Kelly Project Solutions is a blog run by North Carolina-based project manager Robert Kelly, who founded the blog with Jasmin Valentin-Kelly in July 2010.

“Our blog takes a more holistic, strategic view of Project Portfolio Management to illustrate the benefits and true value-add of the discipline within the organization,” Robert says. “Kelly Project Solutions help our clients realize their vision by leveraging a combination of impartial project management methods and seasoned associates to tailor solutions to today’s economy and at costs modest to the successes enjoyed by our clients.

“We offer the following services to meet our customers where they are at in their project management environment:

• Project/Program Management Resources
• PMO Development (Internal or Hosted)
• Consulting Services (Assurance, Salvage, etc)”

Robert told us that while he was impressed with the volume of blogs available on matters pertaining to project management, he felt KPS could provide a more corporate view in PPM matters.

“There are so many excellent blogs on Project Management best practices from and for the Project Manager,” he says. “We didn’t see many that are focused on the enterprise, executive view and this is where we as a profession need to get more support.

“Our intended audience includes the executive management of an organization. The PMO Director, CIO, CFO that needs to fight through the sales pitches and understand the real value and potential of Project Portfolio Management at the enterprise level.”

KPS offers between two and three new posts each month, offering outlets for project personnel from some strong career backgrounds – Robert has over 11 years in Project/Program Management experience in IT Services, Product Development, and Business Process Redesign, while Jasmin can point to over 10 years of experience in various finance roles at some of Wall Streets largest financial services firms.

The most widely read post concerns project success rates:

Can Project Success Exceed 47%

Robert pointed to other non-KPS posts that served as his personal inspirations:

ZDNET: CIO analysis: Why 37 percent of projects fail

TALKING WORK: It’s All About People

OLIVER LEHMANN: 100 Hundred Rules for NASA Project Managers (.pdf)

Follow the KPS blog on Twitter @kellysolutions.

Blog:  http://kellyprojectsolutions.com/KPSBlog/

RSS Feed: http://kellyprojectsolutions.com/KPSBlog/?feed=rss2

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PM Student by Josh Nankivel, PMP, is a blog about continuing professional development in project management focused on helping new and aspiring project managers to reach their goals.

Josh has spent a decade of his career span been managing IT and non-IT projects in Computing, Financial Services, Telecommunications, and Aerospace. A South Dakota native, Josh jokes that he began blogging in 2006 “to get all of these thoughts about project management out of my head!” What has transpired in PM Student is a mentoring relationship with , publications and courses that start a healthy dialogue throughout the PPM blogosphere. He describes his audience as “new and aspiring project managers, and other mentors out there who can lend their own experience to my audience.”

“I love to teach and help people who are currently struggling with situations I’ve been through already.  I want them to benefit from my experience,” he says.

Josh blogs 3-4 times a week and regularly responses directly to the wealth comments at PM Student. His main topics include project management careers, training and PMP issues, as well as his most popular post, Getting Started in the Industry:

Getting Started in Project Management

Josh admits that it was a tough task to narrow down to his three favourite posts, but he managed to find three anyway:

New Project Manager: How to Screw Up in the First 60 Days

Functional and Project Manager’s Duel

Deming’s 14 Points in Project Management

PM Student has a wellspring of regular features and sidebars, including the PM Career Coaching Newsletter and PMP Guide Newsletter, both of which come out every Thursday. “Each Monday they receive a sequence of helpful tips and resources via email that guides them through thinking about their PM Career Path OR PMP Study process depending on which newsletter,” he says.

Within PM Student, Josh says he will be launching a new e-Learning portal very soon. “I am very, very excited about it!  It will be a great way for me to go in-depth regarding effective project management and career coaching for enrolled students.”

PM Student and Josh can be followed on Twitter at @pmstudent.

URL: http://pmStudent.com

RSS Feed: http://pmstudent.com/feed

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How to Manage a Camel, the project management and recruitment issues blog for Arras People, began publishing posts in September 2006 under the guidance of Arras People co-director Lindsay Scott and with posts from Arras staff. Four years later, Scott has hired a co-editor, expanded the breadth of writing talent to include a variety of PPM-related guest posters, and watched as the posts were published each day of the work week.

“Our blog is all about the issues, trends and matters concerning recruitment, albeit finely tailored to the confines of our niche within the community of projects and programmes. We saw the blog as an opportunity to share our feelings and expertise on matters pertaining to project and programme management, but, again, in a manner that specifically allowed us to address recruitment issues. We felt that the personality and face of Arras People had an opportunity to shine through here and we’ve strived to take full advantage of that.”

Nicknamed “The Camel”, the blog has become a first stop for tips on turning project management skills and expertise into new job opportunities.

“Our internal and external bloggers bring a wealth of project management experience first and foremost to any piece they write”

Although certifications are not seen by Arras People as a be all and end all item in a candidate’s arsenal, Camel bloggers do find time to write of their relevance in the job search. It’s little wonder that in an age of instant qualification for the budding PPM professional, some of The Camel’s best-read posts revolve around PRINCE2.

“Who Takes the Prince2 Qualification and Why? is our most highly read article to date.

As to her personal favourites?

• Are you guilty of these project management CV errors – “It lays bare some of the hidden errors you might not necessarily look for on your CV. It’s rated third in number of views as well, so we’ve reached our target audience.”
• Chartered Professional: Will it be Worth the Effort? (guest written by Paul Naybour)- ”Another strong effort for our readership that showed our strong collection of external talent to generate interest in crucial project management matters, especially the APM Charter Application.”
• PRINCE2 Meets the Grumpy Old Man (written by Arras People’s John Thorpe) – “And the comments runneth over on this one! This post is wrought with sarcasm that rang true about what a highly-valued qualification like PRINCE2 has become in the industry. You could practically feel the cash register chimes in these words, but sadly, not one good feeling about the face of project management’s next generation.”
• APM or PRINCE2 Qualifications – Or Both

We also have a regular feature called “Project Management Recruitment Ideas” which are posts directly related to the recruitment aspects of project management and include tips, advice and how-tos for job seekers. We also have a new feature called Project Management Careers Q&A – an opportunity for readers to post questions about their careers directly to us.

You can find Lindsay on Twitter (appropriately entitled projectmgmt) and LinkedIn. But even as things have evolved since that September 2006 day when it started, The Camel remains as the main portal for sharing PPM recruitment know-how with the world. New for 2011 – Project Management Training Directory.

URL: http://www.arraspeople.co.uk/camel-blog

RSS Feed: http://www.arraspeople.co.uk/camel-blog/feed/

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