Monthly Archives: May 2010

I am a PRINCE2 Practitioner

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Thursday, 27 May 2010, also brought another good news along besides my visa having been issued. I am officially a PRINCE2 Practitioner (the certificate still takes a bit to be issued).

During my search for a new job, I had come across the PRINCE2 certification, a project management method, a couple of times in UK postings. I had already done project management at the University of Munich for the EU-funded project “imMEDIAte TEACHing” (and I should find out basically ever since), but had learned everything “on the job” and not methodically. Thus, I thought it would be a good thing to prepare for my new job by refreshing my PM knowledge and do so by using a specific method.

PRINCE2 (Projects in Controlled Environments) is a PM method developed by the UK government, but is recognized around the world. As it is generic, it can be applied to any project in any field no matter how small or big the project is.

The certification for PRINCE2 is split up into two exams: Foundation and Practitioner.

The Foundation exam is for everybody involved in a project. Thus, it can be made sure that everybody understands the terminology, the basic themes and processes of PRINCE2 and knows the responsibilities of the individual roles. This exam tests definitions, the relations between processes etc. It is a multiple-choice exam with questions that are not related to each other.

The Practitioner exam is a further step for the project managers themselves. In this multiple-choice exam, the testee receives a project scenario and all questions relate to it. In this exam, PRINCE2 needs to be applied to the scenario.

The preparation for these exams can be done individually by reading the 327-page manual “Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2″ and answering exam prep questions in books that can be bought. However, many training companies also offer preparation courses either face-to-face or online. As the exams are rather expensive (£585 for both), I decided to take a course.

After some shopping around, I opted for the ILX Group‘s PRINCE2 Gold Pack which includes (taken from the web site):

  • The interactive PRINCE2 CD-ROM course
  • Exercises at Foundation and Practitioner Level
  • Simulated Foundation Exam
  • Cost of PRINCE2 Foundation Exam
  • Cost of PRINCE2 Practitioner Exam
  • Managing Successful Projects in PRINCE2 (The Official PRINCE2 manual)
  • Laminated A3 PRINCE2 Process Model
  • Access to a PRINCE2 Trainer via email or phone
  • 2 Day UK Based Classroom Revision Workshop (cost of overnight stay is not included)

This blended learning course consisting of the self-study preparation and a classroom workshop as preparation for the Practitioner exam suited me well. The e-learning content on the CD (is the same as online) is very well organized and guides the learner step-by-step through the method. The exercises and the exam simulators that are included give an impression of what to expect in the exams though it seemed that the actual exam questions were more difficult despite the fact that original questions were included in the training pack.

The process model designed by the ILX Group is even better than the model found in the official manual. It makes things very clear and gives an excellent overview of all the processes in a PRINCE2 project.

The admin staff of the ILX Group were very supportive in the preparation of getting the materials to me and scheduling a workshop. Due to the ash cloud of the eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull and thus delays in mail services, my training material took a while to make it over from the UK and I did not have much time for the preparation. Thankfully, I could study throughout the day and did not have to do that besides work. Thus, the time frame of 1.5 weeks turned out to be fine. I was happy to learn that I could also take a workshop in Amsterdam instead of travelling to London thus cutting down a bit on the travel expenses.

My workshop took place in Amsterdam from 10-12 May 2010. We were a small group of 6 people taking this prep course and that was a fantastic size. 4 out of 6 lived in the Netherlands, but only one was Dutch. We were an international group of one each: American, British, Chinese, Dutch, German from Luxembourg, and Turkish from Germany. Our trainer was British with a very extensive PM background and could talk like a waterfall. If he hadn’t done so, we would have needed an additional day. ;-)

Our course schedule looked like that:

  • Monday: 1-hour Foundation exam and organizational issues
  • Tuesday and Wednesday morning and a bit of the afternoon: revision of the PRINCE2 themes and processes with time for questions, elaborations and going through another prep exam
  • Wednesday afternoon: 2.5-hour Practitioner exam

Lots of paper on the tables during the workshop

cc licensed flickr photo shared by 4nitsirk

PRINCE2 and universities

Although I had not worked in a company and had been involved in university projects only, I could relate to the topics that are covered by PRINCE2 very well. That is also supposed to be that way because PRINCE2 is not designed to be industry specific but universal. Of course, the company metaphor is in the foreground, but it can be applied to a university background or any other one as well.

Thus, I wish I had known about PRINCE2 earlier in my career because then I could have avoided some pitfalls in my project management and sometimes done things in a more structured way. Although I must also say that we already did many things “correctly” in “imMEDIAte TEACHing” because PRINCE2 was not developed out of the air, but from real-world examples. Hence, common sense, previous project experience, and obligations from the funding body lead you to a number of the same conclusions that can be found in the method.

However, I think that learning about a project management method should be high on the agenda of professional development for anybody at universities involved in projects. And here I do not just mean big national or EU projects, but also small ones. Everything that is not “business as usual” is a project. During my exam preparations I realized that I had participated in a number of projects over the last 2.5 years at the University of Luxembourg though they had not been labeled as such. Had a PM method been applied, some aspects of the work could have been improved.

At universities, researchers are increasingly involved in projects, but they do not always get appropriate support or know about project management. Learning about a PM method can boost their confidence and make the management part of the projects easier so that they can focus more on the content delivery as that is the main objective of their project work.

As an aside: We also learned that strawberries can make it onto bread in the Netherlands. We have not yet found out whether that is a specialty of Amsterdam or not, but Sia Vogel, one of my former #CCK08 contacts, knows about it.

Sia Vogel about strawberry bread on Twitter

cc licensed flickr photo shared by 4nitsirk

New job, new country, new hemisphere

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May 27, 2010, 5:02 p.m., has turned into a milestone for me. The embassy employee responsible for visas at the New Zealand embassy in Brussels left a message on my answering machine letting me know that my work visa  for New Zealand had just been granted and was ready for pick-up.

My temporary work visa was issued very quickly for which I am very grateful because having to wait for the news of whether I got it or not for already 4 weeks was the most excruciating time in my life so far. I would have surely gone insane had it taken longer. Going for the temporary work visa (valid for three years, and it can be extended) was the quickest way. Other visa options would have taken much longer. However, I will apply for residency to avoid having to go through the temporary visa process repeatedly.

Before I can finally start my new job as e-learning specialist with an IT company in Wellington on 15 June 2010, I have lots of things to organize, wrap up, etc. It will be a hectic 2 last weeks in Luxembourg for me before I go on the 19,025 km journey to Wellington via Singapore and Sydney.

Everything will be new for me: the job, the country, and the hemisphere. But what about the continent? I had wondered if New Zealand belongs to a continent, but it is already too far away from Australia. Geo-politically, it is grouped under Oceania, but does not belong to the continent of Australia. It is just a group of islands. Thus, no continent for me.

I am very excited to embark on this new adventure. Thanks to the internet, staying in touch won’t be a big problem though I will miss face-to-face encounters.

Let the adventure begin. :-)

Takeaway university

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In Wikipedia, the definition for take-out (takeaway) is “food purchased at a restaurant for the purpose of being eaten elsewhere. The restaurant may or may not provide table service.” So what would that make a Takeaway University?

Is it a university where the education is purchased for the purpose of being consumed somewhere else, but maybe also on university grounds?

Lots of takeaway food is fast food: cheap and with a questionable health aspect. Does that mean that you get a cheap education at the Takeaway University, but one that is also of inferior quality?

At the Takeaway University you should be able to order anything that’s on the menu in any order and also multiple times.

Are there different Takeaway Universities specializing in certain menus, i.e. study programs?

Is the Takeaway University a university on demand?

Does the Takeaway University deliver content in bite-sized servings for quick consumption during a short break?

Takeaway University

Takeaway University

Aperture 3: First impressions

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Some weeks ago I decided to purchase Aperture 3 after a long time of non-decision due to bad reviews of Aperture crashing, eating photos and databases etc. Lucky for me, I had no problems importing my Aperture 2 database and photos and everything went smoothly.

I updated to Aperture 3 not necessarily to be up-to-date with the latest software, but to take advantage of some of its features. The ones very high on my list were:

  • geotagging
  • face recognition
  • Flickr uploader

Geotagging

Up until this update, I have hardly ever geotagged my photos as the process was a bit cumbersome with an external software. It did work well, but was just not easy for the workflow. Now with “Places”, a browser view in Aperture that shows where your photos are on a map, geotagging became easy as pie. Of course, having the GPS coordinates committed to the metadata immediately upon taking the photograph would be even better, but I do not have that luxury. Thus, I go for the second best option: tagging manually.

Places works very well and you can easily see which photos you have already geotagged as they have a little red pin in the Places view.

Aperture 3: Places mode

Aperture 3: Places mode

Face recognition

At first I thought I would be finished with tagging the faces in my pictures very quickly as I hardly ever take photos with people in them (how wrong could I be?). Once I fired up the Faces browser mode, Aperture told me that it found over 10,000 (!) faces in my photos. First, I thought: Yeah, right. But then, when I saw some of the faces, it dawned on me that I indeed had a lot of photos with people in them. I just did not upload them onto Flickr. As I tend to document events like special seminars or conferences that we had organized, by default, these pictures featured mostly people.

So it took me a long while to sift through all my faces and label those that I wanted to have in my Faces browser and reject all others. As I rejected the majority of faces, Aperture was not so good in “learning faces”, but that was fine by me.

Faces is actually nothing more than a special tag for a photo with the name of the person’s face. I could have achieved something similar by tagging the photo with the name in the keyword field. However, then the name would show up as regular tag everywhere. In photos with a number of people in them, I would still not know who was who. The Faces tagging resolves that problem. In addition, I can quickly see how many photos I have of a certain person, and I only see their face in a close-up and not the entire photo. This is especially great for photos of small children. You can see their development in seconds by flipping through these close-ups.

Flickr uploader

I had hoped that the Flickr uploader that was incorporated would be FlickrExport 3 for Aperture or something similar. However, I got disappointed. The Flickr uploader merely takes photos that you have selected and creates a new album on Flickr for them. That is nice for people who start out with Flickr after purchasing Aperture, but not for all others who already have Flickr albums. The Flickr option in Aperture does not allow you to view your already existing Flickr albums and add photos to them. I learned that the hard way as I tried to upload a photo to one of my albums and another one with the same name was created in Aperture AND Flickr. In the heat of the moment, I moved the image to the already existing album and deleted the newly created one on Flickr. But alas, the album still existed in Aperture. And I can’t delete the album there. That is the only time when Aperture actually freezes me out.

Aperture still needs to do quite a bit of work on this Flickr uploader. Meanwhile, I use FlickrExport which works like a charm and does not give me headaches. :-)