A little bit about who I am in the world of Project Management. This entry may be updated repeatedly throughout the life of the blog.
CURRENT ROLE: Employed by a large Canadian FI (30,000+), running the Project Management Centre of Competency. We have a number of responsibilities in this shop. We:
- Perform R&D work to ensure our organization is aligned with Industry standards
- Drive industry standards, in some cases, by "raising the bar"
- Set the standards for project methodology
- Write the processes for how the standards will be executed
- Develop and document the competencies expected in the PM role
- Develop and ensure consistent delivery of PM Education and Accreditation in the organization
- Anything else our director assigns us :>)
That being said, a lot of the position is a happy mix of technology, methodology, research, and change management.
PROJECT CONTEXT DIAGRAMMING: This is such a fun thing! I attended a business analysis course which included techniques for eliciting Product Requirements. With a shift in thinking and some modifications, it was easy to apply it to Project Requirements. This has produced a whole new perspective in Critical Thinkins tools, and I've been presenting this new idea at PMI Chapters and some conferences lately. You can see your whole project on a page complete with roles, responsibilities, information flow. A whole new perspective on project stakeholder identification and management. Stay tuned for my upcoming lectures and workshops at ProjectWorld in Toronto, May 2009.
PRINCE2 CONCEPTS DEVELOPMENT: I recently attended a conference where I was seriously impressed with PRINCE2 Concepts. Developed by OGC, the same people who developed ITIL, it's got a lot of the issues solved in the methodology, that PMI didn't address in PMBOK. For example, it sets a project up for success immediately by positioning it as a vehicle for change, and puts in a governance triad at the front of projects that ensure it's seen wholistically by the organization, with the right players at the table. I believe that incorporating some of the basics of PRINCE2 by embedding them in our internal cultural change management messages, even without actually changing our processes, will help us to move our organization ahead quickly, and pic up the pace. For more information on PRINCE2, contact http://www.procept.com/.
PM INTERNAL ACCREDITATION REFRESH: This year, my focus is on revitalizing and refreshing our internal accreditation program. It's interesting because one of the challenges is to have people understand that "Accreditation" does not equal "Education" or "Certification," although these things may be components of Accreditation. This project will involve some radical changes to the curriculum, and some intense change management of culture to ensure that the changes are embedded, accepted, and *championed* by all levels of management. This will be a monumental task, but we're up to it! (I use the "Royal We" here. Yes, it can be enough to drive any Extreme Project Manager such as me, crazy.) The best reference I have on this is the "Project Manager Competency Development Framework" by PMI.
RISK ASSESSMENT CONTENTS EXTENSION: Other projects I am currently working on involve the extension of our Project Risk Assessment Model to include content and questions from our Operational Risk department. It's very important that Risk Assessment contents be kept updated, and the contents aligned with the of the parts of the organization that actually are concerned with Risk. Developing a Risk Taxonomy is the eventual goal.
COST MANAGEMENT AND EARNED VALUE: The other major focus this year, is about setting better controls in the Cost Management knowledge area. We're looking at a simple way to roll out Earned Value Management by gently framing it as "good business sense" and removing all the accounting-formula-speak in the foreground. It's a pretty innovative, low cost solution to a very high-cost problem. Stay tuned for more on that. The standard I am reviewing for this, is PMI's Earned Value Management standard. I've reduced the whole thing to a one-page user-friendly Excel model (no easy feat have you seen this stuff?) which boils down to the entry of just 4 fields. Whew! And they test us on what? In order to support this initiative, we're rolling out WBS and PERT tools to ensure that people are developing appropriate project models which are defendable, and easy to manage. "Dynamic Scheduling" by Eric Uyttewaal is the reference and course materials we're studying to develop a solid prototype for the required Project Template for our organization.
Stay tuned for more updates on initiatives under way!
Here's a link to the event description, presentation and feedback.
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