Welcome to the asapm April 2007 email Newsletter!
This is an Opt-in Newsletter. We produce it in the even-numbered months: February, April, June, and so on. 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. PrezSays: Technical Performance and Interpersonal Skills In The Project’s Staff
2. asapm May 10, 2007 Virtual Congress Update; Get In Line Now!
3. Board Nominations Closing: Serve Your Society!
4. Jim Baber: EV in Defense—A Knowledge-Based Approach to Program Analysis
5. IIL Presents Project Risk Management Symposium, 16-18 May, San Francisco
6. Suresh Malladi's: Vendor Relationships—Managing Earned Value and Value Earned
7. IPMA Funds 500 Euro Grant For IPMA World Congress: 18-20 June, Crakow, Poland
8. Steve Chamberlin on Spreadsheets: The Most Expensive PPM Tool You Didn't Pay For
9. An Update on the asapm Members-Only Area
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1. PrezSays: Technical Performance and Interpersonal Skills In The Project’s Staff
Is something missing in the education and training of project staff? Early in my career, I was told that enhancing my technical skills would bring me success and, of course, money would reinforce the fact that I was successful. I was convinced that anything under the heading of mechanics, physics, chemistry, or other physical sciences would advance my career. Although not stated, it was implied that interpersonal skills were secondary to those “hard disciplines.”
This is the introduction to asapm President Lew Ireland's latest PrezSays. To see Lew's article, click here.
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2. asapm May 10, 2007 Virtual Congress Update, Get in Line Now!
It is time for an update on the May 10 asapm 2007 Virtual Congress: We had a great test run for the advanced TV-quality connection between campuses, and we are still resolving the method we will use to connect individuals (asapm members and friends) who are participating from desktops. But, we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The aim of the asapm Virtual Congress is to use the latest virtual meeting technologies to present and discuss concurrent distributed meetings and project teams. This will allow academics and PM practitioners to discuss issues and best practices related to virtual teams and their processes. Participants will include universities and enterprises capable of supporting full motion video, and individuals at desktops with high speed connections.
Update 1: Video Test Successful!
Friday, 30 March, 2007:
Today we had a successful test of the Video capabilities between three Universities that will be participating in the Virtual Congress. Of special interest was the expertise of the team from University College Cork, Ireland, and their demonstration of the ease of switching from presenter to the presentation slides. Also stellar was the ability of the Video Bridge, during the Questions and Answers session, to dynamically switch the site based on who was speaking. This successful test was a great experience for those of us who have mostly dealt with web-based conferences where the change-overs are more mechanical.
The Open Item: We still have not figured out how to join the two technologies, VideoConferencing and Desktop-based Web-Conferencing. We plan to resolve this open issue by Friday, April 27. See the details for Update 1.
Update 2: Congress Agenda Set!
We now have a tentative agenda for the asapm Virtual Congress. It begins at 9AM Mountain Time, Greenwich Mean Time -6 hours. Note that the agenda is subject to change as we await final confirmations. See the details for Update 2.
Update 3: Registration Opens
Friday, 20 April, 2007:
Today registration opens for the asapm 2007 Virtual Congress. Registration will be a two-part process, due to open items regarding the timings and costs of connection for those using standalone desktops and fast internet connections. We expect to resolve those open items by the end of next week, 27 April.
Why Register Now? The reason for opening registration now, even though we do not have the desktop connections resolved, is because the Video Bridge can only accomodate 20 open connections to desktops. The Universities that are participating have significant capacity for participants, but only if we know how many participants to plan for.
Thus, participation for this May 10 event is on a first-come, first-served basis. We will also wait-list additional attendees if we are filled to capacity. When you complete your registration and follow-up payment, you will be assured a seat. Register Now!
For more information, go to the asapm Congress 2007 web site. This is your best chance this year to literally network with asapm and leaders in Project Management!
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3. Board Nominations Closing: Serve Your Society!
The asapm Board positions up for election in 2007 are Vice President and Director of Standards. The preferred path to the Board is for each member to first serve on one of the Project Teams (our term for committees) in the area you indicated interest in when you joined--or in other areas, as you discover the additional exciting things in which asapm is involved. Each year, approximately one-third of the asapm offices open for nominations.
More Volunteer Topics: Of course, we can always use your help in asapm's most visible efforts, including this newsletter, our website, and our PM Communities of Practice. If you are interested in helping advance the state of the practice of Project Management, let us know! Note that you can use your volunteer efforts to do double-dipping, claiming volunteer time both for asapm recertification credits, and for recertification for other project management credentials.
Nominations Status: We have one candidate for the office of Director of Standards; watch the asapm website for the details about this candidate's agenda and aspirations. We still need candidates for the position of Vice President. Stacy Goff has held this position since asapm's beginning in 2001, and our bylaws prohibit running again. Who is interested in serving? Please Contact asapm. Nominations close in May, with the elections in June.
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4. Jim Baber: EV in Defense—A Knowledge-Based Approach to Program Analysis
A funny thing happened on this article's way to our website. We reviewed the article back in January, formatted it for the web, and posted it, intending to feature it in our February newsletter. Within a day or two of posting, we received an email from Jim, asking that we remove the article--it seems that the article may contain information that had not have been vetted for public consumption.
We engaged Wayne Abba, the "Father of Defense Earned Value" to review the article, to assure were no transgressions, improper divulgences or politically sensitive hot-potatoes. Wayne verified the facts, and sent along corroborating papers based on the work he has been doing for Department of Defense. Jim added the statement "The views expressed are those of the authors", and now we publish his great article. To read it, click here.
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5.
IIR Presents Project Risk Management Symposium, 16-18 May; Omni Hotel, San Francisco, CA
asapm is glad to help promote this stellar conference, presented by IIR, Institute for International Research:
PROJECT RISK: Identify.Assess.Manage.
Take three days out of your schedule and…
• Collaborate with over 150 industry peers to learn more about effective risk management techniques
• Discuss in-depth project risk management challenges
• Learn how to create a culture that encourages risk and results in innovation
Do your job - manage risk by attending the Project Risk Symposium 2007. Establish an organizational culture that sees risk as an opportunity. Network with your peers. Establish an efficient risk management process that encourages innovation. Be challenged with new ideas. Deal with the challenges of budget, scope, culture, risk quantification, and risk qualification. Find value in risk. Learn the measurements needed to complete risk assessment!
For more information, including the full conference agenda, please visit the event website: www.iirusa.com. And, asapm members receive a discount: enter code XM1926ASAPM to receive your discount when you sign up!
Additional asapm-Partnered IIR Events in 2007
• New Regional event ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts, 19-22 June 2007,
Marriott Copley Place, Boston, MA, Website: ProjectWorld
• ProjectWorld 13-16 November 2007: Anaheim, CA, website: ProjectWorld
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6. Suresh Malladi's: Vendor Relationships—Managing Earned Value and Value Earned
There are many ways outsourcing can add intangible but significant benefits to clients. No doubt it requires additional caution as work will be executed far away but having proper project management practices in place will bring in necessary monitoring, control and visibility into the project. Clients have to realize that outsourcing does not free them completely but needs equal commitment from their side.
Outsourcing clients should assign full time resources to work with the vendors in terms of requirements elicitation, review, feedback, evaluation of deliverables, knowledge transfer etc. The clients should also prepare their in-house employees about the benefits of outsourcing and should prepare the organization to realize the real benefits. They should provide the incentive to cut costs and innovate in services. Once the partnership solidifies, the client’s time requirements can diminish as the vendors will be in a better position to understand the client requirements more actively as they become conversant with the customer products and operations.
—From the Conclusions of Suresh Malladi's article. To see the entire article, click here.
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7. IPMA Funds 500 Euro Grant For IPMA World Congress: 18-20 June, Crakow, Poland
IPMA has announced that each Member Association will receive a 500 Euro Grant towards one Registration Fee for the Crakow, Poland Congress. The purpose is to encourage those who may not otherwise attend to make the effort to do so. If you have never been to an IPMA World Congress, this is a great opportunity. We have members in Europe, and you too, are eligible for this Grant. See below for information about how to enter yourself for this grant.
This year's IPMA World Congress is 18-20 June, in Cracow, Poland. asapm members receive a significant discount. The theme, Project Management: Essential Reality for Business and Government, promises to be intriguing, with five streams chaired by stellar PM Contributors. See the current Congress program from the asapm site, or see the 2007 World Congress site for more information. This is the first IPMA Congress in Europe since 2004, so attendance is expected to break all World Congress records.
Stanisław Sroka, Chairman of World Congress Cracow 2007, in his invitation to asapm members, says:
From 18th to 20th of June, Cracow, one of the most beautiful European cities, will become for a few days the world capital of Project Management, the centre of life of the family of nations united in the International Project Management Association. Courses for Young Crew will take place during the Congress, world - famous keynote speakers will take a stand, practitioners and theoreticians will take part in the panels, and the most prominent lecturers will present their papers. They will focus their efforts on two fields in project management most craving for knowledge: business and authorities. These domains are two most significant drives of the development of this sphere of management.
Cracow is a city worth visiting not only for the fans of Project Management. It is also a magic place, attracting millions of tourists, young people, artists, scholars and businessmen, as well as golf enthusiasts - lured here by the champion-class golf courses. It is a place which has an unusual atmosphere and charm and wonderful historical monuments, a place which will capture anybody’s mind forever. This is just one more argument in favour of visiting this incredible city. You are cordially invited and I am looking forward to seeing you in Cracow in June.
To register your name for the grant (sorry, according to the Grant rules, this is available only to current asapm members who have not yet signed up for the Congress) Contact asapm. We will do a drawing May 10 of those members submitting their email addresses, and notify the winner.
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8. Steve Chamberlin on Spreadsheets: The Most Expensive PPM Tool You Didn't Pay For
Spreadsheets are the project
tracking and Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
tool of choice for many organizations – both large
and small. They offer a very quick, adaptable and
inexpensive way to create a project inventory list
from scratch. Then it is very easy to grow the use of
spreadsheets for PPM from there. We create
spreadsheets of our project backlog, spreadsheets of
our active projects, and spreadsheets of our finished
projects.
And, it doesn’t stop there. We also create additional spreadsheets for our resource lists with availability projections and spreadsheets of our project plans. Some even create project scope statements and other documents in spreadsheets.
So what is the problem? Read Steve's article to find out.
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9. An Update on the asapm Members'-Only Area
Wikis, Blogs, Web-conferencing and Internet-based phone/chat are changing the way we manage projects. Where 10 years ago one of the first steps in setting up a new project's communications was to start a project intranet (and 15 years ago it was a Lotus Notes Conference), today an increasing number of people are setting up Wikis as a user-accessible and user-updatable repository for project communications.
One of the key characteristics of a Wiki is the ability of any authorized person to modify, update, improve (or delete) the comments of others. In the asapm Members' Only area, we are now offering a Wiki with two areas of opportunity: Passive users can easily review and access the content; active users can add to the content, for the good of the PM Practice. For those who have not engaged in Wikis before, we do suggest that you practice editing, adding, formatting and linking files in the WikiSandbox. And even for those who have experience with Wikis, note that different Wikis use different tagging. Ours is from the Open Source product PMWiki, and we hope you enjoy it, and learn from it!.
We are using this Wiki platform in other asapm initiatives, so this is a great time for you to get Wiki-ed! Log in to the Members Only area! To get into the Members Only area, just use your email address and member number in the page that opens when you click Member Log-In, in the top right of any website page.
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asapm: American Society for the Advancement of Project Management. We are a non-profit organization, staffed solely with volunteers who are dedicated to improving the practice of Project Management. asapm is a registered trademark, and PMCert is a service mark of the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management.
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Stacy Goff, PMP
asapm Vice President 2001-2007