Winnipeg, MB – The City of Winnipeg is expanding its training in asset management with the launch of a new internal course curriculum in project management tailor-made for the City, developed and delivered with Red River College.
“This new training program will help the City of Winnipeg make important improvements to project management oversight by implementing leading best practices throughout civic departments in investment planning & project management processes, as identified in the 2014 Winnipeg Police Headquarter Construction Project Audit ,” said Councillor Mike Pagtakhan, Council Liaison for Project Management. “Not only will it foster a culture of excellence by promoting best practices throughout civic departments, it will help standardize the way the City manages projects.”
One of the recommendations of the 2014 Winnipeg Police Headquarter Construction Project Audit was to develop and deliver training sessions for City personnel involved with capital projects to improve understanding and consistent application of policy.
The new training in project management is tailored specifically for the City and will be delivered by Red River College this fall. The training consists of a five-day hands-on series that explores the nature of managing projects using the City’s Project Management Manual which includes processes, procedures, and templates. This framework ensures that investments in projects, resource allocation, monitoring, and evaluation are optimized throughout project life-cycles.
“The Infrastructure Planning Office is pleased to rollout the new project management training program, which is an excellent addition to the existing investment planning training launched last year,” said Chief Asset and Project Management Officer, Georges Chartier. “This additional training will allow us to teach and implement a consistent approach to project delivery to ensure standards of quality are met throughout all phases of infrastructure projects.”
An added benefit to the training program is that it qualifies for professional development units for employees holding a Project Management Professional (PMP) designation, an internationally recognized professional designation offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). It also qualifies as project management educational training/contact hours, a required pre-requisite for employees who want to attain their PMP designation.
The City previously launched a training program in investment planning in the fall of 2016.
Both the investment planning and newly developed project management training programs are mandatory for City employees who work on capital infrastructure projects.
About Asset Management
The City has many competing spending priorities and limited financial resources. The need to make sustainable decisions is essential to ensure that the best actions are taken regarding the use of City assets, which includes infrastructure like roads, sewers, and facilities such as libraries and pools. To that end, the City has embraced asset management as a core business function.
Asset management is not a singular activity or project; it is a collection of all the things the City does to gain the most value and best performance from its assets, including planning, designing, operating, maintaining through to the end of their lifecycle. In short, asset management allows the City to make the right investment, at the right time, and the right way, based on a robust, defendable, and transparent process.
For more information on asset management, please consult the City’s Infrastructure Planning Office webpage.