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Susanne Madsen - Author and Leadership Expert

When we talk about “change management in project management”, the words “resistance” and “tension” often spring to mind.

Consider the resistance to project change management for instance, when two organizations merge, or the fear that employees will feel when a part of their job is automated and some of their skills become redundant.

But the problem isn’t the change itself in spite of the difficulties that it may bring.

To discuss the project change management process with us today I’m very pleased to welcome back one of our favorite interview guests: Susanne Madsen (http://www.susannemadsen.com), whose book The Power of Project Leadership contains a large section on change management.

She says: Organizational change is vital for any business that wants to survive and thrive in our increasingly competitive and fast paced word. The problem is that many project leaders struggle to fully motivate and engage their teams in the process. They often move too fast, are too outcome driven and not sufficiently consultative in their approach.

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Bill Dow, PMP, ITIL, CSM - Author

According to Harold Kerzner, we project managers spend 90% of our time communicating.

And according to the title, Bill Dow’s new book Project Management Communication Tools is 100% about communication tools. And since agile project management is the hot topic of the day, a large portion of the book is devoted to Agile Communications and Agile Communication Tools.

So in this interview, Bill and I review:

• Agile dashboards
• Agile meetings
• And even agile estimation.

Good communication is essential for risk management in agile projects so you are sure to pick up some great ideas from this episode -- whether or not you are working in an Agile environment.

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Bill Dow, PMP, ITIL, CSM - Author

You don’t necessarily have to manage a social media project in order to recognize the benefits of using the tools of social media project management. Furthermore, being a social media project manager is more than simply publishing a few project updates on Facebook.

In order to really reap the benefits, social media has to be a fully integrated and planned part of your project’s communications management strategy.

How to use and when to use social media on your project is at the center of my discussion with Bill Dow (https://www.linkedin.com/in/billdow) whose book Project Management Communication Tools includes a whole section on social media tools for our projects.

In our discussion, Bill and I will review the following:

• Mapping social media tools to project communication tools
• Determining which tools to use on your projects
• Which tools can we use in which project phase or process group
• When to bring on a social media expert to help

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Jeff Furman, PMP - Author

Do you have a project management question? Then Jeff Furman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefffurmanlinkedin) very likely has the answer for you in the second edition of The Project Management Answer Book.

The book includes questions

• Why do project managers need a formal project charter?
• What is the role of a program manager?
• What are the top 10 pitfalls to avoid when starting a project?
• What is the single best way to prevent scope creep?

All answers are detailed, easy to understand and often come with tips and tricks tables and graphics and everything you need to fully understand and implement good practices on your own projects.

This book is also great for anyone preparing for their PMP® Exam. So if you are looking for a good PMP Book then check out the great reviews it has received on Amazon!

This second edition is not just a rehash of what Jeff originally published some years back. Far from it. Jeff revisited every single question and wrote an updated answer to include changes in our industry. So it’s not surprising that he now also includes sections on Agile, Scrum and Stakeholder Management.

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Jeff Furman, PMP - Project Management Coach

Have you ever considered being a project management mentor to another PM in your network? I can tell you from personal experience that while project management coaching sounds like a lot of work the return on investment that you personally get out of it is immense.

And so, when I received an email from Jeff Furman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefffurmanlinkedin) and he offered to discuss some of the mentoring approaches that he uses as a project management coach I was all for it.

In our discussion Jeff and I review:

• Staying in touch
• Answering questions
• Helping people connect
• Helping out on social media for project managers
• Writing recommendations
• Recommending resources
• Guiding your mentees to become mentors themselves
• And last but not least… Speed Mentoring

As you can probably already tell, none of these project management mentoring approaches are rocket science. But we still have some good best practices for you to follow.

Coaching and mentoring is useful for all project managers, but it's especially useful in emerging roles, or where you don't feel that your job description is particularly clear -- the role of project manager in SAFe agile springs to mind as an important position, but perhaps one that is less understood than 'traditional' approaches to being a project manager.

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Bryan Bowers, MBA, PMP

This is another episode in which I am proudly introducing you to one of my successful students who was able to pass the PMP. His name is Bryan Bowers (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bowersbryan) and he is a student of the PMP PrepCast.

There are two reasons that make me especially proud of helping him pass. First of all, Bryan has taken over a dozen certification exams, and second he says that “this was by and far the most brutal exam I have ever taken”. And so I feel very satisfied that it was my exam preparation course that showed Bryan how to prepare for PMP.

In this PMP lessons learned interview you are going to hear him talk about his journey to becoming PMP certified from start to finish.

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Kim Wasson. Author, Speaker & PM Consultant.

Do you use an Agile project management approach? And have you maybe noticed a certain fatigue -- an Agile burnout, a Scrum burnout in your team?

Well, Agile is indeed an excellent methodology that is responsive to business changes with quick turnaround and highly visible results. But at the same time, the pace of a project using scrum project management -- or any Agile approch -- is relentless. It never seems to stop and this is potentially one of the biggest agile project management issues that the team may face. Unlike Waterfall there are very few built-in times for team members to catch their collective breath and celebrate milestones. Perhaps project managers in a Waterfall environment would disagree, but I think you can see what I mean.

This Scrum burnout was the basis of the article Agile Fatigue written by Kim Wasson https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimwasson. It’s a relatively short article that contains some good tips on how to combat this effect. So in our interview just now we are going to talk about the following symptoms:

• Burnout
• Meandering
• Stagnation
• The daily stand-up turns into a grind
• A secret move back to waterfall

But more importantly, we discuss what to do about them in order to battle the burnout, so agile project management with scrum doesn't mean risking your mental or physical wellbeing. Scrum agile project management training is one way of ensuring you are using good practices to manage the process, and in the interview Kim will share more ideas.

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Kim Wasson. Author, Speaker & PM Consultant.

When I was a junior project manager, I thought that managing my projects meant for me to focus primarily on the schedule. But as I grew from junior to senior I learned that in order to improve my project manager skills, I needed to learn how to manage project management relationships.

Every project is made up of people, and people are diverse and unpredictable beings. The fascinating study of people, how they interact, and what makes them tick is the heart of project management. It is also at the heart of "People-Centered Project Management", which is a free eBook by Kim Wasson https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimwasson.

The eBook is all about people project management and explores "The five elements that will make or break your project (unless you’re living in a cave)". The five elements are

• Building Relationships
• Common Goals
• Learning Style
• Motivation
• Skills Matching

These elements are not only at the core of project human resources management, they are also at the center of our discussion. We review each element and and give you lots of tips and tricks so that you can improve your project manager people skills.

This episode is sponsored by the PMP Exam Simulator:

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This episode focuses on helping project managers enhance their job search by using modern social media tools.

I was asked by PMI Long Island to give a presentation on the topic for their latest Career Event. There were about 25 "in transition" project managers attending the event and my presentation.

This is the recording of this live presentation. It was delivered via WebEx, with me in California and the attendees in Long Island.

Click here to download the PDF handout / checklist that is mentioned during the presentation [Update: The web page is no longer available so we removed the link].

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At the end of 2015, the Project Management Institute (PMI) is going to make changes to the way PMI certified project managers have to earn their Professional Development Units (PDUs). And in this episode we are going to explore these changes with John Kleine (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-kleine/10/aa1/613), who is PMI’s Global Manager of Certification Products. He is right at the heart of these changes.But before we start let me give you a disclaimer here: If you are not PMI certified and you never intend to become a certified PMP, PgMP®, PMI-ACP®, or any of the other PMI certifications, then stop listening right here. This interview is of no interest to you at all. If on the other hand you are PMI certified, then consider this episode mandatory listening. You need to know this!

First of all you are going to hear that many rules and criteria about PDUs are going to remain the same, and so most of what you know about PDUs today will be true tomorrow. For example, you can still earn Free PMP PDUs by listening to this podcast! But then we are going to delve into the details of the PMI PDU changes by looking at the new PMI Talent Triangle and by going through the current PDU categories and learning what changes are ahead.But before we start let me give you a disclaimer here: If you are not PMI certified and you never intend to become a certified PMP, PgMP, PMI-ACP, or any of the other PMI certifications, then stop listening right here. This interview is of no interest to you at all. If on the other hand you are PMI certified, then consider this episode mandatory listening. You need to know this!

But before we start let me give you a disclaimer here: If you are not PMI certified and you never intend to become a certified PMP, PgMP, PMI-ACP, or any of the other PMI certifications, then stop listening right here. This interview is of no interest to you at all. If on the other hand you are PMI certified, then consider this episode mandatory listening. You need to know this!

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This episode is sponsored by PMP Exam Simulator:

Last week, Stephen Wearne introduced us all to the basics of Managing the Urgent and Unexpected. We heard some of the lessons he learned, some best practices and what we can implement in order to prepare our organizations. So from the perspective of a project manager who is put in charge of urgent projects, we have the basics.

But there is of course more to learn by revisiting actual urgent and unexpected projects to see what those projects were like and what kind of takeaways we get from them.

And more than that -- remember that Stephen explained to us that managing an urgent and unexpected project is really the exception. So what I want to know from him at the end is this: What can we learn from all of this in relation to our regular, day-to-day projects.

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Have you ever had an urgent or unexpected project come across your desk? Not just an important project, but an urgent one? If you answer is “Yes - I have managed urgent projects” then you are actually in the minority because most of us will actually never have to manage such a project. Professor Stephen Wearne explains this in his book “Managing the Urgent and Unexpected” as follows:

"Urgent and unexpected projects have to be rare in business or government to be economically and socially tolerable. Any such urgent and unexpected work demands an instant start, in contrast to the often lengthy processes of investigation, evaluation, development, selection and planning that is normal normal in businesses and public services before any proposed work is started. The chance that any one person except those in the emergency services will ever manage such a project is small."

Stephen then continues in his book with saying something that I disagree with just a little bit. He says that it’s not possible to know who should learn the lessons learned from these urgent and unexpected projects in order to be prepared. In my opinion, I know exactly who should learn from them -- we project managers should! And that is why I have asked him to come onto the program.

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If you are like me then Project Workflow Management, the topic that we discussed with Daniel Epstein (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dan-epstein/1/10b/308) and Rich Maltzman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/exclaim) last week, needs a bit more discussion.

For example, I want to know why Dr Harold Kerzner thinks that it’s the best thing since sliced bread, how it is "better" than traditional methodologies, how it adds value to my work, and of course -- how exactly does Project Workflow Management work?

Well, you are in luck, because Dan Epstein and Rich Maltzman are back to discuss just that.

And please don't forget to take a look at their book Project Workflow Management, and stop by at their website http://www.pm-workflow.com for all the free tools and teaching aid CD.

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Today, we are going to take a look at a business process approach that is quite new and quite unique called Project Workflow Management.

When I initially asked Daniel Epstein (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dan-epstein/1/10b/308) and Rich Maltzman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/exclaim) to come on the program for this interview I didn’t quite know what to expect. I knew that they had written a book about Project Workflow Management, but what I didn’t know is that the book is only part of the package. Their website http://www.pm-workflow.com not only offers many free tools to download but also a teaching aid CD.

I also didn’t expect to find a quote by Dr. Harold Kerzner in which he says point blank that project workflow management appears to be the best alternative, and significantly more valuable to us project managers than complex methodologies and processes.

So in today’s interview we will learn about workflow management from various angles - like how it differs from waterfall methodologies and Agile, its primary benefit, the tools it offers, how simple it is to apply, and of course how we project managers can start using this new approach that Dr Kerzner likes so much.

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This episode is sponsored by The PM PrepCast for The PMP® Exam:

We are welcoming back Jamal Moustafaev (http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jmoustafaev/en). And once again we will be talking about his new book on the topic of Project Scope Management.

But this time it’s all practical because we are going to discuss and give you the top ten topics, tips and tricks for scope management. And so you can look forward to learning about scope control in project management, the signs that your project needs proper scope management, requirement taxonomies, types of questions to ask during requirements elicitation, requirements prioritization, writing guidelines and many more tips that you can apply to your scope management practices right away.

In my last interview with Jamal we discussed scope in project management, and we are carrying on the topic today because it is such a fundamental part of getting a project set up for success.

Let’s just hope that there is no project management scope creep during the interview!

We went on a Caribbean Cruise, which means that The PM Podcast is on a break this week. Please enjoy this video with some impressions from our trip. My apologies for the awful video quality. Instead of setting the camera to the highest recording quality I set it to the lowest...

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The next "real" episode is coming your way in less than a week...

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Incomplete or missed requirements, omissions, ambiguous product features, lack of user involvement, unrealistic customer expectations, and the proverbial scope creep can result in cost overruns, missed deadlines, poor product quality, and can very well ruin a project. The process of scope control in project management is typically how we address those challenges, and that's the topic of today's interview.

That is why Jamal Moustafaev (http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jmoustafaev/en) wrote his new book on the topic of Project Scope Management. It is a Practical Guide to Requirements for pretty much any industry and describes how to elicit, document, and manage requirements to control project scope creep. It also explains how to manage project stakeholders to minimize the risk of an ever-growing list of user requirements.

Scope is important because every single one of our projects is launched to deliver something. And that something is defined in our scope. So Jamal and I not only look at what the state of scope management overall is and how business analysis plays into this, but we end our interview (of course!) with project scope management tips and tricks for you. If you are struggling with project management scope creep, then you will be sure to pick up some handy ideas for getting your scope back under control. Enjoy the episode.

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Here’s a little secret for you -- everybody does it. At one point or another during their careers, every project manager will use Microsoft Excel to manage one of their projects!

That in itself is not surprising. After all, budgets are often tight and companies may not want to invest into full blown project management software. And if they have such a software there are only a limited number of licenses available, which means many stakeholders cannot access the tool. So we project managers make due with what we have. And practically everyone has Microsoft Office.

But what is surprising is the fact that we just improvise. We will simply use Excel to the best of our often mediocre knowledge in order to somehow force a project schedule into those cells.

Well... enter Doug Hong (http://www.linkedin.com/in/doughong/en) and his series of seven free Microsoft Excel tutorials, that you can find at http://www.exceltraining101.com/excel-project-management/ [Update: the template website is no longer available, so we removed the link] . In these seven short videos Doug shows you how to use MS Excel and create professional Gantt charts, work breakdown structures, checklists, pareto charts and more. All for free.

And because I liked the free approach I decided to invite Doug and ask him when and how we should use MS Excel, what Excel features we should learn about to better use it for our projects, and how we can identify the moment in our projects when Excel is really no longer the right tool and we have to upgrade to something more solid.

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This is a special episode of The PM PrepCast for the launch of our new PMP Exam Coaching program.

This is the final interview in our series where we focus on PMP exam coaching and it is also the third interview where a PMP exam student talks about her personal journey and experience in using a PMP exam tutor.

In this interview you will hear the story of Tara Guidi, PMP. Tara attended a condensed PMP training class and then unfortunately failed her PMP exam. Once she realized that the condensed approach wasn't for her she chose to try PMP coaching where a professional PMP coach works directly with her and a personalized training schedule.

The approach was successful. She passed her exam.

Please visit www.pm-prepcast.com/coaching for more information about our PMP exam coaching program.

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This is a special episode of The PM PrepCast for the launch of our new PMP Exam Coaching program.

This is the second of three interviews in this series, in which we focus on the coaching student. It's a lessons learned interview from the perspective of the PMP exam student who used a coach so that we can learn how a PMP Tutor helps his students to achieve success.

In this interview we welcome Derek Satz, PMP and we will be hearing about his trials and tribulations in preparing for this exam. One very notable fact about Derek is this: Derek has 11 certifications to his name and he says that the PMP certification was the most difficult one to achieve.

I asked him why he thinks that the PMP exam is so much more difficult and I read you his answer during the introduction of the interview. It's a long introduction, but worth hearing.

Please visit www.pm-prepcast.com/coaching for more information about our PMP exam coaching program.