Evaluators at the two day session collect evidence of a your competence through observation of group activities and exercises as they watch you discuss and solve problems relating to a project case study. You are also interviewed individually by the Evaluators at some point during the event.

The capabilities required of the candidate in applying their knowledge and experience to a non-complex project across its life cycle, include 19 different areas of performance criteria. These criteria are:

• Preparing the Project Product Description
• Preparing an outline Business Case for the project
• Designing the project management team structure for the project
• Tailoring corporate strategies to fit the project
• Performing Product-Based Planning
• Applying the risk management procedures for the project
• Applying the communication management procedures for the project
• Planning the project
• Refining the project’s Business Case
• Preparing the project’s Benefits Review Plan 
• Preparing an End Stage Report for a management stage in the project
• Capturing lessons learned
• Preparing a Work Package
• Applying the issue and change control procedures
• Planning and conducting the Closing a Project process
• Preparing an End Project Report that includes the Lessons Report
• Using interpersonal skills
• Managing project team performance
• Manage your own performance

Sounds like a fun and busy two days, doesn’t it?  It will be interesting to apply my PRINCE2 knowledge and experience when I attend this event in February and stay on to become approved as an Evaluator as well.  Stay tuned for details…

Susan Weese

The Learning Tree offers a range of PRINCE2 certification courses in the UK and the US for those who are interested.

If you need more help on these ideas, then you should check out Learning Tree’s Management Skills course.

Larry T. Barnard, PMP, PMI-RMP, IISPM-Practitioner
CEO & Principal Architect
IISPM, International Institute of Sustainability Project Management
larry@iispm.com

The electronic devices that make our lives easier also produce some unwanted side effects on the environment. Fortunately, many consumer electronics manufacturers are working to create products that keep us productive while reducing energy demands to lessen our impact on the environment.

Here are three of the newest environmentally-friendly, sustainable technologies reviewed at www.pctoday.com (from the December 2011 issue) that we can use to embrace sustainability for the good of people, the planet, and profits.

1. Rewritable Paper

The Taiwan- based Industrial Research Institute ( www.itri.org.tw), has pioneered  a rewritable epaper that only requires heat to store and transmit images onto the screen.  When you want to change the on-screen content, you place the epaper into a thermal writing device that would remove anything you wrote.  The rewritable epaper would consume no electricity, and the thermal writing device would use a minimal amount of energy.  The screen provides a crisp 300dpi resolution and is made of a flexible material that should be easy to mass produce.  ITRI suggest that the technology could be used for digital books, electronic bulletin boards, pictorials, and situational wallpaper. 

2. Canon Ink Cartridge Recycling

Canon (www.usa.canon.com) is working with FedEx Office (www.fedex.com to collect and recycle empty PIXMA inkjet cartridges.  The collaborative recycling effort also involves Sims Recycling (us.simsrecycling.com) and Close the Loop (www.closetheloop.com), a company that recovers the plastic from inkjet cartridges for felt-tip pens and markers.  Return a Canon PIXMA inkjet cartridge to one of the 1,600 FedEx Office locations and FedEx will send it to Sims Recycling for processing, after which Close the Loop will handle the cartridge to recycle the plastic and ink.  The recycling effort is part of Canon’s Generation Green environmental initiative that brings a people-and earth-friendly approach to product design and life cycle for Canon’s printers, copiers, scanners and calculators. 

3. Oracle Sustainability Reporting Starter Kit

Oracle (www.oracle.com) has introduced a new sustainability reporting add-on for its Oracle Hyperion Financial Management software. The Sustainability Reporting Starter Kit for Oracle Hyperion Financial Management is a prebuilt application that enables a repeatable, accurate, and auditable approach for consolidating environmental social and economic metrics for corporate sustainability reporting.  The application includes content from the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.  The content is verified by GRI, a network-based organization that produces a comprehensive sustainability-reporting framework that is widely used around the world.    The free starter kit is available to customers and partners using Oracle Hyperion Financial Management. 

For more information about sustainability in project management have a look at this new book from www.iispm.org:  Making Sense of Sustainability Project Management.         

James L. Haner

Scope is developed in three main stages. The first stage of development takes place when you create the project charter during project initiation. This is the first key document created by the project. It’s used to outline the purpose of the project and get approval to start the project.

Once approved, full blown planning is needed. During planning, the project manager often employs the help of a project team and some subject matter experts (SMEs). Together they will comprehensively describe the objectives and deliverables of the project in a project scope statement. This is the second key document in the development of project scope.

The next step required is the complete decomposition of the list of deliverables into work packages. This is done through the creation of a work breakdown structure (WBS). By starting with the list of deliverables, each deliverable is further broken down until the project manager has work packages that can be delegated to individuals or teams and effectively managed. Typically these work packages each constitute one or two weeks of work. The aggregate of work packages constitutes the entire scope of the project. The WBS is the third essential document in the development of project scope.

The last and final step is the decomposition of work packages into activities for estimating purposes. This is the final step that enables the project manager to create an estimated schedule and estimated budget.

Sounds easy enough, right? But there are a few variables to consider. First of all, project philosophy suggests that planning is good, and that you should do the planning as early on as possible.

In real life, projects often neglect to plan early, and/or neglect to involve all the necessary stakeholders. Real life is always messier than virtual reality. In addition, people have to deal with politics, time constraints and many other complications.

To help project managers with the practical challenges of scope development, Learning Tree has some key courses that combine a blended style of learning between lecture, and hands-on project work. Check out Learning Tree’s wide spectrum of Project Management courses.

Larry T. Barnard, PMP, PMI-RMP, IISPM Practitioner
CEO and Principal Architect
IISPM, International Institute of Sustainability Project Management
larry@iispm.com

Requirements elicitation targets gathering the right information to develop the project requirements.  The requirements for your project are the foundation for a solution that will be designed and deployed by the project and its efforts. 

According to the BABOK® Guide, the tasks in the Elicitation knowledge area begin early in the project life cycle and typically peak during the more detailed requirements development phase of the project.  Actually, I have found that requirements can be elicited at any point in the project life cycle, either for the first time or as the result of changes or things that have been missed or erroneously stated.

There are a number of ways to elicit requirements on your projects.  The most common elicitation technique is a face-to-face meeting with one or more of your project stakeholders to gather information regarding their needs.  However, elicited information doesn’t have to come directly from people. It can also come to you indirectly based upon your research and review of existing documents and other data.

The business analyst is responsible for adequate requirements elicitation preparation. On large projects, this responsibility often falls to the collective members of the business analysis team, who will be simultaneously eliciting requirements information from different stakeholders.  Be sure to coordinate who is doing what when, and make sure you plan for sitting down and accumulating what everyone has learned.  It is important to remember that any project stakeholder can be involved in requirements elicitation. 

Interestingly enough, I noticed that the BABOK® Guide has three types of elicitation techniques: events, performed work, and collected work. CBAP and CCBA exam preparers, make sure that you can recognize each individual elicitation technique and that you remember which type of technique it is!  This seems like a good topic for a certification exam question.

• Elicitation events take place using one of six techniques: brainstorming, focus groups, interviews, observation, prototyping, and requirements workshops.
• Performed elicitation work is done by the business analyst using the document analysis or interface analysis technique. 
• Collected elicitation work is distributed and collected using surveys/questionnaires that are sent out to the stakeholders.

Business analysts are increasingly becoming the critical liaisons between business and solution development (oftentimes IT), so they must communicate and relate with equal effectiveness throughout all levels of an organization. Download this free White Paper to learn how to address common business analysis mistakes. 

Happy requirements elicitation!

Susan Weese

If you are considering sitting the CBAP or CCBA certification exams for business analysts, check out our new study guide that can help you prepare to pass the test, the CBAP / CCBA: Certified Business Analysis Study Guide by Susan Weese and Terri Wagner!  It’s a great place to learn more about business requirements and everything else you need to know to successfully pass the certification exam

Our model addresses three key issues:

1. The focus of VRW management
2. What successful VRW teams need
3. Leveraging the opportunities and mitigating the threats associated with working apart

1. The focus of VRW management

Task Level— ensuring the work is done

Communication Level—managing communication

Relationship Level— managing human and organizational relationships

KEY POINT: VRW leaders need to pay attention to different things than managers in collocated situations. Many managers choose to focus on task, even when the group works closely together.  Often this means that they pay insufficient attention to the things that motivate the team members, and to the relationships and communication necessary for any team to truly perform well.  Often the team members will feel micro-managed, disempowered and de-motivated.  It is even more tempting to try and manage task when the team is not working together, and even less likely to deliver high performance.  Good  task delivery depends on truly effective communication between the members to enable the collaboration necessary.  As we all know, good communication requires a sound relationship.  It therefore follows then that a more useful focus for a VRW leader’s attention should be on day-to-day communication, which can only be happening well if the leader takes actions that enable good inter- and intra-team relationships to develop and be maintained.

2. What Successful VRW Teams Need

Every team member is a unique individual with his/her own perspectives, interests, and needs.  Our model must help us work effectively with individuals and teams and their line managers, when required.

KEY POINT: It’s all about people!  People make things happen, and committed, informed, empowered people with a clear context and direction will collaborate with better understanding and success.  But people are all individual and cannot all be motivated and managed in the same way.  Understanding individual perspectives, interests and needs is the basis of all good teamwork, but even more so in VRW situations – it can’t happen organically, so needs to have maximum focus and attention from the leader

In the workplace, every team member has three basic needs:

1. Clarity of responsibility – Who is doing what?

• A clear context and commonality of purpose
• What commitments must the individual, and others, fulfill
• Who is in charge
• Clear success criteria

2. His or her interests are met – What’s in it for me? (WIIFM)

• How does the situation benefit the individual
• Are their more fundamental needs being met
• Physical, financial, and psychological

3.  Sense of identity – To what groups do I belong?

• A sense of belonging and shared identity
• Loyalty and allegiances

3. Leveraging the Opportunities and Mitigating the Threats Associated With Working Apart

VRW involves many combinations of separation factors:

• Physical distance
• Time difference
• Organizational separation
• Departmental
• Functional
• Legal/political boundaries
• Cultural difference
• National, regional, organizational

What’s your view?
What are your favorite pointers, tips, tricks, and techniques for managing Virtual/Remote Teams? Please share your ideas by posting a comment below.

For more on managing Virtual/Remote Teams, try Learning Tree’s course on Leading Virtual and Remote Teams.

James L. Haner

Slides are not the same as written reports; Slides should provide visual support;

Leverage the power of effective graphics.”

Garr Reynolds

1. Make slides easy to understand

Limit slides to five main bullet points . The average person can remember from five to nine concepts at one time . . . this is called the “7 +/– 2 rule.” It makes good sense to limit the number of slide topics to the lowest common denominator (5 main bullets). Additional sub-points are OK. And, use short sentences or sentence fragments. No punctuation is needed.

2. Slides must be readable

Type size should be 18 pt. or larger. Use PowerPoint built-in templates. They are preset for correct type sizes.

3. Slides are not the same as written reports

If additional information is required, provide handouts after your presentation.

4. Make slides multimodal

Use graphics and text together. Retention is increased when both sides of the brain are used. Text is processed by the left side of brain. Graphics are processed by the right side of the brain. Make sure graphics are relevant and clear. MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) studies of the brain show that slides using both text and graphics are processed by the entire brain.

5. Leverage the Power of Effective Graphics

A good graphic can often clearly communicate trends, relationships between data, and large volumes of data.

• If you have only one key data point, a single number may be more effective than a chart.
• Pie chart: Use to show parts of a whole; Good for relative comparisons; Better to include labels in chart (instead of in legend).
• Horizontal bar chart: Compare several data types at same time; Able to display small differences . . . Color tip: Use similar colors; Emphasize with darker color.
• Column bar chart: Compare same data type over sequential times.
• Line chart: Compare item trends over time.

6. Animation and Sound Effects

Animation of text and graphics can add interest to a PowerPoint presentation.

To do : Select Slide Show | Custom Animation to add effects or Select Insert | Movies and Sounds to embed multimedia clips in a slide.

KEY POINT: Use animation and sound effects sparingly. Overuse of effects can become distracting (and irritating) to an audience. For example: text entering to the sound of tires screeching or glass breaking.

References: See Edward Tufte’s books: Visual Explanations, Graphics Press, 1997 and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, 2nd ed., 2011. For PowerPoint animation see: Teach Yourself Visually PowerPoint 2002, Maran, Hungry Minds Inc.

What’s your view?
What are your favorite PowerPoint pointers . . . tips, tricks, and techniques? Please share your ideas by posting a comment below.

For more on using PowerPoint try Learning Tree’s course on Delivering Dynamic Presentations.

James L. Haner

This Re-Registration examination is a 1-hour examination that is set at the same standard as your original Practitioner examination. The PRINCE2 Re-Registration examination can be taken either in paper format or online at http://online.apmg-exams.com. Many Accredited Training Organizations (ATOs), such as Learning Tree, offer briefing sessions to bring you up to date and help you to prepare for this examination.  They may also allow you to sit the exam at their training facility.   

The format of the exam is pretty straightforward.  Like your original PRINCE2 exam, it is an objective testing examination that contains three questions. Each question is worth 12 marks for a total of 36 marks per re-registration exam paper.  You are allowed one hour to sit this exam either online or in paper format. It is an open book examination, so you can use your PRINCE2 manual for reference.  The passing grade is 55%, or 20 out of the 36 total marks.

The APMG can provide you with additional information on pricing and the process for taking your PRINCE2 Re-Registration Exam.  You can email them directly at servicedesk@apmg-uk.com with your questions, or contact your Learning Tree account representative in the US or the UK for details.

Susan Weese

Remember that candidates wishing to take the PRINCE2 Professional qualification must also have successfully completed the PRINCE2 Practitioner qualification. You should really have actual “in the trenches” project management experience as well, or have been a team member of a more complex project effort.  After all, this new certification allows qualified PRINCE2 Practitioners to demonstrate and obtain recognition of their ability to actually manage a PRINCE2 project.

Candidates must demonstrate both their knowledge of PRINCE2 and their project management skills/knowledge as well as the capability to apply and use those skills and that knowledge. Your capability assessment will take place using a case study at an Assessment Centre over three consecutive days.

Ask me more about this in February, since I am scheduled to head to the UK and sit this new certification myself as an assessor and also qualify to moderate these sessions.

Happy trails!

Susan Weese

The Learning Tree offers a range of PRINCE2 certification courses in the UK for those who are interested.

As project managers begin to adopt these new principles and methods they will soon learn that the focus is on three economies including: consumer, emerging, and survival. These specifics can help project managers define their projects overall participation and impact in these areas. I came across a book Global Sustainability and the Creative Destruction of Industries that takes a critical look at the economic growth that is supposed to sustain our economy, and how it has arguably had the complete opposite effect. This book also outlines creative strategies for sustainability:
• Technologies
• Markets
• Partners
• Customers
• Stakeholders

As you can see this looks very similar to how projects are being administered. This book makes an excellent point regarding how products and processes are failing to meet the definition of sustainability development. The idea is having our current generation meet the needs without jeopardizing the ability of generations to meet theirs. This reflects on organizational growth and most importantly how to develop projects that will enable organizations to continue to be successful without compromising their ability to grow in the future. Project managers need to be aware of this impact and utilize the methods set forth by sustainability to maintain their presence as a sustainable organization.

Larry T Barnard, PMP, PMI-RMP, Change Management Practitioner
CEO & Principal Architect
IISPM, International Institute of Sustainability Project Management
BOOK: Hart, S., & Milstein, M. (1999). Global Sustainability and the Creative Destruction of Industries.