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VELOCITEACH
EVENT: PODCAST
SERIES: MANAGE THIS
EPISODE: 003
DATE: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2016
HOST: NICK WALKER
GUESTS: ANDY CROWE & BILL YATES
SPECIAL GUEST: CELESTE CLANCY
SOURCE: MANAGETHISEPISODETHREE.MP3
LENGTH: 28 MINUTES
NICK WALKER: Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project
managers, for project managers. It’s a chance for us to get
together every couple of weeks and have a conversation about
what matters to you as a professional project manager. We’ll
cover subjects such as project management certification, doing
the job of project management; and we’ll get inside the brains
of some of the leaders in the industry and maybe hear your
stories. I’m your host, Nick Walker, and with me are our
resident experts, who have been in the trenches and stood on the
mountaintops. They are the project managers who mentor other
project managers and those working toward that title, Andy Crowe
and Bill Yates.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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Andy and Bill, we have a lot to cover today. We’ll get to some
certification subjects in just a bit. But let’s start off by
talking philosophy. It’s about the WBS, the work breakdown
structure that organizes a team’s work into manageable sections.
There are a couple of different philosophies about this subject
when it comes to project management. Andy, what are those?
ANDY CROWE: Well, you know, a couple of the approaches that we
see out there sort of follow the overall approaches in project
management. It’s either top-down or bottom-up. And so really a
lot of the top-down crowd, which you might consider to be
Waterfall, SDLC, sort of a traditional approach, they’re really
going to favor the WBS. They’re going to favor looking at it,
decomposing the scope, breaking it down, getting to the work
packages. And we’ll talk more about that and explore that.
The Agile community doesn’t really do this. So you’re not going
to see a WBS chart on the wall of an Agile team. Agile takes a
different approach. They have a more dynamic approach. So the
goal with the WBS is to get the work documented and really
understood upfront. And Agile believes that maybe it’s not
always better to do that. So we’re going to be talking to the
traditional crowd. We are going to have some things to say to
the Agile community next week, I think. But this week is more
for the traditional SDLC crowd.
NICK WALKER: All right. Bill, tell us a little bit about your
experience in all of this. Do you have a take on this?
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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BILL YATES: Yeah, absolutely. The work breakdown structure,
there are some different names. Andy, when you hear WBS, are
there some other things that you think of? I’ve heard one, I
know Louis likes to refer to it as “work bite sizes.”
ANDY CROWE: Hah, I like that.
BILL YATES: There are some other uses for that abbreviation.
ANDY CROWE: Yeah, that’s good, that’s good.
BILL YATES: And they’re making some up there. There are – it’s
very interesting when we talk about the WBS. One of the common
fallacies that I think we’ve all seen is people having confusion
between, okay, what’s on the work breakdown structure and what’s
on the schedule?
ANDY CROWE: Right, where does one end and the next one begin,
sure, sure, sure.
BILL YATES: Yeah, yeah. Or I’ve seen cases or heard
conversations with project managers where I think there’s a
complete misunderstanding of which is which, what goes where.
And so simplicity, if you think about a work breakdown structure
as being a visual graph that helps us see what are the outputs,
what are the things that we’re going to produce with this
project, then that’s a great way to differentiate that from the
schedule. So simplifying a work breakdown structure focuses on
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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the “what.” What is it that I’m going to produce? What are the
deliverables? Andy, I remember when I was studying for the PMP
exam, one of the things, an analogy that was helpful was “noun
versus verb.”
ANDY CROWE: Right.
BILL YATES: So the nouns are on the WBS.
ANDY CROWE: Right.
BILL YATES: This is the outcome of all of our actions in our
work. Whereas the schedule of best practice is to take those
nouns, those deliverables that we’ll produce that are on the WBS
and then translate those into actions or verbs on the schedule.
ANDY CROWE: So this is an interesting point you’re bringing up,
and it really leads to a lot of confusion with practitioners
because you go out and you buy a program called Microsoft
Project, or maybe you’re using Primavera, or one of the common
project management tools. And here’s the problem is those don’t
really, by default, have any understanding or any concept of the
WBS. They start with a schedule.
So I always thought, you know, Microsoft Project should probably
be better named Microsoft Schedule or something like that. It
doesn’t get into some of the bigger aspects of managing scope
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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and managing change orders and managing breaking down the scope
and controlling all of that. Which is a confusing thing.
BILL YATES: Well, it is. Yeah, Andy, I mean, think about it.
When you start to define a task, they want to know, you know,
the software is asking you, when does it start, and when does
it finish?
ANDY CROWE: Right, right.
BILL YATES: So right off the bat you’re being asked these
questions, while I’m still trying to understand what it is.
ANDY CROWE: And they’re not asking you, why is this important?
Give me the attributes of this task. Give me the origins of it.
Who requested it? Why is it here? All of those things. So by
the time you get to Microsoft Project, it’s sort of implied that
you’ve done a lot of this work. But a lot of people don’t.
BILL YATES: Right.
ANDY CROWE: So it gets them in trouble. It’s like teaching
somebody to write by handing them Microsoft Word and saying,
“Now you’re a writer.”
BILL YATES: Yeah.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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ANDY CROWE: Well, you might be. But there are other elements
to writing that Word will simply facilitate. So, yeah, it is a
tricky problem. I wish that those applications, I wish that the
vendors, and maybe somebody’s listening to this who can
translate this into reality at some point. I wish they would
incorporate more aspects of a WBS and more aspects of scope
management in general into these applications. It’ll help
practitioners. It’s an absolutely fundamentally important thing
that, if you’re going to build a schedule, you need to have a
thorough understanding of the scope.
BILL YATES: Right.
ANDY CROWE: Otherwise a schedule’s relatively meaningless at
this point. It’s just a bunch of bars. And that’s the reason
people wonder why everything goes over schedule.
BILL YATES: Yeah.
ANDY CROWE: Well, it’s because they didn’t have a good
understanding to start with.
BILL YATES: Andy, let me ask you another question related to a
practice with a WBS. One of the things that I think you and I
have talked about before is walking into the room of a project
team and seeing a work breakdown structure up on the wall, and
things that you hope to see on it and things that you hope are
not on it. What have you seen? Like, for instance, I know
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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there’s a rule that you have regarding what should be included
on the WBS.
ANDY CROWE: Okay. And so, you know, the WBS should have all
the work that’s going to be done on the project.
BILL YATES: So everything we’re going to create.
ANDY CROWE: Everything that people are going to be working on.
So one of the first questions I ask when I walk into a room and
see a WBS, is there work being done that doesn’t map back to
this? Inevitably the answer comes back, well, yeah, there is
some. And that becomes a problem because then what are you
going to do? You’re going to run over budget. You’re going to
run over schedule.
One of the tricks that’s important, though, when you get into
creating a work breakdown structure, is the way it’s organized.
And this is something that I have found to be tremendously
helpful. So if you know of the big consulting firm McKinsey,
McKinsey’s a high-end consulting firm. And they have this
concept – and I don’t know that they pioneered it, but they
popularized it – called MECE, M-E-C-E. And MECE stands for
Mutually Exclusive, Cumulatively Exhaustive. What it means is
big words for this. It means that everything that’s going to be
done on this project is represented on the WBS once and only
once. There’s no duplicates. There’s no overlap. There’s no
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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gaps. And so that is an art to create, to break down the scope
to a level. So Bill, how low do you go with the WBS?
BILL YATES: Boy, that’s a great question. Yeah, yeah.
ANDY CROWE: How far do you break it down?
BILL YATES: I’m going to give you the consulting answer.
It depends.
ANDY CROWE: Okay.
BILL YATES: It’s interesting, I was looking back at some past
projects we’ve done with companies, large organizations, those
that have tried to answer that question. And interestingly, you
know, I think what I typically hear is anywhere from three to
six levels.
ANDY CROWE: Right.
BILL YATES: There was one organization, a large manufacturing
organization, that really wanted to stop at three, which I
thought was, well, it’s a little bit higher than I would have
expected. But three to six I think is probably typical for
the industry.
ANDY CROWE: So the textbook answer says you know you’ve broken
it down far enough, it’s generally one day to two weeks is sort
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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of the heuristic, or the unwritten rule. It should be the size
of a work package. But really we know that, when you can assign
it to somebody – it may be an outside vendor; it may be an
internal employee; it may be a group. But when you can assign
it to somebody, and they can take it from there to estimate, you
know it’s far enough.
BILL YATES: Right. There’s another rule of thumb that I like
that I was reminded of in preparing for this. There’s that
4 percent rule of how do I know when I’m at a work package
level, my lowest level? When have I decomposed enough for this
WBS? That work package should not exceed 4 percent of my
overall project.
ANDY CROWE: Right.
BILL YATES: So it needs to be smaller within.
ANDY CROWE: You know, I got a chance to sit down with Liliana
Buchtik. And I think she’s from Montevideo originally. I’m not
sure where she lives now. She’s in Latin America. She wrote a
great book called “Mastering the WBS in Real World Projects,” or
“Secrets to Mastering the WBS in Real World Projects.” And it
is this great book, chockful of practical advice. She did a
fantastic job with it. Have you run across that?
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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BILL YATES: Yeah, well, I’ll confess, you and I both have large
bookcases behind our desks. And when you’re not looking, I go
and pluck those books.
ANDY CROWE: That’s where they’re going.
BILL YATES: Yup. So I have done that. I’ve taken a look at
that book, and it is very well written. It’s easy to
understand. It’s easy to follow. I like her logical approach
to the topic.
ANDY CROWE: And she’s got some cool graphics in there, too.
BILL YATES: She does.
ANDY CROWE: Yeah, it’s well done.
BILL YATES: Yeah, it really is.
ANDY CROWE: We need to get her as a guest in the future.
BILL YATES: Absolutely.
ANDY CROWE: We need to have her call in.
BILL YATES: Yes, we do.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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ANDY CROWE: She’s a really neat person. She’s got a
neat story.
BILL YATES: Yeah, she does. She’s got great practical advice
in the book. She talks about – she makes a great case for why
people should be using a work breakdown structure. And I wanted
to say an amen. I’m giving her a high-five on many of
those points.
ANDY CROWE: Yeah, I’ll admit this is one of those areas that
people skip. And they skip it a lot. They get to a project,
and somebody comes in and says, when can I see a schedule? And
so they immediately open up, and they begin with this task list.
And if you’re going to begin there, you’re going to run into
trouble. You’re going to run – you’re running a tremendous risk
of having a project that is going to be over time, over
schedule, and over budget.
Now, the problem is there’s a funny principle that originated at
Microsoft called the WIMP principle, W-I-M-P. And it’s Why
Isn’t Mark Programming, or Why Isn’t Mary Programming?
Companies sometimes don’t like to see people planning and
planning and planning. They want to see people writing code or
laying bricks or doing these other things. So sometimes the
organization’s involved in skipping this and is complicit
with that.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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BILL YATES: Yeah. It takes a lot of rigor, a lot of discipline
for a mature PM to convince that sponsor or that customer that
there is – I need time to plan, and my team needs time to plan,
and we’re going to begin with a WBS.
ANDY CROWE: It’s a great educational opportunity, though, and
it’s well worth doing. I’m just – I’m a big believer in this.
I’m a big believer that it pays dividends downstream. And you
know what, Bill, it doesn’t take that long.
BILL YATES: Right. Yeah, it really doesn’t. You’re right.
And, you know, I wanted to – one of the things that Nick has
encouraged us to do with this topic is be practical. So what I
wanted to do, too, was turn the corner a little bit and mention
some of the tools. I know you’ve already mentioned a couple.
Perhaps some frustrations, even, or people using the tool for
the wrong purpose.
ANDY CROWE: Right.
BILL YATES: Microsoft Project, Primavera, they have WBS
capability built into them. There are several other tools that
are out on the marketplace. Actually, back in October at PMI
Global I saw – I spent a little time with one of the vendors for
MindView. It’s a company called MatchWare. And they have a
web-based product and solution for WBS that’s quite impressive.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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ANDY CROWE: I have not used that yet. I’ve heard from other
practitioners that they’ve gotten it right.
BILL YATES: Yeah, yeah. I was really impressed with it. I
know we’ve used WBS Chart Pro in some of our examples in the
past. Going back to that book that I stole from your shelf,
Andy, there’s a great – there’s one page I’ll count out or point
out specifically. Page 114 has a great comparison chart. And
this one I think she did the research back in 2013, so this is
fairly recent. And MindView is on there, WBS Chart Pro is on
there, Visio. Of course, we can, you know, with Excel or Visio
or simple tools we can create a work breakdown structure. We
can create these graphs.
But this has a nice comparison chart. What I would encourage
practitioners to do, take a look at the chart. Pick a couple of
these that you think may line up well for you and give them a
try. There’s probably a free trial. And you could try it out
on your current project or your next project and just see how
it goes.
ANDY CROWE: Yeah, I used to, before any of these tools really
had this capability, I used to use something called ABC
Flowchart. And you could create a WBS from that. And once you
know the mechanics of the WBS, you don’t really need software
holding your hand so much.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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BILL YATES: Right, you just need something to organize all of
these levels.
ANDY CROWE: Right.
NICK WALKER: So it sounds like the WBS is something that would
apply to most projects. But is there ever a situation where you
really wouldn’t need a work breakdown structure?
ANDY CROWE: Yeah. That’s a great question, Nick. I would say
there are a couple of situations that stand out to me. One is,
if you don’t know the scope upfront, you don’t know where the
project’s going to take you, you know that you have to get
started in order to start figuring that out, then you can’t.
You can’t do a meaningful WBS at that point. You might do a few
boxes as placeholders and kind of fill it in as you go.
But that really is sort of the Agile approach that we hinted at
earlier is Agile will jump in and start solving the problem in
increments. Sometimes you can’t solve the whole problem
upfront. You need – there’s too many branches. There’s too
many questions, too many predictive components.
But another time that I’ve seen people skip it, and do so and go
straight to the schedule and do it with integrity, is if you
get – say you’re a government contractor. Say you get a
government RFP, and the work has already been broken down by
somebody to this deep level of understanding, and they’re
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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telling you what they need, what they want, and how they want it
done. WBS might not be so meaningful on some of those projects.
Now, somebody’s already done sort of the mental heavy lifting
for you, and your job is to execute. In that case I would say
you could probably skip it and go straight to the schedule. And
the schedule might even be determined for you on something
like that.
NICK WALKER: And of course you mentioned the Agile approach.
We’ll be talking more about that in future podcasts.
ANDY CROWE: Yeah, we don’t want to leave out the Agile
crowd there.
NICK WALKER: No.
ANDY CROWE: They’re an important part of the community.
NICK WALKER: Yeah. Another important part of our community is
our special guest today. And, you know, we always like to have
a special guest on our program. But this time we didn’t have to
reach too far to find one. In fact, we’ve been looking forward
to bringing her on the podcast for weeks. Celeste Clancy is the
producer of our “Manage This” podcast. She’s a CAPM, a
Certified Associate in Project Management, and she’s the ball of
fire that lights a flame under the rest of us to get this
valuable information to us. So welcome to you, Celeste. Thanks
for being with us.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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CELESTE CLANCY: Thanks so much for having me. I’m looking
forward to being a guest on the show.
NICK WALKER: All right. I know that Andy and Bill have some
questions they have for you about your experience in getting to
where you are right now.
ANDY CROWE: Yeah, and Celeste, let me start off by saying
congratulations. You got in there, and you went, and you went
after it, and you set a goal, and you conquered it. So we have
people come through our lives and come through our organization
who will take their time sometimes, and they’ll take months –
and sometimes you occasionally meet people who take years,
even – to pursue that kind of goal. And you, how long did it
take you from start to finish, roughly?
CELESTE CLANCY: I think it took about six weeks from start to
finish. And honestly, I didn’t know that taking my time was an
option. So if that had been presented to me, I might have gone
with that approach. But I didn’t know that it was an option.
So I just went ahead and started reading the book and taking the
online courses and sat in a live class and just put my head down
and studied until I felt like I knew enough to pass it.
NICK WALKER: That’s great. Celeste, we do want to say
congratulations to you.
CELESTE CLANCY: Thank you.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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NICK WALKER: And we know that there’s a little bit more
pressure for a student of our materials when that student
happens to walk by Andy and Bill every day in the office.
CELESTE CLANCY: Yeah. I remember telling my husband – who was
kind enough to help me study on some of the topics. And I said,
you know, it’s a lot more pressure when the man who signs your
check also wrote the book because, if you don’t pass on the
first try, that’s the title to the book, so...
BILL YATES: There you go. Exactly. But you did it. Well
done. And it is interesting to know, so it took you about six
weeks to go through. And one of the questions that Andy and I
are always interested in is what really resonated for you?
ANDY CROWE: What worked for you?
BILL YATES: Yeah. So think about your learning style. For
many people, they have a discovery moment as they’re preparing
for an exam like this where they’re like, you know, I thought I
was always this type of learner, but this is what really worked
best for me for this exam. So what do you think?
CELESTE CLANCY: You know, I thought I was a visual learner. I
thought the mind maps that are taught in a live class would be
everything that I would need to remember and be able to recall
everything. But for some reason they didn’t click with me like
I thought they would. And so I just went to old-fashioned
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
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cramming and decided that, if I wrote it, I would retain it.
And luckily that worked.
BILL YATES: That’s great. So to me, Andy, I think of that as
kinesthetic is somebody who’s engaging with the material and the
content, writing notes, taking practice tests, reviewing and
highlighting and that kind of thing. What were some, like if
you think about the different components to the material, what
were some that worked best for you, like flashcards, practice
tests, textbook, that kind of thing?
CELESTE CLANCY: I think just reading the book and writing down,
highlighting what was really sticking out to me, what I felt
like would be important to remember, and then taking the time to
write my notes. That really helped me to engage and help
it resonate.
ANDY CROWE: You know, Celeste, I mentioned last time that I’m
primarily an auditory learner. I just – I remember
conversations. I remember things I hear. And I was taking a
certification one time, and we’ll talk about this at some point
in the future, but for the PgMP. And what worked for me,
finally – I didn’t have anything to listen to. I didn’t have
anyone to dialogue with. I was No. 99 in the world on that
exam. I was one of the first 100 to take it.
And as I took it, what I finally had to do was take the program
standard, the program management standard, walk around – I
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
19
walked up and down the road out near our office and read it to
myself so that I could hear it aloud. Isn’t that crazy? So
it’s funny how, when you’re encountering a big block of
material, the different ways you have to figure out what does
resonate with you, what does work.
BILL YATES: That is. So you were, Andy, you were your own book
on tape.
ANDY CROWE: Hey, I was, and it worked. When it came time, it
actually came back to me. So it worked.
BILL YATES: That’s good, yeah.
ANDY CROWE: That’s the only time I’ve ever had to pull that.
BILL YATES: That’s funny.
ANDY CROWE: So, Celeste, did you do any of the auditory stuff?
Did you do any of the CDs? Did you listen to any of the – and
did that stick with you? Or was it other stuff?
CELESTE CLANCY: I did listen to the CDs. I think what
resonated most with me is I met with a coworker who taught me
her “brain dump,” as they call it. And that was extremely
helpful because I was able to know what she thought was
important to learn on the test and what in her brain dump was
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
20
important for her to learn on the test. And so it was helpful
for me to prepare for that.
ANDY CROWE: Okay. Let me ask you one more question. About how
many practice questions or practice tests did you take? Did you
do a bunch? Do a few?
CELESTE CLANCY: I did. And I took the approach where I would
retake my practice tests, and I would – so basically in the back
of each chapter there’s a quiz. And I would take the quiz. I
would write down my answer. And after the class, they would
teach that chapter, and I would retake that same quiz. And if I
got the question wrong again, I categorized it as a “double-
wrong answer.” It’s one that I got wrong the first time. I’ve
been taught it again, and it still isn’t clicking with me. And
the day before I took the exam, I studied only my double-
wrong answers.
BILL YATES: Excellent. Excellent.
ANDY CROWE: Hmm, good.
BILL YATES: I wanted to ask a question, as well. Regarding
that brain dump, I’ve seen students use that really for two
purposes. One is the obvious. Now I’ve got those formulae,
maybe there’s some tricky formula that I’m intimidated by,
earned value, that kind of thing. I have those in front of me
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
21
now during my exam. And the other is a little more subtle, is
to build confidence.
So when I first walk into the testing center, and I show them my
ID, and I get situated, for me, from my experience with the
three professional certification exams I’ve been through, my
anxiety level was high. And it was almost calming for me to
take pen and paper and write out my – do my brain dump, have
that 15 minutes. So my question for you is, was that the case
for you? And then, how else did you manage stress during
that exam?
CELESTE CLANCY: You know, I’m not one to really get nervous or
stressed. And so luckily I didn’t run into that. But maybe I
should have been nervous.
BILL YATES: Yeah, you’re one of the minority on that,
so congrats.
CELESTE CLANCY: But maybe I should have been nervous as soon as
I saw that first question. I think it was very humbling, and I
thought, hmm, I hope this brain dump actually comes in handy.
But I did realize that, you know, the night before I take the
exam, when I went to bed, you almost dream about these questions
that you’ve been studying because you’ve been spending the past
12 hours, you know, cramming for this exam.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
22
And so I remember dreaming about it and waking up and thinking,
okay, well, worst-case scenario, at least I know everything on
my brain dump. So if I go in there and forget everything I’ve
learned, I at least know my brain dump. And that did give me
some sort of confidence.
NICK WALKER: All right, Celeste. Having gone through this
process, obviously you can identify with some of what our
listeners are going through. How has that affected the subject
matter or how you approach this entire podcast?
CELESTE CLANCY: You know, it’s actually been really helpful to
understand how to manage a project, and the best ways to manage
a project, when I’m managing the podcast, so making sure that
things are completed on time, and activities that are continent
upon other activities are finalized on time, and managing our
different resources between, you know, the vendors that we use
and our technician here in the studio and coordinating the
schedules. It’s really been helpful to have that information
from the test and having studied that.
NICK WALKER: Excellent. A little behind-the-scenes work there.
ANDY CROWE: And Celeste, we’re proud of you. I guess at this
point you get your own Manage This coffee cup; is that right?
CELESTE CLANCY: I do, I do. I’ll send it to myself.
VELOCITEACH / PODCAST / MANAGE THIS / EPISODE 003
23
ANDY CROWE: And I think you’ve got a big box of them. So,
excellent. Make sure and do that. Thank you, and thanks for
taking the time to be with us.
NICK WALKER: Just one, though, okay.
ANDY CROWE: Yeah.
NICK WALKER: Just one. We always like to talk a lot,
obviously, about the certification. So let’s talk about some of
the changes that have taken place in the PMP exam since mid-
January. Andy, what’s the word on the street about
these changes?
ANDY CROWE: Yeah, you know what, the exam changed January 11th.
We saw it coming. There was a lot of publicity about it. Maybe
a little bit of fear, uncertainty, and doubt; so a little FUD
factor working there, scaring people. The early word is there’s
no surprises. And so, you know, we don’t solicit specifics from
people about what they saw on the exam. We don’t ask them about
particular questions, that type of thing. We do ask them how
prepared they were going into it on the back end, how prepared
they felt.
And what we’re seeing is people feel very comfortable with this
exam change, which is what we expected. Again, you know, the
PMBOK Guide never changed. And so this was sort of a fine-
tuning with that role delineation study. We beat that to death
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in an earlier podcast, so we don’t need to go into too much
detail. But that’s exactly what I’m hearing. How about
you, Bill?
BILL YATES: Yeah, same here. Again, the feedback that we’re
getting is not a big change here.
ANDY CROWE: Right.
BILL YATES: So you’re right on the money.
ANDY CROWE: And so what happens is they take certain questions
that may not be performing so well, or that might not be aligned
with this role delineation study. They refresh them with ones
that are a little more on point, on target, better worded, and
performing the way they want them to perform. And people are
seeing it and saying no. In fact, I talked with someone who
prepared back in November and December, took the exam, and said,
“No surprises whatsoever.” So they felt perfectly prepared,
even going into it before the change.
NICK WALKER: We always like to talk about what you guys are
reading. So Bill, tell us what’s on your nightstand these days.
BILL YATES: Yeah. There’s a book by Seth Godin that I’m
reading right now. The first one I read by Seth Godin was
“Linchpin.” You know, he wrote “Purple Cow.” He also wrote
“Tribes.” Those are probably the ones he’s most known for, or
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well known for. This book is called “All Marketers Are Liars.”
I thought that was a catchy title, “All Marketers Are Liars.”
The bottom line with the book, or the message behind it, is as
an organization we need to figure out what our story is and tell
it authentically. And it’s been a fun read. If you’ve touched
any Seth Godin material before, you know he’s a very clever and
creative writer, and so I’m enjoying it. And again, this is not
really – this is not something that’s at the top of the list for
a project manager. You’re not going to learn how to create a
WBS by reading this book. You’re not. But it’s been a fun read
for me.
NICK WALKER: Great stuff. All right. Thanks, Bill. Hey,
Bill, Andy, thanks, as always, for sharing your expertise. And
special thanks to Celeste Clancy for stepping out from behind
the scenes to in front of the microphone to share her
perspective with us. That’s it for us here on Manage This. We
hope you’ll tune back in on February 16th for our next podcast.
We’ll be discussing the updated PMI-ACP exam for all you
Agile practitioners.
In the meantime you can visit us at Velociteach.com/managethis
to subscribe to this podcast, to see a transcript of the show,
or to contact us. And tweet us at @manage_this. That’s
@manage_this. If you have any questions about project
management certifications, or maybe you’d like to be a guest on
the show, we’d love to get your perspective, too. That’s all
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edigitaltranscription.com • 01/30/2016 • edigitaltranscription.mobi
for this episode. Talk to you soon. In the meantime, keep calm
and Manage This.