PM Training Blog

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Competency

Where Did The Money Go? Making Project Benefits Happen

Paul Ritchie — Wed, 06 May 2015 17:02:05 +0000

May 06, 2015

Embed benefits realization in the project from day one

OK, you saved your receipts. You may be able to show what you spent it on. But can you really show what you got for it? Not just some shiny new SAP modules, or a fancy app, but what business benefits--higher margins, market share, or other tangibles--can you prove?

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Leading Change and Changing Leadership

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 21:49:35 +0000

April 30, 2015

An interview with PM College senior instructor Ruth Elswick

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Taming "Dynamic Complexity": An Interview with Paul Lombard

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 19:40:27 +0000

April 20, 2015

Simplicity trumps complexity when it is applied as a consistent practice.

This week we continue our instructor interview series by chatting with Paul Lombard. Paul has always amazed me with his wide-ranging curiosity and ability to see the big picture. I always learn something from a conversation with him.

Question: What are you reading these days?

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Program Management

Risk Management: A Topo Map of the Future

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 21:29:04 +0000

March 31, 2015

An Interview with Senior Instructor Bill Athayde

The PM College instructors are a fascinating group of people. Because they spend most of their days working with classes on client sites, they get an inside view of the workings of many companies, in a variety of industries. And because they are teachers, they value learning and are continuously scanning the environment to improve their grasp of the issues that impact project management.

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Business and Leadership Training: We've Got It Covered

Paul Ritchie — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 20:40:27 +0000

March 30, 2015

PMI announces new additions to the PMP Certification skillset.

We've had a ton of discussions with clients after the Project Management Institute (PMI) announcement that it would soon demand business and leadership training from its certification holders. Some organizations wanted just the facts – who, what, where, when, why, and how -- then were on their way. A few weren’t interested for personal reasons: their organizations don't require or reward PMI certification.

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Vendor Management

Practice Makes Champions: Lessons from the Super Bowl

Paul Ritchie — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 15:40:06 +0000

March 09, 2015

Practice perfects what we are capable of perfecting; knowing your "players" abilities ... and limits ... is the leader's job.

[Originally posted on February 10, 2015 on the Crossderry blog.]

When clients or colleagues ask about my passion for simulations or other experiential learning, I go back to the counsel of my old baseball coach. I hated certain fielding drills, because I thought I already knew what do. But Coach reminded me that knowing what to do wasn’t my problem, the problem was that I had to think about it. In other words, when I — or any other fielder — had to recall what to do, we’d often go blank or get nervous.

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Competency

Agile Adds Performance Boost, Says PMI (And We Agree!)

Paul Ritchie — Mon, 02 Mar 2015 16:08:06 +0000

March 02, 2015

High-performing project management organizations are more agile — PMI

The Project Management Institute’s latest “Pulse of the Profession” report just came out, and it’s full of provoking findings. It clarifies the benefits of high-performing project management, and it highlights what the top organizations do differently.

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Training Success Factor #1: Simulations

Paul Ritchie — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 19:38:33 +0000

February 24, 2015

How effective organizations build staff capabilities — Insights from McKinsey

[Editor's note: Over the next few weeks, we'll be featuring some posts by our new Practice Director that originally appeared on his Crossderry blog. Enjoy Paul's unique spin on training topics!]

I’ve seen the impact of leadership development on organizations: it’s why I joined PM College. One of the challenges is to determine which methods work best to drive transformation, or accelerate improvements one has already reaped. Our firm has experience and research that pins this down, but it’s always nice to find a third party that confirms what we know and believe.

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New PM College Practice Director Paul Ritchie Says: “I’ve Seen the Impact Learning Can Have on Organizations”

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 17:35:56 +0000

February 03, 2015

PM College leverages the insight of a former training and consulting client to optimize its learning programs.

I was thrilled when I learned that Paul Ritchie, PMP, would be coming aboard the PM College ship as captain … er, Practice Director.

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Johanna Mickel, Director, Business Development

Resolution: "Train Everyone in PM!"

Johanna Mickel — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:59:31 +0000

January 14, 2015

Training everyone in the company in PM was a competitive edge for one company. It could be the same for yours.

Looking back over the past year, one of the most inspiring clients that I’ve worked with is the California-based renewable energy powerhouse (pun intended) SunEdison.

It’s not just that they are a wildly successful global company … or that they represent an industry that is cutting edge … or even that they chose PM College to be their training partner.

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Program Management

Top Companies Show Higher Maturity in PM Training and Development

Deborah Bigelow Crawford — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 19:58:24 +0000

November 24, 2014

New research on PM Maturity underscores the contribution of training processes to organizational performance.

The recent study on project management maturity released by PM Solutions Research has a wealth of information in it that serves to support our long-held contention that better project management leads to better organizational outcomes.

Of particular interest to us here at PM College are the statistics related to training. These can be found in two segments of the report.

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Johanna Mickel, Director, Business Development

PM Basics … Sweeter the Second Time Around

Johanna Mickel — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 16:10:09 +0000

October 27, 2014

Just how important is it to refresh basic learning from time to time?

Recently, a training client of ours emailed me to ask if I could help her answer a question from one of their employees. The employee had taken our PM Essentials course six years ago, but there were some details of time management that she felt she needed refreshing on. Could we help?

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Paul Atkin, Project Manager

A PMP’s “Crowning Glory”

Paul Atkin — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 18:09:20 +0000

October 20, 2014

Here’s a pop quiz: What is the world’s most widely used project management methodology, with over 1 million examinations taken?

You might be surprised to know that it’s PRINCE2®, one of project management’s best-kept secrets. Originating in the UK in 1986, PRINCE2 (Projects IN Controlled Environments) has been a global standard for some years. It’s an excellent complement to the PMP certification and PMPs can now take advantage of a new fast-track procedure to PRINCE2 Practitioner status.

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William P. Athayde, J.D., PMP, Senior Instructor

Communicating Expectations to Stakeholders: You Can't Be "Overcommunicative"

Bill Athayde — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 15:36:33 +0000

October 09, 2014

Sometimes the "patterns" we rely on at work assist project communications ... and sometimes they get in the way. Here's how to keep things clear with stakeholders.

In my last blog, Christopher Alexander’s book, A Pattern Language, and the IBM Project Management Center of Excellence strategy were sources for some concepts for improving stakeholder communications. Today, I’d like to consider how we talk about time, and relate that to the previous discussion.

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William P. Athayde, J.D., PMP, Senior Instructor

Stakeholder Communication ... A "Pattern Language"

Bill Athayde — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 15:33:25 +0000

October 07, 2014

Stakeholder relationships are shaped by communications ... and these are shaped by cultural patterns with the organization. That can be positive ... or not.

Our discussion of how we communicate with our fellow stakeholders has brought to mind a presentation based on ideas from Christopher Alexander’s books, A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I must tell you that the speaker is my oldest son, John. With a master’s degree in architecture--the building kind--he has spent much of his career in web design, user experience, and related project management.)

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Competency

Ruth Elswick, PMP, Senior Instructor

Influence, Persuasion and the Project Manager

Ruth Elswick — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:56:42 +0000

September 30, 2014

Are project managers "powerless"? Never, with these tools at hand.

Teaching a Leadership class in a major organization, I began by discussing the power that is available to project managers. The class literally burst out laughing and continued laughing for a long time. Because I am aware that I am not a great comedienne, I had to ask what was so funny. One of the participants said “Power? Us? You've got to be kidding! Project managers here have zero power. We just take the blame for everything that goes wrong!”

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William P. Athayde, J.D., PMP, Senior Instructor

Rocket Science … and Project Failures

Bill Athayde — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 18:28:59 +0000

September 23, 2014

Stakeholder engagement ... it's how you avoid the big bang.

What are the most common causes of troubled projects? While many studies have focused on this question, when you filter through the data and the analyses, the answer most often ties to poor stakeholder management. While that might seem to be an over-simplification, it really isn’t.

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Ruth Elswick, PMP, Senior Instructor

Respect Stakeholders, Manage Expectations, Nurture Engagement

Ruth Elswick — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 18:40:18 +0000

September 15, 2014

Success is spelled s-t-a-k-e-h-o-l-d-e-r.

Early in my career I was constantly frustrated by what I perceived to be the stupidity of the people connected with my project.

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Your Best Tool for Controlling Scope? Stakeholder Relationships!

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 18:42:00 +0000

August 13, 2014

An interview with the experts from PM College

So long as there have been projects, there have been project stakeholders. Yet only recently have we seen stakeholder management rise to the top of project management’s most pressing concerns.

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Mary Yanocha, ABC, Vice President, Marketing & Sales

"My Project Management Training Course Was Great. Now What?"

mary — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 18:12:18 +0000

July 29, 2014

Blended eLearning answers that question.

You’ve felt it: that palpable enthusiasm that bubbles up immediately after a classroom-based training course. The “Aha!” moments. The practical advice that inspired you to take copious notes and made you eager to start using “the stuff” as soon as you got back to your desk chair.

Later, back in the office …

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Blended Learning

Who Needs PM Training?

Deborah Bigelow Crawford — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 17:46:27 +0000

July 10, 2014

Leading companies share their success with training everyone in project management in a new white paper.

Project management ... it's not for everyone. Or is it?

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The State of the PMO? Continuous Learning!

Deborah Bigelow Crawford — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 22:53:15 +0000

June 10, 2014

The newest study from PM Solutions Research shows -- again -- that high-performing companies invest more in PM training.

Every two years PM Solutions updates its research study on the roles and value of the PMO. The newest study, just released in May, caught my attention at page 3 with the finding that PMOs in high-performing organizations engage in more training activities. Later in the report, this finding is expanded on. Here's a quote:

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Need High Performance? Follow the Lead of these PMOs

Deborah Bigelow Crawford — Tue, 06 May 2014 00:23:20 +0000

May 05, 2014

High-performing organizations entrust PM training and development to their PMOs, and train in advanced skills.

Our recent State of the PMO study revealed some interesting facts about the importance of project management training.

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Mary Yanocha, ABC, Vice President, Marketing & Sales

Knowing and Showing Your True Colors as a Leader

mary — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 21:22:19 +0000

April 08, 2014

The Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI®) Tool in Action

I recently had the pleasure of sitting in on one of our newest course offerings, How to Lead a Team, when it was presented onsite at a financial services client. I expected to learn how I could be a more effective leader and deal with conflict, and I knew our instructor, Ruth Elswick, was awesome; plus, since I had participated in training at this client site before, I knew I would be among a great group of people.

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