Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Arif Ansari, Director of Portfolio and Project Management at VentureWell, discussing how people think about project management, how to optimize the contributions of remote workers, and how to get requirements from people who don’t know what they want. They cover best practices for building a PMO and where project management is headed in 10 years. Listen in for a perspective on being impactful as you solve pain points. Key Takeaways: Arif describes...

Walt Sparling, Host of the PM-Mastery podcast, interviews Jeff Plumblee of Moovila, a project manager, program manager, and fellow podcast host in the project management industry, the This Project Life podcast. This episode appears on both podcasts. The discussion begins with Jeff’s education, his work, what initially interested him about Moovila, and what he learns from the podcast This Project Life. Jeff explains the purpose of The Community of Practice episodes of the podcast. Jeff set...

Co-hosts Jeff Plumblee and Matt Stoltz were live on LinkedIn for our largest and most engaged CoP Live so far! There were several topics covered. The conversation starts with communicating the value of PM initiatives to executives and moves on to cost-cutting, supply chain management, the relevance of the PMBOK, effective stakeholder management, communication, training, and templates. Listen in for insights into project management for all sizes of organizations.   Key Takeaways: How do...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Marian Williams, Program Manager for Product Operations at Anthology, discussing her past work in hospitality and customer success and her current work in product operations. Marian talks about how customer success helped prepare her to work in product operations. Marian suggests how you can decide whether the PMP certification or an MS in project management is a better fit for you. She stresses the importance of communication and connection, especially in asking...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Tim Parker, covering Tim’s family background in the rigging industry, how Tim almost ended up as a computer programmer, and what change orders can cost in a rigging project when the engineers keep important facts secret until the last minute. Tim tells of a nuclear project that went well and gives his final advice to new project managers; always get a complete and well-defined scope. Key Takeaways: Rigging is moving heavy objects from one location to another...

David shares his career development from engineering design, to project management, to program management, and what he learned from backpacking, music, and dancing that helped him on the way. Notes: Host Jeff Plumblee interviews David Sediles, a Program Manager at Duracell. Key Takeaways: David started as a design engineer before and after graduation from college, first making high-tech rope. He did engineering work until 2013. David then took a year off for a long and slow...

Mike Psenka explains how the programmed integration of real-time data into project planning enables service and delivery organizations to interact with forecasts dynamically, for atomic-level accuracy of the necessary project resources to get to better margins. Notes: Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Mike Psenka, CEO of Moovila, a company that is disrupting project and program management across several industries. Key Takeaways: How do you get to accurate resource utilization so you get...

The participants share their experiences with establishing a new PMO and best practices for data analytics, risk, and project confidence. Notes: Co-hosts Jeff Plumblee and Matt Stoltz host this Community of Practice Live Event! The topic is establishing a PMO for the first time at an organization: What are the best practices and some of the challenges? What are best practices for data analytics? Additional topics are data analytics, project risks, and project confidence.   Key...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Jonathan Pu, a Senior Project Manager at Hinge. Key Takeaways: Hinge is a dating app intended to help you find your person. It is owned by Match Group. Jonathan shares an example of his previous work at Moody’s. He contrasts product management and project management. Working at a startup is different from working at Moody’s. At Hinge, project management is evolving. Successful projects have quick iteration cycles and you learn quickly. When you become an...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Hassan Osman, PMO Director at Cisco. Hassan is the author of 16 non-fiction books on project management and general interests. The discussion centers on the steps to go through for a successful kickoff meeting and why you need to hold an internal kickoff meeting first. Jeff and Hassan discuss knowing the stakeholders individually. They consider how projects go wrong because of gray areas in the scope and how to salvage the client relationship. Hassan shares his...

Co-hosts Jeff Plumblee and Matt Stoltz host Part 2 of this Community of Practice Live Event! The topics were having effective retrospectives and documenting the lessons learned to retrieve later, how PMOs can communicate with impact, and whether the checklist approach is appropriate for a project.   Key Takeaways: How do you make retrospectives and “lessons learned” useful? Discuss after each phase what went wrong and what worked well. Use a database system and add metadata tags to the...

Co-hosts Jeff Plumblee and Matt Stoltz host this Community of Practice Live Event! The participants who spoke up include Aaron, Jay, Jesse, Jeff, and Kayla. The topics were assessing the capabilities and skills of project managers and team members, best practices for resource management, finding out which resources are overloaded and how to change a culture where admitting to an overload is “not allowed,” leadership, and how to advocate for overloaded resources. Jeff and Matt mention...

TL;DR On this episode, we interview Jeff, a moderator from the 86K-member subreddit r/projectmanagement. He shares insights from the community's FAQs, explains why you shouldn't pursue the CAPM, shares his own experiences in project management, and *gasp* is challenged by automation. _______________________ This is an interesting one. We're speaking with one of the moderators of the r/projectmanagement subreddit, Jeff. We're only stating his first name as not to reveal his identity - part...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Victoria Matthew, Senior Program Officer at VentureWell. The conversation starts with social learning and Communities of Practice (CoPs). Victoria shares her thoughts on selling executives on the concept of CoPs, shares tips on facilitating a CoP, and reveals her worst and best project experiences. Listen in to learn about psychological safety, speaking human to human, and measuring the benefits of a CoP.   Key Takeaways: Victoria explains social learning...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Sameer Chopra, Director of Emerging Healthcare Opportunities at Microsoft. The conversation starts with Sameer’s novel, The Work Ahead, which portrays project management and problem-solving with a unique twist and lessons that apply in life. Sameer shares an overview of the virtual work he does with his team. He recalls his favorite project success and another successful project that was also his worst project management experience due entirely to extreme...

Co-hosts Jeff Plumblee and Matt Stoltz host this Community of Practice Live Event! Jeff gave an overview of the principles of a community of practice and invited comments. He then introduced four questions for discussion: How do you manage project stakeholders and control communication? How do you justify the need to have a PMO? How do you communicate new processes? How do you celebrate a project’s successful closure?   Listen in for ideas for your community of practice and PMO.   Key...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Ben Morabito and Jay Sturm of Irreverent Rogue, about the leadership tools of project management. The conversation goes in-depth on the necessity of alignment between corporate strategy and the PMO, reasons PMOs may fail, knowing who the PM needs to talk to and when, and the importance of soft skills in project management. Ben and Jay share their best and worst project experiences, and how those projects ended, They advise listeners on the various aspects of...

Host Matt Stoltz switches it up today to interview the regular host, Jeff Plumblee, on the theory vs. the practice of project management, and where people fit in. Jeff starts with a taste of theory and then moves into management. He says if you wonder about the value of a project manager, remove the manager and see what happens to your project. The conversation covers theory and practice and finishes with why you want to be in a Community of Practice.  You know the first 10% of project...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Dennis Young, founder of YCA, a project consulting firm. From his experiences as a US Marine, mining, construction, IT, and more, Dennis explains what shaped his view of project management. He shares how he only works in planning and control, why he schedules from the front instead of working back from a deadline, and what the most important (and timeless) skillsets are to be successful in high-pressure environments of project management.  Leadership and project...

Co-hosts Jeff Plumblee and Matt Stoltz are live today for the second Community of Practice live event! The group discusses preparing a business case for executive approval, starting a project, and gathering subject matter experts and an executive sponsor. Jeff asks for the amount of detail that is wanted to start a project. The conversation moves to involving cross-functional team members and conducting retrospectives after every phase and concludes with an overview of solutions for storing...

What does a CIO think of project managers? Forget your PMP. You're all a bunch of paper pushers... ...Or you know the business, the "why" behind projects, leadership, and the importance of understanding the impact of your projects.  That's the value, and the perspective you'll need to bring if you want to have meaningful conversations with your senior IT leaders.    That's according to Christos Ruci, CIO at Limbach, the PA-based construction and building solutions firm with expertise in...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Ivett Hankoczy, PMP, CSM, ITIL, Project / Portfolio Manager at Navy Federal Credit Union. Ivett has had project management experience internationally. She learns much from people with different viewpoints. Jeff and Ivett discuss how she manages her team and encourages positivity and collaboration, even during the pandemic, Ivett’s secret of showing appreciation, and how chocolate is her most popular tool to get cooperation. Ivett explains that when a person is...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Blake Mallet, Senior IT Project Manager at NMS Labs. Blake has a decade of project management experience, starting in the U.S. Navy. Jeff and Blake discuss the disastrous result of a company that moved without preparing for the move by vetting new local suppliers, and how Blake put the company back on track by moving the process into an Agile methodology. The biggest challenge was persuading all levels of the company of the benefits that would result. Blake...

Host Jeff Plumblee interviews Bernd Brandstaetter, Director of Project Management at IFA. Bernd shares his career highlights and what he loves about project management. He acknowledges it takes a thick skin. Bernd discusses the impact of the USMCA on supply chains, including the requirement of 75% local sourcing of steel. Jeff and Bernd note the setbacks caused in the supply chain by the COVID-19 pandemic. Another topic is setting the right balance with automation. Bernd shares the KPIs of...