The objective of Kanban hasn’t changed since Dr Klaus Leopold wrote the German version and David J. Anderson wrote the English version of their book “Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for your Technology Business”. On the other hand, Kanban has certainly not stood still. The insights and experiences gained over the years have helped the system to mature, and a number of additional practical elements have been added. Some of these new elements of Kanban are explained in more detail below.

Stuttgart 21 is a project, like the Berlin Airport project, that is notorious for its poor stakeholder management, for swallowing up money like a bottomless pit and for having vast numbers of opponents among the general public. The Stuttgart 21 underground rail station was in the news recently because it has a track gradient of 15 ‰, which is six times as high as the admissible gradient (2.5 ‰). Although that figure may not sound like much, it actually means a rise of around 6.5 metres over a distance of 400 m, which is equivalent to the height of a house.

The IAPM Network University Meeting illuminates the project manager’s role Although most people are involved to some extent in project management, very few of them really know anything about it. The IAPM International Association of Project Managers’ Network University hopes to change this by preparing career starters for project management roles in their future jobs. At the first IAPM University Network Meeting at Consors Bank in Nuremberg, experienced project management professionals explained what a project manager’s job is all about. It takes the same time to build a Kwoxx as it takes to build a Quax out of multiple Kwoxx. Is that important?

Mergers, acquisitions and sales are great business opportunities, but they can leave the newly-formed companies with a challenge. A new healthcare company, formed in 2007, faced this challenge. Having been split off from its old parent company, it owned virtually no IT equipment and had no data centre. Only a handful of IT staff transferred as part of the sale process.

This is a guest post by Elizabeth Harrin, author of Social Media for Project Managers and the blog A Girl’s Guide to Project Management. The average large company, running around 150 projects at any one time, loses £13 million a year by not stopping projects that are failing. It’s not always management’s responsibility to cancel projects: if you’re working on something that you know isn’t going to deliver the proposed benefits, you need to speak up. Quickly. Keith Richards, one of the UK’s Agile experts, said, “If you are going to fail, fail fast.” Mistakes happen. Things go wrong. It is how you deal with it that counts. A project manager who makes mistakes and owns up to them early will find people willing to help to get things back on track. These projects are late at the beginning but tend to make up the time later.

The following is a guest post by Elizabeth Harrin, author of Get Started Using Social Media on Your Projects and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome. Think of how the internet used to be - flat, static pages, like corporate brochures online. That's changed now. Company websites aren't just 'brochureware' any more. They include areas for customers to comment and ask questions, videos and audio content, maybe a blog from the CEO, contests where customers upload photos and lots more. The internet is a much more interactive place now. This is how social media tools and the advent of what we call Web 2.0 have changed how we use computers to communicate with other people. The internet used to be a research tool - now it's a community.

We’d like to invite anyone who is interested in the IAPM and project management to a meeting that has been organised by the IAPM Network University for young project managers and students. Each of the network meetings features a presentation by a project management expert. In this case it is Dr Roland Ottmann, the renowned project management trainer, on the subject of “Star gazing ... and how it is related to large-scale projects”. He will be sharing his extensive knowledge and experience in the field of managing large-scale projects and discussing his ideas with participants.

There will be an IAPM Network Meeting in Munich on the subject of “Traditional vs. Agile Project Management” for anyone who is interested in the IAPM and project management. It takes place on Wednesday 20 April 2016 at Stollbergstrasse 12, which is in Munich’s historical district. Martin Ritz, the host for the evening, will kick off the event with a few words of welcome. Then we’ll be playing a short “agile” game to demonstrate the functions of self-organising teams before our speaker, Frederik Prause, provides a very informative comparison of traditional and agile (mainly SCRUM) project management methods and a subjective, practical appraisal of both based on his many years of project experience.

You’re a member of the Berlin IAPM community, so we’d like to invite you to our IAPM Network Meeting for project managers at smile! GbR (Gierkezeile 12, 10585 Berlin). A journalist once wrote that the biggest disasters come unannounced and are impossible to predict. He was writing about the tsunami. Despite that, a great many events are held on the subjects of business and project risk forecasting and management. At our event on 5 April we’ll be asking ourselves what risks are, when project managers have to seek them out and identify them and how we can develop risk management strategies. There will be examples and small exercises to demonstrate the pros and cons of risk analyses and risk-related activities. And we'll also be looking at the other side of the coin - opportunities.

The technology magazine, IT-Zoom, published an article about a company called Karl Storz - the world market leader in medical instruments for minimal-invasive surgery and endoscope manufacturer - switching over from Excel-based project management to a Microsoft Project Server and Sharepoint-based system in 2014. The switch-over project was initiated in 2012 when it became clear that changes would be necessary in order to cope with the increasing complexity of project-based business. The new system had to effectively manage globally distributed resources, improve the efficiency of data transfers to SAP and facilitate the provision of relevant documents to different business units via SAP.

We are inviting people in northern Germany who are interested in the IAPM and in particular project management to our first Project Manager Network Meeting in Hamburg this year on 22 February 2016 and hope you will be able to attend. We’ll be meeting up at it-agile, Große Elbstraße 273, 22767 Hamburg. After a brief presentation of the IAPM and its scheduled events in 2016, plus an outline of the evening’s agenda, Arne Roock (Jimdo) and Stefan Roock (Managing Director of it-agile) will present the host company to you at around 7.13 p.m. and introduce the Network Meeting topic of Agile Organisation Development or Agility and Organisational Learning.

“Good work is always based on good relationships“ is the motto of Munich-based coach and personal advisor, Dr Berta Coromayh Schreckeneder. She was a guest speaker at an IAPM Network Meeting in Munich in summer 2015, where she talked on the subject of “Management is Relationship Building“ and shared some interesting insights into her work with the participants. That’s why we’re presenting Dr Berta Coromayh Schreckender in the IAPM blog. Her company Viewconsult provides workshops on relationship building in management and mediation, and its “Relationship Classes“ teach participants how to build a loving relationship with themselves.