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On this page you find research,
statistics, events, etc. in our professional area:
New in EOB Service Portfolio: Projekt
Management as a Service
Do
projects always need to be over time and budget? How do you get your
business critical projects across the finish line as planned, and
achieve the desired benefits? Only be adequate quality and productivity
of your project management processes. Your project organization's
maturity and your initiatives' ROI interlink directly !
Today we
would like to introduce our latest service offering: Project Management as a
Service. If project management doesn't belong to your company's core business
and competences, but you have to cope with the pressure of new requirements
though, this will now enable you to "outsource" this crucial business process
easily and at low cost.
If you
don't have the skills for a mature PM organization in-house, why don't
you just acquire it if you need it, whenever and how you need it !
Without lengthy solicitation process and procurement negotiations, while your
time-to-market is running away. Just by Project Management as a Service.
Learn more about it from our brochure or contact us !
To
Download please click the PDF-Icon
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I-TT-O Trainer to
prepare for CAPM/PMP Exam:
From
our many years of practice as a coach and Vice President at PMI Chapter Frankfurt
we experienced: The exams for PMI's certificates contain increasingly
situational questions. To answer these correctly a candidate has to
- determine which process
(according to PMI terminology) the situations fits to
- analyze the question,
whether it asks for an Input ("what should you consider...?"),
a Tool or Technique ("what is appropriate to do...?") or an Output ("what
should you prepare...?")
- select the correct answer
option by the right combination of the processes' I-TT-Os
 To
learn these I-TT-Os from PMBoK® it is ideal to visualize the data and
document flows between the processes, and what Tools and Techniques are
used in which processes. The I-TT-O Trainer reverts the process focused
listing of the
I-TT-Os to flow and application focused view, thus easing the
memorization of the relations. Where definitions are given in the PMBoK®
Glossary these are quoted complementarily.
The I-TT-O Trainer
can be used unlimitedly by exam candidates with a monthly renewable
subscription at only 5 Euro per month. Simply subscribe after
pressing the button below and easy PayPal payment. Registration for Login
in the registered user area on this Website will be provided and
confirmed short term via email.
To
apply for an
I-TT-O Trainer subscription please press the button
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Actual
presentations and articles (abstracts) that we offer to you:
In
this document we have collected summaries of all presentations and press
articles regarding project, program and portfolio management that we
have written. We are happy to offer them for your events or newsletters.
Please Please get in touch with us!
To download please click the PDF-Icon
The document is MS-Word format 2003 (doc).
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PM Trends 2011:
The
highly recognized training company ESI International again has published its new
research study about the project management trends for 2011 in January,
which we gladly make accessible here for the community. ESI is
accountable for the contents.
To download please click the PDF-Icon
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What project managers do:
A
project manager
in the USA, according to a 2006 PM Survey of Architecture, Engineering,
Planning and Environmental Consulting Firms by Zweig White
Information Services LLC (Natick, Mass.), worked on
average
49 hours per week. Of this time he spends 39% with design
or other technical activities, 36% for marketing and
sales, only 11% he has time for his project management duties, 10%
are needed for firm or office management and 4% for miscellaneous tasks.
Although
this survey only covers one industry sector the "misuse" of project
managers also in other industries for tasks not belonging to the
profession, especially in technical contributions and business
development, appears to be the rule rather than the exception. This
might also explain why many troubled projects significantly improve when
the well skilled, but overwhelmed by "PM on the side" project manager is
relieved by assigning an additional project manager who is dedicated to
deal exclusively with the management of the project (including the
project's recovery). Conclusion: Project management
is not a "part time job"!
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Troubled projects - most
frequent causes:
The Center for Business Practices (Havertown, USA)
conducted a survey in April 2006 with 84, mostly USA based project managers
in 3.874 projects. The companies had average project budgets of US$65
Millions per year.
47% of the projects got in trouble, were recovered or
were cancelled. Main symptoms:
- Critical problems in reaching milestones or completing deliverables
- High risk that the project will not achieve the expected benefits
- Project's completion will be unacceptably delayed compared to schedule
baseline
- Critical or significantly increasing technical issues in the project
When being asked how to
recover the project, project managers in 24% of the companies
answered there is a standardized process for project recovery, in 31%
of the companies there is no plan at all for this situation...
Another CBP study at 16.110
projects with a total value of US$29,8 Billion showed 7% were
completed with more or less difficulties, 25% stay troubled until the end and 6% fail
completely.
 A
Standish
Group (CHAOS Research 2006) research nearly confirms these results:
46% of troubled vs. 35%
successful projects, but also
19% failed initiatives. There seems to be a tendency of
improvement in the recent years thanks to better project manager
education and implementation of project supporting structures within the organizations.
This
proves: investing in professional project management pays back in the
end !
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PMP qualification
- An asset for PMPs and enterprises:
Since 2001 the PMI Frankfurt Chapter
regularly conducts the PMP Prep Program (P3). Already the 4th Edition of
the PMBoK® is basis for learning at the current P3 (No.
19). More than 120 candidates have been coached by us, and only 15 of
them (as far as we know) have not passed the PMP exam !
When we crossed the One
Hundred mark we wanted to find an answer to the all-time posted
question: What's the benefit of the certification - for the PMP himself
and of course for his company? In December 2005 we mailed a survey to
the alumni of our P3s containing 18 questions ranging from "what has
changed for you?" to "what types of continuing education have you
done?", and "where is difference between the project performance by
professional project management and non-professionals?". By combining
the answers we were able to draw some conclusions regarding the above
questions.
First
of all: A more than satisfactory response of 41 questionnaires (=43%)
underlined the high interest in the community, but the sample is still
too small to claim statistical representation. For us it was more
important to get a first feeling for a trend and a feasible approach for
more extensive research with comprehensive project data.
And
with this we were successful. Some of the key findings of the survey in a short
summary:
- All participants have profited from
the P3 course, including the non-PMPs. Biggest benefit is
a more "conscious" project management, which often is
passed on to colleagues.
- This shows especially the way in which the PM has
improved. Most often comments were "more thorough and consequent scope and
risk management", followed by "better activity and cost estimation and
control".
- The biggest change happened with nearly all respondents
with a significantly better standing and acknowledgement of their competence
as PM. Only a few have really changed jobs because of the PMP. Most of those
who stayed in their job have been assigned more responsibility. Higher salary plays a subordinate role.
- The PMP on it own rarely seems to lead to higher
compensation - but in combination with continuous education, specialization
and/or change of position quite often, particularly since it leverages the
individual PM performance.
- Experience and practice is also important for salary
and performance: the "old dogs" from the first P3 courses responded
with significantly higher improvement rates.
So
much for the concerning personal benefits. How do the
companies benefit from the higher qualification of their employees?
- Let's first look at the status as is: Business Case and
strategic goals are usually met well (most answers here come from consulting).
Also achieving scope and quality are strongly developed (esp. in
manufacturing). the black sheep are still the schedules and costs.
- Combining the ratio of successful projects without or
prior to utilizing educated PMs with the respondent's personal performance
improvement indicates big potential. Average increases of between3.7% for
remaining on schedule and up to 7.1% for reaching the business case are a sign
that PM education is a profitable investment!
- SPI and CPI improvements of around 10% each are also
promising improvements. That means that in our sample the qualification of the
PMs achieved a better project ROI of 10 cents per Euro invested in the project.
In performance we find a 10% improvement on meeting the baselines.
- Though this is still not always the case, more and more
customers explicitly request certified project managers from suppliers for
their initiatives. The majority of them are ready to pay higher fees for this!
- More good news: In a surprisingly large number of
companies the PMP is not the exception, PM standards and PM careers are being
promoted. But PM know-how on the executive level still is the rare exception.
This
is only a short summary of the survey's results. The complete analysis can
be downloaded following the link below.
For us this survey is a
first step towards evaluating and quantifying the benefits of a
recognized qualification in project management - for the individual PMP
as well as for their supporting organization. Most answers in the
questionnaire reflect subjective judgments of the candidates. A more detailed and extended research of
real project data and lessons learned, supported by the field and
companies should produce more specific, precise and resistant results.
Results of the survey at PMI Frankfurt Chapter's PMP Prep Program
alumni in December/January 2005/2006:
To download please click the
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