The Project Management Podcast

Play Now: Matt Mong and Henrik Lerkenfeld What type of project are you currently working on? Is it an internal project, where your own company pays for everything or is it an external project, where an external customer pays your bills? If you are part of the second group, then your project falls into what we call project business. And now look at your company and the projects you deliver as a whole. Do you see mostly internal projects or external projects? Well… If your company’s products and services are delivered to your clients through projects, your company is a project business. That means that the term project business is used to classify both individual projects and organizations as a whole. Both are project business. Confused? We can help. Today we welcome Matt Mong and Henrik Lerkenfeld of Adeaca to look at the term project business from the perspective of a company. In our conversation, we define the term project business from that angle, we discuss the central characteristics of a project business, briefly talk about some challenges, and look at why productivity in project business is lagging behind other areas like manufacturing or retail.

Play Now: Take your career as a PM Trainer or PM Consultant to the next level and become an Approved Consultant & Educator (ACE) without financial investment. Watch the video for details: Sorry. Your browser cannot play this video. The Scholarship for the ACE program of the Project Business Foundation is to help a limited number of trainers, consultants, and other experts to gain this coveted qualification during times burdened with the Corona crisis. Apply Now

Play Now: James Franklin, PMP Every project that you have ever worked on had at least one constraint. Maybe your current project has a fixed budget and maybe the previous one had to be completed by a certain deadline. But I am also sure of this: your projects had to follow laws and regulations. The laws you have to follow can be major laws, like Sarbanes-Oxley here in the USA, the protection of personal data laws in the european union, or the intellectual property laws that most countries around the world have. And if you work in aerospace or healthcare then you will know all about rules and regulations concerning personal safety. But on the other hand these must-follow laws and regulations could simply be an internal regulation that tells you that all rental cars must be rented from one particular company. So laws and regulations limit our choices and freedom to shape our projects. And to explore this in more detail, we have Jim Franklin with us today. He has managed over $500M of Government contracts in California and knows a thing or two about laws and regulations.

Play Now: Oliver F. Lehmann, PMP Today we are going to talk about Project Business and Project Business Management, and if you have no idea what that means then welcome to the club. Cornelius didn't know what either of these terms meant when he heard them for the first time. But now he does. Thanks to Oliver F. Lehmann. Oliver wrote the defining book on the topic called Project Business Management (Best Practices in Portfolio, Program, and Project Management). In addition to that, he also founded the Project Business Foundation, and he is our guest today to give us an introduction to project business and project business management. You will learn what project business is all about, that (surprise!) roughly 50% of all projects that are currently being undertaken in the world are part of project business, we talk about the skills that we PMs need to answer project business challenges, and you’ll come away learning about the number one thing that you should pay particular attention to, when you are involved in project business management and why.

Play Now: Karthik Ramamurthy Disruptive business models, technological progress and intense competition force your customers to continuously innovate. Clients naturally demand that you deliver high-quality projects involving complex, ever-changing scope at tight budgets and within compressed timelines. Is this challenging? Absolutely! Innovative, effective scope management is a must for project success. Listen in as we discuss the successful scope management techniques from across continents. This interview with Karthik Ramamurthy was recorded at the PMI® Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. We discuss his findings into how project scope management will make or break your project. You will discover how ineffective requirements gathering, poor scope definition, gold plating, and uncontrolled creep inevitably lead to project failure. And to counteract this, we analyze, adapt, and apply seven proven scope management techniques to increase the probability of project success.

Play Now: Kim Wasson Feeling disconnected from your team? Is getting them all together more like herding cats than project management? Social intelligence concepts (the connections part of emotional intelligence) can help you connect and keep your team all moving in the same direction. This interview with Kim Wasson was recorded at the PMI® Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. We discuss the concepts of her interactive workshop in which she helped the attendees develop strong connected leadership, handle problems gracefully and create and support effective teams using principles from the world of social intelligence translated into project management tools and techniques. They were able to leave the session armed with tools to support their project manager coaching and mentoring back in the workplace, with their colleagues. From the interview you will learn how to use social intelligence tools to build teams and keep members connected and engaged and how to utilize social intelligence tools to achieve balance among the project dimensions of people, product and process. Note that social intelligence tools are not the same as social media for project managers, although there is definitely value in social media tools too. People from so many different backgrounds joined Kim's talk and benefited from what she shared. From people who fill the role of project manager in SAFe agile environment, through to people managing multiple projects, there is so much to take away from today's interview. And without further ado, let's listen in.

Play Now: Dr. David Hillson Definitions are a useful starting point, but what do you really think when you hear the word risk? How does it make you feel? What about related words like "uncertainty," "threat" or "opportunity"? Building on established neurolinguistic theories of word/image association, this session will explore underlying tensions in the way practitioners think and feel about risk. Discover the surprising truth, and compare yourself with your peers. And of course, this episode is relevant to risk management in agile projects as well, just in case you were wondering. This interview with Dr. David Hillson was recorded at the PMI® Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. We discuss his research and insights into what you truly think about when you hear the words "risk" and "opportunity" using the Bouba/Kiki Effect. This is the kind of information you won't find in the Practice Standard for Project Risk Management but it's so useful when thinking and talking about risk with project stakeholders. You will see and understand why it's hard to include opportunities in an integrated risk management process and discover your own underlying perceptions of risk, and the implications for your risk management behavior. The insights will change how you think about risk management critical success factors. Enjoy the episode!

Play Now: Benjamin Anyacho and Bruce Moore Employees get 50-75% of their relevant information directly from other people. All project management begins with knowledge; one of the most critical organizational assets—intellectual capital—is held captive in the minds of individuals. How to capture, share, retain and reuse this knowledge is the greatest challenge facing organizations today. This interview with Benjamin Anyacho (LinkedIn Profile) and Bruce Moore (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the PMI® Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. We discuss how to create/establish a robust knowledge-sharing environment intelligently, leveraging it for exponential growth, competitive advantage, and innovation. Our discussion also looks at intelligent approaches to managing competencies, capabilities, and critical knowledge assets of the organization strategies for converting, capturing, sharing, as well as ways to retaining/reusing project knowledge to achieve innovative solutions, and value

Play Now: Rich Maltzman and Jim Stewart Planning your project right from the start is a big factor for future success. It’s definitely not everything, but doing the planning right goes a long way. And most planning is done in meetings. And that again means that you really want to make sure that those meetings deliver. That is where the book How to Facilitate Productive Project Planning Meetings - A Practical Guide to Ensuring Project Success can help. It was written by Rich Maltzman (LinkedIn Profile) and Jim Stewart (LinkedIn Profile), and yes, it does indeed contain Goblins. We have chosen to focus on chapter 6 “The Zen of Facilitation”. We talk about what is wrong with the way many planning meetings are being facilitated today, what facilitation and facilitative style means, and we have many good tips for you. And yes… we will talk about the goblins. What you'll learn in this interview will help you put together a better and more accepted project plan. Lastly here is what one reviewer on Amazon wrote: This book read [sic] better than a textbook as it was full of humor and step-by-step tips for immediate application. The authors provide insight on Agile project planning, tips on facilitating status meetings and lessons learned meetings, and even their appendices provide additional information on topics such as Project Management 101, meeting war stories, and access to their templates.

Play Now: Cynthia Dionisio, Mike Griffiths and Stephen Townsend At the Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, I had the opportunity to attend two workshops to help in the development of A Guide to The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) -- Seventh edition. Yes, you read that right: Seventh Edition. And here is what PMI® wrote about the workshop: PMBOK® Guide – The Next Generation: An Innovation Working Session Join us for an innovation workshop to develop concepts for the next generation of the PMBOK® Guide. Explore current thinking to ensure the next version encompasses the full spectrum of project management approaches. Then actively participate in shaping the content through a series of innovation discussions and exercises. Bring your expertise, ideas and energy to collaborate with your colleagues in building a robust and resilient project management body of knowledge. The workshop was led by Cynthia Dionisio, Mike Griffiths, and Stephen Townsend. Cyndi and Mike are the co-leads for the new PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition and Stephen represents PMI. And in addition to attending the workshop, I also got the opportunity to sit down with them and learn what we can expect from the new guide. (My best guess is that it will be published sometime in 2021). In the interview we talk about the move from process-based to principles-based standards, what will happen to the domains and knowledge-areas, how the next guide will cover the entire delivery spectrum, why it will be much shorter than the current edition, and what each member of the team hopes that the seventh edition will be able to achieve.