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Suketu Nagrecha and Cornelius Fichtner
The Project Management Institute (PMI)® Educational Foundation is a charitable nonprofit organization, with the mission to inspire and empower people to realize their potential and transform their lives and their communities through the use of project management knowledge. This interview with Suketu Nagrecha, PMIEF Chair, was recorded at the 2016 PMI Global Congress in San Diego, California. We discuss:
The history of PMIEF
How PMIEF can help you with - Scholarships - Grants - Awards
How you can apply for a scholarship, grant, or award
How your or your employer can become a PMIEF donor
And we'll hear a story from a project manager whom PMIEF helped in his career
Full disclosure: My own company is a PMIEF donor and offers certification scholarships. If you are thinking of earning a PMI scholarship but lack the means to do so then please visit https://www.project-management-prepcast.com/scholarships to learn how to apply.
Preparing for your Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam? Get Affordable PMP training on your phone, tablet or PC:
Kristine Hayes Munson and Cornelius Fichtner
Sharp influencing skills are a major factor that help project managers succeed. This interview about leading without authority with Kristine Hayes Munson was recorded at the 2016 PMI® Global Congress in San Diego, California. We discuss her paper and presentation "Getting Things Done -- Influence Without Authority". Here is the abstract:
"Project managers frequently face the dilemma of how to accomplish the project’s work without having any functional authority. Resources assigned to the project report to someone else who writes performance appraisals and recommends pay increases. In addition, resources may be assigned to multiple projects with competing priorities. Project managers must rely on their ability to influence others to get work done in a timely and thorough fashion.
This paper explores the influence cycle and the associated skills to be used by project managers in order to get things done using influence rather than authority. Five stages comprise the influence cycle: (1) prepare, (2) ask, (3) trust, (4) follow up, and (5) give back."
The paper concludes that in regards to leadership without authority "Developing influence skills is hard work and takes conscious effort. The influence cycle is designed to be repeated for each project in order to help us as project managers continue to improve our influence skills. Our success as project managers and the success of our projects depends on our ability to use influence to get things done".
We all hold assumptions, then make decisions and take actions based on those assumptions without verifying their validity. Worse is when other people hold assumptions about our work and we don’t know it. This can impact user adoption, timeline, scope, quality, and overall project success. Not to mention personal frustration, stress, and desires to pull out one’s own hair.
Unchecked assumptions can be very dangerous in the workplace. We should be mindful of some common assumptions and actively work to uncover assumptions. Doing so will bolster project work and open up new paths for identifying risks.
Some project assumption examples that Beth introduces us to are assuming a project or task is easier or faster than it actually is, assuming priorities are aligned and haven't changed, and assuming who owns, or is responsible for, what.
Very importantly the paper and discussion also include a section about uncovering assumptions. Here, Beth offers us 5 ideas on how to develop and expand our project assumptions list.
PDU Tip
This interview is 23 minutes long. This means that you can "legally" only claim 0.25 PDUs for listening to it. However... if you first listen to the interview and then also read the white paper on which it is based, then you can go ahead and claim 0.50 PMP PDUs!
For your Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam use PMP exam prep on your phone with The PM PrepCast:
Dave Davis, PMP, PgMP, PBA
When we last spoke with Dave L Davis (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dldavispmp) we learned about the basics of benefits realisation and benefits realisation management? We discussed the benefits management process and focused on the important aspect of how all of this fits into project benefits management.
Now that we understand the theory of benefits realization management it’s time to take the next step and ask “How do we actually do all of this”. Luckily, Dave has a lot of experience in applied benefit management and he happily agreed to this second interview, so that we can take a look at a case study.
You’ll hear how we project managers are involved in the overall process, the importance of engaging stakeholders, how to ensure alignment between benefit management and organizational strategy, and of course, we will also look at metrics.
The best Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam prep is PMP Training on your mobile device:
Dani Ritter and Cornelius Fichtner
This interview with Dani Ritter was recorded at the 2016 PMI® Global Congress in San Diego, California. Dani is the Manager, Community Engagement at Project Management Institute and her primary focus is the PM community of www.projectmanagement.com.
In the interview we discuss:
Why projectmanagement.com is at the congress
Its mission and relationship to PMI
How much it costs being a member (spoiler alert: it's free!)
The available resources, some of which are free PM templates, white papers, or webinars
How the community can help you if you have a PM related question
The online games (PM Wars and PM Challenge) that it offers
How members can get the most out of the site
How anyone can earn free PDUs by reading articles and attending virtual events
PDU Tip
This interview is 14 minutes 46 seconds long. This means that you can "legally" not claim any PDUs at all, because the minimum is 15 minutes for 0.25 PDUs. However... if you first listen to the interview and then also visit the site and spend at least 14 seconds reviewing all the great templates that they offer, then you can go ahead and claim 0.25 PMP PDUs in the technical category!
This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast. Get your PMP PDUs:
Dr. David Hillson and Cornelius Fichtner
This interview with Dr. David Hillson was recorded at the 2016 PMI® Global Congress in San Diego, California. We discuss his paper and presentation My Stakeholders are my biggest risk -- help!. Here are two passages from the paper:
Abstract:
Stakeholders can pose a real risk to our projects—at least some of them can—and project managers and their teams need to be aware of this and take steps to control risks to their project that arise from risky stakeholders. As with all risks, stakeholders present both positive as well as negative risks, and we need robust ways of identifying which stakeholders offer opportunities, and where potential threats might lie.
This paper presents a structured way of identifying risky stakeholders based on a best-practice stakeholder analysis model (The Stakeholder Cube). It explains how risky stakeholders might influence a project based on their power, interest, and attitude. Finally, the paper shows how applied emotional literacy can be proactively used to influence risky stakeholders in order to optimize the outcome for the project.
Conclusion:
A risk is any uncertainty that could affect achievement of project objectives. Some of the biggest risks in projects arise from stakeholders, and project managers and their teams need to be aware of these risks and manage them proactively. As with all risks, there are both positive and negative stakeholders, and it is important to identify which stakeholders offer opportunities, and where potential threats might lie—and then act appropriately.
David is retiring and this was his last active participation at a PMI Global Congress in North America. He plans on continuing to attending the EMEA congresses and he has offered to be available for interviews over Skype in the future.
In this interview we talk about managing risky stakeholders, bringing together the disciplines of stakeholder engagement and risk managemetn. You'll hear some useful tips for making sure you're tailoring your risk responses in project management to your project and the stakeholders you work with.
PDU Tip
This interview is 26 minutes long. This means that you can "legally" only claim 0.25 PDUs for listening to it. However... if you first listen to the interview and then also read the white paper on which it is based, then you can go ahead and claim 0.50 PMP PDUs!
This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast. Earn 37 PDUs::
Cyndi Snyder Dionisio and Cornelius Fichtner
This interview with Cyndi Snyder Dionisio was recorded at the 2016 PMI® Global Congress in San Diego, California. We discuss her presentation "PMBOK® Guide -- Sixth Edition: Preview of Coming Attractions". Here is the session description:
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) is being updated as we speak, and the Sixth Edition will soon be published. This session provides insights into the new edition, including a peek at a new chapter on the role of the project manager. For each Knowledge Area, there are new sections describing key concepts, emerging trends, and tailoring considerations, as well as updates to ensure the PMBOK® Guide remains relevant to most projects, most of the time. Come and find out what to expect!
Cyndi was the chair of the team that worked on updating the guide and in her presentation (as well as in this interview) she introduces us to the publication timeline as well as many of the changes that are coming our way. This was of particular interest to me professionally, because the guide is a central text that we use in our PMP certification training for our students.
More About PMBOK 6
If you would you like to know more about what's coming in the new version, when and how it will be released and when the PMP exam will change to the new standard, then please click to visit our PMBOK 6 article.
A project is truly successful only if it delivers the benefits an organization envisions.
Mark Langley, PMI President and CEO
At first glance this sentence is awfully obvious to us project managers. But having good and successful benefits realization management and thereby turning this statement into a reality is what makes our job so hard. And rewarding.
So what exactly are benefits realisation and benefits realisation management? Is there a benefits management process and how does all of this fit into project benefits management?
How about if I let Dave L Davis (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dldavispmp) explain it all to you? He has authored one of the articles in that Pulse of the Profession report from where I took the earlier quote. The article is titled “The Benefits Management Journey” and serves as our guide.
We’ll learn what exactly benefits realization management is, review the process of implementing it on projects, meet the people involved, and we’ll even talk about tools.
And at the very end of this episode you’ll learn that even failings project have benefits
Are you using The PM Podcast to earn your PDUs? Then please make sure that you are using the correct PDU tracking logfile:
Download The PM Podcast PDU Logfile (XLSX) and track each episode you listen to. The better you document your learning activities the more you can give evidence to PMI that you have indeed subscribed and listened to The PM Podcast during an audit.
If your PDU records are audited, you will need to provide your logfile to show what you have learned, so it's important to keep your personal records up-to-date in case you are ever asked to produce them. As a Project Management Professional (PMP)® credential holder, for example, you will have to evidence you really have earned 60 PDUs for PMP renewal.
You can use the logfile to record any free PMP PDU learning you have undertaken from our podcasts, as well as any paid programs or podcasts you used as part of your professional development. As it's an Excel spreadsheet, you can edit and amend the file to suit your needs, keeping in mind that it is your primary evidence log for podcast learning.
And for all the details about this, please visit our PDU tutorial and learn How to Earn 60 Free PDUs.
Preparing for your Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam? Get PMP exam prep on your phone with The PM PrepCast:
Bruce Harpham, PMP
If you are a regular listener to The PM Podcast then you heard me say on many occasions that projects are the mechanism by which companies turn their vision and strategy into a reality. And it is us -- the project managers -- who are asked to bring these projects to a successful completion so that the business needs are met.
This means that we project managers need a great deal of business acumen and business awareness. But many of us are accidental project managers, who at some point in our career found ourselves to be quite shockingly thrust into the position of a project leader. We were taken by surprise back when that happened and now they suddenly tell us that we also need all this awareness?
Well, fear not because Bruce Harpham (https://ca.linkedin.com/in/bruceharpham and http://projectmanagementhacks.com) is here to tell you how to grow your business know-how as a project manager. In this interview we review what foundational skills you need, how to access internal business knowledge from your organization and how to look for information and trends in the broader environment outside the four walls of your company.
Our goal is to help you grow the situational awareness that you need day after day on your projects by adding business awareness.
Looking for Project Management Professional (PMP)® training? Get PMP Exam Prep on your mobile device with The PM PrepCast:
Bruce Harpham, PMP
Does your project rely on virtual teams? If yes, then it means that working remotely is the norm for your project team members.
Are they doing their work effectively and efficiently? And even if you answered yes, there is always room for improvement, right? Good, because how to make remote work productive is our topic today.
Our interview guest is Bruce Harpham (https://ca.linkedin.com/in/bruceharpham and http://projectmanagementhacks.com) who has written about remote workers and how to increase all our effectiveness. He argues that working virtually is simply the reality on many projects and project teams these days.
And so in order to help us improve remote work he recommends the following four steps:
Evaluate your current tools
Review communication preferences and strengths
Analyze the project’s requirements
Adjust your communication practices
We’ll go through each of these in detail with lots of examples from his own experience.
This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast. PDU for PMP::
Lindsay Scott
If you are working in a PMO then we have something good for you today.
Lindsay Scott (https://uk.linkedin.com/in/projectsmanagementrecruitment) from Arras People is back to talk us through the PMO Benchmark Report 2016. Yes... last week we looked at the overall PM Benchmark Report and right now it’s all about PMOs.
We are going to review who PMO practitioners are, who they work for, what their professional development looks like, how PMOs are set up, what functions they provide, where in the organization they are located from a reporting perspective, we’ll hear some PMO thoughts and challenges, and finally, we are going to be talking about www.pmoflashmob.org.
To download your PDF copy of this report, please visit the Arras People website and Request the PMO Benchmark Report 2016. You are also going to be invited to fill in the survey for the next report.
This episode is sponsored by The PM PrepCast. It's the best PMP Exam Prep on your mobile device:
Lindsay Scott
For over a decade now, Arras people has been publishing their yearly project management benchmark report and so I’ve invited Lindsay Scott (https://uk.linkedin.com/in/projectsmanagementrecruitment) to introduce it to us to this latest version.
Lindsay says about the report, that even after all this time of doing the research and seeing the changes over the years, it is hard not to be drawn to the fact that project management is still an exciting and growing field. The fact that projects are still failing suggests that even with all the effort and time expended we are still searching for that magic bullet which will ensure we deliver.
Of course, the report doesn’t give us this magic bullet, but it provides an interesting insight into what you and I are doing day after day.
There are two options for you to get a copy of this report:
But your second option, which is actually the better one, is to visit the Arras People website and Request the Project Managment Benchmark Report 2016. Because in that way you are also going to be invited to fill in the survey for the next report.
You'll be asked to provide your basic information and will be contacted when the survey for the next report is sent out. It's a great way to give back to our community.
This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast. PDU for PMP::
Joseph Flahiff, PMP, PMI-ACP
Decision making in project management can be hard. That is of course especially true if your decision making process is such that every decision you have to make must be passed up the command chain in your organization until finally someone up there has the time to review your input and make that project decision.
But what if there were an easier way for project management decision making?
We begin with a definition, look at what’s wrong with today’s decision making process, offer a way to make decisions simply by flipping a coin and then look at the proximal model in detail with lots of examples, tips and tricks. All with the goal that you can improve your project management decision making process.
This interview is 29:45 minutes long. This means that you can "legally" only claim 0.25 PDUs for listening to it. However... if you first listen to the interview and then also read the article on which it is based, then you can go ahead and claim 0.50 PDUs!
He not only says that the PMP salary you can expect is greater on average, but he also found many other PMP certification benefits. Having a shared vocabulary and enjoying a completely different and often steep career path are just two of them.
So if you are either already PMP certified or thinking about your own PMP Exam Prep and and wondering about the value of PMP certification, then this interview is definitely for you. Niraj and I explore the benefits of being or becoming a PMP from various aspects.
This episode is sponsored by The PM PrepCast for PMP Exam Prep:
Joseph Flahiff, PMP, PMI-ACP
Have you heard of supportive leadership? I certainly had not. I knew what servant leadership was, but the concept of supportive leadership was a definite unknown.
The good news is that Joseph is a prolific writer who has a number of articles on the topic. He reviews the concept from various angles and he also has a number of great examples of how he works with his customers to implement supportive leadership in their organizations and how he uses the concept as a project leader himself. In this edition of our leadership podcasts series you’ll learn how to incorporate all of this as part of your own project leadership almost right away.
And of course we will also touch upon the main difference between supportive leadership and servant leadership. You’ll be just as surprised as I was.
This episode is sponsored by The PM PrepCast for PMP Exam Prep:
Jim Coughenour, PMP
Are you thinking about how to get PMP certified and wondering whether you should take a PMP boot camp, a PMP class, hire a PMP trainer, or whether to achieve this certification simply through PMP self-study?
Jim is an experienced PMP Trainer and he and I look at the benefits, disadvantages, cost and other factors that you should consider before deciding which way you want to go.
But even if you have already decided that maybe a PMP bootcamp is for you, then I recommend that you should still listen to our discussion because I also ask him to share with us his tips on what you should and should not be including as part of your PMP preparation.
Leadership in project management is an important topic these days. And if you are like most project managers then you may have fallen into project management a bit by accident. And then, after you have successfully delivered a few projects, suddenly everyone tells you that you must improve your project management leadership skills.
Effective project management, they say, depends a lot on your project leadership, and we have many leadership podcasts in the archives to help you do that.
But today we are tuning in to another expert in the field. Once you realise that you have to transform into a project leader then leadership training will be part of your ongoing professional development, and that is where our guest can help.
Niraj Kumar (www.leadproje.com -- http://www.linkedin.com/in/thenirajkumar) is a leadership expert and proponent of self-growth through continuous learning. Together we explore his view on leadership, how these skills help you as a project manager, how they help you when dealing with senior executives. We talk about the power of project leadership and as always we include a lot of tips on how you yourself can improve how you approach project management and leadership starting today.
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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