Welcome to the May
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 “Transparency vs. Security! A Growing Dilemma for Project Managers and Organizations.” Over the last five years, calls for more transparency in organizational, program and project governance have increased.  At the same time, the global environment for projects has become less stable and more risky.  This month’s editorial is an attempt to identify some major factors on both sides and to provide some perspective for those of you who may now be struggling with how to keep stakeholders informed while securing project assets, data, people and confidential information.

We include three Letters to the Editor this month. The first from Russ Archibald, a PMI Fellow and a global advisor for PMForum living in Mexico, with some positive comments on our recent advances with PM World Today.   The second is an email from Eric Jenett in Houston, with an update “On the subject of PMI”.  The third is a short note of clarification from Greg Balestrero, following the breaking news coverage of his April 28 speech to the PMI Dallas Chapter’s Professional Development Day related to “the center of excellence in managing large complex projects moving eastward towards China.”

Two Viewpoints articles are included this month.  Harvey Levine reflects on detailed versus more summary level project scheduling in his article entitled “Penny Wise and Pound Foolish: Realistic Resource Scheduling!” Ajith Kumar, an Indian chemical engineer working as a project services department manager in Oman criticizes the quality assurance profession in his article “Tottering Quality Management!”  Both articles are highly worth reading.

There are three Featured Papers this month.  Russ Martinelli and Jim Waddell return with the 5th installment in their program management series with “Managing Programs to Success – Key Program Management Processes.”  Paul Giammalvo in Jakarta contributes another interesting article on the subject of earned value management with his paper entitled “Activity Based Costing (ABC) – The Other Side of the Earned Value Coin!”  and Francis Wega discusses enterprise project management in his paper entitled “Overcoming Common Pitfalls in EPM Systems Implementations – beyond the technical execution.”  These are good papers, current and relevant.

In Second Edition this month, we include a tremendous paper by Morten Fangel, founder and executive director of the Danish Project Management Association and former president and chair of the International Project Management Association (IPMA).  His paper entitled “Advancing Project Management Professionalism in Your Company” is an excerpt from his chapter in the forthcoming book: Project Manager’s Handbook: Applying Best Practices Across Global Industries, Editors: David I. Cleland and Lewis R. Ireland, to be published in August 2007l.  Another similar excerpt of this paper was also previously published in Russian in the International Journal of Project Management by the Russian Project Management Association SOVNET.  It is republished here with permission of the author, McGraw-Hill publishers and SOVNET in Moscow.

A good Student Paper is included this month by Mr. Bachir Kane, a graduate student in the graduate program on Project and Programme Management at the ESC Lille School of Management in Lille, France.  In his paper entitled “Estimating and Tracking Agile Projects”, Mr, Kane provides some in depth analysis related to the difficulties associated with estimating, planning and managing “agile” projects with traditional project management tools and methodologies.

Our PM Tips & Techniques papers provide a convenient opportunity for project management consultants, experts, trainers and vendors to contribute to the eJournal, with helpful suggestions.  We offer five such papers in this issue.  In his paper “Why Employees hate to track their time, and what you can do about it,” Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx, explains some of the reasons why time cards can be so threatening to people, then offers some suggestions.   Suresh Malladi, a Client Services Manager with a major software firm in Philadelphia, offers some leadership suggestions in his paper entitled “What it takes to be a better Project Manager – Going beyond project management!”  Michelle LaBrosse, Founder and CEO of Cheetah Learning, has provided a paper entitled “The First Quarter’s Over – Do you know where your goals are yet?”  This paper is distributed through Cheetah’s Know How Network, which we are now happy to be a part of.  Donald Pillittere, Project Manager with Axxcelera Broadband Wireless and adjunct professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the USA, is back with an article entitled “Project Management – Addressing the Human Bottleneck!” in which he discusses ways to overcome negative project stakeholders.  Finally, Kathleen Hass, Project Management Practice Leader for Management Concepts, has provided an excellent paper entitled “The Blending of Traditional and Agile Project Management.”

Five Regional Reports are included this month from our international correspondents in Argentina, India, Nigeria, Portugal, Romania and Russia.  Actually, our correspondent in Argentina, Ana Maria Rodriguez, has provided a regional report from Colombia, her home country that she visited for much of the last month.  We include first regional reports this month from Raju Rao in India and Alexandre Rodrigues in Portugal, and another good review of the situation in Romania by Florin Gheorghiu.  The report from Russia is actually a final report on the results of the Project Management Symposium held in February in the historic city of Nizny Novgorod, Russia, by Alexandre Tovb, Grigory Tsipes and Professor Vladimir Voropajev.  We thank them all for their contributions this month.

One Book Review is included in the May issue.  A review of “The Earned Value Management Maturity Model” by Ray W. Stratton is included from Ray Rials, a graduate student in the Project Management MBA program at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). 

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 Peter Morris, PhD, to the PMF/PMWT Global Advisory Panel this month.  Dr. Morris is currently Professor of Construction and Project Management at University College London, as well as executive director of INDECO, a leading consultancy in the management of projects.  Peter is a well known project management author, educator, expert, researcher and professional leader in the UK. He is also currently vice president of the Association for Project Management, the professional body for project management in the UK, for which he also served as Chair.  He previously served as deputy Chair of IPMA.   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 Francis Hartman, PhD, professor of project & programme management in the Schulich School of Engineering and Adjunct Professor in the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  Professor Hartman is also currently completing a three year term in industry as president of QeD, a leading-edge consulting and training company spun off from his research and related work. Please read the article announcing his participation under PM Community News in this issue.

We also extend a warm welcome to Mr. Lawrence Suda, our newest International Correspondent, who lives and works in New York City and will be providing us with news and reports from The Big Apple now on a periodic basis.  Larry is also CEO and Managing Partner of Palatine Group/Management Worlds, Inc.  Please read the article announcing his participation in the PM Community News section of this issue.

We want to thank our sponsors this month, which include the IPMA, Journyx, Threon, and PMForum .  Please visit their websites for some exciting 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.  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