Project management consulting and training for social change organisations.
The third session of the LEF Project Management for Foreign-Trained IT Professionals program wrapped up today — a hearty congratulations to all participants on a job well done!
In this session, 2 more open source technology projects were successfully completed for 2 more Toronto-based not-for-profits — a PmWiki implementation for the Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy, and a Drupal CMS implementation for Flemingdon Neighbourhood Services. So again, not only did the program help participants develop their English language proficiency and cultural skills, prepare for project management certification through the Project Management Institute, and obtain direct, North American workplace experience, it exposed them to the importance of the voluntary sector by pairing their teams with not-for-profits for the practicum component of the program :)
I want to take this opportunity to thank LEF, ITAC, Ajilon Consulting and Outset Consulting for putting together such an amazing program, Margarida Almeida and Shawn McArthur for being so fun to work with, and most of all, the class — it was fantastic getting to know you all and I wish you the best in your personal lives and on your future projects.
Keep in touch!
Just a quick note to let people know I've posted the set of project management templates I use most often under /resources/project management for all to download and enjoy. They're organized by process group, and can generally be applied to projects in the order in which they're listed — initiating processes, where planned outcomes are described, followed by planning processes, where scope, time and cost are defined, followed by executing processes, where the plan is put into action, followed by monitoring & controlling processes, where progress is tracked and lessons learned are documented. I'll post again when I've added templates for use during the closing processes :)
And as always, if you have any questions when using these tools please don't hesitate to send me an email. I'll do my best to respond within a day or so — maybe a bit longer over the holidays ;)
Enjoy!
I'm very happy to report that Important Projects has been selected by ScoutSeven to help develop the project plan for dotOrganize, a collaborative software development and strategic support project that plans to provide social change groups with a robust and affordable online organizing and database management platform. I'll be working with Leda Dederich on this one, another amazing person I met at Web of Change this year, along with a whole host of other people doing interesting work and who I'm excited to meet.
The project will be governed by four core principles, as follows:
Again, I'm very excited to be working with you on this, Leda! I'll post more on the project here as things progress :)
I spent some quality time on Friday afternoon at the Bryght offices in Vancouver, chatting with Boris Mann, Kris Krug and André Charland about the current state of web-based project management tools and the as-of-yet unmet needs of the not-for-profit sector. Web-based tools like Basecamp, Tasks Pro, Airset and even Remember the Milk all provide decent task management functionality, but where do not-for-profit project managers go when they need actual project scheduling functionality on the web? Or are we simply not building realistically achievable (i.e. resource- leveled) schedules, because tools like Microsoft Project are too difficult to use, too expensive, and don't run on Macs?
Do you currently build resource-leveled schedules, save baselines and track progress against them? If so, are you using a web-based tool to do this? And if so, which tool are you using? What's working well for you and what isn't (and why)?
I'd like to say a quick thanks to Djwa Strategies and to the 35 not-for-profit leaders who participated in the Knowledge Green Project Management for Not-for-Profits workshop at the SFU Harbour Centre yesterday. I really enjoyed meeting you all, and appreciated your active participation throughout the day :)
Please feel free to follow up with me (rob AT importantprojects DOT com) if you have any questions or need help troubleshooting any issues as you put the tools we discussed into practice. And Phillip or I will be in touch when the additional materials and group contact information you requested have been made available. All the best in your work and lives :)
Tomorrow I'm off to Vancouver to deliver a project management workshop to a group of not-for-profit leaders as part of the Knowledge Green lecture series at the SFU Harbour Centre. Thanks in advance to Phillip Djwa and the people at Djwa Strategies for putting the event on, and to those of you who've registered for the day — I look forward to meeting you! And for those of you who haven't registered yet, but are thinking about it — I believe there are still a few spots open :)
