Successful EVM Implementation! FAA Executive
Robert Rovinsky Reveals lessons learned!

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operates the largest air traffic control system in the world, controlling the flights of over 45 million aircraft and 800 million passengers in 2007 over much of North America, the Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Following the firing of almost all the FAA's air traffic controllers in 1981, the US Congress gave the FAA over 30 billion dollars over 12 years to modernize its air traffic control system. This program fell behind schedule and overspent its budget, and in the mid-1990s the US Congress' General Accounting Office (GAO) put the program on its "high risk" list, where it has remained until now. A new effort by the FAA is attempting to convince the GAO that the agency can manage its acquisitions on schedule and within cost and specifications, through the adoption of such best practices as Earned Value Management (EVM) and Portfolio Management.

Dr Robert Rovinsky, Director of IT Enterprise Services in the Office of the CIO at FAA headquarters in Washington, DC, has described some of those efforts and experiences in an interview in the August edition of PM World Today. http://www.pmworldtoday.net/interviews/2008/aug.htm

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New book by Kwak & Anbari Reviews the Impact on
Project Management of Allied Disciplines

An important and interesting new book authored by professors Young Hoon Kwak, PhD, and Frank T. Anbari, PhD,both at The George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, DC, has been published by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Entitled Impact on Project Management of Allied Disciplines: Trends and Future of Project Management Practices and Research, the book is based on research over the last year by these leading researchers.

According to the book’s announcement, such disciplines as supply chain management and human resource management are taken from other functional areas and integrated into the project management body of knowledge. Impact on Project Management of Allied Disciplines is an academic study focused on these related disciplines and how they influence each other as the professions and theories evolve.

From the back of the book: "Project management is greatly affected by allied disciplines and in return, it influences them. Therefore, innovative theories, trends and challenges discovered through investigating allied disciplines of project management could have important implications and allocations in the future of project management."

Impact on Project Management of Allied Disciplines is a collection of academic studies related to trends in allied disciplines of project management, including construction management, engineering management, entrepreneurship, IS/IT, management science, operations and production management, and Technology Management. The research collection investigates answers to such questions as:

• What future trends in allied disciplines might significantly affect project management?

• How would these trends affect project management?

• How would the impact of the trends affect the way project managers think?

• How can project managers and organizations overcome the challenges brought on by these new trends in allied disciplines?

Dr. Young Hoon Kwak (pictured left), PhD is an Associate Professor of Project Management in the Department of Decision Sciences at GW School of Business. Before joining GWU in 1999, he was a visiting engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught at the Florida International University in Miami. He has consulted extensively for both private and public sectors (US Navy), and was invited to serve as a panel reviewer for National Science Foundation’s George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Project.

Dr. Kwak is currently a Specialty Editor of Case Studies for Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, a member of the Editorial Review Board for Project Management Journal, and an elected member of the Construction Research Council in American Society of Civil Engineers. He was the co-principal investigator of Project Management Institute (PMI)'s path-breaking research "Benefits of Project Management: Financial and Organizational Rewards to Corporations". He has over 50 publications in journals, conference proceedings, magazine articles, books, and book chapters. He received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Engineering and Project Management (civil engineering department) from the University of California at Berkeley.

Frank T. Anbari (pictured right), PhD, MBA, MS Engineering, PMP, PE and ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, is a faculty member and past Director of the Project Management Program at The GWU’s School of Business (GWSB). Dr. Anbari taught in the graduate programs at Drexel University, Penn State University, and the University of Texas at Dallas. He serves as member of the editorial board of Project Management Journal (2000 – present), International Journal of Project Management (2007 – present), and International Journal of Managing Projects in Business (2007 – present). Dr. Anbari served as Vice President – Education and Certification, Project Management Institute – College of Performance Management (2005 – 2007), Chair of the Project Management Academic Committee at GWSB (2006) and Examiner (1993-1995) and alumni examiner (1999-2000) for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Dr. Anbari conducts research, presents widely and publishes articles on project management worldwide.

For more information about this interesting new book, visit http://www.pmi.org/Marketplace/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?GMProduct=00101029501

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