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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.

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This episode is sponsored by The PDU Podcast:

A while back we introduced The Project Management Answer Book written by Jeff Furman, PMP to you. I met up with Jeff recently and we recorded this interview in which he recounts all the doors that opened up for him simply because of the fact that he wrote down what he knew about project management.

As you can imagine, this interview is a bit different than others here on the podcast. Generally speaking, we usually talk about project management methodologies and how to apply them on your projects. In this interview we want to show you how with a little effort of writing about what you know can propel your career into unexpected and positive directions.

As you will hear, while Jeff authored a book and became published that way it all started simply because he started writing about IT and project management. So even if your goal isn’t to become a published author of a book it’s a good idea to get everything you know about our field written down and blog about it. And Jeff has a few recommendations for you.

To me, this is a really encouraging story showing what a few words a day can do for anyone.

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This episode is sponsored by The PDU Podcast:

I came across an article titled The Leadership Attitude [Update: the template website is no longer available, so we removed the link] written by Elizabeth Harrin. I liked what she had to say. In this article she boiled leadership down to 4 main pillars:

• Openness
• Honesty
• Trust
• Integrity

In our interview today I meet up with her to discuss the article in more detail. We look at the difference between management and leadership, how to be a manager and leader at the same time, and what these 4 pillars mean to her.

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A quick health update from me to all my listeners. After 2 months of physiotherapy I'm finally starting to feel better. I should be as good as new in hopefully about one month.