Manage This - The Project Management Podcast

What do heroics, task-switching, and gold-plating have in common? All are forms of waste. The podcast team sits down with certified Project Management Professional, Alan Zucker to discuss identifying and eliminating waste from our projects.

Nervous about the 6th Edition PMP Exam? On this episode of Manage This we have brought in the content experts! Learn what's new for the exam and more importantly, how to approach it!

What collaboration tools should I use on my projects? We ask that question of Elizabeth Harrin, author of Collaboration Tools for Project Managers, who joins us from the UK. Elizabeth shares her research and recommendations.

Alan Zucker joins the team to discuss an Agile approach to project management. Alan makes the case that Agile is a more natural way to work. It’s a mindset, not just a methodology.

Bob Mahler joins the cast of Manage This to talk about risk management. He served on the team that developed the Risk Management chapter in the 6th Edition PMBOK® Guide. He discusses this as well as practical advice for project managers.

Grow your Emotional Intelligence. Monique Russell – executive coach, leadership guru, and communication expert—joins the Manage This crew to discuss how Emotional Intelligence impacts the role of the project manager, and what you can do to improve.

NASA and astronomers around the world are perplexed by the most mysterious star in the universe. Something massive and unpredictable is blocking the light coming from a distant star known as KIC 8462852, which is also known as Tabby’s Star

Talking about the two-and-a-half-year-long construction of the new home for the Atlanta Braves baseball team, SunTrust Park.

What should a project manager do with this latest edition of the PMBOK Guide? In this podcast, join the Manage This crew for practical, strategic advice regarding this latest update to the industry standard.

ANDY CROWE ● BILL YATES ● NICK WALKER ● ROGER DUKE NICK WALKER:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Every other week we get together to discuss the topics that matter to you, whether you’re in charge of a large team in an international company or leading a small group in a local business.  The guiding principles are the same, and we want to share them with you through the eyes of others who are doing the stuff of project management. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me are the resident experts, Andy Crowe and Bill Yates.  And Andy, talk about experts, we have someone in the studio today who is not only in the thick of managing projects himself, but he teaches others and is involved in numerous community projects. ANDY CROWE:  And a really smart guest, as well.  This is going to be a good one.  And I think his passion is going to connect with a lot of our listeners’ passions. NICK WALKER:  Well, let’s meet him.  Roger Duke is the engineering project manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River site, where he has been for the past 40 years.  He’s also currently assigned as the Agile coach for the first Agile project there.  He holds mechanical engineering degrees from Auburn University and the University of South Carolina.  He is an adjunct professor at Augusta University Hull School of Business, teaching project management.  He is a newspaper columnist, a conference speaker, and has served as director and officer of more than 10 nonprofit organizations.  Roger, welcome to Manage This. ROGER DUKE:  Thank you, Nick.  Glad to be here. NICK WALKER:  Now, I know one thing that you are involved in is the community.  It’s important to be involved in the community.  How can project managers be involved, and why is that important to you? ROGER DUKE:  Well, one thing that I discovered in some of my organizations I worked in is that, when you build a board for a nonprofit, they typically look at things like legal, marketing, businesses that can be sponsors.  And when I got in there, I found out that these organizations are great at coming up with ideas and dreams, but they don’t know how to implement them.  And there was a niche for somebody on the board to actually follow through and do something; okay?  And that’s where the project management approach or significance came in is that they can come up with the ideas, but you need somebody on the board to actually execute them. ANDY CROWE:  And you know, Roger, I’ve experienced that, as well.  I’ve been on fewer than you have, but quite a few boards.  And what you have is a lot of passion, and then sometimes they struggle with process.  And sometimes they downright resist process, I’ve found, because it gets in the way of the passion.  You know, there’s all this energy, all this passion, and project managers can maybe help channel that. ROGER DUKE:  There were a couple of big projects that were sitting out there, ready to do, but the sponsors that were supporting them were going to take their money away because nothing was happening, you know.  And so I just stepped up for one in particular to put a marquee on an historic theater, and it was just a great project, very exciting, big difference, big impact on the community because of its visibility. And that’s when I realized project managers need to be on the boards.  You’ve got to have somebody with that perspective on how you’re going to actually execute and make something happen.  And it just grew from there.  And so as I got more involved in the community and different organizations, I would just take on projects at each of those and really could make a difference. BILL YATES:  One of the things that we talk about in the role of project manager is project managers get things done.  You know, we’ve had PMs sit in here and talk about, well, my CEO had a vision, but I had to come alongside and get that vision and break it down and then recruit a team...