Sunday, March 14th marks the premier of the third season of Celebrity Apprentice on NBC at 8:00 PM CST.  The only show on television, scripted or unscripted, about the discipline of project management, it is fascinating for those of us who toil in the trenches of the triple constraint.  The celebrity quotient just makes it that much more addictive. 

Because the show offers so many real-life lessons for project managers (despite the fact that the tasks are being carried out by decidedly surreal celebrity PMs), Cindy and I have decided to analyze each episode in our blog for the next several weeks.  We will also be Twittering during the show each Sunday night.  Join us on Twitter by searching for #celebrityPM if you’d like to chat with us about the drama as it unfolds! Then, each Wednesday, we’ll post a recap of the episode and blog about the lessons we can learn from the show.   

If you have never watched the show, the premise is simple:  instead of landing a job with the Trump Organization, as the contestants of the non-celebrity version of the show vie for, the celebrities compete to win money for their chosen charity. 

The show starts with 14 contestants, some of whom greatly stretch the definition of the word “celebrity”, divided into two teams that compete against each other throughout the season.  The season always starts with the teams divided by gender, but the teams are reshuffled as the season progresses.  Each week, the teams are given a project to plan and execute.  The teams select a project manager, who has ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of the project.  Each week, a member of the losing team is sent home, after a brutal session in The Boardroom, where the project manager brings two other project team members along, takes off the gloves, and tries to show that another team member was the reason for the team’s loss.  The Donald and the other two judges, usually his son Donald Jr. and his daughter Ivanka, determine if the PM has made a good case for “failure by rogue team member” or if the ultimate failure rests on the PM’s shoulders. 

This season’s famous contestants have selected a wide variety of charities to compete for.  Some are large, well-known and established charities, like Make a Wish Foundation (chosen by former WWE diva Maria Kanellis) and North Shore Animal League (comedian Carol Leifer).  Other charities have more personal connections: Bret Michaels, lead singer of Poison and a diabetic since childhood, is playing for the American Diabetes Association.  Celebrity Chef Curtis Stone is playing for Feeding America.  Other celebs are playing for their own charitable foundations: Darryl Strawberry is playing for the Darryl Strawberry Foundation, Holly Robinson-Peete is playing for the HolyRod Foundation.  It will be interesting to see if the celebrity’s stake in the charity has any effect on how they play the game.

You can see the full list of celeb’s and their charities at http://www.nbc.com/the-apprentice/.  This season’s weakest excuse for a celebrity is shamed former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.  Personally, I am expecting Sharon Osbourne and Cyndi Lauper to be very strong contestants.