As project managers evolve their practices – to shorten the sides of the triangle (as agile does) or expand the triangle (to include benefit realization), projects can become a strategic asset for an organization rather than an operational tool. Blaize will develop these concepts using research on hybrid methodologies and benefits realization, showing how a project manager’s influence can extend well beyond go-live.
1 PDU Strategic
About the Speaker
Dr. Reich is a professor, board director and consultant with expertise in technology-based transformation, project governance, and risk management. She is a member of the academic advisory board for PMI and is a director of two corporate and two national industry boards.
Blaize worked for 20 years in Canada and Asia as an IT practitioner and consultant, focusing on information management and strategic IT and business planning. As a professor and board director, she provides leadership on project governance, innovation, and risk management.
She has been recognized as a Top 100 Women in Canada (Women’s Executive Network, 2015) and a Fellow (2017) and International Academic Fellow (2016) from the Consulting Management Association.
Negotiation is a critical aspect of project management. Whether it is mitigating conflict between project members, persuading major stakeholders to reduce scope creep, convincing them to accept scope changes that have budget implications, or simply getting your team on board for a tight deadline, negotiation is truly everywhere. This 4-step Self-Leadership Model is a proprietary methodology that gets deep into the psychology of any negotiation and shows how you can come out on top. This will be an interactive workshop, where the participants will not only be able to walk out with actionable tools, but also have the opportunity to apply the model to their own negotiation scenarios on the spot.
1 PDU Leadership
About the Speaker
Sabahat Naureen is a project manager, an engineer and a certified executive coach. While working in the construction sector across BC and Alberta, she has gained invaluable experience in stakeholder management, ranging from business owners and municipalities to contractors and consultants. Through strong communication, leadership, and forward thinking, Sabahat is able to evaluate multiple perspectives, manage risk and facilitate positive collaboration between parties to achieve project goals. She is passionate about improving the professional world around her by not only delivering financially viable projects but also focusing on businesses' biggest assets: the people. As part of her executive coaching repertoire, Sabahat has developed a proprietary 4-step Self-Leadership Model. For this PMI CWCC 2018 conference, Sabahat wants to show fellow project managers how they can use this model for one of the toughest and most important aspects of project management: effective negotiation.
Disrespect happens. No matter how we reinforce expectations for workplace respect, every workplace encounters those who become workplace nightmares. If ignored or handled badly, bad behavior can devastate a project, team or organization like a wildfire. If handled early and effectively, relationships and workplace culture will be enriched. This makes disrespect management critical – it takes skill to effectively avoid arguments, clarify misunderstandings, deal with disputes, and repair relationships. Simply put - disrespect requires intervention and direct conversations.
The keynote provides leaders with tools for approaching and resolving disrespect issues before they become full-blown conflicts. Participants will learn how to assess the situation early, maturely and how to change the context of the conversation. The keynote helps leaders use direct conversations to take the initiative to confront the problem. Critical to disrespect management, participants will develop strategies for changing the context of conflicts from negative to positive, from disrespectful to appropriate. Participants will learn how to turn a disagreement into an opportunity to provoke learning and enrich relationships.
1.5 PDUs Leadership
About the Speaker
Paul Pelletier is a corporate/technology lawyer, project manager, international professional speaker, author and business executive with over 25 years of experience in senior roles in government and industry. A pioneer in the legal PM world, Paul was the first lawyer with a PM certificate in the federal Department of Justice. Paul has managed legal projects ranging from transformational information management projects to implementing a legal risk management program. He is also an advocate, consultant and trainer in workplace bullying management, workplace respect and leadership. He is a regular presenter at global conferences and events. He also teaches sections of the PMP/CAPM prep course.
Don’t we all want to be on projects where you look forward to going to work, solve the day’s problems, enjoy good laughs with colleagues, celebrate events, and then go home with a smile? And repeat over again the next day. Unfortunately for a lot us, we have experienced the total opposite because of shrinking budgets and increasingly aggressive project schedules. We end up dreading going to work, face unsolvable problems, witness once congenial colleagues turn into dysfunctional foes, then go home feeling totally crushed. Our presenter Ron Lee has experienced both of these extremes while working on projects. He looked back on his career and wants to share some of the governance tools and techniques that can be effective on fostering a functional and cohesive project team.
1 PDU Leadership
About the Speaker
Ron Lee is a Professional Engineer and Senior Project Manager in the Infrastructure Engineering Group at SNC-Lavalin Inc. He is a UBC Civil Engineering graduate and has applied his engineering and project management skills delivering transportation improvement projects for the past 30 years. In 2002, he joined SNC-Lavalin to work on the Owner’s Engineer team of the Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement Project to enhance the safety and reliability of the highway ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. He has also worked on bid pursuit as well as design-build delivery teams on P3 projects across Western Canada. Ron is also a Professional Traffic Operations Engineer, and a MMCD Certified Construction Administrator. Ron is a passionate Toastmaster, continually learning valuable and practical communication and leadership skills through active participation. He is currently chasing his DTM.
It’s been repeatedly stated that 80+% of project managers’ time and effort is invested on communications (and Stakeholders) Management, however when it comes to proactively dealing with project risks, some project managers under-estimate, if not totally forget, the criticality of Communications and Stakeholders Management.
This is true for both predictive/Waterfall and agile/iterative development approaches. The former lacks keeping communications alive, while the latter suffers from a robust overall end-to-end action plan.
This results is multiple unknowns/issues happening during the course of a project life cycle which in turn leads the project team into chaos.
In this session, we explore the ways project managers can tackle the risks from communications and stakeholder management at the very beginning stages as well as over the course of project life cycle.
1 PDU Leadership
About the Speaker
Mehran is Principal Owner at EffiCert Academy. He is a Project Management Professional with 20 years' experience in different areas of academia, Information Technology, Business Transformation and Re-engineering, and Intelligent Transportation Systems project environments, now a Board Member of the Canadian West Coast Chapter of PMI as the Vice President of Education and the PMP Prep Course Instructor and Content Developer. Presently and on a full-time basis, he works as a Senior Project Manager in the Coaching and Learning PMO at TELUS Communications and is an instructor of Project Management at BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology) and the New York Institute of Technology. Mehran graduated with a Master’s degree in System Management and Productivity (Industrial Engineering) after he had earned a Bachelor’s in Computer Software Engineering. His experience as a Project Manager and Operations Manager as well as having a successful background in teaching and instructing at academic environments during the last 20 years, has made Mehran a leader in Education, IT, Telecommunications and Business areas.
