2021 Virtual PD Days Speakers
Professional Development Days 2021 will be virtual, with 11 sessions, including the AGM, over 11 days throughout the month of May. Earn up to 13.5 PDUs towards your PMI credential. For your convenience, all sessions are held either at 12 pm or 7 pm, so you don’t need to put your other projects, or your life, on hold.
Michael Stanleigh
Help!!! I Think I’m in Trouble. The Art & Science of Project Audits
Monday, May 3 at 12 pm
Project health checks and audits identify the source of project problems that if fixed, will provide their organizations with opportunities to save money and time, increase customer satisfaction and improve project team effectiveness. They have a direct, bottom-line impact on both public and private organizations.
Corporations throughout the world are losing millions in wasted project spending and this waste is being carefully hidden from management and investors. The cost of the problem is staggering. We’ll never know about the many projects in crisis in the companies in which you or I may hold shares. The reality is that examples can be found from just about every type of organization. We’re left wondering what it would take to get these organizations to realize that a tiny fraction of their losses is all they would have to invest in order to save millions. Unfortunately, many organizations seem willing to pay out millions, needlessly, on bad project management.
In this presentation we’ll explore these challenges. You will hear about how organizations who invested in project audits and health checks have improved their ROI and customer satisfaction. We’ll review the process of auditing projects and how an interim Project Health Check can identify potential problems before they become a crisis. You’ll be engaged throughout the presentation and will leave energized and equipped with the tools, techniques and knowledge necessary to go back and start conducting Project Health Checks and Audits.
Outcomes
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Conduct an effective project audit from beginning to end.
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Identify issues, concerns and challenges preventing the success of a project.
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Audit the project’s methodology, processes, tools, documents and other artifacts.
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Analyze project schedules and budgets.
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Review how change and risk are managed.
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Apply a project audit to an Agile project.
1.5 Strategic and Business Management PDUs
Ron Tsang
Effective Communication: At The Office and Working From Home
Tuesday, May 4 at 12 pm
Now more than ever, projects fail due to ineffective communication. Accordingly, the majority of project managers surveyed by PMI agree: effective communication is the most critical success factor in project management.
Whether at the office or working from home, how can we communicate more effectively?
In this engaging 90 minute session, participants will discover:
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How to have more productive communication with cross-functional teams, sponsors, and stakeholders–at the office or at home
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A process for writing professional emails that get results
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How to deliver presentations that are more clear and concise, in-person and online
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Manage issue escalation when communicating with remote teams
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How to identify the right communication channel in any situation
1.5 Leadership PDUs
Matthew Schoenhardt
Earned Value best practices
Wednesday, May 5 at 7 pm
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First portion of the session is a review of what EVM is, how to calculate it etc. If you already have your PMP, this is just a reminder of what you knew to past the test.
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Second portion will look more in depth at issues like:
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Properly structuring your WBS for effective EVM (physical vs mental activities)
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Real-world applications of best practice
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Data frequency – accounting vs project management data
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When SPI lies (or provides misleading indicators)
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Sample tool and case histories
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Forecasting based on data
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How to call BS on a forecast
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1 Technical PDU
Scott Ambler
Working Smarter: The Disciplined Agile Enterprise
Tuesday, May 11 at 7 pm
We live in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is the need for our organizations to be resilient and flexible in the face of change.
We have seen many organizations struggle, and we’ve seen many organizations thrive? What are the successful organizations doing that you’re not, and what do you need to do to become more effective?
This session explores how you can learn to work smarter at the individual, team, and organizational levels based on the situation that you face, even as that situation evolves around you.
The Disciplined Agile (DA) tool kit provides contextualized and easy-to-navigate guidance for evolving your way of working (WoW) to improve your overall effectiveness. DA describes a robust, pragmatic, and comprehensive approach to business agility, teaching you how to respond swiftly and effectively to changing conditions.
Key take-aways:
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Learn how to enable to teams to work smarter via a fit-for-purpose WoW
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Discover how to lead and govern teams that working in disparate manners
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Understand that agile frameworks are only a start, your real goal is to become a learning organization
1.5 Technical PDUs
David Boyce
I Can Change If I Have To
Thursday, May 13 at 12 pm
In this session we will explore the relationship between project management and change management and what is required for a successful change management plan. |We will look at the three, key target audiences of staff, middle managers and sponsors and what is required of each to realize project outcomes. The session is interactive with a chance from audience participation.
1 Strategic and Business Management PDUs
Laszlo Retfalvi
From Behind the Bench - What Every Project Team Really Needs to Know about Leadership
Monday, May 17 at 7 pm
In today’s complex project and business environment, organizations must not only address the effective management of projects, but also the leadership of projects in order to succeed.
Leadership competence, even more today than ever in the past, is no longer seen as an optional project management skill, but a key part of being a successful and respected Project Manager. We need to recognize this new norm – there is simply no way around it.
The goal of this presentation is to provide proven tips and techniques to help Project Managers understand, assess, and strengthen needed leadership skills to meet today's and future industry expectations.
1 Leadership PDU
Jennifer Kikkert
Purpose & Value: The Keys to Effectively Managing Projects
Tuesday, May 18 at 7 pm
How does a project manager engage and influence others to reach the end goal of a project when they have no direct power?
What makes some project managers very effective at getting teams easily to the finish line where others struggle?
This session will discuss the critical importance of understanding purpose and value in every project and why it matters.
1 Leadership PDU
Daniel Fay
Project Leadership in 2021
Wednesday, May 19 at 12 pm
Projects exist to implement change. Project leaders should always be in motion, always shifting, always enabling change.
The past year has tested that theory, there have been two major shifts in maintaining project success:
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Moving to a virtual environment
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Moving to a more agile approach in project management
The PMP Updated Exam Content Outline has defined tasks that are relevant for project leaders in 2021 - Get some best practices in:
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Creating a Team
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Leading a Team
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Empowering a Team
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Building a Team
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Protecting a Team
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Maintaining Your Team
1.5 Leadership PDUs
Troy Wallace
The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity
Tuesday, May 25 at 12 pm
This session is an Executive Overview of Franklin Covey’s solution, The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity.
This process measurably increases productivity of individuals, teams, and organizations. Participants make more selective, high-impact choices about where to invest their valuable time, attention, and energy.
PROBLEM The barrage of information coming at us from multiple sources (e.g., texts, email, tweets, blogs, alerts), coupled with the demands of our careers, are overwhelming and distracting. The sheer volume of information threatens our ability to think clearly and make wise decisions about what’s important. If we react to these stimuli without clear discernment, we fail to accomplish the goals that matter most in our professional and personal lives.
SOLUTION Franklin Covey’s The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity solution inspires participants to dramatically increase their ability to achieve life’s most important outcomes. Supported by science and years of experience, this solution not only produces a measurable increase in productivity, but also provides a renewed sense of engagement and accomplishment.
1.5 Leadership PDUs
Michael Pauley
Chignecto Isthmus Climate Change Adaptation- Comprehensive Engineering and Feasibility Study
Thursday, May 27 at 7 pm
The Chignecto Isthmus is the sole land bridge joining mainland New Brunswick with Nova Scotia, and one of Canada’s most significant transportation corridors that carries an estimated $50 million per day or $20 billion annually of trade.
The area was first dyked in the 1700s for agriculture, and since then significant infrastructure has been built within the dyked area, including the Trans-Canada Highway, the CN railway, electricity transmission lines and other various utilities. Climate change impacts, specifically increasing sea levels and storm surges, pose a risk to the infrastructure within the isthmus. By 2100, potentially 38km of dykes, 19 km of rail, and 19 km of the Trans-Canada Highway could be severely impacted by flooding in a 1 in 100-year storm event.
This presentation will review the process that necessitated a joint study to be undertaken between NBDTI, NSTIR and Transport Canada to determine preferred recommendations for the protection of the Chignecto Isthmus transportation corridor against the impacts of climate change.
1 Technical PDU
