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If you work in a small company then it is quite likely that your project portfolio application is just a list of current projects in Word, Excel or even handwritten on a napkin. But once you outgrow this stage you are going to be faced with a myriad of project portfolio tools with an even more confusing array of features that you may or may not need.

My guest today, Curt Finch, is going to make this a lot easier for you because together we are going to look at the 6 top criteria to consider when shopping around for a project portfolio application. We'll be starting out with a more general look at what PPM solutions are and we'll end with looking at which of these criteria companies usually have most problems with during the actual implementation of the software.

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This episode is sponsored by http://www.pducast.com:

Let's do the following exercise together: Today or tomorrow when you get to your office I want you to take a look at your organizations portfolio of projects. Obviously, the more project management maturity your company has, the more detailed this will be. However, what you will see in most companies is that the portfolio usually only contains the large, important or strategic projects. But what about the smaller ones? You know... those 30 projects which individually don't look like much but when you look at them as a whole they become a sizable chunk.

Often they are missing in the portfolio. So because they are "not important", would take too much time to keep track of, have too small a budget or a million other reasons they are not on anyone's radar. But small projects, while often overlooked, are still crucial to a company's success and will cost you a lot of money if managed improperly.

This is the premise of our discussion today with Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx (http://www.journyx.com). We discuss how he defines a small project, why we tend to ignore the small ones,  how he recommends that we manage all of these small projects, we look at the 3 key best practices that we must implement on a small project to be successful and what you can do today to improve overall management of small projects in your area of influence.

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This episode is sponsored by http://www.pdu-insider.com:

This is a Premium Episode that is available to everyone. Normally, our Premium episodes are only available to our paying premium subscribers. A paid subscription gets you

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Every now and then, we release a premium episode for everybody, so that free listeners can hear what they are missing from the premium version. This is one of them.

In this interview we meet once again with Brian Weiss (PMI's Vice President Product Management) and Mark Emery (he is the business owner of the new CCRS). The reason why we meet them again is a simple one: Have you ever wondered how PMI manages their internal projects? I mean we all heard the old saying that "The cobbler's children have no shoes". This saying refers to the fact that a busy cobbler will be so busy making shoes for his customers that he has no time to make some for his own children.

So the question is then... does PMI get so busy defining and publishing standards in project management that they forget to apply these standards on their own projects?

Let's find out in our interview.

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The PM Podcast has partnered with the PMI Munich Chapter to promote the PM-Summit 2010 which is put on under the heading of "Clever Achievement of Milestones".

"Clever" means to implement project management methods in the most effective way and to apply project management tools & techniques intelligently to be successful.

The symposium is targeting project managers from any and all industries and projects. Junior project managers, who are gathering their first experiences are welcome as well.

The summit will take place on Monday, November 15th, 2010 from 9:00am - 5:00PM at the Hilton Munich Park in Munich, Germany. Here is what we know about the agenda so far:

• Keynote speaker
• 5 tracks with 35 presentations by PM Experts
  
• 1 track with 10 presentations by tool- and service-providers
• Exhibition hall for sponsors, tool- and service-providers

Until the event takes place we will keep you updated on the podcast. You'll hear a short interview with one of the organisers of the event and we also hope to invite to event speakers as interview guests and get a glimpse of their presentations.

Check out the PM-Summit website at http://www.pm-summit.de/

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This episode is sponsored by http://www.pdu-insider.com:

Do you hold a PMI Certificate like the PMP, PgMP, PMI-RM or PMI-SP? If you do, then you know all about PDUs (Professional Development Units). In a nutshell, PMI's Continuing Certification Requirements System (CCRS) says that your certificate is only valid for 3 years and then you will have to apply for recertification. But that doesn't mean that you have to take your test again. It means that you have to earn and then claim a predefined number of PDUs, pay a fee, and voila... your certification is good for another 3 years.

A little while back, PMI gave their CCRS system a major facelift. In our interview you will meet Brian Weiss (PMI's Vice President Product Management) and Mark Emery (he is the business owner of the CCRS). Both have been involved in the project from the start. In our interview we look at why PMI decided to upgrade the system, who has to use it, some of it's features and we also discover our guest's favorite ways to earn PDUs.

Brian Weiss, Vice President Product Management, serves on PMI’s Executive Management Team. In his role, he provides overall leadership, planning and oversight of PMI’s worldwide products for organizations and project management practitioners. Certifications, implementation of new and updated standards, career framework, Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3®) products and services, SeminarsWorld® training courses and PMI’s Global Congress programs are critical offerings within his area of responsibility..

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