Lucky Seven – Happy Birthday to Arras

Posted on | April 3, 2009 | Author: | lindsayascott | No Comments

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Birthday Badge

We’re seven years old this month and time has certainly flown by! During April we’re celebrating our birthday in a number of ways, including seven free clinics for seven people on the 27th April.

Last night we’ went out for our Birthday meal, it was booked for 7 o’clock, and we had seven courses! We were hoping the bar bill might be £777.77 but hey it’s work today so we reined ourselves in a bit!

Speaking to my mum about our birthday she remarked that 7 years old didn’t seem a very long time at all (I think she was referring to the fact that many businesses are normally in operate for 100 years before they can promote their birthdays openly!) Well Woolworths we ain’t (est 1909) but we’ve certainly seen many changes over the last 7 years in programme and project management (recruitment).

2002 – We established the business because as programme and project managers who had responsibility for hiring we struggled to find recruitment businesses that really understood the skills, expertise, context and competencies of good project staff. We picked a difficult time to start, especially after the effects of 9/11.

In the project management world, the economic downturn and the events of 11 September had impacted many sectors and job opportunities. Key issues at project management conferences included; stakeholder influence, industry wide standards for transferring working practices and linking benefits to programme outcomes. OGC launches the Successful Delivery Toolkit

Meanwhile the rest of the UK had the firefighters strike, Cheriegate, the Golden Jubilee, and a Beautiful Mind won the Oscars

2003 – And we knew we were on to a good thing, we quickly outgrew our premises and moved the headquarters to the beautiful North in search of work/ life balance and the Pennines on the downstep.

In the project management world, strategic management and strategic change were the hot topics and the push for sharing best practice was gaining momentum. Conferences were covering these areas plus portfolio management, project reviews and PMOs. OGC issues a press release “Civil Servants experienced in project and programme management are to be offered new career support to help strengthen the skills required to manage major projects and programmes, especially those related to construction, IT-enabled business change and property.” MSP was also released.

It was also the time for SARS, David Blaine in a Box, Bye Bye to Concorde, and Hello to the Terminator

2004 – Was the year we got involved in supporting the PPSOSIG and started networking much more within the project management community. We started being selected for more and more preferred suppliers lists for project management recruitment

In the project management world, project control is the hot topic as both Public and Private sectors seek to eliminate overruns from their projects and programmes. The OGC launch their guidance on Centres of Excellence and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair underlined the increasing emphasis on delivery skills in managing large projects in February 2004 when he stated that:

“The Civil Service needs to be valued as much for its capacity to deliver as for its policy skills.”

It was also the time for blogging, the Games in Athens, Wardrobe Malfunctions, and The Opening and Closing of the Fountain

2005 – We officially launched our project management careers clinics, were working hard on developing our third sector project management knowledge, and were working on vast amount of rail and education sector requirements.

In the project management world, MS Project 2003 was all the rage! The ITIL framework went under a refresh and PRINCE2 had a revised manual. APM launches its new Introductory Certificate in Project Management and Project of the Year was awarded to Thames Valley Police Firearms Training Centre!

It was also the time for a day never to forget, Katrina arrived, Live Aid Second Time Around, and A winning summer

2006 – We won our first major tender for a large local authority supplying programme and project management resources, launched the bookshop and made sure we had lots of fun inbetween include sponsoring our own dog racing event! We also launched our annual project management benchmark report which carries on to this day – we now have four years of project management salary and rate information. How to Manage a Camel was also launched late in

Posh Pud No.7 Course

2006.

In the project management world, benefits management was the hot topic at the PPSOSIG conference, project of the year goes to London Underground for their project management in adding of a 7^th car to 61Jubilee Line trains, below budget and on time.

It was also the time for a Crash at the Oscars, Google Buys You Tube, French Youth Protests, and Hamas wins elections

2007 -We finally manage to keep to our monthly issues of Project Management Tipoffs (our newsletter), spend time hanging out at APM events after becoming a corporate member (alongside our REC membership for recruitment professionals)

In the project management world, APM launches its petition for Chartered Status, project of the year is won by BAE Systems for providing a new and innovative support solution for the RAF’s Tornado fleet. MSP refresh and the new ITIL is launched in London. Tools, Approaches and Techniques was the hot topic for PMOs at the PPSOSIG conference.

It was also the time for the iPhone to arrive, an astronaut in trouble , a singer departs , and the sub prime mortgage crisis starts

2008 – We kick off our ISO9001 accreditation bid thanks to one of our employees being a quality specialist, advertise regularly in APM magazine with our recruitment feature spread, and become regular contributors to PMI editorials.

In the project management world we saw the launch of P3O (finally a good guidance for PMOs!), Terminal Five finally opens (a landmark project). Project of the Year was awarded to Rolls-Royce for its work on the Defence Aerospace Operations (DAO) facility in Bristol.

In the news Old Headliners, US elections, Mumbai attacks and the Olympic Games