IRC News August 2004

Dear AIPM Member,
 
Welcome to the August edition of IRC News! Regular site visitors will have noticed that IRC and website updates and improvements have picked up again this month, and after a quiet month for the IRC in July, August is proving to be the busiest yet, with demand especially high for document requests and literature searches. Major structural changes are now finally underway for the website, and you will see major improvements to the left-hand navigation buttons over the following weeks. The IRC "Useful Links" section has at last launched its first industry-specific "Your Project Management" page, on Defence. See below...

As always we welcome your feedback on what is happening to your website, and the IRC services that it contains, and if there is something that you would like to see there that we currently don't have (or something that is annoying you!) please don't hesitate to let me know, and we will see what we can do...

Kevin O'Donnell IRC Manager / AIPM Webmaster 

This months' article subjects include:  
  

The July PM Select did not reach June's total number of direct requests, mainly because one article was accessed via a direct link and thus couldn't be counted. Nevertheless we still received well over 100 requests, with the most popular requested article being the collection of three articles by Geoff Reiss on Program Management, closely followed by "Rise to Greatness", Bauers' article on Maturity Models. When you are accessing PM Select, please remember...

1) You need your username and password to access this "members only" area (if you have not received your username and password, have mislaid it, or are having trouble logging in, please email irc@aipm.com.au)    

2) Each article must be requested on a separate Copyright Declaration, not by multiple requests on one declaration - this is a requirement of International and National Copyright Law. Note down the article document number(s) that you want before filling out the forms eg 08/04 - 1. Any questions, comments, problems, etc – feel free to contact me at kevin@aipm.com.au

a) "Your PM: Defence" Page:  Our first industry-specific page - Your PM: Defence - is now up! While it is still early days, we hope to provide this mini-portal as a resource for project managers working in - or for - the Defence Industry, where useful links, publications and events relevant to this sector will be gathered together. To do this we also need your help to further develop your page - if you are a project manager in this area (and this obviously covers every type of PM eg IT, construction, supply chain and procurement, etc) and you have a specific case study, article, link or section heading that you think would be useful to add here, please let me know! Coming soon will be more Your PM pages for the many different industries that use project management... 

b) New Improved Membership Section: After a great deal of new development and many improvements to existing pages, a new Membership "Portal" Page has also gone live this month, bringing all existing membership pages together in one place for the first time, to improve access, and remove the previous "jumping about" that was required to locate any membership information. As a result of this, the previous individual membership pages for Associate, Student, Member etc have been removed, and the left hand button now takes you straight to this new page, with no "sub-buttons". This is the first stage of the overhaul of the left-hand navigation buttons, and ongoing portalisation of the website. We need to know what you think - is it better, worse, does something need to be changed? 

As a result of these changes, the right-hand table column on the Home Page that previously contained "Membership" links now contains "Key Products and Services" (basically the result of transferring the "Quick Links" section here), meaning that the far right-hand space on the Home Page has now been freed up for website statistics - and, eventually, for advertising.

c) IRC Bibliographies:  This month EIGHT new bibliographies have been added to the IRC Bibliography section:

Follow this link to see these and other bibliographies

Don't forget that you can obtain copies of ANY of these referenced articles by filling out the required Copyright Declaration Form in IRC Document Supply, and you get your very own customized bibliography on the subject of your choice from the IRC Literature Search Section 

d) Geoff Reiss Presentation on Program(me) Management: Geoff Reiss gave a standing-room only presentation on "Best Practice in Program(me) Management" at a NSW Chapter event on the 11th August, as advised in the last PM Select. We have obtained the presentation for our members - but be warned, it is 2MB and non-broadband users may experience some delays! You can find it on our Chapter Seminar Speakers Section. 

Many of the links that Geoff includes in his presentation can now also be found in the AIPM Useful Links Page under "Hot Topics" - Program Management section, which has also been considerably expanded. 

e) Website Statistics: The AIPM website continues to defy predictions, with exponential growth in visitor numbers and hits continuing unabated through August 2004. Julys' final total of 583,459 hits has also been surpassed, with at time of writing over  650,000 hits to the website being recorded this month. IRC statistics have also increased across the board, with the IRC Home Page gaining its highest ever total so far. Total hits per month to the website since January can be found on the far right-hand side of the Home Page, and there is also a new AIPM Website Statistics Page beneath these showing selected graphs and key trends from the website.

f) 2004 PMAA and AIPM Annual Conference: AIPM would again like to thank its 2004 PMAA Sponsors and 2004 Conference Sponsors and Exhibitors. The PMAA Awards are now in full swing across the country!

• See "who won what" from NSW, ACT, and WA on the new PMAA Winners Page
• To register online for the remaining PMAA events still to be held, go to the Home Page PMAA Section and click on your state
• To register online for the 2004 AIPM Conference in Perth WA from 10th-12th October go the main Conference Page

g) AIPM in the News: AIPM CEO Peter Shears recently featured in an article on project management courses in the Australian Financial Review - find out more.

h) Jobs! There are 8 project management jobs from many industries currently listed on the website, including two positions at AIPM - Manager Services, and Manager Assessments. Check them out!

MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS 

AIPM Accounts Manager Susmita Khisti wishes to thank all members who have renewed their membership to date, and again remind any members who have not yet renewed to do so as soon as they can. Please click on the link above to be taken to the online Membership Renewal Page. Any queries about invoices, receipts etc please contact Susmita at susmita@aipm.com.au

UPDATING YOUR CONTACT DETAILS 
 
Please ensure that you do not miss out on AIPM correspondence (eg the Australian Project Manager Journal, and this newsletter!) and are kept fully up to date with your own Chapter newsletters and events by keeping your contact details current. To do this simply click on the link above, or contact Membership Manager Veroniki Adamou direct on 02-9252 7277, email veroniki@aipm.com.au

Meet the AIPM National Office Team...