Volume X - Issue III - March 2008
Editor's Perspective
March 2008 - the third edition Welcome to the March 2008 edition of PM World Today. This is the third edition of Volume X, the ten year anniversary of PM World Today as an online publication. PM World Today was one of the first newsletters entirely published and delivered via the Internet and we continue our efforts to transform it into one of the world’s leading monthly e-publications for project management. Nevertheless, PM World Today continues to evolve and grow, as this month’s edition reflects. Each month the Editor’s Perspective on the Current Issue provides a short overview of the articles and contributions included in the current edition. This edition of PM World Today again contains articles, news, papers and stories from around the world of project management (PM), including several in Spanish. PM World Today is an educational resource for PM professionals. It is also a resource (and service) for PM experts, leaders and practitioners who want to share knowledge and gain more visibility in the PM world as authors and contributors. This month’s Editorial is entitled “New Frontiers for Project Management.” The subject of last month’s editorial, Climate Change, is one such frontier, representing a vast number of future programs, projects and initiatives. But there are several other equally exciting new frontiers, emerging new industries where project and project management will be dominant. I highlight five such frontiers this month, including nanotechnology, new energy, climate change, economic development with technology transfers, and humans in space. Please read the editorial and let me know what I have missed. Two Letters to the Editor are included this month, both from students at Loughborough University in the UK. Both students are working on research projects associated with IT projects and are looking for participants. Please read these articles and consider supporting these two students by contacting them or clicking on their online surveys. Two Viewpoint articles are included again this month. Robert Prieto, Senior Vice President of Fluor Corporation in the USA, has presented an important paper on the topic of “Governance: Key to Successful Program Management Delivery.” Mr. Prieto has addressed two critical topics in the same paper – program management and governance. According to Bob, “Program management in the engineering & construction industry represents a fundamental re-allocation of responsibilities and authorities between the traditional owner organization and an engaged program manager.” In addition to his discussion of program management, Bob outlines “some of the governance features which are hallmarks of successful program management implementations.” Read this important article and send an email to me with your reaction. Morris Panner, current CEO of OpenAir and former legal advisor in the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, has also provided a viewpoints article entitled “The Strategic Project Manager.” In his paper, Morris states “Strategically, the PM occupies key ground within the organization: the intersection between planning and fulfillment. From this vantage point, the PM has the best insight into which plans deliver the most bang for the buck – and which ones suck the lifeblood from the company, being far more bother than they’re worth.” Please let us know if you agree with Mr. Panner; send us an email. Our Featured Interview this month is with Felix Valdez, instrumental professional leader in Perú, provided by our correspondent in Lima, Mr. José Machicao. Mr. Valdez was a charter member of the PMI Lima Perú Chapter and was its first President. He is currently a consultant and trainer in project management. He teaches post graduate courses in project management at the Pontificia Universiad Católica del Perú, and at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas. Thanks to José, the interview is provided in both English and Spanish. Featured Papers are serious professional contributions to the PM literature or papers of significant interest. Some are highly entertaining as well. This month we feature a paper by Michel Thiry, PMI Fellow who is also a popular speaker at international PM events, entitled “Creating Project Based Organizations to Deliver Value.” According to Michel, “Project-Based Organisations (PBO) are fast emerging as a serious trend, but many organisations still do not understand how to structure themselves to effectively create a strategic advantage from projects. PBOs need to be structured to create synergy between strategy, project, program and portfolio management and the project approach needs to both generate tangible value for the stakeholders and be sustainable.” We think this is an important addition to the PM literature and encourage all to read it thoroughly, and especially if your organization needs help. Kathleen Hass is back with a featured paper entitled “Managing Complex Projects is not a Simple Matter.” According to Ms. Hass, “Key practices of traditional project management are based on the concept of reductionism, which holds that complex entities may be better understood by reducing them to their simpler constituents. For instance, a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) … While a “reductionist” model such as this one may work in physics to describe the interactions of subatomic particles, and even in project management for very simple undertakings, it just does not work for complex projects.” We think this topic may be worthy of debate, but please let us know your reaction in a Letter (email) to the editor. Mark Kozak-Holland in Canada, frequent and popular contributor to PM World Today, is back with part 19 in his series on “Winston Churchill, the Agile Project Manager.” Mark also uses “Lessons from History” to teach modern PM. His paper this month is entitled “Creating Intelligence and Knowledge.” According to Mark, “As Churchill came to power in May 1940 he became aware of the secret establishment at Bletchley Park which collected and deciphered encrypted enemy communications (Enigma codes), under Stewart Menzies, the Director of Military Intelligence (MI6).” How Churchill used the Bletchley Park team proved decisive during the war, but how does that related to modern project management? This is another fascinating look back with lessons still to be learned! The final featured paper this month is one “reported by” Earl Glenwright, well known American project scheduling and management expert who has worked on many major construction projects and in interesting locations during his 35 year career. His paper is entitled “Contemporary Aspects of Critical Path Planning and Scheduling.” This is an important paper that deserves attention. Earl promises further explanation in a follow-on paper next month. in Personal Stories this month, we include another short but entertaining article by Ammar Mango in Jordan, entitled “It’s a Network Diagram... No, it’s a Workflow… No, it’s a Monster!” Ammar tells the story of an early assignment “to review a generic “network diagram” for a Fortune 100 company which they developed to be used as a template on their future product development projects.” With over 3,000 “nodes”, it turned out to be all he and they could handle. Read this story, then send us one of your own. Personal stories are intended to entertain and inform on a personal level – these are the human experiences of project managers and PM professionals. In Case Studies this month, we include an essay by Florin Gheorghiu in Bucharest, Romania, entitled “Starting a PMO from Scratch: A Challenge or Unbearable Burden?” While not a case study in the academic sense, it is written by someone currently involved in developing a PMO, now with some personal and revealing opinions about both the need and the process. If you sense some frustration, that too is not uncommon. We thought this to be the best category for this essay and hope that it proves interesting and useful to others. We want to welcome a new sponsor, ESC Lille in France, and thank our continuing sponsors this month, which include the IPMA,Journyx, Keller Graduate School of Management, The Graduate Program in Project Management at theUniversity of Texas at Dallas, and Threon Group. Please click on their logos and visit their websites. Sponsors receive visibility and publicity in the PM World Today e-Journal that is emailed to thousands worldwide, and on the PM World Today home page at www.pmworldtoday.net. If your organization is interested in sponsoring an issue of PM World Today please contact editor@pmforum.org. Thank you for your subscription, and for reading the articles submitted by our authors and correspondents. We are excited about the future of this online publication and the world of project management. Please send this to a friend or colleague. Free subscriptions are available at http://www.pmworldtoday.net/subscribe/subscribe.htm. Read complete editor's perspective in English
Good luck with your projects!
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