Episode 414: How To Make Better Choices For Your Projects (Free)

Play Now: Download Project Management Professional (PMP)® training to your pocket: Andy Kaufmann and Cornelius Fichtner As leaders of teams and projects, we regularly face choices and decisions that have downstream consequences. Learn why the familiar pros-and-cons approach seems to make sense—but is profoundly flawed, and how our biases influence the options we consider and the choices we make. No technique can guarantee great decisions every time, but you will leave this session with practical ideas and tools to make better choices for you, your team, and your projects. This interview with Andy Kaufmann (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the invigorating Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. In the interview, we identify the steps in making better decisions based on a well-researched model that can be applied personally and professionally. We also explain how biases influence decisions and how to address those biases to make better decisions. We’ll talk about how to execute your projects and grow your project management skills all while setting your business and IT customers up for success. We'll see how organizations without a PMO can be effective by tracking basic metrics, and how key templates in your project management toolbox will help your project managers be effective. Episode Transcript Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Podcast Introduction Andy Kaufmann:   In this episode of the Project Management Podcast™, I’ll show you how to make better decisions based on a well-researched model that can be applied personally and professionally. Podcast Interview Cornelius Fichtner:   Hello and welcome to the Project Management Podcast™ at www.pm-podcast.com. I am Cornelius Fichtner. We are coming to you live from the invigorating 2017 PMI® Global Conference in Chicago and with me sitting here in Room 185-A is Andy Kaufmann. Hello Andy!   Andy Kaufmann:   Hello, Cornelius. It’s great to see you.    Cornelius Fichtner:   It is! This is the first time. How many years have we known each other? I don’t know. It’s the first time we’re meeting in person. Andy Kaufmann:   It’s a pleasure for me. It is. Cornelius Fichtner:   So the audience has just left. We are in a completely empty room but when I came in about ten minutes before everything ended, this place was packed—literally. From the angle where I was standing, I started counting empty seats, I was able to count four. Andy Kaufmann:   Is that right? Yeah. Cornelius Fichtner:   They were sitting like sardines packed into here. Congratulations on a successful presentation at the Global Conference. Andy Kaufmann:   Thank you. It’s an honor even to have a presentation selected for this sort of thing. There are great sessions all over the place but this group in particular seemed hungry for practical ideas and I think that’s true in the Congress. Don’t give us theory—tell us how to do this. Cornelius Fichtner:   Yeah. Andy Kaufmann:   And decision-making—you and I are making choices all the time, [offer decisions] I would say. Cornelius Fichtner:   How was the energy for you up here as a presenter? Andy Kaufmann:   It was really good in that the last session of the day can sometimes be very difficult because people have—some of them travelled so there’s their time zone so my goal was to keep it very interactive and so when they are talking, that usually adds some energy to it and so it was very interactive session. It was fun. Cornelius Fichtner:   You’re the only one that stands between them and the martini, right? Andy Kaufmann:   [laughs] Right. So get done early too. Yeah, exactly. Cornelius Fichtner:   OK. Your presentation is titled “How to Make Better Choices for You, Your Team and yo