Updates about Project Management Association Finland; PMI Finland Chapter; Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant; Hanhikivi 1 nuclear power plant; Helsinki’s Länsimetro extension; Raide-Jokeri light rail project

REPORT

By Dr Jouko Vaskimo

International Correspondent & Senior Contributing Editor

Espoo, Finland

INTRODUCTION

This roundup continues the coverage of Project Management Association Finland, PMI Finland Chapter and some of the key projects currently going on in Finland.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION FINLAND

Project Management Association Finland (PMAF), Projektiyhdistys ry in Finnish, is a not-for-profit organization, and the International Project Management Association (IPMA) Member Association (MA) in Finland. Founded in 1978, PMAF promotes the interaction, project-oriented thinking, and exchange and development of practical and theoretical knowledge among project management professionals with over 4000 individual and 200 organizational members.

PMAF promotes the development and dissemination of project and project management knowledge. PMAF members are able to enjoy information sharing, workgroups, development projects, project management forums, conferences and certification services PMAF provides. PMAF organizes two annual conferences: Projektipäivät in early November and 3PMO in early June. Due to COVID-19 pandemic PRY the 2020 3PMO event will take place on 25.8.2020, and Projektipäivät on 21.10.2020. Please navigate to www.pry.fi/en , https://www.oppia.fi/events/3pmo2020/ and www.projektipaivat.fi for general information on PMAF and its annual events.

PMI FINLAND CHAPTER

PMI Finland Chapter is a not-for-profit organization providing project practitioners in Finland continuous learning, networking and community support. The Chapter was founded in 2005. Today, with more than 400 members, the chapter is increasingly recognized as a community where its members can enhance their project management and leadership skills, as well as network with other project management professionals.

PMI Finland Chapter hosts a number of events such as Breakfast Round Tables, regular meetings taking place once a month in Helsinki and occasionally also in other locations. The chapter members have the opportunity to attend events for free or with a discount and the chapter sends its members a regular newsletter with localized content on project management. Additionally, the Chapter supports its members in their professional development and training.

PMI Chapter Finland organizes an annual conference in the spring. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the 2020 event was cancelled. Please navigate to www.pmifinland.org and www.conference.pmifinland.org for general information on the PMI Finland Chapter and its annual events.

OLKILUOTO 3

The 1 600 MW Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant, originally contracted to be built by consortium comprising Areva and Siemens for Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) at Olkiluoto, Finland, is trying to recover from the latest delay caused by piping vibrations and safety valve damage encountered in the reactor primary circuit. The plant was scheduled to be connected to the Finnish national power grid in November 2020, and commercial power generation was expected to commence in March 2021. At this time it is unclear how much more the start-up will be delayed, however, an updated time schedule is expected to be released by Areva in August.

More…

To read entire report, click here

How to cite this report: Vaskimo, J. (2020). Finland Project Management Roundup, PM World Journal, Vol. IX, Issue VIII, August.  Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/pmwj96-Aug2020-Vaskimo-Finland-Project-Management-Roundup-report.pdf

About the Author

Dr Jouko Vaskimo

Espoo, Finland

Jouko Vaskimo is an International Correspondent and Senior Contributing Editor for PM World in Finland. Jouko graduated M.Sc. (Tech.) from Helsinki University of Technology in 1992, and D.Sc. (Tech.) from Aalto University in 2016. He has held several project management related positions with increasing levels for responsibility. Jouko holds a number of professional certificates in the field of project management, such as the IPMA Level C (Project Manager), IPMA Level B (Senior Project Manager), PMP, PRINCE2 Foundation, and PRINCE2 Practitioner. Jouko is also a Certified Scrum Master and SAFe Agilist. Jouko is a member of the Project Management Association Finland, a founding member of PMI Finland Chapter, and the immediate past chairman of the Finnish IPMA Certification Body operating IPMA certification in Finland. Since October 2007, he has been heading the Finnish delegation to ISO/TC 258. Jouko resides in Espoo, Finland and can be best contacted at jouko.vaskimo@aalto.fi . For more information please navigate to www.linkedin.com/in/jouko-vaskimo-6285b51 .

To view other works by Jouko Vaskimo, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at http://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/jouko-vaskimo/

APM news, Good Covid-19 news, Defender continues, Political news, BREXIT, Stonehenge mystery solved and some successful Wildlife projects

REPORT

By Miles Shepherd

Executive Advisor & International Correspondent

Salisbury, England, UK

INTRODUCTION

One of the issues we all face during lockdown is the influence of ennui – not boredom as such but a lethargy, an inability to start work that needs to be done and difficulty completing tasks.  Fortunately, events in the project world have been diverse, exciting and worthy of attention.  So as lockdown continues, I will try to share with you some of the matters that have come to my attention in July.

The UK economy has figured large in the national press throughout July and the news has been mixed so a look at what passes for policy at the government level will be of interest as it will impact many different sectors, all of which depend upon project managers.  This means that professional project people will be visible so the news of developments at the Association for Project management are also important.  So, this month we will be looking at the good news, government policy issues, green projects overseas and some good news on the wildlife projects scene.

APM

The news from APM is tinged with sadness as one of the stalwarts of the Association has died.  Geoff Reiss, best known as the man who developed Pertmaster, passed on aged 75.  A man of many parts, he had many claims to fame as may be seen at the tribute posted at https://www.apm.org.uk/news/in-memoriam-project-management-pioneer-geoff-reiss/ .  I knew him for his work on programme management, one of the first people in UK to take up this vital aspect of our profession, and as an Honorary Fellow.  He will be much missed.

APM have also appointed two new Honorary Fellows, Amanda Meller and Professor Andrew Davies.  As Chief Guide, Amanda Meller, pictured, is Girlguiding’s most senior volunteer. She has been involved in guiding her whole life and has been a Girlguiding qualified trainer since 2003. Over the years she has progressed from being chair of the British Youth Council delegation to being elected as a member of Council and the Executive committee.

In addition, Amanda is a senior consultant at Adapta Consulting, an organisation that specialises in working with charities, membership organisations and other not-for-profit organisations.  Prior to her current role, she was a senior project manager for Citizens Advice where she managed a £10m project to provide extended hours of advice across over 500 locations in England and Wales reaching an additional 335,000 clients every year. She also has experience in the financial sector, managing ICT and business change programmes.

Professor Andrew Davies is the RM Phillips Freeman Chair and professor of innovation management in the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex Business School.  He is a researcher, educator, consultant and advisor who is fascinated by understanding and making innovation happen in complex projects, with a focus on large-scale infrastructure in the built environment.

He began his career at SPRU, Sussex University before moving to Amsterdam University, Imperial College and University College London (UCL). He returned to SPRU in 2019 and continues as honorary professor at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at UCL and visiting professor in the Department of Business and Management at Luiss University in Rome.

Over the past 15 years, he has collaborated with leaders of some of the UK’s largest infrastructure projects including Heathrow (terminal 5, terminal 2 and the third runway), the London Olympics, Crossrail, the Thames Tideway Tunnel, High-Speed 1 and 2, and the Westminster Palace Restoration and Renewal Project.

He is a regular collaborator with APM, having authored our 2019 report Project Management for Large, Complex Projects. He also contributed to Future of Project Management, a collaboration between APM, Arup and The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management at UCL

GOOD NEWS

The real good news is that lockdown in UK has been eased.  Of perhaps more import is the more nuanced stance adopted by the governments of all the nations in the Union.  This means that where conditions allow, less restrictive conditions apply.  Conversely, where so-called “spikes” appear, more stringent conditions can be imposed.  While this is more an operational than project matter, it is still good news as more project people will be able to function more effectively as restrictions ease.  So now we need to keep taking the medicine – and wear our masks!

More…

To read entire report, click here

How to cite this report: Shepherd, M. (2020).  UK Project Management Roundup, PM World Journal, Vol. IX, Issue VIII, August.  Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/pmwj96-Aug2020-Shepherd-UK-Regional-Report.pdf

About the Author

Miles Shepherd

Salisbury, UK

Miles Shepherd is an executive editorial advisor and international correspondent for PM World Journal in the United Kingdom. He is also managing director for MS Projects Ltd, a consulting company supporting various UK and overseas Government agencies, nuclear industry organisations and other businesses.  Miles has over 30 years’ experience on a variety of projects in UK, Eastern Europe and Russia.  His PM experience includes defence, major IT projects, decommissioning of nuclear reactors, nuclear security, rail and business projects for the UK Government and EU.  Past Chair, Vice President and Fellow of the Association for Project Management (APM), Miles is also past president and chair and a Fellow of the International Project Management Association (IPMA).  He was a Director for PMI’s Global Accreditation Centre and is immediate past Chair of the ISO committee developing new international standards for Project Management and for Program/Portfolio Management.  Miles is Chair of the British Standards Institute’s Committee on Project, Programme and Portfolio Management and has been involved in the development of Uk’s BSI 6079 for more than 25 years.  He was involved in setting up APM’s team developing guidelines for project management oversight and governance.  Miles is based in Salisbury, England and can be contacted at miles.shepherd@msp-ltd.co.uk.

To view other works by Miles Shepherd, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at http://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/miles-shepherd/.

A message of hope for the Project Manager

REPORT

By Alfonso Bucero

International Correspondent

Madrid, Spain

This summer, high temperature, COVID-19 infections, and the big amount of people being fired as project managers, are getting the uncertainty growing about our professional future. We do not know what will be happening in September. Some of us want to think positively but many daily bad news are stressing us.

From PMI Madrid Chapter, through her president (Susana Moreno), we have received a message of optimism and we need to believe in ourselves. The PMI Madrid Chapter offers job opportunities to their Project professionals. That Chapter continues to organize frequent “webinars” to keep their PMI membership informed, together and hopeful. In Spain we say that “when bad times come you need to show good face”. That means to be positive when facing tough situations. We cannot forget that if before the pandemic we had many projects to manage, during and after the pandemic have arisen and will arise more challenging projects to be managed. We must remind ourselves that the project manager role has been, is and will be crucial for business development and social good.

We should take advantage of this summer to rest some days in order to re-start the rest of the year with much energy, to positively infect with positive attitude our peers, colleagues, bosses, managers and customers by convincing them that together we can drive our country to a better situation. My preferred sentence “TODAY IS A GOOD DAY!” comes now reinforced by the sentence “TOMORROW WILL BE BETTER!”, and even when it is not depending only from us, what is true is that we can add something to achieve a better nation, country, continent and world.

From here I want to share with you my suggestions:

1. Read a book one hour per day (preferable not PM related)
2. Change your activity during some days without thinking about your projects
3. Spend some time with your family
4. Be grateful to God, nature or whatever (Today is a Good day!)
5. Think about who you will be able to help after your vacations

More…

To read entire report, click here for (English) or (Spanish)

How to cite this report: Bucero, A. (2020). Project Management Report from Spain: A message of hope for the Project Manager, PM World Journal, Vol. IX, Issue VIII, August. Available online at: https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/pmwj96-Aug2020-Bucero-project-management-in-Spain-report-ENGLISH.pdf

About the Author

Alfonso Bucero

Madrid, Spain

Alfonso Bucero, MSc, CPS, ACE, PMP, PMI-RMP, PfMP, SFC, IPMO-E, PMI Fellow, is an International Correspondent and Contributing Editor for the PM World Journal in Madrid, Spain. Mr. Bucero is also founder and Managing Partner of BUCERO PM Consulting.  Alfonso was the founder, sponsor and president of the PMI Barcelona Chapter until April 2005, and belongs to PMI’s LIAG (Leadership Institute Advisory Group).  He was the past President of the PMI Madrid Spain Chapter, and then nominated as a PMI EMEA Region 8 Component Mentor. Now he is a member of the PMIEF Engagement Committee. Alfonso has a Computer Science Engineering degree from Universidad Politécnica in Madrid and is studying for his Ph.D. in Project Management. He has 32 years of practical experience and is actively engaged in advancing the PM profession in Spain and throughout Europe. He received the PMI Distinguished Contribution Award on October 9th, 2010, the PMI Fellow Award on October 22^nd 2011 and the PMI Eric Jenett Excellence Award on October 28^th, 2017.

Mr. Bucero can be contacted at alfonso.bucero@abucero.com.

To see other works by Alfonso Bucero, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/alfonso-bucero/

Government Project Management Challenges in a complex context

REPORT

By Adriana Cibelli

International Correspondent

Buenos Aires, Argentina

It is sometimes hard to find successful stories within government institutions when it comes to project management, at least, this is what happens in my country; although these types of organizations are the ones that need the most of best management of their portfolios in order to fulfil their commitments to citizens, they do not always understand that the way to achieve this is through professional project management instead of a rudimentary project management approach.

However, I had a happy moment, even in the midst of the social drama of this COVID 19 pandemic that is compromising the health and prosperity of the entire world in a way that we had never experienced in modern times.

This joy is due to the fact that the government of the city where I live, the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, has been implementing a wide range of actions since the first case of COVID 19 appeared in our country, with practices that are proving to be effective enough to respond to this emergency, that is still growing in number of cases and in full development of the pandemic throughout the Argentine Republic.

The context in which these actions were to be deployed was highly complex, with extreme uncertainty, information that changed every minute, where the fight was and still is against an unknown enemy, with no history of how to face it, with a high demand for difficult decision-making, with few and not very credible lessons learned that were rising all around the world. It is in these borderline situations that we truly test the effectiveness of management practices.

Of course, Government Projects were highly impacted. New projects arose to be carried out due to the crisis, others that were in process before the crisis started had to be put on hold, others cancelled and the entire portfolio went through a redefinition process since resources had to be reassigned to respond to the new situation that could not be foreseen, considering also an emerging factor that constitutes an important pressure element such as the strong citizen demand for suitable solutions to the issues posed by the new context.

More…

To read entire report, click here

How to cite this report:  Cibelli, A. (2020). Project Management Update from Argentina, PM World Journal, Vol. IX, Issue VIII, August. Available online at: https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/pmwj96-Aug2020-Cibelli-Argentina-Report.pdf

About the Author

Adriana Cibelli

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Adriana Cibelli, PMP is Director of activePMO, a Project Management and Leadership consulting services and training firm in Argentina.

Adriana has a degree in Electronic Engineering from Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a post degree in Design of Intelligent Buildings, from the same university and has managed projects for more than 20 years. She is a professor and director of Project Management and Leadership programs in some important Universities of Argentina and an International speaker. Adriana holds the Project Management Professional (PMP®) credential, is certified as Scrum Master (CSM) from Scrum Alliance, PMO-CP from PMO Global Alliance, and an SDI Certified Facilitator from Personal Strengths©.

Mrs. Cibelli is member and volunteer of PMI, has been Professional Development VP of the Board of Directors of PMI Buenos Aires and is the former Governance & Policies VP in the same chapter. Elected President in 2019, Adriana will become President of the PMI Buenos Aires Chapter on January 1st, 2021. She is currently working as a coordinator for the C.A.P.A. committee with the goal of integrating efforts and sharing resources between Argentinian PMI Chapters.

Adriana serves as an international correspondent for the PM World Journal in Argentina since February 2020. She can be contacted at adriana@activepmo.com and www.activepmo.com.

To view other works by Adriana Cibelli, visit her author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/adriana-cibelli/

Zimbabwe economy takes a hit

REPORT

By Peter Banda

International Correspondent

Harare, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe economy to shrink by 4.5% in 2021 due to Covid-19

“Zimbabwe’s economy is expected to shrink by 4,5% this year owing to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and a brutal climate change-related drought,” Zimbabwe Government Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said on Thursday 16 July 2020.

Announcing the midterm 2020 budget and economic review, Ncube said the mining sector will contract by 4%, although he projected that GDP would rebound to 7,4 percent growth in 2021. The Zimbabwe fiscal boss said that inflation was expected to gradually decline to 300 percent by December, compared with 737,36 percent currently.

The country’s exports, declining to Z$1,53 billion in first five months of this year against Z$1,56 billion during the same period last year.

However, he noted that government was on course to avoid a supplementary budget after ministries, on average used 46% amount of the 2020 budget by June, leaving 54% percent of the total budget unutilized.

Ncube highlighted that the 2020 revenue collection has been surpassed so far. After initially projecting collecting Z$58.6 billion, comprising tax revenues of Z$57.6 billion and non-tax revenue of Z$1.1 billion in the budget, cumulative revenue collections for the period between January and June are estimated at Z$34.2 billion, against a target of Z$32.1 billion.

“This resulted in a positive variance of Z$2.14 billion or 6.7% of projected revenues, notwithstanding the slowdown in economic activity that has been induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

More…

To read entire report, click here

How to cite this report:  Banda, P. (2020). Project Management Update from Harare, PM World Journal; Vol. IX, Issue VIII, August.  Available online at  https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/pmwj96-Aug2020-Banda-project-management-update-from-Zimbabwe-Report.pdf

About the Author

Peter Banda

Harare, Zimbabwe

Peter Banda is an agile Portfolio Manager with Change Management, Marketing & Project Management Skills, and an accomplished entrepreneur with broad stakeholder management experience. He is a founder member of Zimbabwe’s largest Association of Project Managers with a membership of over 4000, Project Management Zimbabwe (PMZ). He has worked in both the private & public sectors during the last 20 years in Zimbabwe, Botswana & South Africa. Peter is a born & passionate teacher, mentor & trainer with skills ranging from Personal Development Planning to Project Management. Peter has presented & published over 30 papers at high profile international conferences & leading newspapers & publications respectively during the last 10 years.

Peter is currently Secretary- General & CEO of PROJECT MANAGEMENT ZIMBABWE (PMZ). Responsibilities cover strategic navigation of PMZ towards the vision covering board advisory and stakeholder management. He was previously a Higher Education Examiner, Facilitator, Lecturer, Curriculum Developer and Assessor for both local and International Diploma and Degree courses for the Zimbabwe Ministry of Higher & Tertiary Education.  Peter holds a Bachelors (Hon.) degree and MSc qualification, and is currently studying for a PhD & other certifications.  A God-fearing father of 2 lovely daughters & 1 son, Peter likes reading & researching current affairs, coaching others to realise their dreams, and watching soccer & cricket.

Peter Banda can be contacted at PMZ National Secretariat Office info@pmiz.org.zw

To view original works by Peter Banda, visit his author profile in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/peter-banda-2/