Friday, August 15, 2008
Criminal Teachers: Corporate Ex-Cons tell their story in hopes to educate
Most would agree that employing ex-convicts is not a new business trend to follow. But, can it be used to enlighten MBAs? Jane Porter with Business Weekly released a story about a former manager of MCI who created a $6 million dollar money laundering scheme. Walter A. Pavlo Jr. was caught and sentenced to two years in a federal prison, divorced by his wife, became unemployed and moved in with his parents. Although Walter is in fact an ex convict he is now being paid $2,500 per visit to speak to students and at corporate speaking engagements about his crime. Business school professors created ethics centers and courses in response to the Enron-era scandals. Some schools participating in these types of guest speaker seminars include the New York University, University of California, and Purdue. These colleges and companies have employed people like Walter Pavlo Jr., Chuck Gallagher, and Barry J. Webne to make lectures less academic and give students ability to witness first hand people with practical experience. The concern is in doing these types of scare tactics are we scaring them straight or giving them pointers? The universities and some corporate companies paying people like Pavlo, who made $100,000 in one year from doing seminars, think so. Not only is this trend becoming popular there has been a 30 percent increase in demand for these types of seminars over the past year. Pavlo joined a company called Pros & Cons who book former executives with criminal records like himself for seminars. Since joining Pros & Cons in 1994 he has consistently brought in $60,000 to $80,000 a year and is now up to $100,000 plus. In reviews of his seminar some would go to the extent to say they admire Pavlo for his courage and felt that the public could learn from his advice that fraud does not pay. Others feel that what he is doing is a “slap in the face to humanity” and that it only would encourage others with intents to follow where he went wrong. In either case whither you agree or disagree it sets a point that companies must implement fraud awareness from within itself. Establishing better control programs as well as better educational programs for employees as to how people steal, and how to report them to the proper company authorities will help protect your establishment from being taken by crooks.
Friday, August 1, 2008
A Sign of Things to Come
It’s a new day and a new age. Everything has to be faster, smarter, better. Are you? What about your projects?
The greatest detriment to speed when working on a project is disorganization. And the biggest cause of disorganization is miscommunication, or the lack of communication. So what can you do about it? How do you become faster, smarter, and better? The friendly folks at Microsoft have provided a solution. Microsoft Office Project is a project management tool that allows you to:
* Effectively manage and understand project schedules
* Build professional charts and diagrams for easier understanding amongst project teams
* Effectively communicate complicated information
* Gain greater control of resources and finances
* Track projects according to your needs
* Quickly access the information you need
Never before has project information been at your fingertips all in one place. Not only does Microsoft Office Project help you manage information, but it also helps you create a project plan and make decisions on what changes should occur. For example, if you decide to make a change, Microsoft Office Project will highlight everything else that will be affected by that change. It also allows you to undo at multiple levels allowing you to experiment with “what if” scenarios for certain changes and return to the original schedule and plan.
With additional features such as project templates, leverage charts and diagrams, visual highlights, and flexible project tracking and analysis it’s easy to see how useful Microsoft Office Project would be to any project manager. This tool is a sign of things to come. Soon it’ll be necessary to use a tool like Microsoft Office Project just to stay on par. So if you want to be faster, smarter, and better, don’t get left behind. Go out and get Microsoft Office Project today.
The greatest detriment to speed when working on a project is disorganization. And the biggest cause of disorganization is miscommunication, or the lack of communication. So what can you do about it? How do you become faster, smarter, and better? The friendly folks at Microsoft have provided a solution. Microsoft Office Project is a project management tool that allows you to:
* Effectively manage and understand project schedules
* Build professional charts and diagrams for easier understanding amongst project teams
* Effectively communicate complicated information
* Gain greater control of resources and finances
* Track projects according to your needs
* Quickly access the information you need
Never before has project information been at your fingertips all in one place. Not only does Microsoft Office Project help you manage information, but it also helps you create a project plan and make decisions on what changes should occur. For example, if you decide to make a change, Microsoft Office Project will highlight everything else that will be affected by that change. It also allows you to undo at multiple levels allowing you to experiment with “what if” scenarios for certain changes and return to the original schedule and plan.
With additional features such as project templates, leverage charts and diagrams, visual highlights, and flexible project tracking and analysis it’s easy to see how useful Microsoft Office Project would be to any project manager. This tool is a sign of things to come. Soon it’ll be necessary to use a tool like Microsoft Office Project just to stay on par. So if you want to be faster, smarter, and better, don’t get left behind. Go out and get Microsoft Office Project today.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Benefits of Becoming PMP Certified
There are several reasons individuals decide to become PMP certified. While it is a personal decision, becoming certified has been known to push one’s career over the edge and make them more marketable. Below are a few additional benefits that may help even you make the big leap to the other side.
PMI training and certification preparation courses provide instant credibility in terms of an individual’s project management skills, including their understanding of, and competence in the PMI Project Management framework. It is merely not enough to encompass the skills necessary to manage a project successfully. PMI certification implies that your project management practices are current with the project management industry best practices and that you will work to remain current as these practices mature over time. Many employers now require that project managers have PMI PMP certification and have gone through project management training.
More and more, recruiters are looking for job candidates with certifications offered by PMI, including Project Management Professional; Certified Associate Project Manager; and Program Project Management. The certification at the end of your name may help you stand out in the stack of resumes a recruiter receives. Tony Johnson a veteran PM, said when he was looking for a new job, he noticed that many open positions preferred or required applicants with a PMP certification. He went after the certification to become a stronger candidate. “I felt that…with all
things being equal…having the certification would be a key differentiator,” said Johnson a project director with WorkPlace Technologies.
According to Salary.com the mean base salary for a low level Project Manager here in Atlanta is 65K a year. This does not include bonuses and a benefits package. An increase in salary is also a benefit of acquiring the certification.
PMP certification is good for more than just landing a job and making more money. Other reasons include the reinforcement of industry best practices and standards. Every company has a different informal style of managing projects. The certification ensures that proper procedures are followed each time to reduce project failure rates and increase project successes. Johnson indicates another reason he sought out the certification. To provide a solid base that makes it easier to introduce changes to internal methods and processes.
The PMP certification is good for employers as well as managers. Employers have indicated that the certification makes their employees more valuable. Especially those that are in the service industry; these companies have reported that having a PMP on staff has helped them attract new business. Customers know that the company values Project Management enough to make sure their employees possess all the skill necessary to carry out a project.
There are plenty of good reasons an individual would choose to study for and take the PMP
certification exam. It is an illustration of your expertise, and makes you a more valuable
employee and competitive job candidate. What would it take to get you to do the same?
Please visit our website for more information on obtaining your PMP certification.
PMI training and certification preparation courses provide instant credibility in terms of an individual’s project management skills, including their understanding of, and competence in the PMI Project Management framework. It is merely not enough to encompass the skills necessary to manage a project successfully. PMI certification implies that your project management practices are current with the project management industry best practices and that you will work to remain current as these practices mature over time. Many employers now require that project managers have PMI PMP certification and have gone through project management training.
More and more, recruiters are looking for job candidates with certifications offered by PMI, including Project Management Professional; Certified Associate Project Manager; and Program Project Management. The certification at the end of your name may help you stand out in the stack of resumes a recruiter receives. Tony Johnson a veteran PM, said when he was looking for a new job, he noticed that many open positions preferred or required applicants with a PMP certification. He went after the certification to become a stronger candidate. “I felt that…with all
things being equal…having the certification would be a key differentiator,” said Johnson a project director with WorkPlace Technologies.
According to Salary.com the mean base salary for a low level Project Manager here in Atlanta is 65K a year. This does not include bonuses and a benefits package. An increase in salary is also a benefit of acquiring the certification.
PMP certification is good for more than just landing a job and making more money. Other reasons include the reinforcement of industry best practices and standards. Every company has a different informal style of managing projects. The certification ensures that proper procedures are followed each time to reduce project failure rates and increase project successes. Johnson indicates another reason he sought out the certification. To provide a solid base that makes it easier to introduce changes to internal methods and processes.
The PMP certification is good for employers as well as managers. Employers have indicated that the certification makes their employees more valuable. Especially those that are in the service industry; these companies have reported that having a PMP on staff has helped them attract new business. Customers know that the company values Project Management enough to make sure their employees possess all the skill necessary to carry out a project.
There are plenty of good reasons an individual would choose to study for and take the PMP
certification exam. It is an illustration of your expertise, and makes you a more valuable
employee and competitive job candidate. What would it take to get you to do the same?
Please visit our website for more information on obtaining your PMP certification.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Criminal Teachers
Corporate Ex-Cons tell their story in hopes to educate
Most would agree that employing ex-convicts is not a new business trend to follow. But, can it be used to enlighten MBAs? Jane Porter with Business Weekly released a story about a former manager of MCI who created a $6 million dollar money laundering scheme. Walter A. Pavlo Jr. was caught and sentenced to two years in a federal prison, divorced by his wife, became unemployed and moved in with his parents. Although Walter is in fact an ex convict he is now being paid $2,500 per visit to speak to students and at corporate speaking engagements about his crime. Business school professors created ethics centers and courses in response to the Enron-era scandals. Some schools participating in these types of guest speaker seminars include the New York University, University of California, and Purdue. These colleges and companies have employed people like Walter Pavlo Jr., Chuck Gallagher, and Barry J. Webne to make lectures less academic and give students ability to witness first hand people with practical experience. The concern is in doing these types of scare tactics are we scaring them straight or giving them pointers? The universities and some corporate companies paying people like Pavlo, who made $100,000 in one year from doing seminars, think so. Not only is this trend becoming popular there has been a 30 percent increase in demand for these types of seminars over the past year. Pavlo joined a company called Pros & Cons who book former executives with criminal records like himself for seminars. Since joining Pros & Cons in 1994 he has consistently brought in $60,000 to $80,000 a year and is now up to $100,000 plus. In reviews of his seminar some would go to the extent to say they admire Pavlo for his courage and felt that the public could learn from his advice that fraud does not pay. Others feel that what he is doing is a “slap in the face to humanity” and that it only would encourage others with intents to follow where he went wrong. In either case whither you agree or disagree it sets a point that companies must implement fraud awareness from within itself. Establishing better control programs as well as better educational programs for employees as to how people steal, and how to report them to the proper company authorities will help protect your establishment from being taken by crooks.
Most would agree that employing ex-convicts is not a new business trend to follow. But, can it be used to enlighten MBAs? Jane Porter with Business Weekly released a story about a former manager of MCI who created a $6 million dollar money laundering scheme. Walter A. Pavlo Jr. was caught and sentenced to two years in a federal prison, divorced by his wife, became unemployed and moved in with his parents. Although Walter is in fact an ex convict he is now being paid $2,500 per visit to speak to students and at corporate speaking engagements about his crime. Business school professors created ethics centers and courses in response to the Enron-era scandals. Some schools participating in these types of guest speaker seminars include the New York University, University of California, and Purdue. These colleges and companies have employed people like Walter Pavlo Jr., Chuck Gallagher, and Barry J. Webne to make lectures less academic and give students ability to witness first hand people with practical experience. The concern is in doing these types of scare tactics are we scaring them straight or giving them pointers? The universities and some corporate companies paying people like Pavlo, who made $100,000 in one year from doing seminars, think so. Not only is this trend becoming popular there has been a 30 percent increase in demand for these types of seminars over the past year. Pavlo joined a company called Pros & Cons who book former executives with criminal records like himself for seminars. Since joining Pros & Cons in 1994 he has consistently brought in $60,000 to $80,000 a year and is now up to $100,000 plus. In reviews of his seminar some would go to the extent to say they admire Pavlo for his courage and felt that the public could learn from his advice that fraud does not pay. Others feel that what he is doing is a “slap in the face to humanity” and that it only would encourage others with intents to follow where he went wrong. In either case whither you agree or disagree it sets a point that companies must implement fraud awareness from within itself. Establishing better control programs as well as better educational programs for employees as to how people steal, and how to report them to the proper company authorities will help protect your establishment from being taken by crooks.
Friday, July 18, 2008
The Crime of Poor Project Management
Poor Project Management: Why some consider it a Crime
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act makes senior executives criminally liable for misrepresenting financial information and for relaying fraud to shareholders. After several corporate accounting scandals, Congress passed a law referring to the SOX Act of 2002. If the company manages projects, then if projects are mismanaged it could leave your senior management legally exposed. Keep in mind the stories in the press about companies with large projects facing huge cost overruns. If this kind of cost overrun is not foreseen and anticipated, the financial effects could seriously impact the projected profit for a given period. It is reported that 77 percent of companies will spend more on IT, business process change, governance, and consulting to insure project management compliances. Management Assessment of Internal Controls must be established by CEOs and maintained at an adequate internal control structure of procedures for financial reporting. Companies undertaking large projects will need a process that provides a detailed cost and schedule metrics for all projects with time based cost reporting and continually updated completion estimates. Senior management must have visibility into project performance data at all times along with the confidence that the underlying process is sound.
No methodology or process will suddenly make projects profitable. If a problem is not identified before the budget is depleted, a corrective action cannot be applied to improve the outcome and the profit margin begins to disappear. Management by exception, variance analysis, and the calculation of accurate estimates at completion all help to maintain project profitability and ensure confidence on the part of management and share holders alike. Complying with the many factors of the SOX Act is already an enormous challenge for today’s companies. When it comes to project management, companies can overcome the challenges mandated and adopt practice for project control and further peace of mind.
For more information visit our website! Project Management Preparatory Academy
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act makes senior executives criminally liable for misrepresenting financial information and for relaying fraud to shareholders. After several corporate accounting scandals, Congress passed a law referring to the SOX Act of 2002. If the company manages projects, then if projects are mismanaged it could leave your senior management legally exposed. Keep in mind the stories in the press about companies with large projects facing huge cost overruns. If this kind of cost overrun is not foreseen and anticipated, the financial effects could seriously impact the projected profit for a given period. It is reported that 77 percent of companies will spend more on IT, business process change, governance, and consulting to insure project management compliances. Management Assessment of Internal Controls must be established by CEOs and maintained at an adequate internal control structure of procedures for financial reporting. Companies undertaking large projects will need a process that provides a detailed cost and schedule metrics for all projects with time based cost reporting and continually updated completion estimates. Senior management must have visibility into project performance data at all times along with the confidence that the underlying process is sound.
No methodology or process will suddenly make projects profitable. If a problem is not identified before the budget is depleted, a corrective action cannot be applied to improve the outcome and the profit margin begins to disappear. Management by exception, variance analysis, and the calculation of accurate estimates at completion all help to maintain project profitability and ensure confidence on the part of management and share holders alike. Complying with the many factors of the SOX Act is already an enormous challenge for today’s companies. When it comes to project management, companies can overcome the challenges mandated and adopt practice for project control and further peace of mind.
For more information visit our website! Project Management Preparatory Academy
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Increase Your Intellect
Project management is not just for project managers. In many cases a company is unbalanced, the trained start executing projects from a different perspective than the rest of the team. This in turn creates frustration, friction and ultimately failure among a project team. Project Managers will try to follow a plan, track costs, manage scope or follow a method, only to come to a halt in progress or receive resistance from the rest of the company. Due to this snag the project will suffer but to help prevent this from happening it is essential to have everyone who is a part of the project be sufficiently trained. It also helps that managers involved in the project be fully supportive of the program as well. It may be necessary to draft a proposal for upper management to see the extra training is critical and worth the cost.
Before deciding who needs to be trained it is important to understand the roles in your project team. Most teams will consist of eight roles: Client, Sponsor, Manager, Coordinator, Functional, Business Team Leader, Financial Team Leader, and Workers. What training is necessary is based upon the judgment of the organization. An example what most would do is; establish a single project and program management curriculum to provide the educational foundation needed. Next, set up a project management program designed to develop an educational foundation for individual business units to help better overall performance. The program should provide all employees with knowledge about project management standards supporting the company business goals, including project management principles and methodology. Training will get everyone moving in the same direction, establish project management principles into the company’s culture, boost your company’s intellectual capital, improve morale of the project team and project delivery records, as well as make your clients happier.
For more information visit our website! Project Management Preparatory Academy
Before deciding who needs to be trained it is important to understand the roles in your project team. Most teams will consist of eight roles: Client, Sponsor, Manager, Coordinator, Functional, Business Team Leader, Financial Team Leader, and Workers. What training is necessary is based upon the judgment of the organization. An example what most would do is; establish a single project and program management curriculum to provide the educational foundation needed. Next, set up a project management program designed to develop an educational foundation for individual business units to help better overall performance. The program should provide all employees with knowledge about project management standards supporting the company business goals, including project management principles and methodology. Training will get everyone moving in the same direction, establish project management principles into the company’s culture, boost your company’s intellectual capital, improve morale of the project team and project delivery records, as well as make your clients happier.
For more information visit our website! Project Management Preparatory Academy
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Business Ethics
Good Business vs. Bad Business
If you’ve ever been the subject of a rumor then you understand the following saying, “Your reputation precedes you.” This same saying can be applied to the business world as well. The reputation of a business depends largely on how it conducts itself when dealing with the world around it. This code of conduct is known as business ethics. Whether your company implements good or bad business ethics can be the difference between whether or not your company will succeed in the long run.
Although ethics are tailored to each business differently they are founded on many of the same principles such as: honesty, respect and trust. When a company is met with an obstacle it is easy to ignore or deny the problem. However, practicing good business ethics by accepting and resolving the problem will allow your company to move forward from the issue. Establishing this honesty in any company will help to obtain the respect and trust it needs to maintain good business relations with its clients. Formally implementing values like these through policies and practices in a business is known as an ethics program.
In addition to implementing new rules there are also some things to avoid. Vicki Gerson, author of Avoiding Ethical Business Practices, says the following practices may not only cause problems in the future, it could potentially ruin the business.
1. Hiding information that might damage your company’s reputation.
2. Denying charges with relevance or factual evidence.
3. Combating honest complaints with an increase in advertising or public relations spending.
4. Ignoring problems with your products.
5. Refusing to accept the blame.
These practices may provide a quick solution for the time being, but history has shown us that the problem will present itself again if not handled correctly. The saying is true; Honesty is the best policy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)