Next week we have a special edition podcast with Lindsay Scott, Director of Arras people on how to present yourself to employers in this new jobs market. Should be interesting!

During the past decade project management has undergone a transformation with through greater codification and formal certification. This certification and been based on the Association for Project Management (APM), Prince2TM and Project Management Institute (PMI) under taken by seemingly ever increasing number of organisations and individuals. With over half a million members of the PMI, 250,000 Prince2 Practitioners and 17,500 members of the APM, the world has seen a rapid growth in project management certification, much of it in the last ten years.

Traditionally this certification has been delivered as five days in a hotel with an exam on a Friday. Is this really the best way of developing project managers, or was it organised this way for the convenience of the training organisation and the HR department?

The weaknesses of the current 5-day project management training paradigm.

Project Managers are inherently activists, they learn by doing, so to remove them from a project for five days to develop new skills, always creates an artificial environment. Learning cannot be applied to the work place in bite size pieces. Putting the exam at the end of the course creates the pressure to focus on passing the test and not learning new skills. Some enlightened organisations recognised this limitation and committed to slightly longer modular programmes of two times 3 days or even 3 times 2 days. This at least gave time for individuals to apply what they were learning as they went. However in the tougher economic times organisations are beginning to challenge the paradigm of a week out of the office to pass a qualification. The challenge now is how to cover the wide range of project management topics in less time without reducing the quality of the learning.

Innovation has the solution

As with many such challenges technical innovation has the solution. Learning does not have to be done in the classroom. We can learn in many ways, through on the job exercise, reading books listening to the radio, playing on the computer. All the learner needs is access to the right material to help and guide the learning process. This needs to be available in a wide range of media to suit the learning style and approach of the individual. This is what is offered by the Parallel Learning System.

Parallel Learning System

The Parallel Learning System provides a wide range of learning activities including to a study guide printed as a book, e-learning, podcasts and workshops. Each can be used individually or as a combined approach to learning. Each element is widely available, the book and e-learning are easily purchased from Amazon and the podcasts can be downloaded free of charge from the web or iTunes. This whole approach means that the workshops can focus on skills development and preparing for the exam.

Click here for more information on innovative approaches to project management training.

This Podcast covers the APM BOK topics 1.6 Project Office, including the roles of the project office, different types of project office, benefits of a project office, and role of project support in project management. It is part of the Parallel Project learning system and is ideally used in conjunction with the APMP study guide.

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A special edition with Donnie MacNicol from Team Animation, chair of the APM people SIG. What is complexity, how can it be reduced and what sort of leadership skills for making the transition to the leader of complex project.

For more information on programmes to support leaders of complex projects visit www.parallelprojecttraining.com.

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How can you build a team without investing in team building activities?

Why should we pay attention to team development?

What are the challenges in building teams?

How can these be over come?

How can we manage a virtual team?

This is a special edition podcast with Adrian Tillin of Malvern Drive Consulting, joining Paul Naybour and John Bolton from Parallel Project Training

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Parallel Project Training is pleased to announce that its long awaited APMP study guide is available today from www.parallelproject training.com orAmazon.co.uk. Designed to accompany the Parallel podcasts and e-learning, this study guide is your first step towards professional project management. It is packed full exercises, case studies, quizzes and sample APMP questions.

We are also pleased to announce that Adrian Tillin an APM examiner of Malvern Drive Consulting is joining us for the next podcast on Friday 5^thFebruary 2010. The  conversation will focus on the highly valuable topic of  “Getting the best out of others with no time and no money”. Adrian is a fantastic speaker on project management and well worth listening to.

Finally we are holding a competition for three copies of our APMP Study Guide, entry is free via our website. All competition entrant and others will be invited to the launch of Parallel Project Training on the 19^th March at Davidson House in Reading or via a Webinar. Come along and meet the team and witness the draw of the prizes. Please visit the Parallel Project Training web site for more details and the register for this free event.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download