Episode 399: Situational Project Management (Free)

Play Now: For your Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam get PMP Training on your phone from The PM PrepCast: Oliver F. Lehmann, MSc., PMP The one thing I really like about project management is how unpredictable my days can sometimes be. I come to the office in the morning with a clear plan of what we are going to do today, and then something happens. Maybe something breaks, a critical resource is unexpectedly not available today, or -- even more normal -- the customer wants a change and he wants it now. I love this challenge, because as a project manager I now have to re-evaluate the situation and change my plans accordingly. That is situational project management. However, there's more to situational project management than just responding with a knee-jerk reaction. These times demand situational awareness, skill and finesse from us project managers. And so I’m very happy to welcome Oliver Lehmann (www.oliverlehmann.com -- www.linkedin.com/in/oliverlehmann/) who literally wrote the book on this topic. The book is called Situational Project Management the dynamics of success and failure. PDU Tip Most of this interview is on technical aspects, but a little over 15 minutes are on leadership topics. That is why you can claim 0.50 'technical' and 0.25 'leadership' PDUs. Episode Transcript 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 #399. This is The Project Management Podcast™ at www.pm-podcast.com and I am Cornelius Fichtner. The one thing I really like about project management is how unpredictable my days can sometimes be. I come to the office in the morning with a clear plan of what we are going to do today and then something happens. Maybe something breaks, critical resources, unexpectedly not available today, or even more normal, the custom of once a change and of course he wants it today. I love this challenge because as a project manager, I now have to reevaluate the situation and change my plans accordingly. That is situational project management. If you are a project manager who wants to become PMP or PMI-ACP Certified then the easiest way to do so is with our sister Podcast --- The PM PrepCast or The Agile PrepCast and study for the exam by watching the in-depth exam prep video training from www.pm-prepcast.com. However, there is more to situational project management than just responding with a knee jerk reaction. These times demand situational awareness skill and finesse from us project managers. So I’m very happy to welcome Oliver Lehmann who literally wrote the book on this topic. The book is called “Situational Project Management – The Dynamics of Success and Failure”. And now, please get situated. Enjoy the interview! Podcast Interview Female Voice: The Project Management Podcast's feature interview: Today with Oliver Lehmann, Project Management Trainer, Speaker, Coach and Author. Cornelius Fichtner: Hallo, Oliver! [Ich heiße sie willkommen] Oliver Lehmann: Hallo, Cornelius! [Schön dich zu sehen]. Cornelius Fichtner: So to begin, let’s define what we are going to be discussing in this interview. What is your definition of situational awareness? Oliver Lehmann: Situational awareness builds on a very simple observation, the same tools, the same practices, the same behaviors, the same approaches that are successful. And when project situation may fail in another one. So we rely on simple best practices. They may sometimes match the situation and be the right thing to do and sometimes they lead into disaster. So we should always ask ourselves: Am I doing the right thing for the right situation, the right moment, the right environment, context in which we are, and so on… Cornelius Fichtner: And then what do we mean by situational project management? Oliver Lehmann: Situational project management begins with the same observation. The same thing that can lead to success. One