Special Edition with Lindsy Scott of Project Management Recruitment – Arras People. In this edition we look at the changes in the project management jobs market for employers and candidates since the credit crunch and how job seekers have to present themselves differently to be successful in this different market.
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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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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 5thFebruary 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 19th 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.
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Date: 14/01/2010
Event organiser: APM Midlands Branch
Time: 6.15 for 6.30pm start – Refreshments provided
Venue: Holiday Inn Notts Derby, M1, Jct 25, Bostocks Lane, Sandiacre, Nottingham, NG10 5NJ
Presented by: Paul Naybour – Director of Parallel Project Training
Overview
Heathrow Terminal 5 and Wembley Stadium are two high profile projects, each of which, for different reasons is perceived as less than successful by the public. With London 2012 just around the corner, what can the profession learn from these two very different case studies?
Critical questions raised by these projects are:
How should we measure project success?
The workshop reached the following conclusions:
How should we measure project success?
Whilst project success is primarily measured by delivery to time cost and quality the real measure of success is if the customer would ask you back to manage another project.
What is a project and where is the boundary to operations?
The handover between project and operations needs to be managed with extreme care. The project is not really over until the asset is operating successfully for the customer. Project management of the interfaces between work packages within the project and between the project and the outside world is vital. Successful identification and management of these interfaces is a critical success factor in many cases.
How should clients control projects?
The case studies demonstrate the importance of an intelligent client. This is a real challenge for organisations that only manage projects infrequently. It highlights the importance of clients getting good advice from the start. Although many organisations are unwilling to pay for this advice until it is too late, failure to do so can end up with massive legal bills.
How can we manage public expectations?
Many projects proactively manage the media by not publishing an opening date or being conservative in the public promises that they make. Having a publicly committed schedule and an internal accelerated programme is one way to create a project buffer. As inevitably things will slip and the management of the press becomes more difficult once delays begin to emerge. It is interesting that the significant increases in cost for 2012 Olympics were announced at a very early stage. This got the bad news (which everyone expected) out of the way early so that the project could move on to manage project delivery and report progress without a constant drip of bad news as the costs gradually increased.
Are all project destined to failure?
This created quite a bit of debate, as project managers want to feel that they can deliver successful projects despite the biases introduced to get them funded in the first place. By reducing the complexity in projects the group felt that successful projects could be delivered, but this may need some significant changes in project strategy.
Are partnership approaches to project worth the effort?
Partnership approaches are not the panacea for project success; they can be valuable when the partners have a vested interest in making the partnership work, because of significant follow on work or financial return to both parties. However in many projects which are one-off they can be more effort than the return.
Three lucky winners will receive a free copy of Parallel Project Training’s “Your Journey to Professional Project Management: How to pass the APMP Exam” worth £47.
This APMP study guide is the only APMP study guide available as a printed book accredited by the Association for Project Management. It provides a detailed insight into the APM Body of Knowledge and is designed to help individuals preparing for the APMP qualification. It includes numerous exercises, case studies, mini quizzes and opportunities for reflection.
All you have to do for you chance to win a copy of this fantastic book is answer the question: What does APM in the UK rail context stand for?
Click here to enter the competition
Parallel Project Training can offer a wide range of short CPD workshops. Typically lasting between 2-3 hours these are for experienced project managers and include the following topics:Further information: Parallel Project Training Advance Course
Date: 14/01/2010
Event organiser: APM Midlands Branch
Time: 6.15 for 6.30pm start – Refreshments provided
Venue: Holiday Inn Notts Derby, M1, Jct 25, Bostocks Lane, Sandiacre, Nottingham, NG10 5NJ
Presented by: Paul Naybour – Director of Parallel Project Training
Heathrow Terminal and Wembley are two high profile projects, which are both for different reasons perceived as less than successful by the public. With London 2012 just around the corner, what can the profession learn from these two very different case studies?
Critical questions raised by these projects are:
This workshop is presented by Paul Naybour, Director of Parallel Project Training. Paul is an experienced project management practitioner and has particular expertise in change programme management, risk management, earned value management and project management training development / delivery. Paul has managed the delivery of multi-million pound training and development programmes for clients such as Network Rail, Transport for London, Halcrow, Scott Wilson and Carillion.
You can download the slides from this presentation by clicking here