Welcome to the asapm February-March 2009 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 information is on the www.asapm.org website, and Unsubscribe information is below. This Newsletter has links to the asapm website. Enjoy!
In This Issue
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1. PrezSez: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Project Manager’s Dilemma!
2. PM Manifesto Launched: Add Your Name for Effective PM In America's Recovery
3. Everything I Know About Project Time Management I Learned in Sports Car Racing!
4. asapm Signing Alliance to Further the Cause of PM Competence and Performance
5. Update Your Events Calendar: asapm Participating in 2009 Events
6. Scheduling is a DRAG; an article by William R. Duncan and Stephen A. Devaux
7. asapm At Large, and IPMA News ...
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1. PrezSez: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Project Manager’s Dilemma!
Project Managers are frequently called upon by their project staff to make decisions regarding project work. Some requires sorting through several options to determine the optimum path to follow – and the paths not to follow. The decision process for large issues typically will be more formal than for routine issues that have considerably less impact on the project if the wrong decision is made. Consistently making the best decision requires some formal process, whether it is documented or just a mental process.
Another project area that requires decisions is problem solving, that is to select the best choice of action (or inaction) regarding a perceived challenge. Decisions in this arena are typically based on the information provided by the person tasked with doing the work. Such information may be partial, unrelated to the true problem, more than required, or biased to present an individual viewpoint. One needs the right information in the right quantity, in a timely manner, to make the best decision for the project.
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. PM Manifesto Launched: Add Your Name for Effective PM In America's Recovery
Our friends at PM Forum first broke the news about the exciting new initiative, The PM Manifesto, in the January 2009 issue of PM World Today. The PM Manifesto is a grass-roots American effort by a diverse group of long-time Program and Project Managers. Originated by Russ Archibald, David Pells, and other PM visionaries, The PM Manifesto's purpose is to build a groundswell of support for appropriate use of Program and Project Management in the US Government's pending legislation, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The Manifesto (short version) begins:
We are a community of project management experts and leaders who are experienced in delivering results. As seasoned professionals, we know that there are three key elements to achieving the successful completion of projects that all Americans want and our country desperately needs. We urge that these elements be part of all projects launched through The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:
This combination of enlightened leadership and the discipline of modern project management will allow Americans to work together efficiently to meet our country's goals.
Politically neutral, this PM Manifesto's intent is to rally Americans to demand the use of appropriate PM practices to assure that the portion of the Reinvestment Act's funds that goes to projects is well spent.
Our colleagues in this endeavor all urge you to go the website: PMManifesto.net, and "Add Yourself" to the list of signatories. Then, here are three additional steps you can take:
For those who really like to get engaged, we built this PM Manifesto site on a collaborative platform, so you can also Sign Up to participate in the discussions, blogs and chats for this initiative. But first, please Add Yourself to the list of PM Manifesto Signatories.
Editor's note: as a not-for-profit organization, asapm does not offer political advice, or lobby for political causes. The PM Manifesto initiative is not a politcal cause, and is solely the efforts of its originators. asapm's reporting of this important news does not necessarilty serve as an endorsement of it.
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3. Everything I Know About Project Time Management I Learned in Sports Car Racing!
The parallels between managing a successful project (including meeting due dates) and managing a successful sports car racing campaign are striking. In this article, we explore those parallels, and the insights to be gained even by those who have never experienced life “at speed”.
Background: for six years, from 1975 through 1981, the author raced in Sports Car Club of America’s West Coast circuit. While this was amateur racing, we competed with professional teams, who were funded by the factories. The rationale: excel on the track on the weekend, and buyers will flock to the showrooms to buy the cars the following week. And it worked!
We were occasionally successful competing with professional teams, but our greatest success came from a more level playing field—Showroom Stock, where The Great Racing Rabbit set lap records on every track it ran, and was undefeated in three years of the toughest competitions West of the Mississippi. It is from these experiences that we can distill the essence of managing project time.
This is the introduction from Stacy Goff's latest article. Click here for the whole article on the asapm website. In a new experiment, the article first appeared in the asapm Members Only area, with a prize for the first four people to reply with a comment. There was so much interest so quickly that we doubled the number of awards. We have added the winning responses to the end of the article. If you wish to add your own reply, the prizes are all gone, but you may contact us with your comments on the article; or, it is also still posted and open for comments at the Members Only section.
If you would like to publish an article, either for comments in the asapm Members Only area or for the general asapm PM Practice Articles section, contact us!
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4. asapm Signing Alliance to Further the Cause of PM Competence and Performance
In our continuing efforts to spread the word about PM Performance Competence, asapm is signing Alliances with other PM-related Not-for-profit organizations. Our latest activity is an outcome of our Alliance with Business Development Institute International. That Alliance has already resulted in our appearance and involvement in a handful of Conferences and Congresses that we otherwise would have missed.
Our most-recent Alliance is a mega-signing: the new International Business Development Council (IBDC) includes Business Development Institute International, Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP®), Association for Strategic Planning (ASP), Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), National Contract Management Association (NCMA), International Association of Contract and Commercial Management (IACCM), and asapm.
Among our shared resources are articles, speakers from our respective Speakers Bureaus, publicizing, presenting and displaying or staffing booths at each others' Conferences and Congresses, website link-sharing, and expert contributions to each others' Bodies of Knowledge and Competence Baselines. And that is just the start. Among the benefits for asapm is a much broader range of exposure to and interaction with talented professionals who are usually upstream from the beginning point of many projects--and who represent the often-best timing for project risk mitigation. Of course, the benefits for our alliance partners include more competent performances by project teams, base on our Performance Competence-Based certification and other Performance Development initiatives.
Because many of the Alliance organizations are International exposure, we are also involving IPMA in this initiative; some of the earliest results will be the events asapm will be participating in starting immediately. We show these on the front page of our website with an asterisk (*). And, you will see other additions to our website very soon. Stay tuned!
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5. Update Your Events Calendar: asapm Participating in 2009 Events
As part of the above-mentioned Alliance, we have updated our must-see events on the asapm website. As of February, these are the PM-related events you should have on your calendar; the list includes IPMA events, and those of our favorite public event sponsors. Those with an asterisk (*) will have asapm involvement.
IPMA Expert Seminar, 12-13 February 2009, Zurich*
ASP Annual Conference,
Feb 22-24, San Diego, CA
NCMA World Congress,
April 5-8. Long Beach, CA*
SCIP Annual Conference,
April 21-24, Chicago, IL
IACCM Americas Conference, April 22-24, Orlando, FL*
ProjectSummit & BA World, April 27-30, King of Prussia, PA
APMP International Conference, June 9-12, Chandler, AZ*
IPMA 23rd World Congress, 15-17 June 2009,
Helsinki Finland*
ProjectWorld® & WCBA,
June 23-25, Baltimore MD
Project Risk Symposium 2009, June 23-25, La Jolla, CA
3rd Annual UT Dallas Project Management Symposium, August 13-14, 2009*
ASAE International Conference, Aug. 15-18, Toronto
ProjectSummit & BA World, October 19 -22, Boston MA
Business Development Institute International: Leadership Conference November, Virginia*
ProjectSummit & BA World, November 16-19 Rosemont IL
ProjectWorld® & WCBA,
November 17-20 at the Disneyland® Hotel, CA
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6. Scheduling is a DRAG; an article by William R. Duncan and Stephen A. Devaux
Most organizations have realized that project management is important. Most organizations even understand why it is important — since projects are how they implement strategy, good project management is necessary to survive; better project management is necessary to thrive and prosper. And this is true in both the public and private sectors.
One of the key indicators of the existence of “better project management” is schedule performance. A competent organization will be delivering the vast majority of their projects on or ahead of the project’s committed date.
Yet few organizations come close to this goal. One of the key reasons is that their scheduling processes are totally inadequate — they are focused on minimizing the likelihood of finishing late rather than on maximizing the likelihood of finishing early. Better project management does not mean making your schedules longer. Better project management means making your projects shorter.
This is the intro to another of William Duncan's articles--this time with the able assistance of Stephen Devaux. We know they've been working on it for several years, and it was finally posted at Chief Project Officer (recently acquired). Now the article is also posted at their acquirer, Projects At Work. And. you can read it here.
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7. asapm At Large, and IPMA News ...
PM Cert Exams and Assessment Interviews around the USA
One piece of information that has been missing from the Certification section is a list of Certification Exams (for IPMA-D) and Certification Assessments (for IPMA-C and B). That is now changing. We have scheduled an IPMA-D exam for Colorado Springs, CO, headquarters of asapm, for June 6, 2009. We have also scheduled Assessment Interviews for Project Manager (IPMA-C) and for Senior Project Manager (IPMA-B) for August 8, also in Colorado Springs, CO.
Watch the Certification section of our website for additional 2009 dates and locations; we are planning sessions in each part of the USA throughout 2009, and will post and announce them as we set them up.
asapm Speakers Bureau
The asapm Speakers Bureau now has a list of speakers from each part of the country, and to some extent, around the world. We are compiling names, specialty topics, and other information; we will be making this available when the information is more complete. Ed Fern is the PM for this effort, and if you did not have a chance to respond when we first announced it, you may contact him to add your name. He can let you know what information he needs. One of the drivers of this initiative is the above-announced Alliance Agreement with other Not-for-profit organizations, and we see more opportunities coming this year and next. contact us!
aPRO Project Team Formed During the last month we Chartered a secret project and formed the team to finalize, package and trial a new asapm product and service. It is directly related to our consistent theme, Performance Competence, and has been, until now, one of the many intriguing and unique efforts of William Duncan. We can't tell you more about it yet, but if you are a marketer, a writer, or an in-house or outside PM consultant with Enterprise or Government experience, and want to work your tail off on this team, contact us. We expect to release aPRO in the second half of this year. By the way, we have several other products, that other teams are currently working on, if you are they type of "can do" PM who likes to roll up your sleeves and work for moral gratification.
asapm Elections
The 2009 asapm Elections are in June; this year we have three offices opening, President, Director of Education, and Director of Standards. We suggest that you serve on a committee to "get the hang" of asapm volunteer work; there is still time to do so before applying or being nominated for one of this year's opening positions. 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, or have questions, please contact Lew.
IPMA News
As part of asapm members' two memberships in one, here is the latest in IPMA news. The 4th Quarter Newsletter is now available; among its features is a recap of asapm member Edward Logan's selection as International Young Project Manager. Congratulations again, Edward!
Among other IPMA News items, time is running out for you to register and attend the IPMA Expert Seminar, 12-13 February 2009, Zurich. And, we are past the Presentations submission date for the IPMA 23rd World Congress, 15-17 June 2009, Helsinki Finland, but there is still time for you to register and attend.
IPMA Journal: We have turned in our IPMA Journal subscriptions for 2009. If you missed the chance to get yours in, we can add you to the quarterly updates that we send in for new members. The links for payment are in the asapm Members Only section of the website.
Finally, as reported in our last newsletter, Dr. Frank Anbari and Dr. Young Hoon Kwak were recipients of the 2008 IPMA Research Award. Now it's your turn: The call for applications for the IPMA Research Awards 2009 can be found here.
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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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