A Day in the Life of the Project Manager

Check out this cool infographic about the day in the life of a project manager. Is this what your day looks like?

ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts Date Changed to September 22-24, 2014

ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts 2014 is now taking place September 22-24, 2014 in Seattle, WA.

PW&WCBA is the industry's year-round resource for gaining cutting-edge insights through C-Level case studies & corporate best practice presentations, exclusive Web Seminars, Learning Labs, and facilitated sharing sessions.   

PW&WCBA bridges the gap between theory and practices by championing and celebrating the role of the PM and BA as true contributors to the overall business with specific examples of how and why, and new ideas to help you achieve more.

Thank you to all who joined us at PW&WCBA 2013. Your enthusiasm for exchanging new practices by engaging with industry leaders and your peers made it a success.

To continue the discussions well into 2014, we encourage everyone to join us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to our Blog. These social media communities are global networks of professionals from all industries who share a common goal to develop and innovate towards the best project management and business analysis landscape. 

Join us and know that you are investing in yourself and your career. 

We hope to see you in Seattle!

Cheers,

The PW&WCBA Team

@Project_World 

pwwbcablog.iirusa.com

Sign Up for The ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts Web Seminar Series

ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts is providing several upcoming webinars as one of many educational programs for project management and business analysis professionals. PW&WCBA is the industry's year round resource for project managers, portfolio managers and business analysts who wish to move beyond the fundamentals and learn leadership, strategy and enterprise wide information in order to be more valuable for their organization.

Register for these upcoming webinars:

Agile Requirements Toolkit: Essential Techniques for Business Analysts on Agile Projects - Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014

1:00 – 2:00 PM ET, Elizabeth Larson, Principal, Watermark Learning

Attendees will be able to:

• Describe common misinterpretations of Agile projects, including the role of the BA 
• Explain why business analysis work is essential to the success of Agile projects 
• Discuss how business analysis tools and techniques are used on Agile projects

Register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/881389688

Shifting From Century-old, Unruly Gantt Charts to Simple, Flexible Workflow-based Project Management – Tuesday, January 28th, 2014

1:00 – 2:00 PM ET, Sanjeev Gupta, CEI of Realization

Attendees will be able to:

• Get away from ad hoc project management caused by inflexible Gantt Charts;
• Create “what if” scenarios that address changes to scope, schedule and resources;
• Simplify planning, turning it into a repeatable process; and
• Create flexible plans that support popular techniques such as Agile and Kanban.

Register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/732010073

Information Technology Global Collaboration Services – Thursday, March 6th, 2014

1:00 – 2:00P M ET, Vicki Hendrix, IT Project Manager, The Boeing Company

Attendees will be able to:

• Make Global Virtual collaboration possible
• Work together as an integrated team allows us to minimize roadblocks and oversights, and ensure close communication and efficient handoffs.
• Follow common documented processes ensures lean operations and ensure that we are in compliance with government regulations, such as export, and information security policies and regulations.
• Integrate suppliers/partners as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/718977400

We invite you to participate in our ongoing PW&WCBA Webinar Series! Interested in presenting during one of our PW&WCBA webinars? Contact Kacey Anderson at kanderson@iirusa.com.

Best,

The PW&WCBA Team

@ProjectWorld

pwwbca.blogspot.com

PW&WCBA 2014 Submission Deadline Extended to Friday 1/17

ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts
September 22-24, 2014 | Seattle, WA

Papers are being accepted on a rolling basis, we suggest your proposal as early as possible. If this is something you're interested in considering, please let us know as sessions fill up quickly. Submit your proposal no later than Friday, January 17th to Romina Kunstadter, Conference Producer at rkunstadter@iirusa.com or 646.895.7453.

The Institute for International Research (IIR) is currently seeking corporate practitioners, authors and experienced facilitators to present at the 2014 ProjectWorld ^® & World Congress for Business Analysts^® conference.

The event will take place in September, 2014 in Seattle, Washington. Exact Dates and Location will be announced in the coming weeks.

About this Unique Event
PW&WCBA is the industry's year round resource for gaining cutting-edge insights through C-Level case studies & corporate best practice presentations, exclusive Web Seminars, Learning Labs, and facilitated sharing sessions.  

Who & What We're Looking For

Leaders of high profile, complex projects to share their story in an open forum with industry peers. We are also inviting highly experienced, unbiased project managers, program managers, portfolio managers, PMO heads, system engineers and business analysts. We are particularly interested in experienced corporate practitioners, industry experts and qualified facilitators sharing innovative case studies, techniques, templates that attendees can implements as soon as they get back to the office.

Each presentation should demonstrate actionable tangible takeaways. We are looking for presentations that will demonstrate how something went from concept to reality (what were the decisions you had to make along the way, why did you choose that route, what did you learn from it, what if anything would you do differently, what can the audience learn, where do you go from here?).

Please note: Decisions will be based on the alignment of the content with the 2014 agenda content, feedback from the event advisors as well as on industry recognition and/or personal references. 

We Expect Our Speakers to Move Beyond the Fundamentals
2014 presentation topics include, but are not limited to:
 

Managing Stakeholder Expectations Leveraging Portfolio Project Management Tools Education & Training for New PM's- Passing down the knowledge Integration PM Setting up a Project Office Communication Across Roles (Organization) Using Agile to Implement Larger Multi Web Projects Tools Used with Agile Moving from BA to PM Discovering What Metrics you Need Lean Projects: A Case Study PM & BA Collaboration Risk Management Program & Portfolio Management Effective Teams: How to build them Cyber Security Big Data & Analytics PMBOK Changes Dealing with Stakeholders and Sponsors Integrating Contracted People into an Ongoing Project Mobile Creative Problem Solving Collaborative Problem Solving Honing Your PM Skills Virtualization Understanding The Business Ecosystem The Move: Agile to Waterfall Convan Vs Agile Process Management Developing BA Skills Effective Data Modeling State Modeling BA's in A Global Environment Capturing Non functional requirements Shadow IT and how to make sure you remain a partner Managing to scale Tailor BA function in an onshore vs offshore environment Systems Integration What's New in Agile? Agile, Tools and Metric Tracking Cloud Risk: Managing the Risk and Rewards of Cloud Computing Defining and Developing the Next Generation of PMs Improving the Value of Your PMO

IT Portfolio Management Soft Leadership Skills Risk Management Building Program Management Expertise Motivating Teams and Increasing Team Performance Creating a Center of Excellence (Both BA and/or PM) Demonstrating the Current Value of Project Management and Business Analysis to Your Organization Career Paths for the BA and PM - Where Do You Go After 5 Years? Using Six Sigma and LEAN to Improve Project Management Requirements Management and Communication Leading Global Teams Change Management Reading Verbal and Non-Verbal Cues Virtual Engagement Lightweight Project Management Tools vs. Heavyweight Enterprise Analysis Enterprise Architecture Negotiation Skills for Dealing with Suppliers Agile Project Management A Systematic Approach to Increase Business Process Performance Improving Service Levels with Your Stakeholders Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring Developing a PM Toolkit: The Essentials Implementing a Portfolio Management Estimating and Identification of Requirements Business Rules: An Important Technique to Capture and Discover What You Need Green Practices for the PM and BA Getting the Benefits of Consolidating, But Without Doing So The Current and Future State of the BA Agile: Governance and Decision-Making Sustainable Portfolio Management Practices Development Techniques that are Flexible and Responsive SOA Governance Integrating the Business Architecture with Human Performance

BONUS: In addition to the exposure and honor of being a speaker, speakers will also FREE admission to the conference, access to post-conference web seminar series as well as any pre-conference activities (a $3,000+ value).

How to Get Accepted
Priority will be given to presentations that highlight NEW case studies on pushing beyond the PMBOK and BABOK, presenting new skills, techniques and best practices for today's PM and BA worlds. ONLY corporate/client-side speaker will be considered. If you are a consultant, solution provider, technology provider, analyst or consultant, please see sponsorship/exhibit section below.

Sponsorship & Exhibition Opportunities
If you are a vendor or solution provider and are interested in showcasing your organization's expertise - Please contact Jon Saxe, Senior Business Development Manager at jsaxe@iirusa.com or 646.895.7467 for more information.

If you were not selected to present and are a vendor or solution provider, you may qualify for additional speaking opportunities available through sponsorship.

Submission Guidelines
Please submit the following to Romina Kunstadter, Conference Producer at rkunstadter@iirusa.com no later than Friday, January 17, 2014. 

For proper consideration, please include the following information with your proposal:

• Proposed speaker name(s), job title(s), and company name(s)
• Contact information including address, telephone and e-mail
• Title and objective of presentation
• Please indicate which topic you plan to address and please indicate what is NEW about the presentation
• Summary of the talk
• What the audience will gain from your presentation (please list 3-5 key "take-aways")
• NEW FOR THIS YEAR: Please submit a short video telling us why you want to speak at PW&WCBA 2014 (optional, but preferred)

If your submission is selected, portions of your bio and summary will be used to promote your participation. In an effort to ensure the utmost quality, all final presentations will be subject to review by our content review board one month prior to the event.

Additional Details

• Commercialism and self-promotion are NOT permitted or tolerated. If this happens, you will NOT be invited to return as a speaker.
• Travel, lodging and other expenses are the responsibility of the speaker.

Interested in Becoming a Media Partner or Featured Event Blogger?
Contact Kacey Anderson, Marketing Manager at kanderson@iirusa.com. 

Due to the high volume of response, we are unable to respond to each submission. All those selected to participate as speakers will be notified shortly after the deadline.

Thank you for your interest in ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts. We look forward to receiving your proposal!

Best, 

The PW&WCBA Team

@Project_World 

5 Project Management Trends to Look Out for in 2014

As we enter the New Year it is interesting to reflect on the previous year and forecast new trends for 2014. The project management space went through some impactful changes in 2013, which has set it up for major growth this year.

According to Tech Republic, here are five key project management trends you should watch for this year:

1. Project management roles continue to develop in the business function.

These days, the concept of a project manager is no longer restricted to just IT. Years ago, system implementations were only staffed with IT project managers who had project responsibilities. Now, organizations are getting smarter as they begin to mirror the IT project management role to ensure successful implementations.  This year, the concept of establishing a business owner to represent the department's IT priorities will continue to grow, and the business lead will take on business-related project management tasks and work directly with the IT project management staff.

2. More project schedules will move to the cloud.

In 2014, more businesses will move to cloud-based tools to support scheduling and collaboration. Tools like LiquidPlanner, AtTask, ProjectManager.com, Wrike, and Gantter have useful project scheduling tools that are competitors with Microsoft Project. In 2013, Microsoft's Project Online with Office 365 also introduced improved web-based scheduling with its flagship product.  These solution providers will continue to innovate the project scheduling domain, and more businesses will take advantage of scheduling tools that are platform independent and work in mobile environments.

3. Online collaboration tool adoption will increase.

Web-based document sharing solutions have been around for some time, but they are being replaced by collaboration platforms that move teams into the collaboration platform. In 2014, more businesses will adopt collaboration tools like tibbr, Asana, Trello, and Siasto to provide project management support. As the collaboration space improves, platforms will provide an integrated collaboration suite instead of instant messaging, document management, and desktop sharing tools.

4. There will be more of a reliance on resource management.

In 2014, with scheduling centralized, resource management becomes a feasible option. PMOs will develop a better view into the work pipeline and in determining existing capacity. By integrating project schedules with task tracking, real-time resource curves can be developed to obtain a top-down view of the project pipeline. Using the platform, data-driven decisions will improve decisions instead of guessing over who has capacity to take on additional work.

5. Distributed teams will continue to grow.

Collaboration tools help flatten the obstacles to communication, enabling organizations to access talent across the state, country, and world without relying on co-location. Just a few years ago, conference calls and text messaging were the predominant means to collaborate as a distributed group, but this year, better collaboration tools will improve the way teams work in greater distances.

About the Author:  Amanda Ciccatelli, Social Media Strategist of the Marketing Division at IIR USA, has a background in digital and print journalism, covering a variety of topics in business strategy, marketing, and technology. Amanda is the Editor at Large for several of IIR’s blogs including Next Big Design, Customers 1st, and ProjectWorld and World Congress for Business Analysts. She previously worked at Technology Marketing Corporation as a Web Editor where she covered breaking news and feature stories in the technology industry. She can be reached at aciccatelli@iirusa.com. Follow her at @AmandaCicc.

Related articles

• Collaboration, Project Management, and Social Business: 2014 Trends to Watch Out For
• Project Management & Creativity: An Unlikely Alliance
• Measuring Success: The Importance of Good Metrics