Episode 001: Introduction

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Allright! After three weeks of planning, learning and fighting with inadequate technology I have finally finished the first show. This is the introductory show of The Project Management Podcast in which I tell you, why you should care, subscribe and listen to the future shows. I am introducing myself, my background in project management, how I got the idea of creating The Project Management Podcast and what kind of shows you can expect in the future.

In the show, I mention that I found some freely available audio content discussing project management. You can find the links to these in my post from August 18, 2005. The music used on the show is by rimela.

The next show(s) will be recorded at the 2005 PMI® Leadership Meeting in Toronto, which lasts from September 8.-10. 2005. I will not be able to record anything during the actual presentations. Instead, I will make this a good and educational review for those PMI chapter boardmembers out there who are unable to attend.

Episode Transcript

Below are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks.

Cornelius Fichtner (00:11):

You are listening to the project management podcast. We bring project management topics to beginners and experts. Find us on the web at PM. podcast.blogspot.com or send your emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Cornelius Fichtner (00:29):

Hello, and welcome to the first show. This show was recorded on Saturday, the 3rd of September, 2005. And today I'm going to tell you why you should care. It's the introductory show of the project management podcast. And I want to tell you about what's coming. I have recently learned from a journalist that when in journalism, one of the questions you have to ask yourself is who cares, who cares, what you write about, or in my case, who cares? What you talk about. That's why I want to take a few minutes today and explain to you why you should care. And listen to the show. I will talk about the who, the why, the what the, why not. And also the win let's start with the hoop. My name is Cornelius Fichtner, as you can probably tell by my accent, I am not a native English speaker. I'm originally from Switzerland and I learned my English in Oxford England.

Cornelius Fichtner (01:24):

And when I returned home, I had an impeccable British English accent. I married an American citizen, and now I live in Southern California. And you might say that my accent at this point is a bit confused. I've been working in project management for the last 15 years. I started out as a software developer in COBOL, and then I moved over into organizational planning as it was called. It's just project management by another name. I've worked for a consulting firm. I've worked in a supermarket and then I moved over into an internet startup software company, building websites. Now I'm in the financial industry. My projects were in Switzerland, Germany and the United States. And they have all been small to medium sized projects, roughly three to 15 members. And they were anywhere from three months to one and a half years in time. I'm a member of the PMI, the project management Institute.

Cornelius Fichtner (02:18):

And I'm also a board member of the local chapter that PMI IOC project management Institute of orange County. Why am I doing this? Well, I got an iPod for my birthday and I discovered audio books and realized, Hey, I'm a lot better at listening than I am at reading. It's so much more entertaining. You can do it while driving to work. You can do it while folding your laundry. So I began looking around for audio content on project management. I found some with rather good quality, but nothing in the sense of a podcast that is regular and always updated. And by the way, you can find links for these files at pmpodcastdotblogspot.com. So the idea of creating the project management podcast popped up into my head and I discarded it. It came back two weeks later and I discarded it again. And when it showed up for the third time, I finally said, okay, I have something here.

Cornelius Fichtner (03:17):

I've got to do this. And here I am recording the first show of the project management podcast. Next on the list. What, what are you going to hear? Let me start out by saying what you will not hear. This is not a PMP preparation podcast. So if you are planning to take the PMP exam soon, don't listen to this podcast. I will be going out into the field. I'll be bringing interviews with people with practitioners, and that's not what the BMP test is about. The PMP test is going to test you on the theory, the methodology of project management and not how people are doing it in the field. You may also have noticed that this sound quality is not radio sound quality. At this point, I'm using the equipment that I have and the quality that I have is what you get. It will improve over time.

Cornelius Fichtner (04:13):

I'm sure when I buy new equipment and I'm also at this point, not able to do any phone interviews. Here's what you will hear. My goal is to bring project management topics to beginners and experts alike. So we'll hear a mix of quite a few things. I have a colleague who does a lot of work with project managers in Russia. And I have a colleague who does a lot of training in China. So it's going to be interesting to hear what those two will have to say about the differences of project management in these places. I'll also be talking to the president of the PMI, IOC, the project management Institute of orange County chapter. And we will hear from her what challenges she has in leading a chapter with roughly 1400 members. Two days ago, I had lunch with a gentleman who recently became certified in Sarbanes Oxley, and he's also a PMP and he will be talking to us about what the socks, the Sarbanes Oxley law in his view is going to do to project management and how it will change it.

Cornelius Fichtner (05:15):

And as you know, the pin box has recently been updated. So I'm going to talk to a colleague of mine who does a PMP preparation workshop, and we'll be hearing from him how he is going to change the PMP prep workshop because of the many changes that have gone into the pin book. Some other shows that are on my list are risk in winemaking. That's going to be an interesting one. I'll be talking to you about volunteering in the PMI. What can you do? And what will it do for you? I have organized a local seminar for about a year, which we call the advanced topics seminar, which helps many PMPs in the region here to get their PDs. And I'll be talking to you about best practices that I learned in organizing such a monthly recurring seminar. I'm hoping to take quite a few speeches because around this area here, we have quite a few speeches from project managers on a regular basis.

Cornelius Fichtner (06:17):

And I'm hoping to get their release that I can record it and bring it to you here on the project management podcast. My number one love in project management, however, has always been methodologies. So I'm going to probably look at a, quite a few methodologies compared them, bring them to you, give you the ins and outs. I'll also be bringing you the ins and outs on various project management websites, which ones are good, which ones are bad, and which ones are just plain ugly regarding the, when at this point, I don't really have a set schedule, expect irregularly scheduled shows at first. And once the ball gets rolling, I hope to produce shows on a much firmer schedule. Now that was the who, why, what, what not? And the, when of the project management podcast, I hope I have whetted your appetite and that you will come back. Thanks for listening. The next show. It will be coming from the 2005 PMI leadership meeting in Toronto. I'm going there next week. I'll be staying up there for about five days and the seminar is three days long. I hope to produce several shows from up there telling you my experience as a first timer at a leadership seminar. Again, you can find this on the web at pmpodcast.blogspot.com or send your emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Finally, we have this. Remember that there are no good project managers, only lucky ones with that. Enjoy your projects and until next time. Bye bye.

Above are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks. A human-generated transcript is available to Premium subscribers starting with episode 136.