Finally …. after 12 years in the IT industry a course which covers some of the fundamental issues governing project success.   This course is a real eye opener and a must for any IT professional involved in project planning and delivery. Stephen McWilliams Solutions Architect, Auckland SWS WCM Team

When I was asked to attend this course as part of the Elite partner program in New Zealand, I had impressions that we would be covering how to design and use SharePoint features to build and information architecture which would just be a repeat of my daily work but got instead a wealth of information, techniques and knowledge on how to successfully implement a SharePoint project based around Information Architecture …I would recommend attending this course if you are undertaking SharePoint projects in the capacity of a BA, PM, SharePoint Architect or Information architect. Alan Marshall

I just came back from the best technology training I have had in years: a world-first Microsoft SharePoint Elite Information Architecture course designed and delivered by Paul Culmsee. It has taught me a great deal across ALL facets of the day-to-day work that I do as a SharePoint architect. 

I liked the big legible font in the written course material. More importantly, I like the fact that it’s written in a tone that reads like a series of friendly, personal, enlightening advice all the way through and not like a manual or brochureware. It makes me actually want to read it over and over again – and also recommend to other people.  Jess Kim

If you think that the way to a successful SharePoint implementation is applying more best practices and governance to the project, I got the perfect course to recommend you. Through the course, Paul explains why best practices and governance is not the end all of SharePoint implementations and strictly following them might be detrimental to the implementation. The course (in my view) is also beneficial to people who are involved in SharePoint implementations other than Information Architects, as it succinctly points out the cognitive bias each member brings to the project and why the way forward is for everyone to acknowledge and have a shared understanding of the issues that plague SharePoint implementations. Jeff Chionn, Datacom

You can tell that the instructor is a natural as he can adapt to the audience’s needs.  Even though the course is well structured and thought-out, the instructor made sure that we were all on the same page by tailoring the focus of the course to our experience.  There was a healthy balance between the theory and technical modules, as well as the interactive hands-on-labs.  The content was cutting edge, informative, interesting and included real world examples that illustrated concepts and were often humorous, keeping us all engaged throughout the course.  I have recommended this course to many of my work-mates and look forward to using the knowledge and skills I have gained.  Ryan Harte, Intergen

Last week, Paul Culmsee spent 4 days in Wellington, New Zealand delivering the Seven Sigma SharePoint Governance & Information Architecture courseware as part of the NZ SharePoint Elite Training for its Gold Partners.

This course went extremely well, with all attendees giving both the course and its trainer (Paul) very positive feedback. Attendees have still to sit the exam (which is scheduled for August 27th) so come exam day, they might be cursing and change their glowing reviews . So get crackin’ on that  780-odd page course manual.

On the last day, Paul was asked by Darryl Burling (NZ Microsoft Product Manager) to give a 15-minute presenting on his SP Governance f-Laws to attendees of the SP End-User Engagement course. This quick impromptu presentation was well received by this group.

Seven Sigma will be presenting this course in New Zealand in the near future, with plans to run this also in Australia and London.

For those who are interested in this course, please contact us.

Welcome home, Paul. Congratulations on a well developed and well run course.

Friday will be SharePoint Workshop day and Seven Sigma’s Paul Culmsee will be conducting his SharePoint Governance workshop. Be sure to register for this session quickly as places are filling up.

Paul will also be holding the same Workshop the week after at the Sydney conference. This workshop looks like it will be a sellout as places are also filling up.

Seven Sigma is also one of the Silver Sponsors at the Sydney conference. Paul and Chris will be the booth babes for the two days so be sure to drop by our booth for a friendly but informative chat. The boys will be holding live demonstrations on the wonders of IBIS.

So catch you all at the Seven Sigma booth.

Come join Paul and demystify wicked problems within your SharePoint world.

After the success of the SharePoint Saturdays in the US, the free educational SharePoint Saturday event has finally arrived in sunny Perth. Seven Sigma has sponsored the production of the showbags for this event.

It will be a full day with speakers from US and interstate as well as local and ending with the famous SharePint. Free breakfast and lunch will be provided for the day. A Speaker Dinner has also been organised.

The event contains 24 sessions divided into 3 streams:

• 200 – IT Pro
• 300 – Information Worker
• 400 – Developer

Seven Sigma’s experienced Peter Chow and Paul Culmsee will be up on the podium to impart pearls of wisdom to all.

Peter will be presenting Integrating SharePoint With Real Time Performance Data in the IT Pro stream. Peter will present an approach to integrating real-time performance data from OSIsoft’s PI system with an ITIL inspired IT Portal using SQL Server Reporting Services.

Paul’s presentation will be in the Information Worker stream and is titled Wicked Problems & SharePoint. This session introduces the concept and characteristics of wicked problems, why SharePoint projects are predisposed to falling foul of them and why traditional project management and governance approaches can in fact make the situation far worse. The session will also reveal the *one* best-practice that should be adopted before any other best-practice, with a simple, yet practical method to do so.

Courtesy of Seven Sigma, Paul and Peter will be giving away spot prizes during their presentation. So make sure you attend.

Special thanks to:

• Dux Raymond Sy and O’Reilly for donating 10 ‘SharePoint for Project Management’ books as giveaway prizes
• Michael Sampson and Apress for donating 10 ‘SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration” books as giveaway prizes and discount vouchers for the book and workshop
• Brett Lonsdale and Manning Publications for donating 5 ‘Developers Guide to the Business Data Catalog’ and discount vouchers for all Lightning Tools’ products
• Bjorn Furuknap for his first issue of SP2010, a compilation of a series of 6 issues, FREE.

For more information on SharePoint Saturday Perth check out http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/perth

•  Event: New Zealand SharePoint Conference
• Date: 9th – 10th June, 2010
• Venue: Duxton Hotel, 170 Wakefield Street, Wellington, 6110, New Zealand
• Cost: $600 + GST (I think this is in $NZ!)

This will be New Zealand’s biggest SharePoint event for 2010 so register fast! You will learn about SP 2007 as well as the 2010 version.

There will be local New Zealand and international speakers, including Seven Sigma’s own PAUL CULMSEE. This will be Paul’s second time round at the NZ SP conference as a speaker. He wowed attendees with his talk last year and this time Paul plans to have more to add to keep things interesting.

Sessions will be grouped into three different streams:

• Business
• Technical
• Voice of the Customer

and further grouped into experience level:

• No previous experience expected
• Some previous experience or knowledge of concepts expected
• Technical experience expected

This Conference will contain SharePoint information for all and some of the roles covered are:

• Business Roles: For examples End Users, Business Champions, Power Users and Business Managers
• Information Architects, Record and Information Managers
• IT Managers, CIO and Decision Makers
• Technical Roles including Developers, IT Pro, Systems Administration and DBA’s

Technologies to be covered will include:

• WSS 3.0 (Windows SharePoint Services)
• MOSS 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)
• SharePoint Foundation 2010
• SharePoint Server 2010
• SSharePoint Designer 2007 and 2010
• Intergration with Office 2007 and 2010, including InfoPath, Excel, Access and Visio
• Intergration with 3rd Party products enhancing SharePoint functionality

Visit http://www.sharepointconference.co.nz for more information and registrationn.

For those who don’t mind a bit of travelling in their work, the SharePoint 2010 Evolution Conference will be the place to be in April.

This 3 day conference will be hosted by Combined Knowledge and boasts of 75 breakout sessions, all of which will be recorded and dvds sent out post conference. It promises not to be a rehash of the Las Vegas conference and definitely will contain new content. So fear not, SharePoint experts, you will not be sitting through endless hours of Las Vegas regurgitations.

As the name suggests, it is dedicated to SharePoint with 55 expert speakers from Microssoft and other well known companies, one of which is Seven Sigma.

Seven Sigma’s very own Paul Culmsee, now a seasoned presenter, made a great impression on the SharePoint community with his successful presentations last year in San Diego, Washington DC, Wellington, New Zealand, Perth SharePoint User Group and the Business Analysts World Conference in Perth. His “How to Avoid SharePoint Becoming a Wicked Problem” and “Think Like a CFO: Techniques to Quantify SharePoint ROI”; “Governance – The Other 90%” co-presented with Ruven Gotz, and “SharePoint for the Really Really Really Going Looking” co-presented with Peter, were all very well received.

Next year, at the 2010 Evolution conference in London, Paul has decided to join the crowd and attend as many sessions as possible as well as presenting a session.

If you’ve attended Paul’s wicked problem sessions before and are thinking to yourself “I’ve seen Paul perform and I’ve downloaded his demo slides, not to mention nominated his slide for Slideshare Zeitgeist 2009 Community Awards, so I’ll give his session a rest this time.” Think again! You will do yourself an injustice with that kind of thinking.

Paul, as you know, is very passionate when it comes to SharePoint and wicked problems, collectively and separately. This passion leads him, not to rest on his laurels, but to always finding ways to better improve his work (in this case, his presentation) with more information, more scenarios of real world application, more thought provoking titbits, etc, etc, for you all to digest.

For those who are still undecided on whether “to attend or not to attend” this conference – register now. You will be meeting great SharePoint minds to better assist you in your work. Click on http://www.sharepointevolutionconference.com  for more reasons why you should attend this conference.

Meet you all at the SharePoint 2010 Evolution Conference in April

Cheers