PMFORUM Breaking News

Reported by Jaycee Kruger in South Africa

Project Management South Africa’s (PMSA) conference, themed From Strategy to Reality, which started on Monday 26 may 2008 at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, kicked off on a high note with a presentation by Jürgen Oschadlaus from Australia, demonstrating how turning Strategy into Reality applied to soccer world cup performances in the past applies also to day-to-day project management. Jürgen, not only a soccer enthusiast and player, but also a soccer coach and historian, took the audience through how France, the 1998 victors fell from grace in 2002 and how Brazil won the 2002 competition.

The audience was also treated to a very interesting talk by Christelle Bure on the topic of “Coaching with Care”. She quoted Robert C Gallagher who said: “Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine” and applied it to projects. She pointed out how coaching is not a lot of things it is perceived to be, and explained the benefits and ease associated with coaching, and how coaching will effect the bottom line. Christelle ended with a bit of wisdom she shared with the audience: You get best out of others by not lighting the fire in them, but by building the fire in them!

The plenery session was concluded by Johan Voster who gave an update on the infamous eNaTIS project which directly frustrated many South Africans about a year ago when it first rolled out. The project covered transforming the old National Transport Information System which controls vehicle licencing, driver licencing, vehicle records and associated systems. This major project which involved 4.6 billion records in the database, covering 20 million vehicles, now processing 600 000 transactions per day, all on open source free software, has had many major challenges which all have been overcome in one or another way. The number of lessons learned is many, and he shared most with the audience in the form of tips and suggestions. Of particular value was his statement toward the end that the value of following the basics as described in PMI’s PMBOK Guide, cannot be over-enphasised – he has the scars to prove it. His very informative session concluded with a question to the audience, the stakeholders of the project, to judge whether the project was successful or not, despite temporary and minor set-backs.

The afternoon was spent in break-out sessions and workshops, covering many interesting subjects of interest to PM’s.

About Project Management South Africa (PMSA)

Project Management South Africa (PMSA) is a not-for-profit professional association serving more than 1 000 project management practitioners in South Africa. PMSA hosts a conference every second year that features invited international and local speakers, and a broad range of reviewed presentations. The conference enjoys the support of numerous industry training and service providers who sign up as sponsors. In 2008, for the third time running, The X-Pert Group is the Conference’s Platinum Sponsor. The PMSA President for 2008 is Elmar Roberg; and the Chairman of the PMSA Board is Robert Best. For more information about PMSA, visit http://www.pmisa.org.za.

Jaycee Kruger International Correspondent South Africa Jaycee Krüger, PMP, PrTechEng, is an International Correspondent for PMForum and PM World Today in South Africa. He is also the Managing Director of the CMSS, trading as Construction Management Support Services. He has over 29 years of experience in project environments with increasing responsibility, on power, industrial and mining projects, including shutdowns and projects in remote locations. A Civil Engineer by training, Jaycee is active in the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACE), Project Management Institute (PMI), Project Management South Africa (PMSA), and the South African Institute of Civil Engineering (SAICE). Jaycee is based in Heidelberg, Gauteng, Johannesburg region, and can be reached at jckruger@greybeards.co.za. For additional information about Jaycee Krüger, visit http://www.pmforum.org/pm%20forum%20team/index.htm#Kruger.