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Volume X - Issue XI - November 2008
Regional Reports
 Project Management News from Argentina
Argentina and the Economical World Crisis When the economical world crisis exploded after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy announcement, the Argentinean president Ms. Cristina Fernandez de Kirschner insisted that the country would not be affected due to the strengths of its economic model. Her perception had some truth in it; since there are few foreign investments in the country and few credit lines for its habitants, it was difficult to imagine that the economy could be even more limited. Reality is different: we are not only being affected by the world crisis mainly because foreign investors have decided to be cautious facing the growing interest rates of international banks, but so is the president who has created more uncertainty by announcing her intention of nationalization of the private retirement funds. This measure that will be studied by the Senate during the following weeks has shown the lack of clear rules; retirement funds belong in a major portion to foreign banks. These funds usually impel the Buenos Aires stock market, which had a terrible fall last week. It is evident that the crisis arrived in Argentina and the actual economic model does not protect the country from instability. Read complete report in English | Spanish
Project Management Update By Antonello Bove
Italy Returns to Nuclear Energy Italy will come back to the nuclear energy. The new government that took over almost six months ago launched a very aggressive plan on nuclear energy. Within the end of this year, the Department of Economy will select the criteria to choice the area where to build the new nuclear facilities. By spring of 2009, the project definition will be presented to the Italian parliament for discussion and approval. The goal is to open the first facility in 2020. In the long term, the nuclear energy (produced internally) will satisfy 20% of total Italian demand. A total of 3 or 4 nuclear power plants will be built with an amount of over 40 billion euro. The facilities will be built from scratch, not from the old ones that shut down in 1987 by a national petition against nuclear. Since then, Italy has been importing the majority of their energy from foreign countries including France, that produce energy through nuclear, with heavy impacts on cost for the Italian consumer. The program looks very interesting from the project management point of view. Scope, time and cost look very clear in the aggressive plan launched by the government Read complete report in English
Project Management Reported by
The Crisis and Project Management in the Construction Sector We had the opportunity to obtain the opinion from a Spanish project professional expert from the Construction sector, regarding the Spanish financial crisis. We were talking to Mr. Ignacio Moro, Managing Partner from Moro Soucheiron & Asociados. The Ignacio’s opinion is as follows: We are living moments of many changes in the Construction sector. We knew that the growth stage of the economic cycle should be finished but the situation was delayed year by year, keeping in mind the arguments about the population curve, houses creation with less amount of people per house, type of interest rate, the unemployment, the inmigration and some other reasons related to the good economy times could not be kept. And effectively, the cycle has changed its trend. The reasons are there. We don’t have negative reasons, we have objective reasons like the interest rate (Euribor), excess of supply and demand, the price position kept by the customers –I will not buy because the prices will be going down, or because now it is less profitable. It has been lost the savings perspective regarding housing. Read complete report in English | Spanish
Project Management News – Perúvian Update By José Carlos Machicao
APEC 2008 Meeting in Perú As it was reported previously by PMForum, Peru is going to face the APEC 2008 meeting (http://www.apec2008.org.pe/home.aspx) to be held from Sunday 17 to Sunday 23 November. This important Summit will take place. The concept chosen as the theme for the year of the Presidency of Peru is “A new commitment to the Asia-Pacific Development”. Broaden the participation of other players in the process of building the Asia-Pacific community, promoting the association among the public and private sectors (PPP), the inclusion of the representatives of civil society and the cooperation of the international financial institutions (IFI), stressing the focus on personal and economic development, and integral approach to the major issues that affect the region, such as energy security, personal security, climate change and sustainable economic growth. As this event was planned before the financial crisis and before the corruption scandal faced by Peruvian petroleum sector, above the level of expectation that these topics raised, additional interest is going to be common among the press and all actors on how the delegates approach the new challenges that the World situation puts on the table. For Peruvian corporations, small businesses and public entities, even when the topics are global, it will mean a lot of influence for the policies to implement next year. Read complete report in English
 Current Events Affecting Projects & Project Management in Nigeria By O. Chima Okereke, PhD A Mixed Bag of Performance in Current Project Management Deliverables Within the month of October, there was a mixed bag of performance recorded in national infrastructural projects initiated by the last federal government, the Obasanjo administration. On one hand, the much vaunted national railways modernisation project awarded to the Chinese in 2007 has been suspended. On the other, and a positive development this time, a gas turbine power generating station, known as Afam VI was commissioned and connected to the national grid. Read complete report in English
By Miles Shepherd
Implications of the Financial Downturn on Projects A week may be a long time in Politics but even a day can be a long time in the financial world. The past month has seen Governments from many countries stepping in to save their national banking systems and prevent financial meltdown. As reported last month, the UK Credit Crunch continues to impact projects both large and small – not only in UK but beyond. The interconnectedness of business and finance brought about by Globalisation is having some unexpected results on projects as well as on international businesses. As an example, Wolseley, the UK based buildings materials group is closing around 1 in 4 of its Stocks Building Supplies outlets in the USA and cutting 3000 jobs. The important point is not just the job losses but the fact that this is a major restructuring of the US part of the Group and will require some skilled and experienced programme managers to bring about the changes. And all this is set against a balance sheet loss of US$120 million this year, an expected further US$120 million next year and restructuring costs of US$225 million. Read complete report in English
By Manfred Rieck
Introduction Almost everyone is affected by the economic crisis, which isn’t anymore limited to the real estate and finance market but has reached the automotive market, too. Several apocalyptic scenarios are discussed in the media but what we see is that trust and professionalism are key for success in current times. This situation is a chance for highly professional behaviour for well educated and experienced leaders. These attributes help significantly gaining transparency and the ability to appraise a situation or a project. Going one step further the CritSit manager role is requested now who is able to deal in these situations with coolness to keep the survey of the situation but moving the organization with its projects forward. Read complete report in English
Project Management Profession News from Romania By Florin Gheorghiu, PMP The world’s economies collapsing one after another every month since the beginning of fall has become a part of our daily life. People get used to reading or watching the bulletins with growing concerns, stock exchange indexes turning red and companies’ shares ceased from transactions, bankruptcy of once sound banking institutions. Undoubtedly the World economy is now experiencing painful shrinkage, probably as bad as the one back in the early thirties. Once considered far away from the world’s turmoil, Romania became linked in recent years to most European and US economies mainly after our country’s accession to the EU. For our economy the moment of downturn would have come anyway, the analysts said, given the overheating economy in the last quarters, ending a string of growth in all sectors. Read complete report in English
Project Management Institute - Leadership Institute Meeting in Denver, Colorado, USA (North America) By Quang Ton, CABM, CISM, PMP
The PMI Leadership Institute Meeting is a wonderful event that offers Volunteer Leaders the opportunity for a powerful networking and information-sharing experience… The meeting featured regional leadership education for the organization and administration of components within North America The Leadership Institute Meeting immediately precedes the PMI Global Congress 2008 - North America. This year, it was held in Denver, Colorado (USA) between 16 and 18 October 2008 at the Denver Convention Center. For the first time, in the PMI history, this meeting had 730 attendees from 90+ countries and the Global Congress had over 4,000 attendees. Read complete report in English
The Global Financial Crisis and India: A Project Management Perspective By Raju Rao
Understanding what went wrong ?A lot has been written , talked and seen ( at least on television ) on the global financial meltdown . We have financial analysts and pundits attempting to explain it and find solutions using all the financial terminology and jargon at their command . For many of us who are not financial experts it is somewhat difficult to get to the bottom of the whole episode and understand what really went wrong ! Therefore , to explain it from purely from a layman’s point of view probably in somewhat simplistic terms , we can conclude that … Essentially a multitude of interconnected factors and situations have been at play which increased the complexity of the system . Risk management has been an important aspect which has not been dealt with adequately , coupled with the failure of the regulatory mechanism . There has been also been violation of ethical conduct notably by rating agencies where one would have expected it to be the least . Read complete report in English
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