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This episode focuses on helping project managers enhance their job search by using modern social media tools.

I was asked by PMI Long Island to give a presentation on the topic for their latest Career Event. There were about 25 "in transition" project managers attending the event and my presentation.

This is the recording of this live presentation. It was delivered via WebEx, with me in California and the attendees in Long Island.

Click here to download the PDF handout / checklist that is mentioned during the presentation [Update: The web page is no longer available so we removed the link].

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At the end of 2015, the Project Management Institute (PMI) is going to make changes to the way PMI certified project managers have to earn their Professional Development Units (PDUs). And in this episode we are going to explore these changes with John Kleine (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-kleine/10/aa1/613), who is PMI’s Global Manager of Certification Products. He is right at the heart of these changes.But before we start let me give you a disclaimer here: If you are not PMI certified and you never intend to become a certified PMP, PgMP®, PMI-ACP®, or any of the other PMI certifications, then stop listening right here. This interview is of no interest to you at all. If on the other hand you are PMI certified, then consider this episode mandatory listening. You need to know this!

First of all you are going to hear that many rules and criteria about PDUs are going to remain the same, and so most of what you know about PDUs today will be true tomorrow. For example, you can still earn Free PMP PDUs by listening to this podcast! But then we are going to delve into the details of the PMI PDU changes by looking at the new PMI Talent Triangle and by going through the current PDU categories and learning what changes are ahead.But before we start let me give you a disclaimer here: If you are not PMI certified and you never intend to become a certified PMP, PgMP, PMI-ACP, or any of the other PMI certifications, then stop listening right here. This interview is of no interest to you at all. If on the other hand you are PMI certified, then consider this episode mandatory listening. You need to know this!

But before we start let me give you a disclaimer here: If you are not PMI certified and you never intend to become a certified PMP, PgMP, PMI-ACP, or any of the other PMI certifications, then stop listening right here. This interview is of no interest to you at all. If on the other hand you are PMI certified, then consider this episode mandatory listening. You need to know this!

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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.