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Episode Summary
PMOs are often seen as administrative hubs, yet they possess far greater potential when aligned with organizational strategy. Cornelius Fichtner welcomes seasoned consultant and leader, Demi Anderson, who has more than three decades of experience in project, program, and portfolio management. She shows how PMOs can focus on strategic goals rather than serving solely as process gatekeepers. And we learn that each PMO setup depends on the needs of the company, from a temporary project-level office to a permanent enterprise-level structure.
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Episode Summary
In this episode, we explore the intersection of PMOs and the digital transformation era with Amireh Amirmazaheri, the managing director of PMO Solutions. Amireh shares her extensive experience in PMO frameworks and strategic growth, shedding light on how PMOs adapt to and drive digital change. We discuss the challenges PMOs face, their innovative strategies, and the importance of aligning digital transformation initiatives with strategic business objectives.
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In this episode, we embark on a journey through the avenues of corporate project management training and its unparalleled significance in today's shifting market dynamics. With market trends evolving at an unprecedented pace, how can businesses equip themselves to navigate these changes and remain at the forefront of their industries? The answer might very well be found in the depths of project management training.
Are you curious about how corporate project management training might offer businesses a compass to adapt and flourish amidst evolving market dynamics? Dive deep into the core of this topic with our guest, Jonathan Hebert. Together, we unravel the transformative power of this training, focusing on strategies, essential skills, and insights that can steer businesses towards sustained success.
And if you're eager to read more on this very topic, we have a treat for you! Head over to Navigate Change where we've curated four in-depth articles diving deeper into the impact of project management training in the corporate landscape:
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In this episode we once again delve into the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Project Management. Our focus right now is to explore the pervasive buzz around AI in the PM landscape because the integration of AI into project management has been making waves across industries. And I have no doubt that you must have stumbled upon an intriguing article or LinkedIn post making (sometimes wild) predictions and highlighting the profound influence of AI on project management roles, right?
It's undeniable that AI's presence is reshaping our professional landscape, but to what extent? What should be the role of AI in our world? Has AI impacted your daily tasks or decision-making processes in project management? What are the challenges?
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Organizations are successful based on their ability to achieve strategic goals. However, too many organizations waste time and money on developing strategy but don’t achieve their goals.
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Project Business Automation (PBA) is a category of business systems that are designed to integrate and automate the business processes of project-based companies. So if your company is in a project driven industry - for example construction, engineering or professional services - where you work on projects that are paid for by your customers, then having a PBA system is a must.
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The world of project management is undergoing a fundamental change -- a collaborative revolution: Projects that would have been done internally in the past are more and more given to external contractors, who in turn may use subcontractors and sub-subcontractors, building complex project supply networks (PSNs).
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Our focus today is on project performance.
To be precise, it’s on The Practitioner's Handbook of Project Performance: Agile, Waterfall and Beyond. This handbook is the result of the hard work and dedication of more than 35 authors from over 15 countries across four continents. They wrote chapters on pretty much any topic of project performance that you can imagine, and it was all brought together by Mark Phillips.
Mark has been on the program before. That was back in episode 158 and then also 282 and 283 when we spoke about his book reinventing communication, and today it’s project performance.
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Today's topic is project business, which is what you get when companies organize their primary business activities in projects. They are sometimes called project-based, project-driven, or project-centric companies.
In particular, we are introducing The Project Business Study Book. The study book is a free, 118-page introduction to Project Business Management.
Joining us today are Oliver Lehmann and Martin Berneburg from the Project Business Foundation. I'm sure that they can give us a much better definition of what exactly project business is. In particular, we'll learn how it affects us, project managers' required skills when we manage a project that is considered part of project business versus when we manage one that isn't.
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A few weeks ago, Cornelius Fichtner was interviewed by Martin Berneburg and Oliver Lehmann of the Project Business Foundation about his career as a project manager, project leader and experience in project business management. This is part 2 of the interview, andhere is the announcement:
For many practitioners in project management, Cornelius Fichtner is a household name. He is known mostly for the digital offerings of his company OSP International LLC, such as the PM PrepCast for project managers heading for the PMP® certification of PMI®, the Project Management Institute.
Meanwhile, his lineup of exam preparation tools was expanded by a family of further podcasts, augmented with simulators and inhouse offerings for corporations.
Much less known are his personal roots in project management and particularly in project business management.
Interviewed by Martin Berneburg and Oliver F. Lehmann, he will tell us the most interesting stories of his years as a consultant and project manager under contract, working hard to make the customer happy, but also with the obligation to make the project profitable.
Click above to play either the audio-only episode or video episode in a new window.
A few weeks ago, Cornelius Fichtner was interviewed by Martin Berneburg and Oliver Lehmann of the Project Business Foundation about his career as a project manager, project leader and experience in project business management. Here is the announcement:
For many practitioners in project management, Cornelius Fichtner is a household name. He is known mostly for the digital offerings of his company OSP International LLC, such as the PM PrepCast for project managers heading for the PMP® certification of PMI®, the Project Management Institute.
Meanwhile, his lineup of exam preparation tools was expanded by a family of further podcasts, augmented with simulators and inhouse offerings for corporations.
Much less known are his personal roots in project management and particularly in project business management.
Interviewed by Martin Berneburg and Oliver F. Lehmann, he will tell us the most interesting stories of his years as a consultant and project manager under contract, working hard to make the customer happy, but also with the obligation to make the project profitable.
Matt Mong and Henrik Lerkenfeld of Adeaca are back on the program today to discuss project business from the corporate perspective.
As a reminder, if your company’s products and services are delivered to your clients through projects, then your company is a project business. If we compare this to another industry, then a company that sells consumer goods is a retail business.
In this premium interview, we are going to be discussing the 7 challenges of a project business:
Acceptance of Status Quo
Failing to identify as a Project Business
Optimization of Project Management silos has maxed out
Inadequate communication among key stakeholders or “Lack of stakeholder collaboration”
Lack of governance/Lack a structured, standardized system of organizing their data
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.
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.
Today, we welcome Cindy Anderson (LinkedIn Profile) who is the VP, Brand Management at Project Management Institute (PMI)®.
This interview was recorded at the PMI® Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. We'll talk about the elements of PMI's new brand and the fact that there is a lot more to it than "just" a new logo. And that's an important distinction. While the new logo is what most of us see, the new brand and its slogan/positioning "Powering the Project Economy" are so much more than just a few new visual assets.
In the interview, we talk about how the new brand was developed and how it affects the many stakeholders around the world.
Today, we welcome Sunil Prashara (LinkedIn Profile) who is the President and CEO of Project Management Institute (PMI)®.
This interview was recorded at the PMI® Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. We discuss Sunil's responsibilities within PMI, how project management is changing the world, delve into PMI's transformational journey and touch upon how PMI members can help the organization succeed in today's constantly evolving environment.
Here is what one of my colleagues had to say after listening to the interview:
Bravo! That was an awesome interview! I was very impressed with Sunil, on many levels. He is a true visionary who knows himself and the changing world around him. He is an excellent speaker who understands project management, PMI, and it’s potential future.
This is an interview that many people will listen to and say, "Wow! This is where the future of project management and PMI is headed and it’s inspiring."
Jonathan Hebert, PMP, CSM, PMI-ACP
I cannot agree more with what Jonathan is saying. This is one of our best podcast interviews.
In the interview we also mention The CEO Corner and Straight Talk with Sunil, where he invites PMI staff to talk about what's going on behind the scenes at PMI. Check it out!
There's no shortage of great ideas, whether you are going through a transformation or adapting to digital innovation, but not every great idea becomes a reality. Pinpointing 'why' is at the core of the Brightline initiative's mission.
Brightline (www.brightline.org) is a new strategic arm of Project Management Institute (PMI)®. And as stated on the website: "The Brightline™ Initiative delivers insights and solutions that empower leaders to successfully transform their organization’s vision into reality through strategic initiative management."
Today, we welcome Ricardo Vargas (LinkedIn Profile) who is Brightline's Executive Director.
This interview was recorded one day before the Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. We talk about the history of the initiative, the 10 principles developed to help your organization bridge the costly and wasteful gap between strategy design and delivery, and we look at how you can apply this on your projects. And we also identify issues that prevent strategies to become reality.
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.
If you are setting up a PMO for your company, then no matter what industry you are in, having the right PMO tools at our disposal can make a significant difference. And as they relate to the PMO, tools are the moment when you shift your focus from management to administration.
In fact, we project managers and program managers may even find ourselves scrambling around to find not only relevant but also accurate information to update our statuses, while resource managers may have to connect with several people to determine if they efficiently staffed their resources and have sufficient capacity for the upcoming initiatives.
And these are just some some of the reasons why our PMOs need the right tools. But what are the right tools and how do we identify them? And why on earth did we end up using this tool over here which is clearly wrong for our PMO?
All of those questions and also ‘Why are the right tools so important?’ is what we we are going to discuss today with Hussain Bandukwala (LinkedIn Profile).
Project Management for Beginners and Experts
Going beyond Project Management Professional (PMP)®, PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®, and Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)®
PM PrepCast, Agile PrepCast, PM Exam Simulator, PDU Podcast, PM Podcast are marks of OSP International LLC.
PMI, PMBOK, PMP, PgMP, PfMP, CAPM, PMI-SP, PMI-RMP, PMI-ACP, and PMI-PBA are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
