the same failure modes occur over several engagements, he learned that most breakdowns in project planning, execution and closure trace back to the issues of: unclear scope, untested assumptions, weak project ownership, and leadership disconnect from project objectives. Tools change. Project frameworks may change, but the underlying causes of project failure stay remarkably consistent.
As founder of True North PMP Consulting, Richard works directly inside a client’s organization rather than delivering recommendations from a distance. His firm embeds itself alongside client leadership and teams to diagnose the root cause of project failure and implement root cause corrective actions that successfully address root cause. His work focuses on restoring project clarity, rebuilding project discipline, establishing metrics/milestones to achieve successful project closure, improving employee skillsets, and helping leaders to act early, before problems become existential. Trained in Agile, Hybrid and Waterfall Project Methodologies, he has taught project management at the corporate and collegiate level, grounding both company leaders and project managers on the realities of effective project management.
As a podcast guest, Richard offers candid, experience-driven conversations about why projects fail, how leadership unintentionally fuels breakdowns, what are the key factors to ensure successful project outcomes and how to recover derailed projects back from the brink of failure before time, money, and customer credibility run out.
Latest episodes
Key topics
The hidden cost of letting “almost ready” projects drag on
Most delayed launches aren’t blocked by technology or talent-they’re stalled by unresolved definitions and decision paralysis that no one feels empowered to fix. Teams keep refining specs instead of shipping value, while leadership assumes progress is being made because activity is visible. Richard unpacks how experienced leaders learn to distinguish healthy iteration from expensive stagnation.
The simplest way leaders can reduce project risk without spending more money
Reducing risk doesn’t require new headcount or tools-it requires earlier clarity and firmer decisions. Richard explains how disciplined upfront thinking eliminates entire categories of downstream rework. The value for listeners is learning what to fix before projects demand rescue.
Why project audits only work when consultants stay long enough to prove their advice
Most leaders have paid for recommendations that sounded smart but changed nothing. Richard explains why advice without implementation creates false confidence and why real improvement requires skin in the game. This conversation challenges the traditional consulting model and reframes what leaders should demand before trusting external expertise.
View all topics →
Latest episodes
Key topics
The hidden cost of letting “almost ready” projects drag on
Most delayed launches aren’t blocked by technology or talent-they’re stalled by unresolved definitions and decision paralysis that no one feels empowered to fix. Teams keep refining specs instead of shipping value, while leadership assumes progress is being made because activity is visible. Richard unpacks how experienced leaders learn to distinguish healthy iteration from expensive stagnation.
The simplest way leaders can reduce project risk without spending more money
Reducing risk doesn’t require new headcount or tools-it requires earlier clarity and firmer decisions. Richard explains how disciplined upfront thinking eliminates entire categories of downstream rework. The value for listeners is learning what to fix before projects demand rescue.
Why project audits only work when consultants stay long enough to prove their advice
Most leaders have paid for recommendations that sounded smart but changed nothing. Richard explains why advice without implementation creates false confidence and why real improvement requires skin in the game. This conversation challenges the traditional consulting model and reframes what leaders should demand before trusting external expertise.
View all topics →