Glad to see you all again,

I also though Linkedin immediately. As already stated, there is no discussion at linkedin, maybe because everyone there sells themselves as consultants? There is no professional - trainee opportunities, just client - consultant. Throw a topic at linkedin and your audience will be divided in people who revers your opinion on the topic and people who will defend their opinion on the topic, against yours, at any costs. 

In my time (Yet I'm not that old, but knowledge grows incredibly fast in the current times) there was not so many resources to learn, and having support from professionals with years of experience helped me to become very good at controlling a Critical Path Network in a very short amount of time. I think Planning Planet keeps being an important repository of knowledge on Project Controls, but the current generations are so used at immediate solutions! there is no digging into the depths of a problem to build an answer, there is this unwritten rule of the internet "No matter what your problem is, someone has faced it before and has already found a solution, and that solution surely is in the internet". A good example for this is stackoverflow.com

The difference in Planning Planet then is the close support from experienced professionals willing to share their TAKE (not their SOLUTION) on a problem. The first key difference is the Project approach: Since a project is a "Temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result", then a person arriving to Planning Planet should not expect to find the solution for the unique requirements of his/her project, though he/she might find how the Tools are applyable to his/hers project's case. How can we foster this approach instead of this trending take-knowledge-and-leave-the-source?

The second key are the Tools. I will not enter the discussion on what PM software is better because we already know it's Spider Project, the Tools I am talking about is the old Critical Path Method. Maybe I should have said skills. Understanding that the Critical Path Network contains all the scope of a Project is the key for rich discussions:

• Understand that every activity has at least one predecessor and one succesor, then it has float AND it falls inside the Project's Scope.
• Grow it a level, understand that no plan will come exactly as planned: scope can increase, resorces may scarce, the Critical Path will change, time to reach milestones will change, claims are natural. 
• Grow it a level, understand that every activity should be performed by some person, then it has resources and costs, and they fit inside the Critical Path Network's database, why not? It is just natural.
• Grow it a level, understand that every activity has risk, then it has buffer. 

Take the opposite approach: What is your project's risk approach if there is no Critical path? How much software and resources does your project need to control costs? Have you suffered from being delayed months on the delivery of a project, but have no critical path to understand and prove delays? How do you notice delays in your project delivery, if you are not updating a CPM network?

Of course, better quality in the Project Controls trade means more, better business for us people involved on Critical Path jobs (Except Mike, Mike grows rich from projects with no controls. But Claims is also a CPM trade, no?) But what else is our interest in improving the quality of the Project Controls trade?