Listen to The PM Podcast

Play Now:

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

In this special episode we introduce you to Mark Phillipy who is the host of The Sensible Project Manager Podcast). Mark invited myself and Kevin Reilly to the program to discuss all eight PMI certification exams.

Here is what Mark wrote about this discussion:

The Project Management Institute (PMI) has seven certifications for project managers and one for business analysts. Cornelius Fichtner and Kevin Reilly join Mark to discuss these certifications and end up providing details about each certification.

This episode was a recording of #PMHangout 40 which was held as part of the Sensible Project Manager Hangout Community hosted on Google+ Hangouts On-Air.

Play Now:

This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam:

According to a study published in the Journal of Business and Psychology, leaders who make mistakes are seen as less competent, less desirable to work for and less effective than leaders who do not. However, in a complex business world, mistakes are unavoidable. What separates us project managers from everyone else is that we often aren’t afraid to make mistakes, are resilient and know how to rebound from them. But how?

Carla Fair-Wright (Optimal Consulting - www.opc-houston.com) is a long-time listener of The PM Podcast. She got in touch with me and asked if her presentation, "How to Recover from Mistakes and Keep the Project Moving" might be a good fit for us. Of course it is. In our interview she explains five of the top ten most common mistakes project managers make and how to avoid them.

We’ll discuss techniques from positive psychology and competitive sports that focus on how to quickly rebound from mistakes and, how to cultivate and use a strategic system for mitigating them. You will also learn how to manage your own reaction along with the loss of trust or damage to one’s reputation that can happen.

Play Now:

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

In November of 2014 I was one of 21 speakers for the Conscious Software Development Telesummit (conscioussoftwaredevelopment.com). My topic was "Project Management will Make Me a Better Developer... Right?".

Now you might think that conscious software development is not for you, because you don’t really know what it means, it sounds a bit "new age" and it’s not about project management! And frankly, that’s how I felt at first as well. But then I saw that nearly half of the presenters of the telesummit had been previous guests here on the project management podcast. They were all presenting their unique view of how project management and software development can work together.

And so when Michael Smith (www.linkedin.com/in/abundantmichael) -- the organizer of the event -- asked to be a guest here for you I immediately said yes. And it turned into a great and valuable conversation for you.

We’ll begin by defining what conscious software development is, how it relates to project management for software projects as well as current world shifts, and we close with tips for how you can foster consciousness in both yourself (as a project manager) and also in your teams that very likely include software developers.

Play Now:

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

Susanne Madsen (www.susannemadsen.com), who is an expert on project manager coaching and mentoring, is back on the show today to talk about many of the leadership concepts she puts forward in her new book titled The Power of Project Leadership. And we have a lot of great tips for you -- all taken from the book.

Here is a quote about Susanne’s book:

Managing projects is exciting and fun. But there comes a moment in every project manager’s career when you realize that there must be more than just bringing tasks to completion. This is the moment when you realize that you want to go from project manager to project leader, which is when you have to pick up The Power of Project Leadership. Susanne Madsen’s book is an in-depth road map that shows you exactly how to re-invent yourself and go from managing your projects at the task level to leading them through vision and empowerment.

So in our interview you can look forward to hearing Susan recommend what she would like you to do differently in regards to leadership, how you can transform your leadership style, discover three of the seven keys to strategic project leadership from the book, and as always we close this one of our leadership podcasts with a number of tips for you to implement right away.

Leadership is one of the core elements of the PMI Talent Triangle and the professional development you do to learn more and improve your leadership skills will count towards the 60 PDUs for PMP renewal that certified project managers need to earn every three years. This is one of our PMP PDU podcast episodes (meaning you can earn PDUs by listening) and it gives you some practical advice and will also help you understand how to develop professionally as a leader. Leadership is essential for project managers working in all disciplines, whether you have the role of project manager in SAFe agile, or work in a hybrid, iterative or predictive environment.

Project managers today need to have so many skills. There are so many opportunities to learn as well, via social media for project managers so I'm delighted to have this opportunity to bring you today's interview.

Just a note on PDUs as you are listening to this episode: Podcasts are a great way to earn free PMP PDUs so make sure you write down that you listened to this podcast, and what you took away from it. There are some amazing tips that will make great learning points for you to reflect on in the future!