Everyday Project Management

Elizabeth Harrin was at the recent PMI Global Congress - she is the creator of the blog - www.pm4girls.co.uk, the author of Project Management in the Real World from BCS, a senior project manager in the financial services sector. She is a member of the British Computer Society, Elizabeth lives and works in London, England.

A member of my new media team recently interviewed Elizabeth on what she has learned running her Project Management Blog.   Here is that interview.  Thank you Elizabeth.

Hello Kristen

I’m not surprised you couldn’t get away from the Cheetah stand - every
time I walked past it was packed.  I was hoping to get some time to
talk to Michelle as I saw her collect her award on Saturday.  I often
review project management books so I was hoping to win one from your
stand, but I didn’t get a chance to spin the wheel!

I’m flattered and pleased that you’d like to include me in your top 100
PM bloggers.  I’m surprised that there are that many out there, so I’m
looking forward to reading the list!  I have answered your questions
below.

What have you learned doing your blog?
That I actually do know something about my subject.  When I started out
blogging it was to promote my book, which is written around case
studies.  I adopted that model because I wasn’t sure that people would
care what I had to say - why would I be considered an expert?  So I
crafted it around other people’s experiences.  What I realised through
the comments and emails I received from blogging, and also meeting
people at events, was that actually my experiences are valuable and
over the years I have developed an expertise at work.

How has your blog helped the field of pm?
Seriously?  It would be arrogance to say that my blog has helped the
field of PM - I have a relatively small, niche audience and I’m hardly
revolutionary.  What I do hope to do is demystify PM.  Project managers
have pretended that PM is complicated and shrouded in a language and
techniques only they understand.  That’s all rubbish.  If you can
organise a party, you’re a project manager.

What do you like most about blogging?
I love that I get to meet and talk to so many interesting people.  I
can make pretty much anything relevant to project management, so I get
to write about shoes and handbags!

Besides yourself, who do you like in pm?
Online?  The PMI New Media Council sites are all brilliant.  I like
PM Majik too, although it’s relatively new so the content is limited.  PM
PM Hut has been a labour of love for Fadi and the site has a great deal of
depth now.  In ‘real life’, Patrick Mayfield.  He’s a great speaker, he
contributes to standards and he blogs too, he’s one of the unsung
heroes of the British PM scene.

A big congratulations to Perry Simpson who recently passed the Project Management Institute’s Certified Associate of Project Management exam after participating in Cheetah Learning’s 3 day CAPM accelerated prep course.

Perry is the Director of Government Business Development for The
Corporate Research Group in Ottawa, Ontario,   Below he shares his reasons for pursuing the certification and what he learned in that pursuit.

Why did you want to get the CAPM certification?

As a member of the management team for a company that’s revenue
is entirely generated from consulting on government contracts, I noticed
that an ever-growing number of RFP documentation was requiring all team
members to possess not only a university degree, but a professional
designation as well.  One of the government Standing Offers our company
had won was specific to project management, and as luck would have it,
the Associate Vice President in charge of our Project Management
division was Mr. Frank Townson, PMP and Cheetah Instructor.  Frank was
aware of the need for professional designations and recommended the CAPM
certification to the President of our company.  As part of a select
group, I was asked to participate in Frank’s CAPM course.  Were I to
attain the CAPM certification, my billable per-diem would more than
double.  Obviously a strong reason to pursue the designation!

What did you learn by preparing for the CAPM exam “cheetah style?”

Personally, I learned that I had the ability to retain the
copious amounts of information with which Cheetah’s CAPM course
inundates the student, and the tenacity to put in the after hours effort
required to achieve the CAPM designation.  I was able to take in enough
information from the PMBOK, in it’s entirety, to enable me to pass the
CAPM exam, and in only 3 full days of classroom instruction.  I also
learned the benefits of taking different learning styles and combining
them for maximum memory retention.  The MP3 players with PMBOK
terminology definitions, the memory mapping, the use of timed exams to
train you to work well under pressure, the tracking tool to enable you
to understand which questions you were confident with and which you
weren’t so you could go back and verify your responses, the test taking
tips which were instrumental, etc…  To get all that and more into the
heads of the CAPM students in only 3 days is a daunting task, and Frank
Townson did an excellent job!!

How do you anticipate the CAPM will help your career?

As mentioned above, the CAPM has enabled my name to be added to
Standing Offers and contracts that require a professional designation,
and increased my value to my company.  PMI’s designations are in demand,
whether it be PMP or CAPM.  CAPM has taken my career to the next level
in it’s evolution.

Thank You Perry and Best of Luck In Your Career.

A BIG Congratulations to Paula Shippee, PMP!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Kelly,

Well, it worked!  I PASSED!  I really didn’t know how it was going to turn out as I went through the test but was very relieved to see that “pass” at the end.  Really appreciate all your help – you did a great job conducting the course and it was very beneficial.  I would recommend it to anyone seeking the PMP certification.

Thanks again
Paula Shippee, PMP

I was talking with Susie McCartney about joining a think tank Cheetah Learning sponsors called The Center for Advanced Learning Concepts and we were discussing how everyone in life is in fact their own project manager of their life projects. She brought up a concept that they use in her other job as a wilderness guide - Participate in Your Own Rescue. Most people get into problems by not realizing how much of their own rescue they do control. At our corporate retreat center in Alaska, we run a course where people build a kayak to learn project management. When they are done, they take their kayaks out in this small shallow cove.   In one course, a guy tipped his over on trying to get in. He was trashing around like he was going to drown. He was well on his way to doing just that, when we pointed out to him that he could in fact stand up because he was in less than 3 feet of water.

In areas where we are unfamiliar and/or scared, it’s easy to panic when we are in fact just standing in 3 feet of water and could easily stand up. This is precisely what happened when we were scared into supporting the government’s $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) - or more commonly known as “The Rescue Plan.” The fact that we as a collective group of citizens, through our government, didn’t know how to stand up, prompted me to create the Project Prosperity class and the Project Prosperity Smart Start Guide.

The reason I absolutely believe that Project Management will in fact save the world is that it contains all the elements so that each and every one of us can participate in our own rescue. I share more about how this is so in November’s Know How Network Column and Podcast, in the Cheetah Newsletter for November, and will be talking about it as well on the Your World Your Way Radio show.

Were Cheetah's Meant to Swim?