Welcome to the June
issue of PM World Today

The Editor’s Perspective on the Current Issue is intended to provide a short overview of the articles and contributions included in the current edition.  It is also intended to provide some perspective on why the articles should be of interest or why they are included in the first place.  Whether this is read before or after the articles, we hope it is useful.

This month’s Editorial is entitled “Teams of Teams! A New Organizational Reality for Program & Project Management.” Based on some recent experience with a global program and some new developments in the defense industry, I propose a new organizational strategy based on a more formal recognition and use of networks and teams.  Program and project teams can be viewed as hierarchies or networks of teams, or “teams of teams”, which becomes more significant on large and more distributed programs and projects.  This perspective might allow program and project managers new flexibility, and allow project teams to be more mobile and responsive.  The editorial includes some background, supporting logic, and some suggestions for implementing this approach, which may be breaking new ground in project organizational thinking.

One Viewpoints article is included this month. Ajith Kumar, a project services department manager in Oman provides another critical essay related to traditional quality management approaches in “The Quicksand of Quality Procedures”. The article is interesting and should stir some useful debate.

Our Feature Interview this month was provided by our correspondent in Argentina, Ana Maria Rodrigues.  Her interview with German Bernate, president of the PMI Bogota Chapter, on the topic of “The Project Management Profession in Colombia” is informative and revealing.  Mr. Bernate shares his experience and perspective related to challenges, successes and realities of promoting professional PM in that country. Of significance is the fact that these observations would seem to also apply to other countries and locations in Latin America.  Thanks to Ms. Rodriguez, the interview is in both the English and Spanish languages.

Featured Papers are serious professional contributions to the PM literature; this month five are presented by authors in Argentina, Australia, Canada and the USA.   Mark Kozak-Holland returns with another installment in his interesting and entertaining Churchill the Agile PM (from Mr. Kozak-Holland’s award winning ‘Lessons from History’ series), with “Churchill sets up a Governance Framework.”  Russ Martinelli and Jim Waddell also return with the 6th installment in their program management series of papers with “Managing Programs to Success:  Key Program Management Tools.”  Professor Ali Jaafari of the Asia Pacific International College (APIC) in Australia has provided an interesting article entitled “Online Project Diagnostics: A Tool for Management of Project Complexities”. 

Professor Pablo Lledo in Argentina has contributed a paper entitled “To Take Away Traditional Processes” in Spanish, with an English language translation provided by Ana Maria Rodriguez, our international correspondent in Rosario.  With Ana Maria’s help, we are trying to attract more Spanish language materials; this is an excellent example.  John Schlichter, the original program manager of the PMI OPM3 development program from origination in 1998 through delivery of the OPM3 prototype in 2002, has contributed a paper entitled “Taking OPM3 to the Next Level.”  These are all good papers, current and relevant.

Our PM Tips & Techniques papers provide an opportunity for project management consultants, experts, trainers and vendors to contribute to the eJournal, with helpful and practical suggestions.  We offer four such papers in this issue.  In his paper “How to Improve Project Sponsorship,” Alfonso Bucero, founder and Managing Partner of BUCERO PM Consultingand international correspondent for PMForum in Madrid, offers some suggestions on how to educate senior executives and manages on becoming an effective project sponsor.   Michelle LaBrosse, Founder and CEO of Cheetah Learning, has provided another stimulating paper entitled “Cross the Digital Divide and Get Where You’re Going faster!”  This paper is distributed through Cheetah’s Know How Network, which we are now happy to be a part of.  Laurence Nicholson in the UK, PMP and active member of both APM and PMI, is back with an article entitled “An Introduction to Requirements Management!” in which he discusses the process of establishing and maintaining technical and business related requirements, as agreed between the customer (business) and the Development team.  Finally, Kathleen Hass, Project Management Practice Leader for Management Concepts, has provided another excellent paper entitled “An Eye for Value: What the Business Analyst brings to the Agile Team.”

Five Regional Reports are included this month from our international correspondents in Argentina, Nigeria, Spain, the United Kingdom and the USA.  Actually, our correspondent in Argentina, Ana Maria Rodriguez, has provided another report about project management in Colombia, her home country.  Her report is in the form of an interview with German Bernate, the president of the PMI Bogota Chapter, which is also included in the Featured Interviews section of this PM World Today.  The interview is in both English and Spanish languages.  The second report is from Dr. O. Chima Okereke, PMForum correspondent for Nigeria, in which he discusses the political situation in his country following the recent national elections and offers professional project management as a tool for both economic development and better governance.  Miles Shepherd provides a UK Project Management Roundup with news about changes in the way the UK government approves major projects, the recent fire at the historic Cutty Sark Clipper Ship Restoration Project, and new proposals for private financing of UK infrastructure projects.  Alfonso Bucero in Madrid has provided a short review of two major developments in the project management world in Spain.  And Carol Dekkers in Florida provides an “Update from Various Northern Hemisphere Corners – Helsinki, Waldorf, Orlando, Vancouver, Rome”, based on her recent travels and conference speaking engagements.  These are all very interesting stories and we thank these international correspondents for their contributions this month.

The balance of this month’s PM World Today features calls for papers, announcements of future events, news, information and stories that have been featured over the last 30 days as breaking news articles on www.pmforum.org.  We hope the inclusion of those stories is helpful, especially those announcing future PM events and Calls for Papers.

I want to welcome Paul Dinsmore to the PMF/PMWT Global Advisory Panel this month.  One of the best known PM authorities in the Americas, Paul Dinsmore, PMP, PMI Fellow, is President of Dinsmore Associates, a consulting and training company operating globally, with base offices in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  Paul is the author of 12 books on management and project themes including “Winning in Business with Enterprise Project Management” (Amacom, USA, 1998) and “The AMA Handbook of Project Management, Second Edition” (2006, Amacom, USA).  He is a long time member of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) and has been honored with PMI’s Distinguished Contributions Award and the prestigious Fellow Award.  Please see the article announcing his addition under PM Community News in this issue.

I also want to welcome our newest International Editorial Advisor Professor Sergey Bushuyev, PhD, Dr. Sc., who is Professor and Head of the Department of Project management at Kiev National University of Construction and Architecture (KNUCA) in Kiev, Ukraine. He is also founder and President of the Ukrainian Project Management Association and founder of the Project management Academy of Ukraine.  One of the leading PM experts in Europe and the Former Soviet Union, professor Bushuyev sits on numerous editorial boards, teaches and lectures widely throughout eastern Europe and central Asia, is an advisor to the Ukrainian government, and is active in the International Project Management Association (IPMA).  Please read the article announcing his participation under PM Community News in this issue.

We also extend a warm welcome to Mr. A Matt Piazza, our newest International Correspondent, who lives and works in the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) metropolitan area of north Texas.  Matt will be providing news and reports from around Texas and PM-related developments by Microsoft Corporation.  In addition to being a respected professional leader, Matt is a Black Belt Microsoft Project and Enterprise Project user, expert, consultant and trainer. A Matt Piazza, MBA, PMP, is principal consultant for Delta Solutions, a project management consultancy specializing in project management office (PMO) and enterprise project management (EPM) services.  Matt has over 20 years experience in professional project management and is former president of the DFW PMI chapter.  Please read the article announcing his participation in the PM Community News section of this issue.

We want to thank our sponsors again this month, which include the IPMA, Journyx, Threon, and PMForum .   Please visit their websites for some leading PM products, publications and services.  Sponsors receive visibility and publicity in the PM World Today e-Journal that is emailed to thousands of PM practitioners and professionals worldwide, and on the PMWT home page at www.pmworldtoday.net. If your organization is interested in sponsoring an issue of PM World Today please contact me at editor@pmforum.org.

Thank you for your subscription, and for reading the articles submitted by our authors and contributors.  We are excited about the future of this online publication and the world of project management .  Please send this to a friend or sign up for a free subscription at: http://www.pmworldtoday.net/subscribe/subscribe.htm.  

 

Good luck with your projects!
David L. Pells
Managing Editor
PM World Today
www.pmworldtoday.net
www.pmforum.org
editor@pmforum.org