Oliver F. Lehmann

Biography

Oliver F. Lehmann was born in 1957 in Stuttgart, Germany. He has studied Linguistics, Literature and History at the University of Stuttgart and Project Management at the University of Liverpool, UK, where he holds a Master of Science Degree. He practiced project management for more than 12 years mostly for the automotive industry and related trades, when he decided to make the change and become a trainer, speaker and author in 1995.

Among his customers are international companies such as Airbus, DB Schenker Logistics, Microsoft, Olympus, and Deutsche Telekom, and he had assignments as a trainer in Asia, Europe and USA. He works for several training providers and is also Visiting Lecturer at the Technical University of Munich. Oliver Lehmann is invited frequently to speak at congresses and other events, where he motivates his audience to open up for the incredible diversity found in project management around the world, and for the new experiences that wait for discovery by project managers.

Among his diverse certifications are the PMP certification of PMI, the Project Management Institute from Newtown Square, PA, USA, which he obtained in the year 2001. In 2009, he acquired the prestigious CLI-CA (Certified Associate) certification issued by CLI, the Connective Leadership Institute from Pasadena, CA, USA, which is only held by a small number of people.

He has been a member and volunteer at PMI, the Project Management Institute, since 1998, and serves currently as the President of the PMI Munich Chapter. Between 2004 and 2006, he contributed as an analyst for troubled projects to PMI’s PM Network magazine, where he provided the monthly editorial on page 1 called “Launch”, analyzing troubled projects all around the world.
Oliver F. Lehmann believes in three driving forces for personal improvement in project management: formal learning, experience and observations.

He considers the last one often overlooked, but important, because attentive project managers do not need to make all errors by themselves, they also learn from the errors of their colleagues.

Education

PMP by the Project Management Institute (PMI)
MSc. in Project Management, University of Liverpool

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

My main topic is Project Management, and here especially education of practitioners. A specific type of project that I am interested in are Customer Projects, which are mostly undertaken by the performing organization to bring money home. They are often performed inside highly complex and dynamic supply networks, and the dynamics of success and failure of these networks are another interesting topic.

Personal Interests

Outside the practitioners' world, my interest belongs to sciences, including natural sciences and humanities. Everything is welcome to make the world a better one and able to sustain the lives of additional Billions of men, women and children that will inevitably come in the future.

Another special interest is people: How they behave and interact for the good in the world, but unfortunately also for the bad.

My dream project would be to green the Sahara and other desert areas to provide the resources for a growing mankind without destroying the Earth.

Books