Welcome to the asapm June-July 2008 email Newsletter!
This is an Opt-in Newsletter from asapm, the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management. 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. PrezSez: Project Competence; Organizational and Project Manager Roles
2. asapm Elections Coming Soon: Run For Office! Vote!
3. Duncan Updates Us on PMCert Status
4. Competence Enabler Offers Chicago PM Class; PMCert Proctors Level-D Exam
5. Article: Finding, Developing and Managing Project Talent, by Stacy Goff
6. Director of Standards Larry Kueppers Reports on ISO PM Standards
7. APMP Conference Trip Report and asapm Presentation
8. Rome Congress Speaker Update; Plan for Rome: November 9-11, 2008
9. IPMA News: Young Crew, PM Perspectives, and IPMA Newsletter
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1. PrezSez: Project Competence; Organizational and Project Manager Roles
Many case studies have been written on the failure of projects or their shortfall in delivering the agreed upon benefits. I don’t recall reading a case study where everything went right with the resultant delivery of a perfect product to the customer. It appears that there are more partially successful projects than either failed projects or perfect projects.
While failed projects can teach us what not to do, it often gives a prescription for what to do to deliver the benefits. There are perhaps thousands of reasons for projects failing to meet expectations, but each of the reasons alone are perhaps only the symptoms of failure. To treat the symptoms does not get to the underlying causes of failure and the failures, or partially successful projects, continue.
This is from the introduction to asapm President Lew Ireland's latest PrezSez. To see Lew's article, click here.
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2. asapm Elections Coming Soon: Run For Office! Vote!
The asapm Board positions up for election in June 2008 are Secretary-Treasurer, Director of Marketing, and Director of Member Services. See the asapm website for the offices and responsibilities.
asapm Members, watch your email for your ballot for the 2008 Elections. And, there is still time for you to submit a nomination, either for yourself, or for another member, for the open offices. Contact Lew Ireland to make a nomination.
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3. Duncan Updates Us on PMCert Status
Competence Makes the Difference! That is the new slogan for a completely redesigned website for asapm's Four Level Certification program. The new PMCert site is expected to be operational later this week [the week of June 9]. Major changes include:
We also expect to have more information on both recertification requirements and the appeals process soon. Note that asapm's PMCert has already certified the competence of more Project Managers in the USA than any other organization. Perhaps you should Discover the Competence Difference!
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4. asapm Competence Enabler Offers Chicago PM Class; PMCert Proctors Level-D Exam
John Colville, with his JC Consulting company, has trained more IPMA Level-D certificants than any other company we know of. He is an asapm member, and for over two years has been offering his training, together with an IPMA Level-D exam (proctored by PMCert). His participants' pass rate for the exam is excellent.
Recently John Colville and asapm President Lew Ireland met to discuss John's support of asapm. They discussed the actions participants could take to further improve their pass rate. Those suggestions, including one that just says read the NCB (USA National Competence Baseline) appear on John's website.
Neither asapm nor PMCert offer general or certification-related workshops; we feel that it is a conflict of interest to compete with our own members who offer stellar training. That is one reason why we offer our Competence Enabler program, to highlight providers who can Demonstrate the Competence Difference™. John's company has been an asapm Competence Enabler for over two years.
Proportion Training is his new website's name, and John has built it to focus on his USA-related offerings. His JC Consulting site shows his efforts all over the world, and some people had difficulty finding the USA listings. The new site has a crisp, clean look, and shows a list of classes and Level-D exams for the remainder of this year:
Click here to download the Chicago workshop registration form. Or, direct any queries to John Colville at Proportion +1.312.329.9893.
John has also scheduled classes for the first half of 2009, in locations that include Atlanta, Portland, Austin, Baltimore, Newark and Toronto. Note that our certifications do no require a workshop, but the right training that is focused on the Technical, Contextual and Behavioral competences will help, together with relevant experience and a good read of the USA NCB.
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5. Finding, Developing and Managing Project Talent, by Stacy Goff
This article explores the acquisition, the steps needed to develop, and the challenges of managing Project Talent. Finding, managing and developing project talent is both a serious challenge and a great opportunity. Talent is essential in two project dimensions: Application Area talent in the disciplines needed to deliver the project’s product, and in the Project Management competences needed to leverage that talented team.
Flawed approaches of today’s Project Talent Scouts include a) ignoring the contributions of existing team members while focusing on finding “new talent” and/or b) sending them to classes, expecting the classes to produce instant results. The most-savvy Talent Scouts not only recognize talent, they also amplify it, nurture it, and reward it. They use the entire progression of learning, beyond Knowledge, beyond Skills, beyond Attitudes, and beyond Competence, to attain Project Performance.!
This is from the introduction to Stacy Goff's article. To see the whole article, click here.
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6. Director of Standards Larry Kueppers Reports on ISO PM Standards
Hello! My name is Larry Kueppers. I am the Director of standards for asapm. My role is to work with the PM community, and asapm in particular, to develop project management standards. Wikipedia defines a standard as “an established norm or requirement. It is usually a formal document that establishes uniform engineering or technical criteria, methods, processes and practices.” So how are standards developed? Who decides what qualifies as a standard? Why are standards needed? These are just a few of the questions you may be asking yourself. Let’s start with the last question first.
Why are standards needed?
Without standards we would not have the ability to conduct business. When you purchase a gallon of milk and pay $3.48 for that gallon, you do so with the assurance that you are receiving a fixed quantity. Without that assurance, there would be chaos, and business would cease to operate as we know it today.
Who decides what qualifies as a standard?
In most if not all cases, it is agreed upon by a group of experts and adopted by individuals, groups, industries, countries, etc. In the United States, physical standards are set and managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST http://www.nist.gov/) in Washington DC. A sister organization to NIST is ANSI, the American National Standards Institute (http://www.ansi.org/). It is the voice of the U.S. standards and conformity assessment system. ANSI belongs to ISO, the International Standards Organization (http://www.iso.org/iso/home.htm).
ISO is the world's largest developer and publisher of International Standards. ISO is a network of the national standards institutes of 157 countries, one member per country, with a Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, that coordinates the system. ISO is a non-governmental organization that forms a bridge between the public and private sectors. On the one hand, many of its member institutes are part of the governmental structure of their countries, or are mandated by their government. On the other hand, other members have their roots uniquely in the private sector, having been set up by national partnerships of industry associations. Therefore, ISO enables a consensus to be reached on solutions that meet both the requirements of business and the broader needs of society.
Editor's Note: This is the prelude to Larry's more complete article explaining PM Standards, with asapm and IPMA's involvement in setting Standards for Project Management. To see Larry's detailed report on the most recent Standards meeting in Washington DC, click here. One of our challenges is the cost of travel and lodging cost of representing the USA in these meetings. If you would like to help sponsor asapm's efforts to craft standards that truly advance the practice of Project Management, contact asapm President Lew Ireland.
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7. APMP Conference Trip Report and asapm Presentation
asapm's participated with Business Development Institute International, and IACCM, International Association of Commercial Contract Managers, in a Panel Discussion on Collaboration and Competences in Business Development at the 19th Annual APMP International Conference on May 27-30. This unprecedented session discussed the need for three related disciplines to strategically align and work together. Too often, each area, Business Development, Contracts and Program or Project teams are either bottlenecks for the others, or competitors for scarce Enterprise resources.
We staffed a booth at this APMP Conference, representing asapm and IPMA, thanks to the efforts of BD Institute Internationals' Howard Nutt. At the booth, we piloted new materials that explain the richness of offerings in our Performance Competence-based PM Certification program. One of our challenges in a conference setting has been the difficulty of explaining how our offerings differ from others, that do not require experience or competence as a PM.
Our panel discussion, organized and led by Howard, consisted of brief presentations on targeted topics by each panel member, together with questions, answers, and shared competences from the audience. Those shared competences have been captured, and will represent the foundation for efforts between the three organizations over the next year. A 2mb PowerPoint Show version of the presention is available on the asapm website. Nutt and Goff will also be using the results of this panel in a paper to be presented on the same topic at the Roma World Congress in November 2008.
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8. Roma Congress Speaker Update; Plan For Rome: November 9-11, 2008
By now, most of the speakers for the Rome Congress have been notified of their acceptance status. This was a difficult job for the Abstract reviewers, because some Streams had 7 times the number of papers than planned for. But the dust has settled, and now presenters have until July 31 to finish and submit their papers.
Keynote speakers have now been identified. It took a group effort, but thanks to Mary McKinley and Bill Duncan we will hear from Professor Lynn Crawford as a keynote speaker. Lynn has done more for PM Competence than most 10 other people. And speaking of Mary, she will also be a keynote speaker, tying into the Congress theme, PM to Run, with the topic: Where are We Running To?
Of special note, Kenneth Sheely, of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) at the United States Department of Energy (DOE), will speak about a global program managing over 1,000 projects in more than 100 countries and never previously presented at any conference!
So, mark the dates of November 9-11. Some of the events begin before that date, including a full program of Young Crew activities. See the latest on Streams, Registration and accommodations at the Roma 2008 IPMA World Congress website.
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9. IPMA News: Young Crew, PM Perspectives, IPMA Newsletter and Certification Report
As part of asapm members' two memberships in one, we receive increasing benefits from IPMA. Here is a current sample, in addition to the Rome World Congress, mentioned above.
Young Crew
We have fresh interest in establishing a USA Young Crew. There was interest several years ago, but we could not get enough critical mass of people to get it going. Young Crew is IPMA's organization for young Project Managers who will be (or already are) tomorrow's industry leaders. It is a way to engage and network with others, especially across state and national boundaries, for members who are under the age of 35. You can learn more about Young Crew at the IPMA website.
Among their resources is a YC Maturity Model, that is essentially a roadmap for setting up and operating a National Young Crew organization. With support from their national Member Association, these participants hold their own events, perform surveys and research projects for their Member Associations, and collaborate in International events. For example, each World Congress has a Young Crew event. Bill Duncan and Stacy Goff presented workshops at one such event in Shanghai, and we can tell you, the sessions were stimulating for us as well as for the audiences.
This latest interest in Young Crew comes from students at George Washington University, which has long been a magnet for PM Competence. Their Project Management programs attract many students who return from the working world to pick up additional knowledge or credentials. Ms. Jhamee Wilson is interested in getting a group of asapm members together, both local to the DC area and virtual, to form a US Young Crew. If you are interested, see the new Group for Young Crew in the asapm Members Only area of the website. Or, email us with your interest!
PM Practice Magazine
The Spring issue of IPMA's Quarterly magazine, PM Practice, is now available on the asapm website. Featured in this issue is "Learning to Love Chaos" (learn how to cook a frog), and an extensive article, "A neo-realistic approach to time-critcal complex systems development," and other topics.
IPMA Newsletter
The IPMA Newsletter is more oriented to recent-breaking Member Association or PM practice news; the current issue, available at the asapm website (note: the download is 4mb), covers the untimely demises of Otto Zieglmeier and John Pyman, the International Experts Seminars in Zurich, an update on PM in the EU, the Romanian Project Management Excellence Award, and other topics.
IPMA Networking Site
IPMA also now has a social networking site, designed using the same tools that we use for the asapm Members Only area. Interested asapm members can either join from the link in our members only area, or contact Stacy for information. The IPMA site includes many young people from around the world, and a few of us "old hands".
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Stacy Goff, PMP
asapm Member Services