Category: Other
Project DPro Practitioner Course – Take it now on DPro+
20th June 2022
(updated 20th June 2022)
Published by Oliver Carrick
Introducing the Project DPro Practitioner course – now available to take for Project DPro Practitioner candidates!
DPro+ is proud to introduce the Project DPro Practitioner course. Available now, this course helps you to perform all of the activities required for the Project DPro Practitioner qualification and will take you through the process on a step-by-step basis.
Once you have signed up to take the Practitioner examination, and paid the necessary course fees, the course will allow you to pursue and keep track of the completed and remaining activities.
When you sign up for the exam, you will automatically be registered in the course.
Find out more by visiting the Practitioner page: How to Become a Project Practitioner – DPro+
Case Studies: tips to record / write
This article has been published to help practitioner candidates to record or write their case studies, one of the activities to achieve the Practitioner Certification. But, it is also helpful for any DPro+ member who would like to share their articles or videos with our community.
Recording a video
You must be the author of any video submitted to the practitioner examination or shared with our community. You must also take part of the video, as main character, interviewer, or a member of the video characters with significant participation.
Technical Specifications:
- Videos should be between 2 and 4 minutes.
- Record it in your language or language of preference.
- Check your video camera settings to make sure you are shooting one of three formats: 1080p at 30fps, 1080p at 60fps, or 1080p at 24fps. 720p and 4k is fine too.
- If you are unsure, don’t worry, your camera’s default setting should generally be ok.
- Upload your video to Youtube, Vimeo, or any cloud drive (Dropbox, One Drive, Google Drive).
Content:
- Tell a story… record the video as a simple narrative to share your experience with other project managers.
- Start the video introducing yourself (name, country, your position).
- Keep focus on the message you want to share – avoid adding information and details not related to the topic you are presenting.
Content / Script:
- Describe the context (economic, cultural, environmental): Where and with whom did the project take place?
- Describe the issue, need for improvement: What happened?
- Describe your intervention: What did you / your team do? What was the outcome / result?
Recording your video:
- You can use your laptop, phone, or camera to record your video.
- If you are using your phone, make sure that you hold the phone in the horizontal position.
- Location:
- Find a location that is well-lit with natural sunlight or plenty of indoor lighting.
- Choose a quiet location with little background noise (street sounds, music, air conditioner, other people).
- Speak more slowly than you would in person
- Smile, especially at the beginning and the end
If you are using your phone, make sure that you hold the phone in the horizontal position, like the image below.
This is the right position to recording a video using a phone.
Writing an article
You must be the author of any article submitted to the practitioner examination or shared with our community.
Technical Specifications:
- The article must have between 500 and 1,000 words.
- Write your case study using Microsoft Word or Google Docs – which allow you to count the words before copying them into the Activity Log.
- Write the article in your language or language of preference.
Content:
- Tell a story… this is not an academic article, but an experience to be shared with other project managers.
- Write an introduction.
- Introduce yourself (name, country, position) and let readers know how you participated or got into contact with the case study.
- Avoid self-promotion or promoting others in the article. The article’s focus is the case study, not the people involved.
- Describe the context (economic, cultural, environmental): Where and with whom did the project take place?
- Describe the issue, need for improvement: What happened?
- Describe your intervention: What did you / your team do? What was the outcome / result?
Blog back catalogue
Since DPro+ first went live we have added a substantial collection of blog articles on all types of issues relating to project management in the development and humanitarian sectors.
From case studies and updates to Project DPro Practitioner resources and information realting to the Covid-19 crisis, visit our back catalogue to browse through some of the many blog postings:
Happy New Year from DPro+
As we reach the end of December, the whole team at DPro+ would like to wish all our members a very happy new year and a prosperous 2022.
We hope all your goals are achieved in 2022…and if you’re looking to begin the year with a new challengewhy not commit to achieving the new Project DPro+ certification?!
The DPro+ team
2021 Alan Harpham Award
The Alan Harpham Award 2021 can be your chance to show your work to the world!
PM4NGOs is delighted to announce the 2021 Alan Harpham Award. This award recognizes individuals who have an outstanding performance using PM4NGOS tools and methodologies (such as Project Management for Development Professionals Guide or Program Management for Development Professionals Guide) to promote the professionalization of project and program management in the international development sector.
The award was created to honor individuals with distinguished actions in promoting the professionalization of project management and thereby encourage others in the development sector community. Alan Harpham Award recipient will receive a certificate recognizing the awardee, a lifetime honorary membership to PM4NGOs community and recognition and publication of his or her work on the PM4NGOs social network.
The nominations are open until November 20th! Individuals can nominate themselves or they can nominate another person. Read more on the website.
Project DPro Practitioner level – The basics: Giving Back
In the final article of this series, we will analyze the third category or the Project DPro Practitioner certification: “Giving Back”.
Giving Back is the Project DPro Practitioner category which enables candidates to use their knowledge and expertise to give back to project management in the development and humanitarian sectors.
There are four Giving Back activities to carry out for the purposes of Project DPro Practitioner certification. These are:
- Sharing a tool/process: which you have developed or modified.
- Submit a case study article or video to DPro+, with details of a project you recently completed.
- Free choice activity (2) (helps peers, give a presentation)
Sharing a tool requires candidates to share examples of how they have used project management tools and techniques in real life situations. Candidates can select one of the following tools to share:
- Logframe or Logical Framework
- Problem or Objective Tree
- RACI Matrix
- Risk Register
- Work Breakdown Structure
- MEAL Plan
- Venn Diagram
- Network Diagram
- Project Budget
- Stakeholders Matrix
- Communications Plan
- Project Charter
- Gantt Chart
- Issues Log
- Project Proposal
The Case Study activity allows you to give back to the project management community by giving people the benefit of the learning from your own contextual experiences.
Finally, the two Free Election activities enable candidates to choose from helping their peers or giving a presentation. Helping peers could include assisting people to attain Project DPro Foundation certification, and giving a presentation could be either in the workplace or to another local or community group.
We hope you have enjoyed this series of articles breaking down the categories of Project DPro Practitioner certification, and that they have inspired you to begin your own Practitioner journey.
Leadership Series No.4: Leadership in Adversity
22nd June 2021
(updated 22nd June 2021)
Published by Oliver Carrick
The fourth article in our leadership series takes a look at the ability to lead in times of adversity – such as the current Covid-19 crisis.
The current coronavirus crisis is an adverse situation with which we all have to deal. Adversity can also be personal, as we respond to professional setbacks or personal traumas and situations. All of these situations provide leaders with the opportunity to learn and hone our skills as leaders.
When adversity strikes, leaders are faced with the need to pivot and respond to the crisis or emergency situation. A five-step process for managing adversity is proposed by Brad Egeland (projectmanager.com):
- Gather the team to assess the damage
- Come up with a plan of action
- Present to the customer and plan with them
- Implement the action plan
- Stay the course
This step process helps leaders to methodically plan their responses. Like all good project management, it requires effective planning and implementation.
Nevertheless, leadership in adversity is not all about responding to s changing situation in the short-term. The three tips for leading in adversity provided by coreprocess.co are:
- Being adaptable
- Seeing the long game
- Avoiding discouragement
So, leaders must be willing to make changes and keep working despite facing an uphill struggle. Often, dealing with adversity consumes a lot of time just responding to day-to-day issues, but leaders must still think strategically and be able to vision the long-term. Avoid the pitfall of getting sucked into a short-term approach.
By now, we have all had our fair share of responding to adversity during the last 18 months. What have you learned about your leadership skills during this time? How have you improved as a project manager and as a leader?
We hope you have enjoyed this leadership series. Look out for future articles on similar subjects.
Project Management book downloads
26th May 2021
(updated 26th May 2021)
Published by Oliver Carrick
The staff at PMD Pro+ are happy to announce the enhancement of our free download library to include a significant number of general project management books.
There are also some new additions relating to the following subjects:
- Monitoring and Evaluation
- Finance
- Non-English textbooks
You can view the full list of downloads available using this link.
If you have any suggestions of free downloadable books, please contact us at info@pm4ngos.org.
Risk Management, the victim of old ways by Hazem Zeitoun
23rd March 2021
(updated 23rd March 2021)
Published by Oliver Carrick
My background in Project Management was acquired and developed in the private sector, specifically in the pharmaceutical sector during which I obtained my PMP credential. When I started working in capacity building and delivering training and coaching in Project Management, Risk management was one of my favorite topics, and still is.
I was able to make learners see Risk management in a totally new way by using storytelling to explain what Risk Management is and its importance. The feedback I received only confirmed that Risk Management is not a high priority for organizations, even if they say so.
Common feedback revolves around “if I have known this before we could have avoided so and so“, or “Now I understand why we keep having problems: because we don’t really do risk management.“ This feedback was from people working in the private sector who are supposedly very attentive to risks. Later on, I obtained my PMD certificates, and started doing capacity building for the Development sector.
At the beginning I used to rely heavily on the Body of Knowledge accompanying the PMP credential when explaining Risk Management. However, it became apparent that this was way too much and too heavy and too early for those working in NGOs and INGOs. I always knew that risk management for many organizations working in the private sector was a side-kick , except for the financial risks aspect, but I was stunned to see that Risk Management , in it basics , is not even on he radar of INGOs and NGO , let alone CBOs
The prevalent understanding of risks is that organizations do identify risks and deal with them; however, what they predominantly refer to are the Assumptions in the Logframe and Risks related to Security in addition to the “Do No Harm” notion. One may be surprised that I have included INGOs, but it is a reality that I have seen and I am still seeing today.
The introduction of the Project DPro Guide and related credentials did positively contribute to increase the profile, and the importance of Project Risk Management grew as more organizations and individuals got introduced to the best practices contained in it. Today I see more organizations addressing project risks beyond the usual “Cliches”.
One of the challenges facing organizations and individuals is to better understand what constitutes a “Risk“, and differentiate between “Cause” of risk and a risk. Many of the risks identified relate to delay of funds and of approvals as risks to consider, and organizations do not conduct a comprehensive risk identification and analysis to identify other high probability high impact risks.
Many people leave the ”Known unknown“ to be managed as “Unknown Unknown“, leading the project to stuffer changes and delays that could have been mitigated if not even prevented early on.
It is crucial that organizations and individuals working in the development sector increase the depth and breadth of their understanding and knowledge, and more importantly the practice, of Project Risk Management.
Hazem Zeitoun
Co-founder
Genome Training and consulting
