Had the chance on Sept 23, 2011 to attend the Space Coast Chapter of the PMI’s “Professional Development Day” at the Florida Tech campus in Melbourne. Was a memorable day.
All the speakers had something novel to present and that kept it very interesting. Had the privilege of listening to the following speakers:
Dr.Robert.E.Niebuhr: I was able to catch only the last part of what he presented. But I did hear him mention about the fact that Florida Tech was one of the 30 schools to have achieved accreditation from PMI for its MBA PM program – so that is a good thing for all of us.
Dr.Harold Kerzner:
Dr.Harold kind of said that the stuff in the PMBOK is kind of getting stale. Some of the things he said:
-The term project needs to be redefined as an endeavor that adds value.
-Measuring projects by just using the triple constraints is not the way now. Value,quality and Reputation are also to be factored in. Disney has more-safety and aesthetics too.
-Multiple criteria(like above) are applied to figure out if a project is a failure or success(not just the triple constraints, iow)
-Capturing the best practices is a strategic weapon.
(e.g:Feds used to contract out 90% of their work; hence lost all best practices to the contractors;now want it all back and want to build a library of best practices and hence the Feds are into creating PMOs to accomplish this-hey there is a job opp there for PMPs and such. IBM has been doing that for long and has a library of best practices and 25000 PMPs!)
-The management PhD candidates target writing about “best practices”
-There is a push to see the needed data/criteria on a dashboard interface. The data seen are not just the time, cost and scope variances. It can be value, quality, reputation. And weightage is given to each of these multiple criteria and that weightage can differ from org to org.
-EVM is dead. VMM(value measurement methodology) is the new kid on the block
-The “measurement technique” of any of the criteria used in the dashboard is also to be shown on the dashboard.
-Today’s PM is also a Biz mgr.
Dr.Tom Sheives:
Tom presented his experiences with 711. Seems 711 is not just a coffee shop- it does many kinds of projects including IT. 711 used proper processes for managing projects and hence were highly successful. PMs exhibited consistency and transparency at 711. Kept very close tabs on the projects on a daily and weekly basis for success. Tom also added that scrum is used in the development phase only and in all other phases the old traditional PM processes are still in vogue.
Nani Sadowski:
Nani presented about the role of the PM in the healthcare arena with her experience in setting up PMOs in the healthcare arena. Seems there is a shortage of PMPs in that arena. Most of the nurses and clinicians are moving on to being PMs(which further increases the shortage of nurses and clinicians). The push towards EMR is one of the factors fueling the need for PMPs. If you get into this area, doctors will fight you tooth and nail with the it seems that the doctors will fight tooth and nail in resisting the new processes you propose or impose.
Chuck Millholan:
Chuck was an extremely interesting speaker after lunch. Chuck works at Churchill Downs(home of the Kentucky Derby) and talked about how requirements were elicited from rich owners for moving from the legacy ticketing system to a new enterprise ticketing system. To not let egos get in the way he had to use the Delphi method -secret ,requirements gathering and then weighting and ranking them. Once ranked everyone got together and re-prioritized the requirements.
Frank Saladis:
Frank talked about “Architechting the Future through PM”
He stressed the fact that you have to be a leader to get the vision done. Iow, PMs should have or develop leadership qualities. PM is still not considered to be a core competency by many organizations. So we as PMs should strive to help organizations make it a core competency. Frank wanted us as a homework to listen to the Project Manager Blues(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej66TiINaRc). Frank had many sayings…notably “Begin with the end in mind”. PM is evolving and hence “What got you here, may not get you there”.
Rick Morris:
Rick talked about the various games that a PM has to play to get upper management to think about the various facets of a project-time, cost and scope for example. Rick’s talk was extremely humorous. For example Rick said that while walking in the hallway once, he was asked for an estimate and Rick replied, “less than 5 million dollars” And the C-suite said “I was thinking like somewhere in the 200,000s” for which Rick replied “I am still correct”:). In essence don’t just be pressured to give a number-question and understand what is behind the numbers. Rick had another example for how to survive the “when will it get finished” qn. He said that he always relies on the PERT equation which gives a best, possible and worst case dates. “Force the decision without confrontation!”, was his message. Also don’t get pressured to move on without a plan, invest money in learning MS Project well -as it can do funky things unbeknownst to you -never ever be pre-judgemental about a previous PM and be a constant learner of new ways of doing things(take minor risks to improve processes)
The main takeaways:
a)Passing the PMP is key to advancing in this field.
b)The demand for PMPs is high, even in this economy.
c)There is a need specifically for “Global Project Managers” (as in when monitoring outsourced projects; Have to “get with the program” of learning the other culture to deal effectively with the person at the other end of a phone or face-to-face)
