Of course 2009 is going to be tough, no need to mention that again. Business experts have given their view, and economists have predicted what’s ahead. We just have to face it, and seize the opportunities it presents. If you operate in a business, you have some influence over money matters: you can offer specials, re-negotiate contract terms, manage costs and use commercial savvy to maintain revenue streams. Organisations that care for those who are not able to do so themselves are usually first to be hard-hit when it comes to cutting corporate and business expenses. With that in mind, during November 2008, the Pétanque Team challenged the custom of corporate gifts and year end functions. Instead, we made a donation on behalf of Pétanque clients, suppliers and associates to two charity organisations: SAMast (sterilisation of dogs in communities that can’t take care of a growing dog population) and the Elephant Sanctuary in Plettenberg Bay. In an email we wished our business community happy holidays and invited each to simply reply to our email, which would qualify the email for a donation. Each email had a rand value attached to it. This initiative was so well received and we thank each and every responder for the one minute it took to read through the email and click reply. We were proud to pay over the funds to the two organisations on 24 December and trust that we can do this again in future. With this we also achieved an early ‘win’ for 2009: one of our 2009 strategic goals is to support our community through funding where the difference made by our donation, is immediate and clearly visible.

Achieving goals need not be difficult. On our website you’ll find a short ”how to” on achieving Strategic Goals. It is a guide on how to define your goals, develop a roll-out process, and action them to deliver results. View the presentation here. For more on Strategy Delivery visit www.tenstepsdo.com where we showcase our comprehensive end to end service with our global partner, TenStep, Inc.

The Pétanque Team wishes you a successful 2009! 
 

VizPro 5-Day BootCamp
 

Following the successful delivery of our 3-day VizPro® BootCamp in November, the VizPro® 5-day BootCamp is scheduled for March 2009. Key in VizSchool™ training is to impart our know-how effectively through examples, tips & tricks for everyday application in order for learners to “hit the ground running” once concluding the training. The five day course focuses on practice, practice, practice under guidance of dedicated trainers per each two students.

The BootCamp aims at qualifying students in the most practical way to use VizPro® as their business process analysis methodology. After five days you’ll be able to apply the methodology, manage your VizPro® project, and showcase the process map that you developed.

The BootCamp is scheduled for 9-13 March, in Cape Town, and we’re offering the first 5 En Route readers that book and confirm a seat before the 13th of February 2009 a 10% discount. Contact Jeanne Fredericks for an outline of the BootCamp content and more information - don’t to miss out on this opportunity!
 

Project Management: Plan for the Holidays

by MJ Fick, PMP

There are a host of issues a project manager needs to think of when creating a project schedule and estimating delivery times. One of these is to consider public holidays, personal leave time or activities that will render the project team members unavailable to deliver. A project manager ignores these at her own peril – you WILL fall behind schedule. Here are a few “calendar” tips to make sure you create a realistic schedule:

	Make sure you record all public holidays as non-working time in your scheduling software or manual schedule. If you are using a software package like MS Project, do this once in the standard calendar for all projects.
	At the start of your project, create a Leave Register and ask team member to indicate when they want to take leave during the duration of your project. They will not always be able to accurately tell you their leave requirements months in advance, so make sure to ask for an update regularly. Then make sure that you don’t schedule resources over their leave periods and negotiate with them to take it outside critical periods.
	At the start of your project, create a Leave Register and ask team member to indicate when they want to take leave during the duration of your project. They will not always be able to accurately tell you their leave requirements months in advance, so make sure to ask for an update regularly. Then make sure that you don’t schedule resources over their leave periods and negotiate with them to take it outside critical periods.
	I also check when a public holiday falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday – expect people to want to take some leave to “make up a long weekend”. Discuss with your team – you may agree that the team works on a normal weekend to “bank” time for these extended long weekends.
	Check the school holidays. Chances are that team members with kids at school would want to take some time out. Remind them of this.

For South African Public and School holidays, refer to: http://www.info.gov.za/aboutsa/schoolcal.htm.

If you’d like a free copy of my Risk Register template, write to me at mj.fick@petanque-c.com and please tell me if you are a project manager or a non-project manager applying these project management disciplines.
 

Microsoft Round Table event

Being a Microsoft partner, we presented the SAPO case study in the Microsoft Round Table event in Cape Town, October last year. The Round Table discussion focused on how we deliver VizPro®, and how the project continues to benefit the Post Office. Carien Venter, who managed the project for SAPO, provided valuable insight from the client point of view.

We are proud to partner with Microsoft (we use MS Visio for our process maps) and look forward to bringing more round tables to Johannesburg and Cape Town in 2009.

Please let us know if you’d like to be invited for future Pétanque Round Table events; contact Elisabeth to add your name to our guest list.

Pétanque Team skilled-up

TenStep’s Project Management Process is a model that assists you to define and manage the different facets of your project in ten steps. Justin, Jeanne and Elisabeth took part in the TenStep training in December, and can now benefit from this well-structured approach. Contact Andre Nortier of TenStep Southern Africa for more information on the course if you also want to learn more about successfully planning and managing a project.
 

New Clients
 

We look forward to start working with PEP Stores in February and are pleased to welcome Vodacom and Capitec Bank as a new clients as well.

View our client list

VizPro® video

Pétanque is on YouTube! See how we work and what the VizPro® benefits are in this short video

Cape Argus

Michélle -as you might know- is a keen cyclist, and she’s going to ride her 5th Cape Argus on the 8th of March.  She will be riding in BP colours and we express our appreciation to BP for sponsoring her cycling outfit and massage afterwards. Let us know if you’re taking up the challenge as well to conquer the 109km around the Peninsula; we’ll look out for you and support you!

Events

VizPro 5-day BootCamp 9-13 March 2009, Cape Town

VizPro 3-day BootCamp 9-11 June 2009, Cape Town

Contact us to schedule an inhouse BootCamp

Moment of Fame

How cool is it to not only be able to attend the Lionel Richie concert, but to meet & greet as well? It happened to Cheran Esau, Projects Delivery Manager at BP. Nice shot, Cheran!

Offices

The Colosseum
Foyer 3, 1st Floor
Century Way
Century City
Cape Town
Tel: 0861 PTNQUE (786783)
(international: +27 21 5260473)

You can download the directions from our website.