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March 31, 2007
The Pub of The Year!
Our Mutual Friend, the local mecca for real ale in Stevenage, has won the North Herts CAMRA Pub of The Year for a second year running 
They're having a presentation tonight, so it seems rude not to pop along. We're then off to Chicago's. Guna be a long night 
Posted by alan at 3:28 PM
March 28, 2007
Objectives Finalised Now!
Got then today, formally. Not everyone's going to be interested, so they're in the extended bit if you want to have a look. Will be interesting seeing how many are achieved, and how many get taken over by events and fail. Experience tells me I'll be lucky to get half done by the middle of the year without something coming along and moving things to the right
Role
- Identifies and builds on good practice and innovative ideas and assists in the company increasing in its capability in Project Management (PM) - delivering the business to performance, cost and schedule.
- Designs and implements Project Management (PM) business processes, systems, tools and associate skills and knowledge development activities.
- Interfaces with the performing organisation and their respective project team members to provide "hands on Support" to the business with respect to Project Management (PM) practices.
- Interfaces with other nations in order to define and put in to practice "a common approach to Project Management (PM)". Aligning practices Project Management (PM) strategies with Italy and Germany.
- Interface with all levels of management within the business, shareholders, external bodies, Companies and the customer - aligning Project Management (PM) practices and approaches.
- Designs and delivers training and workshops with respect to Project Management (PM) capability development in the company.
- Provides day to day Project Management (PM) Tools support to the Performing Organisation.
- Team member working without supervision and supporting / supervising other team members as required.
Specific
- Support Primavera integration to meet business requirements.
- Prepare reporting systems to compliment Primavera/SAP PS.
- Project Management (PM) Buysite representative.
- Project Management (PM) website design.
- Project Management (PM) survey
Objectives
- Workload Forecast (WLF)
- Shadow current owner in 2007 to understand process and IT
- Perform WLF in Q3 2007 with current owner supporting
- PM Survey
- Shareholder PM Survey result compilation and analysis
- Design and produce web-based survey for shareholders and the company
- Mature PM Survey - research and implement new concepts of measuring maturity
- Promote PM Survey to the company
- Primavera
- Launch website
- Train and provide ongoing support to IMPACT plan administrator
- Initiate and run Project Planning expert user forums/workshops(Start April 07)
- Hand over Primavera Support Roles to other team members (share skills and knowledge) (start May 07)
- Project Management Scheduling
- Perform Scheduling overview training and workshops to wider company community including Exec team. (10 workshops over the year)
- Spend 33% of time away from your desk - get out into the community and promote good practice and support the projects (This means a third of your work time!!)
Posted by alan at 1:27 PM
March 22, 2007
No More Clusters
At last, after years of talking, and not actually doing anything, I read that the UK has banned cluster bombs. Sure, it's only the so-called 'dumb' ones, but it's a start. And, yes, those cynics amongst you will, like me, say it's only because the replacement, Staff Target (Air) 1238, Brimstone is now in service that they're withdrawing RBL755. However, it does also cover similar muntions in the GMLRS system.
The fact the UK has become the first major power to scrap 'dumb' cluster muntions is a start. We'll just wait and see if the Cluster Munition Coalition campaign can convince other countries to take steps and follow the UK.
Posted by alan at 1:01 PM
March 21, 2007
A Bad Day at the Office?
Sent via a friend at work, sometimes things just don't work out - Lost driver hits 6 cars, 2 trees and 1 wall.
Posted by alan at 12:38 PM
March 20, 2007
It's Here!
Primavera release 6 BETA has arrived
First looks indicate it's loads better than release 4.1, which we're currently using. Of course, that's a bad comparison since some of these new features probably appeared in release 5. Which means I'll need to revisit 5 and understand what changes have been made, as well as any bugs that might have crept in.
The best feature, though, by far, is the web-based planning. It's really cool, fast, and simple to use. And I reckon it'll appeal to all the users we've got who don't like the client because it's too much for what they want to do. I won't say what, but many of our users use another application, and I can see this allowing them to move to the company's preferred project management tool at last.
Busy times ahead, testing, evaluating, and assessing changes to training. Like I wasn't busy at the moment anyway
Posted by alan at 12:35 PM
March 19, 2007
Snow, err, where?
So, rushed home back from Hull last night to avoid the chaos and bad weather. Only to awake this morning and find...... NOTHING 
Does anyone else think that the Met Office is getting more and more cautious with their forecasts, ever since getting caught out back in 1987? I mean, it was a severe weather warning yesterday.
Posted by alan at 12:34 PM
March 18, 2007
Home Again
And checking my email. Not had chance to download for over a week, for various reasons. So, before falling asleep at the keyboard, it's a quick check on the online world
Another corking link from Ian, this time a brilliant rendition of Smooth Criminal and Owner of A Lonely Heart on violin
There's a few more, but what Ian really needs is a blog to post them all up on
Posted by alan at 10:34 PM
March 17, 2007
Some Great Finds
After the UK Whitegoods Meeting, I travelled back up to Hull with Nige. I needed to get a drivers door handle for Gareth's Polo, so it seemed a good idea to drop in to Simpsons Salvage on the way. Yes, I know it's not exactly on the way back, but it's not far out of the way, now, is it
Found the Polo, after a few calls to Gareth to check. Turns out the door handle design changed quite considerably the year his was manufactured. And at £10 I didn't want to be getting the wrong one. The big find, though, was a Jaguar V8 Sovereign, with a full set of interior mats, chrome V8 front grill, rear airvent, and highlevel brake light. Nige was over the moon, particularly since he's been watching eBay for months now, trying to get a rear airvent for reasonable money. Of course, we knew that, being Jag, it was going to be silly money when we got to the desk to settle. So, imagine Nige's surprise when the bloke said it'd be £65 plus VAT
We paid and made a sharp exit before he changed his mind
Posted by alan at 6:34 PM
March 15, 2007
He's Gone!
Just settling down for the news tonight, and Luton have sacked Newell after Tuesday's game against Hull.
I was only reading at lunchtime former Coventry boss Micky Adams views on who's up and down at the end of the season, and making my predictions as to who I think will be on their way out. Leeds, Luton, and QOR are my thoughts, and after this evenings news, Luton have to be odds-on for relegation, surely. I just hope the Tigers keep it going Saturday at Sunderland.
Posted by alan at 10:04 PM
March 11, 2007
Each One Counts Now!
Nail biting stuff in the pub yesterday for Chris' birthday. Up in Hull for a weekend sorting the computers at GT again, and then an afternoon in a local pub listening to the game.
And they pulled one out the bag, and beat Preston Hopefully this is the start of a second wind, after last Tuesday's depressing whietwash at home to Ipswich. We'll see this coming Tuesday, when they're just round the corner at Luton
Owh, and before I forget, who's top of the Super League at the mo?
Posted by alan at 12:52 PM
March 10, 2007
Windohs, Arghhh!
That's it, I'm off down the pub to watch the match Having wasted nearly 2 days now trying to get the 2 PC's connected, like they used to be, it's now telling me that my Windows XP install with deactivate in 30 days because the activation has already been done for the licence key I've got. Err, yes, I know, because I did it 2 years ago when we bought copies. Arghhh
Now, I'll take the fact it does look like some, okay 6 Trojans, have smashed up the registry. But I'd hope and expect just reinstalling the operating system from scratch would solve all these problems. And whhhhyyyyyyy does just about every help file and support option want web access now. I can't access the web, that's the problem, so don't ask me to email or go to a website. Beer, now
Posted by alan at 2:52 PM
March 8, 2007
No More Joy From Pandora's Box?
Reading the BBC News this lunchtime, and after raving about Pandora.com last month, it could be forced off the air by increases in royalty payments
Ever since Ian introduced me to it over Christmas, I've been listening to all manner of different music. And it's got me into buying bands I'd never have thought of as a result. I do hope it's sorted out, and an agreement can be reached. Just sounds like yet another badly thought out decision bby the music industry
Posted by alan at 1:28 PM
March 7, 2007
Typhoon Increases Strength
Some news on Typhoon's successful firings of ASRAAM this past week, not that it got into the nationals from what I can read.
Posted by alan at 7:33 PM
March 5, 2007
And Then You'll Have To Kill Me...
Had a funny moment at work this morning. Giving Primavera training to a special project group. A rather intensive 1 day overview, which certainly had them all looking dizzy and suffering Brain overload by the end 
The funny bit was not thinking through my usual speal, "Hi, my name is Alan Bell, and I'll be teaching you the in's and out's of Primavera...". At the end of the intro, I ask everyone to introduce themselves, and give a little background on the project they're working on, and experience of project management tools. Of course, as soon as I said, "and tell me a little about the project you're working on...", I got some very worried looks.
Posted by alan at 10:15 PM
March 2, 2007
No More Simpsons
So, having threatened to do it, Virgin Media switched off Sky channels yesterday. No more Simpsons. That's the hurt for me. I'm not at all bothered about all the other Sky stuff. What am I going to watch with me curry now?
Had a letter from Virgin Media explaining how this improves the service. I can't really say I agree, having now lost 4 channels since they changed their name from NThelL to Virgin Media. And, as far as I can see on the bill, the price hasn't dropped to reflect this degradation of service.
Good to see that the National Consumer Council is talking about how chidish this all is. Lets hope they can kick BSkyB and Virgin Media into being sensible about this. I want my Simpsons back
Posted by alan at 8:13 PM
March 1, 2007
My First PM Presentation
Got a presentation this afternoon for our Sofware department at work. Different from the normal ones I've been doing, as our boss, Andrew Brown, should've been doing it. As he's tied up, and they also want an overview of Primavera, I'm doing it. My first What Is Project Management? presentation
There's an excellent example of what goes wrong when you're not managing effectively as a team, which I'll show you offline. We'll see what the audience reaction is like in about 2 hours time. Better get going, it's in Reading so I've a bit of a drive ahead.
Posted by alan at 12:33 PM