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E-News
from Human Systems

 

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Autumn 2006

What's in this issue...

NEW MEMBERS

There are two new members in the Europe Network:

UK Department of Health - www.dh.gov.uk
HM Revenue & Customs - www.hmrc.gov.uk

This brings an enormous amount of additional knowledge and expertise to the network and we look forward to their involvement in our workshops and working parties.Back to the top of the page

EXEMPLAR GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT

Department for Work and Pensions

 

Human Systems helps DWP become ‘exemplar government department'

“In a traditional consultancy situation, the client only benefits from the supplier’s consultants themselves.  Human Systems can genuinely offer experts on specific issues from across the globe and these experts are happy to spend the time with other members to help them improve.”  Ian Anderson, DWP

Read full case studyBack to the top of the page

HUMAN SYSTEMS WORKS WITH MOTOROLA

Human Systems Works with Motorola to Pilot New Global PM Competency Certification Programme

Human Systems has been working with long term member Motorola to develop a customised global project management competency certification programme. The pilot was completed in September 2006 and included 28 individual Motorola project managers and directors from around the world including the USA, UK, Germany, Australia, China, Singapore, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and the Middle East. The global coverage of the project enabled Motorola to take advantage of Human Systems' global presence with assessors being drawn from the UK, USA, South Africa and Asia Pacific Human Systems regions.

The Motorola certification programme uses Human Systems assessments against the global project management standards being developed by the Global Alliance for Project Management Personnel (GAPPS) and is fully tailored to suit the Motorola context.  The programme includes a web-based self assessment and a 2-hour interview with a Human Systems assessor to verify and validate evidence supporting the assessment ratings.

If your organization is working to build project management competency, Human Systems can work with you to achieve this.

To find out more about project management competency assessments, please email aaitken@humansystems.com.au or tony.teague@humansystems.net

Team, Leadership and Performance . . . . . .

Measuring and Tracking Improvement

 

Human Systems’ benchmarking and assessment products help organisations create the right capabilities to manage complex and critical projects.  Team and team leader performance is an important area to focus on and so Human Systems is working with a team and leadership performance assessment tool that has been developed in the United States by 4-D Systems on behalf of NASA.  This tool has proved very effective, offering marked improvements over time.

Download fact sheetBack to the top of the page

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Is There a Void at the Heart of Much Project Planning and Estimating?

asks Dr. Terry Cooke-Davies

What are we to conclude from the number of high profile project failures, and the general failure of too much project delivery, in spite of the widespread adoption of recommended project management practices?  Does this discredit project management practice and the project management profession?  Is project management, like the clothes of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy-tale Emperor, simply a collective hallucination?  Or is something else going on? 

Over the past twelve years or so, Human Systems has seen significant and dramatic improvements in delivery by those organisational members of its global Network that have applied themselves earnestly to improving their project management delivery capability.   Certainly sufficient evidence exists to disprove the claim that project management diligently practiced in a disciplined manner bears any resemblance to the emperor’s clothes.

But in examining trends in the level of organisational project management practices employed by its Network members over the same twelve year period, one key area has shown itself, in general, to show less improvement on average than most others.  That area is project planning and estimating, and this in itself is surprising, given its importance. 

Download white paper on Planning and EstimatingBack to the top of the page

 PROFILE. . . .

Human SystemsStephen Allport

Stephen has over 30 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector working with The Wellcome Foundation, Coopers Animal Health, GlaxoWellcome and GlaxoSmithKline. 

He has worked in R&D, finance, marketing and business analysis and has extensive international operational, project management and portfolio management experience.

He has worked on and led project teams in the US and Europe for all phases of product development from research through development and commercialisation.  Stephen was responsible for creating and managing the R&D project and product portfolio management approach used by GlaxoWellcome and GlaxoSmithKline in Europe, USA and Japan and has been extensively involved in company strategy development in both organisations.  

After leaving GlaxoSmithKline, Stephen established his own independent consultancy, SWA Consulting, and has worked with a number of leading pharmaceutical, biotech and IT companies on project and portfolio management and productivity improvement projects.

Stephen Allport now heads up Human Systems’ pharmaceutical and biotech network together with Brian Trefty.Back to the top of the page

WHAT'S ON THE WEB SITE?

Human Systems' NewsroomDid you know that you can always find information on Human Systems’ future workshops on our home page?

Assessments show that those organisations that regularly attend workshops are more likely to achieve their improvement goals. 

The cost of these workshops is covered by your membership, so please do take advantage of this important benefit.

If you are interested in joining Human Systems’ Network, please Contact Us

Back to the top of the page

5th ANNUAL GLOBAL WORKSHOP - 6 & 7 September 2006

Achieving Superior Capability within the Global Marketplace

On September 7th, 41 project professionals left the headquarters of AXA - Sun Life with some clear ideas about how best to target superior capability in their organisations.

They had spent two days listening to both industry experts and their peers, and participating in detailed discussion and analysis around the subject.  Break-out groups identified what ‘superior capability’ looked like, as well as discussing how to translate its presence into direct business benefits.

Every attendee summarised one project that they felt demonstrated features of superior capability and then analysed that under the headings of – Challenges, Barriers, Solutions and Evidence.  An enormous pool of expertise was derived from this one exercise, providing success stories on:

what attendees thought about it…

“Fantastic - I'll go away with good ideas here."

“Useful to benchmark and share common learning/best practice”

“Good facilitation and flexibility.  Excellent way to further networking, share learnings and best practice.”

“A very good way of identifying areas/topics of best practice for people to share/collaborate - great knowledge management."

“Useful and practical information.”

“Really good way of extracting some excellent understanding of how some people have cracked issues”
  • Establishing effective sponsorship of projects
  • Measuring project delivery, consistently
  • Building an integrated PM approach across the business
  • SAP implementation
  • Establishing a portfolio approach to implementation
  • Improving change management
  • Integrating financial and project reporting

….and many more topics

Members can access the complete output from this two day workshop, including presentations from:-

Ed Hoffman, Director of the NASA Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership

John Cartwright, General Manager – Corporate Process Governance & Leverage, Siemens plc

Chris Venning, formerly Head of Change Governance at Barclays plc

Air Vice-Marshal Nigel Bairsto, Director General, Defence Logistics Transformation, DLO UK MoD

on Human Systems' Intranet.Back to the top of the page

CONFERENCES

September

3rd International Conference on Project Management (ProMAC2006)
Incorporating Australian Institute of Project Management Annual Conference and Project Management Institute Sydney Chapter Annual Conference in 2006
27-29 September 2006, Sydney, Australia

“Transforming Organisations, Government Agencies and Communities through Project & Program Management”

ProMAC 2006 brought together frontline thinkers and practice leaders from around the world to discuss transformation through project management and its role in the achievement of change and building adaptive organisations. 

Human Systems Asia Pacific were there as were many of the PacRim Network members. 

Those who were not lucky enough to be part of this event can click here to find out moreBack to the top of the page

WORKSHOPS

Register Now

The following workshops are coming up soon. If you haven’t yet reserved your place, please click each workshop for booking information.

Earned Value
Europe Network
28 November 2006

Managing Projects, Programmes and Portfolios
PacRim Network
31 October & 1 November 2006Back to the top of the page

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