CMCS Jordan

What is Project Control?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 07:51:00 +0000

The term control has several meanings. Those new to project management are initially dismayed by the use of the term “control,” because they mistakenly equate it with the concept of authority. In the world of project management, control has very little to do with telling people what to do, dictating their actions or thoughts, or trying to force them to behave in a certain way— all of which are common interpretations of control. In project management, the term “control” is much more analogous to steering a ship. It’s about continually making course adjustments with one main objective in mind—bringing the ship into safe harbor, as promised at the start of the voyage. And the successful project voyage includes identifying a specific destination, carefully charting a course to get there, evaluating your location throughout the voyage, and keeping a watchful eye on what lies ahead.

The Objective of Project Control

Fledgling project managers (and some experienced ones!) often make the same mistake when trying to keep control of their projects. They get wrapped up in the here and now—the measurement and evaluation of their immediate situation—to the exclusion of everything else. They calculate their current position and how far off course they are. That’s what they report to management and promise to fix. Their entire focus consists of staying on the line they’ve drawn from the beginning to end of the project. Unfortunately, controlling the destiny of your project is not that simple.

As we’ll see, evaluating where you are in terms of where you’re supposed to be is certainly part of the overall control and “getting back on track” is almost always a sound strategy. But your primary mission is to deliver what you’ve promised, so you should think of “maintaining control” in terms of minimizing the distance between where you end up and where you said you’d end up.

This means that overall project control requires an eye on the future, as this formula shows:

Calculated Present Variance + Estimated Future Variance = Final Project Variance

Maintaining proper control really requires that you consider three parameters: (a) where you are, compared with where you’re supposed to be; (b) what lies ahead that can affect you; and (c) where you’re going to end up, compared with where you said you would end up. Bear in mind that (a) and (b) are used primarily as internal control functions(although you may choose to report them outside the team). They’re used for evaluating (c). At the risk of being repetitive, your primary focus should always be on evaluating where you think you’re going to end up.

There are two reasons for this.

First, you must take intelligent and meaningful corrective action with the end point in mind. Guiding the ship must include more than just steering it back on course; it must also include recognizing that there’s an object up ahead that you’re going to have to steer around or winds around the upcoming point of land that have kicked up since you started your voyage. The future will always be different than expected at the outset of the project. Assumptions will be revised, operating conditions will change, and new things will be thrown in your path. Sometimes, actions you take now must compensate for future sources of variance as well as variances created though past performance.

The second reason you need to focus on the end point pertains to management reporting. In most cases, what will probably interest them most is a prediction of where you think you’re going to end up: this is the type of information they need to run the business. Being able to report to your management that you’re two weeks behind schedule or $10,000 over budget right now may or may not be of value to them. Reporting that you expect the project to be completed three weeks late or $15,000 over budget is much more likely to be of value.

What Are You Actually Controlling?

At this point, you’re probably saying, “OK, so I should be focused on the end point of the project and I should be trying to ‘get back on track’ and minimize variances. But the end point of what? Get back on what track? And what kind of variance are we talking about?” All good questions.

The answers to these questions will take us back to the discussion in Chapter 2 about the dimensions of project success. The most fundamental measure of project success relates to meeting the agreed-upon targets in each of these dimensions. These are the targets that you promised to meet at the beginning of the project; these are the targets that you should focus on controlling.

Two of the targets pertain to the consumption of resources:

Schedule: Was the project completed on time? (How long did we take?)
Cost: Did the project come in at cost? (How much did we spend?)

The other two targets are tied to the deliverables of the project:

Functionality: Do project deliverables have the expected capability? (What can they do?)
Quality: Do the deliverables perform as well as promised? (How well can they do it?)

As far as many organizational managers are concerned, the ideal end point occurs when a project meets these four targets exactly as promised. Although “beating targets” is often characterized as desirable, hitting targets provides a level of predictability that most organizational managers value. The first two targets (schedule and cost) often get the most attention; hence the very common phrase “controlling cost and schedule.”

5 Tips For Faster Scheduling

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 08:41:00 +0000

Some PMs find project scheduling to be good fun. It’s exciting to see all those tasks come together into one structured whole. The project appears before your very eyes and suddenly the screen shows a complete initiative, with everything and everyone aligned to deliver a meaningful business benefit. Plus there is something satisfying about sorting out over-allocation for resources and dealing with task conflicts. When the schedule is done, it’s a work of art.

What isn’t fun, is the time it takes to develop that beautiful project schedule. Here are some tricks to help you produce a schedule faster.

1. Work Together

You can’t put the schedule together by yourself although I have tried! That was a long time ago, before I realized the value in having input from others in the project team. Everyone on the team will have a different take on the tasks involved to get the work done, and as they see it from a slightly different angle, with a focus on their own work, they will identify the tasks that they need to do that you wouldn’t be able to see. Input from subject matter experts is invaluable and will save you loads of time going back and forth between team members for information.

You can hold a project scheduling workshop and brainstorm all the tasks together, which is a fast way to get the whole schedule produced in just a couple of days. You could never do it that quickly if you worked alone.

2. Work Online

Storing your project schedule online, and working on it online, means that you can update it or add new tasks from wherever you are. Use a mobile app to access your schedule from your smartphone or tablet and you’ll be able to manage your project from anywhere. That saves you time because you can make changes as they are discussed. If you didn’t do that, you’d have to write down the activity, try to remember the details, make the change later, go back to the person who suggested the change and that all takes time.

If you can access your project schedule online you can amend your plan with the relevant resource alongside you and make and approve the changes in real time.

3. Set Deadlines

Once you’ve put together your initial view of your project schedule, you’ll want your team members to cast their eye over it and ratify that you’ve understood everything correctly. And you want this activity to be fast.

Set a deadline: tell them that you need to hear back by a certain date. If you don’t, they won’t have any clue about your personal desire to get the schedule finished promptly and they won’t have any motivation to respond to you. A deadline sets a clear expectation about when they need to respond by, and you can chase them if they need reminding.

In fact, this goes for all plan reviews and the majority of communications with your team members! If you need their input and not having it is stopping you from doing something else or finishing a task, make sure they know when you are expecting a response. Then you can all plan your work accordingly.

4. Share Access

The project schedule isn’t something that the project manager should keep private. Everyone on the team (and anyone else appropriate) should have access to the schedule so that they can see the work coming up and what the overall picture looks like. Make sure that you upload your project schedule to an online tool so that everyone can access it.

You may not want them to be able to make changes. If you are anything like me, you’ll want to be the custodian of the schedule, and aside from status updates, want to be the one who adds in new tasks, deletes tasks, updates it to accommodate approved changes and so on. You can set access permissions on the system so that your team mates only have the right to make certain changes, so if you are worried (or a control freak like me) then get these set up correctly from the beginning.

5. Schedule Updates

One of the most time-consuming scheduling jobs has to be updating the schedule when it changes. It’s great if your system automatically pulls activity logs and timesheet data and makes some of those changes for you, but even if that does happen you’ll still have to add and delete tasks and tweak the timeframes and resource allocations based on the dynamic project situation.

So you want to make that overhead as fast as possible.

The best way that I have found to do this is to make time in the diary each week. I put aside an hour on a Friday to update my plans and the project schedule. It barely takes any time, but if I leave it and then do a major update once a month it’s a huge job. Save yourself a lot of time by making small, incremental changes as they happen or at least once a week, as this is a far faster way of managing your schedule than doing a big update when you remember or have a report to produce!

Project scheduling used to take a long time, especially in the days where it took ages to schedule meetings with everyone, and clunky tools made it hard to produce project plans, let alone update them regularly and share them with everyone. That’s changed now. The ways we work together are different and the tools at our disposal mean that scheduling is a joy! These tips will help you get that project schedule done even faster

هل يختلف امتداد حياة المشروع عن دورة حياة المشروع؟

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 12:49:00 +0000

خلال هذه التدوينة سوف نقوم بالقاء الضوء على الخلاف الأول في التعريف بين امتداد حياة المشروع Project Life Span ودورة حياة المشروع Project Life Cycle.

1) تسليط الضوء

نرجو قراءة النقاط الواردة أدناه, ومحاولة الاجابة على الأسئلة.

في مشروع معيّن (ليس مهمة أو مشروع صغير) كيف كنت تقوم بانجاز عمليات البدء بالمشروع بحسب ما ينص عليه كتاب PMBOK® والتي تقوم باصداره منظمة PMI؟
ماذا بالنسبة الى عمليات التخطيط, الاغلاق أو أي من العمليات الأخرى؟
ما هو عدد البرامج أو الخطط التي نجدها خلال المشروع ؟
هل الحديث عن انجاز عمليات التنفيذ خلال مرحلة التحضير أو البدء بالمشروع له أثر ومعنى هنا؟
ماذا بالنسبة الى التخطيط لمرحلة التخطيط؟ هل لها من أثر أو معنى أيضا”؟
هل هناك ميثاق واحد للمشروع؟

امتداد حياة المشروع أو دورة حياة المشروع؟

أي من هذه المصطلحات هو الأصح؟

اننا في الواقع وبكلّ صراحة, لا نعلم أيهما الأصح.

خلال الفترة الأخيرة, قمنا بمناقشة هذا الموضوع على أحد المجموعات التي تعنى بادارة المشاريع على LinkedIn وفي نهاية النقاش, اتفقنا على أن نختلف وهذا ما يحصل في العادة على هكذ مجموعات اذ يبقى هناك خلاف في الرأي بين المتحاورين, وربما يجب أن تبقى هذه الحالة سائدة لأنه ليس بالضرورة أن يتحدث الجميع اللغة نفسها.

دورة حياة المشروع Project Life Cycle

البعض يناقش ويجادل حول أن مصطلح دورة حياة المشروع Project Life Cycle ملائم ومناسب اكثر ويعود أساس هذا المبدأ الى أنه وبناء على أن جميع العمليات على المشروع هي نفسها وتتكرر من مشروع الى آخر فانه وعند الانتهاء من مشروع يمكننا البدء بآخر. اضافة الى أن المجموعة نفسها تحاول تفسير كلمة Life Cycle على أنها تعني جميع مراحل التطوير. ولكننا سنجد هنا بعض التعريفات ومن مراجع مختلفة:

ENCARTA مثلا” يقوم بتعريف Life Cycle على أنها: “عملية كاملة من التغيير والتطوير خلال حياة شخص ما أو خلال العمر الإنتاجي للشيء مثل منظمة أو مؤسسة، أو منتج.”
تعريف آخر من المرجع نفسه “ENCARTA” وهو “مراحل تطور الكائن الحي”.
أما أكسفورد أونلاين فيقدم لنا تعريف آخر وهو: “سلسلة من التغييرات في حياة الكائن الحي بما في ذلك الاستنساخ”.
وبستر (Webster) أونلاين يعطي تعريف آخر, يعد قريبا” بعض الشيء الى تعريف ENCARTA وهو أنه”سلسلة من المراحل التي من خلالها يمرّ شيئا معينا” (كالفرد، الثقافة، أو أي منتج) خلال ديمومته”.

وباختصار فان المقاربة بين حياة المشروع والحياة الانسانية هي السبب الرئيسي لاعتماد هذا المصطلح.

امتداد حياة المشروع

أما البعض الآخر فانه يعتبر أنه وبناء على أن عمليات ادارة المشروع تتكرر طيلة حياة المشروع, لذلك فانه من الممكن اعتبار أن تعبير “امتداد حياة المشروع” مناسب وممكن اعتماده. من ناحية أخرى, فانه بناء على أن المشروع لا يتكرر فانه بالامكان اعتبار مصطلح امتداد حياة المشروع والذي هو فترة من الزمن من الفكرة حتى الاغلاق هو المصطلح الأفضل.

ان القاموس يعطينا تعريف لكلمة امتداد (Span) على أنها المدة, الوقت أو الفترة.
ومرّة أخرى من قاموس وبستر (Webster) أونلاين الذي يعطي كلمة Span تعريف على أنها: حد، امتداد، الوصول إلى، أو الامتداد بين حدود اثنين. بالاضافة الى مساحة محدودة (في الوقت) وخاصة حياة الفرد, أو الامتداد كدعائم كما هي الحال بالنسبة الى الجسر.

هل يشترط بمدير المشروع أن يكون مهندساً؟

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 14:36:00 +0000

مقدمة

تأتي هذه المقالة بعد العديد من الآراء والحالات التي تم مشاهدتها في منطقتنا من خلال تواصلنا وعملنا مع العديد من المنظمات في القطاعين العام والخاص، بحيث كان هناك شبه اجماع على ضرورة أن يكون مدير المشروع من حملة شهادة الهندسة. كما وأننا نجد هذه الحالة على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي حيث تقوم العديد من المنظمات بوضع عروض للعمل وتطلب مدراء مشاريع يحملون شهادة في الهندسة.

مدى وجود ادارة المشاريع في مناهج دراسة الهندسة

ان مناهج دراسة الهندسة في الجامعات أقله في منطقتنا، لا تتعدى أنها تحتوي على مادة أو مادتين تتعلّق بادارة المشاريع. وان جميع هذه المواد تُعنى بالتخطيط أو بادارة الجدول الزمني للمشروع سواء من خلال استخدام برامج وتطبيقات معينة أو من خلال الشرح النظري لها. فهل من الممكن أن تكون هذه المادتين كافيتين لأي مهندس في ادارة مشروع معيّن؟

مدير المشروع بالصدفة

اننا في سوكاد نقوم باعطاء هذا التعريف لمدراء المشاريع الذين لا يملكون خبرة في ادارة المشاريع والذين يشغلون مناصب مدراء مشاريع لأي سبب من الأسباب أو الظروف. ومن الممكن أن يكون مدراء المشاريع هؤلاء من المهندسين أو غيرهم من حملة الشهادات المختلفة.

فاذا اعتبرنا أن هناك مدير مشروع بالصدفة قد عمل في هذا المنصب لمدة سنتين وأصبح يملك خبرة في هذا المجال وهو لا يملك شهادة في الهندسة وأن هناك بالمقابل مهندساً من الخريجين الجدد، فهل من الممكن أن نقوم باختيار المهندس للعمل بمنصب مدير مشروع باعتباره أفضل من سواه بحيث أنه يحمل شهادة في الهندسة؟

العمل الفعلي لمدير المشروع

ان ادارة المشاريع ليست كما يفهمها البعض بأنها ترتكز فقط على تنفيذ المشروع وبالتالي فانه وحيث أن التنفيذ في المشاريع الانشائية هو عبارة عن البناء فاننا بحاجة الى مدير مشروع يحمل شهادة في الهندسة المدنية، أو أن تنفيذ المشاريع المتعلقة بالمصانع والمعامل كتركيب الآلات وغيرها فاننا بحاجة الى مهندس متخصص في الهندسة الميكانيكية.

المشكلة الكبرى هي في عدم معرفة اين يبدأ المشروع…

بحسب منظمة PMI® فان المشروع يبدأ عند وثيقة التصريح له. أما بحسب سوكاد فان المشروع يبدأ منذ الفكرة. في كلا الحالتين فان هناك مراحل متعددة يمر بها المشروع:

من دراسة فكرة المشروع
الى دراسة الجدوى الاقتصادية
وضع خطة ادارة المشروع
بالاضافة الى وضع الخطة التفصيلية له

ان جميع المراحل الواردة أعلاه تأتي قبل مرحلة تنفيذ المشروع وهي في معظمها مراحل دراسات فقط ولا تتطلب أي عمل تنفيذي. فهل نحن هنا أيضاً بحاجة الى مهندس كي يقوم بهذه الدراسات وتنفيذ هذه المهام؟

بعد هذه المراحل السابقة، تأتي مرحلة التنفيذ وهنا تأتي الحاجة الى بعض الخبرات الهندسية وخاصة أن هذه المرحلة تعتمد على الأعمال التطبيقية والفعلية على أرض الواقع.

ولكن وبعد مرحلة التنفيذ تأتي مراحل أخرى من التسليم الى تدوين الدروس المستقاة وغيرها وهنا أيضاً نجد أنه بامكان أي شخص ومهما كانت الشهادة الجانعية التي يحملها أن يقوم بهذه الأعمال.

في النهاية

ان مهمة مدير المشروع الأساسية هي كيفية ادارة المشروع بطريقة سليمة. وان من ضمن ادارة المشروع تأتي ادارة فريق العمل لذلك لا بد لمدير المشروع أن يتمتع بصفات القيادة، وأن يقوم بادارة فريق العمل والذي من المفترض أن يكون من المهندسين وغيرهم من أصحاب الاختصاص. بالاضافة الى توكيل المهام الى اعضاء الفريق بناء على اختصاص كل منهم. ويبقى دور مدير المشروع هو في التأكيد على أن المشروع يسير بناء للأهداف الموضوعة له وذلك من خلال مقارنة الخطة بعملية التنفيذ وبناء على التقارير التي يقوم برفعها فريق العمل اليه.

How Your Project Management Knowledge Can Increase Your Business Value

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 09:53:00 +0000

Many organizations that are involved in managing projects fails to capture the ongoing knowledge gained from implementing the different project management processes during the project life cycle. They use daily different document templates, workflows, reports and dashboards to manage their projects that are not formally documented to enable other projects to make use and benefit from this wasted knowledge.

You can turn this project management knowledge into an asset that your company can share across all of their projects, current and future. It is an asset that will reduce your company chances to fail in delivering successful projects. Your company can document this knowledge in a standard operating procedures manual to attain the international certification of ISO

10006:2009 which provides the Guidelines for Quality Management in Projects. A certification

that will differentiate your company from the competition.

FAST TRACK YOUR PROJECT MANAGEMENT

PROCEDURES IN THREE-STEPS USING REVERSE ENGINEERING

Regardless what project management procedures manual you want to have, we all understand the importance of fulfilling the needs of what senior stakeholders want to know about projects being executed. They would usually want dashboards that will summarize projects key performance information to enable them to take the right decisions and actions. The level of details of those dashboards do vary and depend on the role of the stakeholder and how projects could affect they are responsible for. Dashboards could be at enterprise, business unit or portfolio, program, project, contract and even project management process level. Dashboards enable stakeholders to analyze performance trends and identify exceptions that could need their immediate attention.

Those dashboards depend on data captured from projects on daily basis. This data must be aligned with project management best practices. The Project Management Institute (PMI)

Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) requires implement processes that will enable managing project scope, schedule, resources, cost, quality, safety, human resources, communications and documents, risks, procurement, contracts

administration, environment, financial, claims among others. The data will be organized, grouped, filtered and sorted in a format that the stakeholders can better understand what they need to focus on. Those reports and logs enable stakeholders to understand the source for performance exceptions which were flagged in the dashboard.

The reports and logs are documents are used to capture the daily, weekly and monthly generated project records that could be produced by the different project stakeholders and team members. Those records are usually captured using predefined document templates that have sections to be completed by each one who has a role in completing the information needed for each specific record. The information within each document template will be provided in predefined workflow steps that are aligned with the project’s contractual requirements. For most of the captured records, there will be a need to attach supportive documents, drawings, pictures among others.

ANALYZE AND VISUALIZE YOUR PROJECTS PERFORMANCE USING DASHBOARDS

PMWeb enables you to visualize a “Single Version of the Truth” of all project information,

communications and documents using the world leading Business Intelligence tool to

assess performance trends, trigger actions, resolve issues, make sound decisions and manage stakeholders expectations. Dashboards can also be integrated with Google Maps to provide better visibility of projects performance at executive level.

PMWeb dashboards enables visualizing key performance information at four levels; project

management process, project, program and enterprise to:

• help you determine whether your project performance objectives are being achieved or not and prompt you to take necessary actions to rectify before causing project failure.

• help in comparing projects performance and leveraging knowledge and best practices among projects.

• help stakeholders to have a common language to use when it comes to reporting projects, programs and portfolios performance.

• help in creating performance success criteria that can be used for future projects.

DICE, SLICE, ANALYZE AND REPORT YOUR PROJECT INFORMATION

PMWeb Business Intelligence (BI) reporting allows you to dice, slice, analyze and report your project information in any format that

you desire. Reports can be in tabular, graphical or a combination of both. Project information can be grouped, filtered and sorted in any format that would help you best in making use of this valuable information. This information can be aggregated using common data fields to provide a summary report of important project information. The reports can also show colored indicators based on data captured in each record. For example, the risk register report will show the risk exposure scoring for identified risk before and after mitigation. This scoring can be showed as red for high, yellow for moderate and green for low.

CAPTURE, SHARE AND ARCHIVE ALL PROJECTS INFORMATION

PMWeb has most of the document templates needed to manage projects predefined to help organizations to jump start their project management implementation. PMWeb Custom Form Builder allows creating all additional project management process or even replace what is already predefined. Those document templates

allow capturing the details of all project information needed to govern the project management processes as well as to report the performance and health of projects.

PMWeb document templates allows having fields for WBS to ensure that documents are aligned with the relevant project scope and Schedule Activity to determine the approval need date for the document to avoid delays. PMWeb also allows capturing all types of cost and financial details. Checklists can be incorporated to document templates to ensure integrity of captured data. PMWeb allows linking one document template to another as well as version control for cost estimate, budget, drawings among others.

PMWeb comes with its own document management repository to store all type of documents, CAD, PDF, XLS, Word among others as well as attach them to document templates. PMWeb allows multiple document versions. PMWeb allows storing all types of project files.

PMWeb workflow allows mapping the steps for submitting, reviewing and approving the document template. PMWeb workflow comes with many advanced features and functions to meet every possible scenario of document collaboration needs such as exceptions, escalations, conditions, delegation, replacement among others. PMWeb field security is used to limit access for each field in the template depending the assigned security rights.

PMWEB COLLABORATIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOLUTION FUNCTIONS AND FEATURES

• Zero Foot Print to allow accessing PMWeb documents, forms, reports and dashboards using any browser or device

• Private and public (SaaS) cloud hosting to allow accessing PMWeb documents, forms, reports and dashboards from

anywhere and anytime

• Can read Oracle Primavera P6 and MS Project schedule data

• Multi-language support including Arabic language

• Multi-currency support

• Google Maps built-in integration

• Interface with Construction Cameras

• Interface with ESRI GIS

• Third Party integrations including Oracle Financials, JD Edwards, SAP, MS Dynamics among others

THE CMCS OFFERING

CMCS offering include selling PMWeb software licenses, annual maintenance and technical support renewal, first line technical support, implementation and configuration, certified training, customized training and extended support through multi-level service level agreements (SLA). In addition, CMCS can also assist clients in selecting the Data Center to host PMWeb. In collaboration with third party partners, CMCS also offers software integration with other applications such as ERP, GIS and others.

Dubai Internet City, Dubai, UAE Offices In U

CMCS training on constructin PMO for all industries P865 in Dubai

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 09:36:00 +0000

P865 Constructing the Project Management Office (PMO) for the
Engineering & Construction Industry

Overview

The Constructing the Project Management Office (PMO) Course is designed for Operation
Managers, Project Managers and PMO’s alike. The course covers the type of PMOs an
organization can build, how to build it and how to operate the PMO.

Learning Outcome
 How to select the PMO that best suits your organization needs
 How to build the PMO
 How to build the PMO policies and procedures
 How to assign responsibilities for operating the PMO
 How to build a Project Management Information System (PMIS) to support the PMO
operations
 How to have the PMO the capture project delivery knowledge

Who Should Attend
Anyone involved in Project Management who wants to sharpen his skills in managing a project
portfolio. Those who want to bring added value to his organization by delivering a consistent
project management message along with the right projects; on time, every time.

In What Industries
Government, Real Estate Development, Aerospace, Defense, Engineering and Construction,
Manufacturing and Industrial, Oil and Gas, Petrochemical, Power and Water Utility Plants,
Education and Training, Retail, Financial Services, Information Technology, Telecommunication,
Automotive, Media Production, E-Business Enablers, Marketing and Sales, Pharmaceuticals,
Environmental Management, Hospitality Management, Shipbuilding and Repair Yards.

About The Instructor
Bassam Samman PMP, EVP, PSP, GPM is CMCS CEO and Founder.
Bassam holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Kuwait
University and a Masters Degree in Engineering and Administration
from George Washington University. He is currently pursuing a PhD
at the University of Salford, UK. He is a certified Project Management
Professional (PMP), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional
(PSP), Green Project Management (GPM) and Earned Value
Professional (EVP). He is thoroughly experienced in complete Project
Management including project management control systems,
computerized PCS Software, risk analysis, site management, claims
analysis and prevention and alternative dispute resolution. He has 30
years experience in Project Management Consultancy.

Course Outline
Day One
Introduction
The standards for managing projects, programs and portfolios
The Crucial Role of Projects in Achieving A Company Strategic Objectives
Organizational Impacts of Adapting Project Management
What Is The Project Management Office (PMO)?
How to Build the PMO?
Stage 1 – Orientation and Exploring Client’s Facilities and Projects
Stage 2 – Data Collection
Stage 3 – Organization Project Management Capabilities Assessment

Case Study # 1: PMO Assessment for a Public Sector Entity in the MENA Region
Case Study # 2: Technical Audit Assignment for a Major Real Estate Developer

Day Two
How to Build the PMO?
Stage 4 - Developing the PMO
Case Study # 3: PMO at a Capital Investment Company
Case Study # 4: Building Information Modeling (BIM) Deliverables
Case Study # 5: Project Life Cycle Deliverables for a Project Management Firm
Case Study # 6: Managing the Client Project Gateway Review Process
Case Study # 7: Project Management Processes for a Public Sector Real Estate Developer
Case Study # 8: Project Life Cycle Project Management Processes for a Project Management Firm

Day Three
How to Build the PMO?
Stage 5 - Mapping Project Management Processes into the Project Portfolio Management
(PPM) System
 Project Control System Modules
 How The PPM Will Be Used In Mapping All Project Management Processes
 How Can PPM Helps To Visualize a “Single Version of the Truth” Of All Project
Management Processes Across all Projects
Stage 6 - Implementing Project Management Training for Staff
Case Study # 9: Building the Project Portfolio Management Information System (PPMIS) for a
Private Real Estate Developer
Case Study # 10: Automating the Risk Management Identification, Assessment and Mitigation
Processes for an EPC Contractor
Case Study # 11: Establishing the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for a Government Entity
Case Study # 12: Establishing the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for a Real Estate Developer

Certificate
A certificate of completion will be issued to those who attend and complete the program. The
course is registered with PMI and those who complete the course will earn 21 PDU’s.

Business Case for Constructing and Operating a PMO Solution for a Private Real Estate
Developer
Course Fee
The rate per delegate is US $ 2,200. The course is inclusive of instruction, training material Hard
copy, Certificate of Attendance, refreshments and lunch.

Collaboration, Management and Control Solutions (CMCS)

OFC: (+9714) 365-4854 | FAX: (+9714) 369-7518 | EMAIL: training@cmcs-mena.com

www.CMCS.co

PO Box 23033 Dubai

Star Holding Building, Suite 101, Dubai Internet City, Dubai, UAE

PMP Training with Saraya Aqaba

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 08:25:00 +0000

Project Managers' Sizes!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 15:21:00 +0000

At first, a PM to me meant a respectful person, full of experience and knowledge,

who knows what s/he does and knows that his/her job is to deliver successful projects as much

as to help people and guide them.

To my surprise “as usual”, I found out that there are different types of PMs in the world… In other words, different sizes of PMs!
Let me introduce to you two project managers’ sizes and my stories with them. Mini PM referred to as Miss Mini and Mighty PM referred to as Mr. Mighty…

Mini PM

When I first met her, I tried to convince myself that she definitely looks much younger then her real age.
Anyways… for her, a planning activity was equivalent to and maybe easier than preparing for a picnic or a weekend trip with friends and family!

She was assigned a very big strategic project, and her role was to create the high level project plan for all teams and to coordinate with them to deliver the big project on time "of course". I was managing the software part of the project. She created the plan and sent it to us for review (thanks God she did so!) I reviewed the plan and I found many illogical points and decided to take the risk of discussing this with her! Here we go…
Me: Hi Mini, how are you?
Miss Mini: Hi Mena
Me: I reviewed the plan, and I think some points need clarification
Miss Mini: Go on
Me: Well… I found there are some missing dependencies
Miss Mini: No problem, add them, this is just a plan
Me (thinking): This is just a plan! Per my understanding a plan is a plan, not just a plan!
Me: Excuse me, what does this mean please?
Miss Mini: Nothing, a plan is a collection of assumptions and I assumed that you would start on day X and finish on day Y. That’s it, isn’t this what is planning all about?
Me to Myself: There must be something wrong!
Me: Well, I understand that there should be estimates first from each team based on which we assign people and set durations
Miss Mini: Look Mena… Planning a project is like preparing for a picnic with your friends
Me (visualizing) a blue sky, nice birds flying and flowers of different colors (hearing) soft music mixed with a soft sound of water
Me (thinking): Wake up… This is a project… Oh my God!! This is too much!
Me: Do you know that missing dependencies and such assumptions are putting all of us under a very high risk of missing the deadline?
Miss Mini: Oh! Really! Well… Make the changes you see, and let’s try not to impact the delivery date
Me (thinking): Why bother? It’s just a trip, nothing important by any means!
Me: Ok, thanks Mini. Have a good day!
Miss Mini: You too ☺

I was wondering about her age again after this conversation, and I learned she was a fresh grad!
After years of software development, team leading and 4 years of project management, I learned that a project is just like a picnic! Well, I just discovered that I was in KG1 for PMs!
I think this was not her fault rather than the person who put her in such a position and assigned her such responsibilities, she was really trying her best.

Mighty PM

On the other side, there are old PMs who have issues with their projects and their teams. I met another PM who due to some re-org issues was assigned as an in-between management layer between my manager and me. I never knew why they did so, it just happened… Let’s meet Mr. Mighty "the great"…

As a PM, I was expected to meet with my teams and clients, plan, follow up, track and finally report to my manager without getting him involved in my daily activities, this is how I was working since I started project management, which by this time was five years ago. I suddenly found Mr. Mighty with me. At first, I welcomed him; it’s always useful to learn from other people’s experience specially when they come from a different environment.

He attended our team’s weekly status meeting. And to the whole team’s surprise, he interfered in a very strange way… Someone, from our perspective who has never dealt with teams or even with people…
Mr. Mighty: I’m here to fix everything you do because you don’t know your work. I’m here to teach you
This was how he started the meeting!! I didn’t want to interfere in front of my team, as he was supposed to be kind of a manager for me. But, the team did it on my behalf ☺ They taught him how to talk to others and how to respect them.

Afterwards, he was doing really strange things… Amongst them, he was spying on the team and inspecting their screens… They were frustrated and they were not able to work with this style of management of course, and they kept inquiring about his role and I was referring them to my manager for this. And I was just monitoring him doing nothing!

One day, I remember a provocative conversation between Mr. Mighty and me…
Mr. Mighty: How do you manage your team?
Me: I don’t understand, what do you mean?
Mr. Mighty (humbly speaking!): Well, there are two styles to manage teams… The British style and the American style
Me: Huh!
Mr. Mighty: In the British style, the PM acts as an English Lord… He moves in the field to inspect workers while on his horse and pushes them to work hard. The American style, is like a cool guy, laughing with everybody and making friendships with them to get things done
Me (just staring and visualizing slaves and lashes in my head))
Mr. Mighty: Which style do you use?
Me: Well… I use my style!

Next day, I went to my manager and I told him that I’m overloaded with work, and that I think handing over some of my projects to Mr. Mighty will help a lot. The day after, Mr. Mighty disappeared from the account, and we never heard about him again :D
I’m still wondering why do managers hire such people?!

Normal PM

Although I met these types of PMs and others, I still believe there are normal ones, who are aware of their role, and know what they are doing. Yet, I believe this type of PMs is becoming rare.
For me, it’s kind of shocking to know the different faces of people inside and outside their jobs. These people are really nice people outside the project management suit. In my opinion, they just don’t fit in this suit.

If you’re a PM or planning to be one, please revise yourself, and think about the size of PM you’d like to be.

by Mena Mostafa

Solve Project Puzzles The Sherlock Holmes Way

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 09:53:00 +0000

I was reading Sherlock Holmes the other day – I thought it would be interesting to go back to the original books that I read as a child since the fictional detective seems to be on the television and big screen frequently at the moment. I love detective stories and Sherlock Holmes does seem to be able to unpick some big problems.

His approach to solving cases, whether it’s a murder, a piece of lost jewellery or something a bit more out of the ordinary, is very similar to the approach we take on projects when it comes to diagnosing and resolving issues.

So here is my guide to solving project puzzles, the Sherlock Holmes way.

1. Gather The Facts

The detective always starts off with facts. He meets his client and finds out exactly what has happened. More often than not he will go to the scene of the crime to investigate in person – in other words, going back to the root cause of the issue and assessing the situation based on what he has uncovered personally instead of listening to a third party report the problem to him.

On a project, you can do the same. Use your project status reports to pick out the data required when it comes to working out what happened to cause a project issue. You’ll want to investigate first-hand, and not rely on what a project team member tells you, although they can provide useful ‘evidence’ as well. Focus on establishing exactly what has happened by looking for the root cause and filtering out anything that appears to be opinion rather than fact.

2. Make Some Deductions

Once he has all the facts, Sherlock Holmes will make deductions to work out what has actually happened. He’ll draw conclusions from what he has uncovered and that might involve making some logical leaps, but they will always be based on the facts. Sometimes in the books you’ll see how this is done, and other times you’ll have to wait until the end of the story to work out how he came to his conclusions. Either way, it’s fascinating to follow his thought process.

On your project, you do the same with issue management. When you know the facts about what has happened, you’ll have to make some assumptions and deductions about how this will affect the project and the impact it will have. Some issues will have a large impact, some won’t. And some will need you to apply some very creative thinking to assess exactly how they will affect the project as it may not be obvious at first glance.

At this point you can also start thinking about the implications on the project schedule and budget. Many issues will have an impact on the planned delivery dates and the costs of the project. With the facts you have gathered so far you should be able to deduce how your project will be affected by these. You can also go as far as to deduce how your sponsor is going to feel about the issue! This could help you work out the best way to present it to them when the time comes.

3. Involve Others

Sherlock Holmes might be the figurehead in the stories and get all the glory, but he doesn’t do all his work alone. His trusted sidekick Dr Watson is also involved in the cases. He documents everything and also acts as a sounding board for Holmes. The detective also makes use of gangs of street children (the stories being set in Victorian London) who can move around unnoticed and who often report back about suspicious activity or gather data for Holmes.

You involve other people in your project issue management as well. You might get the rest of the team involved in some brainstorming sessions to ensure that you have identified all the impacts. You could do the same with identifying possible solutions. Just like Watson, your activities at this point in the issue management cycle will include documenting what you know so far and what you plan to do about it. Use your issue log for this so that you can easily keep the status up to date and see at a glance how far you and the team have got with resolving this particular problem.

4. Present Your Conclusions

When Sherlock Holmes has solved the case and come up with a plausible solution, he presents it to the people who need to know. This is normally Inspector Lestrade (who in the books comes off as a bit of a bumbling fool a lot of the time). The Inspector, and the reader, are taken through what has happened in a step-by-step manner. You can see how the elements of the story join up and how it was possible for Holmes to come to these conclusions. Then the action required, like arresting the murderer, is left to the experts and Holmes can move on to solving another puzzle.

This is what happens when you present your issue management plan to your project team and sponsor. OK, it’s almost what happens – you have to implement the actions on the plan, as you don’t have the luxury of being able to pass it off to Inspector Lestrade and his team to go ahead and do the work. Your sponsor will review your conclusions and if you have any recommendations for how best to fix the problem, they will work with you to choose the most appropriate route forward. Once you have your project sponsor’s approval to go ahead with the solution you have recommended, you’ll have to put your action plan in place and get on with completing the work to bring the project back on track. And that, as Holmes would say, is elementary!

Ref: www.projectmanager.com

Project Schedules, Hamster Wheels, and Your Team's Hidden Superpower

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 12:01:00 +0000

Andrew Filev

"Failing to plan is planning to fail," - some sources attribute this saying to Winston Churchill, while

others refer to Benjamin Franklin, or Alan Lakein, author on time management. Whoever the

author really was, his succinct wisdom could help many project managers avoid costly mistakes.

It seems that there are many project teams who suffer from inaccurate plans and their consequences.

In fact, this challenge ranked as no.3 in the list of the biggest productivity killers, according to our

recent survey. In this post, I'll observe some ways to keep your team safe from this threat and make

sure your project's timeline is accurate.

Note: This is the third post in a series on fighting productivity killers. In case you’ve only

plugged into this discussion, don’t miss the two previous productivity battles against interruptions

and procrastination.

Keeping project plans up-to-date is especially difficult if you’re the sole hub for collecting

updates from the team and then communicating the changes to them. The more agile your

project management approach is, paired with a volatile outside environment, the more challenging

this job is. Trying to slow down the outside world will not be any more helpful than trying to ask the

weather to be more predictable. The work isn't much fun if by the time you finish merging the

latest updates into the plan and send it out, it's already outdated. One option is to manage your

project with outdated plans, which is detrimental to the business and potentially your career.

The other option is trying to use current plans but really you are running a hamster wheel

marathon of pulling updates non-stop and still getting nowhere. Is there something else? You bet.

The moment you chose to read this blog post over a Dilbert cartoon, you knew there has to be

an answer, a jiu-jitsu move that embraces the facts as they are, and turns what could be a problem

into an advantage.

The bigger your team is, the more status updates you have, which makes your job harder.

However the larger your team is, the more minds and hands are at your service to keep

track of it all. As with many other things in management, the answer is in delegation. Work out a

setting where instead of you being the hub and bottleneck of all project updates, pass the role of the

hub to a tool, like a collaborative planning software or a board on the wall (well, I don't really

recommend writing on physical walls in the era of smartphones and global teams, but I had to give you

the choice, right?). So now, with that central hub available to all team members 24x7, if a person has

an update, they don't have to pass it through you. Instead, the person can deliver it directly to the hub

and others have direct access to this latest info, for when they need it. You still need to keep an eye

on work progress, as well as coordinate, lead and teach, but leading and doing everything yourself are

very different roles. The former is a critical factor in project success, and the latter is a bottleneck to all

and a stress-generating machine to you.

Delegating planning to your team

members has a powerful effect on the

psychological side. If the deadlines

weren't imposed by the manager,

but the employee set them on his

own, he naturally feels more

responsibility and more motivation

for getting it done on time.

Now, as with many other great things in life, it's easier said than done. Collaborative planning not only

requires you to change your habits, but also the habits of your team. A team habit that is essential for

collaborative planning is the culture of sharing. For more detailed insights into how to build this culture,

check out my recent post dedicated to this topic. Also, if you are looking for some tips on how to i

ntroduce a new habit to your team, there was a post about that, as well.

If you have adopted the centralized hub for planning, but your plans are still outdated, the problem is

either with the tool or with its adoption amongst your team. You could use some jiu-jitsu in this area as

well - instead of fighting with existing habits, you can sometimes leverage them in a creative way.

For example, at Wrike we built convenient email add-ons that let your team update tasks right from

Outlook/Mac Mail/Gmail. This uses email to your (and everyone's) benefit and helps with keeping

project planning up-to-date. Another example of a creative approach is turning your "project hub"

from a passive store for information into an acting agent (now you see why software is better than walls)

- it can ping your team when they need to work on something, it can generate reports for you, it can

even buzz a mobile phone or send a message when something interesting has changed.

That does not just save your time, but it also helps to engage everyone.

What are your thoughts? What other productivity enemies did you face in your team and how did you

fight them off?

How can CAPM certificate from PMI help you get ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 23 Nov 2014 08:04:00 +0000

Watch this video from PMI to understand the value of CAPM certificate & why YOU should have it.

4 Ways To Refresh Your PM Career In One Hour

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 15:07:00 +0000

Stress is a fact of the project management world. The responsibility to deliver projects, week after week, gradually wears you down. On a Friday morning, you finally deliver a major project.
Before you can even start to unwind, someone asks you to join another project. Suddenly, the sweet experience of a well delivered project fades to a vague memory.

To break out of this punishing cycle, you need tools to refresh your career. These tools give you new perspectives on your work. These concepts will improve your professional network, help you understand your accomplishments and identify new opportunities. For best results, put all of these into practice over a period of weeks (some of them can be used daily!)

1. Go For A Long Walk To A New Area (30-60 minutes)

New environments have a big impact. So many people think they have to get on a plane and visit a new country in order to experience something new. International travel is fantastic but don’t limit yourself to that. After all, you may have limited money and vacation days.

This week, put on your shoes and go for a walk to a new area of your city. You can look for a park you’ve never been to before. Or you can explore residential areas that you always ignore on your daily commute.

There are two career benefits to going for a long walk. First, you get some much needed exercise – a simple way of maintaining your health. Second, when you wander through a new area your preoccupation with career challenges fades. From time to time, you may even get new ideas on what to do in your project (or the next chapter of your career).

Tip: Do a Google search of “walks” + “your city” (e.g. “New York City walks”) to get inspiration for new places to walk. You may even find a guided tour to explore your city’s history, architecture or parks.

2. Write a Fifteen Minute Report on Fridays For A Month (15 minutes per week).

Have you ever had the feeling that the work week went by and you’re not quite sure what you achieved? Given the constant crisis management and stress of projects, this feeling is understandable. Happily, there is a simple way to cut through the fog.

On Friday, write a short text document called “Weekly Report”. This simple document has a few components. Spend no more than 15 minutes on it.

Section 1: What I Accomplished This Week (suggest 2-4 items)
Section 2: What I Learned This Week (2-4 items; can be books, websites, new software etc)
Section 3: Plans For Next Week (focus on the 3-5 most important items)

I used the fifteen minute report practice for more than six months. It made a big difference in helping me realize how much I achieved at the office.

Tip: Once you get comfortable with the weekly report habit, ask your direct manager (or project sponsor) if he or she would be interested in receiving a short weekly report. This brief report is one of the best ways of demonstrating your commitment to your work.

3. Contact An Old Manager To Catch Up (10 minutes)

When was the last time you talked to an old manager? It could be the person that hired you at your first full time job. Or it could be someone more recent at your current company. Given how much project managers move around (especially those that work on a consulting basis), it is very easy to lose touch with people.

To reconnect with an old manager, look them up on LinkedIn.com and send them a short message. Write a few sentences about what you’re doing and ask about them. Follow up with another a message a week later if you don’t get a response. You may decide to go out for lunch together and continue the conversation.

4. Write A Process Improvement Note (30 minutes)

Finding opportunities is an important skill for project managers. When you focus relentlessly on project execution, your ability to see opportunities may fade. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be like that!

Think about your past two projects for a moment. What processes did you have to follow on both projects? Did you have a lot of paperwork to complete? Cutting paperwork complexity is an excellent way to improve efficiency.

Over 30 minutes, write down 10 ideas for ways that you can improve processes at your company. The act of writing down your ideas is vital. By having one page of process improvement ideas on hand, you will be able to contribute ideas easily the next time sometime says, “This process is terrible!”

These four ideas will make a major difference in terms of refreshing your project management career. Best of all – none of these ideas require any money or software to put into action.

Get started today by writing a comment about which idea you plan to put into practice.

Bruce Harpham writes on project management training at Project Management Hacks. His corporate experience includes leading process improvement projects at financial institutions.

Posted by MMeloni

بعض الأفكار والأساطير في ادارة المشاريع

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 15:00:00 +0000

حيث أننا نعمل في مجال ادارة المشاريع ونسافر في جميع أنحاء العالم لتقديم التدريب أو الاستشارة في هذا المجال، ونلتقي العديد من العملاء بالاضافة الى مشاهدتنا لبعض التعليقات التي يضعها بعض الأشخاص على صفحات التواصل الاجتماعي، فقد وجدنا أن هناك بعض المفاهيم الخاطئة في هذا المجال بالاضافة الى المبالغات أحياناً والتي قد تصل لى حد الأساطير… واليكم بعضها:

الأسطورة الأولى

انها احدى الأمور الأساسية التي واجهناها على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي في منطقتنا. وبحيث يعتبر البعض أن شهادة PMP® هي نفسها ادارة المشاريع. وفي بعض الحالات هناك بعض المنظمات التي تطلب بدورها تدريب على شهادة PMP® معتبرين أنهم يقومون بذلك بتدريب موظفيهم على ادارة المشاريع.

الأسطورة الثانية

بعضهم الآخر يقول بأنه قد أخذ ادارة المشاريع في الجامعة. وعند سؤاله عن بعض التفاصيل يتضح لنا بأن المادة لتي أخذها لا تتعدى مادة في الجدول الزمني (Scheduling).

ان الجدول الزمني لا يساوي ادارة المشاريع

الأسطورة الثالثة

اننا عادة نجد بعض التدوينات أو التعليقات من أشخاص حائزين على شهادة “Risk Management Practitioner” يقومون من خلالها بالحديث عن Risk (المجازفة) على أنها خطر أو تهديد للمشروع …ولكن تعريف الRisk انه ممكن ان يكون تهديد أو فرصة فكيف أصبح هؤلاء الأشخاص يحملون هذه الشهادة اذا كانوا يعتقدون ان ال Risk هو فقط تهديد؟

الأسطورة الرابع

خلال الفترة الأخيرة سمعنا من أحد المنظمات أن هناك شركة تعمل في مجال التدريب على ادارة المشاريع حاولة اقناعهم بأن شهادة PMP® تعادل شهادة الماجستير ومعترف بها على هذا النحو في الولايات المتحدة الاميركية. طلبنا منهم ان يثبتو ذلك ولكن لا جواب.

الأسطورة الخامسة

ان مجموعة الطرق المتبعة بحسب دليل PMBOK® هي ليست نفسها مراحل المشروع أو امتداد حياة المشروع. بمعنى آخر ان مراحل المشروع ليست البدء، التخطيط، التنفيذ…

الأسطورة السادسة

ان دليل PMBOK® هو معيار عالمي كما أنه معيار من منظمة ANSI… ولكن بصراحة هذا غير صحيح لأنه ليس هناك سوى 50 صفحة من أصل 600 أو أكثر هي معتمدة من ANSI.

الأسطورة السابعة

ان الشخص الذي يحمل شهادة PMP® هو مدير مشروع محترف… ولكن هناك العديد ممن يحملون الشهادة ولم يقوموا يوماُ بادارة مشروع فمن اين لهم هذا الاحتراف؟

الأسطورة الثامنة

اذا لم تكن المنظمة معتمدة من قبل منظمة PMI® كمزود معارف REP فهي:

لا يمكنها القيام بالتدريب على ادارة المشاريع
ليست مزود جيّد للتدريب

للأسف، فاننا نعرف العديد من المنظمات الممتازة التي تعمل في مجال التدريب والتي تتمتع بأداء رائع على الرغم من أنهم ليسوا معتمدين من قبل منظمة PMI®. والعكس صحيح بحيث هناك بعضهم الآخر المعتمدين كمعاهد تدريب ولا يعرفون أي شيء حول ادارة المشاريع. من ناحية أخرى، فان منظمة PMI® لا تقوم بشكل مباشر بالتدريب بادارة المشاريع.

من هنا فانه يمكن لأي شخص أن يقوم بالتدريب على ادارة المشاريع سواء كان على الصعيد الفردي كأشخاص أو على الصعيد المنظماتي كمنظمات وسواء كانوا يملكون الكفاءة أم لا.

فأن تمتلك ختم منظمة PMI® كأحد معاهد التدريب، هذا لا يكفي ولا يعني أنك تتمتع بالكفاءة المطلوبة.

الأسطورة التاسعة

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10 Places To Find Project Management Advice

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 14:24:00 +0000

Everyone needs help at some point in their careers, and even experienced project managers know that they need reliable places to go to find advice when they hit problems. So where should you start? Here are 10 sources of project management advice that you can tap into when you need some guidance.

1. Your Manager

The first place to go for advice is your manager. You should have regular one-to-one meetings with him or her and you should feel comfortable enough to ask their opinion or advice on any sort of query from how to use project software to the best ways to manage risk. Your manager will also have a wide professional network, so if they can’t help they probably know someone who can. Ask them to suggest someone who may have the expertise that you are looking for and to make an introduction for you.

2. Your Mentor

If you can’t speak to your manager (or don’t want to), then your mentor is another person you can turn to for advice. Many companies have formal and informal mentoring schemes so sign up to this if it is available. You could also look outside your company for a mentor, perhaps through your local PMI Chapter or another industry group. Mentors are another group who are likely to have good connections so if they can’t help directly they can point you in the direction of an individual or resource that can.

3. Your Peers

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a mentor, so you may find that your best option is to informally talk to some of your fellow project managers in the team and talk your problems over with them. You are likely to get a mix of opinions, which is no bad thing! You can also ask about their successes and failures and what works well in this particular company.

4. Your Project Experts

Your project team is made up of subject matter experts, so depending on the sort of problem you are facing, it’s worth discussing it with the team. They may not be able to advise on the technical aspects of managing projects but they could help with tricky project issues and they may be able to tell you whether they have hit similar issues on projects they have worked on in the past.

5. Blogs

If you’d rather not speak to anyone and find advice online, then turn to the internet for a whole range of project management blogs, many of which include loads of advice about how to run successful projects. You can search for tips that are appropriate for the issues you are facing right now on your project.

Looking for help online is often the fastest way of finding out information as there is so much available. Remember to apply some degree of critical analysis to the information that you read as not all sources are as reliable as others.

6. Corporate Lessons Learned Database

Many companies have a corporate lessons learned database that stores information about what worked and what didn’t from previous projects. These are often in the form of documents produced after a post-project review and can make really valuable reading. This is a great place to look for advice if you need some tips on how to manage a particular stakeholder group or type of project and someone in the company has done it before.

7. Wiki

Project wikis hold a lot of valuable information. If your project management office or team has a wiki then work out how to search it as you are bound to find some useful data in there. It’s also a good place to look for lessons learned or project templates. In fact, someone may already have shared the exact information that you are looking for!

8. Training Courses

The trainers who run educational courses often have a lot of experience in the field and can be very helpful people to ask if you have a specific query. Of course, the actual training material itself can be beneficial, especially if it is tailored to the sort of problem you are facing. A course specific to scheduling, for example, can often be more useful than a general project management course.

The people attending the course with you are also a good source of advice and assistance, so don’t forget to chat to them in the breaks during the training. If you meet anyone who you would like to stay in contact with, don’t be shy about sharing your details and arranging to meet up in the near future for a coffee.

9. Local PMI Chapter

Your local PMI Chapter is full of project management experts and there is bound to be someone who can help and advise you. Many Chapters have newsletters, websites or email groups so you can ask if you can post a question in one of those forums and see who comes back with something useful.

Also take a look at the event schedule – you may find that the Chapter is hosting an event on the exact topic that you are looking for help with. They will get an expert speaker in to present to the group and that can be a very valuable (and cheap) source of learning new things.

10. Online Discussion Groups

There is a lot of information available for free online and in many cases you can ask your question anonymously!

Where else have you picked up good bits of project management advice? Let us know in the comments section below.

Introduction to Project Management

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 11:02:00 +0000

Get the PDF Version

By Duncan Haughey, PMP

Project management in the modern sense began in the early 1950s, although it has its roots further back in the latter years of the 19th century. The driver for project management was businesses realising the benefits of organising work around projects and the critical need to communicate and co-ordinate work across departments and professions.

Many organisations don't employ full-time project managers and it is common to pull together a project team to meet a specific need. While many people may not have formal skills in a project methodology, taking a role in a project team is an excellent learning opportunity and can improve a person's career profile.

Here is the main definition of what project management is:

Project management is no small task.
Project management has a definite beginning and end. It is not a continuous process.
Project management uses various tools to measure accomplishments and track project tasks. These include Work Breakdown Structures, Gantt charts and PERT charts.
Projects frequently need resources on an ad-hoc basis as opposed to organisations that have only dedicated full-time positions.
Project management reduces risk and increases the chance of success.

Project management is often summarised in a triangle (see Figure 1). The three most important factors are time, cost and scope, commonly called the triple constraint. These form the vertices with quality as a central theme.

Figure 1: The triple constraint

Projects must be within cost.
Projects must be delivered on time.
Projects must be within scope.
Projects must meet customer quality requirements.

More recently, this has given way to a project management diamond, with cost, time, scope and quality the four vertices and customer expectations as a central theme (seeFigure 2). No two customer expectations are the same so you must ask what their expectations are.

Figure 2: The project management diamond

A project goes through six phases during its life:

Project Definition: Defining the goals, objectives and critical success factors for the project.
Project Initiation: Everything that is needed to set-up the project before work can start.
Project Planning: Detailed plans of how the work will be carried out including time, cost and resource estimates.
Project Execution: Doing the work to deliver the product, service or desired outcome.
Project Monitoring & Control: Ensuring that a project stays on track and taking corrective action to ensure it does.
Project Closure: Formal acceptance of the deliverables and disbanding of all the elements that were required to run the project.

The role of the project manager is one of great responsibility. It is the project manager's job to direct, supervise and control the project from beginning to end. Project managers should not carry out project work, managing the project is enough. Here are some of the activities that must be undertaken:

The project manager must define the project, reduce it to a set of manageable tasks, obtain appropriate resources and build a team to perform the work.
The project manager must set the final goal for the project and motivate his or her team to complete the project on time.
The project manager must inform all stakeholders of progress on a regular basis.
The project manager must assess and monitor risks to the project and mitigate them.
No project ever goes exactly as planned, so project managers must learn to adapt to and manage change.

A project manager must have a range of skills including:

Leadership;
People management (customers, suppliers, functional managers and project team);
Effective communication (verbal and written);
Influencing;
Negotiation;
Conflict management;
Planning;
Contract management;
Estimating;
Problem solving;
Creative thinking; and
Time management.

"Project managers bear ultimate responsibility for making things happen. Traditionally, they have carried out this role as mere implementers. To do their jobs they needed to have basic administrative and technical competencies. Today they play a far broader role. In addition to the traditional skills, they need to have business skills, customer relations skills, and political skills. Psychologically, they must be results-oriented self-starters with a high tolerance for ambiguity, because little is clear-cut in today's tumultuous business environment. Shortcomings in any of these areas can lead to project failure." - J. Davidson Frame

Many things can go wrong in project management. These things are often called barriers. Here are some possible barriers:

Poor communication;
Disagreement;
Misunderstandings;
Bad weather;
Union strikes;
Personality conflicts;
Poor management; and
Poorly defined goals and objectives.

A good project management discipline will not eliminate all risks, issues and surprises, but will provide standard processes and procedures to deal with them and help prevent the following:

Projects finishing late, exceeding budget or not meeting customer expectations.
Inconsistency between the processes and procedures used by projects managers, leading to some being favoured more than others.
Successful projects, despite a lack of planning, achieved through high stress levels, goodwill and significant amounts of overtime.
Project management seen as not adding value and as a waste of time and money.
Unforeseen internal and/or external events impacting the project.

Project management is about creating an environment and conditions in which a defined goal or objective can be achieved in a controlled manner by a team of people.