Shows / Project Management Happy Hour
Project Management Happy Hour
PM Happy Hour is the place for frank and honest discussion about real world issues in project management. We do it in a way that's not too dry, though it may get a bit salty from time to time. Each episode, your hosts Kim Essendrup and Kate Anderson cover a problem faced in project management today, and share practical advice, real-life examples and the occasional project horror story. Not only that, but every podcast is also an online class! Our host is a PMI Registered Education Provider, who…
Episodes
- Project Management Happy Hour
134: How to Land a $300k PM Role in 2026 with Mukhtar Kadiri
What if the reason your project management job search is stalling has nothing to do with your skills? On average, about 300 people apply to a single opening…
Project Management Happy Hour133: The Introvert's guide to Communication for Project Managers
Why "over-communicating" isn't about saying more — it's about knowing exactly what your stakeholders need to hear, and when. What happens when a project…
Project Management Happy Hour132: Why Your Most Supportive Stakeholder is Ruining your Project, with Dawn Mahan
Projects rarely fail from a lack of templates — they fail because of people. Author Dawn Mahan reveals the animal avatars that help you spot the cheerleader…
Project Management Happy Hour131: Don't be the PM everyone hates, with Rachel Losser
Your worst project management habit might also be your superpower — the trick is knowing which one you're wielding, and when. What actually separates a great…
- Project Management Happy Hour
130: Rigged bids, fake deadlines, and going 181x over budget
A $6.9 million estimate. A $1.25 billion catastrophe. How fake deadlines, a rigged bid, and a steering committee allergic to bad news turned a routine payroll…
Project Management Happy Hour129: How Credibility Starts with Curiosity, with Noel Nicole Ransom
Why do perfectly logical, well-researched project plans still fail to win people over? It's one of the most frustrating forms of project failure—not a broken…
- Project Management Happy Hour
128: Your project can't possibly be as bad as working for Mr Beast, Part 2
Ever worked on a project that felt like a complete disaster... only for leadership to call it a huge success? In Part 2 of our Mr. Beast series, Kim and Kate…
- Project Management Happy Hour
127: Your project can't possibly be as bad as working for Mr Beast, Part 1
Ever worked with a stakeholder who changes direction faster than your project plan can keep up? Then this episode may feel a little too familiar. Kim and Kate…
- Project Management Happy Hour
126: "What's your AI Strategy?" Handling the Executive who wants AI in everything
You know the moment. Your project plan is solid. The scope is defined. The team is ready. Then an executive walks by and casually asks: "Can we just make this…
- Project Management Happy Hour
125: How to survive the AI landscape as a PM with PMI's Dr Kelly Heuer
AI is changing work fast enough to give every project manager emotional whiplash. New tools, new workflows, new expectations… and somehow you're still expected…
Project Management Happy Hour124: Drowning in Tasks: How Successful PMs Organize the Chaos
If your to-do list is 47 items long, your Slack won't shut up, and you ended the day thinking, "Cool… but what did I actually accomplish?"—welcome. You're…
Project Management Happy Hour123 - Hungry Hungry HPPOs - managing loud personalities with Evan Unger
If your weekly calendar looks like the loser in a state fair quilt competition - just solid blocks of mismatched colors with no room to breathe - this episode…
Project Management Happy Hour122 - Kate puts Kim through the worst meeting hells our listeners could dream up: a PM HappyHour role play
Boss fights and boardrooms. Kate puts Kim through meeting hell in this tabletop roleplay episode. Kate: "Help me torture Kim." That was the prompt. What…
Project Management Happy Hour121 - Top Shelf Replay: Embracing the Escalation
Escalation: it's a word that can make even experienced project managers tense. But what if you approached it as a tool rather than a threat? In this Top Shelf…
Project Management Happy Hour120 - How smart teams talk themselves into Failure, with Dr. Bill Brantley
Why do smart teams still deliver failed projects? Most project failures don't begin with a catastrophic mistake. Instead, they begin with small…
Project Management Happy Hour119 - TSR: They told me I'm 'too nice'??
Have you ever gotten feedback that made you want to flip a table because it was both insulting and totally useless? In this Top Shelf Replay, we revisit "They…
Project Management Happy Hour118 - PM Turf Wars: Sharing your projects with other Project Managers
"Three PMs walk into a bar: a business PM, an IT PM, and a Vendor PM…" Sounds like a bad joke, but if you don't get it right - the joke will be your project…
Project Management Happy Hour117 - Top Shelf Replay: Say No by Saying Yes
Project managers are constantly told they need to "learn how to say no." But in the real world—especially when the ask comes from a sponsor, executive, or…
Project Management Happy Hour116 - How to quit your job and completely fail as a PM contractor
Thinking about going contractor? Kate and Kim share how they each left corporate and made the leap—two very different stories (burnout vs acting early) with…
Project Management Happy Hour115 - Top Shelf Replay: Trust Bricks
As project managers, we spend a lot of time talking about tools, processes, and delivery frameworks—but far less time talking about the invisible structure…
Project Management Happy Hour114 - Happy Hour Chatter: What PMs Really Do, Fear in Decision-Making, and Lessons from Going solo
Kim and Kate settle in for a classic PM Happy Hour episode — the kind where the drinks are metaphorical, the conversation is wandering in the best way, and the…
Project Management Happy Hour113 - Top Shelf Replay: Stage direction in the boardroom
What happens when you drop a senior project manager into a room full of attorneys, tribal leaders, political operators, and massive personalities? In this Top…
Project Management Happy Hour112 - Burnout: when a 500k job isn't worth it, with Norlander Wilson
Kate didn't plan to measure their burnout by the number of bags of pink-and-purple Mother's animal cookies consumed at their desk…but here we are. Kim's clue…
Project Management Happy Hour111 - Top Shelf Replay: How do you start a hard conversation?
Ever freeze up in a tough project conversation? Or worse—blow it up? In this episode of Project Management Happy Hour, Kim and Kate revisit their all-time…
Project Management Happy Hour110 - Are you defining project success wrong? Most PM's do! With PMI's Dave Garrett
Are you defining project success the wrong way? Most project managers are — at least according to PMI's Dave Garrett. Project Management Happy Hour hosts Kim…
Project Management Happy Hour109 - Top Shelf Replay: The Wolf - how to take over broken projects
Ever been dropped into a troubled project that's already gone off the rails? Welcome to life as "The Wolf." Inspired by the fixer from Pulp Fiction, Kim and…
Project Management Happy Hour108 - Why Risk Management? Future You Will Thank You
Why bother with risk management when you can just deal with problems as they happen? In this episode, Kim and Kate dig into the heart of that question—and the…
Project Management Happy Hour107 - Top Shelf Replay: The Closer - Avoiding Project Acceptance Exception
Please. Let it end. PLEASE! A defining characteristic of a project is that it ends. Finally. Just finish it, right? If it were only that easy! In another Top…
Project Management Happy Hour106 - Finish Strong: Why the End of Your Project Matters Most
Projects aren't remembered for how they started—they're remembered for how they ended. In this PM Happy Hour episode, Kim Essendrup and Kate Anderson unpack…
Project Management Happy Hour105 - Top Shelf Replay: How to Deal with Stupid Executive Asks
Ah, executives. They fund your project, cheer you on, and sometimes… ask for things that make you want to slam your head into your Gantt chart. Like: "The…
Project Management Happy Hour104 - The one meeting that will make or break your project
"Well begun is half done" — Aristotle (or Mary Poppins, depending who you ask) The beginning of a project is a time when all stakeholders THINK they know what…
Project Management Happy Hour103 - Lessons not Learned: State of Maine HR System Project Debacle
Think your project's on fire? 🔥 Come hear how Maine tried to swap a 30‑year‑old COBOL HR/payroll system for something cloud‑friendly … and wound up with six…
Project Management Happy Hour102 - Kim's first day working for the Empire: Kate runs another Project Management role-play
Our D&D-style project role play was such a hit, we did it again - in a different universe. One far, far away… This time, it's Kim's first day as a project…
Project Management Happy Hour101 - The Project Behind: Not Impossible Labs with Mick Ebeling
Ever had a moment where you saw a problem in the world and thought, "Someone should fix that"? What if that someone was you? Mick Ebeling, founder of Not…
Project Management Happy Hour100 - Retrospective: Our 100th Episode
We cannot believe it! It's been 100 episodes of PM Happy Hour! In this very special episode, we have a retrospective, looking back at when we first decided to…
Project Management Happy Hour099 - The Iron Triangle of Getting a PM Job, with PM Career Coach, Kayla Quijas
If you are looking for a PM job or considering doing so, you are definitely not alone! The project management field has always had a good amount of mobility…
- Project Management Happy Hour
098 - Don't Eat the Prickly Pears: Learning how to prioritize with James Louttit
As a professional in today's working environment, you are constantly bombarded by things that demand your attention, your action, the very limited moments in…
Project Management Happy Hour097 - PMO: Friend or Foe?
AUDIO QUALITY NOTICE! Apologies, we have a little static on one of the mics during our recording - sorry for the occasional audio issue. As a project manager…
Project Management Happy Hour096 - Design thinking: don't take things at face value or you will face plant, with guest Erik Rueter
In this episode, Kat and Kim talk to Erik Rueter about design thinking in our projects. What's design thinking, you may be thinking? Design thinking is a…
Project Management Happy Hour095 - The 5 Foundational Behaviors for Developing Informal Authority, with Kory Kogon of Franklin Covey
Although an essential part of our project-driven world, most project leaders didn't set out to be one. For many of us, our first steps into project leadership…
Project Management Happy Hour094 - Agile vs Waterfall Smack-Down!
For the first time, Kate and Kim find an Agilist brave enough to join them on the podcast to talk about some really hard questions about working Agile vs…
Project Management Happy Hour093 - Rising from Tactical PM to Strategic Advisor, with Gregg Richie and Ralph Kliem
Project Management is weird. You can have the same job title and be a very tactical execution-minded project manager - which is the way most of us start. Or…
Project Management Happy Hour092 - Goblins in the room! Managing meeting misbehaviors, with Rich Maltzman
Meetings. Love them or hate them, they are core to what we do as project leaders. We need to pull people together (real or virtually) to discuss, plan…
Project Management Happy Hour091 - The Perfect Status Report: How to measure percent complete
"What percent done are you?" Status reporting is a core skill (and responsibility) of project managers. It is an opportunity for you to check in with your…
Project Management Happy Hour090 - How to tell other people what to do
Being a project manager is tough. You are assigned a team of people who may never have with each other (or you) before, and you need to lead them to accomplish…
Project Management Happy Hour089 - Reorgs and Restructurings: sailing the waves of organizational change chaos
It can be hard getting a project started correctly: getting the right executive and stakeholder sponsorship and support, getting them all to agree on the scope…
Project Management Happy Hour088 - The CHAOS Report: Measuring project failure
Projects are hard. And a lot of them - maybe most of them - fail to live up to their expectations. Missed timelines, quality issues, budget overages, customer…
- Project Management Happy Hour
087 - Creative decision making: do you have the right 4 voices in the room? with Teresa Lawrence
Creative decision making is key to what we do in all our projects. According to FourSight, there are 4 distinct voices in the decision making process. Do you…
- Project Management Happy Hour
086 - The project behind a Disaster Response, with the ITDRC
"I know the world is ending, but do you have wifi here?" Sounds funny, but it's deadly serious. Natural disasters impact critical infrastructure that we depend…
Project Management Happy Hour085 - Deciding on how to make good Decisions, with Kandis Porter
Decisions make or break your project - starting with the decision of whether or not to even do your project. Beyond that, we have planned decisions / phase…
Project Management Happy Hour084 - OH, We Forgot About Change Management! What to do when you get caught with your ADKAR down, with Tim Creasey
Yeah! One of our favorite guests, Tim Creasey, returns! This time we are talking about what happens if you realize, too late in the game, that you really…
Project Management Happy Hour083 - The 30 Minute Executive Meeting: Make it count
As a project manager, the time you get with an executive sponsor is critical: you don't get much of it and you cannot blow it! For many of our listeners, you…
- Project Management Happy Hour
082 - The Project Behind a Tech Startup, with Pete Bernardo from Punchlist
Tech startups drive the technology around us, and a good bit of the economy. They use creativity, ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit to solve problems and…
- Project Management Happy Hour
081 - The Project Behind an Emergency Covid Vaccination Site, with Aaron Bellinger, PMP
When the first Covid vaccinations were released, massive vaccination sites were launched, seemingly overnight, to vaccinate millions of people. If you…
Project Management Happy Hour080 - First PM on the Beach: How to succeed when you are the first Project Manager in your organization
This episode is based on feedback we've had from our member 1:1 coaching sessions, one of the benefits we provide our PM Happy Hour members. Many PM's find…
Project Management Happy Hour079 - Welcome to the Dungeon! Kate and Kim do Project Management RPG (D&D)
OK, originally this was going to be an April Fool's goof podcast, but it turned out to be a lot of fun and maybe a bit educational. But, nope, it's not your…
Project Management Happy Hour078 - Recommending Change Without Getting Chased out the Door
PMs are accountable for project success. As such, we are keenly aware when things are failing! And because most PM's are process and goal oriented, we can…
Project Management Happy Hour077 - Behavioral PM: the Feakonomics approach to project delivery with Dr. Josh Ramirez
Wouldn't it be cool if everyone followed all the processes we built? If everyone on our team followed the PMBOK or SCRUM methodologies perfectly every single…
Project Management Happy Hour076 - Imposter Syndrome: Diagnosis and Treatment
"I am in way over my head." "I have no business doing this job" "I am totally not worthy of this role" "There is no way I'm qualified to do this" Have you ever…
Project Management Happy Hour075 - Top Tips from a Project Management Coach, with Heather Gates
The same way sports teams have coaches to help optimize their performance, organizations can engage PM coaches to help their project management team win. In…