Welcome to the asapm July-August 2006 email Newsletter!
This is an Opt-in Newsletter. Subscribe/unsubscribe information is at the end of this Newsletter. This Newsletter is in html, with links to the asapm website. Enjoy!
In This Issue
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1. Press Release: Senior Project Manager Certification Available
2. PrezSays: Project Management Past, Present, Future
3. 2006 Elections Completed; Ireland, Klein Elected
4. Conference Report: Delivering Project Excellence; Dick Rutledge Delivers!
5. Conference Report: Gartner Project & Portfolio Management Summit
6. Youker's World Bank PM Curriculum Released
7. PMCoPs: PM Communities of Practice Update
8. Shanghai World Congress Update
9. European Commissioner Launches New ICB3
10. Other Items: Survey, Jobs, Book Review, Millstones
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1. Press Release: Senior Project Manager Certification Available
LEXINGTON, MA (July 4, 2006) — The American Society for the Advancement of Project Management (asapm) has announced the public availability of asapm's Certified Senior Project Manager credential.
According to asapm President Lew Ireland, “asapm has been working to bring competence-based certification to the USA for nearly four years. We are both pleased and proud to be able to offer this valuable service to project managers and their employers throughout the USA.” Ireland noted that the asapm program is the US version of the Four-Level-Certification program (4-L-C) designed and used by the International Project Management Association (IPMA).
Stacy Goff, asapm Vice President 2001-2007, observed that “IPMA has certified more individuals as competent project managers than any other organization in the world. We are really excited to be able to offer a version of the 4-L-C tailored to the unique needs of the US market.” Goff also explained that asapm’s program is managed by the PMCert Board, a semi-autonomous body set up to ensure the objectivity of the certification process and to comply with the mandates of ISO 17024.
Bill Duncan, PMCert Chair, commented that the asapm Certified Senior Project Manager is just one of the four levels of certification to be offered. “We have a knowledge-based credential targeted at newcomers to the field, and during 2007, we will begin certifying entry level project managers. PMCert also plans to offer credentials to individuals who are functioning above the Senior Project Manager level.”
For the rest of the Press Release, posted on the PMCert site, click here.
Other useful CertLinks:
- Guidance for acspm Candidates
- acspm Stage 1 Application
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2. PrezSays: Lew Ireland Writes About Project Management Past, Present, Future
Throughout history, from construction of ancient artifacts to modern projects, the major difference in project success has been influenced by the quality of the project team. Individuals may be threatened and coerced into performing certain functions, but the highly motivated individual will provide better results. Integrated teams of willing people provide the optimum solution for most projects whereby all individuals subordinate their goals to that of the team.
Modern examples of teams give rise to the concept that well-motivated volunteers produce the best results. This motivation is derived from a competent project leader who understands the principles of leadership and exhibits traits that builds on team capability. Project success is dependent upon team performance.
That is from the Summary of Lew's latest article. To see the whole article, click here.
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3. 2006 Elections Completed; Ireland, Klein Elected
asapm's 2006 Elections are over, and Lew Ireland continues for another term as President. Lew says that even though we have successfully launched our asapm Certified Senior Project Manager (IPMA Level-B) and asapm Certified Project Practitoner (IPMA Level-D) certifications, we still have much more work to do. Lew will focus on getting more asapm members involved with the volunteer projects, saying, "we'll all benefit in multiple ways, as we continue to get more members involved".
Dr. Gary Klein, our new Director of Education, will work with Universities to establish a model curriculum that is oriented towards IPMA's Competence Baseline, investigate establishing Young Crew (young Project Managers, under the age of 32 or so) in North America, and get the educational community involved with asapm Research Projects. Of course, Gary will also continue to work with asapm's existing programs. Welcome Gary! Separately, outgoing Director of Education Ed Fern, will keep us up to date as he attempts to teach or consult on eight continents this year. Always was an overachiever! Thanks Ed!
See more about Gary's intentions on our website, or watch for his EdPlan, in the next newsletter.
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4. Conference Report: Delivering Project Excellence; Dick Rutledge Delivers!
In the last newsletter we mentioned the 2006 Delivering Project Excellence Conference, held June 5-7 in Scottsdale. asapm was involved in promoting this Conference, and now we all know that when we see Dick Rutledge's name associated with a Conference, then, we must attend!
Why did this Conference inspire us? Let us count the ways!
First, the audience is primarily Enterprise Executives who are involved with Project and Program Management—that's one of our top three priority audiences. And the insight of the people we spoke with, about the state of PM, their current needs, and what they expect from their PMs (surprise: Competence) was incredible.
The presentations were great; in fact, we've put together a slide show of a few of the best speakers—with a little bit about each of them. Even choosing which ones to show is tough, because almost all were great. Too bad we didn't get a photo of Janet Carmosky (www.ChinaProspects.com), who shared excellent insights on Project Management in China; especially helpful given the IPMA World Congress in Shanghai this year. In addition to learning a lot about the business culture, we learned how to say "Thank You" (Xie Xie!), one of the most important things to know in any country.
Janet's contributions are just one of many examples.
Throughout all the Conference presentations, we found ourselves taking notes much more often than in other conferences, another very positive sign.
Dick Rutledge really does know how to put on a Conference; and that's saying something, because asapm only promotes the best ones. We are really picky about which ones we select. Even though the location, Scottsdale, AZ in June was hot, the facility was very comfortable, even with the breaks (and numerous chances for networking) held outside.
This event was the premiere of asapm's booth at a Conference, and Rose Johnston and Stacy Goff had our chance to be "on the line" to answer questions; and such great questions were asked! We learned a lot about the need to simplify our message: proselytizing for advanced certifications in PM Competence is much more difficult than for other types of certifications.
The event was also the premiere showing for asapm's Competence Enabler program, featuring participating PM Vendors represented through their marketing materials. We'll follow up to see what results we get. Our twice-a-day drawing for Project Manager's Handbook, 2nd Edition, written by David Cleland and Lew Ireland, was a huge hit.
Would we go again? You bet!
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5. Conference Report: Gartner Project & Portfolio Management Summit
We had the chance to promote IPMA, asapm, and PM Competence when we participated in the Gartner Project & Portfolio Management Summit, in Beverly Hills June 25-27. IPMA, the International Project Management Association, was the Global Event Partner, and that involved a speaking slot and a booth; the best combination for getting the word out.
IPMA had this posted on their website, and promoted since December in PM Practice Magazine; asapm was also involved with helping attract attendees. For this conference, the target attendees are Executives (largely Information Technology and New Product Development) of Project Oriented Enterprises, or those on that fast track.
This is an important audience for IPMA and asapm because this is the level of Executive that recognizes the need for, and pays for, advanced PM Certifications.
The speakers at the Gartner Summit are unique, because most of them are Gartner Analysts, experts in a sector of the businesses for which they give advice. Clearly, there is great rapport between these speakers and the audience, for several reasons, including the fact that many are repeat participants. This is another great one to watch for next year.
Highlight: One of our favorite speakers was Kraft Bell, an exceptionally bright visionary, who is also a really nice guy. His well-Krafted (yes, he says he's heard that before) presentation on Navigating the Turbulence of "Strategy-Aligned" Change was filled with insights. Watch for any opportunity to read or hear his works.
The theme of our IPMA/asapm presentation was, you guessed it, PM Competence. Here are the bullet points from the second slide of our presentation:
* Your Project Portfolio is Prioritized
* You Have Strategic Alignment
* You Bought a Resource Management Tool
* Your Projects are Well-Planned
* Do your Project Managers demonstrate the skills, behaviors, and competences needed to deliver the projects successfully?
As an aside, our booth was next to Microsoft's. After the 300th time we heard their constantly-looping video, which featured a NASA spokesperson talking about the tools they use, we asked the Softies, "Is he saying we could not have put Man on the Moon without Microsoft Project? Gee, I guess MSProject has been around longer than I realized." (The moon landing was 1969.) They turned off the video.
Another aside: no asapm funds were used (and no animals were harmed) in attending these Conferences.
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6. Youker's World Bank PM Curriculum Released
asapm member Bob Youker arranged last year for his World Bank PM Curriculum for Developing Countries, Managing the Implementation of Development Projects, to be made available on the asapm website. The preliminary version is in the Members-only section, and is a good basic PM Curriculum. It offers some excellent insights that work in any type of project—not just construction, and not just in developing countries. And now it is available (after a long wait) directly from World Bank. For those who have asked, and for those who are not wired in, we now have the information about how to license this work in full, on cd, and with facilitator guides, exercise, all in an easy-to-use format.
A pdf of the announcement of this cd's availability is now on the asapm website, and contains more details, but in brief, the cost is $50, and you can order it directly from World Bank. The license allows you to use the materials to distribute training packages for up to 25 people. That's a great value, at $2 per trained person! If you intend to use it for more participants, you can license it for greater numbers. World Bank will use the proceeds to help support developing countries. Thanks to World Bank Project Manager John Didier, for sending us a copy, and thanks to Bob Youker for his efforts in getting it to us!
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7. PMCoPs: PM Communities of Practice Update
Action on our PMCoPs program has been mixed. Bob Youker tried starting an online/interactive version on Work Breakdown Structures, that after initial interest, failed to get traction. Donna did the same, based on expressed interest in Agile PM. It seems we need more direct interaction, rather than trying to rely on technology. Yet other PM organizations are once again following our lead: it appears they will also try Communities of Practice. To differentiate, they will close theirs to members only, vs. asapm's open approach. I.e., we invite both members and not-yet members to participate.
On the success side, we have done three PMCoPs sessions in Colorado since January, and they show that the approach has promise. Among our findings is that there is a lot of information that we share, but there must be a scribe to capture it all. Our introductory session was About asapm, why we were formed, and what are our major initiatives and differentiating. That lead to the second session, all about Certification, what is available Worldwoide today, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of each type of certification. Our research for that session led to content that we have now presented several other times. Our most recent session was on Lessons Learned or After-Action Reports; once again, great information exchanged!
asapm is looking into establishing a repository for the sharing of this information, together with related content, in our latent World Of PM section. This World Of PM project has been around for a while, awaiting a Project Manager, and we now have a volunteer. We are investigating collaborative options ranging from wiki's to more complete ones, together with other ways of communicating from a distance, such as Skype and other options.
A primary purpose of PM Communities of Practice is to achieve increased skill-transfer and networking. This is enroute to the time when we have enough critical mass of members in one place to establish Chapters. Although asapm is a North American society, we have PM Thought Leader members from all over the World. Thus our interest in distributed networking and engagement.
Communities of Practice have other advantages over typical Chapter meeting formats, so as we gain Chapters, we will retain the concept. PMCoPs are more of a peer-to-peer sharing of information, versus the one-to-many presentations most often the focus of typical chapter meetings.
If you are interested in PMCoPs, see this note by John McHugh, asapm Director of Member Services.
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8. Shanghai World Congress Update
Are you going to the October 15-17 World Congess in Shanghai? The 10% Early Bird discount for the 20th IPMA World Congress expired July 31, but organizers have extended a 5% discount through August 31. And that is on top of the 33% discount you receive as an asapm member.
Papers have been accepted based on their Abstracts, and Presenters have until 7th August (Oops, better get to that!) to submit your final paper. It looks like we again have a large number of papers and presenters from North America. Some people have had difficulty with the On-line Registration System's payment processes. It seems to be a problem with the 3-d security process. We have used the alternative bank draft process.
The Congress organizers have also posted information about the official Congress Hotels, which we have posted on the asapm website for you; click here to see more about them (RMB conversion to USD is about 8:1). As usual, we have done our due-diligence hotel research; if you have questions, contact asapm. And, the post-Congress tours also look really interesting for those who don't have to get back to work immediately.
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9. Late Breaking News: European Commissioner Launches IPMA's New ICB3
Our good friend Ed Naughton, IPMA Marketing Vice President and the Executive Officer for IPMI, the Ireland Member Affiliate of IPMA, has struck again. This time, he has gotten Charlie McCreevy, the European Commissioner responsible for the European Union's policy on the EU's internal markets, to introduce and embrace IPMA's new Competence Baseline—and thus IPMA's universal and unique Four-Level-Certification system.
asapm was involved in this ICB release in many ways, from early inputs, to adapting key parts of the draft into our own NCB, to a last-minute edit before publishing in May. This new edition, much stronger than the 2.0 version, will be the foundation for harmonization of IPMA's 40 Member Nations' Certification programs over the next 3 or so years. Click here to see the whole ICB3 Press Release on IPMA's website.
asapm has ordered copies of the bound volume of ICB3, and we also have cds coming. Of course, our just-released NCB is a superset of ICB, containing materials that ICB does not include; and, NCB is the basis for our currently-available certifications. NCB is available at the asapm website.
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10. Other Items: Survey, Jobs, Book Review, Millstones
Survey: asapm Member Stephen Lynn is an experienced Project Manager and doctoral candidate at Kennedy Western University. As part of his studies, Steven has a survey that we critiqued a while back, and he has made our suggested improvements. The survey is now available (click here) and Stephen requests our responses. We hope asapm members and friends do participate in Stephen's survey, because our range of opinions and experience is significantly different than those of many other project managers.
Jobs: We have a handful of new PM-related job postings on the asapm Jobs board. Check them out at the Jobs Board.
Book Reviews: As we went to "Press", we received this book review from asapm member James R. Brady, Managing Projects: Expert Solutions to Everyday Challenges (Harvard Business School Press Pocket Mentor, 2006) 100 pages, paperback $9.95. We have several more reviews in the pipeline, including one for Jerry Manas' book, Napolean On Project Management.
Project Millstones, our Humor Page, is still one of the most frequently-visited pages on our website. And, it appears that our Yeti and Penguin game has reached its limits. No one seems to be able to beat 593.5—at least not on this version. See this page for a Longshot version, and this page for the Random Bouncing one, Sorry, scores from these versions on steroids are not eligible for posting on our site.
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Stacy Goff, PMP
asapm Vice President 2001-2007