From down under the land Down Under...
Thanks for attending yesterday’s lunchtime presentation for the Australian Institute of Project Management. I hope that you were able to find at least one idea form it that helps you in delivering your project.
If you have any questions at all, or would like me to present at your workplace (at the cost of gold coin donations for charity), please don’t hesitate to contact me.
I’ve been asked by the Tasmanian Chapter of the Australian Institute of Project Management to present on a topic which is fundamental to project success. Assembling the right project team that can work in a cohesive and coordinated manner to get the job done.
A number of you reading this blog have been members of some of my teams in the past and don’t worry I won’t mention names, but you’ve contributed to the way our projects have been run. I’m sure you’ve all got your own war stories about how the interaction between project members and the behaviour exhibited by some or all has either doomed a project or meant it’s success.
With this in mind I encourage you to register your attendance by contacting Kerry Hillard (details are on the flyer). The presentation will be at the Vue Room of the Customs Hotel in Hobart, on Thursday 20th May 2010 at 12.30pm. Lunch is provided.
As part of a Tasmanian strategic partnership between the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM) and the Australian Computer Society (ACS) I will be giving a presentation to the ACS Tasmanian Chapter on Wednesday 17 Feb 2010 at 5.30pm. The presentation is titled “A Project Manager’s View of the Project Team” and will cover topics such as:
There weren't quite this many attendees...
Well that went well. The free Project Management Workshop was conducted last week and received a good attendance, with people there from a number of different sectors. It was great meeting you all, catching up with some great friends and making some new ones.
I hope that you were all able to take away from it at least one piece of information that you’ve found useful back in your workplace.
I’ve provided the slide pack below as promised, and here are the Rules of Thumb that I discussed during the workshop:
There’s no voiceover for the slides and if you’d like more information about the rules of thumb you’ll have to attend a workshop!
I enjoyed presenting the workshop very much and I’ve since been lucky enough to be asked to provide the same session to a large organisation here in Hobart, which is a good outcome, it will include another donation to the Haemophilia Foundation Australia.
Next, I’m considering either partnering with an existing Registered Training Organisation to deliver a Diploma of Project Management course over a 2-3 weekends or a Certificate of Attendance course on Project Management. What do you think? Does your company or Department have one or two people that need more formal project management training or do you know of anyone that would be interested in attending? If so please ask them to click here to register their expression of interest.
In terms of when it could be held, I suspect that we’re a bit too close to the Christmas break right now to seriously consider attending or conducting a course, so why don’t we look at early in the new year, when we’re refreshed and raring to go for the new year. What better way to start the year off then investing in your own knowledge and skill sets.
Don’t forget to click here to register your, or a colleague’s, expression of interest.
Click on the map to see the location of the Hydro Building
The details for the Workshop are confirmed:
Where
The Hands On Centre
First Floor, Hydro Tasmania Building
4 Elizabeth Street, Hobart
When
Friday 18 September 2009
9.30am, finished by midday
Hydro Tasmania have kindly donated the use of their facility and provided tea and coffee for the workshop. Thank you very much to my close friend for organising the venue.
So it’s not too late to register your attendance, you can do so by clicking here and completing the form.
Just a reminder too that the Workshop is being conducted as a fundraiser for the Haemophilia Foundation Australia, so a donation through their website or at the door is welcome.
See you there!
Sunrise over Bass Straight this week.
The response to my request for expressions of interest was fantastic. Thanks to all of you that did so.
As an update, I am planning to conduct the Workshop on the morning of Friday the 18th September 2009 at a suitable venue in Hobart. Hopefully this date gives you enough time to organise your schedule and to encourage others from your office to attend.
I will organise the venue and let you all know as soon as the details are confirmed. For those of you unable to this workshop, I received responses from Zambia and the North West, I’ll post the slidepack with a voiceover on this blog after the event.
Onwards and upwards!
Recently our eldest daughter provided us with a tremendous example of leadership, generosity of spirit and self sacrifice that we are very proud of. Instead of receiving birthday presents for her recent 9th birthday party, she asked her guests to donate money towards the Haemophilia Foundation Australia, as her cousin has Haemophilia and it was her way to try and help someone else.
Now a nine year old selflessly saying no to birthday presents is pretty special in my book, and yes she is a pretty special girl, as are both our daughters.
However, this got me thinking. I take leading by example seriously in our house, so I thought about what I could do to help as well. So I thought that I have some time on my hands during the week, why don’t I give something back to society and help raise a few dollars towards the Foundation as well.
So here’s my idea, how about I run a FREE half day workshop on the fundamentals of project management for anyone who wants to come along, with a particular emphasis on attendees from non-profit organisations, government policy and IT areas and private sector change management and IT companies. Ideally targeting new-comers to project management or people who have found themselves in charge of running a project without any training or experience in doing so.
So firstly I’m giving something back to the project management fraternity through providing information to help build project management capacity and secondly, if I charge a gold coin donation for attendance that money can be donated to the Haemophilia Association. Lastly, I’m leading by example for my children. That’s what I’d call a win/win/win situation.
So, what do you think? Would you be interested in coming along to a half day workshop to learn a bit about the fundamental aspects of project management, such as managing time, cost, quality, human resources, quality, risk, and procurement in exchange for a gold coin donation to the Foundation?
If you would be please click here and leave your details. When we’ve collected 20 expressions of interest, I’ll go ahead an organise the event and let you know the details. The event will be held in Hobart, so if you are elsewhere, I can’t see why we can’t record it in a podcast and post afterwards.
If you’d like to help in some way, or would like to make any additional comments or suggestions, either leave a comment to the post, or use the additional comment field in the expression of interest form.
EXPRESS YOUR INTEREST TO ATTEND HERE
Not your typical project control office, the Operations Control Centre of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.
Today I’d like to talk about project control inside a fixed priced project. I’m writing this on a flight from Hobart to Melbourne, sitting right up the back with my knees around my ears – you know the drill. Thats why they say that economy seats are the quietest on the plan, as your knees against your ears block out any sounds. Anyway, I digress. Project control is about identifying and monitoring specific metrics about your project and using those to put in place management interventions to ensure that your project is delivered within your constraints of time, cost and quality.
Sometimes the hard part is identifying the metrics that are useful in their insight, present for the whole project lifecycle, and not overly burdensome to collect. I also try and find a primary metric that the whole team can focus on, one that means the most to the majority of stakeholders. I’m a proponent of keeping it simple and efficient.
When I talk about a metric being useful in its insight, I’m talking about tracking a quantifiable measure that is meaningful in what it tells you. For example, tracking the number of meetings required to finalise user documentation or requirements specification, whilst useful as an aside, isn’t the best primary metric. Tracking a metric like this can help identify documentation churn, the amount of effort being used in this area, it isn’t useful as a whole of project metric.
The metric needs to be present for the entire project lifecycle to allow for tracking from start to finish. It’s not useful to identify a metric only to have the goal post moved part way through the project which essentially renders the metric meaningless.
Likewise the metric shouldn’t be overly burdensome to collect. Keep in mind the effort required to track the metric versus its usefullness as a project control tool. Most useful metrics are ones that require little or no physical intervention to collect and store.
I guess these are some of the reasons why we track costs and revenue. We’ll always do that of course on well run projects, but keep in mind other candidate metrics. On infrastructure projects, for example on an operating system rollout, measuring the quantity of machines upgraded over time is very useful and on software projects I always keep the quality criteria, defect raise and fix data, on my dashboard.
There are many other ways to measure projects, please don’t hesitate to make comment (the registration system is working again).
If you happen to be in Launceston, Tasmania, on Thursday the 20th of November 2008, feel free to drop in and listen to my presentation to Australian Institute of Project Management members and their guests. Details on how to register for the event are on the flyer, or you can register online through the AIPM website.
Seats are limited so ensure you book early, and don’t forget to confirm your booking with the organisers prior to attending.
We’re currently researching the possibility of running one day workshops based on Dr J. Martin Hays excellent text “Building High-performance Teams: A Practitioner’s Guide”. We’re contacting Jay to see if he will provide us the licence for his IP, and in the meantime we’ve put together a survey to gauge the level of interest for the workshop.
Please click here to take part in the survey, thanks in advance.
Click here to have a closer look at the text.
UPDATE: Jay’s given the all clear to use his IP for the workshop, now it’s up to you to let me know of the demand.