Less than 2 Weeks Away: ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts

PW & WCBA is right around the corner, November 16-18 in Anaheim, CA, and we’d like for you to take a look at the keynotes speaking at our upcoming West Coast Conference. Our featured keynotes include Vincent Cirel, SVP / CIO of Norwegian Cruise Line, David King, CIO of WellDyne, Inc., James A. DiMarzio, CIO of Mazda North American Operations, and Richard Baily, VP of Go To Market for Xerox just to name a few – over 40+ industry experts will be presenting. Make sure to check out the rest of the keynotes.

Also, take some time to view our complete lineup of speakers below, as well as a special priority code we’ve set up for our blog readers for 20% off the registration rate: PWWLINKEDIN. Hope to see you in Anaheim in less than 2 weeks!

Visit the ProjectWorld Homepage

View the ProjectWorld Brochure

View the ProjectWorld 2009 Speaker Roster

Register
Save 20% off the registration rate when you mention code PWWLINKEDIN

Project management for manufacturing

At Technology Evaluation Centers, they look at how project management can help manufacturers with the projects they are working on. Through adopting project management with the current recession, manufacturers can monitor product families and their cost accumulations as well as the shifts in costs over time. Read the full article here.

Where to start in project management

Sharon Slayton at the Examiner's latest article discusses where to start your project management. She looks in depth at creating a project schedule. Read the full article here.

What’s a project schedule? Well, it’s part of your overall Project Plan, and it contains the things that, when put together, create the actions and the goals that make up your project. It is important to understand that the reason you embark on a project is to create something.

Tools on the web for project management

Are you looking to utilize cost-effective tools to keep your project management going? Here's a great slide show about all of the Web 2.0 tools available on the internet.

Web 2.0 Tools For Project Management

View more presentations from Douglas Tokuno.

PW&WCBA Braintrust LinkedIn February Newsletter

The February edition of the PW&WCBA Braintrust LinkedIn Newsletter arrived in mailboxes this morning! You can also read the newsletter here. If you're not a member of our Project World LinkedIn group, join us to network with other project management professionals and receive the newsletter monthly!

This month, we issued this challenge to all members. We look forward to your thoughts!

Challenge:
The recent wildfires in Australia have proven difficult to overcome, as destruction continues and the fires once again flare up. Moving forward, Australia has decided to push forward to create a national fire warning system to try and prevent a similar situation in the future.

Stakeholders:
Attorney General Robert McClelland, David Quilty, managing director of public policy for Australia's largest telecommunications company, Telstra Corp., Bruce Esplin, head of Victorian Emergency Services, fire and police services.

Overview:
Since 2004, there have been numerous proposals to the Australian government for a nationwide warning fire warning system, however there have it has been held up because of issues relating to funding and privacy laws. Another obstacle standing in the way of this system is the current communication system used by emergency services – the size of this system has a threat of crashing the means of communication. After this month's devastating fires, a new urgency has formed for the national warning system.

Cloud Computing: What Business Technology Managers Should Know

If you're familiar with cloud computing, you know the pros and cons with this new development in technology. If you haven't had a chance to check out how it can work for your organization, then check out this great analytics study from Informationweek.com. "How To Plug Into the Cloud" is a clearly laid out interpretation of how cloud computing can work for business technology managers. In addition to understanding how it can work for business tech, this paper is so easy to use that managers in all tech arenas should check it out. Read it over and get back to us with your thoughts.

Pat Williams - On Great Leaders

Here we are live at ProjectWorld and the World Congress of Business Analysts documenting the great presentations and speakers this morning. Earlier today we posted some information on just two of our keynote presenters who will be on hand during the conference.

This morning we kicked off the conference with Pat Williams, Author and Senior Vice President, Orlando Magic who spoke about the Magic of Teamwork and the crucial ingredients that makup the different aspects of teams as well as the important attributes of great leaders.


I had an opportunity to record a small portion of his presentation. Here he is talking about how crucial outstanding leadership is to a great team:

As an ingredient of great teams, he discussed seven qualities of great leaders:

1. Vision
2. Ability to Communicate Vision
3. People Skills
4. Character
5. Competence
6. Boldness
7. A Serving Heart

From this he went on to discuss leaders and leadership qualities in greater detail including that they can be developed and are not necessarily born that way.

His final thought that he shared was that great leaders are natural, lifelong teachers, but in order to be lifelong teachers, they must also be lifelong students. A powerful thought for everyone who is on hand to continue learning and sharing. I have another post I will be uploading for tomorrow morning and give you an opportunity to meet more of our great speakers.

Keynote Speaker: Sunil Chandra

Sunil Chandra, Director HR Technology & Operations, GOOGLE

Accelerating Fast: HR Systems and Operations

Sunil is responsible for the technology and operations underpinning Google’s HR function. He is responsible for ensuring both the operational integrity of our people processes as well as partnering with our Engineering group to bring innovation in the way we use technology to attract, retain and grow Googlers worldwide. Prior to joining Google, Sunil was an executive responsible for large parts of Barclays Capital Global Technology Services unit and for operations at McKinsey & Co.

Business has always had to contend with change, but with the new millennium, the pace of change has increased exponentially. The availability of information on the internet and through wireless devices to an "always connected" generation has hastened the speed of innovation and removed geographic boundaries. So how do businesses deal with this rapid pace of change and build systems and scale operations in such a tumultuous environment? Google HR technology faces this paradigm everyday. Traditionally systems models thrive on incremental changes through the phases of development to launch a finished product. Today though, these models give way to a much more iterative development cycle. Rather than control information flows, we aim to liberate them. Traditional reporting gives way to real time analytics. In this session, Sunil Chandra will discuss how Google works in this atmosphere of rapid change and ambiguity and continues to achieve operational excellence in their systems and processes.

Welcome to ProjectWorld and the World Congress of Business Analysts!

Our flagship event has arrived and we're excited to bring together leading practitioners and professionals with experience and knowledge of industries all involved in every facet of project management. We will be posting over the next two days details of the main conference, collecting interviews, photos, perspectives and testimonials about the experience here this year's event.

The team has brought together so an amazing panel of keynote speakers including Sunil Chandra, Director HR Technology and Operations with Google, as well as Lt. General Russel L. Honoré, (Ret.), Commander of Joint Task Force Katrina LTG. Also there is a long list of companies represented including BMO Financial Group, JetBlue Airways, Highmark, Boeing, Wachovia, Microsoft, Robbins-Gioia, SunTrust Bank, and IBM to name a few. All the presentations follow this year's theme of Real People Sharing Real Solutions bring you their individual focus on the challenges and solutions they have experience in their own organizations.

As we begin this year's conference, I leave you with a few words from our Conference Director, Jennifer Finer as she discusses some of the great elements that can be found at the conference this year. Be sure and check back here and the event website as we bring you updates from the live conference.