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In this episode of The PM Podcast we introduce you to The PDU Insider at www.pdu-insider.com, which is our website and newsletter where we teach PMP® credential holders all there is to know about Professional Development Units (PDU).

We’ll show you some of the features of the website, point out the #1 article called “12 Easy Ways To Earn PDUs” that every PMP® credential holder should read and we’ll explain why subscribing to the free newsletter is more than “just another newsletter” about PDUs.

The PDU Insider highlights both paid and free PMP PDU opportunities, from respected education providers all over the world. We help you find the right opportunities for you, wherever you are in your project management career journey.

If you are already a PMP® credential holder, then you'll know that the goal is to earn 60 PDUs for PMP recertification cycles. That means earning 60 PDUs in a three-year period, prior to applying for renewal. Save time searching out PDU opportunities by subscribing to The PDU Insider and get on the fast track to meeting your professional development requirements, this year and every year.

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This episode is sponsored by The PMP Exam Simulator:

I have always said that one of the most beneficial actions that I took to further my career and success as a project manager was to become involved with PMI. I started out as an event volunteer and worked my way all the way up to becoming the president of my local PMI Chapter. This volunteering not only helped me to find a job, it also introduced me to colleagues in my field put me on the path of becoming PMP® certified and it was the starting point of this here, The Project Management Podcast where I’ve expanded my volunteering efforts out towards a world audience of project managers.

The good news is that I’m not the only one who has seen such great results from volunteering. Kevin Reilly, PMP has seen very similar results. Every since he started volunteering a little over a year ago doors have opened up for him and an incredible number of opportunities have opened up for him.

Kevin has now gone ahead and he has taken his approach and turned it into a process for you. A step by step process that you can follow towards your professional success as a project manager:

• Understand the benefits
• Analyze your skills
• Determine your goals
• Select an organization
• Leverage your time
• Market your skills

We first review these 6 steps in detail and then Kevin tells his personal story of volunteering and networking to illustrate how powerful a driver this approach was in his career and will help you do the same.

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Karin Brünnemann (https://www.4cee.eu) made an excellent case last time describing how all our projects are in some way or another influenced by culture. We did also look at a few tools that she recommeds.

But how do you really become adept at mastering intercultural issues on your project? What are some of the actions you can take? What tools are recommended? And what are some of the qualities of a good intercultural project manager?

Well... listen up, enjoy and learn from Karin's worldwide experience.

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What would you say, if I told you that any project you lead is an intercultural project? Even if you have grown up in Paris and all the other project team members and stakeholders are native Parisians... you will still have to deal with culture on your project.

Karin Brünnemann (https://www.4cee.eu) specializes in consulting, project management, and training in intercultural and multi-national contexts on a worldwide basis. She has lived in and lead projects in more countries than I have fingers. So when it comes to projects, culture and how to deal with that, she knows what she is talking about.

In our interview, Karin and I will be:

• Answering the question: What is culture?
• Discuss some myths and mistakes in regards to culture.
• See how the iceberg model applies in this context
• Review the two high level challenges that projects face in regards to culture
• And we will look at three tools that will help you to thrive in managing culture on your project

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Gate meetings often require stacks of administrative paperwork and template after template of fact and figure tracking. Most people would probably rather spend their time creating than justifying.

Matt Priest (www.kalypso.com) says that “Gate meetings can be faster, easier and more effective. Just improve the “what”, “who” and “how” of your meetings to make them less of a drain and more valuable for the organization.”

In this interview we discuss, how with a light and nimble framework in place, gate review meetings are more effective and scalable, will become easier to address and will grow and mature with the organization.

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In 2001, seventeen software developers met at a ski resort in Snowbird, Utah. They all faced the same problem: the need for an alternative to the slow moving, waterfall approach to improve their software development projects and the “agile” model for software development was born.

So, how does this innovation apply to new product development in the consumer goods industry? The benefits of the agile software development process - increased speed-to-market, reduced costs, enhanced focus, and minimized wasted time in development - apply to any development organization, whether the end result is a consumer product or software application. These gains are especially important in today’s economic climate where development budgets are constrained, competition is fierce, and expectations from both senior leaders and consumers have greatly increased.

To explore how to best do this I invited Matt Priest (www.kalypso.com) onto the program and give us his insights on the topic. He’ll not only answer all my questions but also introduce us to the three simple Agile principles that we should be using when developing new consumer goods, which are:

• engage the consumer early
• collaborate iteratively throughout the development process
• institute a closed-loop learning process

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https://www.pducast.com The PDU Podcast is the easiest and most convenient way for certified Project Management Professionals (PMP)® to earn their Professional Development Units (PDU): Download and watch the webinars - Earn PDUs - Repeat.

The PDU Podcast: Earning PDUs Made Easy Transcript:

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello! I am Cornelius Fichtner, PMP and I have a mission: I want to make earning PDUs as easy, simple and straightforward for you as possible. And in order to achieve this mission, I have created The PDU Podcast™.

The PDU Podcast™ is a series of video webinars that you download to your portable player like a smart phone or a tablet PC and then you watch them whenever and wherever you want.

For example, you can watch them in the gym, while you are walking the dog, doing your household chores, or while you are relaxing at the beach. But the best thing about these webinars is that each of them will earn you at least 1 Category‑A PDU which are the PMI pre-approved PDUs.

So when it comes to maintaining your PMP certification, then The PDU Podcast™ is the zen of earning your PDUs. It’s as easy as download and watch the webinars, earn PDUs and repeat.

With The PDU Podcast™, you are on auto-pilot to your PMP or PgMP recertification. So stop by at www.pducast.com. That’s p-d-u-c-a-s-t.com and then simplify the way you earn your PDUs.

Until next time.

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Today, we are going to do something that we have never done in the history of The PM Podcast. This episode serves only one single purpose: We want to help you win a free project management course.

To participate in the giveaway, please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before June 09, 2012.

And by doing this we are also sponsoring Josh Nankivel from PM Student in his quest to raise awareness for a good cause.

So... would you like to win a free course and learn something new about Project Management... Yes? Well then... listen to this episode.

If you want to sponsor Josh as well, please go to https://pmstudent.com/autism

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In this episode of The PM Podcast we bring you a brand new interview that I did with Kevin Reilly, PMP for our sister podcast The PM PrepCast. Kevin and I discuss how he prepared and studied for the PMP Exam. We learn about his experience of becoming a PMP as well as his study plan and approach. At the end Kevin also shares his inspiring closing remarks with us.

For more information, please visit https://www.project-management-prepcast.com

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This episode is sponsored by The PDU Podcast:

In last week’s interview with Susanne Madsen about her book The Project Management Coaching Workbook: Six Steps to Unleashing Your Potential we discussed very high level principles that you have to consider when setting out on an improvement journey. We didn’t really discuss anything that you could do or give you steps to follow to get you started.

Let’s change that and give you a few ideas on how to start on the journey to becoming even better project managers. So in this interview Susanne takes us through step 2 in the book, which is the self-assessment.

We begin with discussing the importance of knowing what your current capabilities are (strengths and weaknesses) and how the process assists you in assessing this through the extensive self assessments (10 categories - 80 dimensions). This helps the project manager pinpoint where they need to focus their attention in order to succeed. Then we review 3 of the 10 categories that need to be assessed and close with a discussion about the importance of feedback - both in the context of providing effective feedback to team members in order to grow others and create highly motivated team members and receiving feedback from peers and managers in order to progress your own capabilities and career.

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Would you like to become the best project manager possible? Yes? Did you know that it takes just six steps to reach your Project Management and leadership goals! All you need is to follow the advice that Susanne Madsen (https://www.susannemadsen.co.uk) outlines in her book The Project Management Coaching Workbook: Six Steps to Unleashing Your Potential.

The advice she gives is based on her experience as a coach and mentor. Susanne Madsen offers a method designed to help you understand and articulate what you want to achieve—and then assists you in achieving those goals, like:

• Effectively managing a demanding workload
• Leading and motivating a team
• Building effective relationships with senior stakeholders
• Managing risks, issues, and changes to scope
• Delegating effectively

And in our discussion today, we are going to start you off on this journey by looking at four areas to consider: We have to begin with the end in mind (both for your career as well as on any project you manage), we look at the difference between leadership and management (with a strong focus on people rather than tasks), the importance of effective time management and delegation, and how to stay motivated to progress personally and professionally on such a journey by taking action and not procrastinating.

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I am once again joined by Jack Ferraro, author of the book “Project Management for Non-Project Managers”  - When I originally opened the book my attention was drawn to a section of the book called “Functional Managers’ Impact on Causes of Project Failure”. In this section Jack describes about 20 areas of functional management responsibility that - if addressed properly by the functional manager - will go a long way in avoiding that a project fails.

But as we have learned in the last interview, functional managers may not actually be aware of project management fundamentals, let alone that some of their areas of responsibility will in fact help us to deliver a successful project. So my primary thought was... how do I as a PM approach my functional manager and tell him or her that I need their assistance in areas such as business politics or lack of organizational support?

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The projects that you and I manage are crucial to implement change within our organizations. To succeed, we routinely depend on the functional managers - the person who runs the department or division, who resolves day-to-day operational issues, and who is responsible for ensuring that the project team has the resources it needs and keeps its goals aligned with the company’s overall strategy and vision.

Unfortunately, there are only few functional managers who speak our language or even have firm grasp on the most fundamental of project processes. Too often, this knowledge gap leads to poor communications, conflict, schedule delays, cost overruns and lost business opportunity.

And who gets the blame? Yup... we do.

To help bridge this gap we are interviewing Jack Ferraro, PMP (www.myprojectadvisor.com[Update: The web page is no longer available so we removed the link]) who wrote the book “Project Management for Non-Project Managers”. We discuss the many ways in which functional managers can get involved in project success and we also discuss the four key project management skills that any functional manager needs:

• Articulating the real customer need and business case
• Staying focused on project deliverables
• Understanding your key dependencies
• Being proactive about project risk.

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There is one question that I get regularly asked from podcast listeners, and that is “Can you recommend any good project management templates?” Of course I can.

Over the years the following two collection of PM Templates have become my favorite:
PM Templates from Method123 at www.method123.com
PM Templates from The Template Collective at templatecollective.com/

In this video I show you what they have to offer and we open up a couple of examples from both products.

Whether you are creating a project plan and need a template to get you started, or looking for a template for project reporting, or anything in between, they are sure to have something to help.

Please note that The PM Podcast is a compensated affiliate of both Method123 and The Template Collective. If you click and then buy their templates we will earn a commission, with which I will buy a pizza and that will keep my enthusiasm up to continue producing great podcast episodes for you.

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Today we welcome back Jeff Furman, PMP - the author of The Project Management Answer Book. In this second interview with him we learn how Jeff became a project manager and how he dealt with the fact that the first project ever assigned to him had previously failed and it now fell to him to save the day.

Jeff’s story is simply a great and inspirational tale of (for once) something going right in our profession. It shows how we as PMs can motivate people to do things right, if we can speak to the needs of our customers and then deliver on our promise.

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A while back we introduced The Project Management Answer Book written by Jeff Furman, PMP to you. I met up with Jeff recently and we recorded this interview in which he recounts all the doors that opened up for him simply because of the fact that he wrote down what he knew about project management.

As you can imagine, this interview is a bit different than others here on the podcast. Generally speaking, we usually talk about project management methodologies and how to apply them on your projects. In this interview we want to show you how with a little effort of writing about what you know can propel your career into unexpected and positive directions.

As you will hear, while Jeff authored a book and became published that way it all started simply because he started writing about IT and project management. So even if your goal isn’t to become a published author of a book it’s a good idea to get everything you know about our field written down and blog about it. And Jeff has a few recommendations for you.

To me, this is a really encouraging story showing what a few words a day can do for anyone.

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I came across an article titled The Leadership Attitude [Update: the template website is no longer available, so we removed the link] written by Elizabeth Harrin. I liked what she had to say. In this article she boiled leadership down to 4 main pillars:

• Openness
• Honesty
• Trust
• Integrity

In our interview today I meet up with her to discuss the article in more detail. We look at the difference between management and leadership, how to be a manager and leader at the same time, and what these 4 pillars mean to her.

This episode is reserved for subscribers of the Premium Podcast. Learn how to subscribe to the Premium Podcast to access this interview and transcript...

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I am once again joined by Todd Williams, author of the book Rescue the Problem Project: A Complete Guide to Identifying, Preventing, and Recovering from Project Failure. 

In our last interview Todd gave us an overview over the process, tools & techniques he recommends for rescuing problem projects. As our next step, we want to hear from Todd how he ensures that projects don’t get into trouble in the first place.

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When project budgets are dwindling, deadlines passing, and tempers flaring, then the usual response is to browbeat the project team and point fingers of blame - usually toward the project manager. That’s not really all that helpful. For these situations, what is needed is an objective process for accurately assessing what is wrong and a clear plan of action for fixing the problem.

Enter Todd Williams, PMP who wrote the book Rescue the Problem Project: A Complete Guide to Identifying, Preventing, and Recovering from Project Failure. Todd and I sat down at the PMI® Global Congress last year and in this interview we discuss approaches to project rescue.

Here’s a brief book overview of Todd’s book: Rescue the Problem Project provides project managers, executives, and customers with the answers they require. Turnaround specialist Todd Williams has worked with dozens of companies in multiple industries resuscitating failing projects. In this new book, he reveals an in-depth, start-to-finish process.

As always when we have an author discussing his book we are giving away two copies and by now you should know how that works. One copy is reserved for our premium listeners and one for everyone else. If you want a chance of winning the book, please go to www.facebook.com/pmpodcast and look for the book giveaway announcement. All you have to do is leave a comment.

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This episode is sponsored by The PDU Podcast:

If you are a PMP® credential holder then you know what the acronym PDU stands for. It stands for Professional Development Units. Every PMP needs to earn 60 of these PDUs every 3 years in order keep his or her certification. The idea behind having to earn these PDUs is a simple one. PMI wants every PMP to continuously learn. Just like doctors or pilots who have to take classes regularly and practice new skills in order to keep their license, PMI wants us PMP® credential holders to learn new project management skills so that we can be the best project managers possible.

The rules describing which activities count towards PDUs and how you have to report and claim them is documented in the “PDU Category Structure and Policies” document. In March 2011 PMI released a new version of these rules that is a lot less complex than the old one. So this has been out for about 10 months now, however, I still receive a lot of emails from confused PMP® credential holders who have questions about it. So I went ahead and sat down with Rory McCorkle from PMI to discuss the new structure and get clear descriptions and explanations directly from the horses mouth.

Here are some topics that Rory will discuss in the interview

• Why were the PDU policies changed?
• We’ll define the rule that “One hour of effort is equal to one PDU”
• We’ll discuss the PDU Divisions and Categories
• We give examples of PDU earning activities
• And lot’s more.