NPM Conference: Opportunities & Challenges

This Issue Includes O&Cs, About PMI Islamabad P.1

Beyond Horizon P.2 In Focus: Shafqaat H. Shah P.3

Events & Seminar Highlights P.4 My PgMP Experience P.5

Colombo Conference 2012 P.6 Guest Pass & New Members P.7

PMI Islamabad Chapter

PMI Islamabad Chapter has the honor to be

the first chapter in placing Pakistan among

the PMI global chapters & SIGs. The Islama-

bad Chapter has been driven by officials

actively engaged in public & private sector

projects. Project Management (PM) as a

discipline is increasingly recognized locally

due to its vital importance and is making

headway at the grass root level as a primary

skill for the development and social pro-

jects. The growing awareness of project

management has lead a number of organi-

zations actively addressing planning & PM

dimensions before launching themselves

into medium to mega scale projects. Feeling

the need of the hour foundation of

Islamabad chapter was laid in early 2002.

A need was being felt to organize the

project managers of Pakistan under the

auspicious of the PMI. It was proposed to

open its Pakistan chapter in Islamabad. The

Institute was accordingly contacted via e-

mail on 23-3-2002 followed by first submis-

sion of a Letter of Intent on April 5, 2002.

PMI R@bta Quarterly Journal of the Islamabad Chapter.

July Sept 2012

Did You Know >

2nd National Project Management Conference was organized by PMI Islamabad Pakistan Chapter on May 12th 2012. This year theme of the conference was Dynamics of Project

Management in Pakistan: Challenges and Opportunities.

The event brought the professionals and executives from various walks of life together under

one roof where they were able to share their best practices of the Project Management

discipline and discussed the way forward considering the explicit environmental factors in

Pakistan resulting into business growth. The speakers engaged for the event were the industry

experts either from the multinational companies or renowned universities.

The conference was attended by delegates from 36 different corporations and universities. The

audience attendance was 165 plus. The diversified mix of professionals from IT, Telecom,

Defense, Civil Engineering, Government, Development Sectors, Academia and Students made the

event remarkable.

> Total Audience participation: 165

> PMI Islamabad Pakistan Chapter holds 145 active members.

> 80 of these members are Certified PMP and 02 of them are Certified

PgMP.

Beyond Horizon

Organizational Project Management Maturity

Model (OPM3) standard is being revised and will

soon be released as 3rd Edition. Since its first edition,

OPM3 has really evolved into a more mature and

stable standard. Like A Guide to Project

Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), every

new edition has always brought welcome changes

and always made more sense. PMBOK 5th Edition will

be released in January 2013 and it is very likely that

2nd Editions of Standard for Program Management

and Standard for Portfolio Management will also be

released alongside it. We can always expect OPM3 3rd

Edition coming out with these three standards as

these four standards of PMI have been grouped to-

gether as Core Standards and were released last time

together.

OPM3 is one standard which is affected by all three

standards mentioned earlier. Without a framework

for projects, programs and portfolios in place, we

cannot start talking about the maturity of

organizational project management. OPM3 Best

Practices and Capabilities incorporate the processes

contained in:

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) Fifth Edition

The Standard for Program Management Third Edition

The Standard for Portfolio Management Third Edition

In addition to above mentioned core stand-

ards, OPM3 also leverages the other two core

standards, including:

Project Manager Competency Development Framework (PMCDF), PMIs Project Management Lexicon.

The concept of Organizational Project management is

better defined in 3rd Edition and the relationship with

operations and product development is also hinted

upon. Although I feel, more emphasis could have

been laid in clarifying these two relationships, but

OPM3 quickly steers clear of these linkages and focus-

es on the core subject of maturity in projects, pro-

grams and portfolios with strategic intent. The stand-

ard relates them by saying,

OPM advances organizational capability by sup-

porting project, program, and portfolio management

principles and practices with organizational enablers

(e.g. structural, cultural, technological, and human

resource practices) to support strategic goals. An

organization measures its capabilities, then plans and

implements improvements towards the systematic

achievement of best practices.

The New Shape OPM 3 Is Taking

Beyond

Horizon

PE, PgMP, PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP,

CAPM, PME, MCT, PRINCE2 Practitioner

About the Author: SOHAIL IQBAL

This new experiment of introducing process-

es for OPM3 may be a good idea but

enough time should have been given to

establish proper

process flow. In present status,

these processes are self contradictory in

certain cases. At many places, OPM3 stand-

ard does not remain consistent with other

standards as far as

convention for use of ITTOs is

concerned in the newly formed

processes.

In light of the observations, it was recom-

mended to PMI that they SHOULD NOT

publish OPM3 standard in current form.

They should either extend the date of the

project and work more on OPM3 process-

es or simply exclude them from standard

for the time being.

Soon, when this standard will be in your

hands, you would be able to see the validity

of my concerns and observations made to

PMI. I hope they would accept some or all

of my suggestions.

Project Management Trainer, Consultant and

Researcher with an experience of over 30 years,

last 10 years specifically dedicated to the discipline

of project management. Had been involved in

development of OPM3 2nd Ed as Quality Lead and

SME Lead, OPM3 3rd Ed as SME, PMBOK Guide 4th

Ed as Configuration Manager and 5th Ed as Author

of Chapter 1, Program Management Standard 1st

& 2nd Ed and Portfolio Management Standard 1st &

2nd Ed. Served as PMI Islamabad Pakistan Chapter

President, Component Mentor Asia, PMI Member

Leadership Institute Advisory Group, Chairman

APFPM, and Vice President Education Islamabad

ToastMasters Club. Currently Regional Director

PRMIA Pakistan Chapter, Vice Chair Mensa Paki-

stan and Director-at-Large with PMI Pakistan

Islamabad Chapter. Associated with PMI EdSIG,

Consulting CoP, Quality CoP and many other CoPs.

Research Scholar at SKEMA Business School. Lille,

France with over 12 publications to his credit.

Specialize in Organizational Maturity, OPM3

and Creative Leadership.

An attempt to link OPM with Organizational strategy

exists where the standard mentions:

Organizational strategy is a result of the strategic

planning cycle, where the vision and mission are

translated into a strategic plan. The strategic plan is

then subdivided into a set of initiatives that are influ-

enced by market dynamics, customer and partner

requests, shareholders, government regulations, and

competitor plans and actions. These initiatives estab-

lish strategic and operational portfolios for execution

in the planned period.

As you can see, the standard halts in its tracks after

saying this much about strategic and operational

portfolios and never explains this linkage any further,

leaving much to the desire. It is also important to

mention here that this is the first time PMI has ever

made a mention of operational portfolios and we do

not really understand the mechanism by which these

operational portfolios link with project portfolios.

Strategy is a much wider subject and cannot be cov-

ered by addressing project portfolio management

alone, until and unless we are clear about what hap-

pens at organizational strategic level.

My observations as a Subject Matter Expert for the

new edition of OPM3 are as under:-

1. In the whole standard a very slight mention of

operational processes like product development,

operational effectiveness, and better customer ser-

vices was made. Where OPM3 claims to be address-

ing the Vision, Mission, Strategy and Objectives of the

Organization, it fails to justify its useful to Organiza-

tion's Operation in so many words. The missing link is

between OPM and the Operations of the

organization.

2. The Best Practices table, which is several

pages long) unnecessarily distracts the reading of

OPM3 standard by being situated right in the

middle of the standard. It could be much better if

it could be moved to the end as an Annexure.

3. Like processes in PMBoK and other stand-

ards, PMI has introduced processes with ITTOs for

OPM3 also. Unfortunately they are not consistent

at all and no process flow diagram has been pre-

pared to show the linkages depicted amongst the

processes. Many outputs produced as output of a

process are never seen to be used elsewhere, indi-

cating the output must have been redundant as it

was not needed by any other process.

4. Several inputs in these processes could have

been accommodated in Organizational Process

Assets or Enterprise Environmental Factors but

are taking up useless space by being mentioned

separately, thus increasing the number of I/Os to

as much as fifteen in certain cases.

EXCELLENCE AWARD Shafqaat H. Shah from Pakistan Telecommunication Company, Ltd., wins the

10th Teradata National IT Excellence Award (Excellence in Project Management) for PTCLs 3G Evo Wireless Broadband Internet project!

To maintain neutrality and transparency in the nomination and evaluation process, Teradata engaged their independent auditors,

KPMG Taseer Hadi & Co. to receive and compile nominations. A panel of 10 judges included experts and leaders in education, IT and

related fields.

The winners this year were awarded at the grand gala event held on March 17, 2012 at Golf and Country Club, DHA Phase 8, Karachi.

The Honorable Chief Guest William Martin, U.S. Consul General in Karachi, and Khurram Rahat, MD Teradata for Pakistan, Afghanistan

and Bangladesh handed the awards to the winners.

By customizing the world's best Project Management practices specifically for Pakistan's unique market and work culture, Shafqaat was

able to effectively program-manage the product launch of one of Pakistan's strongest brand names in the Telecom world - PTCL's 3G

Evo Wireless Broadband Internet! This project resulted in the fastest and the most comprehensive product launch in the history of the

organization! This innovative product "revolutionized" the work and personal lives of Pakistani nation! His role has been pivotal to the

successful product launches and product support of the subsequent EvDO-based products, including EvoTab Tablet PC, EvoDroid

Smartphone, EvoCloud Wireless Router, Evo Nitro 9.3 Mbps, and the list shall continue. Evo service has now spread to over 170 cities in

Pakistan, and continues to grow.

Shafqaat studied in Michigan, worked in Chicago, and came to Pakistan to give back to the country. He has over 12 years of Global Pro-

ject Management experience (USA, UK, Poland, India, and Pakistan.) He has a strong blend of expertise in Telecom, IS/IT, Technical, De-

velopment, Commercial and Customer Care Domains. He is active participant of the PMI Islamabad Chapter events including confer-

ences and regular seminars and had been event panelist at PMO Roundtable Workshop May 2010.

Shafqaat says this is a great honor and a humbling moment for him. Like any good project manager, Shafqaat attributes his success in

PTCLs 3G Evo launch project to his talented and dedicated team. He also says that none of this would have been possible without the

prayers and support from his family!

Shafqaat H. Shah an ardent member of PMI

Islamabad Pakistan Chapter work is employed

at Pakistan Telecommunication Company, Ltd.,

wins the 10th Teradata National IT Excellence

Award 2012 in category of Excellence in Pro-

ject Management for PTCLs 3G Evo Wireless

Broadband Internet project.

Teradata National IT Excellence Awards are

the most prestigious IT awards in Pakistan

since their launch in 2000. These awards have

become an integral part of the IT industry,

recognizing various professionals associated in

the field of Information Technology (IT) be it

software developers, researchers, project

managers, electronic and print media journal-

ists, university students, exporters, education-

ists, pioneers in the disciplines of IT and life

time achievers.

HIGHLIGHTS

EVENTS AND SEMINARS Training is one of the main activities related with Professional Development of the Community. It is one of the objectives of PMI to bring

awareness among the community and empower them with Project Management tools. PMI Islamabad Chapter being a REP (Registered

Education Provider) has an edge over other training institutes, besides having an excellent team of trained and professional trainers. PMP

Workshop and MS Project 2010 Hands-On Trainings were arranged in the last few months. The trainings organized by PMI Islamabad Chapter

are subsidized and on non-commercial basis. The minimal fee collected from the candidates compensates Instructors fees and candidates own

expenditure like food, stationery, etc.

PMP Workshops

A number of PMP Workshops were held early this year, i.e., Jan, Mar, Jun and Jul-2012. Jan & Mar sessions were based on weekend models

(two consecutive weekends and one weekday) and were conducted by Mr Asad Naveed, while Jun session was based on Weekdays Model (Mon

-Fri) and was conducted by Mr Suhail Iqbal. The Jul session was recently completed as weekend model, by Mr Sauood and Mr Waseem.

MS Project 2010 was also announced, scheduled in Jun-2012 but due to low registration, it was cancelled.

Group Photo of PMP Mar-20112 Session Group Activity (PMP Mar-2012)

Group Activity (PMP Mar-2012) Certificate Distribution Ceremony (PMP Mar-2012)

Certificate Distribution Ceremony Left: VP Marketing & Communication (Jun-2012)

EVENTS AND SEMINARS

PMIs Monthly Seminar at CASE (Mar-2012) Left: Mr Yusef Al Bashir, Middle: Mr Asad Naveed, VP Professional

Development PMI Islamabad Chapter, Right: Mr Ahsan Mumtaz, President, PMI Islamabad Chapter

Candidates feedbacks:

Over all, am very satisfied with it, although I didnt have the high expectations from this training. I would congratulate Mr. Asad for conducting such a nice training and I liked his professionalism and dedicated effort. Job well done!

Overall good learning and collaborative training that I will remember for a long time. Overall Good experience. The presentation finally convinced me to go for exam. When I joined I was not convinced. It was very good training but too broad for five days. A longer training could give the opportunity of deepening further

discussion on contents and have more practice on tools. Thanks so much. I am very satisfied Friendly Environment, More Participated, No Chance To Sleep, Instructor Has Command Over Subject.

Trainings Planned for Near Future:

PMP Workshop (multiple times in every quarter)

MS Project

Primavera

Soft Skills (Leadership, Stress Management, etc.)

PMO Setup

PMI-RMP

PMI-ACP.

The seminar was followed by a short talk by MAJU Dean, Mr Ansir Rajput, who not only thanked PMI Islamabad Chapter for enlightening their community, but also encouraged his students to prepare themselves for the practical life ahead, by participating the professional development activities of PMI Islamabad Chapter.

In the future, similar sessions are planned for academia and corporate world.

PMI Outreach Activities PMI Islamabad Chapter planned to visit MAJU in Apr-2012 with the objective to provide awareness among MAJU stu-dents & faculty regarding Project Management and PMI activities. Mr Asad Naveed, VP Professional Development delivered a seminar of two hours, elaborating the structure of PMI Islamabad Chapter, highlighting the importance of the professional of Project Management and motivating the alumni and students to participate in the activities of the Chapter. Some of the feedback responses were as follow:

Informative

Good session

Looking forward more for seminars

Good exercise

Time Management and arrangements should be adequate

Keep it up.

EVENTS AND SEMINARS

Date Event Topic Presenter / Moderator 22-Feb-12 Stress Management Aisha Javed

13-Mar-12 Procurement Management Yussef Ali Basheer

25-Mar-12 PMP Training Workshop Asad Naveed

11-Apr-12 Agile Project Management Humayun Zafar

23-May-12 Cracking PgMP Sajid Latif

19-Jun-12 Preparing for PMI-RMP Suhail Iqbal

18-Jul-12 Applications of Earned Value Management

Asad Naveed

07-Aug-12 Improving Customer Relationship Management

Abdul Basit

26-Sep-12 Dynamics of PMO & EPMMS Project Server 2010

Syed Ali Raza

PMI Monthly Seminars

PMI Islamabad Chapter invites guest speakers from different walks of life, including academia and industry, to deliver a professional talk of up to 2 hours in the evening of a weekday. The objective is to improve the education of our Project Management community, especially the Certified Project Managers (PMP, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PMI-PgMP, etc) so as to award them PDUs. Typically 2 PDUs are awarded in such events.

The Monthly Seminars held in the last few months are as follow >

P i c t u r e H i g h l i g h t s

PMIs Monthly Seminar at SINA (May-2012) Left: Mr Sajid Latif, VP Strategy, Middle: Mr Sauood Rauf, VP Finance, Right: Mr Asad Naveed, VP Professional Development.

Mr Sajid Latif, VP Strategy

PMIs Monthly Seminar at SINA (Jun-2012)

Mr. Naeem Iqbal VP Membership & Registration

A colleague and a good friend of mine Asim, moti-vated me to go for PgMP citification and Iinformed that an ex colleague and a friend Sajid Latif has recently completed his PgMP certification. Sajid was delivering a session PgMP certification arranged by PMI Islamabad Chapter. We both went to attend the session and it was very in-formative and started to find out more and study for the exam. I have completed PgMP certification today and it really feels like an accomplishment. The process is long and it requires a lot of commitment. I would like to summarize the steps I went through during this certification process.

My PgMP Experience

P r e p a r a t i o n I didnt use many different books and/or materials for preparation. I only used following resources: Standard for Program Management 2 (available at PMI website for members): I consider this a must read and develop

understanding of concepts in it. PgMP Exam Practice Test & Study Guide Third Edition: by Dr. Ginger Levin & J. LeRoy Ward. This is available at Amazon

and includes an Exam Simulator that is very helpful. PMBOK 4.0 (available at PMI website for members). A Must read with good understanding. Revision of My PMP knowledge and specially the cheat sheets that summarizes most of the concepts related to EVM,

quality, etc.

If I have to summarize I would say that the above resources bring you very close to reality for PgMP exam. They cover every-

thing one needs to know about program management and the Exam simulator from Dr. Ginger gives you a fair evaluation to

help you gauge where you stand. If you are scoring more than 85% the probability of passing the exam is very high.

E x a m E x p e r i e n c e I was at the Prometric center about 30 min before the exam as recommended by Prometric center notification. They set me up and in about 25 min. T h e e x a m : Required a lot of concentration on the question to read and understand and to select the right answer. Sometimes right

answer from more than one right answers as it seemed to me. I took two breaks of about 10 minutes each to relax my eyes :) The questions, unlike as mentioned in some blogs, were mostly not very lengthy but did require concentration. Most of

them were 3 to five lines. There were about 30% questions that were really lengthy and had scrollbars. The questions were mainly about:

Program Lifecycle and their processes. (read and read and read the table in SPMV2) Governance Benefits management EVM, ROI, Payback (few about 5 questions if I remember correctly) No direct questions on project management but there were few questions on project management within con-

text of program management. PMI ethics (very few questions about 4 or 5 I think) Some questions on Program manager skills e.g. Leadership, Communication, Political Skills etc.

M R A After I passed the exam MRA, the final evaluation, started. In this phase they sent a survey to all the references I mentioned to provide feedback about my program management related capabilities. It consisted of 74 questions. One survey was sent to me too for self-evaluation. After all the responses were submitted, it took about two days for PMI to get back to me with confirmation of my PgMP certification.

Thats it! You are done if you have completed all of the above.

P M I I S L A M A B A D C H A P T E R PA R T I C I PAT E S AT

President Meeting and Regional Conference Colombo 2012

The scenic spot of Biera Lake Colombo was the location setting for PMI region 11 chapters Presidents Meeting and Regional Conference 2012 hosted by PMI Colombo Sri Lanka chapter from 25 29 April 2012. The chapter presidents from PMI regional chapters participated from Bangalore, Chennai, Colombo, Pearl City, Islamabad, Karachi, West Bengal, Lahore, Mumbai, North India, and Trivandrum presented the SWOT analysis of the chapters. The PMI team including regional mentor Tejas Sura, Chap-ter Member Advisory Group (CMAG) Ramam Atmakuri and PMI India representative Raj Kalady were also present at the occa-sion. The strategies for chapter member activities were discussed along with the ways to have activities for members.

The host PMI Colombo chapter had selected the Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo hotel as the meeting and conference venue which was situated at the lake part of downtown slave is-land Colombo. Special cultural presentations along with cocktail evening were arrange at 80

the hotel floating banquet hall. The site was close to the Sir Lankan Air force and Army headquarters and many buildings of the colonial era from Portuguese and English time sur-round the locality. The lake was used for defense and transportation, including the much-admired cinnamon.

According to historians, the Beira Lake probably took its name from De Beer, who is believed to have been an engineer in charge of the Dutch water defenses. Some say it was a Portuguese engineer by the name of Beira who first discovered it nearly 480 years ago.

The presidents SWOT session was followed by the Regional Project Management

Conference organized by PMI Colombo Sri Lanka Chapter and PMI from 27-29 April on the

theme Accelerating National Development through Best Practices of Project Management.

The conference was inaugurated by Honrable Chandima Weerakkody , Deputy Speaker

Sri Lankan Assembly and Nivad Cabral the Governor of Central Bank Sri Lanka. Mr. Hugo

Wisidagama President PMI Colombo Sri Lanka Chapter welcomed the participants and

expressed his satisfaction on the project management progress in the country.

Mr. Lalith De Silva the founding president PMI Colombo Sri Lanka Chapter and CEO Mobitel Sri Lanka also graced the occasion

along with Mr. Eugene Bounds, PMI Board of Director 2102.

After the morning session the conference afternoon was split into mutli sessions on day 1 & 2.

Mr. Ahsan Mumtaz President PMI Islamabad Pakistan Chapter conducted the session on

Project Leadership- Driving force for success which was participated from multi background

seasoned military, civilian and young professionals. The session was duly enjoyed by the par-

ticipants and vote of thanks was present by the PMI Colombo Sri Lanka Chapter.

PMI Islamabad Chapter has been regularly participating at the regional events

including the recent Presidents Meeting 2011 convened at Sri Lanka and PMI

Global Conference 2010 Australia. The objective is to gain the first-hand knowledge

of the regional chapters working and establish network with the fellow volunteer

leaders.

P M I I s l a m a b a d

C h a p t e r Guest Pass Program

PMI has developed a new program, the Chapter Guest Pass Program. The program is meant to introduce PMI members, who are not chapter members, with an opportunity to join a chapter for the remainder of their PMI membership.

We are, therefore, offering a Free Guest Pass for individuals that are already PMI members but not yet members of the chapter to recognize the value and benefits of chapter membership. In order to participate in the program, the following criteria must be met:

1. The prospective participant member must be a PMI member in good standing. (PMI members in good standing have paid their PMI membership dues).

2. The Chapter Guest Pass is valid for one time use from the point of initiation through the end of the members current PMI membership cycle.

3. The participant in the program is responsible for participating in, and attending, local chapter events such as the Monthly Seminars, Networking Events, Symposium, and Learn Events to benefit and value the delivery of core services by the chapter.

4. Any member whose membership with PMI is set to expire within 90 days must renew their PMI membership to participate in the program. Because chapter membership is tied to PMI membership, PMI does not allow members to join chapters within 90 days of expiration unless the member chooses to re-new at that time.

5. On 15 December 2012, and yearly thereafter, each participant will be required to complete an analysis of the program to provide feedback for assessment of the Chapter Guest Pass Program. Additional instruc-tions for collecting feedback will be provided in the future.

To be a participant of the program and receive a promotional code for a Free Guest Pass, Please E-mail council@pmiislamabad.org and membership@pmiislamabad.org with your name, PMI #, e-mail address and phone number.

We welcome on board the following

new members: (July 2012)

Muhammad Inam ur Raheem

Idrees Ramzan

Rizwan M. Saifullah

(August 2012)

Faisal A. Malik

Muhammad Taha Masood

New Members in Month of June, 2012 New Members >

Membership retention and growth trends

PMI Islamabad Chapters activities have been enhanced including

conferences, seminars, workshops etc. activities has created visibil-

ity of the chapter helping in retaining members and alluring new

members with the passage of time.

Student Chapter Initiative

PMI Islamabad Chapter has embraced new rules to incorporate

Student Chapters.

Chapter representatives have planned to visit universities shortly to

communicate the way forward by establishing student chapter in

one university as pilot project.

For General Inquiries, Reach Us @ council@pmiislamabad.org

Join us on >

Get Registered with us. Email Us @

membership@pmiislamabad.org

http://www.linkedin.com/Group/

PMI-Islamabad-chapter

www.facebook.com/pmiislamabadchapter

http://www.pmiislamabad.org

P r o j e c t M a n a g e m e n t I n s t i t u t e

I s l a m a b a d C h a p t e r