Monday

Monthly Archives: April 2017

Two exceptional workshops at PGCS 2017 – 1st May

PGCS 2017 is offering workshops by Dr. Lynda Bourne and Dr. Keith Joiner in Canberra on Monday 1st May. Both offer a unique international viewpoint on very different aspects of project management.

My (Lynda’s) workshop ‘Leading Successful Teams’ focuses on collaborative teams which are key to success in any business activity. The most effective teams consist of individuals who can work independently on their own tasks, but also recognise the need to work collaboratively with other team members toward the activity’s goal and the organization’s success.

The leader of the team contributes significantly to team success through inspiring all team members to work together to achieve this goal, but must also intervene to reduce conflict and to motivate team members to continue to work collaboratively.

This session will focus on the needs of first-time team managers and will consist some theory, and a little practice, on the following topics:

–  Motivation

–  Delegation

–  Giving feedback

–  Resolving conflict.

This full day workshop is based on my Master’s course I’ve been running at EAN University in South America for the last 5 years and offers exceptional value at $450 (catering and GST included)

Keith’s workshop ‘methods for test design and analysis prescribed in U.S. Industry & Defence’ will introduce and illustrate the new methods in test design and analysis are, and how they are used to:

– screen for significant design factors;

– model design factors;

– screen for operational factors;

– model operational factors; and

– where equipment is taken off-the-shelf, improve the efficiency of validating performance.

Participants will use an instructional toy system and study several example uses to reinforce how the methods work.

This half day workshop is great value at $330 (Afternoon tea and GST included)

Both workshops offer exceptional value and are open to everyone – you do not need to attend the PGCS symposium to enjoy these process…… For more information and bookings see:  http://www.pgcs.org.au/program/workshops/

Two ‘Not-to-be missed’ Conferences in May

The PGCS program for 2017 is now complete and offers two overseas speakers as well as Professor Peter Shergold – author of the landmark project management report to government “Learning From Failure”. To see what’s on at PGCS in Canberra between the 1st and 4th May go to:  http://www.pgcs.org.au/program/

In the USA you can attend the Annual Project Management College of Scheduling Conference in Atlanta from May 7th to 10th.  They have a terrific program, with speakers and panel discussions, prepared to give everyone a chance to participate.  In addition, we’re planning something special every evening.  Sunday night is the vendor reception, Monday night is our Gala Dinner and Tuesday night is a night to explore Atlanta.  For more details see: http://www.pmcos.org/

New Articles posted to the Web #58

We have been busy beavers updating the PM Knowledge Index on our website with White Papers and Articles.   Some of the more interesting uploaded during the last couple of weeks include:

And we continue to tweet a free PMI style of exam question every day for PMP, CAPM, and PMI-SP candidates: See today’s question and then click through for the answer and the Q&As from last week.

You are welcome to download and use the information under our Creative Commons licence

PMI Exam Scoring Information – Improvements are on the way.

For many people, the information currently provided by PMI on their exam performance has been less than useless. Being told you are ‘not proficient’, ‘moderately proficient’ or ‘proficient’; with the added helpful advice these terms mean ‘below average’, ‘average’ or ‘above average’ tells you nothing.  No one outside of the PMI enclaves has any idea what average means or how wide the average band is.  All you really know is you have passed or failed the exam.

The good news is after years of complaint, PMI has listened and will be rolling out a vastly improved Exam Results Report over the next few months.  The passing score and your actual score remain confidential to PMI for exam security reasons, but with this limitation, the new report will provide candidates with a much better understanding of their performance in relation to the examination pass level.

The headline report shows your overall performance with the performance by domain also categorised into one of the four groupings.  On its own, this is a vast improvement on the old report!!

Click here to see a sample of the Exam Report

However, of even more value, backing up this summary will be a detailed report highlighting your performance against the various domains and topics, accessible from within your CCR portal on the PMI website. Below is a preview of this part of the report (provided by PMI):

You still won’t know the exact number of questions in each domain or how they are divided into each of the Tasks within the ‘domain’, but the report will tell you where improvement in your knowledge will be valuable and help you plan your continuing development as a project professional. This additional information will also help training design and deliver better courses based on feedback from our clients all round a win-win-win development.

For once PMI is to be highly commended for listening to their members and delivering a great initiative.

Scheduled roll-out

Anyone taking the PMI-PBA®, PfMP® or PgMP® certification exam on or after 28 April will receive the new report and explanation pages. The new report will then be rolled out to the remaining certifications over the next few months, ending with the PMP® on 28 August. Key dates for the launch of the reports for courses we teach:

PMI-SP – 25th May
(for more see:  http://www.planning-controls.com.au/ )

CAPM – 22nd August
(for more see: http://www.mosaicproject.com.au/index.php?cID=175 )

PMP – 28th August
(for more see: http://www.mosaicproject.com.au/index.php?cID=173 )