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Are you an accidental project manager? You know, someone who was thrust into the project management role without much fanfare, introduction or even education? Well… you are not alone. It happened to you, it happened to me and it continues to happen to thousands of other project managers throughout the world.

Wouldn’t it be great, if there were organizations out there who introduced young people to the concepts and approaches of project management? There are! And that’s good news for the future of our profession.

Joan Vincent (www.linkedin.com/pub/joan-vincent/4/902/531) is President of the Wideman Education Foundation (www.widemaneducationfoundation.org) whose goal is to promote sound project management principles and skills, especially among young people.

As part of this the Wideman Education Foundation is dedicated to attracting young individuals into the project management profession and helping them develop the organizational and leadership skills they will need to succeed in today’s job market. Through workshops and competitions the foundation fosters essential, basic, practical skills like preparation, planning, teamwork, communication, and delivering presentations.

It’s all about getting the next generation of project managers interested in the profession.

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

Communications is just something that we project managers do… right? It’s not something that we normally design, measure or use to manage performance… right?

Well… Mark Phillips (https://www.linkedin.com/in/markphillipspm) says “wrong”.

In his new book titled Reinventing Communication he proposes that project communication can indeed become a rigorous performance management tool and, further, that managing communication as a performance management tool is essential for delivering desired outcomes. It is essential because all projects are social environments.

In the interview Mark introduces us not only to how to use project communication as a performance management tool, but also to the elements of communication design, how a hard tool can help project communication, how good communication determines project outcomes, and he introduces us to two checklists included in the book that will help you design your project communication for performance management.

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

What makes you happy in your work? To some it’s a promotion, a big salary or being able to telecommute and work from home.

Thomas Juli (https://motivate2b.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-juli/0/338/799) who has spoken before in our leadership podcasts series has identified that there is a way to combine leadership, happiness and project success. He puts this under the heading of focus, strategy and alignment.

In this interview, we are going to see why happiness is important in this equation, how it fuels success, how to get WOW projects, what the MVP is, and we get his tips on how all of us can apply this right away on our projects.

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

In our last episode we learned from Mark Phillips (https://www.linkedin.com/in/markphillipspm) how to use communication as a performance management tool. But how exactly do you do it…?

In his book Reinventing Communication Mark also includes several case stories. In these case stories he reviews the good, the bad and the ugly in regards to communication design. And right now we want to review the success story that is the The F/A-18 E/F project.

We learn about the number one reason why it was a success, how a vice admiral almost didn’t get his star because the communication was so successful, how a common language supports communication success, and we get Marks tips for all of us on what we can do on our own projects to emulate the successful communications design from the The F/A-18 E/F project.