What was eventful last week? What has happened in project management? Read Essentials #01 to discover the IAPM's recommendations of the week.

Summary of the article written by Caspar Fröhlich on the personal development plan.

Summary of the article written by Mario Neumann on project management in German SMEs.

Lately, we have been facing one of the most challenging times in our younger history and I have been incredibly proud to see how the...

An unmotivated project leader is not good for a project. Too much motivation can also be problematic. What is a good balance?

Since many IAPM certificate holders have asked for it, there is now a short form for every IAPM certification.

Project controlling is an important tool in project management. Expertly and properly executed, it ensures that projects run according to plan.

Summary of the article by corporate-rebels.com about human management revolution.

In “Manager Magazin”, business economist and physician Andreas Föller reflects on digitalisation and how it affects our leadership culture.

In the construction industry, all managers talk only about BIM (Building Information Management). It seems to have become clear by now that this new planning method should be addressed. Some people may still be sceptical and have certain fears of contact, but this is becoming less and less the case. Most companies initially ask themselves whether BIM is worthwhile at all and if so, from what construction sum and from what size of company. Once the decision for BIM has been made (either out of conviction or simply because everyone does it and you would otherwise be left behind by the market), many questions come up to those responsible: What software do we need and what does it cost to train our staff? Will the changeover take long? Another question is of course whether Building Information Management will completely change the job description of the planner.

The request was: "We are a company in the advertising industry, we urgently need training in agility, not just Scrum, but perhaps something more agile, such as Design Thinking or Lean Startup". The initial consultation with the client then revealed that the training should include a mix of these agile methods. But what was the end of the story? Classic project management and an excursion to Scrum! The knowledge and application of a detailed project structure plan, which was not available at all, and a Gantt chart based on it were a great help. However, later it also became obvious that teaching Scrum artifacts in training and subsequent coaching was helpful. Here the participants learned, for example, that even in non-software-oriented projects one can write good user stories and emphasize customer requirements!

In an article on the Forbes.com blog, Steve Denning addressed the issue of innovation triggered by agile transformation. Steve Denning writes about a topic with which he is very familiar. In 2018, for example, his book entitled "The Age of Agile" was published and was named one of the best business books of the year by the Financial Times. Steve Denning also advises many international companies on a wide range of leadership, innovation and management issues. For many years he worked at the World Bank and held various management positions. In the following we summarize his article for you.