Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Why Project Management Training and Coaching is More Important Now than Ever!

My last couple of Blogs talked about the need for Project Management training and coaching. In addition to the contacts we are receiving for training, we are beginning to receive a number for project health checks and audits. This is great because it is telling us that organizations are finally recongizing the value that early project problem detection can provide. It will save them hugely in dollars and time.


Here are some of the benefits of professional project management for senior managers, functional managers, stakeholders, project managers and teams:


Functional Managers can benefit from the improvements in processes realized through project management and better allocation of resources—both people and monetary—as well as expansion of the organizational retained best practices. Better utilization of resources and improved systems of tracking the allocation of their resources across a number of projects helps improve staff efficiency and effectiveness.


I'll add more information on the others in subsequent Blogs.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Airline Choices

I travel extensively around the Globe. I enjoy working with the different cultures and visiting the different places. The most difficult part of travel is the overseas flight in economy. North American travel is at best “low class”. No amenities. You have to buy food and drinks, even on 6 hour flights. In Australia you can fly shorter distances and always get a meal land drinks. Most airlines in North America don’t offer any movies or entertainment of any sort. The exception is Air Canada which at least has individual movies for each passenger. However, no food or drinks (unless you pay for them).

When travelling internationally I usually fly Dubai, Singapore, Thai, Malaysian or Cathay. They are all amazing airlines. They have in-flight entertainment for each economy passenger and provide food and drinks at no cost. I have just returned from Australia. Since I was flying there from the United States instead of Canada and owing to my time constraints I ended up flying United Airlines. What an experience.

I always take an aisle seat so that I can easily get up and stretch whenever I want without disturbing anyone. I booked an aisle seat and confirmed it upon check-in. Yet when I got onto the plane I realized that I had a centre seat. I am a Star Alliance gold member/Air Canada Elite status. Regardless, the staff were unaccommodating. They really didn’t care. Not their problem. The plane was old. No in-flight entertainment, just one big screen for everyone to watch with old, bad movies. They provided food (that’s subject to opinion regarding what classifies as being food) and charged for drinks. I was astounded. Again, they were sorry but this is their policy.

The flight on United was no less expensive than flying on any other airline. They just give you less for your money. A warning to all – check what the flight offers, not just the price. I will never fly United again when going overseas and I will ensure I let others know that United is truly at the bottom of the barrel regarding service, friendliness and accommodation of their customers. No wonder they’re having financial challenges.

Monday, January 5, 2009

How to Save Time on Your Project and Win Sponsor Approval

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