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Bill Dow, PMP, ITIL, CSM - Author

You don’t necessarily have to manage a social media project in order to recognize the benefits of using the tools of social media project management. Furthermore, being a social media project manager is more than simply publishing a few project updates on Facebook.

In order to really reap the benefits, social media has to be a fully integrated and planned part of your project’s communications management strategy.

How to use and when to use social media on your project is at the center of my discussion with Bill Dow (https://www.linkedin.com/in/billdow) whose book Project Management Communication Tools includes a whole section on social media tools for our projects.

In our discussion, Bill and I will review the following:

• Mapping social media tools to project communication tools
• Determining which tools to use on your projects
• Which tools can we use in which project phase or process group
• When to bring on a social media expert to help

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

Jeff Furman, PMP - Author

Do you have a project management question? Then Jeff Furman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefffurmanlinkedin) very likely has the answer for you in the second edition of The Project Management Answer Book.

The book includes questions

• Why do project managers need a formal project charter?
• What is the role of a program manager?
• What are the top 10 pitfalls to avoid when starting a project?
• What is the single best way to prevent scope creep?

All answers are detailed, easy to understand and often come with tips and tricks tables and graphics and everything you need to fully understand and implement good practices on your own projects.

This book is also great for anyone preparing for their PMP® Exam. So if you are looking for a good PMP Book then check out the great reviews it has received on Amazon!

This second edition is not just a rehash of what Jeff originally published some years back. Far from it. Jeff revisited every single question and wrote an updated answer to include changes in our industry. So it’s not surprising that he now also includes sections on Agile, Scrum and Stakeholder Management.

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

Jeff Furman, PMP - Project Management Coach

Have you ever considered being a project management mentor to another PM in your network? I can tell you from personal experience that while project management coaching sounds like a lot of work the return on investment that you personally get out of it is immense.

And so, when I received an email from Jeff Furman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefffurmanlinkedin) and he offered to discuss some of the mentoring approaches that he uses as a project management coach I was all for it.

In our discussion Jeff and I review:

• Staying in touch
• Answering questions
• Helping people connect
• Helping out on social media for project managers
• Writing recommendations
• Recommending resources
• Guiding your mentees to become mentors themselves
• And last but not least… Speed Mentoring

As you can probably already tell, none of these project management mentoring approaches are rocket science. But we still have some good best practices for you to follow.

Coaching and mentoring is useful for all project managers, but it's especially useful in emerging roles, or where you don't feel that your job description is particularly clear -- the role of project manager in SAFe agile springs to mind as an important position, but perhaps one that is less understood than 'traditional' approaches to being a project manager.

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

Bryan Bowers, MBA, PMP

This is another episode in which I am proudly introducing you to one of my successful students who was able to pass the PMP. His name is Bryan Bowers (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bowersbryan) and he is a student of the PMP PrepCast.

There are two reasons that make me especially proud of helping him pass. First of all, Bryan has taken over a dozen certification exams, and second he says that “this was by and far the most brutal exam I have ever taken”. And so I feel very satisfied that it was my exam preparation course that showed Bryan how to prepare for PMP.

In this PMP lessons learned interview you are going to hear him talk about his journey to becoming PMP certified from start to finish.