Did you know DPro+ has a huge range of resources available for use by all members?
Perhaps you are a Project DPro Practitioner candidate looking for free and approved resources?
Or maybe you are looking for a tool to help you with your Continuous Professional Development?
No matter what your needs are, you can find a range of tools, templates, and Guides in our resources section.
To see the complete list of Guides, Templates and Tools click here.
One of the many resources available on DPro+ is the range of “How to” guides for development project managers.
There are a total of sixteen guides including the following titles:
How to create a Project Budget
How to Be a Mentor
How to Perform Needs Analysis
How to Write a Project Implementation Plan
To see a full list of the guides in this series go to the How to Guide section.
Whether you’re a new site member, looking for activities for your Project DPro Practitiponer activity log, or simply wishing to fill spome free time, visit the back catalogue of PM4NGOs webinars using the following link:
Here you’ll find webinar recordings relating to many aspects of project management and Project DPro in various languages.
Soy Jesús E. Delgado, y me considero un profesional, practicante, conferenciante y educador en Gestión de proyectos, PMO, Resiliencia Organizacional y Continuidad de Negocio. Estoy comprometido conmigo mismo con ser un líder servicial y transformacional, un constructor de relaciones, un solucionador de problemas, un pensador crítico, un promotor de la innovación y un formador del futuro.
Tras el paso de los huracanes Irma y María en el 2017, los terremotos del 2019 y 2020 y la pandemia del Covid19, Puerto Rico ha sufrió una gran devastación y los sistemas de infraestructura principales se vieron severamente afectados. Debido solamente a los daños causados por el Huracán María, se han identificado miles de proyectos de reconstrucción y recuperación en todos los municipios de la Isla.
Es importante mencionar que PR es un territorio no incorporado de los EEUU y por ende todos los puertorriqueños somos ciudadanos americanos y somos participes de las ventajas y desventajas que eso pueda traer.
En este caso en particular, PR será el recipiente de miles de millones de dólares de fondos del Gobierno de los EEUU para la recuperación, reconstrucción y resiliencia del País La gran mayoría de estos fondos deben ser invertidos e implementados a través de proyectos que se desarrollarán en toda la Isla. Actualmente, están definiéndose, diseñándose, planificándose e implementándose cientos de proyectos educativos, de construcción, de infraestructura, tecnológicos, y para aumentar la resiliencia eléctrica y comunitaria.
Todos los 72 municipios, los cientos de agencias del gobierno central y cientos de NGOs tendrán la ardua tarea de gestionar proyectos de baja, mediana y alta complejidad por los próximos diez a quince años.
Esto es una oportunidad histórica única para Puerto Rico ya que con la cantidad de dinero asignada para estos proyectos podríamos transformar nuestra Isla hacia niveles de excelencia nunca antes vistos. Pero para lograr el éxito, hacen falta cientos de gerentes de proyectos con las competencias, la experiencia, la madurez emocional, la visión y el liderazgo necesarios.
En la actualidad PR no cuenta con suficientes profesionales de la gerencia de proyectos que puedan atender la gran cantidad de proyectos, programas y portafolios existentes. Por esa razón es urgente capacitar en Project Management, PMO e Implementación de la Estrategia a todos los individuos que tengan la capacidad de aprender.
Consciente de la gran cantidad de proyectos que deberán ser implementados en los próximos años como parte de los esfuerzos y fondos destinados a la recuperación y reconstrucción de Puerto Rico, hace unos meses propuse un junte estratégico entre la Asociación de Industriales de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Manufacturers Association) y mi empresa, OKA Project Management & Strategic Leadership para lanzar la Academia de Gerencia de Proyectos PM4PRR3 (Project Management for Puerto Rico’s Recovery, Reconstruction & Resiliency).
El programa educativo está enfocado en proveer, a todo tipo de profesional, las competencias necesarias para la gestión eficiente de proyectos y el conocimiento y herramientas para el diseño, implementación y mejora continua de las Oficinas de Gerencia de Proyectos. La Academia no será solo para los miembros de la Asociación sino que estará abierta al público en general, municipios y las organizaciones sin fines de lucro (NGOs) y para todo personal responsable de la implementación de proyectos.
Para recalcar nuestro compromiso social, estaremos becando a un miembro de NGO’s por cada 20 participantes matriculados en la academia.
Estoy convencido de que el mayor riesgo en un proyecto es ponerlo en manos de un Gerente de Proyectos sin las habilidades y experiencia necesarias por lo que llevo desde hace más de un año exponiendo esta situación en diferentes foros públicos del País. Y por eso propuse tomar acciones afirmativas a través de la Academia PM4PRR3.
Para esta academia hemos creado un “Roadmap” de aprendizaje en donde estaremos llevando a los participantes desde la fundación en Gerencia de Proyectos, luego a convertirlos en Practicantes de la profesión y hasta llevarlos a tener las competencias y conocimiento necesarios para diseñar, poner en marcha y mejorar continuamente sus PMOs.
Con este objetivo hemos logrado traer Certificaciones profesionales en Project Management & PMO reconocidas internacionalmente a precios sumamente razonables. Para la creación de la Academia hemos contado con la asesoría y apoyo de John Cropper, fundador de Pyramid Learning y pasado presidente de PM4NGOs desde Inglaterra, de Leonardo Reyes, presidente de PMO Academy y PMOfficers desde Barcelona, y de Antonio Nieto Rodríguez, pasado presidente del PMI a nivel mundial, autor para el Harvard Business Review y cofundador del Strategy Implementation Institute desde Bruselas. Todos gurús y expertos internacionalmente reconocidos en la Gerencia de Proyectos”
Para este proyecto educativo, estamos combinando las metodologías para la gestión de proyectos de desarrollo publicadas por la organización PM4NGOs y Pyramid Learning en combinación con las Metodologías para el desarrollo de PMOs de la PMO Academy by PMOfficers y el modelo de implementación estratégico publicado por el Strategy Implementation Institue. Organizaciones internacionales que son líderes en educación y estándares sobre la Gerencia de Proyectos.
In the fourth and final article in this series, we take a look at the Project DPro Practitioner activity “Writing a Case Study”. This a “Giving Back” activity.
Many Practitioner candidates may not have a written a case study previously. Here are some tips to help you write an interesting and informative summary of your case:
The word limit for this Practitioner activity is 500-1000 words. This is not a lot, so you will have to plan your case study carefully.
Most importantly, a Case Study is an opportunity to write a narrative account of your experiences. In comparison with more formal writing styles, narratives allow the writer to make use of description to create an image in the reader’s mind.
Descriptive writing appeals to the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. While some of these may be inappropriate to your narrative, others will help you to paint a vivid picture of the situation you are describing. Consider the following two examples:
The end of project celebration was very enjoyable and people had a good time. (explanation)
And:
During the celebration people expressed their satisfaction with the results and their pride at the accomplishments of the project. Friends for life exchanged contact and details and people ate, drank and gave thanks before parting for their next challenges. (description)
See how the second paragraph paints a picture of a true celebration of hard work performed and targets reached. The reader can easily imagine how it would feel to be part of the celebration.
Descriptive writing can also help you to portray the cultural, social and environmental context of your case study. Also, you may wish to describe a particular issue or problem and how this was overcome – this can also be done with descriptive writing.
In your case study, you may wish to use a more formal style to discuss results and outcomes. These can be presented quantitively in the form of statistics, graphs and tables.
We hope these tips help you as you write your case study and that this series of Practitioner Skills articles has provided effective guidance as you complete your Practitioner activity log.
Good luck with the rest of your Practitioner certification process!
In the third article in this series, we take a look at the Project DPro Practitioner activity “Giving Presentations”. This a free election “Giving Back” activity.
One of the ways to give back to the project management profession is to provide your peers with the benefits of your experiences and learning in the form of a presentation. For the purposes of the Project DPro Practitioner certification, presentations can be either to colleagues or local or community groups.
Many project managers are already very experienced in giving presentation; nevertheless, here are some tips for making the most of your presentations:
If you follow these simple guidelines, your presentation will be a resounding success!
The last article in this Practitioner Skills series will discuss how to write a Case Study.
Until then, good luck with your Practitioner activities!
In the second article in this series, we take a look at the Project DPro Practitioner activity “Helping your peers”. This a free election “Giving Back” activity and can be completed in a number of ways.
Perhaps the most obvious way in which we can help our peers is within the context of a formal mentoring relationship. Nevertheless, mentoring can work just as well on an informal basis. Mentoring could take place either face-to-face or online.
We suggest that before beginning to mentor someone you both agree upon the following parameters:
This will help to avoid situation in which the mentoring process meanders indefinitely without an appropriate conclusion.
One suggested mentoring activity for Project DPro Practitioner candidates is to help colleagues or others in their quest to pass the Project DPro Foundation exam. Having experience of success during this process, Practitioner candidates are in the perfect position to guide and help their colleagues to achieve this aim. Guidance for passing the Project DPro Practitioner exam is also a good example of a helping or mentoring activity which need not require many hours to complete.
Just as planning is important to the mentoring process, so is bringing the activity to a conclusion. This need not be a formal review, rather an informal acknowledgement that the mentoring activity has come to a close and analysis of the benefits which it has brought to both parties.
In your quest to give back to other project management professionals, why not begin by visiting the DPro+ Mentoring Group?
In the next article, we will look at the Giving Back activity “Giving presentations”.
This is the first in a new series of articles designed to help candidates for the Project DPro Practitioner certification complete the tasks required by the activity log.
In the “Informal Learning” section of the activity log, candidates are required to write one book review and two article reviews. These reviews may be published on DPro+ in order to help fellow project managers decide whether these books or articles would be beneficial to their own learning.
So how do we write a good book or article review?
Firstly, let’s take a look at the information required by the activity log. For both books and articles the following information must be entered into the activity log.
For books only, the following additional information is required:
You will see that most of the information required by the log is descriptive in nature. The first question “Why did you choose this particular book/article?” should be straightforward to answer. Make a note of the reason before you begin reading.
For the second question, “What did you learn? ”, we suggest taking some notes as you make your way through the book. This will help you to easily remember what you have learned, but, in any case, note-taking is always a worthwhile exercise for any learning activity.
The two questions specific to the book review require a deeper thought process. The first of these asks candidates to contextualize their own learning through the prism of other project managers, especially those working in the development and humanitarian sectors. In itself, this causes people to consider whether the attained learning fills an individual knowledge gap or constitutes a subject which is misunderstood or undervalued in wider project management circles.
The final question asks candidates to specify how they will apply their learning in future. You might answer this question by creating an informal action plan so that you make a conscious effort to implement your new knowledge.
In the next article, we will look at the Giving Back activity “Helping your peers”.
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 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:
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.
In this article, we will analyze the second category of the Project DPro Practitioner certification process: “Informal Learning”.
Informal Learning activities demonstrate that candidates have implemented knowledge from the Project DPro Foundation certificate in real life scenarios.
There are six Informal Learning activities to carry out for the purposes of Project DPro Practitioner certification. These are:
Each of these activities complements or deepens your knowledge of project management in development and humanitarian projects, building on the base provided by the Project DPro Foundation exam.
Although preference is given to sessions hosted by PM4NGOs or our partners, candidates are able to choose two webinars relevant to project management in the development or humanitarian sectors. This allows candidates to choose content which they find to be of particular interest to themselves.
The Book Review activity enables you to select a relevant text of interest and analyze its content. Similarly, the two Article Reviews allow you to do the same with smaller texts or documents.
Finally, there is a Free Election activity which could be a work event, an organizational course or a mentoring activity. Candidates are free to choose which of these activities they would prefer to perform.
In the final article in this series we’ll take a look at the Giving Back section of Project DPro Practitioner.
