The Critical Path

Is your project in trouble? Do you need to increase your defensive knowledge that will prevent your project from entering the danger zone? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you need to join us for the 2015 PMI Scheduling Conference. This virtual event takes place next Wednesday, 17 June from 9:30am - 6pm ET. Our keynote presenter, Frank Saladis, PMP, PMI Fellow, can give you great insights on how you can navigate the murky waters of project execution and avoid the pitfalls that can put your project at risk of failure. His presentation entitled Saving Your Troubled Project: From Tragedy to Triumphant! begins at 10:00am ET.

Frank Saladis, PMP, PMI Fellow

Click here to register. We hope to (virtually)see you there!

The PMI Educational Foundation has established a project management training scholarship program for assisting qualified individuals in learning the fundamentals of project management and recently added six new scholarships funded by Former PMI Special Interest Groups/Communities of Practice.

The deadline for each of these scholarships is 31 July 2015. More information can be found on the PMIEF Scholarship and Awards page.

Check them out and apply today! 

The PMI Professional Development Scholarship for Construction

To assist project managers in funding continuing education coursework to be used for professional development related to construction in project management or project management in general.

o   Valued up to US$1,000

The PMI Professional Development Scholarship for Information Systems

To assist project managers in funding continuing education coursework to be used for professional development related to information systems and information technology in project management or project management in general.

o   Valued up to US$1,000

The PMI Professional Development Scholarship for Learning Education and Development

To assist educators (including those in primary, secondary, post-secondary, and instructional design) in funding continuing education coursework to be used for professional development in project management.

o   Valued up to US$1,000

The PMI Professional Development Scholarship for Pharmaceutical

To assist project managers in funding continuing education coursework to be used for professional development related to pharmaceutical, bio tech and life sciences in project management or project management in general.

o   Valued up to US$1,000

The PMI Professional Development Scholarship for Project Management Consulting

To assist project managers in funding continuing education coursework to be used for professional development related to consulting in project management or project management in general.

o   Valued up to US$1,000

The PMI Professional Development Scholarship for Utility Industry

To assist individuals interested in the practice and application of project management within organizations that provides a commodity or service (such as water, gas, electricity and cable) for eventual consumption by customers in funding continuing education coursework to be used for professional development in project management.

o   Valued up to US$1,000

The Project Management Institute is proud to present the 2015 PMI Scheduling Conference.

This all-day virtual event will feature expertise that can assist practitioners with Building Your Defense Against Chaos in the world of project scheduling. Access to this exclusive, members-only event is free to all PMI members. We will offer two concurrent tracks of content.

1.     Education and Training Track: Learn best practices in project scheduling methods, techniques and approaches. Topics include: Applied Schedule Management and Scheduling for Programs and Portfolios.

2.     Case Studies and New Advances Track: Pick up valuable case studies and/or lessons learned in project, program and portfolio scheduling. This includes presentations on scheduling theories and techniques from real projects and programs. Topics are: Risk Analysis and Scenario Based Program Scheduling.

And, the best part? Certification holders can obtain up to 11 PDUs for viewing all presentations live and on-demand.

Click here to register or copy and paste the link below into your browser.

https://vts.inxpo.com/scripts/Server.nxp?LASCmd=AI%3A4%3BF%3AQS!10100&ShowKey=25431&GroupID=Attendee 

We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, 17 June!

Our community is growing by leaps and bounds! To continue to provide an atmosphere that helps project managers be the best at what they do, we recently published our User Guidelines (you can find them in the footer on every page). These guidelines were created to help members make the most out of the community and to establish some ground rules for participation.

As activity in an online community increases, the amount of spam and advertising tends to rise as well. To keep our community valuable and educational, we don’t allow for spam, advertising, self-promotion or solicitation. After all, who wants to participate in a forum that has a bunch of people just posting links to their blogs or to products they sell?

Therefore, one of our most important rules is to keep posts relevant to the discussion and purpose of our community. Our community is not the place to self-promote, pitch a product, advertise your blog, your services, your website, etc.  While you may think you are adding “value,” you actually aren’t. Rather, you are pushing members out of the community instead of helping to build within the community. We’re looking for real conversation. Real discussions.

Genuinely participating in the community is a great way to demonstrate your expertise. For example, let’s say you see a question and you have a blog post or video that provides an answer. Instead of linking to your blog, write your answer out and post it in the community. Just posting a link to an outside site is spammy. Remember – your member profile is where you can list all of your accomplishments and professional offerings. If you have a website, etc. and you’d like to share the link, post it in your profile.

You can drive attention to your profile by providing complete answers within the community and demonstrating that you care by helping others develop professionally. You’ll also raise your Influence Score and members will respect your knowledge. They will look to you for your expertise and check out your profile to learn more about you. When members think of a particular topic, you will come to mind as a subject matter expert and they may reach out to you, visit your website, or send a connection request.

The only exception to this might be the case of when a member specifically asks for a link to another site or you are specifically answering the questions/concerns broached in the thread. This will be a rare circumstance. 

But don’t just post a question anonymously asking for a link to particular information and then post your link underneath. We’ll just remove it.

So, we’re asking for your help to keep your community valuable. We are currently going through the community to remove any posts that are violating the user guidelines, but we may not be able to catch every one. If you see such a violation of our user guidelines, please flag it as spam. Our Community Engagement Specialists will either edit the post or remove it entirely. 

Finally, if you ever have any question as to whether or not something is okay, just ask a Community Engagement Specialist! Just send us a message through the private inbox system and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible to show you how to get off on the right foot. 

*photo by epSOS.de via flicker at https://flic.kr/p/dAPegg

We are super excited to reveal the first of a series of monthly posts recognizing our most active community members. Each month we’ll be posting an interview with a community member who has gone above and beyond contributing to and bettering the community on ProjectManagement.com.

Our very first Member of the Month is Bruce Harpham, PMP®. Bruce recently received his PMP® (congrats). I’m sure you’ve seen Bruce around the community – whether he’s answering questions, writing in his blog, or conducting a webinar, Bruce has been a major contributor. We recently sat down with Bruce to find out what led him to the project management community.

1.      How did you get involved in project management?

I became involved in project management for a few reasons. I had some projects assigned to me over the years and found that work highly satisfying. In 2014, I worked on a taxation project with a project manager with a PMP® – his disciplined approach made an impact on me. Finally, I started interviewing project managers and exploring the field on my website at ProjectManagementHacks.com.

2.      How do you stay inspired to be the best project manager you can be?

I seek inspiration and instruction from several sources. I believe in the power of professional associations - a topic I explore on my website and presentations. In addition, I make continuing education a priority (e.g. self-study, evening courses and PMI® Chapter events).

3.      What is one thing you wished you'd known when you first started out in project management?

Ah, where to begin? I would have to choose stakeholder management. It is an area that can make or break project success. For example, the stakeholder identification and analysis techniques explained in the PMBOK Guide® have been valuable. Absent that process and discipline, it is easy to miss important stakeholders.

4.      It's Friday at 4 pm and your boss just told you that you've been assigned to work on a project - on a different continent! You leave at 9 am tomorrow. What are the next five (5) things that you do?

Wow! Thankfully, this has never happened to me. Here are the some of the ideas that come to mind.

1.      Communicate with my family. I share as much detail as I can and think through how this assignment will impact family plans and responsibilities. If I will only need to travel for a week, that would be manageable. Longer travel requirements would require more analysis and negotiation.

2.      Start information gathering. Specifically, I would seek high level answers on the following point: project purpose, project budget, project duration and prior relationships. If I know other people involved in the project, I get in touch with them.

3.      Complete travel preparations. I would check with my organization’s travel provider to obtain the best flight and accommodation possible under the circumstances.

4.      Evaluate impact on my current context. How does departing for a new continent impact my family? How does it impact my colleagues? In all likelihood, I would start to delegate work to other people so that I can focus on the new assignment.

5.      Get an early night. It’s a simple practice that makes the difference.

5.      You’ve come to the realization that an important project you are currently managing is going to be a massive failure. Somehow, every red flag has been missed or ignored and it’s far too late in the game to turn things around. Maybe you inherited the mess, maybe you’re the cause of the failure, or maybe it’s just the way things turned out. Either way, there’s nothing you could have done to prevent it. What types of things do you do, mentally, physically, or even spiritually, to cope until the project is over?

This is a challenging and frustrating situation to be in.

Here are a few of the practices I would use in this context:

1)      Discuss the status with the project sponsor. If the project is truly beyond recovery, then it makes sense to discuss options with the sponsor (e.g. project cancellation, significantly adjust deadlines or scope)

2)      Maintain my Weekly Review practice: If my personal management system falls apart, the crisis will only get worse.

3)      Reach out to my network: There is great value in getting an outside perspective, when feasible.

4)      Proactively manage stress: Remind myself to continue exercise and healthy eating. In fact, I would increase my physical activity if I could (e.g. go for a walk during lunch each day).

5)      Ask for support from the project team. As project manager, I rely on the project team. I may ask the project team for their suggestions and ideas on recovering the project before making a decision.

Please introduce yourself to Bruce below in the comments and add him to your network. To connect with Bruce outside of the community, you can find him on Twitter at @PMPHacks and on LinkedIn.

Is there a community member who you think deserves some recognition for their contributions to the community? Let us know! Email the member’s name and a brief explanation as to why you think he/she should be featured in our Member of the Month to [email protected].