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In episode 49, The Project Management Podcast™ welcomed Richard Larson, PMP, and Elizabeth Larson, PMP, of Watermark Learning (http://www.watermarklearning.com ) on the topic of Project Without Borders and the issues a PM is faced when gathering requirements on a multicultural project. Today, we welcome Richard and Elizabeth back to discuss some of their best practices of engaging stakeholders in the process of gathering requirements. We will also reveal the winners of our book giveaway.

Most importantly, however, we are announcing the launch of The Project Management PrepCast™, which is a new podcast aimed at helping you, if you are currently studying for  the PMP® Exam. Listen in at www.pm-prepcast.com and prepare for the PMP exam with your iPod!

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The Project Management Podcast™ is pleased to welcome Quentin Fleming (www.quentinf.com [Update: The web page is no longer available so we removed the link]) as our interview guest this week. Mr Fleming is an author, instructor and consultant to management, with over three decades of project management experience within private industry. He has particular expertise in the design of and the assessment of project management control systems and is the co-author of the best-selling book "Earned Value Project Management". We discuss the history and the the basics of earned value management as well as his approach to "Simple" Earned Value which he outlines in an article that he wrote together with Joel Koppelman. The 10 steps, which the authors define are:

• Step 1: You must define the scope (objectives and deliverables) of the project.
• Step 2: You must determine who will perform the defined work, including the identification of all critical procurements.
• Step 3: You must plan and schedule the defined work.
• Step 4: You must estimate the required resources and formally authorize budgets.
• Step 5: You must determine the metrics to convert planned value into earned value.
• Step 6: You must form a performance measurement baseline and determine the points of management control referred to as Control Account Plans (CAPs).
• Step 7: You must record all direct costs by project consistently with the authorized baseline budgets, in accordance with the organization’s general books of accounts.
• Step 8: You must continuously monitor the earned value performance to determine cost and schedule departures from the baseline plan: both schedule variances (earned value less the planned value) and cost variances (earned value less the actual costs).
• Step 9: Using earned value data, you must forecast the final required costs based on actual performance and keep management apprised so they can take corrective actions if necessary.
• Step 10: You must manage the authorized scope by approving or rejecting all changes, and incorporating approved changes into the project baseline in a timely manner.

This is the perfect episode to listen to after our introduction to earned value management, so if you haven't heard that one yet, make sure to add it to your podcast player. 

We also continue our book giveaway of two copies of Bas de Baar's book "Surprise! Now you are a Software Project Manager" and we have an announcement from PM Lessons Learned [Update: The web page is no longer available so we removed the link].

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About a year ago I was asked to take over a troubled project in our company. From one moment to the next, I went from using project management software and being the project manager in charge of organizational change projects to being a PM for a software development project. While I had been working as a PM on website development before, dealing with software development in a controlled environment is a different beast. The dynamics were and are completely different. And what is it like to manage software projects? “Surprise! Now you’re a software project manager” is the title of the book written by Bas de Baar (http://softwareprojects.org).

Of course, we will not be discussing his book as such but that there is a big difference between a SW development methodology and project management in software development where the PM methodology is used to manage technical projects. Today is also the day that we announce the winners of our book giveaway, we start a new book giveaway, we have a listener comment, a seminar announcement and a few more helpful resources that were recommended by our listeners.

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In today’s episode of The Project Management Podcast™ we continue our look at international and intercultural project management. In episode 48, we heard about the issues that the manager of a PMO in Sri Lanka was faced with in regards to all the customer requests she received. But what about the other end? What about the customer? What issues does a customer face who has chosen to augment their staff through off shoring? This is the discussion that I had with Eric Smith and I have to admit, that I was genuinely surprised by what I found. We also continue our book give away of two copies of the book "Introduction to IT Project Management" by Cynthia Snyder, PMP, and Frank Parth, PMP, and we share a number of helpful resources that were recommended by listeners.