Report (Part 6): Sustainable Development Convention 2002

HERMES: Project Management

Time: 31 October 2002, 13:30-14:30 Location: Salle C-3 Chair: Mr. Josef Fischer; Bansam Institute of Project Management Presenters: Mr. Louis Belle (SUIT) Reporter: Aïda Nejad (ICVolunteers) Languages: English Key words: Project management, ICT 

In this session, Mr. Belle from SUIT spoke about the Hermes methodology and its potential to be adapted to different sustainable development projects in different parts of the world.

Mr. Belle opened the session by introducing the Hermes project management methodology. The methodology was developed in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Railways and the Swiss Postal System and has been updated over the last 30 years, with the latest edition in 1995 and a new one to be released in 2003. The Hermes methodology can provide a standardized method for the management of sustainable development in information and communications technology (ICT) projects.

Mr. Belle introduced a business case: "company Metalcolor". This Swiss company specialised in coil-oating on aluminium already worked with an existing concept and was seeking to expand in a different country. As the Metalcolor's concept was already in existence, Hermes methodology could be easily used to support implementation in another country, without running the first three phases: initialization, preliminary analysis and concept. 

The Hermes methodology is one that is very easily adaptable to different types of projects and therefore has an ability to standardize project management projects. The current project is to allow project managers from least developed countries to come to Switzerland to be trained on the Hermes methodology in the context of the World Summit on the Information Society.

Interesting Questions
One participant asked whether the method was more adaptable to public sector projects, since it came from the government.

The speaker said that it is very adaptable to projects in the private sector.

Another participant asked if Hermes was also adaptable to small projects. Mr. Belle said that it was possible, but a tailoring process would be needed. 

Conclusions
A delegate asked about the allocation of resources under Hermes. Mr. Belle said the methodology forces one to identify resources by giving guidance, but will not allocate resources themselves. The project manager will for instance need to match up the best-suited person with the position he will be given in the project.