Last month I presented at the International Congress for Project, Programme and Risk Management, a Best Practice User Group event for PRINCE2 Practioners and other related parties.

The slides from the event are now online, so you can see my presentation and download it in .pdf format here.

I spoke about Project Management 2.0.  You can read more about the ideas I presented at the conference in the Keeping Up series of blog posts:

Part 1: Aligning project management to real business
Part 2: Responding to business challenges
Part 3: New ways of working
Part4: Steps in the right direction

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It was at the BPUG Congress last year that I started talking to the training company Maven about their idea for a PRINCE2 course for women only.  Their team had been inspired by this blog and thought that an all-female training environment would make a unique and enriching learning opportunity.

I agree.  Girls typically do better in single sex schools and those of us who end up in IT departments often find ourselves working in male dominated environments.  That goes for training courses too – it’s hard to get your point across or ask a question that you might think is a bit stupid when all the men in the room are jostling for the Top Student Award and you can cut the testosterone with a knife.

I met some of their team at this year’s Congress and we talked about what would happen if a man wanted to book on the course, and how to counter the accusation that it was sexist to run a course just for women.  I don’t think it’s sexist: I think it is about creating the best possible learning environment for women during what can be a very stressful week.

So I’m really pleased that Maven agree with me and have done their research and lined up a great PRINCE2 For Girls course, running from 30 March.  Do the course, sit the exam, and then unwind with a massage and a glass of wine. What could be better?

You still have to wait nervously for the results – Maven can’t help destress that bit!

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I gave my presentation at the second annual Best Practice User Group International Congress today: PM 2.0 – new media and online networking for project managers.

I was the closing keynote address and when I finished there were no questions – none at all!  Either I had bamboozled everyone with talk of new fangled technology or they were all tired and wanted to go home.  Enough people said they had enjoyed it to make me feel like it had gone down well.

Before everyone left though I got a chance to meet Soma, from Stepping into Project Management.  It was really great to have the opportunity to talk in person with someone I had only ‘met’ online, and we have Kate at the lovely APM Group to thank for setting it up.

Here’s a picture of Soma and me, just before we had to hand our badges back and clear out!

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1. BPUG Awards I thought I’d share with you the official write-up of the fab gala dinner at last week’s conference. They timed the speeches between the courses,...

Knowledge Base from The Projects Group (TPG) has been up and running for a month now and it is a very impressive tool. It works a lot like the project management search engine on PMConnection. However, PMConnection’s search is Google-based and will search websites and blogs. Knowledge Base draws on different information, including back issues of Project Manager Today. I met Adrian Dooley from TPG at the BPUG Congress and he sent me some literature about Knowledge Base as I missed their launch event because I was in New York. This is from the section explaining what the tool is all about:

TPG have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge, some previously published and some not, to launch the first version of the knowledge base. This repository will grow to reflect the evolution of the discipline. Users will form a community that is able to access information from generic sources and share experience of best practice. This community will be able to learn from experience, increase the speed with which it develops capability maturity and genuinely achieve continuous improvement.

At the launch of the knowledge base it will contain 100 training modules covering all the mainstream qualifications (some available in multiple languages); seven years of articles from back issues of Project Manager Today and European Project Manager; templates for use with common process models such as PRINCE2; 1,200 encyclopaedia definitions that act as an index to the knowledge base; case studies and technical papers written by TPG consultants and trainers.

It sounds great. The major downside of Knowledge Base is that it’s a service you have to pay for. And there is so much good quality information on the internet about project management that you don’t have to pay for that I see little incentive for the individual to take out membership.

For example, Project Manager Today has back issues available from their site. You could use Knowledge Base as a way to search for something that is relevant, then go to the PMT website and download it with a free guest subscription at no charge. Confusingly, the section of the PMT site that you need to go to is also called Knowledge Base. TPG could have been a bit more creative with naming their tool.

I do see a value for TPG’s Knowledge Base in the corporate sector. Programme Offices could have licences for their project managers and related staff. Then it becomes a useful reminder or source of templates in the office environment, especially if there is nothing internally that exists already, or if a whole group of newbies have just been sent on PM training – access to this tool could be a useful way for them to keep their skills up when they return to the workplace and start putting it all into practice. But aside from that, most individual project managers will find what they want elsewhere, for free.

Have a look yourself on the TPG website and let me know what you think.

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There will be no posts for two weeks: I’m taking a holiday. I have a few more notes to write up from the BPUG congress on project, programme and risk management, but if you can’t wait, you can see all the presentations from all the speakers on the congress website here.

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3. Conference slides now online Last month I presented at the International Congress for Project, Programme and Risk Management, a Best Practice User Group event for PRINCE2 Practioners and other...