The Project Management Podcast

Play Now: Karthik Ramamurthy, Sripriya Narayanasamy and Cornelius Fichtner In this interview we welcome Sripriya Narayanasamy (LinkedIn Profile) and Karthik Ramamurthy (LinkedIn Profile) who are the authors of the book Say Yes to Project Success. in 52 short and entertaining chapters the book gives actionable advice to project managers on the most common issues we are faced with on pretty much every project. This interview was recorded ad the hectic and fantastic Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Here is the book's abstract Are you under pressure to deliver? Is your life made tough by shortened schedules, tight budgets, skills gap, incomplete scope, and demanding stakeholders? Do you need help in the form of proven practical tips and techniques to help you confidently deliver project success? This book will certainly help you. What’s inside? Superb set of 52 proven project success keys. Unbeatable breadth of insights: 108 experts, 2000+ projects, 119 countries Comprehensive solutions to the top 20 global project failure factors Coverage of waterfall, hybrid and agile methodologies in 54 industries Extensive discussions on soft skills, leadership and communication Situation, impact, and resolution presentation technique Storytelling approach for easy understanding We have chosen 4 chapters from the book ("Great Catches", "Last Mile Connectivity", "Fun with Risks", and "Feed me a Sandwich") in order to review them together.

Play Now: Kevin Wozniak and Cornelius Fichtner Got Meetings? This interview focuses on effective meeting management. It covers one of the project management basics that is most difficult to handle - managing stakeholders using different combinations of direct, dotted line, and influential management. This interview with Kevin Wozniak was recorded at the creative Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. In the interview we demonstrate how to effectively lead meetings and manage participants using various management styles and explain how to actively engage meeting attendees to participate in meetings in a valuable manner.

Play Now: Douglas Knutzen and Cornelius Fichtner What if you had to do your project in (near) half the time as previous projects, or be fired? What if your customer required you to do their project in (near) half the time to which you are accustomed or lose the business? Hear about the techniques (that can be applied to almost any type of project) that helped to meet these challenges and got the products successfully to market in record time. This interview with Douglas Knutzen was recorded at the inspirational Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. You'll hear about how to leverage scheduling, execution and team techniques to significantly increase speed on your projects, and (almost more importantly) how to lead project teams in high-pressure situations.

Play Now: Eleonore Pieper and Cornelius Fichtner Successful projects result in change. However, this transformation usually happens when the original project team is already disbanding, leaving the process largely unmanaged and stakeholders ill-equipped to use the deliverables as they were intended, diminishing the expected project impact and benefits. In this interview, we explore five strategies that project managers can easily incorporate into their project plans to put in place preventative and mitigation strategies that will lead to improved adoption of project results. This interview with Eleonore Pieper (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the diverse Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. We look at a scalable model of five strategies for change and discuss how to modify plans with specific tasks in the areas of communication, training, organizational design, sponsorship and HR management to ensure successful post-project transformation.

Play Now: Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam: PMP Exam prep : Douglas Knutzen and Cornelius Fichtner What if you had to do your project in (near) half the time as previous projects, or be fired? What if your customer required you to do their project in (near) half the time to which you are accustomed or lose the business? Hear about the techniques (that can be applied to almost any type of project) that helped to meet these challenges and got the products successfully to market in record time. This interview with Douglas Knutzen was recorded at the inspirational Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. You'll hear about how to leverage scheduling, execution and team techniques to significantly increase speed on your projects, and (almost more importantly) how to lead project teams in high-pressure situations. Episode Transcript Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Podcast Introduction Douglas Knutzen: Hi, This is Doug Knutzen from Plexus Corporation. In this episode of The Project Management Podcast™, we will lever the scheduling, execution and team techniques to significantly increase speed on future projects. Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to The Project Management Podcast™ at www.pm-podcast.com. I am Cornelius Fichtner. Podcast Interview Cornelius Fichtner: We are coming to you live from the inspirational 2018 PMI Global Conference in Los Angeles. And I’m currently sitting here in Room 411A together with Doug Knutzen. Hello, Doug! Good afternoon! Douglas Knutzen: Good afternoon, Cornelius. Thanks for having me. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah! So the audience has just left. This is a beautiful, beautiful venue that they have given you. How was the presentation? Douglas Knutzen: It was really fun; it is a wonderful venue. I was really happy to be in the theater. The audience was great. I think we had about 200 people or so and I think it was well received. I think it went very well. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, I came in at the tail end and lots of questions. Lots of questions came. Douglas Knutzen: Yeah, there were a lot of questions, very insightful questions. Cornelius Fichtner: Always a good sign. Douglas Knutzen: Yeah, I think so. Cornelius Fichtner: In the opening, I said: “We’re coming to you live from the inspirational 2018 PMI Global Conference.” You chose the adjective ‘inspirational’. Why is it inspirational? Douglas Knutzen: I think for two reasons. I think the two keynoters that we had this week particularly the gentlemen from the NFL, I’m sorry I can’t pronounce his last name. Cornelius Fichtner: Neither can I, yup! Douglas Knutzen: Who’s the magician, and had a great inspirational story there. He was just nothing short of fantastic and I think today’s speaker about the five generations and working through that, I thought he was very inspirational too. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, I saw myself in those slides definitely. Douglas Knutzen: Yeah and they both did tremendously well. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah. Your presentation is called “Taking Your projects to Breathtaking Speed.” How did this presentation develop? Why are you talking on this topic? Douglas Knutzen: Yeah, that’s a great question. Overtime, there were two projects that went really well that were both under significant duress and both went really, really quickly, really crazy speeds and they had to do that because of the duress they were under. And when I went back and looked at it, they were from two different companies and I thought there must be some correlations here. It’s like doing a lessons learned if you will. There must be some correlations that allow us to kind of see what were the correlations between these two projects and that’s what led to sort of the development of this specific talk. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, you said those two projects were under duress. What are some other more general reasons why we projec

Play Now: Sara Gallagher and Cornelius Fichtner The ink isn't even dry on your charter, but what if the seeds of project destruction have already been sown? The odds are not in our favor. The Project Management Institute (PMI)® reports that nearly 15% of projects are deemed failures. After years of helping companies "unstick" troubled projects, our guest knows that the first 21 days are critical to success. Learn how you can leverage them to beat the odds! This interview with Sara Gallagher (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the connecting Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. We look at the most common mistakes that project managers make in the first 21 days, how to correct them, and learn about critical but often overlooked objectives that must be achieved early related to project framing and team infrastructure.

Play Now: Andy Burns and Cornelius Fichtner Slow PMO? In today’s “right now” business environment, “hurry up and wait” annual planning cycles won’t do! To be fit for purpose, PMO processes deliver value faster than the competition—continuously, and certainly not just annually. Lean agility delivers this winning velocity! Here's a diet to help lean out an overweight PMO. Transforming the heritage PMO takes insight, empiricism, and experience. This interview with Andy Burns (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the encouraging Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. The experience shared in this interview should inform those needing to deliver fast—before the competition! We compare and contrast the practices of the heritage PMO and the lean-agile PMO and illustrate a technique to tailor the PMO process.

Play Now: Benjamin Anyacho and Cornelius Fichtner By 2029, 76 million baby boomers will retire. And organizations, including yours, are losing knowledgeable employees due to retirement and a competitive labor market. With 50% employee turnover in 2016, this brain drain of historical proportions increases our vulnerability to loss of institutional knowledge and critical skill sets required to conduct our business. In this interview, we explore the trends, urgency, value, techniques, and how-to of knowledge management — the new competitive and comparative advantage for high performing organizations. This interview with Benjamin Anyacho (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the superb Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. In the interview we also discuss strategies for creating a knowledge management culture in your business environment and how to develop knowledgeable project teams.

Play Now: Kim Wasson and Cornelius Fichtner It's hard to juggle everything on your project. And just a glance at your company's project management methodology can make you despair about getting it all done. But if we take a page from agile development, adding tools from behavioral psychology to Pomodoro, and incorporating pragmatic prioritization, you’ll be able to build a personalized time management system that fits your own working style. Come out of this interview with a manageable system for yourself and the tools to help your team members manage their own time and priorities. This interview with Kim Wasson (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the exciting Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. In the interview we review the key components of a good time/priority management system, the smorgasbord of tools available, and we discuss how to create a tailored time management system and advise team members on ways to manage their time and priorities. Oh... also... below is an image of the time management system that got Cornelius so excited during the recording: Using a folder for task management

Play Now: Marie Spark and Cornelius Fichtner Do you want to take your career as a project manager to the next level? Yes? We have a suggestion for you: project management education. This interview with Marie Spark (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the energizing Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Well... Actually... it was recorded a couple days before at the PMI® LIM). In the interview, we see how adult education has changed in the past decade, what changes we can expect in the future, and how we project managers can (and should!) take advantage of various training opportunities in order to advance our careers.