Core Consulting Group

Project Governance

ccgadmin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:10:04 +0000

Overview

What is Governance? Ask around and you will get many and varied opinions. Most people you ask will re-iterate how important Governance is however. So, if the lack of Governance is considered a common problem, shouldn’t we all share a common view on what Governance is?

By Martin Vaughan

Martin Vaughan is a Senior Consultant and Director of Core Consulting Group. With 20 years Project Management experience, the first 10 years focused on Planning/Scheduling and EVM, together with extensive industry experience as an employer of Planner/Schedulers and Project Managers, he is well placed to comment.

Martin lectures in IT Project Management at Melbourne University at a Post Graduate level, writes and speaks regularly in various industry forums. He has developed a number of Graduate Programs and has led skills development in and around Planning and Scheduling for years.

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Adapting to the Changing Nature of Project Information

ccgadmin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:56:22 +0000

Overview

This whitepaper explores the impact some newer technologies and social media are having or going to have on the nature of project information. It also looks at how we, as users of project information, can adapt to meet the changing environment.

by Chris Dwyer

Chris is a Senior Consultant and Director of Core Consulting Group. He is an active member of both AIPM and PMI PMO Special Interest Groups and has provided guidance to a range of organisations around PMO implementation.

Dependency Management: are we there yet?

ccgadmin — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 02:34:04 +0000

Overview

This whitepaper explores some of the challenges in dependency management. Readers will take away recommendations as to how they can go about improving dependency management within their projects and programs.

by James Torrington

James Torrington is a Planner / Scheduler at Core Consulting Group. he is certified with PMI’s Scheduling Professional accreditation (PMI-SP) and is a PRINCE2 Practitioner.

Dependency Management Are We There Yet?

Estimation and Cost Training

ccgadmin — Wed, 11 May 2011 00:12:47 +0000

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Energy Retailer- Program Cost Management

ccgadmin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:09:31 +0000

Origin Energy is a top 100 ASX listed company involved in gas and oil exploration and production, energy retailing, power generation and utility network management. The BOND Program was the integration of Sun Retail (Energex – A Queensland Electricity business) into Origin Energy. This change resulted in Origin Energy’s mass market customer base doubling in size.

Core Consulting Group was engaged to assist the PMO in developing capability to provide weekly cost estimation and forecasting. The main objective of this was to provide visibility and traceability of the program’s costs and to be able to forecast the estimate to completion in line with time (schedule) based modelling. Core Consulting Group also implemented a simple and pragmatic Earned Value Management System to provide improved indicators of project performance.

Core Consulting Group’s provided tracking and forecasting capability for labour and fixed cost elements. The system allowed for project managers to view actual costs and report future estimates at a granular level quickly and easily. Core Consulting Group’s systematic approach and attention to detail was a major enabler for successful Program delivery.

Planning Training- State Government

ccgadmin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:29:30 +0000

The Department of Planning & Community Development (DPCD) manages the state’s planning system with a focus on building stronger communities. To achieve this they provide research, policy and planning advice, administer legislation and regulations, invest in infrastructure and services and advocate for the needs of key population groups.

DPCD was standardising and improving its delivery process and was keen for affected stakeholders to be trained in not only the new “Project Plan” template but the key aspects of planning. What resulted was a tailored training course which combined generic content with DPCD specific content, aimed at producing a quality planning document artefact.

Core Consulting Group structured the course around the following key components:

Scoping the project (incl governance and objectives)
Scheduling
Estimating cost
Assessing Risk
Finalising the document

Participants provided positive feedback and DPCD was extremely happy with the outcome, so much so they extended the engagement to provide additional courses to other stakeholders.

MS Project Scheduling training courses

ccgadmin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:09:53 +0000

Wholly owned by the Leighton Group, Nextgen Networks is a national telecommunications carrier that specialises in high performance, premium data services for the corporate, government and carrier markets. As part of uplifting Project Management capability, it was recognised there was a deficiency in the capability of Project Management related staff in the use of Microsoft Project for scheduling. Core Consulting Group (CCG) was asked to provide an experienced instructor and courseware.
With experience in scheduling and the Microsoft Project tool dating back to when it was first released in Windows, one of Core Consulting Group’s Senior Consultants was the lead instructor. CCG combined previous courseware, a partner organisation’s reference book as well as customised exercises to provide not only the tool “how to” but also the underlying “how to plan”. As part of service provision Core Consulting Group also provided Nextgen with a number of MS Project innovations.
Participants provided positive feedback and Nextgen indicated they were happy with the result, particularly the improved quality of schedules which resulted.

Project Management in the hands of the Gen Y PM

ccgadmin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 03:33:36 +0000

Overview

What are the implications, if any, for the future of Project Management given that Generation Y is going to be the source for future Project Managers. Project Management in the hands of Gen Y paper, presented at the AIPM 2010 Conference in Darwin.

Presented by Joanne Hurley

Jo Hurley is a Senior Consultant at Core Consulting Group. She has over ten years Project Management, Consulting, Training and Assessment experience.

PMgt in the hands of the Gen Y PM

SharePoint based Project and Portfolio Management Tools

ccgadmin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 02:26:32 +0000

Overview

Since the first release of SharePoint in 2001, it has been hugely successful in delivering team collaboration capability. Recently however, with the release of SharePoint 2010 a range of SharePoint based Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) tools are entering their second and third generation. It is the purpose of this whitepaper to explore these SharePoint PPM offerings and discuss where they sit in the context of more traditional Project Management tools.

By Chris Dwyer

Chris Dwyer is a Senior Consultant and Director of Core Consulting Group. He is an active member of both AIPM and PMI PMO Special Interest Groups and has provided guidance to a range of organisations around PMO implementation and optimization.

SharePoint based Project and Portfolio Management

CCG Case Study- Estimation & Cost Training- Telecommunications

ccgadmin — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:15:54 +0000

Alcatel-Lucent – Estimation and Cost Training
Alcatel-Lucent was engaged by Telstra to deliver the multi-billion dollar Titan Program. The Alcatel-Lucent Titan Program Office Manager engaged Core Consulting Group (CCG) to train the PMO staff so they could assist with multiple PMO roles. The engagement resulted in a partnership with the Alcatel-Lucent Open University, an internal on line training capability.

CCG had also been engaged to define the Estimating and Cost management standards as a basis against which the training content could be structured. Together with guide information and numerous hands on exercises, CCG provided a practical blend of theory and practice, guiding participants on how estimating and cost management was done at Alcatel-Lucent.

The outcome of this work was a lasting self paced course which is currently offered to Alcatel-Lucent staff.