Senior Project Manager – Rail

Location: London
Salary: £45000 – £50000 per annum + Ful Package
Company: Capita Technical Services
Sector: Commercial
Job role: Project manager
Job type: Permanent

Job Description:

My client is a and is a top 5 consultancy business, specialising in property and infrastructure services to both the public and private sector. Operating all over the UK, with services including project and cost management, transport planning, environmental consultancy, design, engineering and construction management.

The Rail Team is a key part of the Infrastructure Division of and comprises of Commercial Management, Project Management and Controls and Engineering.

My cliern has an exciting opportunity for a Senior Project Manager to join the fast growing rail team where career defining opportunities are offered. Successful applicants will thrive on being part of a team orientated environment contributing fully on both rail and other infrastructure related projects.

Successful candidates will lead the safe delivery of all aspects of the full project cycle. Ensuring that quality and value for money are met, and keep specifications and agreed targets for cost and time scale and manage a team of less experienced staff.

The post holder will provide professional, first class, consistent and effective project management service to the clients, aswel as participating in the development of supply strategies and frame work contracts.

Apply here..

8 key budgeting tips for your management team

An interesting article written by Gene Siciliano I came across.

Most companies with sales under $10 million, and some much larger, don’t use budgets to help them meet profit goals. CEOs and operating owners reason the effort to learn how to build, and then use, a workable budget is just too much. They seem to feel it’s more frustrating than just hoping the numbers will all work out, if they only sell enough widgets or services or whatever.

There is no need to quote business failure rates among companies in this size range, nor the steady stream of survey findings that say lack of good management practices is usually to blame when a company falls short of its potential. Instead, it would be more productive to follow some tips to make budgeting easier. Even if you’ve never done it before, or at least never done it successfully.

The overriding principle: Profit planning, or budgeting, is far and away the most effective way to consistently meet profit targets and avoid costly surprises. It helps you invest your resources to best advantage, based on careful consideration rather than the urgency to make a move “today.”

CEOs or business owners need to decide it’s time to begin controlling the bottom line with some of the same tools they use to control the top line, especially since these days the bottom line is more controllable than the top line.

Here are 8 tips for your consideration:

1) Take the time, take the team. A budget is not the forecast you put together on the weekend to impress your banker. It must be the result of coordinated input and effort by you and your top management team. That makes it a project that requires some time and thought, just like any other important project your company takes on.

2) It takes a little practice, like any new tool. Regardless of how tough it may be to estimate the future, your forecasting accuracy will improve, and you’ll be better able to control the results, if you actively use a budget. Practice does make (almost) perfect.

Read the rest here..

The Future of Project Management

It’s 2009…do you know what Project Management is doing for your company?  What will PM look like in 2010, 2015, 2020?  I’m not trying to write another ‘1984’ here, but what will it be like?  Will everyone have to have PMP certification to even send in an application?  Will every organization have a PMO?  Or will none of them have a PMO?  Let’s see what we can predict for the not too distant future in a few hundred words…

Certification

PMI is a great organization and PMP certification gives a stamp of approval to a PM who has acquired educational credits, led projects for the required number of hours and passed a test.  But it doesn’t measure your skills in actually running a project and your success in customer satisfaction, etc.

It is my belief – and you can bash me if you want – that hiring companies place too much emphasis on this certification.  I have nearly 18 years of PM experience, yet no PMP certification.  I was going to get it around 2004 as it was part of a hiring agreement that I would get a $10k bonus upon obtaining certification.  That bonus was important to me, but the PMP certification really wasn’t as I was very busy and preparing for the test was not something I felt I could spend my time on right then.  But, for the bonus, I was going to do it, of course.  Then the company closed down and so did my motivation to get the certification.

I’m probably biased because I don’t have the certification, but I think too much emphasis is placed on it by hiring companies…I think it  trendy to put it in the job requirements.  In the next 5-10 years, I think a push for this type of certification will only increase, not decrease.  That said, if there are any of you hiring managers and CIOs out there who need a very experienced PM and don’t care about the paper certificate, you know how to contact me.

PMOs

Will PMOs be the norm in 5-10 years?  Will they be necessary?  I think so.  A well-run, well-organized, well-stocked, and well-documented PMO can definitely help an organization as long as that organization is large enough to need a PMO.  Smaller IT shops running mostly internal projects can probably just get by with a few project managers and some documented processes.  And these PMs would need to be stationed within each business unit, not a centralized unit.

However, if the organization is large enough with enough project activity going on, then a centralized PMO with a proven leader at the helm is essential.  It helps ensure that someone is fighting for the following:

• PM training for PMO resources
• Common, repeatable processes and documentation
• Project prioritization (project portfolio review)
• Project resource assignments

These are essential to ongoing project success in larger companies.  I believe, therefore, that the PMO will see an increase of installations within larger organizations that are experiencing a significant amount of project activity.  The current economy, of course, will play a big role in the growth of PMO activity, so we’ll wait and see how quickly this happens.

Greener PM

I still stand by my stance that remote and paperless project management is and should be the trend of the future.  In running my projects mostly remotely over the past three years I have decreased my own carbon footprint enormously.  I produce almost no paper for my projects relying on electronic documents and communication methods to very successfully manage my projects.  I’m not driving to the office very often so I’m not adding to pollution and wasting resources that way either.  And by not requiring a physical onsite workspace, I’m not taking up space and resources needed by positions that are required to be onsite (HR, accounting, finance, maintenance, etc.).

This won’t work in small organizations where all resources are already in one building.  But with larger organizations, they’re likely already dealing with a very distributed workforce anyway…so remote project management is just another step in that direction.

Getting a Masters Degree in PM and How to Socialize an Enterprise Knowledge Base

New Webcast: How to Socialize an Enterprise Knowledgebase
WOBURN, Mass. –(Business Wire)– Social media technology is rewriting the rules of knowledge management, and corporate information professionals hold the pen. But for any special librarian or information manager charged with understanding how these new technologies integrate with content and knowledge management initiatives, the challenge remains the same. Where do we begin? How do we execute? How do we achieve ROI? Now, there’s a clear answer in five easy steps: Attend a free Webinar that will demonstrate how to kick-off a social knowledge management strategy inside the firewall. Presented by Inmagic, The Gilbane Group, and KMWorld Magazine, the Webinar will teach attendees about gaining buy-in, getting started, identifying and avoiding unexpected hazards, securing the knowledgebase, measuring and maximizing ROI, and more.

Master’s Degree International Project Management in Germany

STUTTGART, Germany, May 19 /PRNewswire/ — In Germany the Master’s Degree International Project Management at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences offers an international postgraduate with two focuses. Building Project Management has been running very successful since 2001. Infrastructure Technology&Management is new since 2009. The courses are targeted at architects, engineers and economists with organizational talent and leadership qualifications.

NEW: International Infrastructure Technology & Management

The global population is moving inexorably into cities. More and more megacities exceeding 10 million inhabitants are evolving. Growing demands are emerging on infrastructure systems: potable water requirements, the CO2 discussion and rising energy costs require new solutions for energy production and distribution. All three categories of sustainability -environmental, economical, social- demand a rethinking of energy use. The necessary instruments must also be developed and employed. In the Master’s course International Infrastructure Technology&Management (IITM), technical and management skills are cultivated to implement local and international strategies for the future successfully.

Effective Communication

This one is probably common sense, but needs to be discussed.  For you married Project Managers out there…how many times has your wife been absolutely certain she told you ‘x’ when you either heard ‘y’ or nothing at all?  And how many times has that worked the other way around?  My guess is that it’s at least a weekly occurrence. 

Granted, we’re often very casual with our ‘at home’ communication methods and we certainly aren’t committing discussions to notes like we do during our client conversations and status calls.  But our communications with our spouses are very important and we often drop the ball on them knowing full well how important they are and how much ‘in trouble’ we could get if they are misinterpreted or ignored.

Listen Effectively

What I’ve been trying to say so far in this article basically is that effective communication begins with effective listening.  As the Project Manager, our primary communication comes mainly from the following sources:

• Executive management
• Delivery team members
• Customer project sponsor
• Customer team members
• Delivery organization support personnel

How well we use and communicate this potentially critical information received from these sources is dependent – in a large part – on how well we have listened to and absorbed the information.  I highly recommend taking notes on any important calls, meetings, and adhoc conversations that affect your project. 

Document Well

If you develop a reputation for taking good notes and distributing critical notes and meeting updates to project team members, then your documentation will be well trusted on current and future projects.  This has worked well for me as I have a reputation for frequent emails to my project team members as well as providing follow-up notes following meetings and discussions. 

My team members and customers know I take detailed notes on calls – they like to joke about the keyboard noise they hear in the background while I’m leading status calls.  But they also never question me when I backup things that were promised or said on calls with notes that I’ve captured from those conversations because they know I’m listening and taking accurate notes of important project discussions.

Review Your Communications

In order to preserve this reputation, read, read and re-read communications that you are sending out.  If it’s not an emergency communication that needs to be made immediately, then take the time to proof-read your communication, check for appropriate email attachments and view your communication from the receiver’s point of view. 

The last thing you want is to have the reputation as the one how always has to send communications twice because you forgot the attachment the first time (you know who you are!).  Nor do you want the reputation of the one who sends rambling emails and documents that leave the reader confused or that fail to make a strong point.  If you struggle in this area, trying outlining your thoughts first and treat every written communication as if it were the most important thing you have to do today.

Summary

How you communicate information on your project can have a profound effect on the outcome.  Do whatever you can to ensure that you listen effectively and pass on information accurately to your team and to your customer.  Misunderstood and miscommunicated information can result in improper actions taken, assignments missed or misunderstood, and overall major impacts to project timelines and budgets.