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Tuesday December 5th,2006
ProjectsCenter Tour
Our tour helps you understand this tool better and gives you a quick introduction.
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Friday October 6th,2006
ProjectsCenter Forum
ProjectsCenter, Inc. has launched a forum. It will serve as a communication platform for project managers and other industry proffessionals. Topics span from project management software, tools and procedures to strategic project management issues and challenges.
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Tuesday August 29th,2006
Managing with just due dates
Lots of project managers complain about executives who pluck due dates from the sky with no consideration for:
* the work to be done,
* the availability of the team
or
* the other projects that are underway.
That kind of due date setting leads to high failure rates but the project managers are also to blame because they give executives only one corner or dimension of the project to quantitatively manage.
These PMs don't quantify the scope, risk or budget so the executive only has one dimension to manage that has hard-edged data. Read the article about Project having 4-Corners and cure your executives of the dates only disease.
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Tuesday August 15th,2006
Hot startup unveils plan
The same week that Onyx Software Corp. disappeared from the public markets, the founder of the Bellevue company is taking the wraps off another startup that he hopes will transform the way business people organize their work.
Brent Frei, who founded Onyx in 1994, is just starting to talk about Smartsheet.com -- a year-old Kirkland company that he created with former executives from Onyx, Concur and Captura Software.
Community Content
Case Of The Stealthy Spike - Part XIII (Blogs)
RE: Operations mgr to PM (Groups)
Frei, an executive vice president at Intellectual Ventures, is serving as chairman of Smartsheet and devoting about five hours per week to the startup. It is backed with about $1 million in angel financing and led by Mark Mader, a former vice president at Onyx
Frei drew parallels between the new company and Onyx, a maker of customer relationship management software. The company was sold Wednesday to private equity firms for $92 million.
"It was time for the next one," said Frei, whose fiancee, Maria Colacurcio, is serving as marketing director at the six-person startup. "The thing we did well at Onyx was that we built a better mousetrap in a market that people would have said was pretty well-defined and pretty crowded. I think we really have got that in spades this time."
Plenty of other companies sell project management and collaboration software, including Microsoft Corp., eProject and 37 Signals, which makes Basecamp. But Frei, 40, said most people still use Microsoft's Excel to track their work and manage projects.
"As I surveyed all of my colleagues out in the world, everybody basically used Excel and everybody hated using it, because while it was perfectly flexible in tracking line items, it was extremely difficult to keep up to date who had the current version of the file, it didn't track any history and there was no way to automate the tracking of things," he said.
That's a big reason why Frei -- who discovered the need for the Smartsheet service as CEO of Onyx -- started working on the problem last summer. Smartsheet, which takes its name from the idea of a smarter spreadsheet, tracks what people do on teams through a hosted Web service. It combines the best of Excel, Outlook and Web-based calendars in a productivity tool, one that allows managers to keep tabs on projects or recent initiatives as they change, Frei said. He described it as providing "an autopsy for a project."
About 25 companies are testing the service, including Cingular Wireless and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. It costs between $250 and $2,000 per month depending on the number of users. In "stealth mode" for the past 14 months, the company plans a full launch of the service later this month.
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Friday July 14th,2006
Three new reports indicate positive results of PMI credentials in IT
The growing need for project management knowledge and proficiency is among the optimistic forecasts for IT professionals in 2006, according to three recently published reports.
Redmondmag.com, known as “the independent voice of the Microsoft IT community,” recently released the results of its 2005 annual salary survey. Among a long list of non-Microsoft certifications, the PMP credential is associated with the third highest average base salary. Ahead of PMP certificants in average base salary are those who hold the IBM WebSphere and Hewlett Packard Master ASE certifications. Rankings are based on 2004 average base salaries. Redmondmag.com also reported that nearly half the 2005 survey respondents believe that a certification improved or enhanced their opportunity to find or keep a job.
In another published survey, the PMP credential ranked fourth in CertCities.com's 10 Hottest Certifications for 2006. The PMP debuted on the CertCities.com list last year and has since moved from 10th place to fourth place. CertCities.com looks for certifications it thinks will be the most influential in the upcoming year, will grow the fastest and will show the true future of IT certification. View the entire story online at CertCities.com.
In a third report, CIO magazine’s “State of the CIO 2006” surveyed over 500 IT executives about everything from what their position entails in their organization to how they operate their IT departments. In the section regarding their IT departments, more than half of the respondents listed project management as the leading skill set they require most from the IT professionals they hire.
In a list of the top 10 management priorities published in the same report, respondents listed improvement of project management discipline as the seventh highest priority for their department (the top three priorities were, from first to third, align IT and business goals, business continuity/risk management, and control IT costs).
CIO and CIO.com are published by CXO Media, Inc. to a global audience of more than 140,000 chief information officers and senior executives. Their survey research also indicates that more than half of the surveyed chief information officers plan to increase their IT staff in the coming year.
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Monday June 26th,2006
CRM User Acceptance on the Rise
Consultancy CSO Insights published its 12th annual 2006 Sales Performance Optimization survey results and analysis. The responses from 1275 companies reveal numerous data around lead generation, value selling, discounting, rep training, forecasting, sales methodologies, and win rates. What caught my eye are some indicators in terms of CRM software's user acceptance.
The results show that almost 60% of respondents are experiencing adoption rates of 75% or more. This is probably the 180 degree opposite of just five years ago. There are multiple reasons to this, and the survey points to a couple of specific ones:
* Over a third of survey participants said CRM made significant improvements to sales performance. Some specific examples include lead conversion rate improvements, as well as shortened sell cycles.
* Maturing of the software market, with packages easier, quicker and cheaper to implement, including the rise of Software as a Service and open source commercial systems.
Basically, CRM software is getting better, simpler, and cheaper. While deployment cycles are in some cases just as long as they were back in 1999 and 2000, this is now more due to legacy systems integration and SOA rather then just deploying a departmental packaged solution.
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Thursday June 1st,2006
Practice Standard For Scheduling
The Exposure Draft for the "Practice Standard for Scheduling" is now live .
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) has received widespread acclaim and serves as a reference for anyone interested in project management by focusing on knowledge and practices applicable to most projects most of the time. In fact, the PMBOK® Guide has become the de facto global standard for project management. And, its acceptance as an official project management standard is evidenced by its adoption by the American National Standards Institute as an American National Standard in September 1999 and was reaffirmed in 2001.
For the last three years, PMI® volunteers have been working on a companion standard that would document the set of processes that represent generally recognized good practices in the discipline of Scheduling. This companion document is now ready for PMI’s exposure draft process. PMI volunteers, under the project leadership of Doug Clark, have stepped forward once again to aid the profession by preparing the Practice Standard for Scheduling.
In accord with the PMI Project Management Standards Setting Policy and Procedures, the Exposure Draft of the Practice Standard for Scheduling is available at this web site for your review and recommendations. Your thorough review of the entire document and your submission of any recommended additions, deletions, or corrections are encouraged. Please submit your recommendations by following the procedures and using the forms also available on this web site. The personal information and e-mail address you enter on this site, will only be used by PMI and the team to track your participation in the exposure draft process and correspond with you about any recommendation you choose to make. Under no circumstance will your information be provided to anyone else. Any suggestion(s) that you submit regarding this exposure draft will be reviewed carefully, and then you will be informed of the resultant decision.
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Tuesday May 23rd,2006
ESC - Lille Announces International Research Seminar On Strategy, Project & Programme Management
ESC - Lille will host a major international seminar for researchers and professionals who specialize in strategy, project and programme management. Building on the schools international expertise in this area, the 3-day seminar is being run in conjunction with the University of Technology, Sydney (Australia). It will take place 23-25 August in Lille, France.
The meeting will bring together leading professors and doctoral students for three days of interactive discussion and exchange. In addition to presentations of the latest research in project and programme management, there will also be a session on "ideas for future research". Those interested in presenting at the seminar are asked to submit papers by 1 July 2006.
There is no fee for attending but participation is by invitation.
For more information contact Professor Christophe Bredillet: c.bredillet@esc-lille.fr
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Monday May 22nd,2006
Delivering Project Excellence Conference Selects Director Of Conference Concierge Service
Janet Carmosky, a former Director at Burson-Marstellar in Shanghai and known best for her China expertise, has been appointed Director of the Conference Concierge Service, an innovative networking and match making function to connect attendees, sponsors, speakers and the press during the Delivering Project Excellence Conference scheduled for June 5-7 in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA. “Janet brings terrific energy to the task of making this premier project management event a memorable experience for all. She will also contribute her management and internet experiences from 18 years in China in a workshop session,” said Dick Rutledge, Founder.
Carmosky has a unique perspective on project management and corporate cultures. “I know what it is to work with a team in one language, culture, and time zone, while reporting to stakeholders and clients who are literally in another world. I am excited for the chance to heighten the networking experience at the Delivering Project Excellence Conference, and look forward to giving a talk called What About China?, which is designed for anyone who has ever asked that question in a business context.”
The 2006 Delivering Project Excellence Conference promises to deliver fresh and transformational content in the project management space that is unavailable elsewhere. This high quality event will reveal for the first time new research findings from:
* Founder of the renowned Standish Group, Jim Johnson, on “The 5 Deadly Sins of Project Management”
* Vital Smarts’ David Maxfield on “The 7 Crucial Conversations of PM”
* Noted psychologist, Dr. Hank Weisinger’s new book: “The Emotionally Intelligent Project Manager”
* Bob Wyatt, VP of PM for Keane, Inc., concludes two years of research on the devilish problem of “Project Accountability by Turning the Spotlight on Those Who Don’t Keep Promises!”
Brian Muirhead, winner of NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal, opens the conference sharing the lessons learned as Project Manager on the successful Mars Pathfinder launch and last year’s Deep Impact Mission. The 2006 DPE repeats the popular post conference For-Women-Only Leadership Workshop, led by Sue Hodgkinson, CEO of The Personal Brand Company.
“This conference provides two innovations that are not available at other events. Janet fills one role, and Professor Martin Davidson from the University of Virginia’s Darden School will fill the other role as Conference Learning Officer (CLO). The CLO ensures that attendees take back to their organizations powerful knowledge from this event,” stated Rutledge.
Further information is available at the Delivering Project Excellence web site.
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Wednesday May 17th,2006
Risk Management Seminar Scheduled For Brasilia
The Project Management Institute Chapter of Distrito Federal, Brazil and X25 Treinamento e Consultoria are collaborating to convene the First Seminar on Risk Management of Distrito Federal (Brazil), featuring three active project managers from three different countries: Peter Mello, Brazil; Vladimir Liberzon, Russia: and Edward Fern, USA. The event will be held June 20-21, 2006, in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.
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Wednesday May 10th,2006
BMF Conferences Announces Successful Project Management Seminar
bmf Conferences has announced a Successful Project Management Seminar focused on the theme "Delivering Complex Projects within a Demanding Environment". The seminar is scheduled for Tuesday, June 27, at the Croke Park Stadium Conference Centre, Dublin, Ireland.
According to bmf Conferences: "This seminar will address many of these core aspects of successful project management and will equip attendees with the knowledge and skills they need to be effective in their pursuit of project excellence."
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Friday April 14th,2006
Projectscenter Enterprise 2.0 Released
ProjectsCenter Enterprise 2.0 has been released with a major list of updates. Scheduled upgrade maintenace was performed on 04/17/06 at 3 am PST.
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