PMs are often the product of their education—their technical education of how to handle the 10 knowledge areas and perform the activities required to maintain sound processes. Sadly, that’s not enough to show real value in the discipline, but rather a focus on getting the project completed, getting the team to function soundly, and wielding the influence necessary to navigate organizational challenges are some of the key strengths that are needed. Listen in to the beginning of this series on “PM Influencers” to discover new thoughts on increasing your PM effectiveness, told do us by professionals who are influencing PMs around the world through their thought leadership on projectmanagement.com. Additional music credits: “Irradiance” and “Death & Gasoline” by Joe Ray Realité. Wagon train sound effects from Sound Ensemble at https://www.freesound.org/people/SoundEnsemble/sounds/250286/ PM Point of View® (PM-POV) is a podcast series produced by Final Milestone Productions and PMIWDC. PM-POV allows our membership and the public at large to listen to brief and informative conversations with beltway area practioners and executives as they discuss various perspectives on project management -- its uses, its shortcomings, its changes, and its future. Listens can send comments and suggestions for topics and guests to pm-pov@pmiwdc.org. PM Point of View® is a registered trademark of M Powered Strategies, Inc. PDU Information Earn education PDUs in the PMI Talent Triangle for each podcast you listen to — over 8.25 PDUs by listening to the entire series! Use the following information in PMI's CCRS system to register the PDUs for this podcast: PDU Category: Online or Digital Media Provider Number: C046 Activity Number: PMPOV0029 PDUs for this episode: 1 » More PM-POV Episodes About the Speakers Dana Brownlee Professionalism Matters, Inc. President Dana Brownlee is a nationally recognized corporate trainer, speaker, and workshop facilitator helping individuals and teams reach new levels of performance. After years of team leadership and project management experience with AT&T, IBM Consulting, and EMC, in 2003 Ms. Brownlee founded Professionalism Matters, Inc., a professional development training/consulting firm providing professional development workshops. Ms. Brownlee has presented to audiences in six countries and has authored a course taught in several countries. She has appeared as a meeting facilitation expert on CNN and has been cited in numerous notable publications including the Wall Street Journal, Working Mother, Glamour, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Redbook, Forbes.com, CNBC.com, Working Mother, and others. Dana has presented to many PMI audiences around the world including presentations in Denver, Milan, Costa Rica, Marseilles, Greenville, Newport, and Knoxville. In 2016 Dana will keynote Project Summit BA World conferences in NYC and Boston as well as deliver a series of webinars for project managers around the world available on projectmanagement.com. Michael Wood Mr. Wood has been active as a project manager, corporate executive, author and presenter for over 30 years across a wide array of industry from entertainment to hospitality to health care. During the 1990s he served as the CIO and member of the executive team for a large casino gaming concern His book "The Helix Factor - the key to streamlining your business processes series of books on The Helix MethodologyC (an integrated BPI and SDLC method) specifically focused on Business Process Improvement. Over his 30+ years in the field Mr. Wood has conducted numerous workshops and seminars on Business Process Improvement, Cross-Functional Facilitation, Structure Design, Organizational Change, and Project Management. Mr. Wood has been a Subject Matter Expert and contributing author for www.projectmanagement.com since 2000. Michael believes successful business improvement / project efforts begin with outcome driven strategies and objectives that can be