Listener Alexander Maslyukov wrote in and said "In my company there are functional managers who have the power. Functional managers assign salary, bonuses and have responsibilities for promotion of the employees. PMs don't have any instruments to force stuff to do everything. The only way to make the team to do something is to persuade them. But how can we motivate people?" In response to Alexander's question we are going to delve into motivation today. We review the various motivational theories, look at how to see if motivation is a problem on your project, what you can do to motivate and energize your project team on a shoestring and we end it with James R. Chapman's very elegant Motivation Triangle. Please consult the Helpful Resources to find links to the white papers and presentations mentioned in today's episode.
Are you studying for the PMP exam? Then subscribe to The Project Management PrepCast™ at http://www.pm-prepcast.com and study by listening with your iPod.
In Episode 062 we asked Thomas Cutting to answer the question “How can I become a Project Manager?” Today, we continue this topic with our interview Guest Josh Nankivel. In his career Josh found a love for project management and decided to go back to school and get academic training in PM. He is currently going to school and will receive his Bachelors degree in PM in about a year. After that he will continue with his studies and begin his MBA with a focus on project management. In our interview, we look at how Josh applies his academic training to his everyday work, discuss if there are differences between what he is being taught and what he actually sees in the workplace, take a look at his blog www.pmstudent.com , and want to know from him what academia and the private sector can do in order to help the PM profession grow as a whole.
Too often in our rush to produce deliverables the communications plan is overlooked. This happens everywhere, even in companies that have formal project management methodologies. On the outset of your project you might have all the best intentions and take the time to create a communications plan. But as the project progresses and day to day issues come your way the communications plan is drifting ever more into the background. Your communications aren’t managed, new stakeholders aren’t added to the list of recipients and all that remains is a nagging feeling that you are forgetting something. That’s the story, when you use the communications plan as a tactical tool. But what if you approached it strategically? What if you took the time and really managed your communications against the plan? Might there even be benefits? Margaret Meloni answers this question with a resounding “Yes!”, which is why she is our guest today. And to help you along with your communications management plan, we have three helpful resources that help you define that plan for small, medium and larger projects. But most importantly, we announce the winners of the giveaway for two one-year subscriptions to The Project Management PrepCast™ .
A Risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on a project’s objectives. There are many hard tools out there that tell you how to identify your risks, how to quantify them, how to define their impact on the project and what you can do in order to avoid or mitigate them. But how do you and the stakeholders on your project react to risks? Do risks frighten you or do they invigorate you? And what risk approach will a frightened project manager take versus the approach that an invigorated one takes? This discussion is at the core of Risk Attitudes. We are honored to welcome Janice Preston, PMP, on our program today to explore the four basic risk attitudes. Janice was a contributor to the risk section of both the 1996, 2000 and 2004 version of the PMBOK® Guide and as such very qualified to look into this with us. As always we have Helpful Resources that complement this interview.
If you are currently studying to take the PMP® exam, then listen in and learn how you can win a free, one-year subscription to our sister podcast The Project Management PrepCast™, where you can learn the tools & techniques you need to know in order to prepare to take the PMP exam.
"How can I become a project manager?" This is the question that we get asked most often here at The Project Management Podcast™. We tried to answer each email individually, but also decided that this would be a great topic for our program.
In the interview, we look at Thomas' own career but also take a generic look at possible PM career paths. There are many options for you to consider as a career, whether your interest is in construction, fashion, engineering, healthcare, or a particular method, like waterfall or you could take the role of project manager in SAFe agile environments and explore your interests that way.
We discuss the value of experience vs. certification and working as a PM in-house or for a consulting firm. Project manager coaching and mentoring is one way to reflect on what the right career path for you might be. If you are currently studying to take the PMP® exam, then listen in and learn how you can win a free, one-year subscription to our sister podcast The Project Management PrepCast™, where you can learn the tools & techniques you need to know in order to prepare to take the PMP exam.
Most often business applications do not have to achieve the same level of quality, accuracy, and consensus or be as fault free as many aerospace, defense or medical-related systems. That isn’t to imply they don’t strive for excellence and accuracy, only that it can be tolerated better. As a result, there are different priorities placed on quality and the use of disciplined approaches that demand a lot of up front time. In today's episode of The Project Management Podcast™ we welcome Inez Marino to discuss with her approaches that employ such an up-front time commitment that many businesses do not believe they can afford to spend. We also look at the importance of high quality requirements on your projects. Our two Helpful Resources complement this discussion.
Our host Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, has fallen ill with Temporomandibular Joint Syndrome (TMJ). This is a condition of facial pain in the joints of the lower jaw. The abbreviation "TMJ" literally refers to the joint itself, although it is often used to refer to the disorder (TMD). This means that he has a difficult time speaking because the jaw hurts when moved. For the host of a podcast, having a hard time speaking is a great misfortune. But what would it mean to you as a project manager, if you were diagnosed with TMJ? Could you still do your job without being able to easily communicate? Listen in to what experience Cornelius has had with this.
The dynamics of teams can be challenging. So what does it take to get a team to truly work together as a well-oiled machine? This is the question that we explore with Diane Altwies, PMP, of www.coreperformanceconcepts.com. She brings together the theory of team dynamics and offers some real-world advice in dealing with dysfunctional teams. We look at what the effects of a dysfunctional team are and discuss some ways in which you can change that. Starting this week, our helpful resources not only complement our main topic, we also begin taking a look at the podcasts that our host Cornelius Fichtner listens to in his spare time. Oh.... and did we mention that The Project Management Podcast™ now has over 500,000 downloads?
Today we are not going to look at project management. Instead, we will be looking at bleepers and bloopers because this is the "Out Takes Show". Have you ever wondered how much goes wrong, when we record an episode? The answer is: Too much. To close out the year, here are a few minutes of memorable and not so memorable moments from The Project Management Podcast™ when things went not according to plan. Listen to all the ahhs and umhs that we had to cut out of the regular program and which you were never really meant to hear.
Are you struggling to get your projects done on schedule? Are you looking for a better, more profitable way to get things done? Then maybe you should take a look at Critical Chain Project Management. CCPM was developed based on Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints and it is the main topic of today's episode of The Project Management Podcast™. We welcome Allan Elder, PMP, of www.nolimitsleadership.com to discuss Critical Chain Project Management. We look at why our projects are late and how the Critical Chain approach will benefit you. Allan can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We also announce the winners of our book giveaway who each have won one copy of Quentin Flemings "Project Procurement Management". PMP® credential holders can claim 1 category 2-SDL PDU for listening to today's episode.
Do you have a Project Management Certification? If not, are you considering to take one? Maybe you would like to become a PMP® credential holder, or you are looking at the IPMA range of certifications, or maybe you are even looking into a masters degree in project management. In either case, in today’s discussion with Stacy Goff, president of www.projectexperts.com and vice president of the ASAPM , the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management we will be looking at the difference between a competence based certification and a knowledge based certification, with particular focus on the IPMA certifications offered worldwide. We also have several helpful resources and we are giving away two copies of Quentin Fleming's book "Project Procurement Management".
Ask 10 project managers what they focus on most in their projects to be successful and you will get 10 different answers. Case in point are the 10 final questions that we ask at the end of every interview here on the program. Many of us may focus on communication, schedule, relationships or requirements. Jerry Manas, PMP, President and founder of The Marengo Group, LLC (http://www.manasbooks.com)and one of the minds behind http://www.pmthink.com would like to redirect our focus on the real client value. What does this mean and how does he propose to do that? The answer is Service Oriented Project Management, a PM framework that he developed and which he will be presenting in today's interview on The Project Management Podcast™. Two of our three helpful resources complement this interview by looking at similar PM approaches and the third one is of interest to everyone who would like to delve into PRINCE2. Click on the links below to see the helpful resources.
In episode 49, The Project Management Podcast™ welcomed Richard Larson, PMP, and Elizabeth Larson, PMP, of Watermark Learning (http://www.watermarklearning.com ) on the topic of Project Without Borders and the issues a PM is faced when gathering requirements on a multicultural project. Today, we welcome Richard and Elizabeth back to discuss some of their best practices of engaging stakeholders in the process of gathering requirements. We will also reveal the winners of our book giveaway.
Most importantly, however, we are announcing the launch of The Project Management PrepCast™, which is a new podcast aimed at helping you, if you are currently studying for the PMP® Exam. Listen in at www.pm-prepcast.com and prepare for the PMP exam with your iPod!
Tim Covington, PMP, was the Project Manager of the Boeing C17 Single Line Project, the largest lean manufacturing project ever attempted on the C17 Program. In today's interview of The Project Management Podcast™ we explore this large project. We discuss the goals and challenges involved, the success factors that enabled Tim and his core team to successfully deliver the project, the awards the project has won and Tim's tips to project managers who are embarking on similarly large projects. And just to break from our usual routine, we asked Tim not 10, but 11 final questions. We also continue our book giveaway of Quentin Fleming's book "Project Procurement Management" and we answer a listener question from our voice mail line.
Show notes: Listener Harry Fisher submitted an overview of his Groupware Solutions project to The Project Management Podcast and we are happy to feature him today. Listener Michael Witt submitted today's helpful resource and the new year brings several excellent items in the News segment to project managers. The show ends with a review of an episode of Boagworld, where Paul Boag discusses Project Management with Marcus Lillington.
Below are the first few pages of a computer-generated transcript with all its computer-generated quirks.
Speaker 1 (00:09): [inaudible]
Cornelius Fichtner (00:11):
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 show number 16. I am Cornelius Fichnter. Now this is the project management podcast for the 7th of January, 2006. Happy new year to all of you. I am very glad to tell you that today's main show segment comes from Harry Fisher, who is a listener like you, and decided to send me his input. A couple of announcements here to get us started. First of all, uh, we are still on a two week schedule, so there is no show next week. And then there is one the week after that. Also, I promise to you in the last show that today we would have an interview for you on how to manage your job search as a project. Well, I had to change some scheduling around and you will get to hear that particular interview into weeks down the road. And now a word from our sponsor project load is the web based project management tool for your team. As project manager, you create the tasks and assign activities as your team progresses. Their time sheets automatically feed into project reports with task forecasting documents, storage, integrated notes, and over 25 alerts project load is the one tool for project monitoring. Visit us at projectload.com
Music (01:59): [inaudible]
Cornelius Fichtner (01:59):
Today I have one helpful resource from you and this one was sent to me from Mikael Vitz. He is a project manager for sun Frankfurt, and he writes, I Cornelius my project management colleagues, and I are certified as Prince 2 practitioners. We adapted Prince 2 here at sun Microsystems in Germany. In your last podcast, you discussed status reports. I Googled and found a Prince two templates set, including status reports. We adapted these templates within our company, best wishes to California. Well, everybody go and get these templates. They are an excellent starting point for anyone who needs new templates or who is in the process of updating their templates. But even if you're not go take a look, because I'm sure when you look through these templates, you'll find something useful in them and you'll go, Oh, this is, I should include that in my templates as well. Yeah. And that's the only helpful resource I have for you because there is tons of news this week and new year, lots of news. It seems so on. We go with the news.
Cornelius Fichtner (03:21):
So what do you think is going to be big in project management in 2006? Well, that's what the article here in the computer world addresses it is entitled. What's next in 2006 project management, the five biggest project challenges for 2006. This is from the 2nd of January, 2006. And they have five items that they're talking about here. The global teams, of course, we know that that's been going on for quite a while. Then they're talking about moving parts projects that are constantly influx and constantly changing. And of course, rather challenging. Then they'll talk about software development. Then the next one entering number four here is vendor partners. So working on a project management basis with vendor partners, it's going to be big. And finally, their fifth prediction is that project portfolios are going to be big in project management in 2006. Definitely an interesting read this article here.
Cornelius Fichtner (04:33):
What else do you think is hot in 2006? Well, the PMP certificate is hot in 2006 to be precise, precise, it ranks or number four on cert city's 10 hottest certifications for 2006. And this is our annual attempt to predict the certifications that will shine brightest next year. And cert cities is an online magazine for the certified it professional. They write PMI's PMP title also made a strong showing this year, rising from its debut. Stop at number 10 last year. Thanks to in part thanks in part to even a stronger buzz for this industry neutral title within the it community. So if you haven't got your PMP yet, well, think about it.
Cornelius Fichtner (05:33):
Are you a work break down structure guru? If so, then the PMI is looking for your help. This article here is from Thursday, December 29th, and it's titled PMI seeks input to practice standard for work breakdown structure until the January deadline 2006, the PMI makes the latest work breakdown, structure, practice standard available to everybody in the world on their website. Well, you have to sign up and sign 25 disclaimers, et cetera, but you have the opportunity to give your input into the WBS practice standards. So if you're a WBS guru, go and give the PMI a hand And we're ending today's news with two that come from the far side of the news, really the first one is entitled. Ex-combatants train on project management and it comes to us, came to us on December 30th, 2005 from the new times in Kigali, they write child X combatants association in collaboration with the international labor organization is training ex-com battens on project management and design the ongoing 10 day training attracted 20 members from different associations funded by ILO to improve capacity building among youths who were affected by war. Interesting.
Cornelius Fichtner (07:24):
And finally, we stay on the far side of the news. FBI is looking to hire I T workers interviews for a number of it jobs begin next month, that was on the 29th of December. And they're writing here in the computer world. The FBI is looking for a few good it professionals to operate and maintain a robust, secure global it infrastructure environment for the agency in announcement last week, the agency said that it's seeking to fill critical it positions, including computer scientists, computer engineers, it specialists. And of course it, project managers annual pay for the positions range from 35,000 to 135,000 us dollars, not bad based on experience and qualifications with recruitment bonuses, for the candidates who possess the most critical skills. The FBI said, okay, why not become an agent project manager? And that's the helpful resource and news for this week as always, if you want to read up on any of the resources or news in detail, just go to a PM podcast.blogspot.com, where you will find links to each individual item that I have just mentioned. And now the project management podcasts, project
Cornelius Fichtner (08:56):
Management tip of the week,
Music (09:20): [inaudible]
Cornelius Fichtner (09:20):
The project management podcasts tip of the week is divide your projects into phases. Now let's begin at the beginning. What's a phase. What's the definition? Well, the PMBOK defines a phase as a collection of logically related project activities. Usually culminating in the completion of a major deliverable project phases are mainly completed sequentially, but can overlap in some project situations. Phases can be subdivided into sub phase it phases and then into components and so on. It goes on and on and on, but doesn't really tell you what the benefits are of dividing your project into phases. Well, it's quite simple. It makes it easier to manage your project, both planning and estimating because instead of having one large lump of work, if you divide your project into phases, you end up with smaller, more manageable pieces of work. And personally, I like to subdivide these phases into steps.
Cornelius Fichtner (10:34):
So let's say if we're talking about the implementation of some, some software piece, I'm saying, okay, step one in March, we'll be delivering the following features. Step two in April, you'll get these features and may you get those features? So that's, it makes it also much more understandable to the customer. If you have phases and steps, the, they understand that better. If you look at the PMI phases, their official phages are initiation, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. If you look at prints too, it's a bit different. They're talking about starting up and initiating a process planning and directing a project, managing stage boundaries and controlling a stage managing product delivery and closing a project. Those are the Prince two, uh, phases. And if you're looking at general phases, we're talking about planning, analysis, design, testing, and implementation phases. Also allow you to plan your project on a more, um, let's call it as you go basis.
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.
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM, is the host and the author at The Project Management Podcast. He has welcomed hundreds of guests and project management experts to the podcast and has helped over 60,0000 students prepare for their PMP® Exam. He has authored dozens of articles on projectmanagement.com and PM World 360. He speaks at conferences around the world about project management, agile methodology, PMOs, and Project Business. Follow him on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
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.
Listener Alexander Maslyukov wrote in and said "In my company there are functional managers who have the power. Functional managers assign salary, bonuses and have responsibilities for promotion of the employees. PMs don't have any instruments to force stuff to do everything. The only way to make the team to do something is to persuade them. But how can we motivate people?" In response to Alexander's question we are going to delve into motivation today. We review the various motivational theories, look at how to see if motivation is a problem on your project, what you can do to motivate and energize your project team on a shoestring and we end it with James R. Chapman's very elegant Motivation Triangle. Please consult the Helpful Resources to find links to the white papers and presentations mentioned in today's episode.
Our host Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, has fallen ill with Temporomandibular Joint Syndrome (TMJ). This is a condition of facial pain in the joints of the lower jaw. The abbreviation "TMJ" literally refers to the joint itself, although it is often used to refer to the disorder (TMD). This means that he has a difficult time speaking because the jaw hurts when moved. For the host of a podcast, having a hard time speaking is a great misfortune. But what would it mean to you as a project manager, if you were diagnosed with TMJ? Could you still do your job without being able to easily communicate? Listen in to what experience Cornelius has had with this.
The dynamics of teams can be challenging. So what does it take to get a team to truly work together as a well-oiled machine? This is the question that we explore with Diane Altwies, PMP, of 
