Welcome to PMIWDC's Project Management Point-of-View (PM-POV)
This podcast series gives you brief and insightful conversations with PM practitioners in a variety of disciplines.
Host Kendall Lott draws on his experience as a PM, as CEO of M Powered Strategies and as former CEO of PMIWDC to explore how project managers create value in surprising places.
Our guests discuss their unique perspectives on project management, its uses, its challenges, its changes, and its future.
Earn education PDUs in the PMI Talent Triangle for each podcast you listen to!
PM Point of View #114. Program Value Management
Posted: Tuesday, October 24, 2023
An educational podcast with PM Guests discussing key Project Management leadership techniques in new ways.
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PM Point of View #113. Asteroids
Posted: Wednesday, September 20, 2023
An educational podcast with PM Guests discussing key Project Management leadership techniques in new ways.
PM Point of View #112. Let it Flow, Success without Force
Posted: Tuesday, August 08, 2023
An educational podcast with PM Guests discussing key Project Management leadership techniques in new ways.
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PM Point of View #111. Getting Out of Our Own Ways
Posted: Friday, June 30, 2023
An educational podcast with PM Guests discussing key Project Management leadership techniques in new ways.
PM Point of View #110. PM Faceoff: Process vs Principles
Posted: Monday, May 22, 2023
An educational podcast with PM Guests discussing key Project Management leadership techniques in new ways.
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PM Point of View #109. Listener Questions Revealed!
Posted: Thursday, April 20, 2023
Elevating the Conversation about Project Management, with a twist. In this episode cohosts Mike Hannan and Kendall Lott take on some Listener Feedback.
PM Point of View #108. UMD PM 4.0 AI & Future for Project Managers
Posted: Thursday, March 23, 2023
No Luddites here! Episode 3 of the UMD PM Symposium prequal and guests Al Zeiton, Marissa Brienza and Bill Brantley chat about the role of AI in Project Management and the potential risks and benefits of using it as PMs. We discover the logic and importance of maintaining human interaction—turns out its not fear that makes us think “it will never replace us” but rather AI’s limitations in the larger PM discipline.
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PM Point of View #107. So you want to Agile
Posted: Wednesday, February 22, 2023
We all talk Agile, and sometimes we “say we wanna do agile”, so this conversation is about the challenges of implementing Agile in different environments with guests David Forsyth, Mike Mellane, and Caitlin Kenny. Co-host Mike Hannan takes our experts through a journey of the tensions between customers and vendors and the difficulty in managing communication pathways, budgeting, and the principle-agent problem.
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PM Point of View #106. Critical Conversations
Posted: Tuesday, January 24, 2023
First, “do no harm”–seems like a good adage, and is consistent with our guest Kevin Coleman who discusses some tenets of his UMD PM Symposium presentation coming this April, called “Unconscious Bias: Recognize it and correct it.”
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PM Point of View #105. Managing an AI Project
Posted: Wednesday, December 21, 2022
An educational podcast with PM Guests discussing key Project Management leadership techniques in new ways.
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PM Point of View #104. Value Integration in Project Management
Posted: Tuesday, November 22, 2022
An educational podcast with PM Guests discussing key Project Management leadership techniques in new ways.
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PM Point of View #103. Cognitive PM and Military Planning
Posted: Wednesday, October 19, 2022
An educational podcast with PM Guests discussing key Project Management leadership techniques in new ways.
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PM Point of View #102. The Beauty of AHP
Posted: Tuesday, September 20, 2022
An educational podcast with PM Guests discussing key Project Management leadership techniques in new ways.
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PM Point of View #101. PM Techniques In Ukraine
Posted: Wednesday, August 24, 2022
Guest Sergiy Potapov and co-host Mike Hannan are at it again discussing precepts of TOC and Cynefin that connects with effective PM practices to produce results, even in shocking and shattering circumstances, such as found in Ukraine during the war.
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PM Point of View #100. Unleash Flow by Taming It…
Posted: Thursday, June 23, 2022
Episode 100, where a theory based in manufacturing collides with the world of Knowledge Work (yeah, I’m talking about you, PMs) and we find a way to think about Critical Change Project Management.…
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PM Point of View #99. PM Pessimist Optimist Synthesis
Posted: Thursday, June 23, 2022
“PM is BS!” says Ben Damman, our (highly successful) guest today. Well, maybe…the concern is we have become ceremonial or process-centric over effectiveness. …
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PM Point of View #98. Ecosystem Designer
Posted: Tuesday, May 17, 2022
PMs as leaders you own understanding the design of the org, the ecosystem you sit in. But to what purpose? Join me and cohost Mike Hannan as we hear from Matt Barcomb who highlights understanding the organization as a system so that Product Management can actually be effective.…
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PM Point of View #97. PM under Duress
Posted: Friday, April 22, 2022
PMs how about we get to look at our discipline in action? From the western border of Ukraine, Sergiy Potapov tells us how he chose to have impact by being a PM to deliver humanitarian aid, and what lessons from Critical Chain theory and PM he has applied…really.…
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PM Point of View #96. Design Thinking
Posted: Monday, March 28, 2022
Design mindset, before you even get to design thinking, let’s figure out the problem and check assumptions. Guest Charles Lambdin describes the need and method of creating a frame of thought that has us testing hypotheses of what we need, and making faster smarter bets on the direction we should follow.…
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PM Point of View #95. Change Management and TOC
Posted: Wednesday, February 23, 2022
“I will do what I can, with what I have, where I’m at.” This is a different take on change management; we break down what people say about change but linking it to the underlying framework from the Theory of Constraints.We should recognize that our organizations are fragile systems, and may be running on consequences and not on relationships.…
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PM Point of View #94. Cognitive Behavior
Posted: Saturday, January 29, 2022
“Do all the humans on your team have brains?” Not a comment on ability but on cognition and hardwired biases; if they have brains, they make mistakes in regular patterns. PMs follow the same logical paths of cognition and shortcuts that all humans do, some of which lead us to wrong conclusions and unhelpful behaviors.…
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PM Point of View #93. Heretical Agile
Posted: Wednesday, December 22, 2021
In this episode, organizational change consultant and expert Agilista Leila Rao grounds us in the reality that investing in people is central to successful Agile transformation.…
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PM Point of View #92. Project Management Forward from the 2021 UMD Symposium
Posted: Monday, November 22, 2021
We know change is constant. So as business practices evolve and new systems & tools are developed, the role of Project Managers and the skills they rely on must change to meet the new demands. PMs who don’t move forward risk being left behind.…
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PM Point of View #91. Where has Project Management Gone?
Posted: Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Guest Galen Low, from The Digital Project Manager (DPM), discusses the challenges of the conventional project manager and the ways we define the field. As Lowe addresses, the expansion of the digital environment and transforming customer have led project management into navigating an ever-changing landscape.…
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PM Point of View #90. Effective Communication from the 2021 UMD Symposium
Posted: Friday, September 24, 2021
Transformation Attenuation: The loss of signal that occurs as a message moves down the chain from the C suite. Illusion: The assumption that communication has taken place, when in fact it hasn’t. Here we explore these two phenomena in depth, and examine ways to avoid them, thereby increasing project & organizational effectiveness.…
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PM Point of View #89. Product Management and the Toaster
Posted: Thursday, August 26, 2021
A team, a technology, a toaster. A tale of the Product Manager and the Project Manager brought to life as co-hosts Kendall and Mike ride the narrative road with Tom Klaff, the CEO who made it happen.…
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PM Point of View #88. Avoiding Failure from the 2021 UMD Symposium
Posted: Friday, July22, 2021
The statistics around project success vs. failure are less than heartening, to say the least. For all the tools and expertise PMs bring to the table, we somehow manage to miss the mark more often than we should. Here we feature highlights from two presentations of the 2021 UMD Project Management Symposium …
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PM Point of View #87. Expectations and Capacity
Posted: Friday, June 25, 2021
Kendall Lott and Mike Hannan with guest Hilbert Robinson explore exciting topics around product versus project management, setting expectations and how to address the variance between those and reality, the rounding of such expectations, and even the value of trade-offs when faced with new initiatives. …
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PM Point of View #86. Estimations Oh My!
Posted: Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Estimations – they are at the very core of PM activities, the ability to estimate, the reliance others have on our estimations, our continuing white whale pursuit of improved estimations all work to empower us as masters of the universe, to state our predictions of the future. …
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PM Point of View #85. Covid & the Art of Fundraising: A Theatre’s Tale
Posted: Friday, April 23, 2021
It was summer 2020. Covid-19 lingered on, with no end in sight. After months of canceled performances, funds were dwindling at Washington, DC's Shakespeare Theatre Company. Their last hope, the annual fundraising gala, …
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PM Point of View #84. Pandemic at the University
Posted: Monday, March 22, 2021
How does a graduate program at a university - a program that has assiduously maintained a 100% face-to-face classroom ethos - swing into virtual reality at a moment's notice? …
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PM Point of View #83. Tips from Behavioral Science
Posted: Thursday, February 22, 2021
Project management is about people: working with people, for people, through people. So it goes to reason that managers who have a deeper understanding of human behavior will be more effective. …
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PM Point of View #82. View from the C Suite – Part 2
Posted: Thursday, January 21, 2021
Where do projects go wrong? What tendencies or approaches of Project Managers are NOT helpful to executives? What do they want their PMs to focus on more? How can PMs move up the ladder? In the second part of our 2-part series from the C-Suite, we get the scoop directly from a group of executives, representing a wide swath of enterprises. …
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PM Point of View #81. Project Teams in a VUCA Context from the 2020 UMD Symposium
Posted: Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Covid-19 has changed the way we operate on every level, including how we manage projects. It has made clear the fragility of our reality, and the fancy dancing required, not only to survive, but to move forward constructively.…
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PM Point of View #80. View from the C Suite—Part 1
Posted: Friday, November 20, 2020
What do executives want from their Project Managers? What are their expectations? What do they like about how PMs work? What do they not like?…
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PM Point of View #79. Agile Today from the 2020 UMD Symposium
Posted: Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Scrum with distributed teams. Agile in a traditionally non-Agile environment. Project Management in the time of Agile: is it still relevant?…
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PM Point of View #78. Project Perspective: The Bigger Picture
Posted: Wednesday, September 23, 2020
How can you manage a groundbreaking innovation project when you are surrounded by auditors and compliance- and risk-managers? And how can you ensure that what you deliver will truly benefit the organization and its stakeholders? Two presentations from University of Maryland's 2020 Project Management Symposium describe the pitfalls and offer solutions to both these questions. …
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PM Point of View #77. Virtual PM: 2020 and Beyond
Posted: Thursday, August 27, 2020
Ever since Covid-19 swept the globe, our world has shifted, and that includes the world of Project Management. A panel of digital project managers talks about the changes they have noted already and what they envision for the future vis-à-vis project environment, tools, and ways of meeting, collaborating and doing business. The possibilities are limitless and a brave new world awaits the Project Manager who is bold enough to seize the opportunities this moment affords. AI, Virtual Reality, meetings beyond Zoom, collaboration tools and ways of rethinking how and why we operate the way we do are covered in this episode.…
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PM Point of View #76 Culture and Fit from the 2020 UMD Symposium
Posted: Thursday, April 23, 2020
This episode, the first in a series featuring highlights from University of Maryland's 2020 Project Management Symposium, focuses on culture and the importance of fitting in. We examine the hiring process, and maintaining a culture designed to retain top-notch staff. We also learn about a unique approach to stakeholder management. By observing organizational culture through an ethnographic lens, PMs can detect patterns and probabilities, and address potential gaps before they become serious roadblocks to project success.…
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PM Point of View #75. Milestones in History
Posted: Thursday, April 23, 2020
The 9/11 boat lift in New York City and the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 were both hugely successful projects, with important lessons for Project Managers. The leaders did fast but effective planning and set clear goals. They hit all the milestones, and adapted as they went along. They communicated effectively and strategically. They were alert to risks, and responded swiftly and decisively. In this episode we hear from two project managers who have studied these historic events through a project lens.…
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PM Point of View #74. Seizing Opportunity
Posted: Thursday, April 23, 2020
An effective Project Manager can't be stuck in a pre-established plan. You have to be able to re-route in response to current circumstances and developments. To make good decisions, you must have a complete understanding of the organization's culture, as well as the broader strategic purpose behind the project.…
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PM Point of View #73. Productivity
Posted: Thursday, April 23, 2020
According to research and reports such as the Chaos report, the success rate for projects is far from great. Despite all the methods, tools and lessons learned, we seem to be in a holding pattern vis-a-vis increasing the success rate. This episode of PM Point of View® tackles this issue, with some specific approaches and techniques that can help Project Managers get more bang for their project, and increase productivity.…
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PM Point of View #72. Teamraising
Posted: Wednesday, March 25, 2020
If you think of leadership like parenting, then you can comprehend the concept of teamraising. Think nurturing. Good leaders foster an environment where good manners and civility prevail. They pay attention to the individuals on their team. They groom those with leadership potential, and guide them through the training and experiences they need to get to the next level. In this podcast, experts discuss the ways organizations can and should address these issues, thus enabling greater success for the organization, the project, and everyone involved.…
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PM Point of View #71. The Art of Negotiation
Posted: Monday, February 24, 2020
PMs deal with multiple stakeholders - the executives who commission the project; the project team who implements it; and the end users/recipients. They all have needs, requirements and limits. The better you can negotiate these competing concerns, the more fluidly your project will run, and the more effective your outcomes will be. If done well, the resolution will yield more than either party anticipated. Three experts discuss the approaches, strategies and tools to enhance your negotiation skills.…
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PM Point of View #70. Marketing, Branding & Strategic Marketing
Posted: Wednesday, January 22, 2020
When you think of Project Management, do the terms Marketing and Branding come to mind? Maybe they should. In order to survive in today’s fast-paced environment, with its accelerated rate of change, organizations need to pay attention to staying connected and staying relevant. PMs are well positioned to evaluate external perceptions as well as pick up on internal cues that can be indicators of the overall health of an organization.…
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PM Point of View #69. Neuroscience in Project Management
Posted: Thursday, December 19, 2019
Project management is a system designed by humans for humans. Over the course of a prescribed length of time, teams of humans work together to create a process or a product. The closer the process hones to a human operating system (taking into the account variations in wiring of each individual), the more efficient it will be. In this episode of PM Point of View®, three experts in the areas of neuroscience and project management examine the tools and processes of project management through a neuroscientific lens. …
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PM Point of View #68. Project Management in the Federal Government
Posted: Monday, November 25, 2019
What’s different about managing projects in the Federal Government vs the private sector? For one thing, you have more stakeholders, more rules and restrictions. There is oversight from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Government Accounting Office (GAO), not to mention shifting mandates from Congress. Government projects often take the longer view, and can extend over many years. In this episode of PM Point of View - the third in a series of highlights from the University of Maryland’s 2019 Project Management Symposium - we focus on Federal Programs.…
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PM Point of View #67. Cybersecurity in Project Management
Posted: Monday, October 21, 2019
Every day we hear about another cyber attack. Another virus that we have to guard against. Defending our digital infrastructure is an ongoing and top priority for every organization. It must also be incorporated into every project, from inception to close-out. In this episode, host, Kendall Lott, convenes a round table of experts to discuss best practices to safeguard your project from digital predators.…
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PM Point of View #66. Leadership in the 21st Century
Posted: Wednesday, September 25, 2019
When managing millennials do the old rules still apply? (Think servant leader for starters.) What exactly is the science behind effective techniques for team motivation? Need some handy tips for conflict resolution or negotiation? Something you might want to try: approaching change management by first assessing what is actually good in the present state. These topics and more are covered in the second of our three episodes from the University of Maryland's 2019 Project Management Symposium.…
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PM Point of View #65. Psychometrics: Practical Applications
Posted: Saturday, April 20, 2019
Do the members of your project team communicate effectively? How well do they really trust one another? What do we mean when we say feedback, and what exactly is a "feedback culture"? What's the difference between observed behaviors and drivers? In this - the second episode on Psychometrics - host Kendall Lott gathers experts to discuss the practical applications of psychometric tools. They cite specific cases to illustrate which approach best suits a given circumstance or issue, and then explain why they chose the approach they did, and how to measure results…
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PM Point of View #64. Risk, Resilience, and Response
Posted: Saturday, April 20, 2019
This is the first of three episodes featuring highlights from the University of Maryland’s Project Management Symposium 2019. Here the focus is on the presentation tracks Disaster Resilience and Risk Management. Topics covered are Post Disaster Project Management; Stepping Safely into the Unknown - Project Management in a VUCA Environment; Carbon Neutrality, Resiliency, Program Management; The Relation between Risk Management and Project Success; and What is Lurking in your Project Forecasts?…
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PM Point of View #63. Project Management in a Digital World
Posted: Saturday, April 20, 2019
When you’re managing a digital project, you need a framework that's so nimble, even Agile might not provide sufficient flexibility. As technology advances at an unrelenting clip, project managers working in the realm of digital products - websites, apps, etc. - are facing a new range of challenges. In this episode of PM Point of View, host Kendall Lott sits down with four Digital PMs to discuss which PM principles and tools work, and which don't; what to watch out for, and tools for coping in this rapidly evolving arena.…
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PM Point of View #62. Radical Performance
Posted: Saturday, April 20, 2019
What’s the difference between preparation mindset and performance mindset? Did you ever consider that accountability should run horizontally as well as vertically? What’s the point of constantly drilling on the basics? (Once you know them can’t you simply move on?) What does it mean to hire for enhancement, and can one plus one actually equal three? Alan Stein, Jr., a former basketball coach, keynote speaker, and author of Raise Your Game: High Performance Secrets of the Best of the Best, and Brian Levenson, podcaster, writer, and mental performance coach, discuss what it takes for…
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PM Point of View #61. Authors Part II: The Strategic Project Manager
Posted: Thursday, April 23, 2020
Projects are vehicles for change. The whole point is to add value to your organization and/or your stakeholders. With this in mind, PMs are increasingly charged with keeping an eye on the greater strategic goals of the organization. In this episode, three experts/authors discuss the teachings of their books, and how PMs can (and should) exert their influence to enhance the effectiveness and competitive stance of their organization. Featuring Gregg Brown, author of Ready...Set...Change Again; April K. Mills, author of Everyone is a Change Agent; and Dana Brownlee, author of The Unwritten…
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PM Point of View #60. High Performance Teams
Posted: Wednesday, March 20, 2019
A former US Marine/Special Ops commander, the co-founders of Leadership Techniques International, and the director/coach of the offshore sailing team at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis talk about what it takes to lead highly effective, high-performing teams.…
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PM Point of View #59. Psychometrics: Myers-Briggs and Beyond
Posted: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Know thyself. Then know your teammates. A key component of effective project management is teamwork, but that’s not always easy when you bring together people representing a range of ages, backgrounds, and values. There are steps PMs can take to engender a harmonious and, consequently, a productive work environment. Generally, it's better to address this issue earlier rather than later. To sort through the various assessment tools, and their corresponding philosophies and methodologies, Kendall Lott has gathered a round table of experts to talk about the benefits, how to use them, when to…
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PM Point of View #58. VOE I: Working at the Macro Level
Posted: Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Three seasoned Project Management practitioners, teachers, and authors share their insights, observations and what they consider the important issues of the day. Dr. Kenneth Smith talks about techniques and tools and why it's important for PMs to understand the underlying principles of the tools they use. John Stenbeck explains how Agile can be scaled up to the portfolio or organizational level. And Carl Pritchard shares techniques that PMs can use when they need to communicate with their managers or executives of the organization.…
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PM Point of View #57. Organizational Effectiveness
Posted: Tuesday, December 11, 2018
"Efficiency is about going from inputs to outputs. But effectiveness is about going from outputs to outcomes." So says Charles Chandler, author and podcaster, who discusses his model for organizational sustainability and effectiveness. What makes a project and, by extension, an organization, truly effective and great? You must distinguish between "efficiency" and "effectiveness," and understand the importance of measuring effectiveness based on Outcomes (Uptake, Adoption, and Use) rather than Outputs. By looking at organizations as complex adaptive systems, it becomes clear that the true…
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PM Point of View #56. Construction
Posted: Tuesday, November 27, 2018
This is the third in our series from the 2018 Project Management symposium at the University of Maryland's Project Management Center for Excellence. For this episode, presenters and speakers talk about project management in the construction space. Learn about the latest and greatest technologies, such as BIM (Building Information Modeling), cloud sharing, and virtual reality tools like Oculus Rift, which have greatly improved the efficiency and ease of stakeholder management, scope, communication, risk mitigation, budgeting and scheduling…
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PM Point of View #55. Volunteer Management
Posted: Monday, October 22, 2018
Managing Volunteers is key to the success of nonprofits and associations. In this episode of PM Point of View, host Kendall Lott talks with three Volunteer Management experts on the importance, the components, and the impact of good volunteer management. Listeners will learn about ways that volunteer managers can support their organization as well as their volunteers. This might include a rigorous onboarding process; keeping volunteers aligned with the organization's mission; matching volunteers with suitable positions, and collecting data so managers can track Return on Volunteer…
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PM Point of View #54. Procurement
Posted: Sunday, September 23, 2018
Almost every project involves some sort of procurement, whether it's goods, or teams of contractors. In fact, Procurement is one of the ten Knowledge Areas of the PMBOK® Guide, and merits almost a complete column in the index of the Sixth Edition. Yet how well versed are PM’s in the best practices, the methods and approaches of the procurement process? In this episode, thought leaders and procurement experts discuss Strategic Sourcing, Category Management, and Cooperative Purchasing, as well as transparency and ethics, and other factors that are crucial to public and private sector…
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PM Point of View #53. Knowledge into Practice: Agile
Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2018
In the second of our 3-part series from University of Maryland's 2018 Project Management Symposium, we feature excerpts from presentations in the Agile track: Jeff Dalton on Agility for Leaders; Jason Dunn on Deciding When to Save or Shut Down a Project; Sean Eddings on The Traffic Fallacy; Bruce Gay on Design Thinking; Christopher Harris & John Johnson on ECM and FIRE - A Framework for Rapid Acquisition; and Susan Parente on Agile Quantitative Risk Analysis.
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PM Point of View #52. Guide 6th Edition: Risk
Posted: Thursday, July 26, 2018
What do you get when you put a Systems Engineer, a Value Master, a Portfolio Manager, and a Risk Guy at a table together? Answer: an enlightening discussion on Risk in the PMBOK® Guide, seen through four very different lenses. This is the fourth in a series of roundtable discussions focusing on the most recent PMBOK® Guide—what’s new, what’s good, what are the must-haves, and interesting thoughts and perspectives.
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PM Point of View #51. Knowledge into Practice Part 1: Leadership
Posted: Tuesday, June 26, 2018
“Turning Knowledge into Practice” was the title of the 2018 symposium hosted by University of Maryland’s Project Center for Excellence. For this episode, we focus on Leadership and Conflict. Five presenters are featured, covering these topics “Breaking Rules: A Rulebook for Improving Your Performance”; “Managing Teams with Servant Leadership”; “Conflict Resolution Practices for the 21st Century”; “Practical Methods for Successful Change Adoption”; and “Eight Steps to lasting Change that Works Every Time.”
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PM Point of View #50. Ethics
Posted: Thursday, May 24, 2018
According to the Project Management Institute, ethics is about making the best possible decisions concerning people, resources, and the environment. Every PMP® must sign off on a set of values: Honesty, Responsibility, Respect, and Fairness. But ethics—whether it’s business, personal, or abstract—often inhabits a grey area, where neither right nor wrongfully prevails. As Project Managers, we are faced with difficult choices. To satisfy one stakeholder, we may have to short shrift another. The more complex the project, the greater the dilemmas. The good news is, there are tools and…
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PM Point of View #49. Influencers Part VI: Energy
Posted: Thursday, April 26, 2018
An energy project today might be the development of a car battery that will run an electric car for 200 miles; the placement of wind turbines in an open field; or the construction of an oil refinery that can process half a million barrels a day. For organizations seeking to restructure energy resources and delivery, options abound. More than a project, in energy you must consider a full portfolio of intertwining elements. PMs in the current environment often find themselves in the role of Change Manager. Stakeholder management is paramount, as you deal with the communities that will be…
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PM Point of View #48. New Releases: Conversations with the Authors
Posted: Wednesday, March 28, 2018
In the beginning, there was the PMBOK®. Then came the deluge! If you are looking for information on the latest trends, philosophies, and cutting-edge methodologies in Project Management, there is no shortage of books and articles to explore. The question is: where to begin? In this episode (hopefully the first in a series), host Kendall Lott interviews three authors of recently published books: Ted Kallman, co-author of Flow: Getting Everyone Moving in the Right Direction…and Loving It; Michael O’Brochta, author of How To Get Executives To Act for Project Success; and Susan Schwartz,…
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PM Point of View #47: PMBOK® Guide Edition 6: Quality
Posted: Monday, February 5, 2018
What does PMBOK® Guide - Edition 6 say about Quality? It refers to the cost of Quality. And there is a cost to quality – in terms of both money and time. But lack of quality also has a cost. Being able to measure quality helps us to juggle and flex project requirements. How exactly does quality fit into the overall project scheme? Is optimum quality even a high priority of any given project? The Project Manager who is well informed and kept up to date on the full program perspective is better poised to make intelligent decisions about the give and take of project components in order to…
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PM Point of View #46: Change Management
Posted: Monday, February 5, 2018
Being creatures of habit, humans have a hard time with change. But resilience and adaptability have kept us going through the millennia. Projects inevitably bring about change – whether its related to culture, processes, systems, environment, or all of the above – and it’s the Project Manager who must shepherd the team or the organization through the sometimes painful process. That means dealing with resistance. (There are some interesting philosophies about that.) It means planning for orientation and adaptation as part of the scope of your project…
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PM Point of View #45: PMBOK 6: The Agile Effect
Posted: Monday, December 18, 2017
This is the second in a series of roundtable discussions on PMBOK® 6. The focus here is Agile and the Agile Practice Guide, which is included as a supplemental volume in latest PMBOK® Guide. For this discussion, one of the co-authors of the guide, Jesse Fewell, joins two previous panelists, Michael Hannan, and Randall Iliff, to talk about the decision-making process that went into the guide, and what it means for PMs who must learn to adopt a more hybrid approach to project management.
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PM Point of View #44: PMBOK 6: Scope & Schedule
Posted: Tuesday, November 21, 2017
For this probing look at the newly released PMBOK 6, we convened a panel of experts for a rousing roundtable discussion. Host Kendall Lott talks with Stephen Devaux, Michael Hannan, and Randall Iliff about what’s good, what’s interesting, and what’s missing in the latest iteration of the PMBOK Guide. Among the topics covered are: projects as investments; time as a resource; flow; and more.
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PM Point of View #43: Winners
Posted: Friday, October 27, 2017
PMI Award Winners discuss projects and their philosophies vis-à-vis Project Management. Learn about how these outstanding PMs went about laying out their vision, handling the stakeholders, addressing the risks, and successfully completing some challenging projects. This inspiring episode offers great ideas and food for thought for PMs at all levels.
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PM Point of View #42: Project Management in International Development
Posted: Monday, September 18, 2017
Looking for a challenge? Try managing a project whose stakeholders represent a cross section of cultures, languages, and even governments; where funding can come from multiple sources, often many steps removed, physically and culturally, from the beneficiaries; and where the results can’t be measured in any meaningful way until months or years after project completion. Welcome to the world of International Development. In this episode we hear from three experts, who have been in the field (literally) for decades – in Brazil, Turkey, and Zambia – to learn about what it takes to bring these…
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PM Point of View #41: Looking Ahead
Posted: Monday, July 24, 2017
This is a compilation of some of the earliest PM Point of View episodes, covering new directions in Project Management. Robert Brese, former CIO of the Department of Energy, talks about risk and what he looks for in a Project Manager. John Cable, Director of the Project Management Center for Excellence at the University of Maryland, discusses PM in the Academic sphere. Greg Balestrero, CEO Emeritus of the Project Management Institute, focuses on sustainability in Project Management – and it’s more than just the environment. German futurist, Oliver Schlake and Michael Hannan of Fortezza…
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PM Point of View #40: Influencers Part V - Teamwork
Posted: Monday, June 26, 2017
Project Management is a team sport; projects are rarely implemented by a single individual. But the minute you bring two, three, not to mention fifty or hundreds of team members together, you open yourself up a range of potential group dynamics issues. In fact, the pressures of time and budget, along with the drive to get results, can lead to bullying and other unproductive behavior. It’s up to the project manager to set the tone, define standards, establish lines of communication, and support the individuals as well as the group as a whole. Three experts on Teamwork and how it relates to…
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