Volume IX - Issue IX - September 2007
Regional Reports
 Being A Project Manager
On July 2nd 2007, the most important project of my life began: My first child, a baby girl, was born. Tatiana arrived in our lives and suddenly everything else was less important. I exchanged complex schedules of high-profile projects for a tiny notebook with drawings of little puppies where I write down pediatrician’s appointments, vaccines schedules, and the things I need to buy for Tatiana. The whole perspective of life, success and goals changed, as it happens to all parents. However, I am not only a mom, I am also a professional, and so I want to resume my career. David Pells, editor of PM World Today invited me to share my ideas about this issue with PMWT readers. He is right, there are many women in the PM field that might face the same challenge, and my experience and thoughts could be of interest to them. Please, do not expect advice and wisdom about how to care for a child, I will only share my thoughts about the issue of being a mom and having also a PM career. When I found out I was pregnant, I first asked to myself if it was possible for me to work during pregnancy, since I work in the construction industry and I must spend a considerable amount of time at factories or construction sites. Was this environment good enough for my baby’s health? I was also quiet curious about how my co-workers and clients would react to the fact of having a pregnant lady working with them, considering that I use to be the only women in most the projects in which I am part of. I asked my doctor and he assured me that my body was a safe place that will protect my baby from normal pollution of a construction site. My clients were very supportive, and allowed me to avoid the not-so nice places of the sites.
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 Current Developments Affecting Project Management in Nigeria, End of August 2007
Port Harcourt, the Peaceful and Safe “Oil Capital City” of Nigeria Peace, security, and normalcy reign in Port Harcourt since last week. The city, which is easily the largest and richest in the oil-rich Niger Delta, could be aptly described as the “oil capital city” of Nigeria. It is the capital city of the Rivers State, a state which is popularly known as: “the treasure base of the nation”. Earlier this month, it would have been incorrect to describe is as peaceful, as insecurity was palpable. A number of explanations have been given for the upheaval, but two appear most plausible. The first was that there were gun fights between some militants. That is, those militants normally accused of kidnapping unarmed persons, turned their guns against themselves following disagreements. This was one of the official explanations. The second was that some militants were being hired by disgruntled politicians, who lost the Rivers State elections, to disturb the peace to such an extent that the state should become ungovernable. Their objective was to lure the Nigerian Federal Government into declaring a state of emergency in the state. Should this happen, the current government should be pushed aside while an administrator, appointed by the President, would rule the state. However, the state government and the army commander of the security forces have denounced calls to impose a state of emergency. The army commander explained that it was not necessary in the present circumstances.
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 While Greece heads to elections at
Greek elections don’t affect the Greek Project Management Standard!Greece is heading towards early elections at 16th of Sept. 2007. But, it seems that elections don’t affect the development of the Greek Project Management Standard. As previously reported, at the beginning of August, Mr. Christos Folias from the Greek Ministry of Economics has signed an agreement with Mr. Nikolaos Simferis, CEO of ELOT (the Greek ISO member) for the development of a new Greek Project Management Standard. Under this agreement, ELOT, in the next 18 months will develop the Greek Project Management Standard. The Greek Government, Ministry of Finance, is demanding that all organizations in Greece dealing with projects funded through Community Support Framework (CSF 2007-2012), must be accredited with this new Greek Project Management Standardby 1st of January 2009. Until the 1st of Jan. 2009, companies can overpass this requirement and can be certified with ISO 9000. Read complete report in English
 Export of Swiss Project Management know-how
Am I just lucky? Or was it a premonition? Maybe a logical sequence subconsciously planned during long time ago events? Anyway, spending one week in Tehran was a most revealing experience. A surprise in the positive sense! My immediate mission was to deliver 5 days of Project Management training to Iranian Project Management professionals. The learning at the end occurred on both sides. While a group of experienced professionals were absorbing PMI ® principles based best practices, through their examples and questions transpired a picture worthy to be on the radar screens of many enlightened business minded people. What dominates today’s world of project management in Iran is large infrastructure projects - building of roads, dams, oil and gas refineries, construction of mega edifices. Although the scope of projects is relatively clear on the project side, the process side definition may be lacking. Read complete report in English
Project Management Monthly Report
Since 1997, approximately, there has been the wish to form a guild of professionals in Project Management in Ecuador. In the last months, this idea has begun to give results. After the PMI® designated a Community Formation Liaison, a leading group has been organized to form the Potential Ecuador Chapter for the PMI®. During a recent meeting, organized by the Steering Committee on August 15th, there was an obvious interest to promote the professionalism, the best practices; to create training opportunities and to spread the knowledge about Project Management. There are 75 professionals who have currently demonstrated their interest in participating in this guild, which might be ready by the end of the year. Three of the five steps established by PMI® have already successfully reached.
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Project Management in Spain By Alfonso Bucero, PMP
Marcos Serer Re-elected as PMI Barcelona Chapter President Marcos Serer has been re-elected as president of the Barcelona Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI®). Marcos has promoted the profession in Catalunya, getting some agreements with different public organizations like Barcelona City Hall. During the previous year, the PMI Barcelona Chapter increased their membership to over 100 members. The Board of Directors of PMI Barcelona is encouraging the PMP information and preparation between their Chapter members. For more information, please visit www.pmi-bcn.org. Read complete report in English | Spanish
Project India - at 60th Year By Raju Rao
India continues to be one the fastest growing economies of the world today and with it comes lot of challenges in project management. Labeled as the Great Indian Pie - democratic India, with over a billion people and a booming economy, is still known as a developing country - even after 60 years of independence. But that old-fashioned image is fast undergoing a remarkable transformation. It began with liberalization of economy in the early 1990s and since then there has been no looking back. Today India, the world's largest democracy, is the 10th largest economy and the fourth largest in the world in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). One of weakest links to growth since many years has been in infrastructure and it is here that considerable progress is being made now. This is done by improved and innovative ways of financing and contracting. As examples we can look at various sectors on the infrastructure front which include Roads, Airports, Metro rail projects, SEZ ( special economic zones ) and industrial parks , flyovers and housing . How does this affect or influence project management? The sudden spurt in activity and growth has posed many issues of which we can single out two of them which need immediate attention.
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When Disaster Strikes” Project or How could hazards be Projectized through PMBOK’s Project Risk Management Knowledge Area? By Florin Gheorghiu, PMP Earthquakes and forests on fire, landslides and hurricanes, tornados forming with no warning sign out of the blue and extreme heat culminating with many casualties and crops failure, heavy storm rains and massive flooding, radioactive discharges accidentally from a nuclear plant or a train with chemical wastes derailing in the vicinity of urban area, highway bridge collapsing with cars on it. This is part of our real life, events that happened in the past and surely will occur again in our unsafe future. The idea for this article came out on a stormy morning when looking down through the window as heavy rainfall was sweeping off the streets that minutes ago were hot. TV news coverage teams have competed with each other to report on the massive floods in the country after weeks off extreme heat. It is sure that nature has a deadly inclination to rapid and dramatic changes of climate, and no one can predict with sufficient accuracy what is going to happen next. Read complete report in English
 Project Management News By Manfred Rieck The vacation time is nearly over and most of us are again in business to prepare the year end already, which is expected to be a tremendous success for the German economy. The signs are still positive although the growth is somewhat declining. Nevertheless the optimism in Germany is still here. Regarding the project landscape Germany is on a growing path and Project Managers are as rare as other professions. A study from the German Interior Ministry is estimating that till 2014 around 95.000 engineers and 135.000 natural scientists are missing. This missing costs Germany more than 20 Billion Euro in 2007. Interesting numbers and interesting market – isn’t it? To get you some insights I would like to invite you to a journey through the project landscape in Germany and give you some news about the project management organizations from our country.
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 Project Management News By Saralee Newell Orlando to Get a Downtown Makeover Orlando’s City Council has agreed to hire Tim Ackert of Miami to serve as project director overseeing the $1.1 billion design and construction of Orlando’s new arena, performing-arts center and upgraded Citrus Bowl. Mr Ackert who has worked on performing-arts centers, convention centers and other big public projects, has a two-year contract that can be renewed until the venues are completed. Ackert has more than 30 years of project and construction-management experience, most recently as operations manager for URS Corporation, the country’s largest engineering design firm. He headed a URS team that in 2003 was brought in by Miami-Dade county midway through the construction of the Miami performing-arts center. The project was substantially over its budget and behind schedule, and Ackert’s team recommended changes to get it back on track. Mr Ackert also directs a team that is helping Miami-Dade negotiate a baseball-stadium deal with the Florida Marlins. Ackert said city and county officials have already taken important steps to ensure the venues don’t go over the budget by building safeguards into the contracts.
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 Major Projects in Portugal Encourage Better and more Professional Project Management Processes By Alexandre Rodrguese The value of project management is directly correlated with the perception of its importance in change management. Where top management develops this perception, project management is increasingly adopted within organizations. Recent developments and media events in Portugal seem to indicate that the local market is following this direction. The performance of the country’s economy is in fact greatly dependent on major projects implemented by the government. The construction of a new airport near Lisbon – to replace the existing one, currently running over capacity and too close to the city centre – has been deserving great attention from the press over the past semester, with discussions centred around the selection of the best location. The implementation of a high-speed train system – the so called TGV – linking Lisbon to Madrid, and the north of Portugal to the north of Spain, is also a major project under public discussion. These two major projects alone from the public sector will dictate much of the economic activity in the next years to come.
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