Wednesday 3 May 2000

Hotel Inter-Continental Sydney
117 Macquarie Street, Sydney

In today's competitive business environment, where the best project managers will command the best assignments, it is imperative that you stay informed of new and improved project management tools and techniques.

This seminar, with the twin themes of project management tools directions and key trends in IT project management was organised to bring industry leaders together for a fast paced, informative event that provided participants with a knowledge of the profession's dynamic and innovative project management ideas and tools.

The seminar was sponsored and organised by the Project Management Institute (PMI Sydney) and The Australian Institute of Project Management. These organizations have, as part of their charters, a responsibility for promoting an awareness of developments in the field of IT Project Management.

Session Details

Details of the sessions and presenters are provided below.

The Gartner Group - "Effective IS Projects"

IS systems are increasingly seen as key to improving business processes and critical to raising enterprise competitiveness. Projects that fail to deliver high quality solutions, on and within cost, can be life threatening to a business.

IS projects are becoming more complex and the need to improve delivery capability is paramount. The greatest challenges facing IS project leaders, however, are managerial rather than technical.

This session addressed the key questions facing organizations.

• What methods and processes can be implemented to improve the enterprise's ability to control and manage IS projects?
• What organisational models and roles will help boost IS project quality, efficiency and effectiveness?
• What strategies will enable enterprises to reliably deliver IS projects on time, on budget, and meet business objectives?

The Presenter: Mr John Roberts
Research Director

John Roberts is Research Director for Gartner Group Pacific's research and advisory services, providing IS strategic planning, application development, electronic commerce and outsourcing advise and support to Gartner clients in both government and private enterprise.

Prior to joining Gartner Group, John worked at Mobil Oil Australia, most recently as General Manager of Information Systems. Past experiences include IT management, strategic business planning, business process reengineering, quality improvement initiatives, and project management and process engineering in manufacturing industry.

Microsoft - Microsoft Project 2000

This session focused on Microsoft's experience in deployment of Microsoft Project 2000 across large organizations supporting multiple project administration. These types of deployment increasingly rely on web integration to maintain vital communication paths amongst stakeholders. Microsoft Web Central for project coordination was a main theme in this session.

The Presenter: Gary Corby
Principal Consultant

Gary Corby is a Principal Consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services. He is an adviser to boards and CIO's of major corporations in the finance, banking, construction, manufacturing and public service sectors. Since 1981, Gary's specialist interest in project management, the Internet\ and enterprise systems has led him to be a key speaker on, and advocate for, these technologies.

Pa Consulting Group - Projects Culture: the Route to High Performance

Project-based working is now widely accepted as vital to the future of business, and much effort has gone into improving the capability and performance of the managers involved. But those who adopt it, do not always achieve the high performance results they seek. Project success requires more than individual performance.

Many organizations are failing to achieve high performance from their projects because they have not appreciated the distinction between the effectiveness of a good individual, and the far more effective power of that person working within a supportive Projects Culture. This presentation covered how a project culture can be established that integrates and aligns the people, systems, technology and structure around a project-based approach to successfully deliver the strategy of the business.

The Presenter: Dr Frank Decker
Principal Consultant

Frank Decker is a Principal Consultant with PA Consulting Group’s Global Project Management Practice and has extensive project management experience in managing large technology implementation and business change programs across a wide range of industries. Projects have been undertaken in the aviation, process control, manufacturing, and productivity improvement fields. He has also worked as a company director.

Frank’s recent experience included a number of large IT implementation programs in the finance sector and a major technology implementation program for a telecommunications company.

Artemis - Grange Systems - The Impact of Web Deployment on Project and Contract Management

This session, presented by Grange Systems, provided a forecast of the effect that Web-deployed software will have on Project and Contract Management.

As a supplier of Project Control software for 20 years in Australia / NZ / PNG, Grange Systems and Artemis International shared their vision on how they saw the World Wide Web changing the way that Projects and Contracts would be executed into the future. "The Web is having a major effect on all of our lives and people involved in managing Programs, Projects and complex Contracts are not excluded", said Roy Edwards, CEO, Grange Systems Pty Ltd.

The Presenter: Roy Edwards
Chief Executive Officer

Roy Edwards has a long and distinguished record in successfully managing software developments as well as in sales and marketing, particularly in project engineering and management areas. He has been CEO of the very successful Australian / NZ / PNG Artemis organization for 10 years. He has built up a network of contacts in the industry, and is fully conversant with the requirements. Grange Systems recently gained VC funding for extensions of the business into the areas of Contract Management and Administration, an area that closely complements Project Management.

Andersen Contracting - High Tech....High Risk

This session addressed the growing complexity of IT projects drawing on the recent implementation of an integrated recruitment system within Andersen Contracting. The project was multi tiered, nationally distributed with the need to integrate a number of software and hardware technologies not to mention seamless integration of a number of web based applications.

The project in Phase 1 addressed the connection to clients for e-commerce applications and the streamlining of processes to improve the productivity of Andersen Contracting to meet our clients' need for us to be Fast, Cheap, Right and Easy.

This session offered an insight into the "agendas", the "demands", and the "expectations" that stakeholders increasingly place on IT projects. This session also helped attendees to consider the nature of the tools and techniques and skill sets that are increasingly required for IT success.

The Presenter: Sheryle Moon
Managing Partner

Sheryle Moon is the Managing Partner of Andersen Contracting, a company which provides flexible resourcing solutions and related services, utilising permanent and contract employment structures. Andersen Contracting has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Wellington (NZ) and employs a hundred staff. Annual turnover exceeds $115 million.

Sheryle has almost 20 years in the IT industry, having joined IBM in 1981. She worked in a number of roles and a number of locations including IBM’s software labs in Atlanta. In 1992 she was headhunted to establish a management consulting company in Canberra. In 1995 she joined Andersen Contracting and was promoted to managing partner in 1997.

In July 1999 she was named Telstra Business Woman of the Year. Sheryle serves as a board member of a number of industry and business development organizations.

Primavera - Integrated Tool sets for the Project Office

In times past, a project management tool provider could win market share through simply providing high quality scheduling, resourcing and reporting features in their product. Increasingly a more sophisticated offering must be provided to meet the needs of IS project management.

This session will address our observations on the tool sets increasingly being called for to meet the needs of the emerging project office and the best practice principles engender by the introduction of these tool sets.

This session also addresses the integration of PM and ERP. The integration of these technologies is proving the project manager's most efficient response to the call for increased accountability in project management.

The Presenter: Frank Borcherdt
Principal

Frank Borcherdt is a Principal of Effective Computer Solutions Pty Ltd. Frank has a long and distinguished background in IS project development. A significant factor in the growth of ECS is the quality of partnering relationships established with both practitioners and those developing practical solutions to IT issues. The need to look beyond the immediate needs of IT management to the challenges that will face systems developers in the evolving world of new technologies has led to alliances and partnerships that would not have been possible only a few short years ago.