Lean Project Management Can Make Or Break Project Success

Though lean project management isn't new, it can make or break the success of your projects. Canadian Blood Services has recently launched a series of Lean strategies into their day-to-day operations resulting in new process efficiencies, improved service for consumers and $125 million in savings.

Hear firsthand how Canadian Blood Services executes large-scale, complex projects, completing them both on-time and within budget. Later this month, join Canadian Blood Services' Todd Campbell, PMP, Project Manager, National Public Cord Blood Bank at ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts as he presents:

Complex Projects: Our Gated Marathon to Save Lives
When the project team at Canadian Blood Services set out to establish a national, public cord blood bank, they knew it would be a long, complex project involving many stakeholders. And, as the marathon progressed, it became clear that any challenge could be overcome, even a mountain.

Learn how the project team collaborated with stakeholders and managed change/expectations, using the phase-gate project model, and yes, even climbed a mountain. The key motivation for building a national, public cord blood bank is to provide stem cell transplant opportunities for both Canadian and international patients, to help save more lives.

Download the brochure to view the complete agenda: http://bit.ly/18eTuO0

PW&WCBA East

March 23-24, 2015

Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort

Lake Buena Vista, Florida

Mention code PWEASTBL and save $100 off the current rate: http://bit.ly/18eTuO0

In addition to Todd's session, hear from PM & BA leaders from PMI, Verizon, Starbucks, Farm Credit Mid-America, Daimler Trucks NA, Associated Bank, Boeing and more.

It's the can't miss event for your project management and business analysis needs. Don’t forget, PW&WCBA EAST delivers 24PDU/CDUs.

All the best,
The PW&WCBA Team

@Project_World

#PWEAST

pwwbcablog.iirusa.com

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Top PW&WCBA Blog Posts of 2014

We’ve published a lot of inspiring and thought-provoking posts this year about project management, business analysis, leadership and more, so we wanted to take a moment to look back on the most popular posts of 2014. Here are the topics our readers enjoyed the most this year:

Leadership Lessons: Paul R. Williams: Paul R. Williams, Leader of Project Management, PAi, talked to us about how PMOs add value to the organization. Today, PMOs are a strategic imperative for the C-Suite to deliver projects aligned with key strategic initiatives. Project Managers are in high demand today; Williams will give us keen insight into recruiting, training and retaining key program staff. To read the full post, click here.

Here Comes The Boom! An NFL Champion Illustrates Key Business Analysis Skills: As business analysis practitioners, we certainly appreciate the analytical style of Richard Sherman and his LOB brothers.   In addition to conducting a sort of pre-game analysis, we too must be able to conduct game-time analysis and make adjustments, where needed.  For example, it is important for practitioners to understand stakeholders early on. Whether by talking to the actual stakeholder, consulting with other practitioners who have worked with them, or some other method, we need to understand certain things about our stakeholders, including (but not limited to) the stakeholder's view of the problem or opportunity at hand, expectations of a solution, and anticipated level of involvement with the initiative. To read the full post, click here.

Leadership Lessons to Live By: In virtually every industry that exists today, leaders must set aside more time to reflect and assess their thinking, capabilities, and strategies. It is crucial that they evaluate how their leadership brand is being perceived by others and whether or not it requires a tune-up.  We highlighted some key leadership lessons that you should live by. To read the full post, click here.

The 5 Best Free Project Management Tools: There are effective free project management tools out there - some are more robust than others, but all of them provide ways to collaborate and complete projects quicker. We found five of the best free project management tools that may make your job easier. To read the full post, click here.

Big Data and Project Management: Today, organizations are taking strategic risks to add business value through innovative big data initiatives. Big data is a blanket term for any collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using available data management tools or conventional data processing applications. Tom Davenport, author of “Big Data at Work” has worked with many companies and he’s uncovered key principles around five key areas to be successful at big data projects. To read the full post, click here.

Agile State of Mind: Are you wondering how to choose which project management method to deliver a successful project? Organizations today have to be more competitive in the marketplace so choosing the best practices and methods for your organization and projects is important. Agile is a set of values and principles, not a pre-defined process with obvious areas of limitation. Waterfall is a model based on development method that is linear and sequential.  We put together the top four criteria to choose the best fit of methodologies at the right time for the right customer. To read the full post, click here.

Women in Leadership: Jo Miller: Jo Miller, CEO Women’s Leadership Coaching Inc. sat down with us to talk about women in leadership. Today, women make up over 50 percent of the workforce, are entrepreneurs, hold key leadership positions and serve on board of directors. Miller will give us her insight into the challenges women face in the workplace, how to overcome these obstacles and become a more empowered leader. To read the full post, click here.

Leadership Lessons: Dr. Alicia Aitken:  Dr. Alicia Aitken, managing director Asia Pacific, Human Systems International (HSI), sat with us to talk about the ins and outs of leadership in today’s competitive business landscape. According to Aitken, being authentic makes great leader stand out in a crows these days. Today’s world is full of leadership models, business school taught methods and processes. Leaders stand out by being authentic and true to who they are and who they are leading. To read the full post, click here.

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, Digital Impact, STEAM Accelerator and ProjectWorld and World Congress for Business Analysts, and a regular contributor to Front End of Innovation and The Market Research Event,. 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.

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ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts 2014 Call for Presenters Now Open

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, December 20th 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 22-24, 2014 in Seattle, Washington.

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, December 20, 2013.

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

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!

Cheers,

The PW&WCBA Team

http://pwwbca.blogspot.com

Top PM Trends of 2013: Leadership

A project manager’s role on any project goes far beyond task-related deliverables. Although the project manager must be able to manage goals related to time, scope and cost, their work does not stop here since the project manager must also be able to manage numerous issues, and be able to lead the people performing them.

Leadership involves the ability to influence people to take actions toward completing a project. Projects contain components including scope, cost, and time. For the project team to meet scope, cost, and time goals, one must appreciate the impact of positive leadership. It is up to the project manager to manage issues related to scope, cost, and time, as well as to lead the team to successful completion of these goals. As the project manager develops leadership skills and uses them to encourage and motivate the team, a more positive environment will emerge.

According to Mark Bashrum, VP of Strategic Intelligence & Corporate Marketing, ESI International, there are key project management (PM) trends that will be prominent in 2013. So let’s dive in to number one, shall we?

According to Bashrum, organizations should focus on building project leadership skills such as communication, negotiation, organizational change management, and customer relationship management.  But, we don’t think that is going to happen.

It’s unfortunate but true that most companies are more comfortable focusing on hard project and program management skills than they are at examining the underlying people skills required to deliver successful projects and programs. If they don’t want the same year-over-year results, organizations will need to seek out alternatives to develop leadership skills for their project community.

“Hopefully we are wrong, and in 2013 we will see the shift. We will keep our fingers crossed,” said Bashrum.

Check out the full video below:

Amanda Ciccatelli, Social Media Strategist at IIR USA in New York City, has a background in digital and print journalism, covering a variety of topics in business strategy, marketing, and technology. She previously worked at Technology Marketing Corporation as a Web Editor where she covered breaking news and feature stories in the tech industry.  She can be reached at aciccatelli@iirusa.com. Follow her at @AmandaCicc. 

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A Look at the Project Management of the Titanic - What Went Wrong?

In their "Lessons From History" series, Project Management Blunders, used relevant case studies to examine how historical projects and emerging technologies of the passed solved complex problems. It then harvests the lessons learned from these projects and applies them to today's projects.

In 1912 Titanic sank with a loss of 1,328 lives, the greatest 20th century maritime disaster. Was it an unforeseen event? Could the disaster have been prevented? What project decisions affected the maiden voyage?

Project Management Blunders examined the event with a project management lens, coming up with some
interesting and surprising conclusions...

Amanda Ciccatelli, Social Media Strategist at IIR USA in New York City, has a background in digital and print journalism, covering a variety of topics in business strategy, marketing, and technology. She previously worked at Technology Marketing Corporation as a Web Editor where she covered breaking news and feature stories in the tech industry.  She can be reached at aciccatelli@iirusa.com. Follow her at @AmandaCicc. 

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Training Tip Tuesdays: PM…What? - Developing an Enterprise Project Management Training Curriculum

Join us at ProjectWorld on November 17th at 2:30 for a special presentation by Ted Veterano, MBA, PMP, CGEIT, Senior Program Manager, Kindred Healthcare. During this presentation he will address challenges that organizations face in making sure that they are properly grooming and developing project managers within the organization. Additional challenges exist when the project management function expands to new functions within the organization and when
project participants and stakeholders need to develop skills to maximize their contributions
to project efforts.

Some key takeaways you can expect to get from this presentation are:

• Real Life Approaches & Lessons Learned from Developing a Project Management
Curriculum
• How to Address the Challenges Posed by Non-Traditional Project Management
Resources
• Sustaining and Improving the Project Management Training Curriculum

Don't miss the chance to see this presentation at ProjectWorld this November 16th- 18th at Anaheim, CA. Hope to see you all there!

ProjectWorld Day 2: Programs, Processes, Analysis, Oh My

On our second day at ProjectWorld, we continued with several tracks that covered specific roles and responsibilities of Project Managers, Program Managers, and Business Analysts, but the focus was looking beyond specific skill sets but rather at the necessary steps to develop and manage corporate environments where these individuals flourish; where they have a direct stake in the outcome of their projects and goals.

We had an opportunity to speak with Jonathan Gilbert, Director of Client Solutions of ESI International about his presentation regarding nine steps to improving Program Managers effectiveness as programs become increasingly complex and expand beyond commonly considered definitions for their roles in organizations. You can learn more in this white paper offering as well.



I than sat down for an interview with David Bieg, Executive Vice President of DevelopMentor, who shared some details regarding his presentation at ProjectWorld and the importance of enterprise analysis to achieve necessary corporate goals.



Finally, I had a chance to meet with Debra Morin of American Tower Corporation who presented at this year's ProjectWorld. She presented on the specific program at American Tower that focuses on educating and supporting employees on the importance of "Process Excellence."



ProjectWorld brought together corporate practitioners and thought-leaders, educators and experts who discussed and presented on a wide range of topics and issues currently facing professionals across industries. Hopefully these posts have provided you with a glimpse of the experience at ProjectWorld for those of you who could not attend, as well as offer attendees some detail into some of the presenters you may not have had the opportunity to sit in on. We're already hard at work planning for next year's events, so subscribe to our feed as we will be bringing you regular industry updates as well as posts from many of our speakers as well as other industry experts on a daily basis.