Welcome to the asapm April-May 2009 email Newsletter!

This is an Opt-in Newsletter from asapm, the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management. Produced in the even-numbered months: February, April, June, and so on; subscribe information is on our asapm.org website. Unsubscribe information is below. Enjoy!

In This Issue
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1. PrezSez: Project Management Manifesto Revisited
2. IPMA World Congress Update, Helsinki June 15-17; Three USA Keynote Speakers
3. Certification News: NASA and Performance-Based Certs; USA's IPMA Level-A® Update
4. do u communic8? Project Communications Planning, and a Sample Template
5. asapm Sponsors the 2009 Resource Planning Summit, June 29-30, Chicago IL
6. International Business Development Council (IBDC) Updates
7. More Events, Ranging from Young Project Managers to PM Practitioners
8. Book Review: Project Governance: A practical guide..., by Ross Garland
9. Spirit, Resilience and Creativity Shown In This Economy
10. asapm and IPMA At Large, including IPMA Secretary General Selection

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1. PrezSez: Project Management Manifesto Revisited
There is much to be learned from the current economic situation—once all the facts are visible. Slowly the facts, or partial information, emerge in the form of catastrophic failure of an organization because of mismanagement—or in some instances there may be fraud involved. The US Government’s approach to solving the many problems, regardless of any understanding of the cause of the problems, is to throw money at the organizations. “Strings” are applied to the expenditure of this money after the fact and after apparent abuses are reported in the news media – not through any due diligence on the part of Congress or the current Administration.

The same people in leadership positions who brought the financial situation to the brink of disaster are asked to “fix the problem.” To paraphrase Albert Einstein, “the same type of thinking that got us into this problem is not the type of thinking that will get us out of it.” Financial institutions and insurance institutions seem to be conducting business as usual with lavish outings and significantly high bonuses after receiving a “loan” from the US taxpayer. It appears that their leadership is still thinking in the same way that got them into this mess.

The PM Manifesto, endorsed by asapm and available at http://www.pmmanifesto.net, calls for:

This is the intro to asapm President Lew Ireland's latest PrezSez: Click to see the whole article on the asapm website.

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2. IPMA World Congress Update, Helsinki June 15-17; Three USA Keynote Speakers!

Will it be worthwhile? Yes it will!
The 23rd IPMA World Congress is only a few months away. In the midst of the global economic challenges, it offers up-beat and refreshing solutions; and now, the final preparations are well under way. There are so many other special events being organized in the area of Project Management. One might ask "what's so special about the 23rd IPMA World Congress and why should I attend?" We can assure you that this event will be a most memorable one, highly professional but full of joy! The benefits are invaluable yet the congress is very reasonably priced. The members of IPMA and the members of IPMA member associations pay only 900 € +VAT 22% for the 3 days in the Congress, June 15-17 2009. What's more, this includes all social and cultural evening programs in connection with the conference! Register now for the IPMA Helsinki World Congress!

Congress Sessions and Keynote speakers have been finalized, and three of them are from the USA.

In addition to great Keynote Speakers, Refresh '09 includes many refreshing streams, with interesting and unique highlights. We've even made a special arrangement for project managers on a deadline, the longest day of the year! See you in Helsinki! See the Helsinki Congress Video Trailer; if you have not yet viewed it!

Roma Congress Videos, Featuring Young Project Manager of the Year, and National Songs
To tempt you further, we posted a bit of the magnificent set of videos from the IPMA 2008 Rome Congress.They included the award for Young International Project Manager of the year to asapm Member Edward Logan.

The Helsinki Congress site will also be posting content from these videos, choosing from more than 2 hours of highlights from the Roma Congress. Luigi Iperto, together with masterminds Roberto Mori, PierMarco Romagnoli and Ugo Forghieri, are to again be congratulated for such an incredible event as the IPMA Roma World Congress, 2008.

Video cameras will be busy at Helsinki, so you can get yourself into the Refreshing action, and maybe we will feature you in our post-Congress videos!

IIL Welcomed as IPMA World Congress Partner
International Institute for Learning, Inc. (IIL) is a global leader in professional training and comprehensive consulting services in the areas of Project, Program, and Portfolio Management, PRINCE2™, Business Analysis, Microsoft® Office Project and Project Server, and Lean Six Sigma. In addition to its many course offerings, productivity tools, and professional certification pathways, IIL leads the way in customized course development. Its Many Methods of Learning™ enable IIL companies in more than 18 major countries around the world to deliver Innovative, effective, and consistent training solutions via a variety of learning platforms (traditional classroom, virtual classroom and on-demand training). For more information, visit http://www.iil.com.

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3. Certification News: NASA and Performance-Based Certs; USA's IPMA Level-A® Update

NASA Learns About Performance-Based Certification
In February, our peripatetic Certification Chair, Bill Duncan, traveled to Florida to speak at the NASA Project Management Challenge about "Assessing Project Managers." NASA's PM Challenge is an annual conference that this year brought together over 1,000 program and project managers from both NASA and its many contractors to share best practices. Bill's presentation was targeted at managers of project managers and described how performance-based competence assessment can be used to both recognize and develop project managers.

Since OMB (Office of Management and Budget) is pushing all Federal agencies to improve their project management, Bill's presentation was extremely well-received. The managers present certainly seemed to understand the limitations of knowledge-based assessments, and many were excited by this state-of-the-art option. One senior NASA official collared Bill at the end of the session and commented "this is really exciting stuff." Anyone interested in a copy of the presentation should contact Bill directly at contact Bill directly.

Level A, Program Manager Certification, on Track
Bill Duncan, Certification Chair, attended the most recent GAPPS Working Session in Pretoria, South Africa, and reported that the GAPPS Program Manager Standard is making good progress. He expressed his confidence that the standard will be far enough along to support asapm's planned release of its initial Level A certification, IPMA-AG, in June.

We will be using the same general approach for Level A that we use for Levels B and C: combining a GAPPS performance based standard with the behavioral and contextual competences of the USA National Competence Baseline. The next GAPPS Working Session, #16, will be held in Cranfield, England, about 50 km from London where an estimated 10-15 experienced program managers will gather to review and challenge the most recent draft. Anyone interested in attending the Working Session should either contact Bill or contact GAPPS directly. The cost is $900 AUD.

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4. do u communic8? Project Communications Planning, and a Sample Template; by Stacy Goff
First, about the title of this article: it reflects  the ever-increasing range of communication options available in today’s projects—especially when communicating with younger Project Team Members.

This article celebrates a new PM publication, Hanbuch Fur Die Projektarbeit, Qualifizierung Und Zertifierung (Handbook for the Project Work, Qualifications and Certification). The 2700+ page four-volume set is a compendium of knowledge, experience, well-researched theory and competent practice of Program and Project Management. It supports GPM (IPMA-Germany) in their training, competence-based certifications, and advancement efforts in Project and Program Management. The publication is a practitioner’s reference for each Element of the IPMA Competence Baseline (ICB). Its purpose: to help practitioners build the foundation for PM Competence, and organizational PM Performance.

The Communication chapter, written by Stacy Goff and Dr. Florian Dorrenberg, covers 59 pages. Thanks go to Florian for coordinating our joint writing, establishing German citations, and turning our efforts into a well-managed project. William Duncan (USA) also collaborated with Dr. Dorrenberg on the Scope & Deliverables chapter. In all, authors from four nations wrote chapters for this publication. Of special interest to us is the announcement that the entire work will be translated into English and made available through IPMA. This article summarizes just one tiny part of the Communication chapter, Project Communication Planning and Execution.

This is from the introduction to Stacy's latest article. Click to download the pdf version of the article.

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5. asapm Sponsors the 2009 Resource Planning Summit, June 29-30, Chicago IL
One of the best PM-related Conferences of the last several years was Dick Rutledge's 2006 Delivering Project Excellence, in Scottsdale. And now, as he says, he's "back in the saddle again", so asapm is helping sponsor and promote his latest event.

Background: Much of our audience has been around PM for years, so you may remember the Project Leadership Conferences, sponsored by ABT in the 1990s. That series quickly became the gold standard in Project Management-related conferences. The result: others, such as professional associations, soon emulated the style and some of the substance of the conferences. Dick Rutledge, originator of the Project Leadership Conference and the Delivering Project Excellence series, is now presenting the 2009 Resource Planning Summit, June 29-30, in Chicago, IL.

asapm will have a table at the 2009 Resource Planning Summit, giving our members and friends to the opportunity to meet with our Leadership team. asapm President Lew Ireland will be among those appearing. Come see us!

The 2009 Resource Planning Summit targets a range of participants from Executives and Resource Managers (across the enterprise, not just IT) to Portfolio Managers, to Project and Program Managers--clearly a more-advanced audience than we typically see in PM-related conferences. And, to help you see what's in it for you, see this information from the from the 2009 Resource Planning Summit website:

Why Should You Attend?

What Will You Learn?

One Free Ticket to be Awarded
As part of asapm's sponsorship of this event, we will raffle and award one free ticket; the raffle will be held May 1, 2009. To enter this raffle, send your name and city/state to: 2009 Resource Planning Summit Free Ticket.

Member and Friends Discount
In addition to the raffle to win a free ticket to the 2009 Resource Planning Summit, asapm members and friends can receive a $100 discount on the 2009 Resource Planning Summit fees (just mention asapm). This is a further discount on the Early Bird Rate of $995 before May 1, or the Basic Rate of $1395 after that date. To find out more, go directly to the 2009 Resource Planning Summit website. See You At the Summit!

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6. International Business Development Council (IBDC) Updates
In March, asapm posted and distributed the Press Release announcing our signing of the Affiliation Agreement between seven PM-related not-for-profit organizations, and forming International Business Development Council. The IBDC mission is to connect professional and trade associations involved in the life-cycle of business development and program/project management.

The affiliates of the International Business Development Council had our first face-to-face meeting the week of April 6. In the meeting, we organized joint speaking and exhibit appearances at a variety of USA and World events, added new scheduled events, and exchanged key articles and speakers lists.

One of the highlights of the meeting was the announcement of a Business Development Competencies Research Project. Soon we will be soliciting Corporate sponsors for this project. Among the results of the project will be a list of the competences Business Development Managers would expect (for example) competent Program and Project Managers to demonstrate. We are discussing similar initiatives with other related disciplines. A unique differentiator we have with the IBDC alliance is the ability to tap and share the expertise of our related disciplines. Part of what makes this possible is our shared belief in the open exchange of intellectual property, rather than holding tightly to it.

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7. More Events, Ranging from Young Project Managers to PM Practitioners

Call for Presentations, Transitions 2009, June 27, 2009 in Washington, D.C. - Present your project at Transitions 2009, the inaugural project management conference at The George Washington University

The Project Management Students Association (PMSA) at The George Washington University will be hosting Transitions 2009, a one day conference that will explore projects, project management, and change within our environment on June 27, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this conference is to provide a forum where students and project practitioners can share best practices and lessons learned in a self-directed learning environment. This inaugural event will include software demonstrations, panel discussions, and a resume building workshop to help understand and develop your personal brand as a project manager.

The PMSA would like to invite certified IPMA project managers to help bring a global, competence-based perspective to project management. This is a great opportunity to bring visibility to your success as a global project manager and to network with seasoned professionals who also share your passion. We are looking for speakers that would like to share and explore their experiences as project managers who lead or inspire change within their organization or communities.

All sessions will be conducted in English. Kindly submit your proposal via email to the PMSA VP-Finance, Jhaymee S. Wilson no later than April 15, 2009. Should you have questions about the event or presentation, please direct those to her as well. We look forward to working with you, and to exploring change throughout the world.

Young Crew Workshop at Helsinki World Congress
We are pleased to present the Young Crew Members of IPMA national project management associations, fellow students of universities and enthusiasts to the Young Crew Workshop at the 23rd IPMA World Congress to be held in Helsinki, Finland. The Young Crew Workshop is going to be held at Helsinki Fair Center from June 12th - 14th, 2009. The World Congress follows it at the same venue from June 15th to 17th.

The contents of the program will be uploaded on the Congress website:  www.refresh09.com. Please take advantage of this opportunity to learn and network with the project management leaders, researchers, academicians, and enthusiasts.

happy projects´09 (www.happyprojects.at)
The largest international project management conference in Austria will take place from June 4th – 5th, 2009 in Vienna. Speakers from well-known national and international organisations and universities will share their knowledge in presentations, case studies, workshops, panel discussions and round tables about this year’s topic “PROJECTS & CHANGE (again)”. The happy projects´09 conference is a meeting point for project management experts and interested persons since 26 years - around 350 national and international participants are expected!

Please note that happy projects '09 offers a 10 % discount for members of asapm and IPMA. Click here to download the happy projects '09 event brochure from the asapm website.

Call For Papers, Annals of Operations Research
Operations Research is one of the fields contributing the most to the practice of Project Management, as it has proposed formal solutions to a wide range of problems. These contributions are mainly related to project scheduling and planning. However, one hundred years after Gantt proposed his popular diagram, most construction and engineering firms still use only simple methods, such as CPM, PERT, and Gantt diagrams. Click to see more about the desired topics. Deadline for submissions: May 31, 2009. Go: http://www.editorialmanager.com/anor.

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8. Book Review: Project Governance: A practical guide..., by Ross Garland

Project Governance: A practical guide to effective project decision making, by Ross Garland.
Garland addresses an area that is seldom considered in project planning, but frequently creates challenges during project implementation. He defines “project governance” as the process for efficient and effective project decision making.  Four categories are discussed: confusion regarding the objectives of project governance, risk aversion, issues related to organizational structure, and stakeholder and ownership issues.

This is the start of the review by Dr. Lew Ireland; click to see Lew's review on the asapm website.

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9. Spirit, Resilience and Creativity Shown In This Economy
asapm Member Dan Myers and his Requirements Solutions Group partner Tom Hathaway demonstrate the spirit, resilience and creativity Americans often show in times of adversity. Quoting (with permission) from their latest newsletter (or Noiseletter, as they call it):

The New World of RSG:
Sorry we have not been actively sending out Noiseletters lately. It is not, as many could easily assume based on the current economic reality, that we have gone out of business. Au contraire, mes amis (just to throw something in a foreign language to liven things up a bit). We are actually quite busy right now, as is proper for those whose primary responsibility is to help organizations save money by increasing the effective use of information technology. As a result, we have been taxed to keep up and the Noiseletter has unfortunately been neglected. As a result, we have decided to dedicate this first-of-2009-and-much-overdue issue of the not-quite-monthly Noiseletter to catch our readers up with a smorgasbord of items that might facilitate the achievement of your professional goals...

For their full newsletter (and their website), go: http://www.requirementssolutions.com/200903.html.

Why do we highlight this one company's newsletter? Especially when their offerings are more Business Analysis than PM? Several reasons, including the fact that successful projects often rely on competent Business Analysis. More noteworthy, this is just one of several indicators we've seen that despite the financial damage to our economy, competent practitioners will "come through with flying colors".

It is also this creativity and resilience that shows in a significant uptick in PM CompModel and USA-NCB downloads. Savvy practitioners know how to differentiate themselves. We are adding members at a faster rate. Our members who track such things say certification interest is also significantly increasing. And in a major conference last week (of April 6), reports from related practices were very much the same. Want to beat the recession? Demonstrate the PM Performance difference!™

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10. asapm and IPMA At Large, including IPMA Secretary General Selection

asapm Elections
The 2009 asapm Elections are in June; this year we have three offices opening, President, Director of Education, and Director of Standards. This is your chance to add your energy to our efforts to improve PM Performance Competence in the USA, and around the World. If you are interested in running for one of the asapm offices, wish to nominate someone to do so (with their permission), or have questions, please contact our President.

IPMA Selects Mr. Veikko Välilä as Secretary General
Background: At its meeting of March 2008 the Council decided that IPMA should employ a full time person in the function of Secretary General. After a public call for applications IPMA received 18 candidates' applications. In a structured and professionally-led process, the committee evaluated these applications. After an extensive screening and review process, plus preliminary interviews, on January 12th - 13th 2009, a final interview of 3 to 4 hours with the top three candidates took place.

The committee decided to nominate V. Välilä for the function of Secretary General and forwarded this decision to the ExBo. The committee was at the time of decision aware of the difficult situation, that V. Välilä was 2007/2008 President of IPMA, and today is the Chairman of Council. After careful evaluation the nomination was proposed, because the Committee came to the conclusion that from all candidates V. Välilä is the best qualified person -- in terms of international and intercultural experience and attitudes, in terms of managerial skills and in terms of knowledge about values, culture strengths and weaknesses of IPMA and its Member Associations. Congratulations Veikko!

IPMA-Canada Approved!
The IPMA Council of Delegates voted to accept Project Management Association of Canada / Association de Management de Projet du Canada (PMAC-AMPC) as an IPMA member association in our meeting last month! A neighborly initiative supported by asapm, we now have twice as much presence in North America. This Canadian group has been forming and recruiting members for over two years, and have not yet had the chance to update their website with this great news (see www.pmac-ampc.ca).

If you live in Canada (or wish to support their efforts to promote PM Competence), we encourage you to join PMAC-AMPC and help to shape this new organization. The membership form and process is on the website. And now all of us in the USA must learn the correct way to pronounce the word project. Congratulations Canada!

IPMA Newsletter
The 1st Quarter 2009 IPMA Newsletter is now available; among its features is a memorial to Roland Gutsch, founder of IPMA. That feature adds a bit of history, mentioning IPMA's original name, INTERNET (30 years before others discovered or invented it). Also reported is a summary of February's Behavioural and Contextual Competences ExpertSeminar in Zurich; two asapm members contributed in this session, William Duncan and Stacy Goff.

Important Survey To Complete and Forward to Others
Kam Jugdev, PhD, PMP, Centre for Innovative Management - Athabasca University, is gathering confidential and anonymous survey data with Dr. Joyce Fortune, Dr. Diana White, and Dr. Derek Walker. She would like to try the viral survey approach. To support that effort, would you please complete the survey using the link below, and then forward the link to as many of your friends and colleagues in project management as possible? Hopefully they in turn, will do the same. The results will be available to asapm when published. Thanks!

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228ZYWSGQ7U

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asapm is the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management. We are a non-profit organization, staffed with volunteers who are dedicated to improving the practice of competent Project Management. asapm is a registered trademark of the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management. Please see the asapm.org website for subscribe information. Thanks!

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Stacy Goff, IPMA-D
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