People And Projects Podcast: Project Management Podcast

Finger Tapping and Cookie Crumbs In this premium episode, I follow-up on some points from my interview with Paul Weber. You'll learn about: Elizabeth Newton's finger tapping experiment How cookies flushed out some bossy characteristics Click here to watch an interview with Bob Sutton that goes into the bossy issue more. Also, here's the HBR article with Bob. Thank you for joining me for this premium episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!   NO GOOD LAYABOUT by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Introducing Paul Weber, PMP We continue our In the Trenches series with this discussion with Paul Weber, PMP. Paul shares insights and lessons he's learned in his years of leading teams and delivering projects. To learn more about Paul and to contact him about the free EVM and PERT calculators mentioned in this episode, go to http://www.pmpguy44.com.   Join our Facebook Page I invite you to stop by our podcast Facebook page! "Like" it and join the discussion. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!   Bob Sutton on Power Poisoning Paul warned us to make sure we don't think of leadership as being the boss or being bossy. Here's one of my favorite authors talking about power poisoning, the effect that happens when someone gets power. {youtube}Mozejv4sE5o{/youtube} NO GOOD LAYABOUT by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Adapt. Deliver. Fast. If you are in the business of delivering projects, especially in the area of software development, you have certainly heard about agile project management. A good sign that the influence of agile continues to grow is when the Project Management Institute created the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner credential (PMI-ACP®) in 2012. If you are actively involved with agile in any of its many forms, it's worth learning more about the PMI-ACP certification. And if you're not currently utilizing agile practices, it's worth investing time to understand what it is and isn't.   Welcoming Back Cornelius Fichtner, PMP In this episode, I welcome back my friend and podcast colleague Cornelius Fichtner, whom you probably know as the voice of The Project Management Podcast. In this episode, I talk with Cornelius about agile, the PMI-ACP certification, and a new way to study for the PMI-ACP that might just fit your style of learning.   Try the Agile PrepCast™ If you want to study to pass the PMI-ACP exam,

What Does It Take To Motivate Your Team? One of the common concerns I hear from those who lead projects and teams has to do with motivation. What does it take? An inspirational speech (see the video below!)? Money? Time? All the above, depending on the person?   Motivating Project Teams In this episode I talk with Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins.. They are the authors of a book just released this week entitled Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence. The underlying research behind the book finds we each tend to have a primary motivational focus or mindset: either promotion or prevention. You'll learn more about what these mean in this episode. I invite you to visit Heidi's website at at http://www.heidigranthalvorson.com/. You can take an assessment to learn your motivational style by visiting http://www.yourfocusdiagnostic.com.   Need Some Motivation Hey, you promotion-minded listener! Need a little pick-me-up that will speak right to your promotion-minded heart? Ch

Can I Ask You a Favor? So let's say someone asks you for help. For a favor, let's say. What's your first reaction? Is it, "Sure! No problem! I'd love to help!" Perhaps most of us would like to think that's how we respond. Could your response vary, based on the situation? Let's modify the scenario. Let's say this person who is asking for help seems, in your mind, to have very little potential to help you in any meaningful way--now or in the future. Regardless of how you made that assessment, in economic terms, this favor would appear to have very little perceived return on investment. So, would you still help? Or would you scramble for an excuse to step away?   Welcoming back Dr. Adam Grant My guest in this episode is Dr. Adam Grant. We talk about his new book released just this week entitled Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. In this episode you'll hear Adam talk about givers, takers, and matchers, three reciprocity styles that form the basis of the book. I invite you to visit the book's web

Introducing Kiron Bondale, PMP We continue our In the Trenches series of episodes, with this interview with Kiron Bondale, PMP. Kiron runs the Project Management Office at Agricorp. Make sure to check out Kiron's insightful blog at http://kbondale.wordpress.com. Kiron has graciously offered to share a risk register template with listeners of The People and Projects Podcast. Click the icon below to download the Microsoft Excel file:   20 PDUs for a Great Price! Whether you need contact hours for PMP®certification or PDUs, we can help! Our e-learning is engaging, informative, and even fun. Go to http://courses.i-leadonline.com/courses/advanced-project-management to get 20 PDU's for a great price.    Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!     FIREWORKS by Jahzzar is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike License.

So, how do you feel when each of the following occurs? You come across a typo in a project document. You receive an e-mail that is pages and pages long. Someone hits Reply All and there are hundreds of people on copy. You're stuck in a meeting listening to a presenter who has mastered every business cliche in the book! Yuck. We're living in a business climate where writing skills matter so much but get so little attention.   Tips for Better Business Writing Ever sit there in front of your monitor, your keyboard anxiously waiting for you to start typing your communication and you just feel stuck? Wouldn't it be great if there was a concise guide to improve your business writing? Thankfully, there is! My guest in this episode is Professor Bryan A. Garner. He is the author of over 20 books, including Garner's Modern American Usage, Black's Law Dictionary (editor-in-chief), and the grammar and usage chapter in the venerable The Chicago Manual of Style. Brian recently published The HBR Guide to Better Business

Lessons Learned... For Life Hopefully by now you have had the opportunity to listen to my interview with Karl Pillemer. I can honsestly say this is one of my favorite books in the last year so it's my pleasure to share some additional insights with you from the discussion with Karl. In this premium episode we'll discuss ideas such as: Who are your experts? How a profound awareness of short time horizon helps us make better choices The importance of work that is intrinsically motivating Why, unless there is a compelling reason not to, you should error on the side of saying "Yes" The importance of relationships and why emotional intelligence trumps expertise Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Total Duration 12:38 {mp3remoate}http://traffic.libsyn.com/peopleandprojectspodcast/90-PremiumFollowUpLifeLessons.mp3{/mp3remote} Download the premium episode

When it comes to the stuff of life, there is no shortage of people and resources who offer insights on how to be successful, get a job, have meaningful relationships, and more. The experts range from celebrities to academics to anyone with a blog. Our guest in this episode is Karl Pillemer, author of 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans. There are all kinds of reasons why Justin Bieber or other celebrities aren't the best sources for life lessons! But what if we talked to people who have lived much of their life and had a bit of a retrospective or lessons learned with them? That's the idea behind Karl's book, which we discuss in this episode. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!   30 Lessons Trailer For more about Karl and his book, check out this trailer: {youtube}PRaboPigDyc{/youtube} QUADRILLE LAURIER (6EME PARTIE) by Isidore Soucy is licensed under a Orphan Work License. TROUBA by Steve Gunn is licensed under a A

In The Trenches... Like You A month or so ago I was talking with listener Mike Settlemire. Mike was participating in our Advanced Project Management e-learning program and we were talking about the podcast. Mike had a suggestion: what about interviewing practitioners? People who are leading and delivering in the real world?   Insights from Your Peers, Not Authors Hey, I love bringing you discussions with people like John Kotter, Dan Pink, Kerry Patterson, Adam Grant, and the many other guests we have had thus far. And we will continue to deliver interviews from authors of books that can stretch and inform us to better lead and deliver. But I think Mike is exactly right! Some times it can be just as effective to hear from a peer. What does he or she do to help them lead and deliver? What has led to their success and what would they do over?   Introducing Ryan Endres Our first installment of our In the Trenches series is with Ryan Endres, PMP. In the interview, Ryan shares insights and lessons that have helped

You're a Salesperson. Seriously. So, when you think of a salesperson, who comes to mind? For many people, it's someone closer to Kenny the Sales Weasel from Dilbert (see the video below). Good thing you and I aren't salespeople! We're project managers. Team leads. Department heads. Scrum Masters. But salespeople? No way! Or are we? Though we may not be salespeople by title, we spend concerted time on a weekly basis trying to move people--influence people--getting them to take action or agree to something or sign off on a document or hire you or show up for a meeting, or finish a task on time. To Sell is Human Our guest in this episode is Daniel Pink, author of the new book entitled To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others. Dan's new book can help us all be much more successful at helping move people without resorting to sleazy tricks. Help Getting Your PMP®Certification Whether you need contact hours for PMP®certification or PDUs, we can help! Our e-learning is engaging, informative, and

Let's Talk About.... The Future Well, it's time to say good-bye to this year and welcome a new one. So, how do we wrap what's been a very busy year? We're going to talk about... the future. Ah, yes. The future. The start of a new year is a great time to reflect. It provides an opportunity to look at where you've been heading and consider what changes you'd like to see in the year ahead.   Project Managers as Futurists In many ways, project managers and leaders are futurists. We try to anticipate what's ahead and navigate our projects in a way that allows us to successfully deliver. But how do you do that? How can you think like a futurist? In this episode, I speak with Cecily Sommers who an author and futurist Ever wonder how someone becomes a futurist? Well, you'll find out! Cecily just recently published an intriguing book entitled Think Like a Futurist: Know What Changes, What Doesn't, and What's Next. The book is on a lot of must read lists for executives so we're giving you a taste of the book in this ep

Team Turnarounds, Part 2 In the last episode I started the conversation with Joe Frontiera, co-author of Team Turnarounds: A Playbook for Transforming Underperforming Teams. If you haven't already listened to Part 1 of the interview, I invite you to do that first. In this episode we talk about how Domino's Pizza went from admitting their pizza tasted like cardboard and did a team turnaround. We also talk about team culture and how you can increase your odds of turning it around. And we start out with an important conversation about threats and opportunities. You can learn more about Joe and his organization at menoconsulting.com.   Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!    

Time to Reflect As we near the end of the year, it's a great time to reflect. What's going well with your teams? What's not so stellar? As you consider the year ahead, what changes do you want to see? What needs to be turned around?   Time for a Turnaround? Joe Frontiera and Daniel Leidl released a book this year entitled Team Turnarounds. It's a helpful playbook for taking an underperforming team to a new level. I had the opportunity to talk with Joe and look forward to sharing that interview over the course of two episodes.   What Do These Have in Common? In this episode we talk about the power of denial and how that holds us back from team turnarounds. We also talk about the value of tough goals. But we start the conversation with this: What do Domino's Pizza, Indianopolis Colts, State of Michigan, and the Broadway Musical Spiderman have in common?   Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!  

Agile Project Management Agile project management continues to gain momentum around the world, especially with regards to software development projects. Yet moving to agile is more than just adopting a bunch of new processes. It's as much a mindset as it is a set of tools and techniques, and the challenge of dealing with the human side of agile is often overlooked. The Human Side of Agile Well, to address that today you're going to hear from Gil Broza in this episode. His book The Human Side of Agile: How to Help Your Team Deliver was just released a couple weeks ago and it is packed with practical insights on this important aspect of leading agile projects. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! Total Duration 27:01 Download episode 84  

Too Much To Do, Not Enough Time To Do It! Can you relate to that? This is a common theme that I hear from participants in our keynotes and workshops as well as the participants in our Leadership Fast Track Program.   What is the Scarcest Resource? In my interview with Cathy Davidson last year regarding her book Now You See It!, we talked about the scarcest resource. What would you say is the scarcest resource? Most people respond with time--that the most constrained resource we have to deal with is the clock on the wall. Or sometimes I hear people respond that money is the scarcest resource. In Cathy's opinion, it's neither. Rather, it's attention. We all get the same 24 hours. It's what we do with those 24 hours--what we put our attention to--that makes all the difference.   The Attention Habits of the Highly Productive So, what is most worthy of our attention? How can we use the limited time that we have to be most productive? I'm really excited about a new book released just this week. It's entitled Extre

Contented Teams OK, I have another confession to make in this episode! Once again, you'll have to listen to this premium episode to catch it. Beyond what I think about Bill and Richard's book title, this premium episode includes additional coaching on topics from the book and the interview. Enjoy! Make sure to let me know if you're interested in the free license to our Advanced Project Management workshop!   Join our Facebook Page I invite you to stop by our podcast Facebook page! "Like" it and then join the discussion. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!

Could You Use Some Extra Hands On Deck? Could you use some extra staffing on your teams these days? I’m glad to say that I'm seeing more organizations hiring, which is a refreshing change from when our economy was at its worst a few years ago. But even those who are hiring typically aren’t planning on doubling their staff any time soon. So what if you need more staffing but your company isn’t hiring? How can you keep up with the demands when the capacity of your team seems to be tapped out?   Contented Cows Give Better Milk What about tapping into the discretionary effort reserve that most people have but leave untouched in the day-to-day grind of work? What is discretionary effort and how does that relate to the capacity of your team? In this episode I share a recent discussion with Bill Catlette. This last summer Bill and his co-author Richard Hadden released their new book entitled Contented Cows Still Give Better Milk, Revised and Expanded: The Plain Truth about Employee Engagement and Your Bottom Line, a

Everything's a Project OK, I have a confession to make! You'll have to listen to this premium episode to catch it. Beyond the confession, this premium episode includes additional coaching on topics that Ben and I discussed during the interview. Enjoy!   Join our Facebook Page   I invite you to stop by our podcast Facebook page! "Like" it and the join the discussion.   Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!  

Everything's a Project Everything's a Project.... That's not only a great name for a book--which it is--but it's also a great way to look at many things at work and in life. Looking for a job? It's a project. Need to create a report for your boss? It's likely a project. Looking for ways to develop your skills? You guessed it--your personal development is a project. Now, of course, not everything is a project. But most leaders would benefit if we thought of our work as projects and applied lessons that we've learned from the world of project management. Well, Everything's a Project: 70 Lessons From Successful Project-Driven Organizations is the title of a book published earlier this year by my friend and colleague Ben Snyder. In this episode I look forward to sharing with you a recent discussion I had with Ben about his new book. Don't miss the normal end of episode outtakes!   More About Ben To learn more about Ben and his organization, check out http://www.systemation.com.   Keynotes for Your Company Meetin