Archive for March, 2012

Business Analyst Work Plan

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Live Webinar – April 5th 2012, 12:00-1:00 PM EDT
Offered by ASPE (REP 2161) 1 Category A PDU – Free PDU
This is a 1 hour seminar and attendees will be awarded 1 PDU for participating

As a business analyst, you are most likely highly organized, but without the planning tools and business analysis expectations; you may have the appearance of being disorganized in your plight to deliver effective requirements.

Most organizations have identified productivity as a strategic goal for all employees.

Business analysts can contribute by developing their plans and working toward the plans. We are challenged to deliver with speed, increased productivity & efficiency, and to help deliver a competitive advantage. Management will most likely press to complete the analysis phase quicker than possible. The plans will provide you the ammunition to discuss the options to meet aggressive timelines.

This web seminar will give you some hints and tips for producing key business analysis plans. If you are currently in the role of a business analyst, or interface with business analysts, then this webinar is for you.

Presenter: Billie Johnson, CBAP, (LinkedIn profile) has 20+ years of experience in the field of business analysis spanning financial, manufacturing, consulting, education, and government industries. As an early adopter of the IIBA® and CBAP® certification, she received her CBAP® certification in May 2007. She is currently a Business Analysis Instructor/Coach/Mentor and enjoys furthering the field of business analysis by touching those in the field with tools to face their unique problems/opportunities for organizations today.

Click to register for Business Analyst Work Plan

The PMO’s Role in Becoming Agile

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Live Webinar – April 5th 2012, 1:00-2:00 PM EDT
Duration: 1 Hour 1 PDU / 1 CDU Credits: 1 PDU Category C – Free PDU
Presented by: Pillar Technology Group

I am passionate about Agile because I believe it solves many
(not all) of the problems we have been facing in IT for years.
– Daryl Kulak

Daryl will discuss:

  • The Ideal Role of the PMO
  • The Ideal Role of the Project Office
  • The Current Reality – Agile really doesn’t address either at the Enterprise level
  • Why Agile Practices Don’t Address PMO
  • The PMO’s Role in Becoming Agile
  • How the PMO can Benefit from agile Practices

Presenter: Daryl Kulak (LinkedIn profile) author of Use Cases: Requirements in Context (2nd Edition). After a brief introduction to use cases and the Unified Modeling Language (UML), it explains how use cases reduce the incidence of duplicate and inconsistent requirements, and how they facilitate the documentation process and communication among stakeholders. The book also highlights numerous currently available tools, including use case name filters, the context matrix, user interface requirements, and Daryl’s own “hierarchy killer.”

Pillar Technology Group cares about the community. Individual training costs are “VERY Reasonable” and the proceeds of the training go to charity inspired by the “Agile Manifesto” and many other foundational works in the industry. Check out their training page.

As Angelo Mazzocco, President of Pillar explains “We live in an economy where access to “free” or not for profit is becoming a part of our every day lives. It is in this spirit that we would like to launch the Pillar Training Series. It is our passion that we should not profit from the distribution of knowledge. So our courses will be unique. All proceeds generated from a course will be donated to charity. All work done in the course will be for a charity.

PDU Category C documentation details:

Process Groups: Planning

Knowledge Areas: 4 – Integration

  • 4.1 Develop Project Charter
  • 4.2 Develop Project Management Plan
  • 4.3 Direct and Manage Project Execution
  • 5.2 Define Scope
  • 6.5 Develop Schedule

As a Category C ‘Self Directed Learning Activity’ remember to document your learning experience and its relationship to project management for your ‘PDU Audit Trail Folder’

Click to register for The PMO’s Role in Becoming Agile

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Live Webinar April 4th, 2011 – 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm EDT
Presented by the Corporate Education Group (REP 1011) Course ID: MDW1280
Duration: 1 Hour Credits: 1 Category A PDU – Free PDU

Micromanaging a project team is akin to managing each task or deliverable with extreme control.

This suffocating management style is likely to put a damper on creativity and inhibit individual growth. There are many reasons why this happens, but in general, it is not a healthy situation for the project manager, employee or team.

As a program manager, you want to help project managers improve their performance without stepping on their toes or stepping into their projects. As a project manager, you are keen on making the project a success while balancing the needs of the team, the sponsors, and the organization as a whole.

So, what should you be focused on while others are tackling the work of the project?

Learning objectives include:

  • Identify at least 3 behaviors that look like micro managing
  • Review 7 specific tips that a project manager can use to reduce the need for excessive control
  • Share some ideas to help combat a micro manager

In this webinar, you will learn how to take the basic concepts for how not to micro manage and apply it to a project manager’s world.

About the Presenter: Bonnie Cooper (LinkedIn profile), PMP®, Instructor and Consultant for Corporate Education Group, is a twenty-year information technology professional. In her current role as the Program Director for the Massachusetts Medical Society’s (MMS) Corporate IT Program Office, Bonnie is responsible for coordinating the efforts of project teams, overseeing the implementation of project standards, managing the corporate IT strategic plan, and leading the program to re-engineer the membership platform for MMS.

Click to register for 7 Ways to Avoid Being a Project “Micro” Manager

Why Agile?

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Live Webinar – April 4th 2012, 12:00-1:00 PM EDT
Offered by ASPE (REP 2161) 1 Category A PDU – Free PDU
This is a 1 hour seminar and attendees will be awarded 1 PDU for participating

Agile Methods have taken software development by storm.

Professionals are hoping to gain the efficiencies and quality that experts profess Agile methods provide. They are also looking for a higher quality working environment, including increased empowerment that Agile preaches.

ASPE-SDLC and Davisbase consulting have taught over 10,000 professionals on Agile topics since 2006. To have a chance of success in Agile, you must learn what Agile really is and not what the evangelist, consulting firms, and tool vendors want you to know.

Click to register for Why Agile?

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Live Webinar – 2 Successive Fridays
April 6th & 13th, 2012 – 9:00 am to 11:00 am EDT
Presented by: The Gabriel Institute
Duration: Total of 4 Hours (2 events 2 hrs each) 4 Category C PDUs – Free PDU

This is a MUST TAKE opportunity – If you are setting up your own teams this provides a terrific framework to help you understand the strengths of your potential team members placing them in the roles that will make your projects even more successful. I took this session when it was offered in August and was very impressed with the usefulness of the material and the “payoff” it provided!

For those of you setting up agile teams with strong roles – This helps you understand the strengths of your team and set up the best matches to make your projects even more successful!

– Edmonton PM

NOTE: This registration is for 2 consecutive Fridays – The instructional segment is delivered in four modules, each one contact hour, given in webinar format in two, two-hour sessions. This course is also approved for four hours of HRCI recertification credit

TGI Role-Based Assessmentâ„¢ is a completely new online behavioral assessment for hiring, workforce planning, coaching, and team-building. Project Managers need to be able to create strong teams. Many teams are strongly role based and a solid understanding of RBA will assist in choosing and developing agile team members.

Individual strengths can lead to a personal triumph, but a team is greater than the sum of its parts. RBA identifies behaviors that impact quality of team interaction and ‘fit’ to job responsibilities: the ‘who fits where’ and the ‘why’ of winning teams. With RBA, you can reliably hire ‘the best of the best’, identify and resolve team performance problems, and build a strong, resilient human infrastructure

Organizations of every type and size experience the cost and pain of human performance failings, and are highly vulnerable to the ‘collateral damage’ that results from hiring the wrong people. TGI Role-Based Assessmentâ„¢ (RBA) makes it possible to reliably select high quality team players, and to match their job responsibilities to the way they envision themselves serving their team (their ‘Role’).

Role-Based Assessment was designed from its very beginnings to measure and predict the quality of a person’s team interaction.

RBA can greatly reduce the costs and risks associated with errors in hiring and promoting, while delivering significant business value by matching people to the functional mission of their team.

RBA is also highly effective in analyzing and solving team performance problems.

This certification course is a comprehensive overview of RBA and CHI methods. It prepares learners to provide basic support to users of Role-Based Assessment, and to apply for Certification. Certification requires passing a written examination and meeting TGI’s modest standards for ongoing participation.

Course content includes:

  • Participant’s own Role-Based Assessment at no additional cost
  • Four contact hours of training, including all materials
  • Readings to be completed during course attendance
  • Brief written certification examination to measure comprehension of course materials and applications

PDU Category C documentation details:

Process Groups: Executing

Knowledge Areas: 9 – Human Resources

  • 9.2 Acquire Project Team
  • 9.3 Develop Project Team
  • 9.4 Manage Project Team

As a Category C ‘Self Directed Learning Activity’ remember to document your learning experience and its relationship to project management for your ‘PDU Audit Trail Folder’

Click to register for Building Your Coherent Human Infrastructure

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Live Webinar April 4th, 2012 – 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1 Hour Credits: 1 PDU Category C – Free PDU
Presented by American Management Association (REP 1294)
Although the AMA is an REP this opportunity may not have a course number Contact the AMA for further information.

Are you properly preparing students to lead the future?

How can students know who they want to become without a strong sense of who they really are?

Never has it been as crucial for parents, educators and mentors to find in themselves and instill in every student a strong positive identity. Only by increasing self-awareness and self-esteem can they be helped to transcend real and perceived barriers to success. Without this, our students may find themselves defined and limited by labels others bestow upon them and unable to meet the demands of the 21st century.

In this session you will learn about the nine-step success process that you can be used to help you and your students step into the outer limits, build a dream team and commit to a collective vision. Stedman Graham will offer insights from his own journey to understand his identity and overcome the self-limiting barriers he had allowed others to erect around him.

Note: While attending this program is FREE, reservations are required. If you to register (even if you are unable to attend live) you’ll receive replay information following the event.

Presenter: Stedman Graham is chairman and CEO of S. Graham and Associates, a Chicago-based management and marketing firm. As a businessman and educator, Graham lectures and conducts seminars in his proprietary Nine-Step Success Processâ„¢. He is also the author of 10 books, including New York Times bestsellers Identity: Your Passport to Success and You Can Make It Happen: A Nine Step Plan for Success. Active in philanthropy and community work, Graham is a board member of Corporate Voices, the National Board of Junior Achievement (JA), and the 7-Eleven Education Is Freedom Foundation.

PDU Category C documentation details:

Process Groups: Executing
Knowledge Areas: 9 – Human Resources

  • 9.3 Develop Project Team

As a Category C ‘Self Directed Learning Activity’ remember to document your learning experience and its relationship to project management for your ‘PDU Audit Trail Folder’

Click to register for Identity: Cultivating Leadership in Today’s Students