Most often business applications do not have to achieve the same level of quality, accuracy, and consensus or be as fault free as many aerospace, defense or medical-related systems. That isn’t to imply they don’t strive for excellence and accuracy, only that it can be tolerated better. As a result, there are different priorities placed on quality and the use of disciplined approaches that demand a lot of up front time. In today's episode of The Project Management Podcast™ we welcome Inez Marino to discuss with her approaches that employ such an up-front time commitment that many businesses do not believe they can afford to spend. We also look at the importance of high quality requirements on your projects. Our two Helpful Resources complement this discussion.
Our host Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, has fallen ill with Temporomandibular Joint Syndrome (TMJ). This is a condition of facial pain in the joints of the lower jaw. The abbreviation "TMJ" literally refers to the joint itself, although it is often used to refer to the disorder (TMD). This means that he has a difficult time speaking because the jaw hurts when moved. For the host of a podcast, having a hard time speaking is a great misfortune. But what would it mean to you as a project manager, if you were diagnosed with TMJ? Could you still do your job without being able to easily communicate? Listen in to what experience Cornelius has had with this.
The dynamics of teams can be challenging. So what does it take to get a team to truly work together as a well-oiled machine? This is the question that we explore with Diane Altwies, PMP, of www.coreperformanceconcepts.com. She brings together the theory of team dynamics and offers some real-world advice in dealing with dysfunctional teams. We look at what the effects of a dysfunctional team are and discuss some ways in which you can change that. Starting this week, our helpful resources not only complement our main topic, we also begin taking a look at the podcasts that our host Cornelius Fichtner listens to in his spare time. Oh.... and did we mention that The Project Management Podcast™ now has over 500,000 downloads?
Today we are not going to look at project management. Instead, we will be looking at bleepers and bloopers because this is the "Out Takes Show". Have you ever wondered how much goes wrong, when we record an episode? The answer is: Too much. To close out the year, here are a few minutes of memorable and not so memorable moments from The Project Management Podcast™ when things went not according to plan. Listen to all the ahhs and umhs that we had to cut out of the regular program and which you were never really meant to hear.
Are you struggling to get your projects done on schedule? Are you looking for a better, more profitable way to get things done? Then maybe you should take a look at Critical Chain Project Management. CCPM was developed based on Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints and it is the main topic of today's episode of The Project Management Podcast™. We welcome Allan Elder, PMP, of www.nolimitsleadership.com to discuss Critical Chain Project Management. We look at why our projects are late and how the Critical Chain approach will benefit you. Allan can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We also announce the winners of our book giveaway who each have won one copy of Quentin Flemings "Project Procurement Management". PMP® credential holders can claim 1 category 2-SDL PDU for listening to today's episode.
Do you have a Project Management Certification? If not, are you considering to take one? Maybe you would like to become a PMP® credential holder, or you are looking at the IPMA range of certifications, or maybe you are even looking into a masters degree in project management. In either case, in today’s discussion with Stacy Goff, president of www.projectexperts.com and vice president of the ASAPM , the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management we will be looking at the difference between a competence based certification and a knowledge based certification, with particular focus on the IPMA certifications offered worldwide. We also have several helpful resources and we are giving away two copies of Quentin Fleming's book "Project Procurement Management".
Ask 10 project managers what they focus on most in their projects to be successful and you will get 10 different answers. Case in point are the 10 final questions that we ask at the end of every interview here on the program. Many of us may focus on communication, schedule, relationships or requirements. Jerry Manas, PMP, President and founder of The Marengo Group, LLC (http://www.manasbooks.com)and one of the minds behind http://www.pmthink.com would like to redirect our focus on the real client value. What does this mean and how does he propose to do that? The answer is Service Oriented Project Management, a PM framework that he developed and which he will be presenting in today's interview on The Project Management Podcast™. Two of our three helpful resources complement this interview by looking at similar PM approaches and the third one is of interest to everyone who would like to delve into PRINCE2. Click on the links below to see the helpful resources.
In episode 49, The Project Management Podcast™ welcomed Richard Larson, PMP, and Elizabeth Larson, PMP, of Watermark Learning (http://www.watermarklearning.com ) on the topic of Project Without Borders and the issues a PM is faced when gathering requirements on a multicultural project. Today, we welcome Richard and Elizabeth back to discuss some of their best practices of engaging stakeholders in the process of gathering requirements. We will also reveal the winners of our book giveaway.
Most importantly, however, we are announcing the launch of The Project Management PrepCast™, which is a new podcast aimed at helping you, if you are currently studying for the PMP® Exam. Listen in at www.pm-prepcast.com and prepare for the PMP exam with your iPod!
Tim Covington, PMP, was the Project Manager of the Boeing C17 Single Line Project, the largest lean manufacturing project ever attempted on the C17 Program. In today's interview of The Project Management Podcast™ we explore this large project. We discuss the goals and challenges involved, the success factors that enabled Tim and his core team to successfully deliver the project, the awards the project has won and Tim's tips to project managers who are embarking on similarly large projects. And just to break from our usual routine, we asked Tim not 10, but 11 final questions. We also continue our book giveaway of Quentin Fleming's book "Project Procurement Management" and we answer a listener question from our voice mail line.
Show notes: Listener Harry Fisher submitted an overview of his Groupware Solutions project to The Project Management Podcast and we are happy to feature him today. Listener Michael Witt submitted today's helpful resource and the new year brings several excellent items in the News segment to project managers. The show ends with a review of an episode of Boagworld, where Paul Boag discusses Project Management with Marcus Lillington.
Below are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks.
Speaker 1 (00:09): [inaudible]
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 pmpodcast.blogspot.com or send your emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Hello, and welcome to show number 16. I am Cornelius Fichnter. Now this is the project management podcast for the 7th of January, 2006. Happy new year to all of you. I am very glad to tell you that today's main show segment comes from Harry Fisher, who is a listener like you, and decided to send me his input. A couple of announcements here to get us started. First of all, uh, we are still on a two week schedule, so there is no show next week. And then there is one the week after that. Also, I promise to you in the last show that today we would have an interview for you on how to manage your job search as a project. Well, I had to change some scheduling around and you will get to hear that particular interview into weeks down the road. And now a word from our sponsor project load is the web based project management tool for your team. As project manager, you create the tasks and assign activities as your team progresses. Their time sheets automatically feed into project reports with task forecasting documents, storage, integrated notes, and over 25 alerts project load is the one tool for project monitoring. Visit us at projectload.com
Music (01:59): [inaudible]
Cornelius Fichtner (01:59):
Today I have one helpful resource from you and this one was sent to me from Mikael Vitz. He is a project manager for sun Frankfurt, and he writes, I Cornelius my project management colleagues, and I are certified as Prince 2 practitioners. We adapted Prince 2 here at sun Microsystems in Germany. In your last podcast, you discussed status reports. I Googled and found a Prince two templates set, including status reports. We adapted these templates within our company, best wishes to California. Well, everybody go and get these templates. They are an excellent starting point for anyone who needs new templates or who is in the process of updating their templates. But even if you're not go take a look, because I'm sure when you look through these templates, you'll find something useful in them and you'll go, Oh, this is, I should include that in my templates as well. Yeah. And that's the only helpful resource I have for you because there is tons of news this week and new year, lots of news. It seems so on. We go with the news.
Cornelius Fichtner (03:21):
So what do you think is going to be big in project management in 2006? Well, that's what the article here in the computer world addresses it is entitled. What's next in 2006 project management, the five biggest project challenges for 2006. This is from the 2nd of January, 2006. And they have five items that they're talking about here. The global teams, of course, we know that that's been going on for quite a while. Then they're talking about moving parts projects that are constantly influx and constantly changing. And of course, rather challenging. Then they'll talk about software development. Then the next one entering number four here is vendor partners. So working on a project management basis with vendor partners, it's going to be big. And finally, their fifth prediction is that project portfolios are going to be big in project management in 2006. Definitely an interesting read this article here.
Cornelius Fichtner (04:33):
What else do you think is hot in 2006? Well, the PMP certificate is hot in 2006 to be precise, precise, it ranks or number four on cert city's 10 hottest certifications for 2006. And this is our annual attempt to predict the certifications that will shine brightest next year. And cert cities is an online magazine for the certified it professional. They write PMI's PMP title also made a strong showing this year, rising from its debut. Stop at number 10 last year. Thanks to in part thanks in part to even a stronger buzz for this industry neutral title within the it community. So if you haven't got your PMP yet, well, think about it.
Cornelius Fichtner (05:33):
Are you a work break down structure guru? If so, then the PMI is looking for your help. This article here is from Thursday, December 29th, and it's titled PMI seeks input to practice standard for work breakdown structure until the January deadline 2006, the PMI makes the latest work breakdown, structure, practice standard available to everybody in the world on their website. Well, you have to sign up and sign 25 disclaimers, et cetera, but you have the opportunity to give your input into the WBS practice standards. So if you're a WBS guru, go and give the PMI a hand And we're ending today's news with two that come from the far side of the news, really the first one is entitled. Ex-combatants train on project management and it comes to us, came to us on December 30th, 2005 from the new times in Kigali, they write child X combatants association in collaboration with the international labor organization is training ex-com battens on project management and design the ongoing 10 day training attracted 20 members from different associations funded by ILO to improve capacity building among youths who were affected by war. Interesting.
Cornelius Fichtner (07:24):
And finally, we stay on the far side of the news. FBI is looking to hire I T workers interviews for a number of it jobs begin next month, that was on the 29th of December. And they're writing here in the computer world. The FBI is looking for a few good it professionals to operate and maintain a robust, secure global it infrastructure environment for the agency in announcement last week, the agency said that it's seeking to fill critical it positions, including computer scientists, computer engineers, it specialists. And of course it, project managers annual pay for the positions range from 35,000 to 135,000 us dollars, not bad based on experience and qualifications with recruitment bonuses, for the candidates who possess the most critical skills. The FBI said, okay, why not become an agent project manager? And that's the helpful resource and news for this week as always, if you want to read up on any of the resources or news in detail, just go to a PM podcast.blogspot.com, where you will find links to each individual item that I have just mentioned. And now the project management podcasts, project
Cornelius Fichtner (08:56):
Management tip of the week,
Music (09:20): [inaudible]
Cornelius Fichtner (09:20):
The project management podcasts tip of the week is divide your projects into phases. Now let's begin at the beginning. What's a phase. What's the definition? Well, the PMBOK defines a phase as a collection of logically related project activities. Usually culminating in the completion of a major deliverable project phases are mainly completed sequentially, but can overlap in some project situations. Phases can be subdivided into sub phase it phases and then into components and so on. It goes on and on and on, but doesn't really tell you what the benefits are of dividing your project into phases. Well, it's quite simple. It makes it easier to manage your project, both planning and estimating because instead of having one large lump of work, if you divide your project into phases, you end up with smaller, more manageable pieces of work. And personally, I like to subdivide these phases into steps.
Cornelius Fichtner (10:34):
So let's say if we're talking about the implementation of some, some software piece, I'm saying, okay, step one in March, we'll be delivering the following features. Step two in April, you'll get these features and may you get those features? So that's, it makes it also much more understandable to the customer. If you have phases and steps, the, they understand that better. If you look at the PMI phases, their official phages are initiation, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. If you look at prints too, it's a bit different. They're talking about starting up and initiating a process planning and directing a project, managing stage boundaries and controlling a stage managing product delivery and closing a project. Those are the Prince two, uh, phases. And if you're looking at general phases, we're talking about planning, analysis, design, testing, and implementation phases. Also allow you to plan your project on a more, um, let's call it as you go basis.
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.
Today's show contains the following show segments: Helpful Resources, News, The Tip of the Week, two Good Bad & Ugly Reviews, and in the main section of the show we are talking about Project Status Reports.
Two new Podcasts on Project Management are now available:
- The Project from Hell Saga by www.4pm.com - Estimating Technology Projects by www.ireqwire.com [Update: the template website is no longer available, so we removed the link]
Project Management in the News - Managing Megaprojects - Microsoft to Acquire UMT, a Leading Provider of Portfolio Management Software and Solutions [Update: the template website is no longer available, so we removed the link]
- Voice Over Project Management Software Developer Interactive Voices Announces Trial VoiceSuite Account For Clients
Episode Transcript
Below are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks.
Speaker 1 (00:09): [inaudible]
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 pmpodcast.blogspot.com or send your emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Hello, and welcome to show number 15. I am Cornelius Fichtner. Now this is the project management podcast for the 24th of December, 2005. Merry Christmas to all of you today. We'll be looking at status reports, what to write in them and what to not write in them. And we also have two reviews in the good, bad and ugly series for you on the show today. And you can consider the second one as kind of a Christmas present, because I will be reviewing two new podcasts for you. That focus solely on project management. Actually it's two and a half new podcasts for you that comes out at the end of the show, but no fast forwarding here to start out the show. Here are a few announcements and items that I want to get off my chest. And we start with a message from our sponsor project load is the web based project management tool for your team as project manager, you create the tasks and assign activities as your team progresses. Their time sheets automatically feed into project reports with task forecasting documents, storage, integrated notes, and over 25 alerts project load is the one tool for project monitoring. Visit us at projectload.com.
Cornelius Fichtner (01:54):
Eric Johnson wrote in and he writes, I graduated from Tennessee technological university with a business M I S degree in December, 2003, I started working like most new it graduates with hardware and PC support and since moved to developing applications with.net tools. My goal is to use this experience in project management in the near future project management just makes sense to me, the more I learn about it and project management, the more I see the similarities between industries and processes, I've enjoyed your reviews and explanations on PM, techniques, events, and your podcasts. In general, I feel that your site references and podcasts are a great tool for me. As I developed my plan to pursue project management as a profession, the reason why I'm actually reading this to you is because of the question which follows. And he writes Cornelius, can someone XL in project management without a PMP certification?
Cornelius Fichtner (03:03):
Or do you think it is a necessary justification to be accepted within the profession? The only reason I ask is it seems that getting a PMP certification is very trendy for lack of a better word. I do not want to jump on the bandwagon just to get a PMP because it's the thing to do. I want to be a successful project manager. If those go hand in hand, then I have no problems putting the effort forth to get one. How do you feel about this? Well, in my view, the PMP certification more or less tells me that you were able to sit down for a four hour exam and answer a certain number of questions correctly, that you have passed sort of a minimal standard in project management to even get to this level, to even be able to take the test. You had to have certain number of hours in project management, certain number of years, you had to have certain training.
Cornelius Fichtner (04:10):
So that to me just tells me where you are at in your knowhow as a PMP, as a project manager in general. It does not tell me that you are a good project manager. I mean, have you ever had a doctor, a medical doctor with whom you weren't happy? Well, it's exactly the same thing with project managers. Being a PMP only tells you that you have some sort of a certification. It doesn't tell you you're a good project manager. Yes, you can definitely be a good project manager without having the PMP certification, but having gone through the training, having taken the test gives you a common vocabulary with me. It gave us both of us, the same common understanding of the tools and techniques and processes. And if I had to choose between two people, one is a PMP and the other one is not a PMP.
Cornelius Fichtner (05:11):
I would probably focus more or lean more towards the PMP simply because I know how this person is supposed to think because of the training that went into him, uh, into, into the PMP certificate doesn't mean that he's the better project manager. I don't really know. I will learn that afterwards. What you will also find is that the PNP seems to be more or less a required item. Now in most of the job ads that you see, PMP is no longer, um, suggested PMP is required. PMP will also give you our RESPECT. It will give you the respect. It will give you the respect from the HR department simply because they are looking for that. It will give you the, from your peers, project managements like myself. And it'll give you the respect of your colleagues at work, whom you work with because they know that you have a certification in what it is that you're doing.
Cornelius Fichtner (06:11):
So there are pluses and minuses as for me, yes, getting a PMP is worthwhile simply because it puts you on a level playing field with everybody else out there. Alright, enough said about whether or not to get a PMP or not, but I found something quite interesting in the Yahoo groups. I, uh, I monitor the Prince two project management Yahoo group, occasionally, and I found the following question from Gregory Tucker. I don't exactly know what Gregory is from, but he writes, I am currently studying for the practitioner exam. That's of course the Prince 2 practitioner exam. I have taken and failed at once. Does anybody know how many practitioners there are in the United States for Prince 2? Eh, doesn't seem very popular right now in the U S but with increasing adoption of ITIL in North America, I suspect there will be a growing interest in Prince too, as well over the next few years.
Cornelius Fichtner (07:17):
Well, Greg, I don't know, but let's put this out here to the listeners. If you are a Prince two practitioner and you've taken and passed the exam, I'd appreciate it. If you would drop me a quick This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and I can tell you that number, and we can announce that in the next show, you may remember in the past, I have been talking about whether or not listening to the project management podcast would qualify for PDUs. If you are a PMP you're required to obtain 60 PDUs in three years to keep your certification going. Well, I had a bit of back and forth between the PMI and myself. I didn't agree with their initial. No, you can't do this, but I have now received a clarification from Edwin Delgado and he is the continuing certification processor at the PMI. He writes, I do not doubt the content of your broadcast or the work that you must put into your lecture style broadcast that you provide to the listeners.
Cornelius Fichtner (08:29):
The real question is in regards to reporting the PDUs, how would we, the PMI possibly know that they were really listening to the whole broadcast or just part of it? How do we know that actual learning took place? There is such a thing as distant learning, but interaction between the student and the teacher is always present such as in a or over the web. If you were to provide some sort of a PDU code at the beginning and end of YouTube, your shows, who is to say that the people reporting this code listened the entire session or that they were just given the code by someone else in a classroom lecture, there would at least be a person present to verify attendance and verify that they completed the entire lecture, or course there is an actual teacher to student interaction at all times. Okay. That makes it clear. Just listening to the project management podcast does not qualify for PDUs. I would, of course have preferred that the PMI says yes, and that listening to the project management podcast is a qualifying activity for you PMPs out there who are listening to the show, but I can understand the arguments that Edwin Delgado makes, and I accept his decision. And now let us move on to that helpful resources and followed right after that, to the PM news.
Cornelius Fichtner (10:08):
I have five resources for you today, but I'm just going to breeze through to the first forum, concentrate a little more on the fifth one here today. The first two are from the same website. There's a free registration that's required in order to read those. And there are both high level overviews. The first one is a high level overview of project management offices. And the second one is a high level overview of project management methodologies. They're both kind of something that you may want to give to a manager type person who is interested in understanding more about PMOs and project management methodology. And the second one about the methodology is also quite helpful. If you'd like to learn a little bit more about the basics of the PMI methodology, the third helpful resource is titled project management techniques for adaptive action. It is sort of a comparison between agile project management and also heavyweight project management as they call it.
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.
Today's show features an interview with Robert Perrine, PMP, ITIL-SM. Robert and I met for this interview following the monthly PMI-OC Advanced Topics Seminar at which he spoke on ITIL, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library. Read up on ITIL at the British Office of Government Service [Update: The web page is no longer available so we removed the link].
Below are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks.
Speaker 1 (00:09): [inaudible]
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 pmpodcast.blogspot.com or send your emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Hello, and welcome to show number 14. I am Cornelius Fichtner. Now this is the project management podcast for the 10th of December, 2005. And today we have a feature interview with Robert Perrine in which we will be talking about ITIL the information technology infrastructure library. To start off the show here are as always a few announcements and things I want to get off my chest. First of all, starting today, we will change to a two week release schedule until about the middle or end of January. This means that there will be no show next week. Then there will be a show. Then there will be no show. Then there will be a show. Again, the reason for that, it's quite simple.
Cornelius Fichtner (01:17):
Next week, next Saturday, I have a birthday coming up, so I wouldn't have done the show then anyway, but, uh, the reason why I'm continuing to do this until the end of January simple, I am buying a new house and, uh, yeah, that's quite a project. It's taken up a lot, a lot of my free time. So I really have to focus on that. And I'm going to change to this two week release schedule, but remember it's only until the end of January, and then we're going back to the one weeks and now a word from our sponsor project load is the web based project management tool for your team. As project manager, you create the tasks and assign activities as your team progresses, their time sheets automatically feed into project reports with task forecasting documents, storage, integrated notes, and over 25 alerts project load is the one tool for project monitoring.
Cornelius Fichtner (02:17):
Visit us at projectload.com. Now let's move on to the listener's survey. Well, I've been making this announcement several times. The listener survey is up on the blog, and if you would please give me your feedback. That would help me a lot. And today I want to tell you what I have learned from this listener survey. There are three items that I would like to read to you from which I have learned, and from which I will be improving this show, of course, I don't know who wrote them because this survey is completely anonymous, but here you go. The first one, I really like this is the best one that I've had on the survey so far. And it reads, please, please, please do not read out emails saying how fantastic this podcast is it just wastes time. Your last podcast went on for five minutes. Just reading out how wonderful it was.
Cornelius Fichtner (03:18):
Okay, it's good. But please move on. We are listening for the content. If you just read out news, et cetera, we can get that from the same sources that you do. It's not very useful. Having said that generally the rest of your podcast after the fire first five or 10 minutes of backslapping emails is great. All right. I agree with you a half way. I agree. Reading the backslapping emails. That's not really all too great, but unfortunately I don't get any others. So if you are out there and you want to write me an email that tells me how great the podcast is, please also include some real advice or maybe something from your experience as a project manager could, I can include in the podcast. So please keep your feedback coming, send me your emails, but tell the other listeners about your life. And I can stop reading all these backslapping emails.
Cornelius Fichtner (04:23):
But on the other hand, I disagree with not reading news because other feedback on the survey told me quite clearly, that news is liked. People are listening to the news that are eat here, so I will continue to do this, but I will try and stop to read the backslapping emails. The second feedback from the listener survey was as follows. Great show, that best podcast I listened to. Okay. Some backslapping here. Once again, I have only one remark. Could you please reduce the volume of the sound of the typewriter between your news items? It really gives me a headache. Apart from that, the sound quality is superb. I've been wondering about that myself, because I personally thought that it was a bit loud, but nobody complained. So I kept it at that starting today, the sound of the typewriter is going down and the third and last feedback from the listener survey is quite short. All it reads is where were you? 20 years ago? Well, simple 20 years ago, I was a 22 year old software developer. And I couldn't have helped you in project management at all. It took me 20 years to come this far. Alright, so much for the listener survey here and now let us move on to the helpful resources.
Cornelius Fichtner (06:01):
I have five resources for you today. The first is of course, connected to the interview that you will hear shortly. And it is the handout from Robert Perrine about his ITIL presentation, which he gave this month for the project management Institute, orange County chapter. And you can download that from his website. The link is of course, on the blog at pmpodcastdotblogspot.com. You can find the other for help for resources at exactly the same location. And the second resource I have for you is an article slash white paper that I found on Gantthead .com and it is entitled the Estimation Blues. And it is quite a nice overview of the troubles that we as project managers run into when we have to estimate and they give you a quite lovely solution there as well. Next, we have 10 things to ponder when implementing an integrated portfolio management application. This is a paper which was written by David L. Davis, a white paper.
Cornelius Fichtner (07:25):
Really, it is a very quick read that you can probably spend five minutes on and you get the gist of it all. And it is an absolutely wonderful start. If you are actually thinking about integrating, implementing an integrated portfolio management application. So this is a really, really nice place to start with this. The next one here is for all you project management beginners out there, and it is called how to teach yourself about project management, without spending any money on training and consultants. This comes to us from the website of Michael Greer and printed out it's about three pages long, and it's a list of ideas, suggestions, and links, where to go to and where to learn about the basics of project management. So this is a really great place to start. If you are looking for something basic for junior project manager, or if you're just starting in project management.
Cornelius Fichtner (08:32):
So check this one out. And lastly, we're going even lower than just the beginning project management. We are going to project management for school kids. Now this one is really good for all you project managers out there who have kids in school and they have a school project coming up well. And then you suddenly realize that, you know what, even though I've been talking in at home about project management to my family for the last, what five, 10 years, it looks to me like my kids really don't know what project management is and how to manage their own school projects, you know, set it up planet, have deadlines, have time assigned to it. This overview is written by Neville Turbit and it gives all you project managers with children out there at great start on how to get your knowhow to them so that they can apply this project management experience in their school projects. And that's about it for the helpful resources this week. Now let's move on to one news item that I have found for you this week.
Cornelius Fichtner (09:58):
Well, actually there were more than just this one news item this week, but I felt that they were also insignificant that I just let them fly by the, this one here is from the 5th of December, 2005, and it is titled Sao Paolo. PMI conference brings together PMI UNESCO and the children of Brazil. Now this is really not all too much to do with project management. And it is more about project managers going out into the community and doing something for the community. At large, you may know that the PMI currently has a conference in Sao Paolo, or by this time it's actually over and at the end of the Sao Paolo conference, which we had a great attendance, by the way, they brought in child hope, which is also known as the children and hope national compare campaign. It is a UNESCO program, which is designed to country amongst other things to contribute to the elimination of child labor. To me, this particular piece of news is just some way that we as project managers, even locally can do something for the community at large. So if you're a member of a professional organization in your area, think about doing something like this, like the Sao Paolo chapter has done and do something good for the community. Don't always think about project management. Think about the community at large as well.
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.
The main focus of today's show is the continuation of what we started two weeks ago when we looked at an overview of what project management methodologies are. Today, I am giving you a high level overview of several of these methodologies. You'll also get to hear several new helpful resources and news items.
Note: In the podcast we say that you cannot claim PDUs for listening to podcasts. However, that was in 2005. In the meantime PMI has "come around" and today the word "podcast" is even mentioned in PMI's PDU category structure. So it is now OK to claim free PDUs for listening: See www.project-management-podcast.com/pdu
Below are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks.
Speaker 1 (00:00:00): [inaudible]
Cornelius Fichtner (00:00:11):
You are listening to the project management podcast. We bring project management topics to beginners and experts. Find us on the web at pmpodcast.blogspot.com or send your emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Hello, and welcome to show number 13. I am Cornelius Fichtner. Now this is the project management podcast for the 3rd of December, 2005. And today we will continue on the road down towards project management methodology. Today, it's going to be a high level overview of several popular project management methodologies, and like every week to start out the show, here are a few announcement and things that I want to get off my chest. And we'll start out with a word from our sponsor.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:01:04):
Project load is the web based project management tool for your team as project manager, you create the tasks and assign activities as your team progresses. Their time sheets automatically feed into project reports with task forecasting documents, storage, integrated notes, and over 25 alerts project load is the one tool for project monitoring. Visit This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Yeah. If you remember last week, I spoke about the listener's survey and if you listen to and like the project management podcast, and you're obviously listening to him now, then I'd appreciate it. If you could take a few moments and go to the blog and click on the listener survey link, it'll take about three minutes for you to fill out the 10 questions. And one of the requests that I've already seen in the survey is that you would like more tips to me that means more short and easy to implement tips.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:02:09):
Those of you who listen all the way to the end of the show, you know, that I always throw in a quick joke and a little nugget of wisdom ride at the end of the show. Um, yeah, that's actually the tip there, but the feedback here tells me that more tips like that are needed. And that is why I am now thinking about introducing a new show segment called the project management tip of the week. That's going to be a short one to two minutes segment with a quick tip that you can easily use and implement. So you can see that your voice actually counts. And I listened to you and you can look out for this project management tip of the week, coming your way in a couple of shows down the road. So if you want to improve the show, if you want to have voice heard, please help improve the program and fill in the survey that I have for you.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:03:06):
I have also put up a press release. If you go to the blog, you will find a short and a long version of this press release. And I would very much appreciate it. If you could use that press release in your newsletter, be printed or an electronic format, or maybe even a, if you have a new section on your website, post my press release, that would help me to push out the information about the show and a very special, thank you goes to the PMI Alaska chapter because they have not only put the press release. Actually they did not put the press release onto their website. They did since even something even much better, they put a link to my podcast onto their website. The complete RSS feed is actually visible on their website and right there on the front page, plus they have included a short blurb about the project management podcast in the electronic newsletter.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:04:13):
So thank you very much. PMI, Alaska chapter, and a similar thank you goes to Silvio, skip box on from Brazil. And he writes to me, I added your link in my message this week to the PMI Sao Paolo chapter. We have more than 1600 members in Sao Paulo. I am sure Renato Feccine. The president of the chapter may contact you for more information, many PMs in Brazil, speak English, and we'll be interested. Congratulations for your excellent job. And please, if you can continue with, can continue with this work that I know is very hard. Please keep the blog and the podcast updated. It is a valued source of information for all of us project managers. Well Silvio. I really appreciate anything you, everything that you did in order to get my podcast message out in Brazil. And of course, all of those of you out there who are going to use either the short or the long version of the press release.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:05:25):
Thank you very much for helping me to get the word out there now onto some more reader feedback that I have received over the last two weeks. The first one here comes from Paulo Cush. He writes, I am a listener from Porto Portugal, and I really enjoy your show. I would like to ask you for some advice, he then goes into a long, long question about setting up a PMO, and I'm going to be answering that question to him offline here. And he ends by saying, and I liked that very much, very much here. Once again. I really enjoy your show. I am looking forward to the one hundreds show. Well, so am I, it's a long way to go here. We have 87 shows to go until we will be at show number 100, but I am looking forward to doing it. My second reader feedback is from Greg Simarusti.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:06:29):
I hope I haven't mispronounced that name too much, Greg. He writes I'm a member of the PMI-OC, that is a in fact, the PMI chapter of which I am a member of as well here in orange County in California. So he goes on and I have met you on several occasions. Don't remember it. Sorry, Greg. My mind seems to be going. I congratulate you on your podcast and look forward to future recordings. I was just wondering if there is a problem with the podcast server for the last two days, I have been trying to download the last six episodes. I have the first seven and was wondering if there may be a server problem. Well, I haven't noticed anything. I see that the downloads continue to go up and up every day, but, uh, what do I know, maybe there are in fact issues out there.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:07:26):
So if there is anybody else out there who has download problems, please send me an email because if there is a real outage, then I would like to make sure that this gets fixed as soon as possible. Third and last reader feedback here comes from Sean Howell. Unfortunately, I don't know where Sean is from. He writes your podcast is quite well done and I enjoy listening to them. I am a contract junior project manager currently working in on process improvement and integration. Can you talk about your view about how being a process manager relates to being a project manager? I think that would be an interesting show. I betted would a, what I'm going to do folks is I'm going to get in touch with Sean. I'm going to find out from Shawn, his views on process management. And I am going to get you some feedback on this here so much for the reader feedback.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:08:32):
I really appreciate all the letters that I'm getting here. And I promise I'm trying to get all of you. Write to me on the air here on the show. I have also received some feedback from the PMI regarding my question, whether listening to the project management podcast is a qualifying activity. So can a PMP, who's listening to this show claim. PDUs the response I have received came from Edwin Delgado. He writes though, I believe that your podcast may provide information regarding project management and that spreading the word through a broadcast like yours may be a great platform to spread the word of project management. There is no way for anyone listening to your program to report this for PDUs. Also, your podcast would not fall under category. Number four, as this category is reserved for structured PM courses and not a media source. All right, to me at this point, this means that if you are a PMP and you are listening regularly to the project management podcast, you cannot claim this as a qualifying activities for gaining PDUs.
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.
The main focus of today's show is the continuation of what we started two weeks ago when we looked at an overview of what project management methodologies are. Today, I am giving you a high level overview of several of these methodologies. You'll also get to hear several new helpful resources and news items.
Below are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:10):
[inaudible] 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 PM This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Hello, and welcome to show number 12. I am Cornelius fish. Now this is the project management podcast for the 19th of November, 2005. And today we'll be looking at goals why you need them and how to set them right as every week to start out the show, a few announcements and things I want to get off my chest. Let me start out with the listener survey. If you listen, and like the project management podcast, then I would appreciate to hear your feedback. I have put a link onto my blog, which will take you to the listener survey, and I would very much appreciate it. If you would take three minutes out of your time and answer 10 questions for me, there are point and click questions.
Cornelius Fichtner (01:22):
It shouldn't take you really more than three minutes with those 10 questions, I will be able to get to know my listenership a little bit better, and I will be able to focus more on what you want and improve the quality of the program here and now a word from our sponsor. This episode of the project management podcast is sponsored by project load. Project load is a web based project management and time tracking tool, project load lets teams maintain and forecast their own tasks helps project managers track their projects, gives PMOs one place to view all projects and provides executives, valuable insight into exactly where their organization is spending their time. You can find project This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. next, a couple of followups from last week show. First of all, there is Harry Fisher. If you listened to last week's show you would've heard the piece from Harry Fisher about workflow.
Cornelius Fichtner (02:27):
And he tells me that the article on which he based that particular piece, that was his article. Um, I said it would, wasn't published in the ASQ quality project magazine. That is of course the ASQ quality progress magazine. Well, yeah, that's an easy mistake for a project manager to make. And he also wanted me to mention that he is currently the quality assurance manager for Whitman heart interactive. I also got some feedback from Ethan Johnson, who is the man behind the vision thing, the podcast, or other the episode of the podcast, which I reviewed last week. Ethan left a comment on my blog and he obviously wasn't all too happy about the fact that I called the audio quality bad. Ethan would have preferred the word crunk. Well, the segment is called the good, the bad and the ugly. And if you remember, I believe I called the content very good.
Cornelius Fichtner (03:36):
And I called the audio quality bad. And I am sticking to that. I still think that the audio quality of that particular episode was bad, but the quality of the content was excellent. If you want to read his full response, you can go to the blog where he left his comment. And then we also have some reader feedback here. This one comes from a Nigel Jones and he writes, hi, Cornelius, I'm Nigel Jones. And I am based in the UK in Scotland. Actually I have recently found your podcast and have been listening on my daily jog with my iPod. So we have somebody who jogs to it. We have somebody who does his morning exercises with it. It seems to be a popular sports pots podcast here. He continues. I have to keep extending my wrongs as the PM podcast seems to be getting longer and longer.
Cornelius Fichtner (04:36):
I think I'm up to your 10th podcast now, and I really liked them. Good content and easy listening. And I can tell that you give an honest opinion when you comment on and critique something, keep up the good work. Thank you very much, Nigel. And I really hope that at some point, you're going to have to run a marathon here to listen to my show in its entirety. I will try and keep it between 30 minutes and an hour in the future. No worries there. And those are about all the announcements and things I wanted to get off my chest today. Today's show marks the start of a new segment called helpful resources. When I come across good articles or presentations or white papers or whatever, I deem a helpful resource. I am going to mention it here on the show. And today I have four resources for you.
Cornelius Fichtner (05:49):
The first helpful resource is a article, which I have found in the computer world, Canada. And it's actually an older one and it's from the year 2002, but, uh, it still has value. It is titled, there is a reason why IT PMOs fail and it was written by Ken Handley. And the reason why I mentioned it as simple, because he more or less repeats what I said in my show about PMOs, a few shows back. He says that the trick to make a PMO successful is giving the people who are actually doing the project tools that work, do that. And the project team will beat a path to the PMO door exactly what I'm saying, make it helpful to people, and they will come to you. The next helpful resource is entitled next generation PMO. If you build it, will they come?
Cornelius Fichtner (06:57):
And this is a presentation in PDF form by Jack Doggle from the project ties group. And, uh, in it, uh, slide number 10. He has an overview between traditional PMOs and next generation PMOs. And this is actually the one thing that I find very interesting here. So go on, read this a PDF document and particularly focused on slide number 10, to see the difference between a traditional PMO and what he calls a next generation PMO. The third and final article here about PMOs is entitled top 10 tips to building an effective program management office, follow the steps, steps to ensure your PMOs success. This is written by Steven C. Howald, and he writes this on the chief project officer website that is chief project officer.com. And it's quite a interesting article. It's very well written. You won't find much here that you haven't read in other articles that talk about the top 10 tips to building an effective program management office.
Cornelius Fichtner (08:17):
But I find that it's very crisply written and a good resource for all of us who work in PMOs. And finally, what I have found here is a free 26 project managers desk reference. Yes. And what could be better as a helpful resource than a project manager's desk reference. This is forum 4:00 PM. You can find them at fourpm.com and, uh, well, unfortunately I haven't actually been able to look at it because it is a PDF document, obviously 26 pages long, but it requires Adobe Acrobat 6.0 or later. And I have been so lazy with installing Acrobat readers on my system that I still have 5.0. And, uh, well, um, I hope it's a good reference that I'm giving you here folks. So those of you who go and check it out, please drop me a line and tell me if this was worth putting in the helpful references section here. Again, you will find links to these helpful resources on my blog, and now let's move right on to the news in project management of this week.
Cornelius Fichtner (09:45):
First news item this week is from Friday, the 18th of November, 2005. And this is about a birthday. So I'm going to have to sing. Now, [inaudible] Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear IPMA happy birthday to you. And now, you know why I talk in front of the microphone and not sing? Yes, the IP M a D international project management association has celebrated its 40th anniversary. And as you may remember, they're currently having a Congress in new Delhi, and this is where they did it. Here's a little bit of a history that they mentioned about the IPMA in 1965, a few project management, enthusiastic in the heart of Europe joined together and started a discussion group of managers of international projects. The first international Congress was held in 1967 in Vienna with participation from 30 different countries. The group developed from the discussion group to an organization, which was for years known as internet time changed. And in 1994, internet became the international project management association. So once again, happy birthday. IPMA
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.
Following the news, there are three segments in today's episode: Harry Fisher (author of Microsoft Visual Basic.Net) recounts his experience and success in implementing a workflow tool. We'll take a Tour de Project Management Methodologies and I give you my review of The Vision Thing Podcast [Update: The web page is no longer available so we removed the link.].
Below are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks.
Cornelius Fichtner (00:10):
[inaudible] you are listening to the project management podcast. We bring project management topics to beginners and experts. Find us on the web at pmpodcast.blogspot.com or send your emails to pm This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Hello, and welcome to show number 11. I am Cornelius Fichtner. Now this is the project management podcast for the 12th of November, 2005. And today we are going to be looking at an overview of project management methodologies to start out. The show is every week, here are a few announcements and just things I want to get off my chest. First of all, reader feedback. Many of you have been writing to me over the past few weeks and making suggestions to part towards possible topics that I could talk about here. Theory of constraints, critical chain, how to balance several large projects simultaneously. You name it. I can promise you that I am going to try and get all of your requests into the show into time, but please remember that project management is a very vast field and there is a lot that I can cover here and that a lot that I want to cover.
Cornelius Fichtner (01:31):
So I will not be able to get to your subject within the next one to two weeks. Give me some time. And I'm sure that we are going to cover here. The topic that interests you. I also wanted to mention again, that this is not a PMP exam preparation podcast. If you are listening to this podcast and you are currently studying for the PMP exam, and you're trying to pass the PMP exam, please don't listen to this show and hope to learn something that will help you to pass. You see, in order to pass the exam, I really suggest that you attend a PMP preparation seminar that is offered by either your local PMI chapter or by one of the many, many professional or for profit. Shall we say training organizations out there? There are also quite a few excellent online training courses and self study books that you can use, but this podcast, however, is definitely not the way to go.
Cornelius Fichtner (02:41):
It's not going to help you and not going to give you any support in passing the PMP exam. Some of you have also been writing to me and ask whether or not listening to the project management podcast is a qualifying activity to gain professional development units, stats PDUs. And if you are a PMP, you know that every three years you have to gain 60 PDUs in order to maintain your certification. And of course the best way to do that is to get trained. Well, I don't know. So what I did is I got in contact with the people who should know, I wrote to the PMI and they're working on it and they're going to let me know. So keep your ears open and I will be able to hopefully tell you in a few weeks, whether or not listening to this show here will be helping you with gaining your PDUs.
Cornelius Fichtner (03:43):
And while we are talking about the PMI here is announcement and announcement from them. And the announcement is the fact that the registration for the PMI global Congress, 2006 in Asia, Pacific is now open. And they write that the project management institutes global congresses are created with the goal of providing project managers and team members with the highest quality learning experience needed to stay ahead of the project management pro fashion. And this Congress, uh, the PMI global Congress, 2006 Asia Pacific will take place from the 27th of February to the first March, 2006 in Bangkok, Thailand. And of course, Bangkok, Thailand that brings back that good old song from Murray had Oriental sitting in the city. Now the city is the creme de LA creme of the chess world and a show with everything. All right? And before we move on to the news, here is a word from our sponsor. This episode of the project management podcast is sponsored by project load. Project load is a web based project management and time tracking tool, project load, lets teams maintain and forecast their own tasks helps project managers track their projects, gives PMOs one place to you, all projects and provides executives, valuable insight into exactly where their organization is spending their time. You can find project load at projectload.com.
Cornelius Fichtner (05:38):
I once again have several very interesting news items for you here this week. The first one is from November 8th. It comes to us from Sweden and it's titled the Swedish railway administration bank. Vericut selects ifs applications. They write bank Vericut industrial division, which supplies, railway systems and related services in Sweden and other parts of Europe we'll implement the ifs applications. The business software will enable bank of America, industrial division to streamline management of a range of internal and external processes. I am now not mentioning this because I like this ifs application. I don't even know it, but I'm mainly mentioning this because of what they say, why they are implementing this particular application or a particular application. They say since 2001, the market we operate in has been fully open to competition. So efficiency is crucial to the development and survival of our operations. And that's a Ingamar fried shallots who set that he is a project management manager at the bank.
Cornelius Fichtner (06:59):
Vericut industrial division. He says the implementation of ifs applications is part of a major change program. The solution will give us the tools we need to streamline our processes. For example, it will be easier to plan and control our complex entrepreneurial projects. And he continues our core business consists of complex entrepreneurial projects, but we also weld rails and manufacturer signaling equipment and technical cabin in a traditional industrial environment. To me, this means that the Swedish railway administration realizes the important part that project management plays in an ever changing and extremely competitive marketplace. They are embracing project management and pardon the pun are moving full steam ahead with it.
Cornelius Fichtner (08:00):
Our next news item is along the same lines as the one that you have just heard. It is from Thursday, November the 10th. And it comes to us from multi-car, which is an Island just South of Sicily in the Mediterranean. It is titled time and project management course for multiple hosts staff. And you can read that the human resources department of the multiple most recently organized a short training course in time and project manager, project management for its senior staff and the project management module provided the participants with the awareness of appropriate tools and techniques for planning, organizing, scheduling, and controlling of projects. And of course also the critical people management skills for achieving a project result. And they write here that a total of 32 line middle and senior management staff attended to this training course, which was held at the multiple post training center.
Cornelius Fichtner (09:07):
Okay. Big deal. You might say. So 32 people from multi-hour went to a project management seminar. Well think again, these were not 32 project managers. These were 32 line, middle and senior managers. And if you go back in a about two weeks ago in my show, then I had an announcement or a news item from Russ Archibald. He was at the seminar that they had in Moscow, and he had predictions for the year 2010. And what he said then is that project management will merge into the general management practice. And project management will become a required competency for executives. And this is exactly what's happening, or what's starting to show here in this news item, executives, managers taking project management seriously and actually getting trained on it.
Cornelius Fichtner (10:13):
Our next item is a survey that has just recently been released. This is from the November 9th, 2005, and it's titled NASCIO releases findings from state it project management survey. And NASCIO is the national association of state chief information officers, I assume by national, they mean U S a national of course. And this survey is the result of 34 state project management offices that had participated in this self-assessment, which happened between August and September of 2005. And throughout the report, as you can read, you will find that there are several core themes, which emerge as recommendations for success in initiatives, in it initiatives on a state level. And they are a, that there is a value in adopting an enterprise approach towards it investment. So take a look at your whole enterprise when you do 80 investments. They also say that given the complexity of implementing it projects both within and across state agencies clarifying the governance structure during the initiation phase of the project is, is essential.
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.
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM, is the host and the author at The Project Management Podcast. He has welcomed hundreds of guests and project management experts to the podcast and has helped over 60,0000 students prepare for their PMP® Exam. He has authored dozens of articles on projectmanagement.com and PM World 360. He speaks at conferences around the world about project management, agile methodology, PMOs, and Project Business. Follow him on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
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