APM Registered Project Professional (RPP) is a pan-sector standard  for those able to demonstrate the capabilities of a responsible leader, who have the ability to manage a complex project and use appropriate tools, processes and techniques. This podcast made in partnership with the APM includes those responsible for developing the new standard and those who have been through the RPP process and are now RPP assessors. 

The guests include

• John Zachar; APM product development manager for RPP, John has a wealth of experience in project management including the US Air Force.
• Graham Hawkins (RPP); Manager of the APM PMO responsible for coordinating a number of projects across the APM including the launch of RPP. Graham was awarded RPP as part of the pilot group and is now and RPP assessor.
• Neil Mooney (RPP) Training Director of Provek was also awarded RPP as part of the pilot group and is now and RPP assessor.
• Paul Naybour, host of the Parallel Project Training podcast channel.

In this episode you will learn

1. What is the Association for Project Management?
2. What is the Registered Project Professional Standard?
3. How Registered Project Professional with give your organisation a competitive advantage?
4. Why should I apply?
5. What is the application process?
6. What other sources of information and support are available.

Both Provek and Parallel Project Training have employees who are RPP assessors and can provide advice and guidance on how it can be used to support project management development in organisations. Please contact either the APM for more information about this new standard.   

APMP Project Management Distance Learning overview from Parallel Project Training

We will support you all the way during your course with the following materials.

1. Our highly acclaimed printed study guide with 275 pages, 75 high quality figures, sample exam questions and exam hints and tips.
2. Eight on-line e-learning modules which are closely integrated with the study guide. Try demo
3. A wide range of MP3 audio podcasts available direct on iTunes or from the Parallel Website. Try sample here
4. On-line tutor support via our community of practice. Visit the forum here

No longer to you have to guess what you activity duration might be, this new estimating technique has all the answers, cheap, more liable and fun too,

The committee of APM Thames Valley Branch would like to invite you to join them at an afternoon meeting designed for Heads of project and programme management within our corporate membership and other organisations with a strong interest in developing professional standards within their project management community.

APM has now launched its pan-sector standard for project professionals, APM Registered Project Professional (RPP), which recognises competent professionals through their ability to be responsible leaders, manage a complex project and use appropriate tools, processes and techniques.  For the first time, RPP assesses all elements of APM’s 5 Dimensions of Professionalism in a single standard, thereby enhancing professional status and recognition.

In such challenging times, true project professionals remain hugely valued, reinforcing the message that professionalism has become the mainstay of the industry in recent years. APM Registered Project Professional, therefore, meets a real market demand by externally assessing the competence of the project management community and increasing the likelihood of project success.

We hope you will join us at the Hilton Hotel, Reading on Wednesday 15^th June 2011 at 3.00pm to hear how, together, we can raise the bar of project professionalism to a whole new level.

Presentations will include:

• APM’s Strategy & Direction
  
• The 5 Dimensions of Professionalism in Project Management
  
• How you could align the future development of your Project & Programme Management Professionals
  
• How your organisation can gain advantage from Corporate membership of APM and from our Accreditation programme
  

This will also be an excellent opportunity to meet your peers and to hear how some organisations are already benefiting from engagement with APMs new programmes. The formal event will conclude at 5.30 when drinks and canapés will be served. We hope that you will be able to join us.

Please reply by email indicating whether or not you will be able to attend and if you would like to bring a colleague with you.

Kind regards,

Mike Sheehan
Thames Valley Branch Chairman

The APMP is a foundation level qualification from the Association for Project Management. It includes a three hour written paper on the theory of project management. As such it primarily seeks to improve and evaluate your knowledge of project management. Typical questions might include

1. Describe the typical roles in a project?
2. Explain the factors that influence a projects context?
3. Explain the project risk management process?
4. Describe the principles of project governance?

The questions are to a large extent theoretical and are not related to you skills as a project manager. So you could ask how will this knowledge make me a better project manager? The answer to this question requires and understanding of how competence is developed. It is widely recognised the competence is made up of three elements; these are technical, behavioural and contextual competences. A good project manager needs to be able to demonstrate all of these competences. The technical competences form a foundation on which the other competences are developed, without this basic understanding of the principles of project management than the more refined behavioural and contextual skills have no foundation on which they can be developed. The APMP seeks to establish these technical competences early in your project management career.

Figure 1 APM Competence Framework

APMP training should not be seen in isolation

To be effective you need to plans ways in which you can apply the knowledge learned on and APMP course, to a real world project, as soon as possible after the training is completed. In this way the knowledge is translated into practical skills and experience. Key ideas to get you going include

1) Facilitating a project start up workshop to examine the project objectives and identify the critical success factors that you need to establish for a successful project.

2) Complete a project management planning workshop to identify the project work package and develop a high level schedule for the project

3) Conduct a project risk review with your project team. Identify the key risks and how you will overcome them.

4) Schedule and hold regular project reviews using a simple set of KPI.

5) Arrange a meeting with you stakeholders to ensure you fully understand their requirements.

The simple but effective activities will not only consolidate your learning from the course but will also improve your chances of delivering a successful project.

Below are the slides presented to the Cheltenham ICE city club on Tuesday 26th April 2011. The topics covered include:

• Clearly describe the importance of project managers’ role to the profitability and satisfaction of client needs 
• Explain why and how to manage consulting project throughout the life cycle. 
• Selling, Starting, Delivering and Closing. Specifically this will include effective implementation of the following project control processes ¤Scope management and planning.
• Project management planning and scheduling.
• Risk management.
• Cost management including planning and forecasting using earned value.
• Control of changes.
• Issue management and communications.
• Manage a contract  including demonstrate strategies for managing the client relationship and expectations within the constraints of a contract.

APMP Project Management Distance Learning overview from Parallel Project Training

Should Parallel Project Training offer Microsoft Project Training alongside our project management courses?

When delivering project management training courses people are normally very interested to understand how they can use Microsoft project to support their planning. However using Microsoft project is not part of n accredited project management course. In particular they are interesting how they can practically apply Microsoft Project, what are the hits and tips from an experienced project manager. In particulate

1. What are the best default settings for Microsoft Project?
2. How can I get resources curves from the tool?
3. What are the best ways of communicating using Microsoft project?
4. How can I use Microsoft Project to control the project budget?

However given the level of interest then we are considering running a Microsoft Project Training course to complement our existing programme. Would this be of interest to you, please let us know by commenting below.

So you are thinking about a career in project management? Is it a good move? It is right career for you? What are your next steps? In this blog post we set out the step for anyone wanting to move into project management at a professional career.

Is it the right career for me?

In project management you are only as good as your last project. When you go for an interview with a future employer they will primarily be interested in how successful your last project was. They won’t expect all projects to be an outstanding success because some are the equivalent of mission impossible, but they will expect you to describe how you applied a systematic approach to overcome the challenges you faced. This is very important because anyone can have a lucky project but good project managers have a consistent and systematic approach. Research shows that successful project are delivered by

1. Effective understanding of risk management across the team to ensure that everyone is working to the same process and risk are highlighted early enough for action to be taken
2. The quality of risk ownership in the project team so that individuals within the team take responsibility for managing the risk within their own work package.
3. The adequacy of a visible risk register which has good quality risk descriptions and realistic assessments of probability and impact so that is drive the correct decisions.
4. The quality of understanding and acceptance of roles and responsibilities on the project so that members of the team are committed to the delivery of their work packages.
5. Allowing changes only through a mature scope control process to minimise the unnecessary changes which may be imposed on the project without proper evaluation of the impact.
6. Maintaining the integrity of the performance management baseline plan so that everyone is clear what has to be delivered when, for how much cost and to what standard.

Adapted from research by Terry Cooke-Davies at http://www.uncg.edu/bae/people/amoako/ISM654/reading_%232.pdf

Ensuring these are in place within your project needs both good leadership and a good understanding of how project management works.

What makes a good project manager?

Being a successful project manager is a real challenge you need to be able to

1.    Total honesty in all communications efforts even when bad news leads to conflict, anger and frustration.

2.    Focus on the delivery of the project objectives and not being diverted by emerging demands from differed stakeholder groups.

3.    Organized and detail-oriented with an ability to spot the possible areas of risk and how these can be effectively managed.

4.    A positive attitude even when the project is going through difficult times. It is easy to be a good project manager when things are going well, but much more challenging when the “going gets tough”.

5.    Self confidence and high self esteem so that you can motivate others and value your own contribution to the success of the project.

6.    An even temperament which comes from the ability to detach yourself from the day to day cut and thrust of the project and understand the overall strategic picture.

7.    Extremely customer-focused yet at the same time manage the expectations of the customer and minimise the level of change introduced to the project.

This combination of high self esteem and the ability for drill into the detail at the same time is a real differentiator for successful project managers. You need to be comfortable with strategic leadership and detailed tactics to see a project through to completion. You can use these criteria to evaluate if you are going to be a successful project manager. Are you organised, good at detail, passionate and yet determined to see things through to the end even if it is difficult and a bit stressful. Do you like working with other people, being responsible for motivation and leadership. If you can answer yes to these questions then project management might the right career for you.

What are the next steps

So you have decided you want to be a project manager what are your next steps?

Get a track record of successful projects?

The most important question you will be asked in you interview is “how successful were you at delivering your last project?”, closely followed by “what challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?”. So you will need some experience leading a project work package or similar to answer these questions. You don’t need to be the project manager you just need to be able to describe how you have managed part of a project or a work package. Most people get this experience by successfully delivering a sub-package in a project as part of a project.

If you are not working on in a project environment then you can often get this experience in the voluntary sector. One of my colleagues is a volunteer Governor at the local school and he is supervising building project for them on a part time, experience like this is invaluable when it comes to finding a project management post. Many voluntary organising are looking for people to get involved in either as interns or part time volunteers a website called http://www.do-it.org.uk/advanced.do has plenty of opportunities for people to get involved in local volunteer projects. You can also always look at freelance projects on sites like http://www.peopleperhour.com/

Plan your professional development?

Nowadays it’s very common for employers to want to see a formal project management qualification before you get the interview. This is a bit regrettable because it can stop many experienced project managers from getting to the interview panel. There are three main types of qualification that you can go for PMP, PRINCE2 or APM. As far as interview goes they normally ask for either. Which you do depends on your market sector. PMP is very strong with multi-nationals and overseas, PRINCE2 is very strong for UK government sector projects and IT projects, although it is growing fast overseas. APM is more is widely recognised in transportation, energy and defence sectors in the UK.

Get the contacts?

So you have decided project management is for you how do you go about getting your first project management job. Well first try your contacts, social networking can be a very powerful way to find new opportunities, specialist recruiters like Arras People are always willing to help with advice and guidance for good candidates.