Annual Conference with ProgM - "Mind the Gap"

Conference Report

For those of you who were unfortunate enough to miss it, PROMS-G in conjunction with ProgM again held their annual conference at the prestigious Inmarsat Conference Centre in central London on the 21st April. Those who did manage to attend experienced an enjoyable and worthwhile day listening to a number of industry leaders address this year's conference topic of the perennial disconnect between business strategy and the planned benefits that the resultant information systems are designed to deliver; this problem exists in every industry vertical to a greater or lesser degree.

When searching for a memorable title of the conference the London Underground unwittingly supplied the answer with their ubiquitous phrase, 'Mind the Gap' so that was it, an apt warning to avoid this disconnect. The writer hopes that this phrase is not copyright. So senior speakers from six different industries were asked to give a view of the problem and how it is being addressed in their sphere of operation.

It has long been understood that few major business changes can take place without a considerable financial investment in information technology. One of the underlying objectives of our annual conference therefore is to spend the day listening to senior managers and directors addressing specific issue and subsequently being able to ask questions on the subject.

The speakers this year were Terry Dailey of Campion Willcocks & Associates who has been at the forefront of the e-Government movement in Local Government. Terry who is currently Programme Director for the National CRM programme shared his experiences in developing CRM in a number of London Boroughs. Mark Crowne who is head of the Project Management Office at Panasonic Mobile Communications Development discussed the need to have a good relationship between manufacturing and development. Mike Attwood, General Manager of the Performance Improvement Centre within Sainsbury's Supermarkets Limited and Stuart Fisher of Boxwood gave a joint presentation on how retail use IT to provide a better customer service. Also speaking was Mark Gilligan, Managing Director of Syrris discussed efficiency improvement in the pharmaceutical industry. Vince Fisher who is the Senior Project Sponsor at AWE plc Aldermaston looked at both sides of the problem, does the user know what he wants and can the IT department supply it? Finally Yorai Linenberg, Head of European Operations at United Management Technologies, covered the optimisation of organisational performance by the effective management of projects in the financial sector.

This year our sponsors, who make the event possible, included Campion Willcocks & Associates, the change management specialists. PIPC ltd, project management specialist providing project support and solutions worldwide. Boxwood Group who mainly provide business process improvement and the realisation of business benefits from IT systems, and Clearvision, who are a leading configuration management services company. Also supporting the conference were the Program Management Group who supplied a copy of the conference proceedings to all the delegates and Project Manager Today who donated a copy of their magazine to everybody. Each sponsor had a stand in the foyer promoting their products, which proved very popular during the breaks.

Following the first session, The PROMS-G Award, presented annually to the candidate with the highest marks in the BCS Examination for Project Management, was awarded to Mrs Bohdana Wong. Mrs Wong who works for Eqos was unfortunately unable to attend and was awarded a cheque and the commemorative glass plaque in her absence.

Analysis of the delegate appraisal forms showed that 34% of the attendees were Project Managers, 21% Programme Managers with 11% each for Programme Support Office and Project Sponsors. The Finance Industry were the best represented with 33% followed by Government and the Public Sector with 21%, the rest being fairly evenly split between Telecom, Manufacturing and Retail. Once again the venue proved to be very popular gaining one of the best ratings.

Basic planning for the 2005 conference will shortly get under way so if you have any burning issues that you would like discussed as a theme please let us know, after all it is your conference.

Following the conference, Clearvision have published the results of a survey performed at the conference regarding the use and benefits of configuration management systems.

Resources

The event was supported by: