Volume X - Issue IV - April 2008
Regional Reports
 Interview with Mr. Osvaldo Ucha, President of PMIBA Perspectives for the Buenos Aires Chapter of PMI in 2008
In December 2007 the Buenos Aires Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMIBA) renewed its authorities and is now facing the year 2008 with great challenges: the transformation of the chapter into a chapter with branches, and also the evaluation of its results by PMI’s headquarters. Osvaldo Ucha, President of PMIBA, shares with PM World Today how he faces theses challenges and which are his expectations for his labor. PM World Today: Which projects do you expect to develop during this period in front of PMIBA? Osvaldo Ucha: For this year 2008, the most challenging Project we face is the transformation of the chapter into a chapter with branches, according to PMI’s new politics, and proposing to have the Mendoza Branch as its first component. In parallel, new communities are emerging in Cordoba and Rosario, which we expect to add soon to the branches structure. Other projects, very important for the life of the Chapter, are the development of our Argentinean Meeting of Project Management which we have held yearly since the year 2000 and the participation in the Cono sur Tour Congress of PMI, we expect to bring back more awareness to these events. We also expect maintaining a growing rate of participation both in quality and quantity in the chapter’s activities, last year 2007 we achieved an important level of assistance. And last but not least, we expect to renew our web page and to prepare a regular Newsletter for the chapter. Read complete report in English | Spanish
 Project Management News By Manfred Rieck
Introduction The German landscape on project management is still dominated from PMI and the GPM organization. The triumphal procession of professional project management is visible in every customer discussion as the customer expectation is for high skilled, certified and experienced Project Managers. But a simple certification isn’t enough anymore. The Project Manager is perceived as the Swiss Army Knife in the fast changing environment. The role moves more and more into a Change Leader role as the Project Managers are not only responsible for the project content but also for the ‘soft’ part to “sell” the project within the organization. Here are some tipps where you can exchange your experience with other ‘knifes’. News from PM Professional Organizations PMI Chapter News The PMI Frankfurt Chapter has held its regular chapter meeting in Bad Schwalbach at Procter and Gamble. The first speaker was Dr. Ralf Mueller (pictured below) well known from several studies for PMI and studies with Professor Rodney Turner. He presented his recent study “Best fit for Leadership and Project Types” conducted for the Project Management Institute. The energetic discussion with the auditorium complimented the very practical outcome of the study. The second speaker was Dr. Horst Kötting presenting his book “Anleitung für Projektvernichter” (Instructions for Project Destruction). The book is planned to be published in english in the neartime. In the following discussion the focus was on cultural differences between American and German project culture. Read complete report in English
 Project Management News from Nigeria By O. Chima Okereke, PhD
Public Hearing on the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP) Introduction The electric power supply situation in Nigeria is poor throughout the country. It has been so bad that in February, President Musa Yar’adua, in a passing remark to Mrs Obiagali Ezekwesili, a vice president of the World Bank and an erstwhile minister in the Obasanjo presidency, who visited him, observed that the past administration spent about $10 billion on the power supply with little to show for it. This remark was seized upon by the Nigerian House of Representative as the raison d’être, the overarching justification, for setting up a panel to investigate the investment in the power sector and why we now have the current messy situation. Why messy? Yes, please bear with me as I explain my uncomplimentary choice of word with my personal experience. Between January 13th and 20th, I attended a conference in Cape Town. There was then a general complaint of rationing of power supply. I was amazed at the complaint and shared my feeling with a South African colleague; I did not experience any power cut or failure even for one minute throughout my week-long stay in South Africa. I returned to Port Harcourt, Nigeria on February 8th and left for the UK on March 22nd. Throughout my six weeks’ stay, I did not have power supply from the grid for up to twenty four hours on the whole. There were supplies on two nights, each one week apart, for about five to six hours; and then in short periods of some two hours at a time, during the day, on two different days. In our own area of Port Harcourt, we had the additional misfortune of a failed distribution transformer which was replaced three times without much success. I had to use our company generators day and night; our consultants in Port Harcourt are still using generators. Read complete report in English
Project Management Reported by Alfonso Bucero, PMP
PMI Madrid Spain Chapter is organizing the first Event of the year in Madrid (Spain) The current PMI Madrid Spain Chapter Board of Directors (shown in photo) has organized the first Event of the year 2008. This Event will be in Madrid at “Meliá Castilla Hotel” on May 12th. We will have Mr. Ricardo Viana Vargas, as a keynote speaker at the Event. Mr. Vargas is a member of the PMI Board of Directors. The PMI Madrid Spain Chapter has 305 members and it continues growing up. Project Management Professional Certification (PMP) awareness is growing more and more in Spain. Spanish Executives and Upper managers are more and more interested in the Project Management discipline. That fact contributes to elevate the importance and awareness of the profession in our Country. You can find more information at: www.pmi-mad.es Read complete report in English | Spanish
Report on Projects & By Mounir Ajam PM Profession News Global Project & Process Management Association (GPPMA) How to Achieve Energy Efficient Design Although GPPMA has not been fully registered yesterday, it has conducted its fourth monthly event on 26 March 2008. The event’s main sponsor was, once again SUKAD FZ-LLC (www.sukad.com). SUKAD has been a leading sponsor with Dubai Knowledge Village to GPPMA and in promoting professional project management in the community. The speaker was Mr. Montaser Zamzam, Senior Energy Specialist with Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore (ADCO). Mr. Montaser Zamzam has twenty three (23) years diversified experience in various aspects of project management and engineering development involved in major industrial, petroleum, petrochemical and buildings projects engaged in feasibility studies, pre engineering and engineering concepts, design and development of mechanical systems, and construction support. Read complete report in English
Project Management News from Jordan By Ammar Mango, PMP
PMI Chapter News PMI Jordan Chapter has elected a new board. The new board is led by Mr. Mohammed Amawi, PMP. The board will work on strengthening ties between the Jordan Project Management Community and the chapter through regularly held chapter presentations aiming at spreading the awareness of the importance of project management and the services offered by the PMI to its constituents and the industry at large. The previous board of directors, which was led by Ms. Litsa Karathensis was instrumental in turning the Jordan potential chapter into a full fledged chapter. The Jordan PMI Chapter was first initiated as a potential chapter in 2000 by Ammar Mango. He assembled the first group of PMI chapter members in Jordan to elect the first board of directors. PM Education News Momentum has been building over the past few years in the field of project management education in Jordan. Like many other countries in the world, project management formal training was almost unheard of outside the civil engineering and construction community. However, today, a growing number of organizations from diverse industries are becoming more aware and interested in providing formal project management training to their project managers. In a country that had no Project Management Professionals (PMP’s) up until 2002, today Jordan boasts around four hundred PMP’s and that number is rising steadily. In a country with a multitude of projects on the horizon and a growing demand for Jordanian resources in the Arabian Gulf region, the market demand for such certified professionals is high. Read complete report in English
Project News from Montreal
PM Profession News Montréal is a very active city in the project management field. Many companies embrace a project management methodology and encourage their employees to adopt the project management culture as a means to succeed in their careers. The charming city possesses a very active Project Management Institute (PMI®) chapter and we can also find in the region important universities that have been investing in project management masters programs and researches with a high level of excellence. This report presents some of these institutions and their activities and gives an outlook on how well the profession is evoluting in the region. PMI-Montréal Chapter News PMI-Montréal is a 30-year-old PMI chapter located in Montréal, a beautiful city in the heart of the province of Québec, the only Canadian province with two official languages: English and French. Its almost 3,000 members reveal the high level of Project Management activity in the region. The Chapter’s 30th anniversary will be soon celebrated by a prestigious Congress and Gala event, organised by PMI-Montréal and UQÀM (see more about UQÀM at the “PM Educational News” section) which will be held on April 29th at the Hotel Omni Mont-Royal, downtown Montréal. Over 400 attendees are expected to this full-day ceremony, whose agenda includes keynote presentations, various workshops and an ending cocktail. More information about this event can be found at http://www.mgp pmi30ans.uqam.ca/index.asp. Read complete report in English
 Project Management News By Ahmet Taspinar
DYNAMICS 2008 - the Turkish Project Management Forum 4-5 April 2008 The DYNAMICS 2008 Project team has been meeting on a weekly basis to finalize the program and publicity of the congress. Status as of Friday, March 28th is as follows : Read complete report in English
Romanian Project Management Climate By Florin Gheorghiu, PMP Fostered by the numerous projects launched in the last year and continuing to the current period, as well as thanks to the emerging sectors in the economy boosted by the international players within automotive, construction, real estate, information technology industries on the one hand and more mature telecom and banking on the other hand, the project management science and occupation has, continued to strengthen its top ranking occupational position. It can be proven by the abundance of project management job like requests either as such or in other variation forms, and by the increasing number of social and educational events focused on the issue. The two major streams in Project Management, PMI and IPMA, are both gearing up for either Rome for the IPMA Congress or Malta for the PMI EMEA 2008 Global Congress, where the elite will join this year as in the past for assessing the status and paving the road for the future’s accomplishments. The same turmoil can be noticed when we get down to the level of educational providers registered, affiliated or independent. All of them are making serious efforts to keep pace with the continuous growing of global and regional interest for the profession and issues deriving from Project Management. Read complete report in English
Project Management News & Information from Ethiopia By Getachew Teklemariam Alemu
Recording Lessons Learned! The Forgotten Dimension in Ethiopian Public Sector Projects There is an Amharic proverb which says “bekale yale yersale betsihufe yale yeweresale” which could literally be translated as “ in speech it could be forgotten, but if written it will last long”. The proverb could vividly show how much critical is to record information so as to share it with another body without deteriorating its original value. Recording the how, when, what, and by whom of a project activity and decision is vital in sharing experience within an organization benefiting future planning, implementation and decision making. Furthermore, it would help to ensure the continuity of organizational value with out being affected by the rapid organizational restructuring and personnel shift typical of the public sector. Nevertheless, it seems that it is being left aside in the Ethiopian public sector projects creating considerable hitch in benchmarking successful projects, drawing attention to potential failure points, and looking after probable management puzzles. As a result, causes for project delays, cost overruns, and scope deviations in most of the public sector projects are seen to be mostly the same. Read complete report in English
PMI Region 6 Leadership Conference 2008:
By Quang Ton, CABM, CISM, PMP PMI’s Region 6 is a geographic grouping of PMI Chapters encompassing Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. The Chapters in Region 6 are diverse, with memberships ranging from fewer than 100 to hundreds or several thousand members. Some Region 6 Chapters are located in some of the largest cities in the United States of America, such as Houston. The conference schedule began with a Friday night at the International House Hotel located from few minute-walk of the French Quarter where Bourbon Street is very well known for its sleepless area of fun and drinking (for more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans,_Louisiana). Saturday’s schedule included presentations throughout the day, each Chapter presented statistics on its founding, membership organizational structure, and key accomplishments and the theme of this year was “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”. One key take-home from this conference was an idea for Newsletter collaboration within PMI’s Region 6 and beyond in order to reduce the work load of the PMI Communications and Marketing Chapter Leaders… This conference offers great learning opportunities on how other chapters are running their business; there is also a great opportunityto meet other PMI fellow leaders and learn from peers. Read complete report in English
Project Management News from Perú By José Carlos Machicao
The earned value of wars and fights around and inside Peru Even when the rhythm of investment in the country continues growing and the capacity of consumption is improving, this month was particularly stressed because of many critical events inside and around Peru. From the point of view of a project manager, this allows to have a better understanding of scopes and risks. The fight for a better education During the last decade, Peruvian rates of learning for primary and secondary school were pretty low. According to the Statistical Reports of the Ministry of Education, back in 1985 only 9.3% of the approved children attending school between 2 and 5 years were not able to read and write correctly (which was already a big concern). In 2003 this figure grew to 21% already. This is why this month, when the Government implemented a national test for all teachers (more than 50 thousand) even when there were some protests from them, 76% of the teachers agree with it. Unfortunately, only 20% obtained more than the minimal mark in order to be hired directly. The success of this event for project management is that finally the Peruvian State is using officially some aspects of earned value to define the success of their entities. It became, as well, clearer for the State that it is necessary to set up standards, to measure, and to improve under control. Certainly there are many things to improve with the quality of the test and the effort to build a control system instead of a single test, but it cannot be denied that it was a big contribution from project management to measure and set up a goal for the school education in Peru.
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