Episode 215: Win a Project Management Course (Free)

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Today, we are going to do something that we have never done in the history of The PM Podcast. This episode serves only one single purpose: We want to help you win a free project management course.

To participate in the giveaway, please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before June 09, 2012.

And by doing this we are also sponsoring Josh Nankivel from PM Student in his quest to raise awareness for a good cause.

So... would you like to win a free course and learn something new about Project Management... Yes? Well then... listen to this episode.

If you want to sponsor Josh as well, please go to http://pmstudent.com/autism

Episode Transcript

Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.

Podcast Introduction

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to Episode #215. This is The Project Management Podcast™ at www.project-management-podcast.com and I am Cornelius Fichtner. Nice to have you with us.

Today, we are going to do something that we have never done in the history of The Project Management Podcast™.

This episode serves only one single purpose. We want to help you win a free project management course. And by doing this, we are also sponsoring Josh Nankivel from PM Student in his quest to raise awareness for a good cause. So would you like to win a free course and learn something new about project management? Yes? Well then, here is Josh Nankivel.

Podcast Interview

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello Josh and welcome back to The Project Management Podcast™!

Josh Nankivel: Great to be back.

Cornelius Fichtner: My listeners, they know you as a project manager and as a project management trainer and coach. But today, we are going to talk not just about project management. But we are going to talk about something that is just as near and dear to your heart than project management is and we are also going to give away 2 of your project management courses.

So let’s start at the beginning, what else other than project management is near and dear to your heart and what are you doing at the moment?

Josh Nankivel: Well, one thing that’s near and dear to my heart is basically advocacy for different organizations and one of those is Autism Speaks. I actually have two children who have autism and so this is something that is very near and dear to my heart.

But I’m basically participating in a fund raising event this year called “Walk for Autism” and so as a way to generate sponsors and donations for that, I decided to go ahead and offer some of the courses that I got available online basically for a donation directly to the charity so…

Cornelius Fichtner: Right and I’ve checked your account right now there on “Walk now for Autism Speaks” and you’re currently at $480 out of the $1,000 that you want to raise and just once we’re done with this interview right here, we are going to donate to you as well. We’re going to push you beyond the $500 dollar limit there so you’re halfway there. And we are then going to get 2 of those courses that you are offering and we are of course going to give those 2 courses way to our listeners. One goes to our free listeners and one goes to our premium listeners.

So let’s take a look at what these courses are that they could select. So the first course is Project Overview course and second course is The Project Management Career Coaching. Then we have the Project Charter, The Project Management Plan, the whole course about the project management plan. And then course #5, the Work Breakdown Structure. Tell us a little bit more about course #5. What will people learn in this, the winners, the 2 winners there?

Josh Nankivel: Sure! Well, the Work Breakdown Structure course, I kind of go through a standard flow through my training.

So first, I start out with concepts, so talk a lot about the concepts behind the good work breakdown structure, how to structure it and then I then I get into various tools that you can use, lots of different tools that you can use to create a work breakdown structure. Then I get into really the nitty-gritty, step-by-step process to go through for creating a work breakdown structure. And then a little bit more into how you can use what you have created and leverage that for change control and cost control and all those types of things. And then I go through an example, I given an example project at different stages during, you know, at the beginning of the project, in the middle of the project and at the end of the project and how the work breakdown structure has changed during the course of the project and also common pitfalls to watch out for.

Cornelius Fichtner: Right. The one thing I didn’t mention is these aren’t just 1‑hour presentations or 30-minute, this is like incredibly long.

The first one, the Project Overview is like 7 hours long. Then the Coaching course, you didn’t list that. The Project Charter is 3 hours. The Project Management Plan, 6 hours. The Work Breakdown Structure, another 6 hours. Then the next 2 courses, we also have Project Requirements course here. That one is 3 hours in duration and course #7 is the Basis of Estimates, another 3 hours. And course 8 is Scheduling, 4 hours. What’s the Scheduling course all about?

Josh Nankivel: With the Scheduling course, I go through quite a few different things. So again, I start out with concepts and I go through Waterfall scheduling concepts and Lean Agile scheduling concepts as well, kind of the prerequisites for having a good schedule what you need to have in place before you can really start doing a schedule, going to specifics like crashing a schedule, you know common mistakes that people run into, to watch out for.

After going through those concepts, ideas, then I get into examples. So I go through and actually do a Waterfall example in Microsoft Project. I get into Kanban. So I talk about, and that’s a Lean methodology basically so do an overview of Kanban, an example of Kanban going to values stream mapping, managing flow with Kanban, predictive scheduling with Kanban, schedule status, change control, those types of things within the Kanban which is kind of a lean project management methodology. And then I also go into Scrum scheduling and how the product backlog works in Scrum and how sprints work within Scrum and Critical Chain scheduling as well.

Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So people will learn quite a lot no matter which one of those 8 courses they will actually select. So the deal is this: We are going to sponsor you on your walk and our listeners can win one of those courses. They can select which one they want. And of course if they are PMP®, they probably should take the WBS course because that’s almost the longest one you have there with 6 hours in duration. That’s an incredible there, 6 PDUs that people can earn.

Okay, so how can they participate? Very simple. Just send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. that’s our usual email address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and in the subject line, please put the word “Autism” so that I know what I receive an email for from you. And then in the email body, just put your name and the town and country that you are writing from. That’s really all there is to it.

Those of you who are subscribed to our premium podcast, you are automatically entered into this drawing. You don’t have to do anything at all. But for those people who say: “You know what? I would like to support Josh in addition to participating here in this contest. I’m going to donate $20 as well for Josh’s walk.” What can they do? Where should they go if they want to also donate $20 and they will automatically get one of those courses, right?

Josh Nankivel: Yes. So if you go to www.pmstudent.com/autism, it will bring you to, it’s a redirect to the Walk for Autism page and so from there, you can see you’ll land right on my Donations page and you can sponsor me. And when you do that, I get a notification but you can also just send me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and let me know which of the courses you’d like.

Cornelius Fichtner: Right! It’s very important that you actually put your first name and last name in and don’t make anonymous donation right?

Above are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete PDF transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.