PMFORUM Breaking News

Reported by Rob Posener from the UK


The APM 2007 Project Management Conference opened in London on Tuesday, 30 October and continued through Wednesday, 31 October. In no particular order, and without comment, the following quotations from Wednesday’s proceedings are presented for your entertainment…

1. Project management is facing the greatest challenge we have faced since D-Day.


2. Project management competency is vital to project success


3. Project Sponsors – full time, part time but hopefully NOT spare time


4. An Alarming Amount of Alliteration


5. Who calls the shots and who gets shot


6. Project Sponsors can frequently be useful to Project Managers


7. The project with the well-defined end date suddenly disappears off into the mists of time


8. When you have 2 Project Sponsors, you really have no Project Sponsors


9. Directing is more than “laying down the law”


10. If anyone came for the macramé class, that’s downstairs on your left


11. One man’s Programme Manager is another man’s Project Manager


12. People at the top of an enterprise are often deliberately creating problems for projects


13. The voice of honesty


14. Enterprises don’t exist for Project Managers. Project Managers exist to support the enterprise


15. This project was in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons


16. We assumed that if they were a competent engineer, that they could manage a project. We were wrong


17. We need to change the way we do things. We need to improve


18. Its not about the certification, its about the journey


19. Sustainability is like wind surfing… I didn’t see that it affected me


20. The Triple-Bottom Line = Profit/People/Planet (3P)


21. At this sustainability session we introduced the concept of printing on both sides of the paper


22. Its not like you can go on a half day course on sustainability and that’ll last you for the rest of your life


23. If there isn’t a planet, there won’t be anywhere to practice project management


24. We haven’t learnt anything in the past 70 years of mega projects


25. Strong central management is critical to successful mega projects


26. I’d rather be a Complex Project Manager than a Simple Project Manager!


27. Smaller projects are not easier to manage than mega projects


28. Sometimes the really important investments don’t have a business case


29. If you hollow out the Project Management Pathways book (it consists of 958 pages), you can put a 2-bedroom house in it


30. It is unrealistic to be able to forecast costs on a project over 5 years


31. Projects don’t deliver benefits. It’s the use of the project’s work products that generate the benefits


32. The poor state of project and programme governance is of concern to all Project Managers


33. Good project management represents a huge proportion of the assets of an enterprise


34. There ARE people outside of the Association for Project Management


35. Poor project sponsorship affects enterprise performance


36. At this time of the year, you are probably thinking about buying Christmas presents. The APM Guides make great gifts. AND, if you buy more than 50, they will be gift-wrapped


37. Using the term “hard soft skills” keeps it in the category of a joke and doesn’t allow the problem to be addressed appropriately


38. 1 in 5 delegates thought that going on a 5-day course to get a qualification would achieve negative outcomes for their enterprise


39. We need to find the measured evidence that there is a skills gap


40. Getting better Project Managers means we get better at delivering strategy


41. The project management industry is moving away from the technical aspects of project delivery and more towards strategic delivery of business benefits and value

The 2007 APM national conference - The Business of Projects – was held at The Brewery Conference Centre in London during 30-31 October 2007. The first such event for the association in its long history, the 2007 conference focused on project management “issues of national importance” in the UK. During the two-day conference, the following project management topics of national interest in the UK were discussed: The Business of Projects; Project Management Governance; the Project Management Skills Gap; Learning from Mega Projects; and Project Management in a Sustainable Society. For more information, visit www.apm.org.uk/conference.asp.

The Association for Project Management (APM) is the national body for professional project management in the United Kingdom (UK). With over 15,000 individual and 390 corporate members, APM is one of the largest organisations of its kind in Europe. The organisation develops and promotes project management across all sectors of industry and beyond. APM 's mission is: "To develop and promote the professional disciplines of project and programme management for the public benefit." At the heart of the association is the APM Body of Knowledge ; containing fifty-two knowledge areas required to manage any successful project. APM promotes the use of the APM Body of Knowledge through qualifications, accredited training, research, publications and events. APM is the UK member of the International Project Management Association (IPMA). With headquarters in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, APM has twelve regional branches throughout the UK and one in Hong Kong. Additional information can be found at www.apm.org.uk.

Robert Posener International Correspondent Australia Mr. Robert Posener is an International Correspondent for www.pmforum.org in Sydney, Australia. Mr. Posener is also founder and Managing Director of PMComplete Pty Ltd, a project management professional services company in Australia. For the last 30 years, Robert has managed projects for computer hardware, software and technology companies in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Hong Kong and USA. Rob can be reached at robert.posener@pmcomplete.com.au. More information about Robert Posener can be found at www.pmforum.org/pm forum team/index.htm#Posener.