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Last week, Stephen Wearne introduced us all to the basics of Managing the Urgent and Unexpected. We heard some of the lessons he learned, some best practices and what we can implement in order to prepare our organizations. So from the perspective of a project manager who is put in charge of urgent projects, we have the basics.

But there is of course more to learn by revisiting actual urgent and unexpected projects to see what those projects were like and what kind of takeaways we get from them.

And more than that -- remember that Stephen explained to us that managing an urgent and unexpected project is really the exception. So what I want to know from him at the end is this: What can we learn from all of this in relation to our regular, day-to-day projects.

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Have you ever had an urgent or unexpected project come across your desk? Not just an important project, but an urgent one? If you answer is “Yes - I have managed urgent projects” then you are actually in the minority because most of us will actually never have to manage such a project. Professor Stephen Wearne explains this in his book “Managing the Urgent and Unexpected” as follows:

"Urgent and unexpected projects have to be rare in business or government to be economically and socially tolerable. Any such urgent and unexpected work demands an instant start, in contrast to the often lengthy processes of investigation, evaluation, development, selection and planning that is normal normal in businesses and public services before any proposed work is started. The chance that any one person except those in the emergency services will ever manage such a project is small."

Stephen then continues in his book with saying something that I disagree with just a little bit. He says that it’s not possible to know who should learn the lessons learned from these urgent and unexpected projects in order to be prepared. In my opinion, I know exactly who should learn from them -- we project managers should! And that is why I have asked him to come onto the program.

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If you are like me then Project Workflow Management, the topic that we discussed with Daniel Epstein (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dan-epstein/1/10b/308) and Rich Maltzman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/exclaim) last week, needs a bit more discussion.

For example, I want to know why Dr Harold Kerzner thinks that it’s the best thing since sliced bread, how it is "better" than traditional methodologies, how it adds value to my work, and of course -- how exactly does Project Workflow Management work?

Well, you are in luck, because Dan Epstein and Rich Maltzman are back to discuss just that.

And please don't forget to take a look at their book Project Workflow Management, and stop by at their website http://www.pm-workflow.com for all the free tools and teaching aid CD.

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This episode is sponsored by The PM PrepCast for The PMP® Exam:

Today, we are going to take a look at a business process approach that is quite new and quite unique called Project Workflow Management.

When I initially asked Daniel Epstein (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dan-epstein/1/10b/308) and Rich Maltzman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/exclaim) to come on the program for this interview I didn’t quite know what to expect. I knew that they had written a book about Project Workflow Management, but what I didn’t know is that the book is only part of the package. Their website http://www.pm-workflow.com not only offers many free tools to download but also a teaching aid CD.

I also didn’t expect to find a quote by Dr. Harold Kerzner in which he says point blank that project workflow management appears to be the best alternative, and significantly more valuable to us project managers than complex methodologies and processes.

So in today’s interview we will learn about workflow management from various angles - like how it differs from waterfall methodologies and Agile, its primary benefit, the tools it offers, how simple it is to apply, and of course how we project managers can start using this new approach that Dr Kerzner likes so much.