One day in Berlin just to visit the Entrepreneurship Summit 2010.

A special event which took place in 2009 already, as an initiative by the Stfitung Entrepreneurship. The Key member of that foundation is Prof. Dr. Faltin, the author of the book “Kopf schlaegt Kapital“. One of the bestellers at amazon for the last years. He is fostering the idea to work on a business model which is designed by using components that you as the entrepreneur do not have to build but put them together in a way that they work from start to finish. Almost none of the activites relevant to deliver a product to the customer is being performed by you or your company but suppliers delivering specific parts of the supply chain. The benefit of that method is, that you as the founder are focusing on the horizon and the market to be able to adapt your business accordingly. A very interesting approach that has been proven by many entrepreneurs already. The examples often used are Teekampagne (delivering a world-class tee, darjeeling, to customers in bigger packages) and Ratiodrink (delivering juice concentrate to customers in bigger packages) and eBuero (delivering secretary and buero services to companies that are to small to engage them on their own).

After reading his book I was fascinated about that idea, I would have paid 1.000 Euros to attend a workshop just on that topic. How ever, looking at his website I saw the invite for this years summit for 35 Euros for early birds. So I caught the worm and with a friend of mine we travelled to Berlin to the Freie Universitaet with about 1.000 others and got inspired.

Some key presentations have been held. The best one probably from Alex Osterwald, the author of the Book “Business Model Generation”, not another generation beside ‘Generation Y’ but a way to create and change business modells. A fantastic presentation (presentation zen style) and 100 slides he had to squeeze into 20 minutes. Well done Alex. and a great way to explain your way of thinking. Thanks.

The biggest surprise to me was ‘Nena’, speaking about her private school she founded with her husband and two more friends about 3 years ago.

To summarize: Great event, great crowds, creative environment and great impulses by the presentations and workshops. Go for it, and spread the word. And if just 10 ideas make it successful to the market it was worthwhile (out of 100 ideas, 99 fail = 1.000 participants = 10 ideas that will be successful).

During the summit i recorded some pictures and video and during my idle time on the train I created a Video with iMovie on my iPhone4. Its impressive what can be done on a phone within 30 to 60 minutes. Unbelievable. So check it out.

Have a look at the model, the presentation and the slides used. Beside that the book is on sale at amazon for an outstanding 14.90 Euro.

The presentation on Slideshare:

After being accepted for the PMforum conference (organized by GPM) later this year in Berlin (26th to 27th of October) I got asked by the organizers whether I would be willing to participate in a video to talk 10 minutes about my presentation. After accepting that, Andreas Heilwagen (Projekt Management Beratung) , one of the visible  Project Managers throughout Germany and beyond, contacted me to discuss the details.

After providing the details to him and some prior chats we had a one hour session recording the talk on skype. See the outcome below or on PM 10 Minutes.

What is the Polygon:

• A model to identify and visualize complexity of process projects
• A model to inherit the risk resulting out of the complexity
• A model to identify active mitigation measures to minimize the risk

All the details please find in the video as well as in the new book on that topic to be released soon.

It has been quite a while that i was presenting at a conference. February 2009 at the PMI Congress in Kuala Lumpur. Now this years first presentation is about a chapter in my new book ‘Kompendium fuer ITIL V3 Projekte‘ released as the 2nd edition in January 2010.
Within this book we are talking about a model that we have identified and developed to visualise complexity, put the complexity into context and be able to adapt measures that help you in your day to day life as a project manager.
How ever, I will talk about this Model in a future Blog Post. At this point in time I would like to refer to the video taken and the slides presented. Please see below and feel free to comment on the model and the approach itself.
To do that you need to be capable in understanding German as a language.

And here are the slides:

Again, a week ago we had our November PMI Chapter Meeting for the Queensland Chapter and again a great speaker with some new ideas. This time we didn’t focus on the classic areas of project management but looked at relationships in projects and how the could impact the success and risk of project failure.
Graham Scott, the presenter, is an Organisational Psychologist with Masters qualifications. Prior to studying Psychology Graham worked in the Construction Industry at trade and Management levels. For the past thirteen years Graham has being working in Projects mostly in recovery around “communication” and “people issues”. Graham is running the company ORG consulting and can be reached via www.orgconsulting.com.au.
Graham is such an expiring inspiring speaker and gave a lot of examples, even by looking at the NASA Columbia and Challenger disasters to talk about effective relationships and how they could impact the project.
The presentation highlighted the need for effective management of relationships in projects. It covered relationships from a risk management perspective and showed how to develop a rigorous planned approach that will impact on delivery outcomes through effective group dynamics, interface management and good leadership methodologies.

Enjoy the video

and the slides

Almost a week ago, we had our October 2008 PMI Queensland Chapter Meeting. Beside several announcements from the Board and the successful pilot of the Evening Discussion Groups we had Matthew Tati, a Project Manager at Flight Centre, talking about Project Management at Flight Centre.

Especially questions around how IT and the projects engage with the business, how they obtain the resources required as well as some interesting benchmarks around their PMO are provided.

Whatch his interesting presentation here and see the slides below

and the slides

 PMIQ Chapter Meeting - October 2008: Download

After explaining the approach and the difficulties I have faced by compiling one of my first keynotes, today it’s about to share the video and the slides for that very keynote at the IQPC Project Risk Management Conference late September 2008.

Looking back, what went well:

• The new slide concept (PresentationZen) worked out fine and was appropriate for the event. However, far more effort could have gone into it as not all the great features have been used and applied nor even tried.

• 120 slides fit into 40 minutes and still some Q&A time at the end.

• I felt very comfortable with the story line even if it is not my strongest habit.

• I loved the opportunity (Thanks to IQPC), I loved presenting in front of a great audience, I loved to take myself out of my comfort zone.

What didn’t go so well

• Even if I felt comfortable with the story line, I am not an expert in the field of why “The world is flat” and “The inconvenient truth”, therefore all the great stories that Thomas Friedman and Al Gore as the Authors of these fantastic books could and have to share are not in my repertoire and I can’t talk for years about these things. A headline, some side lines and that was it.
  Lessons learnt: You need to be ready for a topic, otherwise do not present.

• I spent a long time in front of Power Point to produce the slide set. After three days, I couldn’t see Power Point anymore.
  Lessons learnt: Take your time or delegate. Garr Reynolds (PresentationZen) says, if the presentation is important its worth doing, so go for it.

• The topic wasn’t probably the one that the crowd expected by looking at the program and the conference is a boutique conference and not a ‘real’ one with hundreds of participants.
  Lessons learnt: Do real keynotes just at a real keynote occasion.

• My conclusions “What does that mean for us as Project Managers” have been thought through, however, I could have worked more on them, but I ran out of time.
  Lessons learnt: Finish you storyline to the end and put all the effort in, don’t stop 200 meters before the finish line (if you do a marathon).

What do you think? How did I go? What would you do different?

 The Critical Value of Project Risk Management: Download

Cliftons (www.cliftons.com) is one of the known providers in training and event facilities here in Brisbane and in Australia. I took this as a reason to talk to Andrew Pierron, the Queensland and Northern Territory State Manager, to talk about Cliftons history, current service offerings and future outlook. 

Some interesting thoughts and visions as well as current service offerings have been highlighted in the talk, for example I didn’t know that Cliftons provides full equipped project bureaus to their clients. We all know how hard it is to find a lockable space for a couple of weeks or months to “lock in” a project team to do their job. Also Cliftons is partnering with other facility providers in QLD and the NT to provide quality proven services across the state. Just listen to the interview on TJTV and get the idea from somebody who migrated to Australia for quite similar reasons than I did. Enjoy.

 TJTV - Andrew Pierron: Download

Once a month we are having our PMI Queensland Chapter Meeting, at the Irish Club in Brisbane CBD. September 17th at 06pm we started of with a great presentation from Richard Egelstaff,  a practicing IT Project Manager for Thiess-Services Pty Ltd responsible for the development and implementation of enterprise IT systems. Richard was talking about Project Management Eucation in general and he is looking at all the options we might have to upskill ourselves. Questions like

• What is Project Management Education?
• How has it changed over the last decades?
• What is available out there?
• Is it about skill or about comptence?
• What recommendation to give?

will be looked at.How ever some points Richard was missing or at least missing to give an answer to. What kind of Education a full time working Project Manager should undertake without impacting his job. We will cover that within the TJTV series as part of a personal short interview. Richard has done some great research for this presentation and looked at many current options out there, so make sure you take a look.

As always, the slides can be seen below.

 PMIQ Chapter Meeting - September 2008: Download

To start of with the series “TJTV - Leaders in Project Management” I talked to Scott Spence yesterday about his background, his Company CC Consulting, their key competencies and areas of expertise. Was quite a unique environment as we have been outside of the “The vine restaurant & bar” at New Farm at his wife’s birthday. Enjoy.

 TJTV - Scott Spence: Download