Listen to The PM Podcast

This episode is reserved for subscribers of the Premium Podcast. Learn how to subscribe to the Premium Podcast to access this interview...

A couple of days ago I returned from the 2008 PMO Summit in Orlando Florida. It was 2 days of excellent presentations that have taught me many new and current concepts of Project Management Offices (PMO) but which have also confirmed much of what I knew.

Mark Perry from The PMO Podcast also participated at the summit. I invited Mark to come on the program and give me his views of what he has learned. So he and I got together to discuss what we have learned from each presentation during the conference.

This is the first of two reviews that I am going to do on the summit. This one with Mark is only for the Premium Subscribers.

Play Now:

This episode is sponsored by:
[Update: the template website is no longer available, so we removed the link]

Everywhere you turn these days project management experts are talking about the need for us all to move from project management to project leadership. Here at The PM Podcast we have tackled this subject a number of times on previous leadership podcasts in the past and today we will continue this journey by taking a look at The Advantage of Leadership.

The Advantage of Leadership is the name of a book that contains words of wisdom from various leadership experts. It was born of the belief that you can never have too much information. It brings together the knowledge and wisdom of individual leaders from across the field, offering a most comprehensive resource for the reader. It contains 11 chapters, each written by a different expert. It covers a broad spectrum of topics like leading with motivation, leading a team, servant leadership or learned leadership.

To discuss a number of concepts from the book we welcome leadership development expert Stan Levanduski, PMP. He is the driving force behind The Advantage of Leadership and helped bring it all together. Stan is also one of our lecturers on PM Lectures, where he teaches us how to respond to Leadership Challenges of Complex Projects.

As always when we discuss a book on the program we are giving away 2 copies of the book. Please listen to the episode to learn how to participate.

Play Now:

This episode is sponsored by:

If someone asks you explain what you do as a project manager, do you sometimes struggle to explain it? It’s easy to explain the hard tasks like building houses, changing processes or developing software, but once I get to the less tangible items like project team motivation or relationship management I usually begin to lose the listener. It gets even worse if you have to explain the value of project management to your senior management. It is very difficult to find solid facts that we can use to show that there really is value in our work.

This problem has puzzled our profession for a long time. That is why the PMI has funded a study on the value of project management and it’s results have been released.

We can finally and with scientific certainty say that there is indeed value in what we do.

Our guest today is Mark E. Mullaly, PMP, President & Chief Organizational Therapist of Interthink Consulting Incorporated. He is the co-lead investigator on this study and you can look forward to hearing a great interview.

And don't forget to stop by at PM Opinions to write a short review for The PM Podcast. Even just one sentence will help!

Play Now:

This episode is sponsored by:

Has your project ever been audited? Was it a good experience or would you much rather spend 2 hours at the dentist instead? We met up with Elizabeth Harrin, author of Project Management in the Real World , at the PMI® Global Congress in Denver last month and we discussed not project audits, but its cousin Peer Reviews.

We define what a peer review is and how it compares to a formal project audit. We shine a light onto the fact that peer reviews will help you as a PM to keep honest. In particular during the more hectic times of a project, when it’s easy to say that “I just don’t have the time to have the risk management meeting this week”.

And of course, we look at how you should prepare for a peer review both from the perspective of someone who is giving and someone who is receiving such a review.

We also introduce you to a new Gizmo: It’s a new website called PM Opinions where you can read and write reviews on project management products and services.