BlogOn 18th-19th February 2010 one of the most important project management industry conferences of the year took place at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The IPMA® Expert Seminar, focusing this year on ‘survival and sustainability as challenges for projects,’ brought together hundreds of project managers from around the world to discuss project sustainability issues, to network with other project/programme managers, and to share information about current and past projects and programmes.
The IPMA® (International Project Management Organization) is a not-for-profit project management organization that represents over 40, 000 project managers, spread over forty different countries. Established in 1965 as the first project management association, the IPMA provides standards, baselines and statistics for successful project management, offers project management certification programmes and awards, and functions as a forum for project managers to meet, share ideas and discuss the challenges and rewards of the project management industry.
The IPMA® Expert Seminars began in the 1970s, and continued annually into the 80s, focusing on the development of professional competences within project management, and the recognition of the project manager as a necessary and highly-skilled individual.
In 2008, a new series of “Expert seminars” began, with the focus on ‘behavioural competences in relation to technical and contextual competences’. A similar theme was chosen for 2009, but with a greater focus on ‘project management success’. For the coming February, a new (and pertinent) theme has been selected: the survival and sustainability of projects in an uncertain business world. Outside of the presentations, delegates will break into smaller workshops, where they will discuss issues such as the role of the investor in monitoring project sustainability; the relationship between the expectations, results and impact of a project; the responsibility of project managers for project sustainability; and the technical and behavioural competences required to deal with conflicts, uncertainty and crisis on a project.
Project sustainability is not just about making sure the project fulfils its mandate without running too far over budget; also relevant is environmental and societal sustainability – issues that often fall out of the immediate and (necessarily) short-term range of the project manager. The IPMA® conference drew greater attention to these areas, and encouraged the project managers attending to consider the longer-term impact of their projects.
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Tags: IPMA, PRINCE2 2009, project management
