A few weeks ago Don Kim put up a blog post challenging the value of certifications. I reached out to Don in hopes of doing an interview about it and found out he’s also written a new book “I think Therefore I Plan”. In this interview we discuss the pros and cons of different certifications, taking an artisan approach to managing projects as well as Don’s new book.

You can find Don’s book here: http://amzn.to/2n7VEHu

You can find Don’s blog post about certifications here: http://bit.ly/2okDUZA

Show Notes:

00:07 Interview Start

00:30 What is a Human APEE

03:38 What is an Artisan approach to Project Management

05:15 Don’s Philosophy of Project Management

07:22 Trying to slow down and do less

08:21 Don explains his way of approaching project work and the reason for the book

10:56 How has the traditional vs. Agile debate changed over the past few years

12:53 Seeing the value in every project you work on - regardless of how you got it

16:15 The downside of certifications

17:29 The positive aspects of certifications

18:03 There is more to project management training than just PMP certification

19:48 Making the case for the value certifications can provide and how it can be misunderstood

23:22 Does it make sense for people to want to have a way of gauging their professional achievement?

23:55 What Don expected from PMP certification and how he went deep with the Kerzner to get the most learning out of it (instead of just passing the test)

26:41 Is it the certification that is an issue, or the way people interpret it as an end point rather than a beginning

27:50 An overview of the approach Don’s book takes towards the art of Project Management

30:56 Where you can find Don’t book and how you can reach him with follow up questions

31:54 Podcast Ends

You can reach Don Kim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donkim/

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