Project Management Wave
Speak "Geek" for the PMP
8:45 - 10:00
Eric Goodoien, New Horizons of Minnesota
Session Level: All levels (100–Beginner; 200–Intermediate; 300–Advanced; 400–Expert)
You are a business project manager, not an IT professional, so when you find yourself involved with an information technology company that chooses a technology based project, you wonder, “What are they talking about?” Maybe the project needs to implement an iterative life cycle where more than one phase of the project might progress simultaneously, and it leaves you feeling lost or worried. Will one hand know what the other hand is doing? To successfully manage this, two critical elements come into play: change control (possibly utilizing a framework such as ITIL or MOF) and a project management mentality (often not part of IT professional skill sets). In short, the business needs to learn from IT and IT needs to learn from the business—and you need to become the liaison. The use of information and communication technologies can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of every aspect of a project; therefore, today we need to learn to speak geek.
Teambuilding: Developing High Performance Teams
10:15 - 11:30
Pat Schullo, New Horizons of Minnesota
Session Level: 100–Beginner
Most people function better and more effectively when they work together. If you are a manager or supervisor, your success can depend on how well your team operates. We will learn how to build teamwork by recognizing and tapping into the twelve characteristics of an effective team. This is a great workshop to develop your own leadership skills, thereby unleashing the talent of your individual team members.
Enterprise Project Management
2:00 - 3:15
Jim Robb, RBA Consulting
Session Level: 100–Beginner
Microsoft Office's Enterprise Project Management (EPM) suite provides Microsoft's most complete and integrated solution for addressing the management of all company investments from beginning to end. Comprised of web-based access for users, Project Professional 2007 and Project Server 2007 gives your organization the capability to rationalize your investments, select work which aligns with your objectives, manage resources and gain visibility over your projects and operations.
MS Project: Work Schedule Investigation and Date Commitment
3:30pm - 4:45pm
Daniel T. Renier, Milestone Consulting Group
Session Level: All levels (100–Beginner; 200–Intermediate; 300–Advanced; 400–Expert)
All too often, schedule dates are committed to and handed to project teams without proper investigation. Organizations that operate in this fashion tend to experience many avoidable issues including but not limited to, missed dates, cost overruns, and employee turnover. This session is designed to provide management and project teams with processes and tools to change corporate culture to one of date investigation followed by date commitment as opposed to date commitment followed by date investigation. Deploying heroic efforts to produce and then commit to dates as opposed to committing to dates and then attempting to pull off heroic efforts to meet such dates makes good business sense.