Episode 009: PM Techniques

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As always, I get a few things off my chest before the main section of the show. Today, we continue my "Dear Diary" and you can hear what went wrong on my projects this week. That's followed by Chuck Tomasi, who gives us more insights of a junior project manager. Then we discuss several useful and not so useful project management techniques. Furthermore, I humbly apologize to the PMO SIG, the Project Management Office Specific Interest Group, whom I completely forgot to mention during the last show before I finally review the Project Execution Cycle of Cygnet Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

Today's show links:

Project Management in the News

- Application Lifecycle Management - A Technology Evaluation and Comparison Report
- China’s Project Management Rules Have Foreigners Fuming
- Making IT Development Visible to Higher Business Management is Another Benefit of New Generation Application Lifecycle Management
- International Project Management Day To Be Observed Around The World
- Linn Wheeling Departs PMI For Applied Systems Client Network

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Good: [Links have been removed per request of Cygnet Infotech Pvt. Ltd]

Episode Transcript

Below are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks.

Speaker 1 (00:00:10): [inaudible]

Cornelius Fichtner (00:00:10):

You are listening to the project management podcast. We bring project management topics to beginners and experts. Find us on the web at pmpodcast.blogspot.com or send your emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Hello, and welcome to the ninth show. I am Cornelius Fichtner. This is the project management podcast for the 29th of October, 2005. And today we have a nice mix of subjects for you at the center of today's show are a few project management techniques. Some are for you and some are for fun, and it's going to be your job figuring out which ones are for real, but we feel we do that. Uh, here are a few items that I'd like to get off my chest. First of all, a quick Gmail reminder, and the last show I offered to you that if you want a Gmail account, just drop me a mail and I will be more than happy to send you an invitation and I'm extending this.

Cornelius Fichtner (00:01:14):

So if you want an email, let me know, and I will invite you to email, uh, as long as my supplies last with these invitations that I have from Gmail themselves, then a quick followup on the very last thing that I said in the show. Number eight last week, if you listen to the show to the very end, you will notice that at the end, I put in a little bit of wisdom, the last golden nugget of the show, so to speak. And last week I said that you should never forget to communicate with your stakeholders. Well, as so happens this week, I have found that this is very true on another project. In my company, the project manager there let communication with the stakeholders, slide on his project, and then he sent out an email to them and, uh, you have to do communication, right?

Cornelius Fichtner (00:02:16):

He sent out this email with the subject line in all upper capitals. So big, big letters, and it read immediate response required. Well, that was not the right thing to do. The customer was very unhappy about that, especially because this email was sent to senior vice presidents. So, um, I have to amend my golden nugget there and it should now say something along the lines of, and don't forget to not stop communicating with your stakeholders. And when you communicate with your stakeholders, do it right. Then I also want know a little bit more about you. I am planning to put up a little survey within the next two to three weeks, and I would be delighted if you would take that survey, it's going to be a really short one maximum of 10 questions, a point and click so that I know who you are, where you live, and you will also have an opportunity there to tell me what you're interested in and what kind of subjects you would like to see on my show.

Cornelius Fichtner (00:03:32):

So look out for that. That's coming. And if you've been to my website lately, you will have noticed that there are Google ads on the left hand side of the website. And then occasionally I click on them just to see what kind of companies actually advertise on my site, so to speak. And I came across the website of expert rating, project management certification, actually the company's called expert writing, and they were pointing towards their project management certification page. Here's what they say because a certified project manager give you a career and job prospects. It's a boost, the expert, the project, no, the expert rating project management courses are well-researched 250 page online course that has been developed for people who would like to boss the science of project management. And they also say that it has been designed so that it's easily on the stood both by beginners, uh, by beginners and people new to projects.

Cornelius Fichtner (00:04:36):

So I looked at this for a little while thinking, Oh, this looks nice. And, um, as I moved on, I realized, okay, you know, this certification costs $99 and 99 cents. And it's an online certification. It's an online course. And frankly, I don't think that's a good deal because if you are new to project management, if you are a beginner, you don't want to sit at home at your computer and just read a few words on pages on a website. If you are new, you want to be able to ask questions. You need to be able to sit in a classroom with a teacher who goes through the basics of project management. So here's my a suggestion to you. If you are new to project management, if you're a beginner and you have $99 and 99 cents that you want to spend, I would spend it on an, on, not on online training, but on an in class project management, maybe try to find a community college in your area, but don't do something like this online certificate.

Cornelius Fichtner (00:05:46):

And just to make it clear, I'm not putting down the folks here at expert rating. I'm just saying that if you're new to project management, if you're a beginner, you don't want to do this online. You definitely want to do this in a classroom. That's my opinion here. All right, then I have a three quick project management Institute, PMI related items. If you are a PMP and your certification cycle ends this year on the 31st of December, then you have to make sure that you report your PDU by year end. So go online and report European news. Make sure that you don't let your certification lapse here. The PMI also announced that it is racing towards its 250,000 member. Wow, early this year, we didn't even have 200,000 member. And now we're already heading towards 250,000. That's just great. The PMI is also making the following announcement, the PMI educational foundation, 2006 student paper of the year award call for entries. And this is for graduate or undergraduate students who are also project managers. And the call is for them to hand in their papers for the 2006 student paper of the year award. And this one recognizes research and creative efforts directed to advance the concepts, tools, and techniques of managing project oriented tasks. All right, these were the items that I wanted to get off my chest this week. And now let's move forward with the news.

Cornelius Fichtner (00:07:52):

We'll continue with the PMI here with the first news item, just a quick one. It's from Thursday, October 27th, and it's titled Lynn Wheeling, departs PMI for applied systems, client network, Lynn wheeling. She's the a component and community relations department manager of the PMI. Uh, she joined the PMI in 2000 and has left them to become the executive director of applied systems, client network, A S C net, which is the user group for applied systems, agency management technology. I met Lynn for the first time at the 2005 leadership seminar until mom Toronto a month ago or so, uh, really liked her and absolutely sorry to see her go.

Cornelius Fichtner (00:08:45):

Second news item is from October 19th, 2005, and it's titled making it development visible to hire a business. Management is another benefit of new generation application life cycle management. That's a long one. This is all about a report that has come out and that's from research and markets research and marcus.com. And they have announced the addition of application lifecycle management, a report to their offerings. And this is a technology evaluation and comparison report. Let's see what they say. This report looks at the reasons why application development projects often go so badly wrong. That's a good thing. And why so many efforts to correct predictable problems also fail. One of the most important reasons is that there is an enormous gap between the developers who work on application projects and the managers who set the goals of the projects, regardless of how good the technology may be. That is being used.

Cornelius Fichtner (00:09:56):

If these two groups doing all talk to each other, Oh, wait, that's supposed to be the job with the project manager. Isn't it? Hmm. Okay. So if these groups do not talk to each other, the project is at risk of failure and most project managers. Oh, here we go. Most project managers seem to be at a loss, how to deal with this problem. Oh, okay. Best practices designed to manage the above issue along with other related problems along the whole application development life cycle are provided throughout this report. Well, sounds like an interesting report, right? Yup. Probably is. However, you're going to have to be willing to pay 1,495 euros for this one.

Above are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks. A human-generated transcript is available to Premium subscribers starting with episode 136.