PMFORUM Breaking News
Breaking News in the Project Management World
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
5th Annual Project Management Australia Conference 2008 in Melbourne, Australia - a great success!
Reported by Brenda Treasure in Melbourne
The opening Keynote by well known Sporting Guru Max Walker set the theme that has continued into day two at the 5th annual Project Management Australia Conference (PMOZ) in Melbourne, Australia. The conference opened on Monday, 18 August and will run through Wednesday.
Max spoke about the Essence of Change and recognising the sign posts to the future. Even doing nothing is change. The rest of the world will rush on by at an accelerated rate. If we continue to do what we continue to do ... we will most definitely miss the sign-posts to the future.
We need to embrace with passion and conviction an attitude to change. The possibilities may surprise us. Value every relationship and understand the communication circle in creating an attitude of responsibility, accountability and ownership.
Some of the key take-aways from the presentation were - trust is the big word. Be transparent in decision making. Every person can make a difference. Leadership is about credibility, consistency, empathy, vision and honesty. In this new environment crisis creates opportunity.
Change before you are forced to change.
Max stayed on and joined delegates at the networking reception and shared many sporting stories.
Photo: PMOZ Program Chair, Brenda Treasure sharing stories with Max Walker
The opening of day two continued the theme with Iain Fraser PMP, Director-at-large, Past Chair of PMI speaking on Project Management into the future. In the 20th century, large organisations mastered operations on a global scale, with strong functional departments that made routine activities more efficient than ever before. But new activities - technological innovations, global supply chains, new business processes - demanded more focused, flexible, results-driven teams. Project management has evolved to meet the need.
Iain shared with us statistics from recent studies undertaken by PMI that there are 20million practitioners of project management worldwide. $USD 14trillion a year is spent on capital projects worldwide.
In the future, organisations will become even more "projectised" to capture more of the advantages revealed in studies such as the path-breaking Researching the Value of Project Management: more reliable and repeatable performance, greater stakeholder satisfaction, and improved transparency and accountability. At the same time, project managers will learn to adapt their methods for optimum "fit" with differing organisational and national cultures.
The gamut of speakers that followed shared new project management learnings and case studies.
One speaker from Brazil, Andre Augusto Choma, PMP shared his insight in ‘Ten ways to SINK a project’. The presentation showed ten situations that can bring a project to failure, with the objective of altering the project managers about some risks that are frequently ignored during project planning and execution. In a very humorous manner, the presentation approached the common causes of problems, and remembers the project manager’s greatest responsibility in risk presentation as the decisive factor of success. Andre also presented suggested course of actions that from the project manager to face each one of the 10 risk situations to keep the project ‘above water’.
Khalil Saeidzadeh, PMP from Melbourne shared his research into Rethinking Project Management. The rise in importance and application of project management over the last two decades in part is a result of businesses’ and organisations’ quest for attaining excellence.
If project management is to become central for business results, then it must embrace all facets of business. This among other things, starts with creating a wider sphere of knowledge and influence to achieve a greater understanding and closer alignment with business.
If organisations continuously search for better ways of doing business and as a result constantly adapting new ways, methods, models, and products then shouldn’t Project Management do the same to stay relevant?
An expanded sphere of influence would have to measure project performance beyond the traditional indicators of scope, time and cost. It must also equip the practitioners with new skills and tool set to overcome the physical mental and emotional barriers brought about by such an expanded context.
The presentation mapped the use of soft skills as major enablers for creating the right environment to drive projects.
Photo: Khalil Saeidzadeh
PMOZ 2008 incorporating PMI Australia National Conference was held at Sofitel Melbourne on Collins from 18 - 20 August 2008. The conference was co-located with the 6th Annual Software and Systems Engineering Process Group Australia Conference, providing greater opportunities for networking and high quality presentations targeted to a range of industries.
PMI is a non-profit professional association which has over 270,000 members across 170 countries with 40,000 members in the Asia Pacific Region. Locally PMI has Chapters based in all mainland states and the ACT. PMI Australia consists of the PMI Chapters in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. See http://www.pmichapters-australia.org.au/home.asp . For more information on the conference, visit www.pmoz.com.au.
The opening Keynote by well known Sporting Guru Max Walker set the theme that has continued into day two at the 5th annual Project Management Australia Conference (PMOZ) in Melbourne, Australia. The conference opened on Monday, 18 August and will run through Wednesday.
Max spoke about the Essence of Change and recognising the sign posts to the future. Even doing nothing is change. The rest of the world will rush on by at an accelerated rate. If we continue to do what we continue to do ... we will most definitely miss the sign-posts to the future.
We need to embrace with passion and conviction an attitude to change. The possibilities may surprise us. Value every relationship and understand the communication circle in creating an attitude of responsibility, accountability and ownership.
Change before you are forced to change.
Max stayed on and joined delegates at the networking reception and shared many sporting stories.
Photo: PMOZ Program Chair, Brenda Treasure sharing stories with Max Walker
The opening of day two continued the theme with Iain Fraser PMP, Director-at-large, Past Chair of PMI speaking on Project Management into the future. In the 20th century, large organisations mastered operations on a global scale, with strong functional departments that made routine activities more efficient than ever before. But new activities - technological innovations, global supply chains, new business processes - demanded more focused, flexible, results-driven teams. Project management has evolved to meet the need.
Iain shared with us statistics from recent studies undertaken by PMI that there are 20million practitioners of project management worldwide. $USD 14trillion a year is spent on capital projects worldwide.
In the future, organisations will become even more "projectised" to capture more of the advantages revealed in studies such as the path-breaking Researching the Value of Project Management: more reliable and repeatable performance, greater stakeholder satisfaction, and improved transparency and accountability. At the same time, project managers will learn to adapt their methods for optimum "fit" with differing organisational and national cultures.
The gamut of speakers that followed shared new project management learnings and case studies.
One speaker from Brazil, Andre Augusto Choma, PMP shared his insight in ‘Ten ways to SINK a project’. The presentation showed ten situations that can bring a project to failure, with the objective of altering the project managers about some risks that are frequently ignored during project planning and execution. In a very humorous manner, the presentation approached the common causes of problems, and remembers the project manager’s greatest responsibility in risk presentation as the decisive factor of success. Andre also presented suggested course of actions that from the project manager to face each one of the 10 risk situations to keep the project ‘above water’.
Khalil Saeidzadeh, PMP from Melbourne shared his research into Rethinking Project Management. The rise in importance and application of project management over the last two decades in part is a result of businesses’ and organisations’ quest for attaining excellence.
If project management is to become central for business results, then it must embrace all facets of business. This among other things, starts with creating a wider sphere of knowledge and influence to achieve a greater understanding and closer alignment with business.
If organisations continuously search for better ways of doing business and as a result constantly adapting new ways, methods, models, and products then shouldn’t Project Management do the same to stay relevant?
The presentation mapped the use of soft skills as major enablers for creating the right environment to drive projects.
Photo: Khalil Saeidzadeh
PMI is a non-profit professional association which has over 270,000 members across 170 countries with 40,000 members in the Asia Pacific Region. Locally PMI has Chapters based in all mainland states and the ACT. PMI Australia consists of the PMI Chapters in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. See http://www.pmichapters-australia.org.au/home.asp . For more information on the conference, visit www.pmoz.com.au.
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