The Project Management Podcast

By Cornelius Fichtner, PMPBusiness Careers

The Project Management Podcast episodes

January 15 Mid-January Check-In: Still Time to Save 30% on Premium
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Half the month is gone, but there’s still time! Grab your forever 30% discount on The PM Podcast Premium and pay just $4.19/month or $42/year. Enjoy in-depth transcripts for better understanding and early access to new episodes, keeping you ahead of the curve.
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January 03 Invest in Your PM Skills: January’s 30% Premium Offer
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This January only, secure a forever 30% discount on The PM Podcast Premium—just $4.19/month or $42/year. Gain unlimited access to over 500 episodes and effortlessly earn PDUs for your PMP recertification. Elevate your project leadership and kick off 2026 with confidence.
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1 min
December 29, 2025 Episode 545: AI Speeds Up Risk, How Leaders Respond (Premium Preview)
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Episode Summary
AI is changing how projects operate, but speed and automation also introduce new risks that are easier to miss and harder to challenge. This conversation examines how artificial intelligence accelerates existing project warning signs and creates confidence without evidence. Cornelius Fichtner welcomes Matthew Oleniuk, author of The Seven Red Flags of Failing Projects, to revisit four critical red flags through an AI lens. Together, they discuss how AI-driven reporting, task automation, and decision support can intensify output-focused thinking, hide weak outcomes, and create polished narratives that mask real project health. The discussion emphasizes that AI does not introduce entirely new problems but magnifies behaviors that already exist in project environments, especially overconfidence, automation bias, and reduced human challenge.
7 min
December 19, 2025 Episode 544: The Four Pillars of Project Success
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Episode Summary
Projects rarely fall apart because of tools or templates. They struggle because leaders lack clarity, adaptability, awareness, and strong communication habits. Author and coach Scott Barnard joins Cornelius Fichtner to share a practical leadership framework built on four pillars that help project managers guide their teams through turbulence. Drawing from more than three decades of recovering troubled initiatives, Scott explains how these pillars help teams anticipate disruption, reduce stress, and keep moving toward meaningful outcomes. His experience spans major global programs, complex software projects, and large organizational transformations, all of which reveal a consistent pattern: when leaders strengthen these four pillars, chaos loses its grip and teams deliver more confidently.
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December 06, 2025 Episode 543: Catch Project Trouble Early and Protect Your Delivery
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Episode Summary
Subtle problems often start long before a project shows obvious signs of distress. Leaders feel the pressure to deliver momentum, teams shift toward activity over outcomes, and stakeholders slowly fade as competing priorities pull them away. In this conversation, Matthew Oleniuk brings his experience from overseeing large public sector projects and highlights seven early indicators that signal when a project is heading toward trouble. He explains why these issues are easy to ignore, how they quietly compound over time, and why strong leadership vigilance matters more than any dashboard color. He also describes how patterns like output beating outcome, performance theater, and risk box ticking show up in real projects and why they are so harmful when left unchallenged.
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November 21, 2025 Episode 542: Inside PMBOK Guide 8: What Project Managers Must Know
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Episode Summary
The eighth edition of the PMBOK Guide has dropped and it represents another significant evolutions in PMI’s standards. This conversation takes listeners directly inside its development. Jesse Fewell, who chaired the PMBOK Guide 8 effort, offers a detailed look at how tens of thousands of data points, practitioner feedback, and extensive review cycles shaped the newest edition. He explains how the standard brings greater clarity, a more intuitive structure, and practical guidance that aligns with the way projects actually unfold rather than how we might idealize them on paper. This episode also highlights major updates, including a fully revised definition of a project and a modernized view of project success that emphasizes value, perception, and consensus across stakeholders, even when budgets or schedules are challenged.
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November 05, 2025 Episode 541: Transform Project Outcomes (Premium Preview)
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Episode Summary
Project leadership is more than delivering on time and budget. It is about leading people with honesty, awareness, and courage. In this episode, leadership coach and author Susanne Madsen joins Cornelius Fichtner to discuss how project managers can transform their project outcomes by developing authentic leadership. Drawing from her acclaimed book, *The Power of Project Leadership*, Susanne explains the Project Leadership Matrix, how to assess whether we are proactive or reactive, and how self-awareness is the foundation of great leadership. She also unpacks how leaders can balance people and task focus while recognizing that reactivity often stems from corporate culture rather than personality.
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October 31, 2025 Meet Cornelius Fichtner at the PMI Global Summit in Phoenix!
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Cornelius will be at the PMI Global Summit in Phoenix from November 12–15! If you’re attending, let’s connect. Write to [email protected] and we’ll set up a time to meet.
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October 16, 2025 Apply Now: 7 FINAL Scholarships for the PBP Certification
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🎓 Apply for a PBP Scholarship Worth $1,000+
Here's your last chance for one of 7 full scholarships for the upcoming Project Business Professional (PBP) seminar, taking place November 4–7. This live, interactive training is for project managers working on client-facing, outsourced, profit-driven projects.
To apply, visit pm-podcast.com/scholarship and complete the short form by October 25. Tell us why you want to become a PBP, and you could be one of the seven randomly selected.
Premium subscribers: you must opt in too!
👉 Apply here before September 23.
0 min
October 01, 2025 Episode 540: How to Turn Your Project Schedule into a Leadership Tool
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Episode Summary
When stakeholders doubt the schedule, they doubt the leader behind it. Project schedules are more than a collection of dates... they are instruments of leadership that can either inspire confidence or create skepticism. In this conversation, Michael Pink, CEO of SmartPM Technologies, joins Cornelius Fichtner to explain how schedule visibility enables project leaders to see risks early, prevent overruns, and lead with credibility. Drawing from his experience in analyzing thousands of construction projects, Michael explains how transparent and data-driven schedules elevate leadership trust, keep teams aligned, and ensure projects stay on course.
56 min

About The Project Management Podcast

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Become the project manager everyone wants on their team. Tune in to The Project Management Podcast™ and join Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM, as he interviews global PM experts to uncover what drives…