5 Minutes Podcast with Ricardo Vargas
Since 2007, Ricardo Vargas publishes the 5 Minutes Podcast where he addresses in a quick and practical way the main topics on project, portfolio and risk management.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 13
- Latest publication
- Sep 27, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 5, 2026
Latest episodes
Chesterton's Fence: The "Useless" Control That May Be Saving Your Project (opens the original)
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In this episode, Ricardo presents Chesterton’s Fence, a principle that warns against removing rules, controls, or processes before understanding why they were created. Although simplifying bureaucracy can improve agility, eliminating safeguards without investigating their purpose may revive risks they were designed to prevent. Ricardo recommends four steps: identify who created the process and why; determine which risk it controls; when its purpose remains unclear, test its removal through a rev
Your Project Didn't Break Overnight: It Got Used to Being Wrong (opens the original)
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In this podcast, Ricardo explains the normalization of deviance: repeated small failures that, because they cause no immediate consequences, become accepted as normal. Drawing on Diane Vaughan’s studies of the Challenger disaster, he shows how delays, skipped tests, recurring risks, and postponed meetings can make problems invisible. To avoid this trap, he recommends examining trends instead of isolated events, establishing rules before pressure arises, and documenting exceptions with an owner a
AI Doesn't Want Anything. And That Is Why We Are Irreplaceable (opens the original)
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In this podcast, Ricardo explores what makes people irreplaceable in an age of artificial intelligence. Rather than asking which tasks AI cannot perform, he suggests asking what AI does not have: desire, responsibility, and something at stake. AI can analyze risks, prepare schedules, summarize contracts, and recommend decisions, but it does not care whether a project succeeds or fails. People give projects purpose because they want outcomes and accept responsibility for the consequences. Drawing
Your AI Pilot Was Cheap. The Bill Won't Be (opens the original)
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In this episode, Ricardo warns that artificial intelligence is often approved as a project cost, but after implementation, it becomes an ongoing operational expense. Unlike traditional licenses, its cost varies according to consumption: the greater the adoption, the higher the bill. He also highlights frequently ignored expenses such as data preparation, systems integration, human review, price changes, model replacement, and new testing. Ricardo recommends presenting recurring costs per unit, p
Your January Plan Is Already Dead. Nobody Told You (opens the original)
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In this episode, Ricardo warns about the risk of resuming January’s projects at midyear. According to him, the context has changed: budgets, suppliers, technology, markets, regulations, and priorities may now be different. Before following the original plan, he recommends three actions: recalculate the project using current information, assess external changes, and reevaluate the portfolio, prioritizing what truly matters. Ricardo emphasizes that replanning does not represent failure; instead, i
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