Welcome to the asapm October-November 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 on the www.asapm.org website. This Newsletter is in html, with links to the asapm website. Enjoy!
In This Issue
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1. asapm Mourns Larry Kueppers, 1957-2008
2. PrezSez: Communications in Projects and Commitment
3. asapm's Certification Program Active and Growing!
4. Election 2008 Results Announced
5. asapm Promotes IIR's November IT Portfolio Management Conference
6. Renewable Energy Projects: Project Management Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks
7. IPMA Congress News: Roma Congress; Next, Finland and South Africa
8. Young Crew-USA Initiative Moving Forward
9. First Woman Elected as IPMA President; IPMA Pilots Registered Education Program
10. Speaker's Bureau Ramps Up; Book Reviews Stir Interest; Goff on PM Podcast
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1. asapm Mourns Larry Kueppers, 1957-2008
asapm mourns Larry Kueppers, who died Thursday, October 9. Early indications are that Larry's death is the result of a blood clot in his lung.
Our hearts go out to Larry's family. We ask our friends to offer a silent prayer for him, and for those he left behind. They include his wife, Norma; sons, Christopher and Joshua Kueppers of Elkhart; daughter, Kaela Kueppers of Elkhart; brothers, Tim (Robin) Kueppers of Kalamazoo and Bob (Sherri) Kueppers of Byron Center, MI; and his mother, Marjorie Kueppers of Kalamazoo.
Larry joined asapm in early 2007 and immediately looked for ways he could help others. He flew to Colorado Springs to attend one of our Board Meetings, and decided to run for office as Director of Standards. He has represented asapm and IPMA in meetings to produce the next draft standard for Project Management, ISO 21500. Others in those meetings, including some of the best minds in Project Management, remarked at the time how thrilled they were with Larry's participation.
We mourn Larry's departure, and at the same time, because we have experienced his deeply religious beliefs, celebrate his everlasting peace. An online guest book may be accessed at www.stemmlawsonpeterson.com.
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2. PrezSez: Communications in Projects and Commitment
Communications in projects is challenging at best and often leads to misunderstanding about what is to be done and when it is to be completed, or delivered. One of the most difficult situations that can lead is the lack of mutual agreement on commitment to perform a task or tasks. This is not the “how to” or technical aspect of projects, but the simply “what” and “when” of project work. Often, “commitment” is believed to be obtained by the project manager from others whereas the actual delivery of the result of the task is delayed through lack of planning or forgetting about the task. How can this happen? The project manager is the single authority in the project and responsible for work getting accomplished.
This is the introduction from asapm President Lew Ireland's latest PrezSays. Read his article on the asapm website.
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3. asapm's Certification Program Active and Growing, William Duncan Reports!
Our "Extra Credit" program has generated great interest; for example, NCB (USA National Competence Baseline for PM) downloads have never been higher! The Extra Credit program allows individuals with comparable educational credentials or other certifications to obtain IPMA-D certification without taking the written exam (see website for details). So far, 100% of those who applied have been approved. With luck, we will reach our 2,008 maximum before the end of the year. Tell your friends and apply now!
In other Certification program improvements, we have made major revisions to the application package for IPMA-B and IPMA-C candidates. The instructions have been extensively rewritten to make it easier for candidates to understand how to prepare their information packets. In addition, we turned the Evidence Guide into a separate document so that candidates see exactly the same information in exactly the same format that our assessors will use in evaluating their performance. Finally, we have added substantial guidance on how to assess project management complexity to ensure that candidates will be evaluated at the proper level.
Now, we are in the process of expanding the number of assessors that we have available. Candidates have been identified in Southern California, the Seattle area, Dallas-Forth Worth, Atlanta, and the Northeast. We still more assessors in Northern California, the New York City area, South and Central Florida, and the Chicago area. If you are interested, or if you know of anyone who might be, please contact William Duncan for details. This is a GREAT opportunity to add a valuable credential to your resume for virtually no cost.
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4. Elections 2008 Results Announced
asapm President Lew Ireland announced the results of the 2008 Elections, with Morgan Henrie winning re-election as Director of Marketing, Dennis Milroy winning election as Secretary-Treasurer, and Stacy Goff winning election as Director of Member Services. Past Director of Member Services John McHugh will continue to help Stacy. We are grateful to John for his service to asapm. As a reminder, the 2009 elections are for the offices of President and Director of Education. You can see the Position Descriptions on the asapm website. If you are interested in running for either of these offices, contact our President and let him know of your interest.
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5. asapm Promotes IIR's November IT Portfolio Management Conference
The IT Portfolio Management Event is the only unbiased, cross-industry conference designed for IT professionals who need to position IT as a strategic business partner in their organization and find ways to improve project prioritization, align resource allocation, and optimize development processes. Go to www.iirusa.com and get the tools you need to maximize your IT investments in today’s challenging business environment. Register using code XNM2017ASAPM2 for a special 15% asapm member discount.
asapm works with some of the best PM-related conferences each year in a mutually-beneficial relationship: We help publicize and promote them, and in turn, we are able to bring members and friends a discount; plus, we get our Demonstrate the Competence Difference™ message out to more and more people. We suggest that you consider attending this November 17-19th event, to be held at Disney's Contemporary Resort | Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Tip: Florida is great in November!.
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6. Renewable Energy Projects: Project Management Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks
When analyzing or working on a renewable energy project or a project that includes elements of renewable technologies, the project manager faces some unique efforts which transcend the usual project success iron triangle of schedule, prod-uct (quality), and costs. Project managers also face significant renewable technology challenges and risks, and at times, a severe lack of broad based knowledge pools.
Why Project Management? In virtually every project management literature source, it is clearly and loudly proclaimed that the project management discipline is essential to the very survival of many businesses. It is through this discipline’s methodologies and tools which assist firms to become or retain a globally competitive edge. Utilization of project management allows the firms to develop and provide their services and/or products at a higher quality, faster, and at lower costs. Any global firm which fails to remain competitive will cease to exist. Within this fast paced, competitive, business environment comes rapidly advancing opportunities, benefits, challenges, and risks to work as project managers that employ renewable energy components in their projects.
Why Renewables? The renewable energy market, or “renewables”, is not only the wave of the future, but a wave that is here and now. This wave is driven by drastic increasing energy costs, sustainability, environmentalism, terrorism, national security, global market effects, longevity, and public perception and attitude.
This is the introduction of Morgan Henrie's latest article, with guest co-author Annie McIntyre. Read this article on the asapm website.
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7. IPMA Congress News: Roma Congress; Next, Finland and South Africa
Now that airfares are drifting back down (at least temporarily), those who booked airfares at their peak for the Rome Congress, November 9-11, should check to see if the tickets are lower now. For those who have made their flight and hotel arrangements, but have not yet registered, be sure to use the IPMA member rate; the registration deadline has shifted to October 31.
See the signup for registration and accommodations at the Roma 2008 IPMA World Congress website. Or, contact us for other options that are not listed. And, see the latest Roma Newsletter from the asapm website; it lists more details, including the Keynote Speakers. As for the paper streams, we spent much of August and September reviewing over 80 papers from just Stream 7! There were many great topics for presentation, and many more for Poster Sessions. We do plan to try to get the USA participants together at some point in the Congress.
For those who are interested in business-oriented or society-oriented Social Networking sites, register and attend the session to be held Wednesday, November 12, by our own Les Squires, our guru for both the asapm Members Only site and our IPMA Family site (all asapm members are eligible for both).
And now, we have the Call for Papers for the 23rd Congress, scheduled for Helsini, Finland June 15-17. The due date is October 31, 2008, so there is no time for delay. With Refresh Yourself as the theme for this event, Finland has long put on some of the best Congresses in Europe.
Finally, at the last Council of Delegates meeting in late September, Member Associations voted for the 2010 Congress to be held in South Africa. This despite a strong proposal from Turkey, whose delegation hosted a stellar Council meeting in Istanbul in March. The South Africa 2010 dates are in July, just following a World Cup finals competition--the pitch (in part) was that you can see both on one airfare!
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8. Young Crew-USA Initiative Moving Forward
The Young Crew-USA initiative continues to gain momentum. Two founding participants, Jhaymee Wilson and Edward Logan, will attend the Young Crew sessions at the Roma Congress in November. They will participate in the discussions to explore experiences with YC from other nations, and attend the Congress. Among their agenda items: to learn the Lessons from other National YC founders. Jhaymee and Edward may be teaching a few lessons themselves: Young Crew has distributed the YC-USA Action Plan to other Nations as a great model for getting started.
Our initial Young Crew USA group will be in the Washington, DC area. See the Young Crew USA website here; or, email YC-USA if you are interested in starting Young Crew in your part of the USA. Or, to find out more, download the YC-USA Action Plan from the asapm website. Before you decide on your level of interest in Young Crew, consider this: If you are older to participate, you probably know people who are in the YC target audience. We sure wish we had had the types of opportunities YC offers when we were starting out in Project Management over 40 years ago!
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9. First Woman Elected IPMA President; IPMA Pilots Registered Education Program
As part of asapm members' two memberships in one, here is the latest in IPMA news.
IPMA Elects First Woman as President
The glass ceiling has been broken, as IPMA in September voted our first woman as President. Actually it was inevitable, as both of the stellar candidates for the office are women. Brigitte Schaden, who has served two terms as IPMA Vice President of Certification, and has presided over the most-sought-after Competence-based PM certification program in the World, will serve a two-year term as President starting in January 2009. Mary McKinley, who has served as Vice President of Membership, will continue working on the IPMA Governance Improvement project, to further improve communication, transparency, and responsiveness to member needs.
IPMA 2nd-3rd Quarter Newsletter Available
The latest issue of IPMA's newsletter, combined for 2nd and 3rd Quarters, is now available on the asapm website. This issue contains a salute to the 35th anniversary of the Austria Project Management Association, a new collaboration for easing PM Certification in China. With this collaboration, certain Engineering School Masters candidates can more quickly gain their IPMA-D and in some cases, IPMA-C certifications.
IPMA Pilots Registered Education Program (IPMA-REP)
Under development by a committee of dedicated International education experts for over a year, IPMA's new Registered Education Program (IPMA-REP) was approved in September 2008. It will be piloted by Member Associations for two years.
This comprehensive program complements, rather than replaces, asapm's Competence Enabler program, because that existing offering's primarily purpose is to list PM Vendors who understand the difference between basic knowledge and PM Competence. Nor is it IPMA's copy of another organization's paid marketing program. In fact, it is targeted towards larger training companies and educational institutions that wish to verify and enhance their reputations in competence-oriented Program and Project Management.
asapm is evaluating whether the USA market is ready for the IPMA-REP. Despite significant progress in asapm's Performance Competence-oriented approach to PM, many USA PM training programs remain oriented toward passing an exam, rather than improving PM Performance. Likewise, due to reasons such as lack of understanding or funding, many organizations tend to invest only in knowledge rather than in true performance competence for their project managers.
If offered in the USA, the IPMA Registered Education Program will cover a vendor's entire PM curriculum. It will involve mapping each learning objective to our National Competence Baseline's elements, identifying the extent of coverage for each element, and describing the methods of instruction and coaching. The coaching methods are especially key because one does not achieve performance competence just in the classroom.
Participation in IPMA-REP will involve significant vendor preparation and expert curriculum review; the estimated participation price is €5,000 (currently about $6800) per year. The price will cover the effort of expert review of the curriculum and verification of the NCB-Element mapping. The price and effort required to participate in the IPMA-REP are not for the faint of heart. However, Enterprises that have the vision to pursue true PM Performance Competence will see value in vendors who are IPMA-REPs.
For asapm, implementing this program would be a logical progression from our asapm Competence Enablers program. As part of our evaluation of USA readiness, we are contacting the PM training and learning companies that we believe have the greatest potential for verified delivery of PM Performance Competence. We also suggest that Enterprise Learning Managers ask their PM Training providers to contact us. And, if you are a vendor who offers a PM curriculum that moves beyond knowledge acquisition, and prepares Program and Project Managers for increased Performance Competence, contact us.
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10. Resources: Speaker's Bureau Ramps Up; Book Reviews Stir Interest; Goff on PM Podcast
Speaker's Bureau Ramps Up
Started a little over a year ago, asapm's Speaker's Bureau has fresh demand for speakers who can Demonstrate the Competence Difference™. Ed Fern has assumed the Program Manager role, and is seeking speakers from all regions of North America.
What has caused the recent interest? What brings it to the fore now is a collection of activities that asapm is involved in as part of increasing our visibility in our market. Those include:
• Formation of Young Crew/USA, first in the Washington DC area, then spreading out to other college campuses.
• Increases in interest in PMCoPs, our face-to-face interaction between members as we move toward forming Chapters.
• Discussions about Chapter formation in several regions.
• Interactions with other professional organizations in several initiatives that have us exchanging guest speakers at
events, video- or teleconferences, and podcasts. For example, as part of our strategic alliance with Business
Development Institute International and IPMA’s similar relationship with IACCM, there are increased opportunities
to “Demonstrate the Competence Difference”.
• Preliminary plans for our next asapm Congress.
• An increase in IPMA activities that will support visibility and growth in the USA.
• Additional regional exposure as we roll out marketing for such emerging initiatives as Organizational Competence in
Project Management. Example: We are discussing Executive Breakfasts for key decision-makers in a variety of cities.
We already have volunteer speakers from different parts of North America, which helps in “localization” and reduced cost of travel. As has been the case in the past, there is no direct revenue opportunity in these efforts. You (if you choose to participate) may receive some support for travel expenses, will receive exposure for your stellar speaking style, and have the chance to wave the flag of PM Performance Competence.
If you are an accomplished speaker, and wish to participate, contact us. You may also identify others who can represent our cause. Of course, each of us needs to be able to represent asapm and IPMA.
Toward that end, the asapm Board and Ed Fern will be working to establish a series of “canned” presentations, or introductory modules, with key talking points. And of course, you have your favorite topics that we will promote as well.
To participate, email Ed Fern about the Speaker's Bureau and indicate your interest. In that email you can recommend other candidates, offer suggestions about the program and how it might operate, and identify topics for which you have a passion. Others you identify need not necessarily be asapm members, but they ought to be familiar with our points of distinction. Ed will respond with a list of the additional information we need from you.
Adventures such as this may offer multiple chances to increase your exposure, or they may not. Last year when we initially discussed it, we heard from quite a few people who had signed up for other organizations' similar ventures, and never heard anything in 2+ years. We expect this program to have more action.
Book Reviews Stir Interest
In our August Newsletter we posted PM-related book reviews by students in Dr. Gary Klein's PM classes at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. One review, of a book The Business Savvy Project Manager, with a review by Krish Soundararajan, received a rapid reply from the author, Gary Heerkens. While we felt the review was fairly even-handed and complimentary, Gary felt some of the strengths were overlooked. As often occurs, Gary is in the middle of many other ventures, but we have offered him equal time to explore some of his key points. He promises that response in one of the next two newsletters, December or February. Thanks Gary, and thanks again Krish and Dr. Klein! This type of dicussion is useful for us all!
Goff on PM Podcast Sets asapm Download Records
In the August newsletter, we mentioned our latest interview on Cornelius Fitchner's ever-popular The PM Podcast website. Episode 099 is an in-depth set of questions and answers about the Goff article, Measuring and Managing Project Quality. Here is the point of this post: Our website hits doubled (people downloading our article) in the six weeks after the interview went live on The PM Podcast. Thanks Cornelius!
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asapm: 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 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/unsubscribe information. Thanks!
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Stacy Goff, PMP
asapm Member Services