Misc

The PMAC is pleased to announce that an internationally-acclaimed training provider will be offering their four-day IPMA Level-D exam prep course in Canada starting this fall. Three course sessions have been announced so far:

• Sept. 27-30, 2010 in Toronto [Details]
• Nov. 7-10, 2010 in Vancouver [Details]
• Feb. 21-24, 2011 in Toronto [Details]

Additional course details and online registration will be announced shortly. More course dates for 2011 will be announced early in the new year.

The PMAC has responded to the requests of many of our members who were looking for books to help them prepare for the CPMA (IPMA Level-D) exam. The association has reviewed many books and has recommended two that, along with the Canadian Project Management National Competency Baseline, make a good self-study package for the exam. One of these two books has also been recommended by at least two other IPMA member associations in other countries.

PMAC now offers a convenient option for online payment of progress payments for our IPMA certifications:

• Level-A: Certified Projects Director (CPD)
• Level-B: Certified Senior Project Manager (CSPM)
• Level-C: Certified Project Manager (CPM)

Payment for Level-D: Certified Project Management Associate (CPMA) certification has been available online since May.

An online payment form is now available for those wishing to apply for award assessor training for the 2010 Canadian National Project Awards. Applicants should still either fax, scan and email, or mail in the completed registration forms, but they now have the option of paying online in addition to mailing in a cheque.

A new article by PMAC Director Morley Selver has been posted giving us tips on being successful when dealing with email.

PMAC's recent webinar (2 June 2010) has been recorded, and the audio portion (in MP3 format) and the presentation slides (in Adobe PDF format) are available for free download.

On May 17-18, 2010, the Project Management Association of Canada challenged project managers to think about their career growth in terms of developing competence rather than just accumulating PDUs. PMAC had a booth at the annual ProjectWorld Toronto conference, attended by about 1,200 people this year. The annual conference brings together PM thought leaders, industry, and the practitioner community in a week-long event, two days of which make up the public symposium. This year, PMAC had a booth at the event promoting the association's competence and agile PM certifications, as well as the new Canadian National Project Awards.

PMAC Director of Awards, Alex Jalalian, and PMAC Vice President, Kevin Aguanno,
manning the booth. Photo taken by PMAC Director Keith Farndale.

In addition to long discussions with many project managers who stopped by the booth, PMAC Vice President Kevin Aguanno was also featured in a panel discussion that closed out the symposium, titled "There is NO value in certification!" in which he agreed that knowledge-based certifications like the PMP have become too common, eroding their value, while employers are looking for something else that distinguishes the "good" PMs: competence certifications.

The PM community showed a lot of interest in PMAC, with even PMI SIGs asking for details and requesting that PMAC hold a presentation for their members on competence certification.

In a related move, the PMAC has reached a preliminary agreement in principle with the hosts of the ProjectWorld Toronto conference to have our annual Canadian National Project Awards hosted at next year's event. More details will follow on this exciting development.

A new article has been posted to our web site titled "Is There Any Value to PM Certification?" This is the latest article by our Vice President, Kevin Aguanno.

The University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario) has extended the number of times it is offering the PMAC-accredited "Introduction to Agile Project Management" course. This 3-day course qualifies students to write the Certified Agile Project Manager exam from the PMAC.

Currently, UW is running its next session of this course on June 21-23, 2010. New sessions have just been announced for October 18-20, 2010 and January 17-19, 2011.

Details and online registration at the university web site at: http://ce.uwaterloo.ca/projectmanagement.html#apm

The PMAC is pleased to announce that it is hosting a FREE webinar on 2 June 2010 at Noon Eastern time that will answer your questions about our Certified Project Management Associate (CPMA) qualification. This internationally-recognized IPMA Level-D certification is offered by the Project Management Association of Canada to project managers and senior project team members around the world. There will be a short formal presentation followed by a Q&A session where participants can get all of their questions answered, including information on our new IPMA Level-D online exam. A limited number of participants will be accepted, so register online today to make sure you get in to this FREE event. Find out how you can take advantage of the current big discount on IPMA Level-D certification: currently $150, regularly $350 -- save $200.