We are reposting Episode 205 with Todd C. Williams today.
This is because we have just learned that Todd's book Rescue the Problem Project jumped to become the #1 Best Seller in Amazon’s Business Project Management books. Also... it's currently available for just $3.99 on kindle.
That's a great deal for a book that has a 4.5 star rating! Get it today before the price goes up.
In this interview we welcome Agata Czopek (LinkedIn Profile) and discuss that diversity is a fact and inclusion is a choice.
Companies with diverse executive teams are 21% more likely to outperform the companies rated in the bottom quartile of diversity. Have you ever experienced a situation that made you feel uncomfortable? Let’s discover the attributes of an inclusive leader and the steps needed to improve team performance by addressing unconscious bias.
This interview was recorded ad the crowded Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. We learn to describe attributes of an inclusive leader, identify techniques to improve performance by addressing the unconscious bias, and see that privilege is invisible for those who have it.
In this interview we welcome Sripriya Narayanasamy (LinkedIn Profile) and Karthik Ramamurthy (LinkedIn Profile) who are the authors of the book Say Yes to Project Success. in 52 short and entertaining chapters the book gives actionable advice to project managers on the most common issues we are faced with on pretty much every project.
This interview was recorded ad the hectic and fantastic Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
Here is the book's abstract
Are you under pressure to deliver? Is your life made tough by shortened schedules, tight budgets, skills gap, incomplete scope, and demanding stakeholders? Do you need help in the form of proven practical tips and techniques to help you confidently deliver project success? This book will certainly help you. What’s inside?
We have chosen 4 chapters from the book ("Great Catches", "Last Mile Connectivity", "Fun with Risks", and "Feed me a Sandwich") in order to review them together.
Got Meetings?
This interview focuses on effective meeting management. It covers one of the project management basics that is most difficult to handle - managing stakeholders using different combinations of direct, dotted line, and influential management.
This interview with Kevin Wozniak was recorded at the creative Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California, as part of our leadership podcasts series.
In the interview we demonstrate how to effectively lead meetings and manage participants using various management styles and explain how to actively engage meeting attendees to participate in meetings in a valuable manner.
What if you had to do your project in (near) half the time as previous projects, or be fired? What if your customer required you to do their project in (near) half the time to which you are accustomed or lose the business?
Hear about the techniques (that can be applied to almost any type of project) that helped to meet these challenges and got the products successfully to market in record time.
This interview with Douglas Knutzen was recorded at the inspirational Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
You'll hear about how to leverage scheduling, execution, project planning meetings and team techniques to significantly increase speed on your projects, and (almost more importantly) how to lead project teams in high-pressure situations.
Successful projects result in change. However, this transformation usually happens when the original project team is already disbanding, leaving the process largely unmanaged and stakeholders ill-equipped to use the deliverables as they were intended, diminishing the expected project impact and benefits.
In this interview, we explore five strategies that project managers can easily incorporate into their project plans to put in place preventative and mitigation strategies that will lead to improved adoption of project results.
This interview with Eleonore Pieper (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the diverse Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
We look at a scalable model of five strategies for change and discuss how to modify plans with specific tasks in the areas of communication, training, organizational design, sponsorship and HR management to ensure successful post-project transformation.
The ink isn't even dry on your charter, but what if the seeds of project destruction have already been sown? The odds are not in our favor.
The Project Management Institute (PMI)® reports that nearly 15% of projects are deemed failures. After years of helping companies "unstick" troubled projects, our guest knows that the first 21 days are critical to success. Learn how you can leverage them to beat the odds!
This interview with Sara Gallagher (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the connecting Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
We look at the most common mistakes that project managers make in the first 21 days, how to correct them, and learn about critical but often overlooked objectives that must be achieved early related to project framing and team infrastructure.
Slow PMO?
In today’s “right now” business environment, “hurry up and wait” annual planning cycles won’t do! To be fit for purpose, PMO processes deliver value faster than the competition—continuously, and certainly not just annually. Lean agility delivers this winning velocity! Here's a diet to help lean out an overweight PMO.
Transforming the heritage PMO takes insight, empiricism, and experience. If your organization uses agile project management as well as traditional (or 'heritage') ways of getting work done, then you are bound to get some good insights from this episode.
This interview with Andy Burns (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the encouraging Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
The experience shared in this interview should inform those needing to deliver fast—before the competition! We compare and contrast the practices of the heritage PMO and the lean-agile PMO and illustrate a technique to tailor the PMO process for organizations wanting to adopt agile project portfolio management.
By 2029, 76 million baby boomers will retire. And organizations, including yours, are losing knowledgeable employees due to retirement and a competitive labor market.
With 50% employee turnover in 2016, this brain drain of historical proportions increases our vulnerability to loss of institutional knowledge and critical skill sets required to conduct our business. In this interview, we explore the trends, urgency, value, techniques, and how-to of knowledge management — the new competitive and comparative advantage for high performing organizations.
This interview with Benjamin Anyacho (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the superb Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
In the interview we also discuss strategies for creating a knowledge management culture in your business environment and how to develop knowledgeable project teams.
It's hard to juggle everything on your project. And just a glance at your company's project management methodology can make you despair about getting it all done.
But if we take a page from agile development, adding tools from behavioral psychology to Pomodoro, and incorporating pragmatic prioritization, you’ll be able to build a personalized time management system that fits your own working style. Come out of this interview with a manageable system for yourself and the tools to help your team members manage their own time and priorities.
This interview with Kim Wasson (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the exciting Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
In the interview we review the key components of a good time/priority management system, the smorgasbord of tools available, and we discuss how to create a tailored time management system and advise team members on ways to manage their time and priorities.
Oh... also... below is an image of the time management system that got Cornelius so excited during the recording:
So whether you are trying to find more time to do risk management in agile projects, or you want to reclaim some time for professional development, exam prep, stakeholder engagement or something else, let's dive into this episode so you can pick up some new time management techniques.
Do you want to take your career as a project manager to the next level?
Yes?
We have a suggestion for you: project management education.
This interview with Marie Spark (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the energizing Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Well... Actually... it was recorded a couple days before at the PMI® LIM).
In the interview, we see how adult education has changed in the past decade, what changes we can expect in the future, and how we project managers can (and should!) take advantage of various training opportunities in order to advance our careers.
For Project Management Professional (PMP)® Students: PMP Exam Prep :
Last year at the Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Congress 2017 in Chicago, Illinois I recorded about a dozen interviews. They have all been published over the past year and you've probably heard some or all of them. But what you don't know is what happened once each interview was complete.
I pressed the recording button one more time and asked each of my guests the following question: What business management skills are essential for today’s project manager if they want to become more and more involved in strategic projects for their organizations?
And today you are going to get all the answers. In one nice mashup. Here are all the presenters in the order you will hear their answers
Oh, and spoiler alert... the answer that I received most often was "Flexibility".
For Project Management Professional (PMP)® Students: PMP Exam Prep :
This interview with Niraj Kumar (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the lively Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
We share insights gained from leading teams in the aftermath of the 2016 flood, called the worst Louisiana disaster since Katrina. Learn how our guest led teams through devastation around them and reacted to a life-altering situation, yet stayed true to the mission to serve the community.
You will hear how the team leaders collaborated to ensure that the critical tasks get done, operations keep humming, and the affected customers continue to receive service.
For Project Management Professional (PMP)® Students: PMP Exam Prep :
For the last several years, there has been a focus on helping senior people in the workplace connect with and manage the newest generation in the workforce. Millennials.
However, this new generation is now moving from entry-level to management positions. Additionally, this is frequently happening within a workplace’s evolving environment and culture. And so both generations need to adapt to each other’s styles, work ethics, and perspectives.
This interview with Justin Fraser (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the impressive Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
In the interview, we dive into the emerging relationship dynamic in which Millennial project managers lead senior team members.
We identify differences in style, work ethic, and perspective between team members of different generations, seniority, and experience, and discuss various project management approaches to lead team members to a successful project.
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Ever feel like your projects would run much more smoothly if everyone just did their job without nagging?
Help is on the way.
Emotional intelligence is the way to really connect with everyone on your team. Take project management to the next level using emotional intelligence principles to guide your interactions and activities. Today we discuss practical applications of emotional intelligence for everything from communications to meetings to celebrations to managing remote teams.
This interview with Kim Wasson (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the uplifting Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
In the interview, we discuss how to apply emotional intelligence concepts to day-to-day project management tasks and activities (i.e., communications, team building, assignments, goals, and priorities) and learn to recognize both emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence signals and use them to tailor communications and daily operations.
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As leaders of teams and projects, we regularly face choices and decisions that have downstream consequences.
Learn why the familiar pros-and-cons approach seems to make sense—but is profoundly flawed, and how our biases influence the options we consider and the choices we make. No technique can guarantee great decisions every time, but you will leave this session with practical ideas and tools to make better choices for you, your team, and your projects.
This interview with Andy Kaufmann (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the invigorating Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
In the interview, we identify the steps in making better decisions based on a well-researched model that can be applied personally and professionally. We also explain how biases influence decisions and how to address those biases to make better decisions.
We’ll talk about how to execute your projects and grow your project management skills all while setting your business and IT customers up for success. We'll see how organizations without a PMO can be effective by tracking basic metrics, and how key templates in your project management toolbox will help your project managers be effective.
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When an organization has a structured PMO, using your project management skills can be easy.
But, what if your organization doesn’t have a PMO or doesn’t even like the rigor of project management? What should an experienced project manager do?
This interview with Jen Pfaff (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the dazzling Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. (Trust me... it was 2017 even though I say "2018" in the opening...)
We’ll talk about how to execute your projects and grow your project management skills all while setting your business and IT customers up for success. We'll see how organizations without a PMO can be effective by tracking basic metrics, and how key templates in your project management toolbox will help your project managers be effective.
Studying for your PMI Agile Cerfified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®? PMI-ACP Exam Prep on your phone:
Agile has gained popularity in part due to its ability to effectively respond to issues as they arise, improve stakeholder satisfaction, and increase focus on value-driven delivery. A major challenge for many project managers is knowing how to effectively plan, identify, and manage risks when using an agile project management approach.
It's especially important to identify risk management critical success factors -- the things that make the most difference to effective risk management. This discussion addresses how to integrate proven risk management techniques with agile approaches to increase the probability of project and organizational success.
This interview with Laszlo Retfalvi (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the exciting Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
The Practice Standard for Project Risk Management from PMI was written a few years earlier and is a useful additional reference to the topic if you haven't already had a look at it.We look at how to develop proper project risk management statements required to support agile approaches. Risk management in project management should be considered as part of any agile approach, and this discussion also talks about how to apply proven risk management techniques.
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The Project Mangement Institute (PMI)® launched their new podcast "Projectified with PMI®" at their thought-provoking Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
And during the conference I had the opportunity to sit down with Stephen W. Maye (LinkedIn Profile) who is the Projectified host.
We begin by looking at PMI's new podcast itself, but then quickly move on to a number of "futuristic" topics. Stephen has had the opportunity to interview some of the brightest project management thinkers from around the world. Anand Swaminathan, Dr. Michael Chui, and Jacqueline Van Pelt to name just a few. Stephen summarizes their thoughts and ideas for us.
We also discuss what Stephen sees as the number one trend in project management, what this trend means for us project managers, and how digitalization, artificial intelligence and the internet of things will influence the way we manage projects going forward.
You can find Projectified with PMI by visiting https://www.pmi.org/podcast.
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NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has worked with PMOs around the United States to define a "best practice" for creating and delivering an annual plan.
This interview with Darryl Hahn (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the stimulating Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
Our interview presents both strategic and tactical approaches for uncovering your organizations' goals and objectives and for creating the prioritized list of achievable projects. We also examine ways of categorizing and classifying types of work, identifying and weighting priorities and adjusting the completed plan for when it collides with real life.
The Project Management Institute (PMI)® has made a number of changes to the Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) program in the past 18 months. (Good news: there is still plenty of provision for you to undertake free PMP PDU learning opportunities.) These requirements define the policies and guidelines that certified project managers must follow in order to earn PDUs and renew their certification.
In this interview we speak with John Kleine (LinkedIn Profile) who is the Global Manager, Product Strategy & Delivery, at Project Management Institute. One of John's responsibilities is overseeing the CCR program and any changes made to it.
We begin by discussing the recertification requirements for a Project Management Professional (PMP)® certificate holder and walk you through many of the updated rules. Of course, the interview is also full with good ideas and suggestions on how to earn PDUs. For example, what would you expect are the most frequently used, and the most under-used PDUs earning activities?
As you may already know, in order to succeed at recertification, PMP credential holders need to spend time earning 60 PDUs for PMP renewal. Different certificates have different requirements, but as I know many of you do hold the PMP certificate, our interview highlights that.
Get PMI Agile Cerfified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)® Training on your phone:
In agile, technically anyone can write user stories. Sounds easy, right?
However, many people really do not have a good understanding of how to write high-quality stories or effectively manage the product backlog. In this interview you will learn about the full life cycle of agile requirements, including how to use visual models at each step of the iterative process.
This interview with Betsy Stockdale (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the inspiring Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
We explain the life cycle of agile requirements and how to use visual models to identify epics and user stories, and how to write testable acceptance criteria using a variety of techniques. Those currently working on their PMI-ACP training will find this interview valuable for their general understanding of Agile approaches.
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Work is changing from industrial, routine work to knowledge-oriented work that requires more of an ongoing collaborative endeavor to manage change, complexity, and uncertainty. Learn how project management has evolved to reflect these changes with the publication of the new “Agile Practice Guide,” developed in collaboration with the Agile Alliance.
This interview with Mike Griffiths (LinkedIn Profile) and Jesse Fewell (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the splendid Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
We not only discuss the implications that The Agile Practice guide has on the PMI-ACP exam and your PMI-ACP exam prep, we also examine the core chapters of the new guide and discuss application and adaptation implications. We explore many elements of the guide and learn more about its content and use in a variety of domains.
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You've been there, right? You've managed a project where nobody on the team reported to you. But what can a project manager do to succeed other than beg borrow or steal in this situation?
This interview with Jeff Kissinger (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the superb Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. It is based on his presentation "Leading Without Authority: The Project Manager's Dilemma" and looks at what project managers can do to successfully deliver their projects even in situations where they have little or no authority at all over the people on their project. Here is what Jeff wrote about his presentation:
Leading project teams without direct authority is a dilemma that many project leaders face. Doing this well is an art. And, like art, it’s often practiced using a mixture of skills, techniques, and tools. Attendees will learn how to identify and resolve authority issues quickly that adversely affect their projects and learn how to lead their project teams successfully without direct authority.
You can find the Unified Vision Framework discussed in the interview by visiting PMO Brothers [Update: The web page is no longer available so we removed the link].
The exam for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification is driven by current practices in the profession. Because project management is evolving, so is the PMP exam. As a result of the release of the A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition in September 2017, the PMP exam will change on 26 March 2018. This is to ensure that exam content is consistent with the guide.
This interview with Simona Fallavollita (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the magnificient Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. We discuss the how, what, why and when of the changes that are coming to the PMP exam.
Although the PMP is not a test of the PMBOK® Guide, it is one of the primary references for the exam. This means that students preparing to take the exam after the change can expect to see lexicon changes and terminology used within the exam as well as harmonization of process groups, tools, and techniques. Students planning to take the exam after the change are advised to use PMP Training materials that are updated to the new guide.
