Where can I find innovative PM training?

September 20, 2007 1:14 PM

Who is the Adaptive Path of Project Management training?

I'm cobbling together my training request for 2008 and want to find interesting and innovative conferences and training sessions for technical project management.

I'm not interested in PMP, certificate programs or anything that isn't situated on current technology. Web 2.0-ishness is a must.

Any ideas?

posted by cior to technology (2 comments total)

I'm not sure I understand your question. What I think you might be asking is either, "How can I get training on managing technical projects that have chosen web-based, AJAXy methods as their platform for delivering some solution?" or "What are the PM techniques that are currently in favor as the new, saucy methods of managing projects?"

Either way, it's still a technical project you'll be managing, so you need to evaluate what kind of SDLC is/will work best for your needs/team. The Web 2.0 of Software Development is probably an Agile process, and it would seem like the PM side of that works well with PRINCE2

Not sure I am interpreting the question correctly, give me an IM if you want to talk about it more.

I work for a fairly large PM training organization in a technical capacity. We definitely offer PRINCE2 training, but the software we are currently selling is most definitely NOT Web 2.0-ish.
posted by zackola at 8:27 AM on September 21, 2007

I am not sure what 'the Adpative Path' means, but I have some thoughts on the training.

I suggest that you closely investigate Scrum or Agile organizations, some of whom provide software, methodology, and training. That would be good, if you are really strongly set on current and emerging technology as a driver.

That being said, I must express some of my opinions on this. Here goes in point format:

1. Management is still management. What is important is to get a good marriage between management and technology. You need people who are very strong with management and people that are very strong with the technology, and you need to put them together to cross pollinate. It is the quality and skillfulness in putting them together that will make this successful.

2. Project management methodologies are simply based on sound principles, based on the observation over time by many people trying to capture what is common wisdom. However, the result is simply a framework for management, and it is problematic if the framework is misapplied - which it can be!!!

3. In my opinion, scrum, or agile, has great potential for managing relatively small projects in relatively short time periods. The challenge - and I do not claim to be experienced at this with scrum/agile - is to find the right projects that match the strengths of the methodology!

4. There still are large projects. We still need to manage them, and that is probably the case for you also. You need to look at your organization and see how it supports the projects that you have, and where it does not. I suspect that it does not support what you need out of agile - that the creation of web services and the like just does not fit the culture. That is where you need help. But you still need to manage the big projects.

5. If you can use a 'big project' approach of using a Work Breakdown Schedule (WBS) to break things down to smaller pieces - pieces that might match the Agile approach - that would seem to be a good place to start. Then leave the scrums alone to do their thing, and apply whatever new training and expertise you find for that.

6. You will likely need to deal with some governance issues related to standards for managing services across the enterprise. I am not sure that the Agile methodology will help you with that, but that might help you greatly to successfully use the Agile methodology.

My 2 cents.
________
John Reiling, PMP
PMcrunch
www.pmcrunch.com
Project Management Training Online
www.pmtrainingonline.com
posted by jreiling at 10:57 AM on September 23, 2007