Since September 2013 PMSA has been recognised as the professional body for project management in South Africa.
This means that PMSA has the sole right and the responsibility to confer the designations of Project Manager (PM), Senior Project Manager (Sr.PM) and Professional Project Manager (Pr.PM) according to criteria specified by PMSA, and in line with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) framework.
If you as project management practitioners have any questions in this regard, please visit the dedicated FAQ section on the PMSA website.
It is such an honour to be listed as one of Knowledge Train’s favourite project management bloggers for 2013. It is at times like this that one is grateful that your contribution is seen, shared and appreciated.
Please check out the recommended websites from the project management bloggers below. Also connect with them on social media and become part of our global community.
Managing projects can be hard for project managers who try to keep track of each and every process and operation in a project. Even if they have the required skills and capability to deal with projects, problems and issues may arise which could lead to projects getting delayed or even failing.
Fortunately many concerns can be addressed through the use of enterprise web based solutions. These web-based solutions are specifically devised to augment the human capability over managing projects and help them improve management of multiple projects. These tools enable easy description and documentation of various processes and operations that constitute a project.
A further benefit is that they enable fast and accurate communication and collaboration among team members which proves to be an asset for those organizations whose team members are situated at geographically different locations. They can easily communicate and collaborate over important matters and resolve them through purposeful interaction. They can remain in touch with their projects from any device whether it is a desktop, tablet, laptop or mobile.
The time spent over performing various tasks can be accurately documented which helps in true assessment of individuals’ performance while performing them. Moreover, organizations can bill their clients accurately by considering the number of hours spent over processing their orders. Even new projects can be easily planned and executed by referencing time related entries from old projects if the new projects are on the same lines of the already executed projects.
The important milestones and events can be properly highlighted and tracked through the calendar feature which helps to know exactly when a particular event needs to be staged, so appropriate resources can be arranged. Thus important milestone dates will never be missed.
Any problems or issues cropping up in a project can be tracked early and resolved effectively and quickly through mutual collaboration and active intervention. The progress of a project can be better tracked through the Gantt chart which helps to know if the project is on the right track or not. The level of completion of various tasks can be accurately gauged through this enterprising feature.
By using these tools, the processes and operations of a project can be better organized and scheduled and can be executed as per project plan. A project manager gets freed up from the burden of performing routine tasks like documentation, arranging meetings and tracking as most of the activities get automated. Thus he can better focus on the project affairs and ensure their timely resolution and execution. This saves time, costs and efforts over a project. This hugely facilitates its smooth execution and it gets successfully completed within the stipulated time frame with optimized usage of resources.
The use of an appropriate enterprise project management tool can indeed be a blessing for project managers who can get quality results with less work, and by focussing on the right things.
Author Bio: Sharon is a Business manager of ProofHub, a web based project management software that facilitates management and completion of projects as per schedule. It enables the team members who are spread out in different locations in the world to collaborate over project matters. With its use, organizational objectives can be achieved effectively along with the generation of intended gains and assets.
Recently we spoke to a project manager, Simon Murison, who is a Management Consultant at IQ Business. Simon managed a 180 degree turn around on a troubled project and this is his story:
The project
It was a multi-year development project, IT focussed and in the energy management and information domain of the retail sector. The client wanted a system to help them monitor and understand their energy usage.
How a project in trouble was turned into a success story
There were two main areas of difficulty that Simon confronted when he took on the project. Firstly, his company was unfamiliar with energy management and that made them very reliant on the client for guidance. Over time, the project team realised that the solution specification and development required an in-depth knowledge of the topic and that generic systems development skills simply weren’t enough.
A second complication was that interaction with the client stakeholders was difficult and often highly confrontational. Simon found that the client did not have a comprehensive picture of what they wanted and that the resultant scope definition was broad and subject to interpretation. This had resulted in a number of conflict situations and a relationship which was fundamentally lacking in trust.
Turnaround and Impact
It was, in retrospect, a bad decision to fix the price of the project. When the project ran into problems, the contract put them under pressure from a delivery and timeline perspective. The client was unwilling to renegotiate on cost so it was ultimately the quality and timing of delivery that suffered. This put even more pressure on the project team resulting in decisions to augment and rotate resources on the project.
Simon had initially been brought in to help out with the business analysis but, after the protracted difficulties in overall delivery, took over the management of the project. This had a negative impact on the project budget, but it was believed that Simon could restore credibility and trust with the client. If the project had failed it would have had a very negative impact on a number of other client projects and future work.
The project team ultimately managed to address the issues with the work that had been done to date and, as a result of the earlier decisions and improved delivery success, Simon and his senior management were able to revitalise and refresh the client relationship.
All about relationships
They communicated that the project was running at a significant loss for the service provider, and that this was unsustainable. Once that understanding was reached, the client was more open to change and they were able to renegotiate the contact terms – a Time and Materials based pricing was adopted and the project operated more profitably going forward. The effect of this was a better relationship, improved trust with the client, a more profitable project and a project team that was under considerably less pressure.
The decisions made to turn around a trouble-some project proved effective. Through an open dialogue with client representatives, they could negotiate a way forward that worked for all parties.
Lessons Learnt
The initial decision to contract on a fixed price basis was as a result of ineffective risk management prior to signing. A proper risk analysis was needed before deciding on a pricing approach and they have now put a Risk Analysis framework in place for all stages of the project lifecycle. This process is now institutionalised and, if risks are identified up-front, the team now adjusts proposals and contracts to include the time, resources and/or costs needed to address them.
Profit margins can be negotiated down with the client; but risk margin cannot. You should never reduce the risk margin unless the risks themselves are transferred, mitigated or eliminated completely.
It’s important to document the assumptions made during contracting as they are often an articulation of the risks that may end up detrimentally impacting the project. If possible, a project manager should be brought in prior or during contracting process.
As far as software development is concerned, don’t fix the price unless you know the topic. If it’s a new area for you – if none of your PM’s or BA’s have had some experience in the field – consider contracting on phase by phase basis or use an Agile approach, not SDLC with fixed price.
Lastly, client relationships can be the turn-around. Focus on improvement of dialogue. Clients need to work with you as a partner to ensure successful delivery.
Simon Murison is a Project and Programme Manager with over 14 years’ experience in the Consulting industry. He has worked extensively with clients in the Retail and Financial Services sectors.
Years ago I started as a project administrator. Then I moved into IT support and I was always chosen to manage all the projects in our division. This is something I enjoyed because it was a natural fit.
As a project manager I’m in the fortunate position to be doing something that suits my abilities and temperament and which complements my core talents and skills. I enjoy the variation provided by being involved in various different projects and teams. It brings excitement when starting something new, as well as satisfaction when bringing a project to successful completion and having formed lasting relationships with the team members.
Being a strong communicator and a person who cares about people, project management has become my destined career where I feel comfortable and I believe that I am making a difference.
I was blessed with the addition of 3 beautiful children that enriched my life to the point that I actually gave up my full-time, permanent position and started to work in contract project management which provided more flexibility to work part-time and still continue with a professional career.
A Mature Profession
Today project managers are making a difference in every aspect of society whether it’s in IT, financial sector, retail, engineering, mining, welfare organisations or public sector and plenty of other industries. A thriving industry in itself has developed around the project management profession with companies providing products, software, training, recruitment and consulting; all with the main objective of making projects more successful in terms of how well they are managed and to provide the outcome and benefits as intended. Project management as a profession has matured.
In recent years young people are actually considering project management as a career with plenty of University and online training being available and offering a relatively well mapped out career path that offers growth opportunities and good compensation.
Blogging as my contribution
As part of my mission to give something back to my community, I have been blogging on Virtual Project Consulting about project management best practices, processes and tools for the past 4,5 years. I reach out to existing and aspiring project managers while offering a hub of recommended resources.
Let’s continue to develop, grow and contribute as this is how we find meaning and where we can continue to make a difference where we are.
P.S. This post is published as part of a first ever project management-related global blogging initiative to publish a post on a common theme at exactly the same time. Over 70 bloggers from Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, UK and the USA have committed to make a blogging contribution and the fruit of their labour is now available all over the web. The complete list of all participating blogs is here so please go and check them out!
About Linky van der Merwe: Linky is the Founder of Virtual Project Consulting. Her mission is to provide project management best practices and to recommend resources to aspiring and existing project managers. A certified project management professional (PMP) with more than 14 years project management experience and a track record of more than 40 successful projects. She is currently working for Microsoft Consulting Services, South Africa.
Today I want to share an excellent example of how project management professionals are brough together by the power of social media. This is called a project management ‘flashblog‘ where more than 70 project management bloggers will be writing their thoughts on the title ‘What does project management mean to me – a Project Manager’s sermon’. All blogs will be published simultaneously on 25th September at 1am GMT.
Kudos to Shim Marom coordinating a first ever project management related global blogging initiative to publish a post on a common theme at exactly the same time. Globally bloggers from Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, UK and the USA have committed to make a blogging contribution and the fruit of their labor is now available all over the web. All participating PMs are really excited by this and I’m also looking forward to sharing and viewing all the unique perspectives on project management from around the globe.
Much chatter is happening around the effort under the hashtag #pmFlashblog on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn.
The complete list of all participating blogs is found below so please go and check them out!
Also find the list of Twitter names from participating PMs! Now is your chance to follow and connect with your fellow PM practitioners all over the world.
For most Project Management professionals social media is already part of their lives. This article will look at LinkedIn and Google+ and how it is adopted in project management.
As a social networking site for professionals, LinkedIn will help you find experts in project management. There are many project management related interest groups on LinkedIn which you may join. Add yourself to groups and communities that share common interests with you or your business. Then follow and contribute to the discussions. This way you can connect with as many project professionals as you like including experts who can answer questions and provide advice.
When I perform a search for project management groups, there are almost 7000 results, which can be narrowed down by adding more filters. Groups with the most members are displayed at the top and the number of active discussions are also shown.
With LinkedIn you can build your brand and profile to share with others, search for work, get valuable information about searching for work, and expand your network. If you are not actively participating here as a project manager, I encourage you to read “Benefits of using LinkedIn”.
Google+
Most people have a Google profile and it’s very easy to join Google+. There are multiple interest groups to join discussions, watch webinars or even join Google hang-outs.
Google Hang-outs
With Google hang-out you connect with your colleagues, communities and customers via a video chat. Google Hang Outs is a great way you can have face to face conversations both privately and publicly. Collaborate in real-time, share ideas and even do interviews. You can also record the conversation so it can be viewed at a later time
There are many project managers, Pages relating to project management, as well as PM communities. Use Google + to share posts, interesting links, photos, videos or perhaps events for project managers.
SEO value and Google Authorship
If you or your company has an online presence, there is also value in having a Google+ account for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. If you are a content creator, like I am, you can claim Google Authorship. It is really simple:
Create a Google+ Profile and upload a high quality headshot and fill out the profile information.
Go to plus.google.com/authorship, sign up with your email and click on the verification link that Google will send you.
The biggest advantage of doing this is if people search for a particular content, your Google Plus profile will be displayed including your photos and a brief description of who you are. If they like your content, there is a high probability people will add you to their circles to allow them to receive updates from you or your business.
Let us know in the Comments if you’re using LinkedIn or Google+ for your projects and how well that is working for you.
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For most Project Management professionals social media is already part of their lives. This article will take a closer look at social media platforms, Blogs and Twitter and how they are adopted in project management.
Blogs are made up of posts, which are short articles that appear in reverse chronological order on the blog. Blogs have an archive facility which will display historical posts by day, week, or month. In the project setting, it is the equivalent to a project notebook.
There are a number of ways blogs can be used to enhance the success of a project.
Project documentation – you can put all the project documentation on a blog.
Major milestone announcements – blogs are a great way to keep your team informed of the major phases that are coming up, as well as to recognize the good work your team has accomplished as milestones are passed.
Interesting pictures – keep blogs interesting by posting pictures of a product in various stages, or of people who are making a product that aren’t usually in the company newsletter.
Use of features – use comments fields, as well as tags and ratings features of blogs.
Decide early whether you want to use external blogging sites or internal blogs. Many products are available internally. SharePoint Workspace 2010 contains a blogging feature that your organization can use to create a blog that is private to your team.
Micro-blogging
Twitter is the most popular micro-blogging tool today. It allows you to send short messages to the internet, but limits the update to 140 characters and also permits your “tweets” to be protected. As with a blog, the tweets appear on your homepage in a long chronological stream, with the most recent comments at the top.
There are several ways to use Twitter to help you manage a project.
Project management articles – use search to find good articles about specific project management topics and best practices.
#Hashtags are used to help index the subject matter of your tweet. For example, the hashtag #pmot is used for tweets about “project management on Twitter”. When you click on the hashtag, you will immediately see a page full of the recent tweets that have used the same tag. This is a simple way that users can quickly filter for only tweets about specific subjects. You can also search for tweets by typing the hashtag in the Twitter search box. Other useful hashtags for project managers are: #projectmanager, #pmp, #project, #msproject, #project2010, and #pm. Also check #PMChat for Tweetups every Friday for an innovative way for project managers to get answers to project management questions and obtain different perspectives. Source:
Team hastags – a project team can decide on its own hashtags for the projects they’re working on. If your team is working on a business application project, you could decide on a hashtag to use across Twitter, such as #busapp. This willwork for projects where security is less of a concern.
Twitter Lists
On the Home page of Twitter, your Twitter timeline can get cluttered very quickly. Twitter lists become useful as it allow you to group Twitter users. You can make a list of other users who are also in project management. Every time you follow a person on Twitter who is also a project manager, you add them to your list. By following this process you will soon connect with project managers from all over the world who you can follow and collaborate with. Or create a list for your team relating to the project you are working on. Send them the URL of the list so they can see who you’ve added.
Consider subscribing to other people’s lists. My Projectmanagement list contains 316 members and a number of subscribers. Now I can look at Tweets from project managers on my list and the lists that I’m subscribed to and see all the latest updates at a glance. I can retweet, share them with my followers or reply and collaborate.
Let us know in the Comments if you’re using Blogs or Twitter for your projects and how well that is working for you.
Please subscribe to the RSS feed to read the rest of the articles in this series.
For most Project Management professionals social media is already part of their lives whether they use it intentionally or not. Let’s take a closer look at social media platforms already widely adopted in project management.
These days many project managers or project management companies have Facebook pages. On Facebook you can learn from experts about project management. You can create professional contacts to get questions answered or to jump to a suggested site.
When you perform a search for Pages on “Project Management”, you will find more than a 1000 Pages. A search for project managers, also give results for more than 1000 people, which can be refined to your own country or city to find people you may know.
Visit some Pages, find out what is being shared, Like Pages, join Groups and become part of the communities where you can contribute or where valuable information is shared.
Yammer
Yammer is like Facebook’s equivalent, but in the corporate world, focused on the company. With Yammer, you can share announcements, create a team calendar of milestones, create pages for different interests, and upload documents.
Also consider posting your team norms, latest screenshots of the app for team members to comment on, and sharing video updates or team photos.
Yammer allows for more in-depth updates and comments can also be grouped into a “thread” beneath each post, allowing for a more conversational tone.
Let us know in the Comments if you’re using Facebook or Yammer for your projects and how that is working for you.
Please subscribe to the RSS feed to read the rest of the articles in this series.
The purpose of this article series is to educate project management practitioners about the use of social media in the project management profession.
Part I will cover the benefits from using social media, as well as recommended best practices.
Part II will cover the platforms to consider and the value of each social media tool for the project manager. See links to Part II articles at the end.
Social Media Adoption
Social media is a reality, and its growth is destined to continue. The integration and adoption of social media into our personal and business lives is increasing. There is no indication that it is going to stop anytime soon. If you are not currently involved with social media, either personally or professionally, and you have no plans to do so, you may find that you quickly get left behind.
Why Social Media
Managing relationships to build trust is especially important for projects managers, because it is becoming increasingly common for project team members to be distributed geographically while working on projects.
This increase in virtual teams makes the communication process more challenging; therefore more difficult to establish strong relationships and bonds that lead to high levels of trust.
Communications delivered through social media are potentially a valuable resource for developing trust between project team members.
Source: Herbert Remidez: Journal about the explosion of social media – the emerging practice of companies using social media to support project management.
Social networks, both within and outside of companies, increase the value of collaboration by reducing the search and coordination costs of connecting parties who have related knowledge and interests. By developing and managing relevant formal social networks, organizations can facilitate communications that improve decision making and operations.
In a field like project management that depends on lessons learned and best practices to deliver repeatable results, the pool of resources you can tap into via social media is very powerful.
Best practices for Social Media
The best use of social media is to focus on building relationships. Make sure your team is in agreement with which social networking tools are to be used. You might want to document how the team should use the tools, when to use the tools, and what type of content should be contained, and not contained, in posts. There is a much stronger chance of the tools being used when everyone understand some fundamentals about them.
Privacy and security are valid concerns and must be taken into account when adopting social media into the workplace. You need processes and guidelines in place to ensure that social media is used responsibly and that care is taken when sharing information inside and outside of your team.
Social media is not a technology; it is culture, a culture created, supported and enabled by various technologies and applications that are constantly growing and changing. The true innovation is the cultural change that social media has bought about. People think, act, and communicate in a completely different way.
For example on Twitter, being able to discuss challenges with other project managers and hear from PMs in different sectors, provides an on-going roundtable that fosters continuous improvement.
Social media is an extraordinary opportunity to improve team collaboration at all levels. Social media is the way of the future. It will keep maturing, growing, and changing, but it is here to stay. Get on-board or be left behind!
Continue reading the series on the Practical Use for Social Media in Project Management:
If you’re about to sit your PRINCE2 exam then here are some simple tips which will help you to maximize your score and increase your chances of passing. Of course, the tips below won’t guarantee you will pass, but they will give you a better chance of passing.
Tip #1: Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!
Make sure you are well prepared by having completed all pre-course reading and homework during the course. Thinking you can skip homework and instead go out with friends during the course, is a high risk strategy and should only be attempted by those who are already very familiar with PRINCE2.
Tip #2: Drink lots of water
Drink plenty of water during the exam. Your brain needs water to function properly. Don’t give it extra stress by consuming diuretic drinks (tea, coffee or coke) which are likely to dehydrate you and slow down your brain function.
Tip #3: Read the question
This sounds like stating the obvious, but it’s amazing how many students fail to follow this simple tip. If you don’t read the question properly, then you are more likely to provide the wrong answer. Just missing out one word can change the entire meaning of a question.
Tip #4: Don’t hang around
Spending too much time answering one question is going to leave you with less time to answer the remaining questions. A good time-management strategy is therefore essential. Work out the average time available for answering each question and stick with it during the exam.
Tip #5: Tab your manual
This tip only applies only for the PRINCE2 Practitioner exam which is an open book exam. If you don’t know your way around the manual easily then you will spend too much time trying to find an answer in the book. That time might be better spent answering a question that you do know the answer to. So, before the exam, ensure you have put a coloured tab into the most important pages/sections. If needed, write your own table of contents for quick indexing of important pages.
About the author:Simon Buehring, is an approved PRINCE2 trainer and the founder of Knowledge Train, which is an accredited PRINCE2 training organization based in the UK.
PRINCE2® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS.
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