As it was International Project Management Day this week I thought I’d give you a round up of how the project management industry is celebrating its finest talent. This really is the season for rewarding project management, and there have been two award ceremonies recently resulting in things to shout about.
The APM Awards
The APM awards were held in London recently and 12 winners took home trophies in recognition of their achievements over the past 12 months. Here are the highlights.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) took the prestigious BNFL Award and won International Relief and Development Project of the Year for their ‘RUMAKI’ seascape project in Tanzania’s coastal districts of Rufiji, Mafia and Kilwa, covering a marine area of almost 10,000 km2. The project, supported financially by the Department for International Development, Barclays Bank and the European Commission, aimed to improve the socio-economic well-being of coastal communities by empowering them to govern local fisheries resources.
“This project was all about community involvement and as part of that we had to introduce some fairly new concepts such as locals’ rights over resources,” said David Tanner from WWF UK. “Education was a big part of the project. It’s a great honour, it’s fairly unusual for environmental and conservational organisations to be part of the project management awards and I think it’s great recognition of our team’s work.”
Professor Eddie Obeng, was awarded the ‘lifetime achievement’ Sir Monty Finniston Award. He is well known in the UK for his revolutionary approaches to project management and he also received an Honorary Fellowship. “I am really honoured to receive the award,” he said. “I hope I live up to Sir Monty’s heritage of trying to move things forward. I look forward to helping the APM to thrive and generate even more project managers in the future.”
Consultancy Turner & Townsend won the Overseas Project of the Year, Community Project of the Year and the Project of the Year award for the construction of a new £14m business school at the University of Exeter. Turner & Townsend have an excellent track record for winning awards and they work on some significant development projects in the UK. “I am completely overwhelmed to receive the award on behalf of the team,” Nathan Moss said. “This was the most challenging project I have ever been involved in. It had a number of complex issues that we had to deal with as a team in order to make it a success. We’ve learned never to underestimate the positive effect that good teamwork can have.”
Other winners on the night were Moorhouse (Project Management Company of the Year); Paul Arnold, NATS (Project Manager of the Year); William Sargeant, Qedis (Young Project Manager of the Year); James Kemp, BAE Systems (Brian Willis Award) and Howard Dickel, British Telecom (Geoffrey Trimble Award).
The PMI Awards
PMI also holds annual awards and this year was no exception. Project of the Year went to the Prairie Waters Project, in Colorado, which was an initiative to prevent droughts in the region significantly impacting the local community and involved the building of a large water plant.
The David I. Cleland award went to Rich Maltzman and David Shirley for their book, Green Project Management. IBM took home the prize for their professional education product, the Agile Learning Suite.
Alfonso Bucero, who has been influential in changing the attitudes of project managers towards the language they use, and is a regular contribution to PM Network magazine, was made a PMI Fellow. Philip R. Diab was also made a Fellow.
“The PMI awards program honours those individuals, groups and organizations that demonstrate an ongoing commitment to project management excellence and the future of our profession,” said Mark A. Langley, president and chief executive officer of PMI. “This year’s winners represent project management at its finest. PMI is honoured to recognize them for their achievements and we thank them for their continued contribution to project management.”