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Episode 144 Premium: Scope vs. Work

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The PDU Podcast

A little while back Bill Duncan published an article on the importance of clearly (and I really mean clearly) differentiating between the terms scope and work.

Everyone seems to agree on the importance of scope, but there is much less agreement on what it is and where to find it. By focusing on a project’s “product” (whether tangible or intangible), project managers create greater clarity around the implication of all changes.

His reasoning was that by doing so you get greater clarity in regards to what changes on your project should be considered as scope changes, you improve your communication with your customer and by applying "discover-define-deliver" you add another layer of clarity.

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Episode 144: aPro: asapm Performance Rated Organization

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This episode is sponsored by:
The PDU Podcast

Earlier this month, the ASAPM (The American Society for Advancement of Project Management) released their latest standard. It's called "aPro: asapm Performance Rated Organization". You can find it at http://apro.asapm.org/.

My guest today Bill Duncan, who serves as the Certification Chair on the board of directors of the ASAPM. Many of you will recognize his name, as he was the primary author of the original PMBOK® Guide. But that's a story for another time. Today, we're discussing the purpose of the aPRO standard. We'll look at what organizations should consider being rated in this way, benefits and competitive advantage of this rating, how you actually get certified and much, much more.

 

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Episode 143: Laryngitis and other Laws of Project Management

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This episode of The PM Podcast was supposed to feature an interview with a representative from PMI to talk about the recently updated CCRS. That's their Continuing Certification Requirements System.

However, 24 hours before we were scheduled to do the interview we became the latest victim of Murphy's Law: I got a phonecall from PMI letting me know that my interview guest has a bad case of laryngitis. So he can't really participate in a spoken interview. So the #1 law in project management - Murphy's Law - strikes again to bring heartache, pain and tears to a project manager. Me in this case.

Well... that got me thinking about all the various laws that we have in project management. So we will be reviewing the following laws together: Murphy's Law, Boyles laws, Brownian Motion Rule of Bureacracies, Laws of computer programming,The Peter Principle, The Pareto'Principle, Old Engineer's Law, Gordon's First Law, Golub's Laws of Computerdom, Horstman's Law of Project Management, Klipstein's Laws, Ninety-ninety Rule of Project Schedules, Parkinson's Law, Q's Law, Vance's Rule of 2 1/2, The Student Syndrome, Parkinson's Principle of Non-Origination, Theory of the International Society of Philosophic Engineering, Brooks's Law and The Law of diminishing returns.

We also announce the winners of The PDU Podcast promotional giveaway.

Question of the Week: Did we forget to review any important laws and principles of project management? Please leave a comment and let us know!

 

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Episode 142 Premium: How to Apply PM Simplicity on Your Projects

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

PMDD

Episode 142 Premium: How to Apply PM Simplicity on Your ProjectsNow it gets interesting

Last week we learned about PM Simplicity from Sean Henriques. We talked about the basic building block of his approach to managing projects. Now it's time to look at how he uses and implements this approach on his projects. We begin with project initiation and end... you guessed it... with project closing.

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