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Top 30 Web Forums for Project Management Professionals

Published by Madison on Wed June 8, 2011

Project management can be as simple as arranging a small event to a complex affair that involves creating new businesses, products and services…and to keep those businesses and their products and services going and growing. The following top 30 Web forums for project management (PM) professionals might help you learn more about how the professionals handle small to large projects. Some of the forums, or virtual communities, are generalized and others are specific to a given trade or PM software program.

General PM Forums

1. All PM Forum: Register to take part in this discussion among project managers from all over the world. Active forum areas include career and job talk, help topics, software and tools, certification, best practices and methodologies.
2. Planning Planet Forum: A popular forum, where the “best planners, schedulers and project controllers network.” Topics include planning, scheduling, programming, forensic claims, risk analysis and resource usage.
3. PMForum: PMFORUM is a resource for information on international project management affairs. The PMFORUM supports the development, international cooperation, promotion and advancement of a professional and worldwide project management discipline.
4. Project Management Discussion: There is a great deal of depth to this site – both in the forums and in the many other sections of the site. Please take your time, explore, learn, contribute.
5. Project Management: Networking, Forum and Jobs: You must join LinkedIn to become a member of this group. Currently, this network contains 410,000+ members, with keywords including training, education, certification, job, career, human resources and more.
6. Project Manager Blog: This link leads to the forums site within the blog. You can follow the forums with a group RSS to follow discussions on PM software, project management training and resources for career advancement.
7. Project Manager Jobs Forum: Indeed sponsors this forum, which focuses on jobs, interview preparation, resumes and other tips and tools that can help you land a job in this career path.
8. Project Managers: This is a community that offers blogs, event calendars, job opportunities and the ability to join groups or to create your own group. These groups replace the usual forum format.
9. ProjectsCenter Project Management Forum: You can enter discussions about management software, construction projects, jobs or learn about calls for papers at this broad-range project management forum.

Project Management Communities

1. Australian Institute of Project Management: AIPM members can participate in forums and gain access to other member-only areas within this Web site.
2. Project Management Club: Join Ecademy for exclusive business networking with other project managers.Ecademy is a membership organization for entrepreneurs and business owners who belong to a community that connects, supports and transacts with one another.
3. Project Management Community of Practice: Although you may not be able to participate in this Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) PM community (unless you are an employee), the information gathered by this group is available for anyone to read.
4. Project Management Knowledge Base: PMKB is a community of project planners and managers sharing experiences and knowledge. With free registration you can respond to polls upload content, review books or software and gain access to other special features.
5. Project Management Professional Community: This is a private members site for project management professionals filled with educational project management materials, news and information.
6. Project Risk Management Community of Practice: This group enhances the project risk management practice and its contributions to effective project management by developing a forum for networking, knowledge content and active practitioner engagement.
7. Project Times: Project Management Times is a popular online resource dedicated 100 percent to project management. They focus on providing project management education through articles, blogs, white papers, online training, books, jobs and community.
8. The ICPM: More of a community than a forum, the International Community for Project Managers is a free collaborative Web presence that provides project management information, resources and the opportunity to meet and network with peers, engage in meaningful discussion and generally keep up with what’s happening in the profession.

Project-Specific PM Forums

1. ASAP Methodology and Project Management: Ask your questions and share experiences around the use of the new ASAP Core and Business Add-ons.
2. Clarizen Work Management — Community: This link leads to the forums within this site, which is dedicated to project managers who use Clarizen. You also can tap into tutorials, blogs and training through this site.
3. Engineering Project Management Forum: if you have project management questions or answers and you are an engineer, this forum may help your quest. The careers range from aeronautic to structural engineers, and topics include methodology, corporate survival and trends and strategies.
4. Gantthead.com: This link leads to the forum at Gantthead, the online community for IT project managers. The forum is fairly well populated and filled with queries and answers about projects, risk management, the CAPM exam and other relevant topics.
5. IT Project Manager Jobs Forum: Another Indeed forum, specific to IT project managers. Most of the topics concern getting a job rather than job offers.
6. Prince 2 IPMF: This International Project Management Forum serves and an interactive open resource to support Prince 2 and project management in general. The portal includes a wide range of facilities, including an FAQ, directory and download area.
7. ]project-open[ — Project Management: Join the discussions about project management within the open source community. This forum is sponsored by SourceForge.
8. Smarter Tools: Register to participate in forums specific to managing communication tools and statistical Web projects. The forums are active, and the most active topic concerns SmarterMail.
9. Tek-Tips Project Management Forum: This link leads to the project management forum under project and data management. The forum is low volume, yet good quality, with great questions and intelligent ideas that could help you with your IT projects.
10. Telerik Team Pulse: An interesting view into a team-run forum based upon management of a wide variety of developer tools. The board is active, mainly with general discussions.
11. The SAP Fan Club Forums: Sometimes you can meet the very best in your field by visiting the most well respected and utilized tools in the field. Since nearly every project manager uses SAP in some respect, this is a great source of information to visit.
12. Webmaster World: Specific to IT, yet this forum site holds tons of information about project management and is filled with individuals who have specific skills. Great networking opportunity.
13. WizIQ Project Management Community: This community and its forum is centered on online education and the WizIQ product. Students and teachers can share in dialogue and in the ability to teach and learn online.

Tagged as: PM community, PM forum, project management community, project management forum, project management software, project manager

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity! (Martha Shields)

A plateau is a high form of flattery.

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

Dreams come true, without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them. (John Updike)

A pet store had a bird contest with no perches necessary.

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research. - Einstein

Dream but always with your eyes wide open.

for fellow geeks: A perfectly spherical pumpkin makes good pi.

Yawn: An honest opinion openly expressed.

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today. (James Dean)

A pediatrician is a doctor with little patients.

Wrinkles: Something other people have. You have character lines.

Do you realize that in about 40 years, we'll have thousands of old ladies running around with tattoos?

A nut named Hazel held up a bank saying 'give me all the cashew have'.

Will: A dead giveaway.

Do you know the three times that most people are in church?
When they are hatched, matched and dispatched.

A music store was robbed. The thief made away with the lute.

Vocabularian: A person who makes up new words.

Do what you love and love what you're doing, and you'll never work another day in your life.

A murderer had heartburn because of something the assassinate.

Toothache: The pain that drives you to extraction.

Do's and don'ts influence wills and won'ts.

A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.

Tomorrow: One of the greatest labor saving devices of today.

Do one thing at time, with supreme excellence. (NASA proverb)

A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.

Syntax: Money in the collection plate.

Don't worry that there won't be a tomorrow, it's already tomorrow in Australia.

Clouds over Phoenix... time to settle in and do some bills.

A man given a watch at his retirement said 'it's about time'.

Swipeout: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. (Robert Fulghum)

A lot of money is tainted. It taint yours and it taint mine.

Sudafed: Bringing litigation against a government official.

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Walk beside me and be my friend. (Albert Camus)

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Subdued: Like, a guy, like, who works on one of those, like, submarines, man.

Don't wait for your ship to come in. Row out to meet it.

A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiney.

SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm. (Malayan proverb)

A dentist and manicurist fought tooth and nail.

A criminal's best asset is his lie ability.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

Secret: Something you tell to one person at a time.

Seamstress: 250 pounds in a size six.

Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Don't stand in a place of danger trusting in miracles. (Arabic Proverb)

Safecracker: A cracker without caviar on it. (thanks to Catherine Debo)

Don't spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for. (The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus)

Rubberneck: What you do to relax your wife.

Don't speak of secret matters in a field that is full of little hills. (Hebrew proverb)

Relief: What trees do in the spring.

Don't shut love out of your life by saying it's impossible to find.The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Don't seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise: seek what they sought. (Basho)

Rectitude: The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo DaVinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

Raisin: Grape with a sunburn.

Don't say" if I could, I would". Say instead "If I can, I will".

Retail Sales Will Be Vital for Insurers as 125 Million Switch Health Coverage - Health Plan Week

Over the next five to six years, as many as 125 million consumers are expected to transition — at least once — to a new type of health insurance coverage. As a result, $1 trillion in potential sales could be up for grabs, according to one former health plan executive. But to take advantage of this mass migration, health insurers will need to pay far greater attention to retail marketing while transitioning away from the employer-based wholesale market.

Health insurers traditionally have spent the bulk of their marketing dollars selling products to employers, either directly or via benefits consultants and brokers. By signing large employer accounts, health insurers have been able to secure more attractive rates from providers. Individual and retail sales, by contrast, have always been an afterthought, explains Fred Karutz, general manager of health plan solutions at Silverlink Communications. Prior to joining Silverlink, Karutz spent 10 years as a corporate vice president at Health Care Service Corp., which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in four states.
But as the health reform law accelerates a switch from wholesale to retail health insurance sales, health plans will need to forge relationships with their most valuable but least visible members — the ones who rarely use health care.
In every consumer market, customers who leave are seven to eight times more valuable than those who stay, according to Karutz. While members who regularly use health services tend to be most loyal, those who rarely seek care are most likely to switch carriers. “And those members are the ones who help create a fiscally stable book of business. Without those customers, you really can’t service the other ones,” he explains.

Group Enrollment May Decline 40%

The commercial group market, according to Karutz’s estimate, will shrivel from 160 million members in 2010 to just under 100 million by 2017 as some employers — particularly those with fewer than 100 workers and those with a large number of low-paid employees — drop health coverage and encourage workers to purchase their own individual policies. As a result, the individual market will balloon from an estimated 18 million members now to as many as 51 million. Other former group-insurance members will seek coverage through state insurance exchanges or will qualify for Medicaid coverage, Karutz estimates.
Mass migrations are nothing new for the health insurance industry. When Medicare prescription drug coverage became available in 2006, millions of seniors suddenly had options for drug benefits. “The group retiree market imploded, and a lot of employers got out of the retiree insurance business as a result,” Karutz says. The upcoming migration, he predicts, translates to about $1 trillion in gross risk premiums in today’s dollars. Health insurers that have very strong brand names — such as Kaiser Permanente and Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, as well as national companies such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana Inc. and Aetna Inc. — will have a leg up over the competition when it comes to retail sales.
To take advantage of the migration, health plans must become more “retail centric”, he asserts. 

Go ‘Where Consumers Are’

Highmark Inc., a Pittsburgh-based Blues plan operator, has been a pioneer in retail health insurance for the past several years. The company operates six retail stores and also has two specialized tractor-trailer trucks that it uses to tout products and educate members. The idea is to “go to where our customers are instead of forcing them to come to our space,” explains Matt Fidler, vice president of consumerism and retail marketing. Highmark, he says, has been marketing products directly to consumers for more than a decade, but adds that learning to serve consumers as well as employers is a “big shift” for health insurers.
As employees who previously had employer-based coverage strike out on their own, Karutz says health plans will need to help them understand their coverage options and why one plan might fit their needs better than another. “Many of them have always relied on their employer to select the plans for them,” he says.
Fidler agrees and says consumers who visit Highmark’s retail stores typically are trying to make a decision about coverage and are seeking guidance. A recently laid-off worker, for example, might want to know about more affordable alternatives to COBRA continuation coverage. Or a 64-year-old might have questions about Medicare’s limitations.
While the stores offer a unique sales outlet, much of the floor space is dedicated to educating consumers — on everything from smoking cessation to Medicare coverage. Moreover, the retail presence, Fidler says, helps to build Highmark’s brand recognition. And brand recognition will be critical in 2014 when Highmark has to compete with the state’s three other Blues plans.

Retention Marketing Is Key Part of Retail World

The new retail economics of health care is a move away from risk selection and underwriting to a model based on risk management and “retention marketing,” says Karutz. Gathering data about customers, he says, is going to be just as important as managing claims. Health insurers will need to build profiles of their customers and personalize the health care experience by helping members make better-informed decisions.
Moreover, Karutz says health insurers must learn to connect with existing members throughout the year, so that when it comes time for them to renew a policy, they feel that their health plan is working to save them money and keep them healthy. “This is a challenge for health plans because they’ve always invested in [acquiring employer clients] rather than on retaining members.”

Primate: Removing your spouse from in front of the TV.

Don't save your loving speeches for your friends till they are dead; Do not write them on their tombstones, speak them rather now instead. (Anna Cummins)

Porcupine: A craving for bacon.

Don't run through life so fast that you forget not only where you've been but also where you're going.

Polarize: What penguins see with.

Don't protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.

Can Behavior Related To Health Be Changed By Gaming?: http://ping.fm/1HWEC

Pokemon: A Rastafarian proctologist.

Don't marry for money - you can borrow it cheaper.

Apple Is Said to Work on Cheaper, Smaller IPhones - Bloomberg: http://ping.fm/G2ppx

Don't make someone a priority, who only makes you an option.

Pharmacist:: A helper on the farm.

Don't listen to what I say; listen to what I mean.

Petranoid: Someone who is both petrified and paranoid. Usually a mother. (thanks to King Bewildered)

Don't limit your challenges - challenge your limits.

Perfect Pitch: What it is when you throw a banjo in a dumpster and it didn't hit the sides.

Don't let you mind wander. It is too little to be left alone.

Planet Hunter Bill Borucki Calls Kepler Discoveries 'Game-Changing' - space.com: http://ping.fm/ymrXu

Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of whacking an electronic device to get it to work again.

Don't let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future.

The internet is about to run out of addresses - Venture Beat: http://ping.fm/NKh66

Pedestrian: A motorist with two or more children of driving age.

Extraordinary iPhone app identifies TV shows by 'listening' - Mashable: http://ping.fm/terxj

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. (John Wooden)

Parasites: What you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Don't let time take control of your destiny. Let your destiny take control of your time. (Ulrick Ricardo Milord)

VOD Patent Suit Lodged Against Six Biggest U.S. Cable Operators - Broadcasting & Cable: http://ping.fm/sW5eM

Parachute: A double barreled shotgun.

Steve Jobs Should Take A Cue From AIG's Cancer-Stricken CEO - InformationWeek: http://ping.fm/DK617

Don't let the littleness in others bring out the littleness in you.

American students do poorly in science - Reuters: http://ping.fm/jkMWG

Paradox: Two physicians.

Don't let people drive you crazy when it is within walking distance.

Postal Service Eyes Closing Thousands of Post Offices - Wall Street Journal

Final days at the Millville, W.V., post office, which closed last week: postal worker Christine Carter

HOLMES MILL, Ky.—The U.S. Postal Service plays two roles in America: an agency that keeps rural areas linked to the rest of the nation, and one that loses a lot of money.

Now, with the red ink showing no sign of stopping, the postal service is hoping to ramp up a cost-cutting program that is already eliciting yelps of pain around the country. Beginning in March, the agency will start the process of closing as many as 2,000 post offices, on top of the 491 it said it would close starting at the end of last year. In addition, it is reviewing another 16,000—half of the nation's existing post offices—that are operating at a deficit, and lobbying Congress to allow it to change the law so it can close the most unprofitable among them. The law currently allows the postal service to close post offices only for maintenance problems, lease expirations or other reasons that don't include profitability.

Out of Bounds: An exhausted kangaroo.

Don't let anybody walk trough your mind with dirty feet. (Gandhi)

Onosecond: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.

10 American Companies That Will Disappear in 2011 - DailyFinance: http://ping.fm/wbwPj

Don't learn the tricks of the trade, learn the trade.

Google's H.264 Move: The 'Right Thing' or the 'Worst Thing' for Web Standards? - LinuxInsider: http://ping.fm/qeMUG

Namesis: A person who shares your name but is much richer and more famous than you. (thanks to Adam)

“The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth.”

Steve Jobs – what next for Apple? - Guardian: http://ping.fm/aTCrx

Don't kill the dream - execute it!

Facebook's most memorable privacy gaffes - Telegraph, Emma Barnett: http://ping.fm/OV2N2

Naggravator: The person in the passenger seat who is having trouble reading the map. Also, anyone who is helping to drive but not actually behind the wheel. (thanks to Michele T)

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Mouse Potato: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

Microsoft releases an open source web development suite - the Inquirer.net: http://ping.fm/sxPTu

Don't grieve that your roses have thorns. Rejoice instead that your thorns have roses.

Breathe in the moment, smile and feel the world change with you. - Jennifer Hillman

Mosquito: An insect that makes you like flies better.

Escaping the walled garden of connected TV - LA Times: http://ping.fm/PaEkD

Don't get married only because of the money. You can borrow it cheaper. (Z. Z. Gabor)

Viewdle brings automatic photo tagging to smart phones - LA Times: http://ping.fm/BraPp

Misty: Why a golfer creates a divot.

LG Electronics demonstrates first ‘Glasses-Free’ 3D ATSC Mobile DTV - DigitalTVNews: http://ping.fm/S5fGr

Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you. - Go Ducks!

New To The Gym? Physical Therapists Help You Get Fit - Safely - In 2011 http://ping.fm/R6Jc7

UK Turns to H1N1 Shots to Beat Surge in Winter Flu http://ping.fm/HJymr

Moving your DVD collection to the cloud - LA Times: http://ping.fm/3LXGN

Mistress: Somewhere between a mister and a mattress. (thanks to SuperSamuell)

Don't find fault, find a remedy. (Henry Ford)

How To Automatically Post Webcam Snapshots As New Blog Posts - Ryan Dube: http://ping.fm/XnANN

Matricide: Killing yourself on a bed.

Mac Surgery - David Pogue: http://ping.fm/S3GoB

Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have. (Louis E. Boone)

Why Groupon, Twitter & Other Hot Private Companies Are Cashing Out http://ping.fm/Gfl8u

Walking Speed Associated With Survival In Older Adults http://ping.fm/HRSM6

The ChromeOS CR-48 Experience: Fast, Promising, Early - Louis Gray: http://ping.fm/2uHUH

Left Bank: What the robber did after his bag was full of loot.

What's in store for IPTV in 2011? - Jim O'Neill: http://ping.fm/VBC53

Don't ever slam a door- you may want to go back.

3D Game Player Not for Pre-Schoolers, Nintendo Warns http://ping.fm/CsL4E

Why We Desperately Need a New (and Better) Google - by Vivek Wadhwa: http://ping.fm/aYUtT

Lasterday: Any day before today.

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

Irritainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.