Message from the Chair
Greetings from soggy New Jersey. Luckily, sunshine
is in my future. I think.
This week I'm preparing to head to the PMI®
EMEA Congress in St. Julians, Malta where I will, unfortunately, miss
the Leadership Institute due to scheduling constraints, but will be attending
and presenting at the Congress. Malta is an island state in the middle
of the Mediterranean Sea and is a part of the European Union. For those
of you who are planning on attending the Congress, it would be great to
meet up. Please contact me directly and we can organize an after-hours
meeting, or perhaps even grab lunch together. I'm looking forward to connecting
with you and with our wider network of project management professionals,
project managers, and those with a keen interest in project management.
Given the level of interest and the range of attendees from around the
world I'm sure the event will be a success.
One part of my preparations for this event does trouble me though, and
that is the environmental impact of flying part way around the world to
deliver my one hour presentation. Based on calculations that I have performed
at various websites (such as: www.carbonplanet.com
and www.carboncounter.org)
my journey to Malta and back is the equivalent of driving my diesel car
for three years straight! It caused me to reflect on the impact of consulting
and the amount of air travel (and ground travel) that is so much a part
of our working life. For those of you wondering whether or not I chose
to offset my identified carbon emissions - good question. In considering
that option there are other challenges to consider: what kinds of offsets
should I support to have the best long-term benefit and, are paid offsets
truly going where they are intended? The fact that I am actually investigating
this is remarkable in itself. This would have been unheard of a decade
ago.
What does this mean for consulting project managers? I believe that increasingly
greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions, their identification, assessment and mitigation
will be a part of not just what we work on (consider ghg audits and carbon
emissions reduction projects). They will directly influence how and where
we work. At first that influence will be felt at a personal level as we
make choices about our own impact on the world around us. Over time, we
will see larger scale influences such as corporations demanding changes
in their supply chains (such as Wal-Mart) and governments enacting legislation
(such as recent laws passed in Australia and the United Kingdom) which
will impact us whether we know it or not. How do you think the "green"
movement will influence and impact your consulting and project management
work?
For those of you still wondering, the answer is "yes."
Andrew "Drew" Marshall
Chair, Consulting
SIG
chair@pmiconsultingsig.org
Marketing Update
This month is sure to be an exciting one in the Marketing Department, as we kick of a number of initiatives in support of our vision which will focus on: 1) Increasing the awareness of membership value, 2) Building community, 3) Sharing knowledge and information 4) Creating standardized messaging.
Some of the exciting projects we have planned are:
- Creating a Marketing Tool Box for the Board which will assist in ensuring a standardized message is communicated to the members,
- Publishing a Global Advertising Campaign which includes coordination of networking events,
- Establishing alliances with other SIGS to leverage some of the great programs they have on offer to their membership to CSIG members
- Building a Consulting Library and Knowledge Center where our members can access a speaker bureau, templates and best practices papers.
We are actively inviting
volunteer applications to be part of the Marketing Team. Please contact
Ken Capasso to express your interest in joining the Marketing Team at
directoratlarge2@pmiconsultingsig.org.
I welcome your comments and suggestions to help us better serve you!
Cheers
Lara Chabina Crowe
VP Marketing
Women In Project Management Conference
Carol Evans - Keynote Speaker
President and CEO, Working Mother Media and Working Mother Magazine
June 12-13, 2008 • 8 AM - 5 PM
The Columbus Athenaeum
32 North 4th Street • Columbus, OH
7.5 PDUs Per Day
Register online
Oh
No, You Gave Me What I Asked For!”: Part 1 - Common
Pitfalls to Uncovering ExpectationsElizabeth Larson, CBAP, PMP and Richard Larson, CBAP, PMP, Principals, Watermark Learning, Inc.
Project professionals - specifically project managers and business analysts - realize that no matter how well projects are executed, projects still fail when customer requirements are not clearly defined and customer expectations are not met.
Uncovering expectations takes time and requires the art of consultative questioning. It demands patience with clients who have difficulty articulating their requirements. It requires a process for not only eliciting the requirements, but also for analyzing, documenting, and validating them. Finally, uncovering expectations takes a commitment to defining requirements in sufficient detail to understand what those expectations truly are.
This three- part article (to be published in back-to-back issues of Connections) discusses 5 common pitfalls and their associated risks of not uncovering expectations, and in parts 2 and 3, how a consulting approach will help mitigate them. View the complete article>
Checkout
Job Postings on CSIG Web SiteSix PMPs Needed for Consulting Positions
The CSIG posts job openings in the Members Area on the CSIG web site.
If you would like to post a job or have a problem accessing the Members Area, contact the CSIG administrator.
PMPs
with Marketing Experience Wal-Mart
is Looking for You!
The emerging discipline of Marketing Operations - where marketing meets process - is placing a premium on project and program managers with marketing, advertising and agency experience. As the world's leading retailer, with multi-channel communications, products, stores and services, Wal-Mart represents one of the most exciting opportunities for today's "hybrid" PMPs.
- Dozens of positions available for project and program managers with strong leadership and communications skills.
- Hundreds of strategically focused campaigns/programs across the enterprise, leveraging the latest enterprise marketing management and project management software programs.
- Endless opportunities to learn and advance.
Help
champion the development of this global brand's first Performance Marketing
Office (PMO), where Marketing Operations and Project Management co-exist
to ensure organizational alignment, customer satisfaction and share
holder value. While other companies are talking about customer
focused operations, Wal-Mart is doing it.
Qualified candidates should forward their résumés to Kelly
Troia: kelley.troia@wal-mart.com.