PMForum has been named a media partner for the 6th Annual Best Practice Showcase, an event showcasing best practices in programme and project management, which will take place at the QE11 Conference Centre in Westminster, UK on June 24th 2008. Project and programme managers are invited to attend this free learning event, which will also include an exhibition by companies offering leading programme and project management products and services.

According to event PR manager Kate Winter, “The Best Practice Showcase has historically been aimed at UK programme and project managers. This year we want to bring it to the world’s attention, to attract more international participants. We hope the media partnership with PMForum raises the event’s profile in the international project management field.”

The 6th Annual Best Practice Showcase will include the following:
Interactive Seminar Session

• Ask The Expert Panel - Beyond MSP: Attitudes, Benefits or Challenges

• Question Time: Ask the Author – with Sue Vowler, P3O Lead Author, Rod Sowden, P3M3 Lead Author and Andy Murray, PRINCE2 Lead Author.

• Ask The APM Group – Alan Harpham, chairman of The APM Group, will field questions related to “what’s new?” with PRINCE2 and MPM.

• Interactive presentation by Nick Fewings, Director of The Colour Works - ‘Fired Up For Success! Managing Change Effectively’, how the Shropshire Fire Brigade became one of the leading Fire & Rescue services in the UK.

• Guidance Briefing: P3O™ (Portfolio, Programme and Project Office) - new P30 guidance from OGC by Sue Vowler, P3O Lead Author.

• Guidance Briefing: The Best Practice Crib Sheet - by John Edmonds, Head of Training & Patrick Mayfield, Founding Director, pearcemayfield

• Methodology Briefing: Agile Project Management - by Keith Richards, author of ‘Agile Project Management: Running PRINCE2 Projects with DSDM Atern’

• Programme & Project Sponsorship Qualification - The launch of the Programme and Project Sponsorship (PPS) qualification by The Home Office, the UK government department responsible for protecting the public from terrorism, crime and anti-social behaviour.

The popular ‘Birds of a Feather’ sessions, where delegates discuss issues around a boardroom table, will be featured again this year. Examples of these sessions include ‘Project Leadership Techniques: benchmark your own experiences against the ‘leadership lifecycle’ and choose the right leadership technique to solve commonly occurring difficulties’ hosted by Melanie Franklin, Chief Executive, Maven Training. Paul Major, Director, Program Framework, will also host a session entitled ‘The Change Directorate. What does a Change Directorate actually do? Understanding and unpacking this concept’!

The Best Practice Showcase will be held at the QEII Conference Centre, in the heart of London and a minute's walk from the Palace of Westminster. It is free to attend for programme, project and risk managers. Information and registration is available at www.bestpracticeshowcase.com

As a PMForum media partner, the 2008 Best Practice Showcase will receive a listing and banner ad on PMForum’s global PM Events Calendar, pre-event news coverage of announcements and developments, live breaking news reported directly from location during the event, and post-event reporting. Examples of PMForum media partners and associated articles and news coverage can be seen at http://www.pmforum.org/events/partner_program.htm.

Established in 1995, www.pmforum.org was the world’s first website devoted to professional project management and is one of the world’s most popular sources of project management news and information. PMForum also produces the monthly online PM World Today eJournal where articles, case studies, papers and viewpoints by leading PM authorities from around the world can be found; free subscriptions are available at www.pmworldtoday.net. Examples of PMForum media partners and associated articles and news coverage can be seen at http://www.pmforum.org/events/partner_program.htm.

PMForum has been named a media partner for the ProMAC 2008 project management conference to be held in Anchorage, Alaska during September 15-18, 2008. The ProMAC 2008 conference will be held at Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage. This will be the fourth ProMAC project management conference, following on successful events previously held in Australia, Japan and Singapore.

According to Professor Jang Ra (pictured), Conference Chair, “This is the first international project management conference in Anchorage with high level participation by major Asia and Alaskan organizations. Professor Ali Jaafari at APIC recommended PMForum to us, so we hope they can help spread the word about our symposium. This will be an important event for both the region and our PM program at University Alaska Anchorage.”

The ProMAC 2008 conference will serve as an important forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences to revolutionize today’s project management knowledge and techniques for the future. Special plenary sessions will feature top executives and government officials from the Asia Pacific region who will describe and exchange practices and plans. Paper presentations and workshops will also be held on project management topics of interest to both local organizations and international experts. For details, visit http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/promac/.

ProMAC International Project Management Conferences are promoted through an international partnership of The Society of Project Management (Japan), the Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), the Asia Pacific International College (APIC) in Australia, the University of Alaska Anchorage and other participating academic and professional institutions. ProMAC has been established as a series of international conferences for academia and practicing project managers to gather and interact with each other. Successful ProMAC Conferences have previously been held in Singapore in 2002, Tokyo in 2004 and Sydney in 2006.

The Master of Science in Project Management (MSPM) at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) was officially established in June 2003. On November 3, 2003 the UAA ESPM was accredited by Northwest Commission on Colleges & Universities as one of thirteen project management degree programs in the United States and the only one on the west coast. The program began classes in spring 2004 with 20 students and one year later, over 60 students had enrolled in PM classes for the spring 2005 semester. The MSPM program is organized around the nine knowledge areas defined in PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), a globally recognized standard for managing projects in today's marketplace. For more information, visit http://soe.uaa.alaska.edu/espm/index.html.

An official “call for papers”, invitation to exhibitors and other information about the conference have been issued. As a PMForum media partner, the ProMAC 2008 conference will receive a listing and banner ad on PMForum’s global PM Events Calendar, pre-event news coverage of announcements and developments, live breaking news reported directly from location during the event, and post-event reporting. Examples of PMForum media partners and associated articles and news coverage can be seen at http://www.pmforum.org/events/partner_program.htm.

Established in 1995, www.pmforum.org was the world’s first website devoted to professional project management and is one of the world’s most popular sources of project management news and information. PMForum also produces the monthly online PM World Today eJournal where articles, case studies, papers and viewpoints by leading PM authorities from around the world can be found; free subscriptions are available at www.pmworldtoday.net. Examples of PMForum media partners and associated articles and news coverage can be seen at http://www.pmforum.org/events/partner_program.htm.

The project management team for the 22nd IPMA World Congress on Project Management – ROMA 2008 Project Management to Run – have announced their keynote speakers for the November World Congress. Project and programme mangers worldwide are invited to Rome during 9-11 November 2008 for an unforgettable projet management experience, and to hear the following keynote speakers.

Prof. Lynn Crawford, Professor of Project Management at the Bond University, Australia, and at the ESC of Lille, France and one of the world leading project management thinkers - “Project Management for a Faster Tomorrow”

Prof. Roland Gareis, Head of Department Projekt Management Group at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria and globally recognized for his resear on the topic of project based society - “Change Management and Projects”

Mary McKinlay, Vice President IPMA, Adjunct Professor Management ESC, Lille, France and globally recognized project management advisor in the UK - “Where is project management running to...?”

Gianfelice Rocca, Chairman Techint Group of Companies, senior executive of a global group of companies and businesses - “Project Management of human resources in a globalised group”

Toni Ruttiman, "el Suizo", “the Swiss”, an extraordinary forty year old Project Manager, Swiss citizen and polyglot - a man who has built 360 bridges around the world following natural disasters, wars and other calamaties

Kenneth Sheely, Deputy Director of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) at the United States Department of Energy (DOE), one of the world’s most important security programmes – Project Management techniques applied to a worldwide challenge: “Reducing the Global Threat of Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism.

The IPMA 22nd World Congress on Project Management will be held in Rome, Italy during 9-11 November 2008. According to the “ROMA 2008 – Project Management to Run” project team, with keynote speeches and 12 streams of presentations over three days, as many as 200 presentations on important project management topics can be anticipated.,

The congress is expected to attract leading project management authorities and over 1,000 participants from the 45+ countries represented by IPMA membership. The Roma 2008 World Congress will be one of the largest project management events in the world this year. The 22nd IPMA World Congress and Exhibition will be held at the Palazzo dei Congressi near the heart of downtown Rome. For registration, schedule and other information, visit the conference website at www.ipmaroma2008.it.

The local hosts for the ROMA 2008 World Congress are the Italian Project Management Academy and the Italian National Association of Industrial Plant Engineering (ANIMP). The President of ANIMP is Fabrizio Di Amato; the President of the Italian PM Academy is Roberto Mori; the Congress Chairman is Luigi Iperti; and the Project Manager for IPMA 2008 is PierMarco Romagnoli.

Founded in 1967 and registered in Switzerland, the International Project Management Association (IPMA) is is an international federation of more than 40 national PM societies in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Local societies serve each country in its national language. IPMA provides an umbrella organization at the international level. IPMA’s internationally acclaimed 4 Level PM Certification Programme continues to grow worldwide. The IPMA annually presents awards to teams that achieve great feats in project management. IPMA maintains its continuous presence in the global PM arena through regular International Symposia, Expert Seminars and its Annual World Congress. The president of IPMA for 2008 is Veikko Valila. Additional information is available at www.ipma.ch.

The Association for Project Management (APM) has announced its new APM Education Network which takes place at Aston University Business School on 25th June. APM is seeking to facilitate the transfer of knowledge between academic and educational institutions on the one hand and corporate organizations, government and other influential bodies on the other. This is aimed at the further development of project management thinking, learning and practice across academic and practitioner fields, and is seen as a critical theme in the development of project and programme management as a profession.

Aston University, who also host one of the workshops for the Higher Education Academy’s Business, Management, Accounting and Finance Special Interest Group on Project Management, have recently been awarded ‘Centre of Excellence’ status for their new Centre for Project Management Practice. Dr Naomi Brookes, Director, Aston University will be discussing how the Centre for Project Management Practice is bridging the gap between the research and corporate communities in the Midlands and Dr Roger Atkinson, Bournemouth University Business School, will be addressing the essential role the academic community plays in bridging the project management skills gap identified by APM Chairman, Mike Nichols.

The role APM is seeking to adopt will be explained by APM Chief Executive Andrew Bragg (pictured) while the practitioner view comes from BAe Systems’ Don Hazeldine who will be discussing how the Foundation Degree in Project Management delivered by BAE Systems and Lancaster University signals the benefits of collaborative working. Jennifer Shaw, Transport for London, gives the corporate view on the search for project professionals and how Transport for London is tackling the challenge through its graduate recruitment programme. The formal sessions close with Julie Legge, Head of Membership, APM explaining how APM aims to support the academic community through its Education Network and Accreditation schemes. The closing session is planned as a panel discussion of how the Network can operate in the future and the next steps.

This event, the first Education Network from APM, follows last year’s exploratory meeting at Manchester Business School where a specially selected academic audience discussed possible approaches. The audience for June’s event is expected to consist of representatives from many of the Universities who are undergoing APM’s academic accreditation assessment as well as others from the BMAF Network. Places are still available and bookings can be made through Anna Grabham (anna.grabham@apm.org.uk)

The Institute of Risk Management (IRM) has announced Stephen Carver, Lecturer in Project Management at Cranfield School of Management, as its first keynote speaker for the 2008 Risk Forum. Carver is rated as one of the top three lecturers at Cranfield - one of Europe’s top business schools - and has a reputation of taking complex management concepts and being able to distil them into highly informative and fun lectures - often using “storytelling” techniques.

Carver, whose keynote appearance has been made possible thanks to generous sponsorship from Axa Corporate Solutions, will discuss risk communication with specific reference to the space shuttle disasters. He will be using as his case study the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28th 1986 - just one minute after launch, an accident that had been predicted by the designers for years. Indeed, the day before the key engineers believed that there was “essentially a 100% probability of disaster”.

As a story of the “human factor” undermining probably the most “intelligent” organisation in the world, this real case cannot be beaten. Then in Feb 2003 – the space shuttle Colombia burns up on re-entry and the entire crew perish. The chilling fact was that this was a managerial repeat of the Challenger disaster – NASA had not learnt! This comes in contrast to the recent successful Mars programme which successfully placed a lander on the surface of the Red Planet at the end of May.

Carver is a specialist in Project Management (especially in service based organisations) and unusually, for an academic, he has actually spent most of his working life in real business and still undertakes management assignments for many global organisations. His attitude is “if you haven’t done it – you shouldn’t be teaching it!”

The Risk Forum is IRM’s annual flagship conference with a programme of speakers and workshops that attracts around 350 risk professionals from around the world for a unique educational and networking event. This year the Forum is to be held from 15 - 17 September 2008 at the University of Hertfordshire impressive campus at Hatfield.

The Institute of Risk Management (IRM) was founded 22 years ago, and is the leading professional education and training body on risk management, providing courses at a range of levels from introductory to expert. With around 2,000 members in more than 50 countries, drawn from a variety of risk related disciplines and a wide range of industries, the Institute is governed by practising risk professionals and has strong, global links with academia and other risk and strategy organisations.

The project management team for the 22nd IPMA World Congress on Project Management - ROMA 2008 Project Management to Run - has announced that Mr. Toni Ruttiman will be a keynote speaker for the November congress. Toni Ruttiman, "el Suizo" ("the Swiss"), is an extraordinary Project Manager. Forty years old, of Swiss Citizenship, a polyglot, he is a man who has built 360 bridges around the world, in countries where wars or natural disasters were making everyday life difficult.

Toni can be considered to a modern-day Saint, a second Saint Francis. He has no home; he owns just two small briefcases - one for his personal effects, the other for his suspension bridge designs. Yes, because Toni helps the most destitute of people to build or re-build their own bridges to link up two sides of a river after a hurricane, an earthquake or an armed conflict.

The story began in Ecuador after a destructive earthquake. At the time Tony was twenty and, as he had finished his secondary studies, he decided to leave Engadina in Switzerland to go and help the survivors. Within a month a suspension bridge had been built utilizing used and scrap materials and the help of the people of the village destroyed by the earthquake.

After the first bridge others followed in Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador and Honduras and then in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and yet other countries. To date Toni has built more than 360 suspension bridges, strictly for pedestrian use only. A support system has been created around him. He receives materials free of charge, the ropes are those discarded by the Swiss cableways, the tubes are from Tenaris, transportation and other materials are all offered to him free of charge. People on the spot build to his instructions.

Toni is the perfect project manager. In his brief case he carries his personal computer with his calculation programs. Although he gave up his engineering studies to help poor people to build their bridges, he has excellent work organization skills. He is also able to respond to everyone's needs and to build bridges from long distance too, developing projects and shipping all the necessary materials in short timescales, thanks also to Governments that by now have gotten to know him well and that help him to cut through the mass of bureaucracy.

He speaks with simplicity, smiles and shows films telling the stories of his bridges through the eyes of smiling, happy people. Bridges of love and we could also say of happiness. A real project manager who knows how to organize his work and how to build up his teams that consist of different people for each bridge, people who have never built bridges before.

At the XXII IPMA WC in Rome, as the key-note speaker, Toni will explain how his personal action and perseverance have succeeded in overcoming all difficulties and why the connection between heart and mind is essential for everyone involved in a project and even more of a basic requirement for a team to ensure success and accomplishment. Is this the first “bridge” to be built?

The IPMA 22nd World Congress on Project Management will be held in Rome, Italy during 9-11 November 2008. According to the “ROMA 2008 – Project Management to Run” project team, with keynote speeches and 12 streams of presentations over three days, as many as 200 presentations on important project management topics can be anticipated.

The congress is expected to attract leading project management authorities and over 1,000 participants from the 45+ countries represented by IPMA membership. The Roma 2008 World Congress will be one of the largest project management events in the world this year. The 22nd IPMA World Congress and Exhibition will be held at the Palazzo dei Congressi near the heart of downtown Rome. For registration, schedule and other information, visit the conference website at www.ipmaroma2008.it.

The local hosts for the ROMA 2008 World Congress are the Italian Project Management Academy and the Italian National Association of Industrial Plant Engineering (ANIMP). The President of ANIMP is Fabrizio Di Amato; the President of the Italian PM Academy is Roberto Mori; the Congress Chairman is Luigi Iperti; and the Project Manager for IPMA 2008 is PierMarco Romagnoli.

Founded in 1967 and registered in Switzerland, the International Project Management Association (IPMA) is is an international federation of more than 40 national PM societies in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Local societies serve each country in its national language. IPMA provides an umbrella organization at the international level. IPMA’s internationally acclaimed 4 Level PM Certification Programme continues to grow worldwide. The IPMA annually presents awards to teams that achieve great feats in project management. IPMA maintains its continuous presence in the global PM arena through regular International Symposia, Expert Seminars and its Annual World Congress. The president of IPMA for 2008 is Veikko Valila. Additional information is available at www.ipma.ch.