5 Minutes Podcast with Ricardo Vargas

In this week's episode, Ricardo explains what conflicts of interest are. He also shows some examples where decision-making based on personal interest can harm the project, the organization, and other project stakeholders. He also presents the 5 ethical principles (based on the Harvard Program on Negotiation) that must be considered in project decisions to avoid a potential conflict of interest.

In the last 20 or 30 years, project management has taken on a vast proportion, and a good part of the population works, even if they don't know it, in some way with projects. So why do people see the world for projects as a threat? What are the misunderstandings? Let's talk about how I see project management and how to support future generations to work in a different world, a world by projects. L...

In this week's episode, Ricardo talks about the form of development approach you will choose, according to the type of project. He comments that one of the Performance Domains of the new PMBOK® is the Development Approach and Lifecycle. And he explains that for some projects, it is better to choose the predictive approach, while for others, the adaptive approach is more suitable. Listen to the Pod...

In this week's episode, Ricardo reflects on why we often overlook the obvious. PMI principles that have often been forgotten or the Voluntary Blindness that prevents us from seeing what is in front of us. Why do we insist on preferring inertia or denial? Listen to the Podcast to learn more.

In this week's episode, Ricardo shows the differences behind the concepts of Stakeholders for the Principles, Performance Domains, and Knowledge Areas. He explains the Stakeholder' vision for these items and the importance of each. Listen to the Podcast to learn more.

In this week's episode, Ricardo talks about how good people can become incompetent when promoted to positions that require different skills than those that make them stand out. Ricardo gives tips on preparing ourselves not to fall into this trap and grow in organizations with the necessary skills. Listen to the new podcast episode to know more.

In this third episode of the PMBOK®️ 7th Edition series, Ricardo talks about the Performance Domains, which are the areas PMI believes you should focus on to demonstrate the behavior that the principles advocate. Ricardo comments that the 7th edition comes as an umbrella over the 6th edition, looking for attending all types and forms of project delivery. Ricardo explains that the eight performance...

In this second episode of the series about the new PMBOK ®️ Guide, Ricardo talks about the first part of the guide, which is the ANSI standard. Ricardo explains that these principles are the DNA of the person who wants to manage projects and participate in a project team, regardless of your approach to managing and delivering your project. The 12 principles embrace attitudes that support your work...

This week comes with a special episode. With the release of the PMBOK®️ Guide 7th Edition by PMI, Ricardo decided to talk for the first time about the new guide in a series of 3 episodes. This first episode is about the rationale behind the changes and the overall structure of the new guide. Next week, Ricardo will cover the 12 principles of Project Management and, in the following week, the 8 per...

In this week's episode, Ricardo talks about the relevance of being a role model and an example to foster leadership and improve results. Without being an example of behavior, character, ethics, and determination is impossible for you to lead a team effectively. Listen to the Podcast to know more.

In this week's episode, Ricardo discusses the misconception related to the "As Soon as Possible" and "As Late as Possible" approaches. Many professionals believe that we should focus on ASAP and avoid procrastination at all costs. But this is not necessarily true. Listen to the Podcast to know more.

In this week's episode, Ricardo shares three tips that can help align disagreements and accelerate action when a project is in crisis. Listen to the podcast to learn more.

In this week's episode, Ricardo discusses the proper level of control we need to have on a project, preventing the rise of chaos or the construction of an empire out of papers and reports. Hear more on the podcast.

In this week's episode, Ricardo talks about three aspects, features or characteristics of agile that we all should learn and apply. Listen to the podcast to know them.

In this week's episode, Ricardo makes an analogy on how you can use the same approach to close a project in your own professional life when it is time for you to move on. Sometimes we know that, for any reason you may choose, it is time for you to end a cycle to give the opportunity to start a new one. But this process is not as happy and joyful as the beginning of a project or job. Ricardo shares...

In this week's episode, Ricardo talks about something nobody talks too much about. The pain of the end. When the project releases its main products or services, it is pure joy. However, there is a less joyful moment happening at the same time: the feelings surrounding the end of the work, the loss and fears about the future. Listen to the podcast to know how communications and a human approach can...

In this week's episode, Ricardo makes an analogy between the book "The Burnout Society" by the Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han and our current work. The book talks about how the pressure we put on ourselves to break the limits has produced a sick society. Ricardo's analogy centers on our choice process. Companies want to do everything without investing in anything. During their portfolio selecti...

In this week's episode, Ricardo makes a personal reflection on why he chose to work with project management. He explains how the desire to create new things and the happiness and fulfillment when you get things done were a fuel to select his profession. The happiness for the achievement. Listen to the episode to hear his perspectives about the profession.

In this week's episode, Ricardo explains the fundamental differences between 3 roles in the project environment: the product owner and Scrum Master, widely used when applying Scrum and the Project Manager. All of them have critical roles in supporting their projects to deliver the results. However, each of them comes with a different set of accountabilities and responsibilities. Listen to the podc...

In this week's episode, Ricardo reflects on how our experiences, the media, and the different voices of society affect our perception of risks. We often increase, decrease or disregard the relevance of different threats and opportunities due to imperfect and biased information we receive every day. Ricardo also shares three simple tips you should always keep in mind to analyze future risk scenario...

In this week's episode, Ricardo explains the 5 Whys technique to help you identify the root cause of an event, a specific risk, or even support your decision-making process. The technique, although simple, has nuances that allow you to be more effective and expand its range of uses beyond what was proposed by its creator, the founder of Toyota in the 1930s. Ricardo shows how to use 5 Whys in measu...

In this week's episode, Ricardo talks about accountability and the discomfort we face most of the time when making decisions. Having the chance to make decisions are one of the most significant freedom examples we have. However, it comes with a lot of pain because we do not know precisely a decision is correct or not. If we take only the professional lens, we have to make decisions constantly, bri...

Ricardo tries to see the incident from different perspectives. From the standpoint of Evergreen Marine (ship operator) to the other shipping companies. From the perspective of the Egyptian government to the perspective of countries that rely heavily on global trade. Finally, he discusses your view as someone managing a project that relies on equipment or supplies coming from the other side of the...

In this week's episode, Ricardo shares a concept he saw in a Design Thinking course he did recently: The Ebb and Flow of Ideation. Dev Patnaik introduces this straightforward and effective concept in the Product Development Best Practices Report. It is centered on the concept that better ideas are interspersed with absurd ones during ideation, and a wild idea is the fuel to generate new brilliant...

In this week's episode, Ricardo introduces the Kano Model, one of the easiest and more effective ways to prioritize product and service's features based on their potential to satisfy clients. Listen to the episode to learn more about the five patterns or categories created by Noriaki Kano to classify the features and identify those you should focus on developing.