Why I pursued IPMA Certification

Project management has become a global profession with project management established as the pre-eminent method for implementing change in the world with project, programme and portfolio managers are leading the way. The professionals of tomorrow will work in distributed environments with overlapping and often conflicting stakeholder interests. The burden has never been higher for these […]

Megaprojects that we admire

Today we are witnessing an explosion in the number of $1 billion+ projects with some, like the artificial archipelago being built in Azerbaijan, Turkey’s massive Urban Renewal project in Istanbul, and the new construction of Masjid Al Haram in Saudi Arabia each exceeding $100 billion. But, there is a common perception that megaprojects are not […]

Beyond the legacy of megaprojects

On 11th November 2016 an Oxford Major Programme Management Conference, was held at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. The theme of the 2016 conference was: ‘Legacy of Major Programmes: Making Good on our Promises’. Some of the speaker on the conference were Brendan Bechtel (Chief Executive Officer of Bechtel), Professor Bent Flyvbjerg (BT Chair […]

The German Reunification – seen through the eyes of project management

Last week I had the great opportunity to present in Korea my views on the German Reunification. Korea is divided since the end of the Korean War, a Reunification does not seem to be likely today, however the people still aspire it and are highly interested to learn from the German case. Through my presentation […]

Are you a happy Principal?

There you are you are, as CEO, COO, director of projects or program manager. In your role as Principal you experience no problems and don’t lose any sleep over your project(s). All the projects you are responsible for run flawlessly. Never ever delayed, never over budget and always within scope. You receive project progress reports, […]

IPMA Project Excellence Model – the core element to make a project business successful

Nanjing Urban Construction Project Management & Development Co.Ltd. (NUCPMD) Assessment of the Nanjing Public Health Center Project NUCPMD applied in 2015 for the IPMA Project Excellence Award and I want to share my and my team´s impressions about the company´s very successful approach to use the IPMA Project Excelence Model as core element to lead […]

Projects and project management in Australia

The country portrayed in this blogpost is often called “Downunder”, as it is – from a European or a Northern perspective – a very southern land. This is also the meaning of its name, Australia, in Latin language “Terra Australis”,  the Southern Land. It is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the […]

International standard of governance ready for publication

During last week´s meeting in Athens the ISO/TC258 approved ISO 21505 “Project, programme and portfolio management – Guidance on governance” to be ready for publication. This is another important milestone for the transnational harmonization of standards in the field of project, programme and portfolio management.

Against all odds – learning from great projectors: Nikola Tesla

With this article we continue a series of pioneers and projectors to learn from. You are all encouraged to write about great projectors out of your context so we may learn from them and improve our way of performing projects. “Projector” is a term introduced by Daniel Defoe in “An Essay upon Projects” (1697). It […]

Projects and project management in Brazil

The Federative Republic of Brazil is the fifth-largest country by area and population of the world. It is located in South-America, connected to nearly all other countries of the continent, has a coastline of about 7.500 kilometers and its Amazon River basin is covering a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of […]