"PROJECT MANAGEMENT – SHAPING THE INDUSTRY, THE COMMUNITY AND THE NATION"

The fourth Annual SPMI Symposium has been a resounding success with over 300 participants from several industries. The annual Symposiums which started in 2006 to provide a platform for project management professionals and industry leaders to share their experiences, knowledge and latest trends in project management has now broadened in scope to include networking opportunities, exchanging of ideas and challenges in the industry across the entire Asia Pacific region.

PMI Singapore Chapter celebrated its Tenth year of establishment with a two day regional symposium entitled "PROJECT MANAGEMENT – SHAPING THE INDUSTRY, THE COMMUNITY AND THE NATION". PMI Singapore Chapter invited speakers and PM professionals as far as from Sweden and Australia to speak on the emerging PM theory and practice that the project managers can adopt in making their profession better and more efficient. The Regional Symposium coincided with the International PM day and the participant got the first hand webcast on PM day by Greg Balestrero, CEO and President of PMI, Dr. Harold Kerzner, Senior Executive Director of IIL, Steven V. DelGrosso, Dorector of PM Center of Excellence, IBM, Bonnie Nixon, Director of Environmental sustainability, HP, David deLaiare, CTO of Eolfi, and Dr. Adel Besrour, Ericsson. The participants learned about the need to change PM to value orientation in order to achieve results in businesses and economy at large during the changing times.

The Regional Symposium, which attracted more than 320 participants, was inaugurated by Ms. Penny Low, MP of Singapore Parliament. Ms. Low highlighted the need of project management professionals not only in the waste management, infrastructure construction, and enterprise systems design but also on the social uplifting project that she is handling in Singapore. Congratulating Singapore Chapter through a recorded message Mr. Greg Balestrero mentioned how Singapore Chapter is continuously maintaining its path to attain professional programs by designing regional symposiums and holding unique event line Focus Group discussions for the Chapter members. Mr. Alex Siow, President of the PMI Singapore Chapter highlighted the path the chapter has taken over the past ten years and thanked all members for being very supportive.

Singapore's recent achievement in a complex underground project for 800,000 cubic meters per day waste water collection and water reclamation through the use of project development specification techniques was presented by Mr. N.C. Tan, Managing Director of CH2MHILL, Singapore. He highlighted as to how project management helped them to complete the Singapore Dollar two billion project on time, by using state of the art technology and within budget and with no major geographical problems, although the project had to be carried out near sea and with deep excavation. The project used concurrent development and design, which is rarely practiced in the project of this large scale. Mr. Tan mentioned that it was necessary for the project to adopt this process to cut short the total project execution time and to continuously understand and tackle the underground geological conditions in order to make timely changes in the project plan.

Another keynote speaker, Professor Vernon Ireland from the University of Adelaide, Australia mentioned of the need to choose a correct project delivery system to achieving project objectives. The main delivery systems, of traditional EPC (or Design/Bid/Build), Design/Build, Alliance Contracts, PPPs (or BOOT) might have to be reorganized and realigned in a large scale and complex System of Systems type of projects.

PMI Singapore Chapter reoriented the program by eliminating parallel sessions, inviting the key professionals in the area of project management and by focusing on how PM knowledge can be brought back by the participants to help the business, community and the society at large.

All this would not have been possible without your continued support. The Executive Committee of the Project Management Institute Singapore Chapter would like to extend a BIG THANK YOU to you for all these years of support.

We also would like to thank you for your invaluable feedback and suggestions.

Regards,

Symposium Organizing Committee