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I am once again joined by Jack Ferraro, author of the book “Project Management for Non-Project Managers”  - When I originally opened the book my attention was drawn to a section of the book called “Functional Managers’ Impact on Causes of Project Failure”. In this section Jack describes about 20 areas of functional management responsibility that - if addressed properly by the functional manager - will go a long way in avoiding that a project fails.

But as we have learned in the last interview, functional managers may not actually be aware of project management fundamentals, let alone that some of their areas of responsibility will in fact help us to deliver a successful project. So my primary thought was... how do I as a PM approach my functional manager and tell him or her that I need their assistance in areas such as business politics or lack of organizational support?

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This episode is sponsored by The PDU Podcast:

The projects that you and I manage are crucial to implement change within our organizations. To succeed, we routinely depend on the functional managers - the person who runs the department or division, who resolves day-to-day operational issues, and who is responsible for ensuring that the project team has the resources it needs and keeps its goals aligned with the company’s overall strategy and vision.

Unfortunately, there are only few functional managers who speak our language or even have firm grasp on the most fundamental of project processes. Too often, this knowledge gap leads to poor communications, conflict, schedule delays, cost overruns and lost business opportunity.

And who gets the blame? Yup... we do.

To help bridge this gap we are interviewing Jack Ferraro, PMP (www.myprojectadvisor.com[Update: The web page is no longer available so we removed the link]) who wrote the book “Project Management for Non-Project Managers”. We discuss the many ways in which functional managers can get involved in project success and we also discuss the four key project management skills that any functional manager needs:

• Articulating the real customer need and business case
• Staying focused on project deliverables
• Understanding your key dependencies
• Being proactive about project risk.

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There is one question that I get regularly asked from podcast listeners, and that is “Can you recommend any good project management templates?” Of course I can.

Over the years the following two collection of PM Templates have become my favorite:
PM Templates from Method123 at www.method123.com
PM Templates from The Template Collective at templatecollective.com/

In this video I show you what they have to offer and we open up a couple of examples from both products.

Whether you are creating a project plan and need a template to get you started, or looking for a template for project reporting, or anything in between, they are sure to have something to help.

Please note that The PM Podcast is a compensated affiliate of both Method123 and The Template Collective. If you click and then buy their templates we will earn a commission, with which I will buy a pizza and that will keep my enthusiasm up to continue producing great podcast episodes for you.

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This episode is sponsored by The PDU Podcast:

Today we welcome back Jeff Furman, PMP - the author of The Project Management Answer Book. In this second interview with him we learn how Jeff became a project manager and how he dealt with the fact that the first project ever assigned to him had previously failed and it now fell to him to save the day.

Jeff’s story is simply a great and inspirational tale of (for once) something going right in our profession. It shows how we as PMs can motivate people to do things right, if we can speak to the needs of our customers and then deliver on our promise.