.::. BAR Chronicle .::. A monthly publication of the Bureau of Agricultural Research

BAR staff members attend e-gov project management seminar
by Lalaine A. Perlawan

Key staff members of the Information Communication and Technology Section of the Management Information Systems Division (ICTS-MISD) of the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) joined 31 representatives of the other government agencies who attended the e-Gov Project Management Seminar on at the NCC Building, in UP Diliman, Quezon City on 19-23 March 2007.

The seminar, conducted by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology through the Human Capital Development Group, was attended and participated in by Mr. Herminigildo Quibuyen, Ms. Lalaine Perlawan, and Mr. Bernardo Manuel.

The seminar was designed to provide IT managers, project managers, supervisors, and staff members who are involved in managing government ICT projects with the basic management concepts and skills that will integrate all the relevant factors needed to manage such project.

Mr. John J. Macasio, a certified IT service manager and a project consultant of the Philippine Commission on Information and Communication Technology (PCICT), was the seminar’s resource speaker. He lectured on project management conceptual framework, processes, lifecycle and various tools for project management.

To easily facilitate the discussion, all the 31 participants were grouped into three. On the first day of the activity, the groups were required to brainstorm on five activities of a project manager and how to achieve these activities. On the second and third days, Mr. Macasio introduced various free open source software (FOSS) and taught the attendees on how to use them. He assigned the groups to formulate a “project management methodology” using the software which is coupled with different project management templates.

The last day highlighted the seminar wherein each group was given an assignment to create a project management detailed plan, a web portal for the project, and upload it to internet. The portal should contain all the parameters of the project that the clients' need. The implications of the seminar to the government are: less cost in government budget through open sourcing of hardware and software applications, cost-effective management of project, development of skills to become an effective project manager.