2012 Professional Development Days

Tuesday Sessions

8:15 – 10:00 10:00 – 12:30 12:30 – 2:00 2:00 – 3:30 3:30 – 5:00

Brad Meehan Matt Anderson Anthony Reed Certifications Panel Joe Coffman

Yoram Bauman Todd Golladay Todd Long Jim Gramling

John Kimutis Glenn Meyer Open Spaces

Jason Marshall Troy Tuttle Bill Periman

Brad Meehan Link to Brad’s bio

Our Master of Ceremonies

Two-time Emmy-nominated comedian and writer Brad Meehan finds humor in all corners of his life. Brad is also regular host and emcee at the world-famous Kansas City Improv comedy club. Brad was recently voted All Comedy Radio’s “Funniest Person in Kansas City” and has shared the stage with top comedians like Kevin Nealon, Harland Williams, and John Witherspoon.

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

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Agile at the Enterprise A Total IT Commitment to Agile

Matt Anderson Tuesday 10:00

See Matt’s bio

Star Trek fans don’t get overly excited as this is not a preview of the next movie. While Captains Kirk and Picard had to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances on a regular basis to save the Enterprise and/or her crew, we will discuss agility for a different type of Enterprise. Agile is frequently discussed at a team level of 5-9 team members, but rarely studied at a several hundred team level. Based on Cerner Corporation’s experiences over the past three years, we will discuss the challenges of an Enterprise Agile Adoption. Portfolio, Program and Project Management, PMO adaptation and cultural challenges will all be discussed. The goal is to provide a toolkit for successful implementation at your Enterprise.

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

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Yoram Bauman Tuesday 8:30 - Keynote

Link to Yoram's bio

2012 Return to the Gold Standard World Tour

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

Dr. Yoram Bauman, PhD, is an economist specializing in environmental economics and public finance, with additional interests in health economics, game theory and economics education. Dr. Bauman holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from Reed College and a Masters and Doctorate degrees in Economics from the University of Washington where his dissertation was on “The Effects of Environmental Policy on Technological Change in Pollution Control.” Dr. Bauman has continued his work as a lecturer at the University of Washington since 2006 and as a visiting research scholar at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. He has published numerous papers on topics as diverse as environmental economics, climate policy, and game theory. His comments on the impact of a return to the gold standard on the U.S. economy and on our daily lives should prove interesting and informative. Back to top

Panel Discussion Tuesday 2:00PM

Project Manager Certifications

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

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For anyone who is contemplating their first PMI certification or for those who are thinking about pursuing another, there are questions that need to be answered. What’s it like? How did you prepare for it? Was it worth it? For those who are trying to decide the next step in their professional career, this seminar may help you with that decision. Project managers from almost all of the PMI certifications will be on hand to tell you their experiences in the process of qualifying. They’ll be there to answer any questions you may have and provide their insight in the how’s and why’s of gaining that next certification. Panelist include: Laura Stauch – Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) Nancy Jewell – Project Management Professional (PMP) Matt Anderson – PMI- Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) Nancy Peterson –PMI – Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) Bill Periman – Program Management Professional (PgMP)

Swimming With Sharks: Project Risk and Issue Management

Joe Coffman Tuesday 3:30

See Joe’s bio

Managing projects without solid risk management processes is like swimming the beaches of Cape Town, South Africa, without shark spotters. Project managers seem to do this all the time, blissfully swim along unaware of what is lurking below the surface just waiting to be attacked. When risk surfaces and strikes, the trashing and scrambling begins. Even if the project survives, the manager may sustain professional damages from which recovery can be difficult. Most project managers conduct risk management during planning, build the risk register and abate risk. If the most likely time estimation is used to build the schedule, by definition, projects have a 50% chance of success. For the 50% that do succeed the difference is often the ability of the project manager to deal with risk and issues during execution. Once planning is complete, though, for many project managers risk management goes away. Some organizations do not have project risk management processes defined during project execution. Other organizations have the processes defined, but consistent use of the processes is often questionable. One of the problems with risk management processes in organizations is often they are not designed for practical use during project execution. This can frustrate project managers and make them not want to be burdened unnecessarily. This session will help any project manager to make risk management a regular part of monitoring and control of projects. This practical guide walks project managers through two important processes that increase the probability of success. The first is ongoing risk management. By keeping the team focused on risks and proactively taking abatement actions, fewer project impacts surface. The second is rapid escalation of issues so they may be dealt with timely to minimize the overall impact to the project. No matter how good the planning, the future is not certain and during every project there is chum in the water. Consistently managing risks and issues well is like having personal shark spotters on duty throughout the project.

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

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BALANCING THE CHECKBOOK COST CONTROL CONCEPTS & PRACTICES

Todd Golladay Tuesday 10:00

See Todd’s bio

Now that you have a budget, your next challenge is to stay within it. With a new budget, it is all too easy to fall into a ‘bucket mentality’. A common project management mistake is to track the budget as a whole. Learning to break the project down into individual deliverables (scope) allows the project manager to see where they are within budget and where more attention is needed. This divide and conquer approach provides for tighter scope control and a balanced checkbook. You’ll learn how to: •Identify your costs by scope •Track unbudgeted costs •Quickly identify out of scope work

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WHAT WENT WRONG RIGHT? RECOGNIZING RISK IMPACTS ON COST & SCHEDULE

Jim Gramling Tuesday 3:30

See Jim’s bio

So you know your risk ---- now what??? You’re ready to take on your project since you know what to watch for right?? Of course not! Are things going to happen (go Wrong?)?? Yes! To determine cost and schedule impacts, have to look at “worse case scenarios” ---- “worse realistic case scenarios”. Need to look at Probability and Consequences. Investigate what’s next --- managing the risks; avoiding, mitigation, sharing, contingency and more! A Range Estimating activity will be included to check your ability – how good are you at range estimating?

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Achieve Your Best How to improve one’s personal

effectiveness and achievement of goals

John Kimutis Tuesday 10:00

See John’s bio

Achieving your best in your business and personal life is more than just a matter of creating and documenting your goals. Your mental approach has a large impact on your success. John will provide you with specific exercises and strategies to help you not only achieve your goals, but improve your quality of life.

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Creating a Culture of Collaboration

Todd Long Tuesday 2:00

See Todd’s bio

•Gain a deeper understanding of how to create a culture of collaboration. •Learn four key principles of real collaboration.

oStart with a powerful question oInvite the right people oExplore more oEmbrace the tension

•Be introduced to a model for creative collaboration. •Learn the steps to developing a culture of collaboration within their organization.

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Project Management in the Cloud

Jason Marshall Tuesday 10:00

See Jason’s bio

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

Today’s projects take place anywhere, anytime, and the resources may be located across the planet and speak several different languages. We have several great PM methodologies to follow, but it comes back to a single commonality across all projects: Effective Communication This presentations will enlighten an audience at any level of the benefits of using Cloud based software for project management, as well as for collaboration, virtual meetings, documentation, and issue/task tracking for a team that fits today’s resource landscape: 1. Internal/Remote employee 2. Contractor/Consultant 3. Temporary Worker 4. Field worker or Manager 5. Executive needing Business Intelligence/KPI reporting. The goal will be to cover some of the latest techniques to accomplish this using readily available tools and processes as well as modern technology we all can’t live without. Please join me for this presentation and feel free to bring questions, ideas, and most importantly lets collaborate!

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ANALYZE THIS! EVM CONCEPTS & ADVANCED FORECASTING

Glenn Meyer Tuesday 2:00

See Glenn’s bio

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

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Problem: Determining a project’s EAC tests the credibility of project, functional, and technical managers. Succinctly, what do I believe, why do I believe it, and how can I best verify that my opinion is “right”? Solutions: Latest Revised Estimates (LRE’s) must be tested against what the numbers tell us. Techniques for developing an independent EAC allow a range of tests to compare what we are told with what the numbers tell us. Then we can choose rationally what to believe and what not to believe based on that comparison. How do we establish a credible number? Arriving at a credible EAC depends largely on how the project baseline is created and controlled and on how the current plan is maintained. We will look at developing suitably granular, resource driven schedules and how to use them predicatively. Conclusion: At the end of the session, the participants will have better techniques for testing the truth and how to plan, schedule, and measure thereby creating the framework of a reasonable EAC

Agenda: To answer as many of the Agile related questions as possible that are submitted between 8:00 am on Monday and noon on Tuesday. Instructions for submitting Agile related questions will be included in each PDD participant’s bag handed out at registration.

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

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Panel Discussion

with Agile

Practitioners Tuesday 3:30PM

Open Discussion – An interactive Dialogue for PDD Participants with

Agile Practitioners

Transforming the Organization

Bill Periman Tuesday 3:30

See Bill’s bio

From experience in multiple roles that required the transformation of organizations within IT, every challenge looks like a project or program, just as everything looks like a nail to a carpenter. By determining the scope, gaining an understanding of the stakeholders and their requirements, and building a program plan, challenges are broken down into tasks and prioritized. The importance of sharing the vision and getting the community invested in the plan cannot be overstated for a successful transformation. These are indispensable steps in building a focused community.

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

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Anthony Reed Tuesday 12:30 keynote

Finding the I in TEAM: Leadership Lessons From the World’s Toughest Marathons

See Anthony’s bio

Companies today are struggling to maintain morale while doing more work with fewer monetary and human resources. This isn’t an easy task. Preparing for and completing a marathon is the perfect backdrop for examining the problems and challenges faced by today’s business leaders. While all certified marathons are the same distance, the dangers, terrain, altitude, and weather offer unique and varying challenges. You quickly learn that hills build character. You’ll learn how to: •Motivate yourself and your team members without a budget. •Manage stress. •Manage the negative, victim mentality. •Embrace fear and risk to move outside your comfort zone. •Develop leaders and staff members.

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Guerilla Kanban: A Toolkit for Improving Software Projects

Troy Tuttle Tuesday 2:00

2012 Professional Development Days - Tuesday

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Why are software projects so hard to manage? We know about the challenges and customer dissatisfaction through studies, surveys, and personal experience. The verdict? For more than a decade, our grades have been dismal. This presentation will challenge some of our fundamental, longstanding assumptions about the nature of software and knowledge work. What if we are not really managing the type of work that we think we are managing? Could our historical understanding of the work itself be misleading us? To improve our execution on software projects, we first need to realize the work is non-deterministic in nature. Efforts to manage the work in a deterministic fashion usually result in lower performance and poor customer satisfaction. Through this new understanding, we will identify several challenges to knowledge work: lack of visibility, the dangers of too much work in progress, and the ultimate unreliable planning tool (estimation). The Lean-Kanban methods offer us new project tools to address these challenges: visual Kanban boards for visualizing the work, techniques for reducing

See Troy’s Bio