Presidents Message
Events & Activities
Lessons Learned/Lessons Shared
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New Members
New Certifiers
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ACT Chapter Contact Details

Welcome to the August edition of the ACT Chapter Newsletter.

Continuing Professional Development
The AIPM is going through some significant changes thanks to the work of many people behind the scenes.CPD is being introduced as a means by which individuals will continually upgrade their skills and knowledge and will play an important role in maintaining membership and RegPM status.The CPD programme will be introduced in a phases manner over the next 12-18 months. The ACT Chapter invites members to attend a lunch time information session on 15 August 2007. More details regarding this event are below.

AIPM National Conference 2008
The AIPM national conference will be held for the first time in Canberra in 2008.We are looking to not only demonstrate how we manage some truely amazing projects in the ACT, but also what a wonderful place Canberra is to work and live.We will be calling for volunteers shortly to assist in the planning of this significant event.

ACT Chapter Nominations for ACT Chapter Council
Nominations for positions on the ACT Chapter Council are requested from local members. AIPM can only achieve the objectives of our members through the valuable contribution made by our passionate volunteers. There are 3 vacant positions available for Chapter Councillors: Events Coordinator, Corporate Liaison and Education Liaison. If you are interested, and are able to volunteer approximately 8 hours per month to the chapter, please forward your expression of interest to the ACT Chapter Coordinator.

Yours in project management,

Michael Young
ACT Chapter President 

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Events & Activities  

Our monthly Forums are held on the last Wednesday of every month, commencing at 5:30pm until 7:30pm at the Canberra Club, 45 West Row, Civic. Drinks and cocktail food are served, and members are more than welcome to bring a guest. For all RSVP's please contact the ACT Chapter Coordinator.

Thank you to our generous sponsors

Project Management in the ACT has enjoyed another outstanding year and this is worth celebrating. The Australian Institute of Project Management wants you to be part of the success story at our annual Project Management Achievement Awards gala event on Wednesday 5 September 2007.

This year’s gala will be even better than our highly successful 2006 event including the best of music and entertainment.You’ll be able to celebrate the exciting growth of project management while enjoying a fun evening with your friends including dinner and dancing. And you’ll also see outstanding project achievements as we present an outstanding number of award submissions.

The event offers much more than an opportunity to acknowledge the success of project management colleagues.This is also a great opportunity to build or renew business relationships in a relaxed setting.So gather your colleagues, and your fellow Chapter members whom you work with, as well as your partners, and come along for a thoroughly entertaining evening.

Submissions for the 2007 awards will be presented with the winners of the ACT “Project of the Year” award and the Individual Project Management Achievement Awards announced. The winners will be considered for the national awards to be announced at a ceremony to be held in Hobart on 7-10 October 2007.

Date: Wednesday 5 September 2007
Venue: Great Lakes Ballroom, Rydges Lakeside, London Cct, Canberra
Time: 7.00pm pre-dinner drinks, 7.30pm Awards Presentation and Dinner
Dress: Evening Wear
Ticket Price: Individual $110.00 incl gst, Corporate Table of 10 $1,100.00 incl gst

RSVP – By Friday 17 August 2007

Bookings can be made by completing the booking form and forwarding to:

ACT PMAA 2007 Events Manager
C/- Einstein & Edison
PO Box 42YARRALUMLAACT2600
Tel: 02 6232 4240
Fax: 02 6232 4245
Email: liz@einsteinandedison.com.au

Continuous Professional Development and Executive Project Manager Standards

Presented by: Peter Shears – CEO AIPM & Cathy Wagner – Certification & Assessment Manager AIPM

Presentation
AIPM recognises the need within industry for ensuring that its Project Managers are continuing to develop themselves professionally. More and more, Corporations are also acknowledging this need and are becoming Members of AIPM, with a view to having their PM’s certified under the well recognised RegPM program.

Continuous Professional Development (CPD) program for ‘RegPM’ Renewal. The CPD program is being developed for AIPM members who wish to recertify their RegPM when it is time for renewal (currently every 3 years). The official launch of the CPD program was on Monday 2 July 2007. Over the next year members who need to recertify their RegPM can either do so through being assessed via an Assessor or by accumulating CPD points only.Whilst some members will easily be able to accrue the required number of points, others may prefer to undergo an assessment. The current processes will be phased out over the next few years – so start the CPD process now.

The new ‘RegPM’ Award of Executive Level Project Manager. The current levels of ‘REGPM’ are:

Level 4 - Team Member
Level 5 - Registered Project Manager
Level 6 - Master Project Director 

The Executive Level Project Manager Award will be included into the Project Management Standards at Level 7.

About this Event
Date: Wednesday 15 August 2007
Time: Commencing at 12:30pm - Lunch included
Venue: The Canberra Club 45 West Row Civic
To Register Contact: ACT Chapter Coordinator – Rachel Searl
Email: act_chapter@aipm.com.au
Ph: (02) 6258-3390
Event Prices: FREE for Members
This event is worth 5 CPD points. Members can log their CPD activities on the website http://www.aipm.com.au/html/cpd.cfm

AIPM 2007 Conference Update

The planning for AIPM’s 2007 National Conference is well advanced, our keynote speakers are:  

• Norman Gray, Managing Director, Thales
• Dr Ed Hoffman, Director of the NASA Academy of Program / Project Engineering Leadership (APPEL)
• Lieutenant General David Hurley,AO, DSC, Chief Capability Development Executive
• Ian McPhee,Auditor-General of Australia
• John Smyrk,Sigma Management Science
• Dr Keith Suter, Social Commentator

We have received 70 abstracts. A full list of speakers will be available in May.   AIPM is proud to announce that due to overwhelming support of our corporate members and sponsors our conference registration fees for the 2007 National Conference in Hobart from 7-10 October 2007 are the lowest ever for previous AIPM National Conferences or for any other Project Management conference being held in 2007. 

Prices have been significantly reduced; in detail:  

• Member early bird $895
• Member standard registration $1,095
• Non member early bird $995
• Non member standard registration $1,195

Take advantage of these great rates and best value for any Project Management conference in Australia. Register before the early bird deadline 30 July 2007   In addition and for the first time in AIPM’s National Conference history we will extend the Member rate to all staff of our Corporate Members, even if they are not individual Members of the Institute.  To check if your company is a Corporate Member and you qualify for this, visit the AIPM website.

A full registration does not only include access to all plenary, keynote and breakout sessions, but also gives you access to the Welcome Reception as well as to the prestigious PMAA Gala Dinner at Wrest Point and the pre dinner harbour cruise.  The conference registration fees are great value.

Click to REGISTER ONLINE NOW.   Sponsors and Exhibitors remember: We will look after you in the lead up and during the conference. We will make sure that  

Every day activity outside the sessions will take place in the exhibition area, this includes the welcome reception to maximise your exposure

Every service that delegates might require during breaks (e.g. email access, catering, networking, sit down and have a chat, read through poster sessions, etc.) will be provided in the exhibition area to maximise your exposure.

Our team will be there for you at all times to attend to your questions and requests.  We are offering exhibition opportunities at:

• Standard exhibition booth $3,000
• Double exhibition booth $6,000

 AIPM is committed to maximising the benefit for you as a delegate, a sponsor or an exhibitor. AIPM being a non-commercial entity runs a conference that is focused on delivering a high quality event with any proceeds being returned to Members and the project management community.   We look forward to welcoming you to Hobart in October. Consider extending your stay in Hobart. To check out what the city and state has to offer, follow this link to the Tourism Tasmania website. 

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LESSONS LEARNED / LESSONS SHARED

by Debbie Mazlin  

Remember those days when we had time to think strategically, engage in relaxed networking and joy of all joys, read a book.For all the busy project managers (and perhaps that is all), I recommend a good read and valuable reminder in Arnold Kransdorff’s CORPORATE DNA.Whilst Kransdorff’s presents CORPORATE DNA as Using Organisational Memory to Improve Poor Decision-Making, it is also a strong testimonial for ensuring the ‘passing of the baton’ of information – that is, LESSONS LEARNED.

Kransdorff talks about the importance of organisational memory and how the ‘ownership of knowledge’ is in danger of passing from the Corporate body to transient individuals; and how the power associated with knowledge can be used by those individuals as bargaining positions for a multitude of personal gains.Individual and corporate learning has also been presented and discussed as unconscious learning, incidental learning, planned learning, proactive learning, defensive learning, action learning, and prospective learning.

Within the context of LESSONS LEARNED, the concept that grabbed my attention was the phenomenon of Corporate Amnesia.Corporate Amnesia is presented as that ‘part of organisational memory (OM), otherwise known as tacit knowledge – the event-specific, organisational-specific, and time-specific ‘how’ of ‘know-how’.’Kransdorff cited ‘If Nasa wanted to go to the moon again (as it is planning to do by 2018), it would have to start from scratch, having lost not the data, but the human expertise that took it there last time’.He also discussed a supporting case study of a massive programme undertaken by the US government when the decision was made to stop testing nuclear weapons.Officials were concerned that the skills it had developed would atrophy, so, in the event that it might one day resume testing and perhaps actually use the weapon again, it undertook the ‘Knowledge Preservation Project’.This project was to ensure that the expensively acquired expertise that it had accumulated over the years was not lost forever as archives progressively degenerated and scientists retired.As part of the programme, retired weaponeers were brought back to the laboratory for videotaped interviews intended to salvage knowledge about nuclear bombs that could not be gleaned from blueprints and archived documentation.Researches recorded more than 2000 videotapes.The rationale was that they did not want to wipe out their memory and return to their position 50 years previously.

Essentially, what they were doing was capturing LESSONS LEARNED in support of the official data, blueprints and files.

I have always maintained that even the most elaborate data bases and sophisticated filing systems for capturing lessons learned can only be really effective when information is retrieved – and unfortunately, that does not always happen.I also believe that the most effective way to communicate LESSONS LEARNED is through discussion and stories that become folk-law passed from specialist to specialist, from project manager to project manager; and, with the real possibility of loosing valuable experience over the next decade with the retirement of up to 37% of current practicing project managers, the need to capture these stories is perhaps just as important as the original ‘Knowledge Preservation Project’.I have also maintained that the essential discussion and sharing of lessons learned should take place regularly in a relaxed atmosphere supported by bread, cheese and wine.

In the spirit of passing on the stories, and lessons learned from the collective few thousand years of project management experience in Canberra, this section of the Newsletter will be dedicated to LESSONS LEARNED and LESSONS SHARED.

If you were not able to attend the Monthly Forum in July, you would have missed the launch of the LESSONS LEARNED and LESSONS SHARED initiative. All project managers are invited to email their experiences and lessons learned in the nominated topic for the month to the ACT Chapter Coordinator - Rachel. These lessons learned will be published (without reference to the author, the organisation or the project) in the next issue of the Newsletter.

Each month a ‘winning’ lesson will be selected by the ACT Chapter membership panel.The selection will be made not only on merit, but also on innovation, value to the organisation and how the lesson was shared within the organisation.The ‘winning’ lesson will be advised in the Newsletter and the ‘author’ contacted by Rachel to arrange for collection of the wine (voucher to the value of $100).

Submission closing date for first LESSONS LEARNED and LESSONS SHARED is COB Monday 20 August 07.

Topic for LESSONS LEARNED and LESSONS SHARED for the next Newsletter is COMMUNICATION (apt I believe).

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Contact Detail Update 

Could all members please ensure that their contact details are up to date. There is an ever increasing number of non deliverable emails, and we would hate for you to miss out on any correspondence the the AIPM need to send to you. Updating your contact details is as easy as 1 2 3 ...

1. Log onto our website, and click on the Update Contact Details link on the top of the screen.
2. Email ACT Chapter Coordinator and let me know your new details
3. Email the National Support Office and let them know directly of your new details.

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New Members

Welcome to you all.

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New RegPM

Certifications Achieved - Congratulations!
 

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Upcoming Events

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Chapter Contacts

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