28 October 2008
Sold out for 2008! Book now for 2009!
With the exception of the Programme in Microsoft Project on NQF 6 which has two or three places left, our Project Management courses are all sold out till the end of the year. We were constantly scheduling extra NQF 7 courses throughout 2008 to handle the overflow from that which had been planned, in Durban, Johannesburg, Windhoek, Cape Town, Pretoria and other cities. Next year we're adding the specialist programmes in IT Project Management and in Project Management for Local Government, but enquiries and bookings for the generic and in-house courses, as well as for our new part-time course to be held in Cape Town from March to April, are also still coming in daily. I'm flying to Johannesburg next week to teach a custom course for staff at Wits, and then another along with MC Botha at Krones the following week. If you want to get into a course before May 2009, it looks like you might have to send us your details before the end of November 2008!
22 October 2008
IT Project Management course (NQF 7) in Johannesburg in 2009!
We managed to get two courses scheduled for Cape Town for 2009, and, as can be expected, we kept getting the "Why not Gauteng?" question. Martin returned to South Africa recently and I just found a memo from him in my inbox which I missed somehow, confirming that he could indeed present the course there from 1 to 5 June 2009. I really hope we can get Bytes as the venue -- they have an excellent high-tech conference facility -- and they're holding the dates for me. I'm also trying to see if I can get an accommodation package arranged, including airport and to-the-class transfers, which would be suitable for students who have to travel from faraway places like Mpumalanga, Mozambique, etc. to come for the training.
NQF 7 (for those who don't know how the National Qualifications Framework works) is "post-graduate". In this case, you can actually get credits towards an MBA by doing this university-accredited course.
The fee per student will be R9,900 (that includes courseware, assessment, teas, lunch, etc.).
I've got the preliminary course outlines ready, so if you're interested, send us your details.
20 October 2008
Project Management Fundamentals and Microsoft Project (Part-Time) (NQF level 6)
We will finally be in a position to offer the course that people who can't take time off work, have been asking for.
The course will be held in Cape Town over a series of Saturdays (7, 14, 28 March; 4, 18 April 2009) and will cost R8 900 (incl. VAT). Lunches, teas, and course handbooks are included in the fee.
The course is actually a bundled programme consisting of two modules interwoven with one another and presented by the same lecturer. The hand-on Microsoft Project module carries a university certification on NQF 6, whereas the Fundamentals module does not have an assessment component.
The course will be restricted to a maximum of 20 people to create opportunities for individual attention and more effective groupwork.
If you are interested in registering, provide us with your details so long so that we can send you an information pack and application form when bookings open at the end of November.
You can check out the other Project Management courses here.
16 October 2008
Project Management, Scrum and everything else
If it weren't for BarCamp, I would not have had an early exposure to Agile Project Management; and I would not have gone to a Geek Dinner. If it weren't for Geek Dinners, I would not have met Peter Hundermark and started paying attention to Scrum. If it weren't for Geek Dinners, I also wouldn't have met Joe, and if it weren't for Joe, I wouldn't have started going to SPIN meetings. If it weren't for all of this, I would have missed last night's informative and entertaining presentation on Scrum by Peter and Sue Bramhall. We even played a cool ball game to illustrate the workings of Scrum -- a game which I think probably works far better with a bunch of nerds than it would with a scrum consisting of rugby players. (Not being rugby players, we did pretty well.)
What Peter doesn't know yet is that I am going to ask him to come to explain and advocate Scrum at an event next year... watch this blog for details in January to see if he says yes. From my rudimentary exposure to Scrum, I can see why it would be applicable to projects in many other industries. In fact, I am even going to recommend it to a team of nanoscience researchers I have been talking to during the past week. (Why does it seem to me as though so many educational institutions are decades behind in their thinking about Project Management? Grrr...) I will write a bit more about this later.
Meanwhile, for the construction industry professionals, events managers and all the other project leaders for whom Gantt charts, Critical Paths and the like would be valuable tools, we've got an extra Programme in Project Management on NQF level 7 scheduled for 3 to 7 November in Cape Town, because bookings for the course at the end of November filled up completely quite a while back. (We still have 17 places left for the same programme in Johannesburg, but I expect those to be filled pretty quickly too.) The course also covers topics such as matrix organisation structures (i.e. cross-functional management), stakeholder analysis and the scenario comparison model -- senior management stuff which you wouldn't typically find on a methodology-specific or tools-only course in Project Management. Click here if you want us to send you details.
8 October 2008
Netheid
Ek staan al hoe vroeër op om momentum te gee aan my nuwe commitment tot orde, netheid en liasering, maar dit help my nog nie genoeg nie, want ek daag in elk geval slegs 'n halfuur vroeer as gewoonlik by die werk op, in plaas van die een en 'n half tot twee ure wat dit behoort te wees as mens in ag neem wanneer ek opstaan.
Ek het besluit om myself dop te hou ten einde vas te stel wat die probleem is, en het vanoggend op die antwoord afgekom: As gevolg van my ingesteldheid op netheid, is ek nou by die huis ook baie netjieser. Ek maak vir myself 'n ordentlike slaai vir ontbyt, ek was al die skottelgoed elke oggend, pak die klere wat ek uitgehaal het en besluit het om nie aan te trek nie, weg; ek sorg dat die vuil klere in die wasgoedbalie kom, was die oppervlaktes in die kombuis, maak die bed op, haal die ou bomme uit die blompot en was die blompot, sit CDs terug in hulle kassies en tydskrifte terug op hulle plek. Dit vat baie langer as my ou manier van opstaan en gaan werk.
Hoe nou gemaak? Ek het nie vorige ervaring van grootskaalse netheid nie!
8 October 2008
Murphy's Law of Software Development
Well, it's not really Murphy's Law, it's
mine, since I am the one who formulated it, but I need to credit Murphy
with the groundwork, so this is perhaps this should be called Tania's Corollary
to Murphy's Law, but then there would be two iso-corollaries (or something
like that) and that would be complicated.
Herewith the Law which I discovered in around 1998, and which has consistently
manifested itself to my empirical observations over the past 10 years.
(Boy, am I convolutedly verbose today!)
2 October 2008
Additional Project Management course for Cape Town
The Programme in Project Management at the end of November is full, so an additional course has been scheduled for the beginning of November. There are also still spaces left in Durban (October) and Windhoek (October) and Johannesburg (November).