Dear members,
Welcome to a special edition of the PP Newsletter!
Thank you for your continued support – we trust you will like the news that we are about to break....
New Community Site
You’ve all seen by now the new version of the website a ‘beta’ version. It has been a major step for us and we want to thank the large proportion of the membership who have contacted us with good ideas, new requirements and constructive criticism. You have helped us spot the bugs that need fixing and we hope you like the changes we have rolled out over the past two weeks.
Since going live, member visits have increased by 40%, and as expected, some users, need some time to get to grips with the new layout and functionality, but on the whole it seems to be a huge success for us all. We have lots of changes, tweaks and adjustments to still to make and we would like to hear feedback at [email protected]
A new site was a must – we need to become a little more professional but more importantly, to have the technology back-bone in place to be able to offer our members the functionality that is required. Users can configure their account to bring back the digger-man if they prefer the old-school format and we have plans to bring bring back the 'man typing' too. We have added a "HELP page" to the main menu to help us add explanatory text to explain the questions coming-in, so let us know what you want us to add to it to help explain things.
In addition, to enable our sponsors to put their cases forward in a comprehensive manner and now we have the space to do that. These organisations have allowed PP to enhance its’ offer to you and the editorial team thank them for their commitment and are sure of the long term success in their involvement with PP.
We would like to welcome "TURNER & TOWNSEND" who have just recently signed up with Planning Planet to support our International Accreditation Process.
Planning Planet would also like to thank all of our other existing Corporate Sponsors; Network Rail, Mott MacDonald and Trade Sponsors Oracle Primavera, Asta PowerProject, ForgeTrack, Synchro and CMCS for their continued support. Planner-Recognition and Accreditation has become a by-word here at PP and we thank the editorial team, Ray Pope and Matt Edwards for their commitment to the cause. Shortly we will be dedicating a section of the site to Accreditation – exchange your views, join the forum and contact the Team directly – we can’t do it without you!
PP Recognition / Planner Accreditation is Progressing
As most of you are now aware, the Planning Planet Accreditation System (PPAS) is in full swing and we at Planning Planet have a world class accreditation scheme firmly underway that all planners, schedulers and project controls professionals can be proud of.
Our global team is currently divided into 3 regions covered by a chief editor, who are each supported by key players across the spectrum of industries. The good people are helping us coordinate and drive the process. We have had a number of small face-to-face 'ideas and lest question ourselves meetings' to date in the UK but much of the good work is being done regionally utilising conference-call facilities and driven forward (to a plan!) by all of the Planning Planet chief accreditation editors.
What (we believe) also makes the PPAS different from anything else in the world and ever seen before, is the ability and power to harness and share community knowledge, experience and passion between the planning, scheduling and project controls through our accreditation structure and the growing list of international companies and organisations who are supporting it. Indeed, many of our sponsors create products that will form part of the Accreditation process (i.e. knowledge of product etc).
We have just had another forward thinking meeting with all of the chief accreditation editors via conference call. Topics discussed include the peer review of the documents to data collection and best practices. As we are one, we will deliver the hopes and wishes for the community through the PPAS and our editorial team. International coordination conference calls will be ongoing but the next Face-to-Face PPAS meeting is on 15th November in London. Would you like to come and voice your questions and / or opinions to help us shape this for our future?
PP will be opening an office – initially in the UK
Our founder is now working full time on PP and we are setting up an office with three full time staff and one floater (if you see what we mean)... have any of you any ideas of available space?
We will of course inform you all when we’re up and running! Again, even more we would like volunteers to help PP...Captain Mainwaring would still like some Dad’s Army recruits- your experience is ‘platinum’ to us.
Here is potentially the biggest item and the issue that we wanted to concentrate upon for this Newsletter...
PP is forming an INTERNATIONAL GUILD of Planning
The only issue at the moment is a name! Please dear member, contact [email protected] with your ideas. Here are some that have already come in:
We need to use the word International - so here is a long-winded attempt...
- Guild of International Planning, Scheduling, Project Control and Project Delivery (PSPCPD)
- Guild of International Planning and Associated Disciplines (iPAD) or (igPAD)
Of concern to PP is: Does Planning cover Project Control in your eyes? Do our American colleagues require ‘Scheduling’ to be included? Planning is important to every member of the Project Team – we should find a way of including them shouldn’t we?
Obviously we cannot stress enough the importance of this... please just take 5 minutes to voice your opinion and contact [email protected]
So, the Guild will be International; Head Quartered in the UK. Our Consuls can represent the Guild in their areas, we will be in touch soon to discuss further with our Consul network which we still need to expand – so once again please mail [email protected] if you wish to be considered.
To summarise the current planning with respect to YOUR Guild:
- Officers of the Guild will be recruited from our membership and will be voted for every two years.
- A secretary needs to be appointed please contact us at PP if you wish to be considered.
- As usual(!) there will be Fellowships, Scholarships and we will recognise academic achievement from other professional organisations.
- We will reduce the subscription rate to recognise members who through their environment earn less.
- Attainment of PP Accreditation will be recognised to Fellow status.
- We realise there are a few Fellows already in our Team. Membership cards, benefits (what ideas do you have?), subscription rates, etc we are currently working on.
- Fellowships, associate memberships, Corporate members etc, will be authorised by the Guild Senate.
- This will be independently and transparently run by the Community for the Community.
Please let us know what other ideas you have on how YOUR Guild that gives YOU professional recognition should be run by emailing us at [email protected]
Member Poll
Planning Planet would like to gauge members reaction to forging closer links to other bodies, institutions and Confederations such as the CIOB, PMI, APM, AcostE etc.
Whilst setting up a Guild: PP needs to take into consideration such Organisations and this could become a never ending list, so we need your help. Please mail us at [email protected]
How should we work with?: the CIOB, the PMI, the APM, the AcostE etc...
In Conclusion
It all adds up to a fair bit of decision making – please advise us!! Here is a guide..
- New Site............comments please.
- Guild name........do you like iPAD or please suggest something good.
- Please name Organisations you’d like to see PP work closely with: e.g. the CIOB? PMI? Others?
We thank you for your time, passion to become involved and make a difference and also for your continued support.
Be proud of your planning....
The PP Team