Safran’s new Product and a PM Job

Project Manager – Digital/Online Projects
Our client, voted Digital Design Agency of the Year for 2007 and 2008, an ideas driven, design focused and strategically minded design agency is looking for talented Project Managers with Account Management experience for their growing Johannesburg office.

They specialize in the creation of digital campaign solutions for all sectors of business making their clients stand out from the crowd. Services include strategy, design and the technical development of solutions across all digital media space.

Do you like a challenge – being hands on? You will be involved in all matters from client briefing, budgets, traffic and project management?

• Experience working on digital projects is an absolute must!
• Knowledge of digital design as well as knowledge of digital front and back end is essential.
• Experience of working in a creative agency environment (beneficial)

Requirements:
• At least three years Digital Project Management experience
• At least three years of client facing experience
• Understanding of digital design and creative website development and functionality
• Knowledge of digital front and back end
• Running complete online to mobile to integrated campaigns
• Must have technical knowledge (how a website can work & different platforms it can be used on)
• Basic understanding of online and offline.
• Experience producing, trafficking and seeing through the development integrated digital campaigns that involve:
- SMS campaigns.
- Websites, Mailers, online banners (flash, gif and rich-media – must have been exposed to this from a non-technical side.)
- Processes of working with social networks like Facebook, Twitter and mobile marketing.
- Knowledge of programming languages and what is best used in various situations.
- Knowing the difference between an intranet and a portal (for example)

Apply here..

Safran North America Releases Proteus Product into North American Market
Market-tested Project Integration and Intelligence Product introduced to new market

Albuquerque, NM (PRWEB) July 2, 2009 — Safran North America (SNA), one of the world’s leading manufacturers and distributors of project management applications, announced today that it has added Proteus to its product offerings to serve the North American market.

Over seven years in development and proofing in the most demanding project management environments in transnational corporations, Proteus is an integration and intelligence application that connects to project and/or enterprise information regardless of location, database system or underlying application. It is based on .NET it can access geographically dispersed data sources over the web as well as secure networks. In summary, Proteus is a virtual multi-application smart client operating across an organization with security attributes for each user or group of users in addition to any security acquired from the database.

“We are extremely excited about the capabilities that Proteus offers to our market ,” said Safran North America CEO, Nicholas Pisano. “We expect that Proteus will be a game-changer, particularly since it leverages the next generation of tools, by-passing the dead-end reliance on OLAP or Cubes to achieve data integration. Turning data from disparate systems into corporate information aggregated as appropriate based on a user’s role in the organization.”

read the full article here..

Construction Project Leadership event

As we are half way through the year now, you are no doubt planning your training and events schedule for the rest of 2009. There’s a new project management event that might be worth adding to your list of things to attend, especially if you work in civil engineering, public sector build projects or defense.

On August 25 Columbia University’s Center for Project Leadership (CPL) will be hosting the First Forum on Construction Project Leadership, held at the Columbia University in New York City.

The CPL partners with industry leaders and leading researchers to develop theories and practices of project leadership and is part of the Graduate School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia.  It’s main aim is to develop useful theories of project leadership and management that are based on robust assumptions, suitable for dynamic situations, and conducive to the development of effective project management practices.  Basically, it’s the study of project management in action.  There’s also a strong research focus on leadership as distinct from project management and the Center tries to ground itself in providing success strategies for real-life projects, and doing that takes more than just following a plan.

The purpose of the August forum is to examine some of the current and anticipated challenges facing construction projects and to discuss the critical role that project leadership will play in addressing the increasingly difficult project environment in the coming years.  There’s the underlying assumption here that the economy will get worse before it gets better, but that’s a separate debate.  Construction and civil engineering has been hit hard and many building projects have been delayed or cancelled.

The forum will bring together a panel of top experts from industry and academia, who will examine the
importance of both project leadership and project management as critical skills for project success (as you’d expect from a Center that studies leadership).  According to the Center, unsatisfactory outcomes of construction projects are very often the result of being over-managed and under-led.  This forum will provide a the opportunity to learn from experts how to apply a balanced approach of leadership and management.

The event is pitched at project professionals working in organisations involved in the delivery of
construction projects.  It’s likely that many of the attendees will be from local, state and federal government as many of the largest building projects are publicly managed although I’m sure the forum will have plenty of things to share for anyone working on private sector projects too.

As events go, this one is actually very reasonably priced and it should be an interesting day.  You can see the full agenda for the forum on the CPL’s website.

Five Signs Your PMO is not Meeting Your Organization’s Needs

I’m assuming that most of you are like I am…you’ve been part of organizations that had good PMO’s, bad PMO’s and no PMO’s.  What set the good ones apart from others or at least seemed to make a difference?  Or if yours was bad – what made it so?  Why, in your mind, was your organization not served well by the presence of or creation of a Project Management Office?  And if you do not have a PMO, do you think your organization would be well served by one?  Why….what is lacking that you think a PMO would fill?

That’s a handful of questions and I’d like to hear feedback from anyone willing to offer information and answers – either anonymously or not.

Let’s assuming you’re in the category of individuals who think your organization is not being served well by your existing Project Management Office.  I’d like to hear your thoughts and reasons, but first I’m going to take a stab and what I believe are five reasons that the PMO sometimes does not meet the org’s needs.

• Executive Management is not Included in the PMO Process
• Training Plans are Non-Existent
• Common Templates and Processes do not Exist
• Poor Upward Project Reporting
• Major Projects Circumvent the Process

Let’s look at each of these in a little more depth…

Executive Management not Included in the PMO Process

This one means exactly what it says.  If your Project Management Office acts independently and either doesn’t report detailed project status up to executive management or if executive management doesn’t care what your PMO is doing, then your PMO isn’t relevant to your organization and it isn’t serving it effectively.  That may be the PMO’s fault and it may not be.  It’s sad if you have a PMO that your CEO does not find important enough to follow, view project status or have any interaction with.  Either your PMO Director is not promoting your PMO well, proper and meaningful reporting is not in place to make it relevant, or your CEO is clueless. 

Training Plans are Non-Existent

Most project managers could use additional or refresher training.  Technology changes, better processes evolve, and – in the case of IT shops – application development processes can change.  To stay current, to stay cutting edge – there needs to be training plans in place for the members of the PMO.  Otherwise, even if your PMO is important to your organization now, it may become irrelevant in the future as more and more PMO members become disgruntled with lack of growth opportunities and move on to other positions and companies.

Common Templates and Processes do not Exist

If your PMO is flying by the seat of it’s pants, then it’s not functional and it’s not likely to last.  It must have repeatedly process to be relevant and for the company to have confidence in it’s effectiveness.  Otherwise, no one will no for sure why one project was successful and another was not.  With no consistency your organization will not know what to tweak or fix in order to make things right or better next time.  Lessons learned will mean nothing if there is no consistent process and no consistent, meaningful templates in place.

Poor Upward Project Reporting

This one takes us back to the first point…the involvement of executive management.  Exec management may not care or get involved and that’s bad…but if there’s no meaningful mechanism by which to report project portfolio status (dashboards, etc.) to executive management, then it’s very difficult to show or prove PMO relevance to them.  You can show them how the PMO is making a difference if you can’t show them what that difference is.

Major Projects Circumvent the Process

This one may be the biggest tell tale sign that your PMO is not serving the organization well.  If smaller and less meaningful projects are being run through the PMO and managed by project managers…then that’s great.  But if they major projects go elsewhere within the organization and are managed by individuals that are not part of the PMO, then it’s obvious that executive management lacks the confidence in the PMO that is necessary to make it an integral part of the company’s success. 

These are just five signs…if I think of more I’ll post them.  If you have some to share please either post them here or email me at brad@bradegeland.com or both.

Quality Manager (QC)

Location: Surrey
Salary: £40,000 to £50,000 depending on experience, qualifications and skills
Company: Converge Recruitment
Sector: Building services
Job role: Other construction roles
Job type: Permanent

Defence Services Project Quality Manager

Location: Surrey

Salary: £40,000 to £50,000 depending on experience, qualifications and skills

Benefits: The client offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive range of lifestyle benefits, including a flexible work schedule.They are also committed to the development of their employees and actively support career progression through their training and appraisal programs.

The Client

When you become part of the team, your opportunities are endless. As a leading global engineering, construction and services company, they support the energy, petrochemicals, government services and civil infrastructure sectors on six continents. Serving their customers through six diverse business segments – Government & Infrastructure, Services, Upstream, Technology, Downstream and Ventures – they offer challenging assignments on some of the world’s largest and most complex projects. Their clients value them because they know They Deliver.

With more than 50,000 employees around the world, they deliver top-quality service and performance in engineering, construction, operations and maintenance, logistics and project management services to clients who entrust them with their most vital projects.

Apply here.

PM Jobs

Project Manager – Bahrain – Interior Management

Location: Middle East
Salary: Negotiable
Company: Globester Recruitment
Sector: Building services
Job role: Project manager
Job type: Permanent
Date posted: 12/06/2009 19:32

Our client has an immediate requirement for a Project Manager who is highly experienced in the project management of large scale interior fit-out projects. This company works on ambitious and prestigious interior contracts throughout the GCC region.

This role will be based in Bahrain and the client will only consider applicants that fulfill the below requirements.

Experience of working in the Gulf region area is essential for this role. No candidate will be considered without this experience. This client is not providing schooling allowances for families so this role is most suited to professionals who do not require this. The package depends on the candidate’s experience. It will include transport and accommodation, transfers and insurance.

Apply here…

Area Project Manager

Location: Saudi Arabia
Salary: £50k+ (dep on exp) + relocations bens inc housing, medical, schooling
Company: M2R Ltd
Sector: Building services
Job role: Project manager
Job type: Permanent
Date posted: 12/06/2009 13:01

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest exporter of petroleum and as a result the kingdom’s wealth is world renowned. With extremely low crime rates and high standard of living Saudi Arabia has a history of being a destination of choice for skilled professionals looking to make the most of their skills.

Our client is a provider of engineering, construction, and project management. With a global presence and a reputation for delivering exceptional results on the most demanding and complex of projects they are a true market leader.

They are currently working on one of the most ambitious construction projects in the world and have a requirement for an Area Project Manager to work on residential projects.

Responsible for the planning and execution of contracts for all residential areas within the project from initiation to hand over alongside the management of construction personnel including budget management , you will provide technical information and guidance to construction and engineering personnel on the projects and will also oversee a wide range of engineering and design functions.

In order to be considered for this unique opportunity you will have substantial experience in project/engineering/construction management in the civil or residential sectors and will have managerial and design expertise.

A degree in an Engineering discipline is also essential.

Our client is offering an excellent salary and benefits package to suitable candidates inclusive of housing, medical insurance & schooling making the role a very attractive proposition for the right candidate.

Salary: £50k+ (dependent upon experience) + Relocation benefits including housing, medical insurance, schooling + annual return flights etc.

If you fulfil all of the criteria above and would like to be considered for the role please apply immediately as my client is looking to recruit as soon as possible.

Apply here…

City of Woodland Hills- Airport Development Project Manager

Job Description: