Upcoming Events, p. 2 So You Passed the PMP!, Lorraine Leonard, p. 2

Completed Staff Work, G.E.R. Smith, Brigadier, p. 3 Get Your Executives Involved, p. 6

Project Managing Your Career, John Bartkus, p. 7 Board of Directors, p. 8

Panama Symposium, p. 8 Registered Company Coordinators (RCCs), p. 9

grassroots thought leadership  

August 2008, Vol. 2, No. 8

TM Project Landscape

So You Passed the PMP!

2008 August, p. 2 Project Landscape 

*** DOWNTOWN FORT WORTH Special Event *** DeVry University (FW Center– DR Horton Tower, 301 Commerce St., Ste. 2000 Thursday, August 7 - 6:00p — Twelve Keys to Project Management

Presented by Chuck Tyron - 1 PDU Meetings…

Marriott DFW South (4151 Centerport Blvd, 76155) Thursday, August 21 - 6:00p — Building a Quality Project Part 2

Presented by Tresia Eaves (back by popular demand) - 1 PDU Thursday, September 18 - 6:00p — NIMS—Unified Response to Emergencies

Presented by Andy Podner—1 PDU Workshops… Siemens Energy & Automation (1401 Nolan Ryan Pkwy—Arlington)

Friday/Saturday Workshops with Chuck Tryon Friday, Aug 8 - 8:30a-4:30p — Modern Project Management The ability to manage projects has become a critical corporate and individual skill set. This will provide you with proven strategies, processes, templates and forms used by nu-merous organizations (including several Fortune 100 companies) to manage their projects from Project Initiation to Project Completion. 8 PDUs Saturday, Aug 9 - 8:30a-12:30p — Understanding Business Requirements One of the first challenges for many newly launched projects is to capture a set of business requirements to feed into product design processes. 4 PDUs

Upcoming Events

Passing the PMP exam is an important achievement, but retaining this hard-earned credential is done by earning PDUs. After the exam you can immediately use the PMP designation, and begin earning countable PDUs. And, the clock starts ticking for the first three-year Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) cycle. For example, if pass the exam on September 1, 2007, your CCR cycle begins on January 1, 2008 and ends on December 31, 2010 after which your next three-year CCR cycle begins. There are several steps to fulfill the Certification Renewal process:

You must earn and report at least 60 Professional Development Units (PDU). There are five categories that PDUs fall in:

Category 1: Formal academic education, chapter meetings Category 2: Professional activities and self-directed learning Category 3: Educational programs offered by PMI Registered Education Providers

(R.E.P.) or PMI components Category 4: Educational programs offered by other providers Category 5: Volunteer service to professional or community organizations

Fill out an Application for Certification Renewal and pay the renewal fee Sign the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

Some Quick Reference Calculations: One Continuing Education Units (CEU) = 10 PDUs Volunteer as board member per year = 10 PDUs Volunteer as appointed committee member per year = 5 PDUs Self-directed learning activities = up to 15 PDUs per three-year cycle Check out the Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) program handbook for more detailed information on PDU accruals and limitations. The month of August brings a multitude of PDU opportunities for project manage-ment professionals and discounted-rate for members in the Fort Worth chapter. It’s a fantastic opportunity to rack up the PDUs!

Lorraine Leonard, VP Membership

  2008 August, p. 3 

Editor’s Introduction: In August 1943, 65 years ago this month, a Brigadier General in the Canadian Army produced a remarkable piece of writing. It was a simple policy memo, but it has survived continual use for over six decades. Brig G. E. R. Smith was the equivalent of an up-per-middle manager. His “project” was the European theatre of World War II. We may never know why Gen. Smith wrote this memo. Who was it among his staff members that presented him with half-baked ideas? What events prompted Gen. Smith to change the way his staff was doing its work? We’ll never know such details. What we do know is that this memo has been adopted, adapted, re-written, and “borrowed” by others for decades. It was Thought Leadership in the 1940s and it is still Though Leadership today. Dr. Gregory Haugan whose original work was featured in the July issue, brought this piece to the attention of Project Landscape editors. It turns out that Dr. Haugan’s copy wasn’t the original piece. It was from a U.S. Navy commander who obviously appreciated it, because he re-wrote it for his own military command in 1960’s. Dr. Haugan is a Thought Leader in the field of Project Management. About this document, he said:

“I have treasured this document and tried to follow its guidance in the work I did for my bosses at Department of Transportation and elsewhere over the years. I wish to share it with the readers of Pro-ject Landscape who I am sure will appreciate it as much as I and hopefully will benefit from the advice.”

So we went in search of the original document. At the time, we didn’t even know the name of the original author. It didn’t take too long before we found John Dolan-Heitinger of Key West Florida. He was in possession of a copy of what certainly appears to be an original. The text below is a transcription of the original document. For historical reference, an image of the original document is on p. 5. In this transcription, we have at-tempted to eliminate acronyms.

COMPLETED STAFF WORK he doctrine of “completed staff work” will be the doctrine of all headquarters staff, First Canadian Army, Supply and Transport Branch.  

2. "Completed Staff Work" is the study of a problem, and presenta‐tion of a solution, by a staff officer in such form that all that remains to be done on the part of the head of the staff division, or the com‐mander, is to indicate his approval or disapproval of the completed action. The words "completed action" are emphasized because the more difficult the problem is, the more the tendency is to present the problem to the chief in piecemeal fashion. It is your duty as a staff officer to work out the details. You should not consult your chief in the determination of those details, no matter how perplexing they may be. You may and should consult other staff officers. The product, whether it involves the pronouncement of a new policy or affects an 

Project Landscape 

Completed Staff Work Lessons from History

T 

  2008 August, p. 4 

established one, should when presented to the chief for approval or disapproval, be worked out in finished form. 3.   The impulse which often comes to the inexperienced officer to ask "the chief" what to do, recurs more often when the problem is difficult.  It is accompanied by a feeling of mental frustration. It is so easy to ask the chief what to do, and it appears so easy if you do not know your job.  It is your job to advise your chief what he ought to do, not to ask him what you ought to do. He needs answers, not questions. Your job is to study, write, restudy, and rewrite until you have evolved a single proposed action — the best one of all you have considered. Your chief merely approves or disapproves. 4.   Do not worry your chief with long explanations and memo‐randa. Writing a memorandum to your chief does not constitute completed staff work, but writing a memorandum for your chief to send to someone else does. Your views should be placed before him in finished form so that he can make them his views simply by sign‐ing his name. In most instances, completed staff work results in a single document prepared for the signature of the chief, without accompanying comment. If the proper result is reached, the chief will usually recognize it at once. If he wants comments or explana‐tions, he will ask for it. 5.   The theory of completed staff work does not necessarily pre‐clude a "rough draft" but the rough draft must not be half‐baked ideas. It must be complete in every respect except that it lacks the requisite number of copies and need not be neat. But a rough draft must not be used as an excuse for shifting to the chief the burden of formulating the action. 6.   The "completed staff work" theory may result in more work for the staff officers, but it results in more freedom for the chief. This is as it should be. Further, it accomplishes two things: 

 (a)  The chief is protected from half‐baked ideas, voluminous memoranda, and immature oral presentments. 

 (b)  The staff officer who has a real idea to sell is enabled more readily to find a market. 

7.   When you have finished your "completed staff work" the final test is this: 

If you were the chief would you be willing to sign the paper you have prepared, and stake your professional reputation on its be‐ing right? If the answer is in the negative, take it back and work it over be‐cause it is not yet “completed staff work.” 

Signed (G. E. R. Smith) Brigadier DDST Headquarters First Canadian Army 9 Aug 1943 

***** 

Project Landscape 

If you were the chief would you be willing to sign the paper you have prepared, and stake your professional reputation on being right?

 2008 August, p

. 5 

  2008 August, p. 6 

To the contributing editors of Project Landscape, THANK YOU! Alamo: Roxanne Jemeyson 

Amarillo: Karen Taylor 

Austin: Kathy Nugent‐Arnold, Teresa Norris 

Baton Rouge: Nina Renee Cloyd, Kim Chauvin, Becky Harris 

Clear Lake—Galveston: Elena Heffernan  

Coastal Bend: Walter Coumbe  

Dallas: Jennifer Carlisle, Nitin Kunte 

Fort Worth: Barbara Sharpe, Amber Chacko 

Houston: Quang Ton 

IT&T SIG: Randy Tangco 

Northwest Arkansas: John Solliday 

Oklahoma City: Harriet Ervin, Lisa DelCol, Dotti Patton 

Pikes Peak: Sue Brazil, Craig Sparkman 

Tulsa: Randy Tangco, Garry L. Booker 

 

Feedback: write to dottipatton@gmail.com and  garrybooker@projectfrontier.com 

Project Landscape 

Project Landscape Collaboration and Thought Leadership

If You Were The Chief

We Project Landscape editors work collaboratively.  Using a web‐based workspace, we discuss the merits of the feature articles.  We even give these articles a numerical score for “thought leadership.”  In our discussion about the “Completed Staff Work” article, the fol‐lowing questions were raised:  How many executives know about this, or think like this?  How many executives would appreciate this article? Well, we don’t know.  But here’s what we can do.  Send this issue of Project Landscape directly to your favorite executive.  Let them know we were thinking of them and their organization, and we just wanted to share it with them.  You may not get any feed‐back, but that’s OK.  If you do get feedback, please let us know. We should get executives more engaged in project management, because projects are rapidly becoming the key to organizational success. If you were the chief of your organization, how much would you rely on project management and project management?   

Message from VP Marketing by John Bartkus, PMP, CPF

Project Managing your Career Strategies to Handle Economic Turbulence (Step 1: Invest 90 seconds in reading this article…) Let’s establish economic turbulence: Soaring energy costs; softening housing market and the associated mess with sub-prime lenders; bank failures; weakened US currency; and the US is planning for a $490B deficit budget this coming year. Thank goodness the overall economy is still growing at 1.9% – albeit at a lesser pace than before. Job growth sup-ported the Texas economy with 2.3% more (non-farm) jobs in June 2008 than in June 2007, compared with a 0.1% decrease nationally – and the Texas “Professional and Business Services” job category fared well with 5.5% growth. Why the economic lesson? Because the project management profession is all about creating and managing change. Economic fluctuations shift project focuses. Some projects change in scope, others are killed, and yet others created. Nothing terribly new, but the pace of change accelerates when there’s increased economic turbulence. That’s where your career plan comes in. How are you positioned to ride the turbulence? Do you need to update (or establish) you career plan? Two specific career areas that benefit from ongoing attention are “Enhancing your network and visibility” and “Enhancing your value.” You may already be doing these things, so what could you do to take it a step further? What would make it even more effective? Here are a few sugges-tions:

Project Landscape Project Landscape 

Strategy How Enhance your network and visibility. Cultivate connections and relationships in your organization, profession and community.

• Share your knowledge (throw a lunch & learn; publish an article; present a topic; join a panel discussion)

• Engage with others in your profession (network at FWPMI chapter meetings; join a PMI Specific Interest Group SIG; join other professional groups)

• Take on a volunteer role (Fort Worth PMI chapter has opportunities of all sizes - ask a board member)

• Offer your talents & services to the community (church, school, hospital, town, city)

Enhance your Value Make your skill sets even more valuable. Build up your differenti-ators.

• Attend a workshop, seminar, conference • Actively engage in professional groups (such as PMI and

local chapters). Soak it for information and experience • Take on projects that expand your horizons • Take a class in something new

(finance? marketing? organizational design?) • Cultivate soft skills (like facilitation or public speaking) • Earn a new credential (PMP, PgMP). More = good.

Whether it’s finding the next project in your current organization or finding the next organization to leverage your talents, your value proposition depends on what skills you can apply – and who knows you can do it! Take advantage of all your local Fort Worth PMI chapter can offer. Nearing one thousand members, the chapter offers educational workshops (best value around!), monthly chapter meetings with a variety of speakers - and great networking oppor-tunities – with professionals right here in the community. Saddle up for the turbulence – and see you at some upcoming FWPMI events!

- John 2008 August, p. 7  

2008 FWPMI Board of Directors 1st Annual PMI Panama 

Project Management Symposium March 19, 2009 

President Dick Walz, PMP president@fwpmi.org

Past President Jonathan Overton, PMP

VP Programs Nikki Choyce, PMP programs@fwpmi.org

AVP Programs Patsy Haines, PMP

VP Education Matt Solodow, PMP education@fwpmi.org

AVP Education Sandy Harris, PMP

VP Finance Victor Mercado, PMP finance@fwpmi.org

AVP Finance Lisa Gray, PMP

VP Marketing John Bartkus, PMP marketing@fwpmi.org

AVP Marketing Open position

VP Membership Lorraine Leonard, PMP membership@fwpmi.org

AVP Membership Lynn Robbins, PMP Jan Moye, PMP Brad Worley, PMP

VP Communication Barbara Sharpe, PMP communications@fwpmi.org

AVP Communication Vince Chacko, PMP

RCC (Registered Company Coordinators) Program Educating members and potential members about PMI Tom Sheives, PMP rccprogram@fwpmi.org

2008 August, p. 8 Project Landscape 

Come see the “Most Significant Construc‐tion Project in the 

World!” 

Registration - $225 PMI Members - $195 Students - $125

Media Partner 

Mr. Jorge Quijano  Executive Vice President Panama Canal Authority Engineering and Programs Management  Department,  Responsible for $5.25 billion  expansion program  

 “Panama Canal Expansion Program           —Status & Plans” Program

 Construction Management  & Technology Tracks 

 TO REGISTER OR FOR  

SPONSOR INFORMATION www.pmipanama.org/symposium 

Or contact Tom Sheives (U.S.)   tom@BetterProjectResults.com    817‐465‐1318  

      

Mr. Jhan Schmitz  Senior Vice President, CH2M HILL  Program Manager,  Panama Canal Authority  

“Managing post‐crisis and disaster relief programs ‐ Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, Asian         Tsunami” 

Private Panama Canal Tours

2008 Registered Company Coordinators

The Fort Worth Chapter Registered Company Coordinators (RCCs) help the Chapter with membership and chapter marketing activities within their organizations. Organiza-tions with at least 50 employees and five PMI chapter members may establish an RCC. Interested in volunteering as an RCC for your company? Submit a volunteer appli-cation on the www.fwpmi.org website under the Membership tab to get more informa-tion.

RCC Program Chair — Tom Sheives, PMP rccprogram@fwpmi.org

American Airlines Jim Leefers Jim.Leefers@aa.com

Siemens Randy Killam Randy.Killam@siemens.com

Texas Health Resources Gerald Stanford GeraldStanford@TexasHealth.org

Jacobs Carter Burgess Kim Arnold Kim.Arnold@jacobs.com

Sabre Don Springer Don.Springer@sabre.com

IBM Corp & Global Mark Nixon MNixon@us.ibm.com

Verizon Ernest Kish Ernest.J.Kish@verizon.com

City of Fort Worth Eric Epperson Eric.Epperson@fortworthgov.org

RadioShack Sandy Harris Sandy.Harris@radioshack.com

Fidelity Investments Rachael Cooksey rachael.cooksey@fmr.com

Alcon Laboratories Open Position

Lockheed Martin Open Position

Tarrant County Open Position

BNSF Railroad/Railway Open Position

2008 August, p. 9 Project Landscape