| Roundup News | International Roundup - Vol 18, No 4 |
|
|
|
2006 ICEC / IPMA Congress in SloveniaThe 1st ICEC and IPMA Global Congress was held between 23-26 April in Ljubljana, Slovenia. This Congress incorporated both the 5th ICEC World Cost Engineering, Project Management, Cost Management and Quantity Surveying Congress and the IPMA Global Congress on Project Management. The hosts of the conference, the Slovenian Project Management Association (ZPM), have been longstanding members of both ICEC and IPMA and have organised several international events for Slovenian and foreign experts in the past. The theme of the congress was “Value Management, How to ensure value for project stakeholders”. More information is available at the Congress web site. ICEC's application for United Nations NGO status progresses
ICEC’s application to gain non-government organisation (NGO) Roster Status with the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) was considered at the ECOSOC meeting in January 2006 which decided to recommend that Roster Consultative Status be granted to [the] International Cost Engineering Council. This recommendation is subject to the approval of the Economic and Social Council, which will consider and take action on the Committee's recommendation at its forthcoming session, tentatively scheduled for May 2006. To be eligible for consultative status, an NGO must have been in existence (officially registered with the appropriate government authorities as an NGO/non-profit) for at least two years, must have an established headquarters, a democratically adopted constitution, authority to speak for its members, a representative structure, appropriate mechanisms of accountability and democratic and transparent decision-making processes. The basic resources of the organization must be derived in the main part from contributions of the national affiliates or other components or from individual members. For more information about ECOSOC NGO consultation status can be found on the ECOSOC web-site. Dates set for ICEC Regional meetingsDates have been set for three of four forthcoming ICEC Regional meetings. Region 1 (The Americas) will be meeting on 19 June 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. This is meeting is being held in association with the AACEI Annual General Meeting. Region 2 (Europe and the Near East) will meet in London on 21 October 2006 and Region 4 is meeting in Singapore, in conjunction with the PAQS Congress, on 20 May 2006. Member associations and delegates will be notified of further details of these meetings closer to the date. Continuing Professional DevelopmentICEC Member Associations may seek ICEC accreditation of Cost Engineering, Quantity Surveying, and Project Management certification and continuing professional development programs (CPD), provided that these programs meet ICEC standards for recognition. To date 12 member associations have been granted ICEC accreditation for CPD programs. Persons qualified under any of these accredited programs are entitled to use the ICEC name and logo and the post-nominals ICECA to designate their achievement. ICEC member societies which have not yet submitted an application for recognition of their certification or continuing professional development programs are encouraged to do so in order to gain worldwide recognition, both for the programs and for the individuals who have earned certification. An application for accreditation of any project management, cost engineering, or quantity surveying program may be made online at http://www.icoste.org/certapp.htm. Criteria for recognition of programs is at http://www.icoste.org/guidl.htm. ICEC member recruitment and retention strategy surveyEffective and resource efficient strategies for recruiting and retaining members are of interest to professional associations across the board, including ICEC member associations. The ICEC Council meeting in Slovenia has agreed to a project that aims to promote effective member recruitment and retention strategies by ICEC member associations and institutes by:
It is proposed that a survey will be provided to member associations and institutes in late 2006. The survey will ask for descriptions, a basic evaluation and, where possible, contact details of people who would be willing to provide further information and assistance to members who are considering pursuing similar strategies. Members will also be asked to provide information about access to associated materials, for example cost and copyright policies. Another shorter “five minute” survey designed for completion by individual association and institute members will be available on-line. Member associations and institutes will be asked to publicize this survey to its members. The results of the survey will be compiled and analyzed by the ICEC Secretariat and the results made available to member associations.
Don't be left out!Selected forthcoming events are featured in the Coming Events page of each issue of International Roundup. Please contact the ICEC Secretariat if you would like your coming event to be featured in the October issue or to have your event included in the ICEC Calendar.
|
ICEC welcomes PM - Greece and the Australian Cost Engineering SocietyThe International Cost Engineering Council (ICEC) has welcomed PM - Greece (PMG) and the Australian Cost Engineering Council (ACES) to ICEC at its Council meeting this month. Discussions with other potential new member associations, including the China Engineering Cost Association and the Cost Engineering Workgroup - Germany, are ongoing. ICEC welcomes applications by suitably qualified associations. Contact ICEC Secretariat or look at the ICEC web site for further information.
ICEC leaders keynote speakers at the 2006 ICEC / IPMA CongressICEC Chairman, Professor JJP (Basie) Verster, have joined Adesh Jain, Dr Brane Semolic, Michel Thiry and Professor Robert D Hisrich in delivering key-note speeches during the Plenary Session of the 1st ICEC and IPMA Global Congress on Project Management, which is to incorporate the 19th International Cost Engineering Congress. Professor Verster, Mr Jain and Dr Semolic are Presidents of International Cost Engineering Council (ICEC) member associations in their countries highlighting the depth of talent and expertise within the ICEC community.  Professor JJP (Basie) Verster (PhD) is Chairman of ICEC for the term April 2004 – April 2006. He is also President of the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors from 1997-1998 and was Chairman of the South African Alliance of Development Professions during 199. He is a member of the South African Council for the Quantity Surveying Profession. He is also an active member on eleven (11) other professional associations, institutions or committees. As practitioner, he has been involved in some of the major property developments including shopping centres, malls, sport stadiums, medical facilities and office buildings. Professor Verster is Head of the Department of Quantity Surveying and Construction Management at the University of the Free State since 1983. In his paper, titled Managing cost, contracts, communication and claims, A quantity surveying perspective of future opportunites Professor Verster contends that pro-active and effective management of cost, contracts, communication and claims, the four C’s, will continuously become more important for developers and facilitators of physical structures and property The quantity surveyor and cost engineer should understand the challenges and opportunities presented by the needs of clients in relation to cost, contracts, communication and claims and perhaps focus their development on the important links between these functions. Changes and developments in the industry and market will also influence the way in which these functions are managed. For those professionals who deliver these services to the industry, the focus should be on client satisfaction and a positive experience for all concerned. Establishing a link and effectively managing the process to ensure success should be the primary aim of the manager. This should be done in close partnership with all functionaries, related to the process Planning, controlling and co-ordinating budgets and cost plans, and communicating results will ensure the limitation of claims and will contribute towards ease of contract management. The contract should also facilitate partnerships and the system should aim at satisfaction, opportunity and growth.
Adesh Jain is the first non-European President of IPMA since 1965. In 1993, Adesh started Project Management Associates (PMA), India, a not for profit registered society as its founding President - a position that he retains to this day. Since 1992 he has been deeply involved in strengthening the project management discipline globally. An originator of ‘Project Thinking’ and ‘Project Mindset’ concepts, he is a renowned PM Trainer and Consultant. His paper, Project Thinking - An essential ingredient for value enhancement argues that the 21st century is witnessing a rapid increase in the quantum of projects being undertaken at a global level. Every thing today is ‘project based’. Project management is redefined where project implies ‘vision’ or ‘strategies’ and management is to transform vision to ‘reality’ or strategies to’ deliveries’. In his talk, Adesh Jain will discuss the salient characteristics of Project Thinking as an instrument for value enhancement through institutionalization of strategic delivery processes and the navigation path to encourage inculcating the spread of project thinking both within and outside corporate and national boundaries. Project Thinking encourages risk taking, bold decision making, an attitude to bring innovations all around and to feel comfortable in uncomfortable zones. Project thinking concept is shaping the new world order.  Dr Brane Semolic is the President of the Project Management Association of Slovenia (ZPM) and is Dean of the GEA College in Ljubljana, Slovenia since 2004. He also has more than 25 years of working experiences as expert, researcher, consultant, manager and project manager in industry and for the Slovene government. Dr Semolic will draw on the following quote from Adam Smith as the starting point for his paper, Value Management – How to Ensure Value for Project Stakeholders: Every individual endeavors to employ his capital so that its produce may be of greatest value. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own security, only his own gain. (Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations, 1776) He will argue that by executing projects and introducing their intermediate and final deliverables, we are creating a new value, which is not for the project client only. We are delivering a value for all people and organizations, directly or indirectly involved in this project.  Thus we need to be aware of the problem to identify all project stakeholders on time and to understand their perspective of the project value. All projects are unique business processes and present the implementation of business development goals. Even if they are commercial projects – from a client’s perspective they are still development projects. The professionals, directly involved in and responsible for the process of development and introduction of new value into the commercial use, come from strategic management, project management, cost engineering, quantity surveying and operation management. The $ SymbolThe International Cost Engineering Council's logo depicts a stylized representation of Earth with many satellites each displaying one of the currency symbols in use at the time ICEC was founded in 1976. Several of these symbols have since been replaced by new currencies and in all probability over time there will be more such changes. One symbol which appears in the logo several times is the $ with both one and two vertical lines. At times, it has been asked why the symbol appears more than once. The answer is that this symbol is used by far more countries than any other currency symbol including the Euro and thus the ICEC logo reflects the reality of world currencies back in 1976 when ICEC was founded. The $ symbol is often thought by some to be unique to the United States. It is not and in fact probably evolved from the abbreviation for pesos, ps, in the 17th century with the s gradually being superimposed over the p. The earliest recorded use of $ was in 1776 and the first probable use by the United States was on US obligations issued in 1792. In 1797 the symbol began to be used to designate 1000 and in 1911 Portugal adopted it to designate a decimal, eg, 25$50 meaning 25.50 escudos or 25 escudos and 50 centavos. The United States does not currently use the symbol on its coins or currency. The following countries use, or have used, the $ symbol and the dollar (or a variation of the word, eg, daalder, thaler, taler, tala, ringgit, etc) as a unit of currency:
While not officially using the symbol, the following countries, among others, use or have used the word dollar or a variation of it:
These countries, and others, use or have used the symbol to denote their currency:
As can be seen, the $ and the word "dollar" are clearly widely used throughout the world and the symbol was indeed appropriate for multiple use in the ICEC logo to reflect this fact. Kenneth Humphreys, PE CCE This article is based in great part on "The Dollar Sign" by Gene Hessler, Numismatist, Vol. 118, No. 11, November 2005 IPMA 2005 World CongressReport by ICEC Administrative Vice-chair - Peter Cox FAIQS ICECA  The IPMA World Congress, which was held in New Delhi, India between 14 -16 November, was a success by any measure. The theme of the Congress was “Vision to reality-the project management way”. It was the largest Project Management Congress held since 1967 and the first IPMA Congress to be held outside of Europe. I was privileged to represent both the International Cost Engineering Council (ICEC) and the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (AIQS) at this Congress. Brane Semolic and Andrej Kerin of the Slovensko združenje za projektni management (the Slovenian Project Management Association or ZPM) also represented ICEC. One thousand, two hundred and seventy delegates from 62 countries attended the Congress with 229 of these coming from overseas. Among the delegates were two students from Anna University in Chennai in southern India whose registration was sponsored by AIQS. Indian Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, officially opened Congress and Dr Karan Singh set the tone of the Congress during the inauguration ceremony with an inspirational speech. The Indian Minister of Programme Implementation, Oscar Fernandes, presented a number of awards that recognised outstanding contributions to the profession, including the IPMA Project Excellence Award, which was won by the Indian firm, NTPC Ltd. One hundred and forty papers were presented including my paper on QS / Cost Management. The Congress provided an excellent opportunity for the professional development of all involved and was pleased to have the opportunity to represent ICEC at his event. New Project Management Discussion Board invites ICEC members PMD - Project Management Discussion Board has invited ICEC member associations and their members to utilise its services and participate in its forums for discusion. There is NO COST associated with making use of this resource. On the PMD site you will find a wide range of topics, all pertaining to the practice and profession of Project Management. Quite a collection of Project Management expertise is assembled to provide answers to your questions and to engage in professional discourse designed to challenge, illuminate, and advance the interests we all share in Project Management. You will find people from countries across the globe. You will find members of various professional organizations including PMI, AACE, ASPE, and many, many others. You will find those versed in various Project Management methodologies/studies such as PRINCE/2, EVMS, OPM3 and more. You will find people who are specialists in the use of Project Management software tools, and those who are just beginning to explore the profession. PMD is a resource for sharing experience and expertise - for bringing issues that affect your daily Project Management routine, or those which affect the entire PM profession. In the spirit of collegial exchange and support, you are invited to visit the site to learn/ teach/ share/ gain from the board in any manner which is supportive and contributory to the practice and profession of Project Management. Finally, please encourage your friends and colleagues to visit the board and share their knowledge/ experience/ wisdoms/ issues. Through leveraging the collective talents and insights of Project Management practitioners and experts across the globe, we ALL benefit. Click here to download this invitation in English, Spanish, German and French. ICEC member associations are invited to make this invitation available to its members. Ken Humphreys' visit to ICEC SecretariatInternational Cost Engineering Council (ICEC) Secretary Tresurer, Dr Ken Humphrey's returned to Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (AIQS)Office in Canberra, Australia to visit the ICEC Secretariat almost two years to the day after he visited when it was established. Dr Humphreys was accompanied by Peter Smith, ICEC Director of Certification and Accreditation. During the visit Dr Humphreys reviewed the operation of the Secretariat in consultation with AIQS General Manager, Terry Sanders, and ICEC Administrative Manager, Robyne Nash. As you can see we also took the opportunity to enjoy the great summer weather enjoyed by Canberra over a BBQ lunch at Lake Burley Griffin with AIQS National Office Staff.  Robyne Nash's visit to Hong Kong Institute of Quantity Surveyors In Febuary International Cost Engineering Council (ICEC) Administrative Manager, Robyne Nash, met with representatives of the Quantity Surveying Division of the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors (HKIS). The meeting provided a very welcome opportunity for Ms Nash to learn about HKIS and the quantity surveying industry in Hong Kong, and for HKIS to provide some feed-back to ICEC. | |||
PO Box 301 Deakin West ACT 2600 AUSTRALIA |
National Surveyors House 27 - 29 Napier Close Deakin ACT AUSTRALIA |
|
![ICEC-red-[Converted].jpg - 14103 Bytes](../Logos/ICEC-red-[Converted].jpg)