ABRPM Blog

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

                                                                                                            –Abraham Lincoln

If something has been done a particular way for 15 or 20years, it’s a pretty good sign, in these changing times, that it is being done the wrong way.   

–Elliot M. Estes

On this space I will share with you information from my informal PhD program on Success in small business.

The internet has changed everything, sorry let me rephrase that to read the internet is changing everything so fast. This is a paradigm shift so let’s welcome all those people that are prepared for this shift.

Notice I did not mention companies or countries as Friedman pointed out in his book ,The world is flat’, ‘We have moved from globalization 1.0 to globalization 2.0 and we are now at Globalization 3.0′

1.0 was about countries dominating, 2.0 was about companies dominating, 3.0 are about the individual dominating! Yes! You and I!

This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man-if man is not enslaved by it.

–Jonas Salk

The above quote is food for thought, for us to get our most precious ‘resource’ time back from the time stealers “Television & the internet’. Hanging out as well and all the things we do to eliminate boredom

Very sad in deed is the way we use  the internet (minimally) which brings us profound  capabilities and all we can still use it for is just to send email or chat with friends.(think of what Obama did with it, as well as Seun Osewa of Nairaland)

We intend to burst a couple of myths out there about business. Maybe a definition of what business is would guide us and keep us on track. We are constantly researching and as we do that we will bring our results to this page so please watch this page.

We are going to be looking at the relationship that exists within business and the event management community.

I read some place that common sense is not so common, how true. Little things like referrals are the most powerful form of advertising and also the cheapest campaigns to run. How sad and frustrated we can get as we try to work against laws such as this one. I define a law as a thing that is true every time and everywhere. Somewhere in the biology of a woman she does this(refer good service/products) naturally. So you may be leaving money on the table by ignoring women & referrals in your business, and further spending your scarce resource on very inefficient ways of spreading word about your business.

My story about referrals may intrigue you. I remember a time I used to sell USB flash discs.This was when they had gradually began to get popular.  Brian Tracy, in one of his audio cd’s, said to meet one of your clients and ask him for referrals. I met this man, I can’t remember his name and asked him to have this flash for free. At the time this flash was sold for eight thousand naira. In exchange I asked him to give us a list of 10 of his friends from the same industry (advertising). It took a month to get to the 10 and sell to all 10 and each one bought. Each one also referred more business

This move took us to tho hundred and fifty thousand naira monthly on profits and kept up for over 6 months.

Also of note is the fact that we earn more as we know more. High earnings correlate directly with higher education -Marti Barletta

Let’s use the term education lightly, I take the term to mean to draw out from within which means whatever we want to be, we can be, so we only have to work on whatever it is we want to know or learn(self development). This is me not accepting that formal education is the only way to go to learn.

As some author I don’t remember his name pointed out: Google has democratized information.

It took a man born in the mid part of this century in Nigeria to go the university ,which used to be the repository of information for him to have advanced knowledge over his contemporaries but now the internet especially through Wikipedia and Google has made almost all information available to all women and me. So we need to take control over our education.

As we know more we can do more and as we do more we can earn more. Think about it how many people sell recharge cards around you at work or at home? To sell this cards is not exactly a rare skill & chances you will get paid well for something so many people can do is not high.

We have to constantly strive to be exceptional we need a full scale war on mediocrity, I think it is not safe to play safe (what did I just say?) I mean playing safe usually means you are spreading your options, which also means you are not able to focus & at best deliver mediocre results across a broad group of things you attempt. Think about it; Okocha plays world class football and he may know next to nothing about investments but I’m sure if he were to open up his portfolio to us he will have a very fantastic one. He surely has the means to put to work the knowledge of those whom know about investments, Dangote may know nothing about building websites yet he may earn many billions from his website monthly!

Also advances in technology has made the flow of goods around the world more efficient and cheaper which in turn means just around the corner we can get books on almost any topic from many parts of the world.

I must say we definitely don’t live in times our parents lived. What it takes to start and run a multibillion dollar company seems to be ever changing. The company facebook was started and run by a 23 year old boy! Microsoft was founded and run for a while by a young man, also of note is the example of Michael dell.

In all cases this people challenged more traditional rivals.

I quote Marti Barletta ‘The business is there where are you?’

Time magazine or Newsweek magazine, I can’t remember which one had on its front cover the man of the year. It had a very interesting ‘man of the year’.

The man of the year was YOU Yes, YOU! The man of the year was you or me or him or anyone that had the magazine in his hands was the man of the year.

This was a declaration that we now have the tools to do anything we want, we could face off governments, win elections, raise money, collaborate and so many other things only possible by the great countries and company a little time past.

The magazine put a computer monitor as the head of the man then the body of the man. With all of the powerful technology out there don’t stay in that corner like a victim, get up and go out there and achieve something.

Let me stop my musings here and I would love so much to hear from you reading this.

Respectfully,

Kayode Ajewole PMP

They say ‘what a man can do, a woman can do better’. I believe that statement should have been, ‘what a man can do, a woman can EQUALLY do’.

 Gender inequality is a factor commonly seen in our environment today, a factor with roots dating from tales as old as time. The struggle by women to be seen, heard, respected and given rights just as their male counterparts is a battle which cannot be won as a whole but on individual basis. I read an article from the PM NETWOWK (PMIs monthly magazine) which spoke on the need for women to focus more on leading and less on fitting in. That is another struggle on its own, fitting into an environment which we find ourselves.

As Dr Pearl Maxwell, PhD senior consultant at Advanced Management Services Inc, Canton, MA, USA says,’ the most effective leaders embrace the best of both the male and female styles of leadership’. According to this same article, Genderless leaders are community builders who promote interactive leadership and share power. For women, the ability to be an ‘interactive leader’ requires looking beyond the stereotype of ‘it is because of my gender’, and rather being pragmatic and tough in that role as a leader. While the ability to ’share power’ requires being flexible, empathic and decisive in decision making.

From my personal experience as a project manager i have found that my ability to be a good leader lies in my strength, passion and capacity as being qualified and competent to handle responsibilities. Passion and Competency from women translates directly to respect and growth personally. As a project manager my goal is to not only ensure the success of the project but to also ensure interpersonal growth in terms of creativity, knowledge, commitment, and team capacity for everyone working on the team. It is evident that women are still regarded as less competent and qualified for certain jobs or roles in an organization such as construction, engineering etc, as compared to a male counterpart. Physically this may be true, but intellectually far from it. The case is however not the same in fields such as politics as clearly women hold high positions in office in some countries. However i can only imagine that it must be a silent battle within to command the respect of male counterparts under their command and some of whom are probably older than them in age.

Being a leader is intrinsic to being a project manager and women must learn to walk the fine line between appearing strong and competent enough to lead without coming off as aggressive and authoritative in the bid to drive away stereotypes associated with their role as a leader. A male friend once said to me that when you ask a woman a question the first answer she is most likely to give is ‘i don’t know’, before she then gives thought to the question to respond properly. I have found this to be somewhat of true. As a woman I can say it is not a response out of lack of knowledge or confidence in giving the right answer but more of an expression/figure of speech which says, ‘ oh i have to give this some thought first’.

However considering the battle to be given parity in a male dominated world, women must be concise and clear in their message and be confident in speaking out when necessary.

‘’As a woman i feel there is more a requirement for me to have more professional qualifications than my male counterparts'’- Dr Pearl Maxwell. I agree with this.

A genderless leader must learn to elevate style over stereotype in order to succeed and command due respect and commendation. We must learn to speak up loud and clear and understand that we deserve to be where we want to be in our careers and personal lives. We are not asking for preferential treatment when we insist upon parity. We ask for the right to be heard, seen and respected equally.  

Chinwe Anajemba,CAPM 

PMI released the new PMBOK in December and announced that the PMP exam will change in line with it on the 30th of June 2009.
The changes in the PMBOK include renaming certain 30 odd processes and reducing the processes from 44 to 42. For all aspiring PMP’s, whether you have attained the required 35 contact hours from training or you are planning to do it the changes are not so important as the consequences.

The last time there was change in the editions of the PMBOK, the score required to pass the exam was actually increased by 12 marks. So while the exam didn’t necessarily get harder in itself, it was suddenly harder to pass it. Although it was subsequently reduced(3 months later), it is fair to say that a lot more people failed the exam in those three months and had to pay for the exam again. The PMI has not indicated that the same will happen in June 2009, but the fact that it’s happened before cannot be ignored.
Whenever the PMBOK Guide is updated, all the authors of exam study material update their material as well. However most resellers (smaller bookshops and sites like eBay) will still keep on selling the old material. This is not necessarily on purpose, as a lot of them will not even know the difference. If you are buying your material from ebay, amazon etc the risk is even higher as it is a case of ‘caveat emptor’: let the buyer beware. If not you could spend all your time reading a text book based on the third edition when you are sitting an exam on the 4th edition (post June 2009)

In a nutshell, history says there is a lot of attendant confusion that accompanies updating the PMBOK Guide. Considering it currently costs $550 to sit the exam as well as the cost of training and study material , it will be wise to get it done before the changeover so as to reduce the need for a resit.

While there are various exam prep material, we currently recommend and use Crosswinds material by Tony Johnson. On average, it takes 3 hrs to read through a chapter of the crosswinds textbook. It has 15 chapters. This equates to 45 hours to finish the text book. With dedication and discipline, this means you can finish the text in a month by studying for two hours a day. This is excluding weekends. Another popular product from the same author is the exam simulation CD Rom which has 3,500 exam style questions. That is about 17 practice PMP exams. You will need to commit another 45 hours to practicing the questions on this CD. That is 90 hours, which is 3 hours a day for a month or 2 hours a day for 45 days or an hour a day for 3 months. Yes, I hear you say you spend five hours a day in Traffic Lagos, the answer or risk response plan to that is the audio CD’s from crosswinds or any other reputable author. As Brian Tracy said, ‘Make your car a university on wheels’. On these audio CD’s, read by Tony Johnson himself, is most of what you need to sit and pass the exam. So if you spend 3 to 5 hours a day in traffic, then that is at least 3 hours of listening to Tony Johnson himself, if you don’t have a car, then you can play these in your ipod/mp3 player. Remember you still have the weekends to read as well. So whatever your circumstances, time will not be one of the hurdles on you way to achieving this much desired qualification. I know people who leave home at 5am so they get work by 6.00am and read till 7.30am.
Thus, if you read slower than average or ‘live in traffic’ and you start preparing now, (for those of you who have attended our classes), you will be ready to sit for the exam in March. For those of you who will attend our classes in the next two months. As long as you are disciplined with your reading, you will be able to sit the exam in April/May. We anticipate an increased demand for PMP trainig programme prior to the exam changeover in June. As such we will be starting one-on-one trainings, watch our website for more details. DISCIPLNE, or a lack of it as regards exam preparation is the main obstacle you will have to scale. And I read somewhere;
‘Discipline weights ounces while regret weighs tonnes’
See it as a sacrifice, see it as an investment, it is 3 months or less of intensive preparation to conquer the exam in its current state before it is realigned with the new PMBOK. After that you will start to reap the rewards of having the valuable initials ‘PMP’ after your name. These rewards will also grow over time.

Ayo Sanni, PMP

I came across this article and thought to share it with you all as myself and my colleagues at abr found it not only interesting but quite useful as well. Some parts of the article seem to be corrupted but the core message of the post remains untarnished. Enjoy and feel free to comment.

Crable says:

Hello, guys n’ gals…
I have a mediocre job- (but which pays the bills, even if barely)
I have a fully-equipped home office- (hi-tech & all)
I have a desire to make a lot of money- (so does everyone else)
I wish to use my pcs, my natural intelligence, and my vision to make a lot of money legally- (but don’t have a clue how to)
I have failed to make a lot of money at residual-based, and direct-sales related income opportunities-
I wish to avoid all the internet hucksters and bogus scams and find a REAL opportunity- (fat chance, so far)
I have a vast, multi-media self-help library- (totally useless so far)
I have been moderately successsful in previous sales positions-
(made money for others)
Finally: I am not yet completely discouraged, and I am open to all serious advice, suggestions, guidance and/or coaching- (but I have a shoestring budget and can’t afford direct coaching so don’t offer that, and I’m not signing up for any classes either)
So if you know of any opportunities (I am already signed up with several of the most popular, but again, I have no money for advertising/marketing), then let me know the following:
1. what the program or opp is all about and where to get it..
2. name of someone who is actually making money with it..
3. if you are doing it, and how much you’ve made recently..
4. what you did, and what I need to do: Period.
Thanks,
Best to all-

In reply to an earlier post on Nov 8, 2008 12:05 PM PSTgifPaul Krupin says:

I’m a copywriter and a publicist and an author so I guess I do make a living writing. I’m happy to share with you what I’ve done and what I’ve learned.

I wrote my first news release in 1977. I went online with my first website in 1993. I’ve built up my copywriting and publicity services company at home and online over the past 15 years.

You can read the story about how I created my business in the book “Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul” published by Health Communications Nov 2006. It’s titled `Ripples’. Fun story. If you want to see it send me an email and I’ll send you a pdf file.

The marketing I do is pretty nominal but it is consistent, and I take baby steps to keep it going nearly every day.

I’m of the belief that if people and companies have employees doing work that you can do and have more work that you can do than they have employees available to do that work, then getting paid is easy.

Can you do it?

Yes you can!

You just need to present them with a very desirable alternative turnkey to hiring you as an employee. Make it attractive and make it easy and it’s a done deal.

I’ve found that if they have employees doing something, then outsourcing to you is often a very attractive option. You can normally charge four to six times the hourly rate of pay that they pay full time employees to do exactly the same work, but without them having to carry the overhead that they have to carry for an employee. So if top technical or professional employees are making $50 an hour, then you can charge $200 an hour. Most companies will not bat an eye at these rates these days. You can run the numbers and see, at these rates, it’s not hard to bill over $100,000 a year and do it part-time from home. The Internet and email can be a wonderful place.

So no matter what the employees or you do, you can create a short menu of options and fees that break both the services you will provides (just like an employee performs, or the deliverables they create), and format this into a short list of the fee based time or product deliverables that you can perform or deliver on demand or by schedule.

So instead of a resume, create a one page brochure that says “menu of options”. Then itemize options so people can hire you in bite size chunks of payable time or for products or services by known typical units of performance (by the hour, by the day, by the week, by the page, by the document, or whatever).

This menu allows you and the client to select what you do and price it in advance, and build this into a one page contract or an email or even a phone call.

I’ve found that the best marketing tactics that work in this business are ones that allow you to leverage professional branding with your target audience. You should not waste time, effort and money unless it brings a professional branding message in front of someone who will potentially be amenable to doing business with you.

So I recommend you experiment, test and most importantly and track and analyze what you do, to identify how you are getting clients and where the biggest income streams come from. Then apply the basic rules of systematic continuous improvement to what you are doing. Simply put, if it works, do more of it, and if it doesn’t stop and do something else.

You can use my business as an example. To this day, I get most of my new business by:

> meeting people at conferences at which I exhibit, and giving short but personal consults on the fly, and once I hear what they are all about giving them recommendations that help them a little and indicate what they can get by involving me more.

> writing and publishing articles (problem solving tips articles) in magazines, to demonstrate skills, expertise, ability, knowledge and wisdom, and create desire once they realize they want more of what I can offer.

> posting articles and responding to posted questions in newsgroups and on discussion lists, to do the same.

> adding more free articles and free downloads to an extensive highly educational and focused website, to educate and motivate people to do more themselves, or hire me if they can’t do it themselves.

> adding more success stories and testimonials to my portfolio, to again demonstrate and affirm.

> sending really value added email introductions to prospects, to supply them with a plan of action that leads them to hire me.

> doing 30 minute consultations by phone, learning what clients need and delivering strategic advice and one page action plan proposals by email.

> answering prospect questions as though I was already working for them.

> carefully cultivating word of mouth off prior exceptional performance.

> speaking engagements, giving workshops and training sessions for free and for fee, but only to the right targeted company or audience.

> meeting people for lunch and listening to their project needs or dreams.

> sending them one page email proposals.

> building off referrals, and speaking engagements, and seeking to leverage host beneficiary relationships.

This last one is perhaps the most crucial. As you satisfy clients, of course, you can get repeat business. If you do work for a headquarters or a home office of a company with lots of offices all over the country, your host contact can lead you directly to many other prospects. You then get to pitch them all or better still, the headquarters contact shares you and everyone in that business network then contacts you. This situation can be phenomenally beneficial. Lucrative in fact. Same thing can happen with speaking engagements at associations. The local speech or workshop travels up to the headquarters.

Once every few years I create an innovative post card and do a mailing. My most recent mailer was a one pager back top back. If you want to see my most recent one, send me an email message request and I’ll send you the pdf file. I was using US Mail for mailings until two years ago. Now we participate in coop mailings and use email.

Nowadays I also use a show off business card. It has a picture of me fishing. It’s a memorable experience to look at and to hold. It brands me as a distinctive writer.

I use email, short letters and one page business proposals extensively to close deals by email and phone. In fact, I have a rule which basically says that you never have a conversation with a prospect without making a customized personal proposal. It works very well.

I actually don’t need or use formal contracts at all. I just take credit cards and bill them at the time of performance. I take very few checks and only in advance if the client insists upon paying that way. Client satisfaction with this arrangement is nearly 100 percent for many years now.

I spend NO money on advertising at all and do not care about search engine placement or ad words. Clients who call me have either heard about me or find me online through research or referral. They basically have decided to hire me before they call me so I actually do very little selling.

I’ve actually found that in my business, the people who search using search engines aren’t the clients I seek to work with. Most of them don’t have the products or businesses that I enjoy and can be successful with. The people who find my site online rarely are quality clients. So search engine ranking and placement mean very little to me. I can be found very quickly if people search for me nonetheless. In fact, search on my name and you’ll see thousands of links going back 15 years.

I’ve also found that the decision to hire is based on people having convinced themselves that you offer needed value that can be acquired no where else at the costs that you present. What you need to do is just learn how to make the product or service you give remarkable and personal, unique, and phenomenally effective. You also need to learn how to communicate this to them quickly.

Do that and your business will grow consistently with everything you do. The key to enjoying yourself along the way is to simply focus on helping the people you can help the most. You also need to know when to say no to a project that is problematic and where you know won’t be able to satisfy yourself or the client. The rule should be `no unhappy clients’.

I learned this business model by studying a variety of other consultants and copywriters. This model is actually very easy to operate and fairly low cost. I incorporated a few years ago as a full C Corp to take advantage of the tax structure since the business bills over six figures a year. I pay myself a salary. I also just use QuickBooks Pro to do the day to day bookkeeping myself but do hire a professional accountant to do the taxes each year. I use the merchant credit card services offered with Quicken and it does the bookkeeping entries as it processes the credit card authorizations.

The skills I acquired to conduct my business the way I do is mostly out of books. I am a voracious reader. This is in addition to reading or skimming all the client books that come to me (Fed Ex and UPS stop here nearly every day Monday through Friday). I read at the health club, I read during the day and at night, and in front of the TV. I basically am reading (or searching and surfing the Internet) if I am not writing or on the phone.

My house is totally wireless and there are two computers on plus two laptops available for use by me and the rest of the family at all times.

I can even take my cell phone and my wireless laptop in my boat and take client calls and work while fishing along the Columbia River because of the many hot spots and homes with unsecured wireless routers along the river. It’s amazing! The technology really is wonderful these days. That makes for some very pleasant days working (yes really working) while catching salmon, steelhead and walleye! If you’ve ever called me during the day you may hear me tell you that if I get a fish on I’ll have to get off really quick, but I’ll call you back! OK, enough bragging.

I just looked over my library and I highly recommend you basically commit to reading most every business, sales and marketing book published and get whatever you can out of each and every one of them. I still probably spend $100 to $200 a month on books in this area and have for years. My wife says it takes more to keep me well read than it does to keep me well fed. I have a 25 year collection and I still refer back to them constantly.

My favorite book authors and the books I can point you to for the best answers to this question the most are:

Invisible, What Clients Love, The Invisible Touch, and his new one, You, Inc.)

Handbook, Secrets of a Freelance Writer, How to Promote Your Own Business, and Write More, Sell More, which is still one of the best books ever written on running a writing business).

most important books you’ll ever find. It has made me tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Unabashed Self-Promoter’s Guide, and Money Making Marketing. Good luck finding these but if you do, consider yourself lucky)

If you need attitude and adjustment to get into the right frame of mind for running a business, then I highly recommend:

The real trick to reading is that you have to create a written plan with the ideas that come to you.

Reading and not writing simply isn’t productive. Writing a plan of action turns the idea into something tangible. You must add in the tasks and place dates and performance measures so that you know that you have completed the task.

Knowledge is valuable but to turn a fantasy into reality you must take action and try, try, try till you actually succeed.

You need to create two independent processes:

The first is the process for creating quality work (writing) that you can get paid for.

The second is the sales process that you use to get customers and get money.

Once you create these success processes for yourself then you apply technology to get more of each done in less time, with less effort and expense.

In fact, if you do both of these enough, it all becomes second nature, much like riding a bicycle or a car.

At some point, it can even get boring. To avoid losing faith and being unhappy, you have to find your happiness in delivering whatever happiness and help you can to others.

And that is my belief in what life is all about. .It’s my definition of success:

You achieve happiness and success when you help the people you can help the most and get rich at the same time.

The bottom line is that I believe that the opportunities to be a well paid writer right now are simply phenomenal. You can specialize and focus on any one or more of hundreds of markets. The country is huge. There are 300 million people in the US. There are 30,000 towns. There are simply millions of companies all of whom can be helped again and again.

Don’t be shy. This isn’t that hard to do and you’ve got the skills. Focus and go for it.

BTW, if you want a pdf file containing the story `Ripples’ from Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul, or the latest flyer I used in my mailings, just send me an email request. I’ll send you the pdf files.

Hope this helps. Questions welcome!

Paul J. Krupin - Direct Contact PR
Reach the Right Media in the Right Market with the Right Message
http://www.DirectContactPR.com Paul@DirectContactPR.com
800-457-8746 509-545-2707
http://blog.directcontactpr.com/

I hope you enjoyed this as much as we did. As we come across and remember more of these we will post them here.

Respectfully
Ayo Sanni

I have just finished talking with a friend in France. We spoke for an hour. I even took him on a virtual tour of the hotel I was in at the time of the conversation (Protea Hotel, Port Harcourt). He was in awe of the set up. But that’s not the point. The point is this hour long call was absolutely FREE. Yes, crystal clear, video conferencing for free. Save the cost of my laptop. It cost me nothing. This is courtesy of software available from www.sightspeed.com . All you need do is download the software onto your system and you are good to go.

This led me to start thinking……. Globalization…..the world is a village………distance is being made irrelevant………..the world is being flattened…

All familiar sayings, I know. But I can’t help think that we in Nigeria are not part of this new world; we are being left behind. How else can I explain the fact that it costs more to speak to my mom in Lagos than it costs to speak to my wife in the UK. This also means that it is easier and cheaper to do business with a company/individual in US, UK, France etc than it is to do same with my compatriot in Ogun state. I can hire an architect in India without ever meeting him physically but to hire one in Abuja, a few hundred miles from me, I will probably have to risk my life, spend time and cash going to meet him/her.

In Nigeria majority of us (Nigerians: literate, illiterate and over 16 years old) don’t have mobile phones, even fewer have internet access.

Yes, you have internet access but you are a minority in Nigeria and even then it’s one thing to have it and quite another for it to actually function when you need it to. In four weeks here I have spent no less than 30 hours at the banks trying to put through transactions that will take no more than a combined 3 hours in the UK. Half the time, I was trying to transfer money to third party accounts. I will normally do this online but it was either a case of PHCN doing their job and depriving us of light or my internet connection was down, the banks website was not functioning or their server was down as well. That was basically 27 hours should have been used productively. And we are the lucky ones in a culture where internet access is a luxury as opposed to being a basic commodity in other countries. Now I think of it, it is cheaper and quicker to deal with my bank in the UK than it is to deal with any bank here. They don’t pick my calls; if they do they can’t help me because their systems are down. If I choose to do it online their server is down or my connection is slow. So how are the the UBA’s, GTBank’s et all supposed to compete should Barclays bank or Lloyds TSB stroll into town? Just the same way Protea Hotels have strolled in to town and dominated all local hotels in a couple of years.

I have just recently returned from a 3 week road trip. I drove from Lagos to Abuja to Port Harcourt and back to Lagos. I passed through at least 12 states and this trip only showed me that not only is Nigeria not a part of the Global village, it is like a planet in its own right. I came across people in Nigeria whom I realised will never meet or deal with, some of whom will never own a mobile phone talk less of enjoy the benefits of the internet. But they have roads running through their towns and villages. A recurring though is: Are they really Nigerians or do they think I am Nigerian? If they know they are, do they claim to be or feel like Nigerians at all? I believe if I had spoken to them that they were thinking the same of me. I could not help thinking it will have been more beneficial to all concerned to have the infrastructure in place enabling them to access other people in and outside their villages, towns and countries and ensuring they have electricity so we can all join the new global village. This will invariably mean instead of leaving their towns/villages for Lagos, they can stay there and develop the town as has happened in India. Once they joined the information superhighway, they realized they didn’t need to go to the US anymore. They could stay in India, with family and eat their preferred Indian food and still do business with or work for American companies. Hence outsourcing to India, hence Wipro and Infosys(Indian companies that service the biggest American companies).

At the time I thought it was impossibility in this ‘planet’ called Nigeria to be completely internet enabled. I mean in an era where countries in Europe are joining the EU enmasse so as to be on par with the US and reap the benefits of Globalization, there are more fragmented ‘countries in Nigeria’ than there are member states in the EU.

But by chance I stumbled upon an article which was celebrating the fact that it cost $25,000 to provide wireless internet access to one of the most remote towns in Vietnam. So remote that it took an 8hr of train ride plus a 2 hour drive through mountains and another 2 hr walk while carrying the equipment to get to the site. Basically, the town is nowhere and now they are part of the Global village. $25,000 was all it cost to get internet access to such a place. I thought it will cost gargantuan amounts of cash. At $25,000 a pop, I can think of a few Nigerians who can make the whole country internet enabled from their own resources combined with Government cooperation. If it was possible in such a remote part of the world then can we really afford for Nigeria not to join the Global Village?

According to PMI Quality is defined as conformance to requirements. And from their (PMI’s) research, everybody pays for quality. You can be proactive and pay for it upfront(in which case its called cost of conformance) or you can be reactive and pay for it afterwards when things don’t work or when the project deliverable is presented by sign-off and it is rejected(in which case it is called cost of non-conformance). Cost of non-conformance is a lot more than cost of conformance in terms of cash and in terms of time taken to rectify the situation, provided it is rectifiable.   

Back to the issue of putting Nigeria on the information superhighway. From where I sit, the cost of non-conformance is a lot greater than $25,000.  

Comments are welcome.  

Respectfully

Ayo Sanni, PMP

It all started like a project that would not stand the test of time, considering the way previous projects of such magnitude had suffered in the hands of government. Well, you may say that it’s too early for me to conclude that the BRT scheme in Lagos would stand the test of time – the first in Sub- Saharan Africa.
But what is interesting to me is the way and manner the scheme has been approved by other state governments –(Rivers state and I also heard that the Oyo state government is also coming up with the scheme soon) striving to make the transportation system better thereby offering the rare “dividends of democracy”, seen what is happening in the Oil rich state of Rivers where the new scheme is being put in place and sponsored by the Bank that whose official language is yes.
You know that i can’t gist without drawing your attention to the importance of project management in all of this – to the PH scheme
There would have been Assumptions i.e educated guesses you make on a project
Historical information from all that happened in the Lagos scheme, but before going to historical information, were there lessons learned after the project in Lagos was concluded – what is Lessons Learned?
Lessons Learned – The Project Manager and his/her team discuss what were the things that worked and the things that didn’t work on the project, what i simply term W⁶ i.e (what went well, what went wrong). This should be done on every project you embark upon and also documented so that future projects would not suffer from the same issues that the old ones suffered from – i hope that the new BRT scheme in PH would be a lot better than the one in Lagos … broader dedicated lanes so that buses that are parked on the side lines don’t obstruct coming buses behind them etc
To the issue of risk identification on our projects meet me next week for …
Gbenga  O
 

You would agree with me that great things are happening in Naija especially in the way our projects are been managed.
You remember the PH Airport that was scheduled to last for a few months but lasted forever and was subsequently re-awarded. This seems to be the trend with major projects in our dear nation Naija at 48. This is in contrast to the third mainland bridge and the way in which it was managed. I can say that I am impressed with the way that project was right from the start when all the stakeholders including you and myself were carried along with that project. And we (yes, we finally recognized as stakeholders) were informed and also of the alternative routes. We were informed when it was to be closed, as milestones were reached, and immediately the project was completed. This says that communication is key in managing projects. In fact 90% of a project manager’s job is communication.
Now come to think of when we all heard that the bridge would be closed for repairs, most of us thought that it would take the best part of a year for the project to be completed and really I wont blame you because we all are used to uncompleted projects, but this was a different project by all standards – completed ahead of schedule and stakeholders were carried along. I now don’t know if the cost of N762million that completed the project work was the actual budget for the project so I can’t say that it was within budget. Yes as regards the scope because I am talking about the triple constraint – for the government to have been satisfied with the work then it means that it was within scope and quality was not compromised.
Once again we see the power of project management at play and we cant over emphasize it’s immense power as this is a major skill that has placed the developed nations where they are today as their businesses are projectized and practically what would help our small businesses and governments in managing projects.  We will be watching for more examples of the benefits of project management. 

Yay!! Friday is here again whew! A break from multi-tasking at work, emails, incessant phone calls, text messages everyone seems to love texting these days.. I imagine the happiest set of people this friday are the bankers!they get to rest from today till wednesday the 1st of october, thanks to Ramadan holiday and Independence day! A well welcomed holiday i must say.. Ok so i’m 5 minutes from heading out the door and on home!…better leave before the rain starts pouring. Have a fab weekend and holiday everyone! try not to get too fat eating ram and whatever… hasta luego (see ya later)!!!

Chinny