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This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam:

Migrating from using a waterfall-based approach to agile project management is challenging. No doubt about it. Are there any best practices that you can follow in order to ease the migration pain?

Shawn Dickerson (www.linkedin.com/pub/shawn-dickerson/1/97/607) says yes there are. In fact, by the end of this interview you will have heard a list of about ten or so ideas, tips, best practices and pitfalls to consider before, during and after migrating from W to A. These tips will help you manage risk management in agile projects, especially during the difficult transition phase where everything feels new and slightly risky.

And of course, I open the discussion by asking Shawn about the #1 success factor to consider for such a migration.

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Dev Ramcharan, PMP, CSM, CCTC

This is the third and final of three interviews in which Dev Ramcharan (LinkedIn Profile) from AROUCA Career Coaching helps you to optimize and boost your career. In this interview we focus on the late career phase and also touch upon consulting.

Allow me to repeat my recommendation on listening to this series of interviews one final time: You will get the most out of this series of interviews if you listen to them in sequence, no matter if you are currently in your early career, mid career or late career. This is because each of the three interviews contains many nuggets of wisdom applicable to any career stage. And of course... Dev’s Career Optimization Package can be found on The PM Podcast website. Just go to www.pm-podcast.com/career and download the free version first.

In this final interview you learn that the late career is really the peak of your experience, knowledge and wisdom. As well as the money you earn. But at the same time, this is also the moment to think back to the time when you started out in your career, and now you need to help out and mentor an eager young project manager at the start of his or her career.

The one unexpected topic that you will also hear about is adversity in the sense of getting laid off or overlooked for a promotion during any of the stages in your career. Dev shows you that you can use adversity as your ally to move your career forward. And finally Dev closes with his suggestions for a structured approach to personal growth.

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Dev Ramcharan, PMP, CSM, CCTC

This is the second of three interviews in which Dev Ramcharan (LinkedIn Profile) from AROUCA Career Coaching helps you to optimize and boost your career. In this interview we focus on the mid-career phase, which starts about 2-3 years into your life as a project manager.

In this interview you learn that there is an early mid-career and also a late mid-career, and that both require a different optimization approach. We talk about when and how often you should update the Career Optimization Package and how to perform a career risk assessment.

As part of this interview, Dev also recommends the following two books:

• Carol S. Dweck: Mindset - The New Psychology of Success
• Kegan / Lahey: Immunity to Change

My recommendation is still the same: To get the most out of this you should listen to all three interviews in sequence, no matter if you are currently in your early career, mid career or late career. And don’t forget to get Dev’s Career Optimization Package from The PM Podcast website. Just go to www.pm-podcast.com/career and download the free version first.

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Dev Ramcharan, PMP, CSM, CCTC

If you are listening to this podcast, then you are most likely either someone who wants to start a career in project management or you are already working in the project management field and you want to advance in your career. Well… you have come to the right place. This is the first of three interviews that will help you optimize and boost your project management career.

My guest is Dev Ramcharan (LinkedIn Profile). Dev is not only a PMP certified project manager, but he is also a professional career coach with AROUCA Career Coaching in Canada. That means he not only understands the profession of project management but he also has the coaching background to guide you and me into successful project management careers! And my oh my is he good!

We have recorded three interviews and each focuses on one stage of your career. The stages are early career, mid career and late career. My recommendation is that you listen to all three interviews in sequence, irrespective of your current career stage. So no matter if you are an absolute newcomer to project management or if you are a highly respected and senior VP of project management… you should listen to all three interviews starting with this one here.

Also, Dev has developed the Career Optimization Package for you. This package is just over 30 pages long and contains templates, workbooks, tools and plans to help you review, optimize, plan and boost your project management career. You can download this package for free in both PDF and Microsoft Office format from The PM Podcast website. Just go to www.pm-podcast.com/career. You’ll see that there is a 32 page long free version (that’s the one we talk about during the interview) and there is also a premium version.

The premium version is a much more complete package, because it contains additional career tools, checklists and workbooks. So compared to the free version, the premium gives you a comprehensive, full career-life-cycle coverage with a powerful toolset. We are launching this  premium version initially at the price of $6.99 but we are also giving away FOUR copies. As always… two copies are reserved for our Premium listeners and two copies are open for grabs. Please go to www.facebook.com/pmpodcast and participate in the giveaway. We will draw a winner at the end of October 2014.

And with all that out the way here's an overview of our first interview with Dev Ramcharan: We start out by looking at the benefits that a career in project management gives you, discuss the key factors and skills that will help you make your project management career a success, then we move on to discussing how to optimize your early career and we close the interview by looking at how to use the Career Optimization Package.

Note: During the interview I say that the free package is about 50 pages long, but the correct number is 32 pages. I'm sorry! I was looking at the wrong file. My mistake!

Download PDF Version... Download DOC Version...

The Free Career Optimization Package is developed and provided to you by Dev Ramcharan from AROUCA Career Coaching. It gives you the basics you need to optimize your career.

Note: In episode 287, 288 and 289 I say that the free package is about 50 pages long, but the correct number is 32 pages. I'm sorry! I was looking at the wrong file. My mistake!

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This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam:

Are you a project manager or do you consider yourself to be a project leader? And what are the steps in order to go from manager to more of a leader?

My guest today is Shawn Dickerson (www.linkedin.com/pub/shawn-dickerson/1/97/607). He is the GTM Director for AtTask, Inc. and AtTask recently published an eBook titled “Project Leadership - Lessons from 40 PPM Experts on Making the Transition from Project Management to Project Leadership”. And so we’re going to review what it means to be a project leader.

From the eBook introduction we learn the following: Strong project leadership can make the difference between success and failure. When it comes to project management, we tend to talk about the tactical the assignments, the tasks, the approvals, and so on. But business is evolving, and many of us are now being asked to lead change, instead of just managing timelines and milestones. This change is not only happening, it’s accelerating.

Please click here to download the eBook...

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Are you an accidental project manager? You know, someone who was thrust into the project management role without much fanfare, introduction or even education? Well… you are not alone. It happened to you, it happened to me and it continues to happen to thousands of other project managers throughout the world.

Wouldn’t it be great, if there were organizations out there who introduced young people to the concepts and approaches of project management? There are! And that’s good news for the future of our profession.

Joan Vincent (www.linkedin.com/pub/joan-vincent/4/902/531) is President of the Wideman Education Foundation (www.widemaneducationfoundation.org) whose goal is to promote sound project management principles and skills, especially among young people.

As part of this the Wideman Education Foundation is dedicated to attracting young individuals into the project management profession and helping them develop the organizational and leadership skills they will need to succeed in today’s job market. Through workshops and competitions the foundation fosters essential, basic, practical skills like preparation, planning, teamwork, communication, and delivering presentations.

It’s all about getting the next generation of project managers interested in the profession.

This episode is reserved for subscribers of the Premium Podcast. Learn how to subscribe to the Premium Podcast to access this interview and transcript...

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

In our last episode we learned from Mark Phillips (https://www.linkedin.com/in/markphillipspm) how to use communication as a performance management tool. But how exactly do you do it…?

In his book Reinventing Communication Mark also includes several case stories. In these case stories he reviews the good, the bad and the ugly in regards to communication design. And right now we want to review the success story that is the The F/A-18 E/F project.

We learn about the number one reason why it was a success, how a vice admiral almost didn’t get his star because the communication was so successful, how a common language supports communication success, and we get Marks tips for all of us on what we can do on our own projects to emulate the successful communications design from the The F/A-18 E/F project.

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

Communications is just something that we project managers do… right? It’s not something that we normally design, measure or use to manage performance… right?

Well… Mark Phillips (https://www.linkedin.com/in/markphillipspm) says “wrong”.

In his new book titled Reinventing Communication he proposes that project communication can indeed become a rigorous performance management tool and, further, that managing communication as a performance management tool is essential for delivering desired outcomes. It is essential because all projects are social environments.

In the interview Mark introduces us not only to how to use project communication as a performance management tool, but also to the elements of communication design, how a hard tool can help project communication, how good communication determines project outcomes, and he introduces us to two checklists included in the book that will help you design your project communication for performance management.

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

What makes you happy in your work? To some it’s a promotion, a big salary or being able to telecommute and work from home.

Thomas Juli (http://motivate2b.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-juli/0/338/799) who has spoken before in our leadership podcasts series has identified that there is a way to combine leadership, happiness and project success. He puts this under the heading of focus, strategy and alignment.

In this interview, we are going to see why happiness is important in this equation, how it fuels success, how to get WOW projects, what the MVP is, and we get his tips on how all of us can apply this right away on our projects.

Click here to download the checklist for getting the most out of a project management conference...

Use this worksheet to help you prepare for your next project management conference. It will make the difference between merely attending the conference and succeeding at attending the conference.

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We project managers attend many conferences. And I remember quite clearly how disappointed I was after some of these project management conferences because I realized that I didn’t get as much out of them as I had hoped.

So I decided that instead of continuing to hope for more success, I would have to plan for it.

This video and the accompanying checklist contain my personal best practices for conference success. I hope that it will help you plan for a successful conference as well.

Please feel free to share any improvements ideas with me in the comment section below.

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This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam:

David Blumhorst (http://www.linkedin.com/in/dblumhorst/) from Daptiv is back on the program to discuss what project success really means.

David says that it's not about time, budget and scope. Successful projects are about achieving business goals. Projects are really investments meant to change something about the business, and if they don't hit that business target all the time and money are wasted.

And successful project managers should know how to lead teams to hit those business targets.

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This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam:

If you're going to bother holding a meeting, then you should meet like you mean it.

This statement comes from Wayne Turmel (http://www.greatwebmeetings.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayneturmel) who has been speakinga and consulting on communications and successful meetings in particular for a very long time.

His latest book is called Meet Like You Mean It: A Leader's Guide To Painless And Productive Virtual Meetings. In the book and also in our interview he argues that if you're a project manager, you have to learn how to use today's online meeting tools to get great input, maximum participation, and engagement from your participating project team members. Virtual meetings should be an integral part of the way we work and manage our projects, and not an excuse to answer emails.

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This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam:

Prior to signing any project statement of work (SOW) it should be reviewed by your legal team. However, while legal experts understand legalities that will help you out in court, they are not project experts who can determine if a particular SOW will provide you with the product that you anticipate, need, or desire. And they don't necessarily understand concepts like project management scope creep, which is partly what the SOW is designed to stop (or at least, make harder -- it is of course possible to change a SOW if you really wanted to, that's where scope control in project management comes in).

Todd C. Williams (http://ecaminc.com/) on the other hand is such an expert. He has reviewed dozens of statements of work for his clients. He analyzes the methodology, scope, deliverables and proposed cost, and finds areas that point to weaknesses in the ability to deliver or misalignment in intentions.

Scope in project management is a really important area for this discussion, as that is often considered the bulk of the content in the SOW.

In our discussion we look at the main reasons behind doing a formal SOW review, at the factors that show whether a formal review makes sense or not, identify some of areas of concern during a review that should be considered as part of your work on project scope management, and learn why a comma can make all the difference in the world.