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David Blumhorst (http://www.linkedin.com/in/dblumhorst/) from Daptiv is back on the program to discuss what project success really means.

David says that it's not about time, budget and scope. Successful projects are about achieving business goals. Projects are really investments meant to change something about the business, and if they don't hit that business target all the time and money are wasted.

And successful project managers should know how to lead teams to hit those business targets.

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Prior to signing any project statement of work (SOW) it should be reviewed by your legal team. However, while legal experts understand legalities that will help you out in court, they are not project experts who can determine if a particular SOW will provide you with the product that you anticipate, need, or desire. And they don't necessarily understand concepts like project management scope creep, which is partly what the SOW is designed to stop (or at least, make harder -- it is of course possible to change a SOW if you really wanted to, that's where scope control in project management comes in).

Todd C. Williams (http://ecaminc.com/) on the other hand is such an expert. He has reviewed dozens of statements of work for his clients. He analyzes the methodology, scope, deliverables and proposed cost, and finds areas that point to weaknesses in the ability to deliver or misalignment in intentions.

Scope in project management is a really important area for this discussion, as that is often considered the bulk of the content in the SOW.

In our discussion we look at the main reasons behind doing a formal SOW review, at the factors that show whether a formal review makes sense or not, identify some of areas of concern during a review that should be considered as part of your work on project scope management, and learn why a comma can make all the difference in the world.

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We are once again on a call with Dr David Hillson (http://www.risk-doctor.com) to discuss project risk management.

David is well-known internationally as a leading thinker and expert practitioner in risk management, and he consults, writes and speaks widely on the topic. He specializes in both strategic and tactical risk, with a particular interest in opportunities and risk psychology.

In this interview, we look at project risk responses. Or to be precise… we look at them to find out why people seem to forget about them.

The issue at hand is the fact that the typical project risk management process doesn’t include a step to "Implement Risk Responses". So it is common for people to identify and assess their risks, develop responses, record these responses in the risk register, and then… do nothing! We forget. We simply forget.

To help us get around this, David is campaigning for not just one, but two additional steps to be included into the project risk management processes. So that we don’t forget.

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

This week we continue our journey into risk management in project management with a second interview that I did with Dr David Hillson (http://www.risk-doctor.com). We will discuss “overall project risk”, which is different from “individual project risks”.

At the center of our discussion is the situation when your project sponsor or client asks you “How risky is this project?”

This is a question you might get about risk management in agile projects too, as clients want to know what their exposure is regardless of the methods or techniques used in the delivery.

The concept of “overall project risk” is mentioned in the PMBOK® Guide as well as the PMI Practice Standard for Project Risk Management, but it seems not too well understood and few project managers are using it. So let’s change that.

As you’ll hear in our conversation, David will be presenting on this topic at an upcoming PMI Congress shortly after we recorded this interview. He has made his paper available to us all and you can download a PDF version right here...

I also recommend that you read the following paper from David: http://risk-doctor.com/pdf-files/ADV05.pdf

And of course you can always stop by at the David Hillson Author Page on Amazon, where you will find all the books he has published.