Play Now: This episode is sponsored by The PM PrepCast for The PMP Exam: Paul R. Williams, PMP It’s time. It’s time for strategic project management to be directly represented at the executive round table, in board meetings, and in the ‘C’-suite. It’s time for singular ownership and accountability for organizational strategic planning and execution. It’s time for dedicated focus on organizational resource planning, allocation and utilization. It’s time for focused attention regarding return on investment, earned value on execution, appropriate risk management and post-execution benefit capture. And finally, it’s time for single-sourced, unambiguous communication regarding strategic balance, allocation of resources and prioritization of the directives that constitute the portfolio of investments that the organization makes on its own behalf. What you have just read is the opening paragraph of the article It’s Time for Project Leadership To Have A Seat At The Executive Table written by Paul Williams (http://www.thinkforachange.com/aboutpaul). In it, he emphatically argues that project management is just as important as any of the other more traditional business departments such as marketing, finance or operations. In our interview, Paul and I review his general argument why project leadership needs a seat at the executive table, what the roles and responsibilities of our representative are, what skills he or she needs, and what you can do as part of your career planning to become that very person. Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Podcast Introduction Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to Episode #355.  This is The Project Management Podcast™ at www.pm-podcast.com and I'm Cornelius Fichtner. It's time! It's time for strategic project management to be directly represented at the executive round table in board meetings and in the C-Suite. It's time for singular ownership and accountability for organizational strategic planning and execution. It's time for dedicated focus on organizational resource planning, allocation and utilization. It's time for focused attention regarding return on investment, earned value on execution, appropriate risk management and post-execution benefit capture. And finally, it's time for single-sourced, unambiguous communication regarding strategic balance, allocation of resources and prioritization of the directives that constitute the portfolio of investments that the organization makes on its own behalf. What you have just heard is the opening paragraph of the article: "It's Time for Project Leadership to have a Seat at the Executive Table" written by Paul Williams. In it, he emphatically argues that project management is just as important as any of the other more traditional business departments such as marketing, finance or operations. Are you PMP certified and want to earn 37 PDUs quickly and for less than $6 per hour? That's no problem with The Agile PrepCast™. It not only prepares you for your PMI-ACP® Exam but also qualifies for a ton of PMP® PDUs. Visit www.agileprepcast.com/pdu for the details. In our interview, Paul and I review his general argument for why project leadership needs that seat at the executive table, what the roles and responsibilities of our representative are, what skills he or she needs and what you can do yourself as part of your career planning to become that very person. Why don’t you lead the way? Enjoy the interview. Podcast Interview Female Voice: The Project Management Podcast's feature interview: Today with Paul R. Williams, PMP, executive managing partner of Think For A Change LLC. Cornelius Fichtner: Hello, Paul! Welcome to The Project Management Podcast™! Paul Williams: Thank you! Thanks for having me, appreciate it! Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for being here. So our interview is based on your article "It's Time for Project