Archive for May, 2014

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What is Reading Rainbow? – Wikipedia

1 out of every 4 children in America
Will grow up illiterate.

I believe that every child has a right, and a need, to be literate. We have a responsibility to prepare our children… and right now, the numbers show that we, as a society, are failing in that responsibility.

– Levar Burton

Levar Burton & Reading Rainbow Need Your Help!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=715DnovJBVw&feature=youtu.be

If you grew up in North America Chances are that you remember watching Levar Burton hosting Reading Rainbow on PBS. It encouraged several generations of children to “take a look its in a book – a reading rainbow.”

Most people cannot read those words with out hearing the iconic theme song resonate in their minds 🙂

(but you don’t have to take my word on that)

In 2012 Reading Rainbow launched the number 1 educational app on the iPad.  The Reading Rainbow App  builds on the basics of the television series, with hundreds of quality books – and educational video field trips – right in a child’s hands.

On May 28th they began a 35 day Kickstarter campaign to bring the wonder of reading back to the lives of a new generation.

They have 3 goals:

  1. To put Reading Rainbow on the web for all children – EVERYWHERE
  2. To build a specialized Classroom version – Along with supplemental learning materials for teachers and librarians
  3. AND … To deliver these services Free to schools in need

It may appear as though they have reached their initial funding goal – but…

Every $1 raised will go to helping build literacy rates and encouraging a new generation to be curious – to love to discover new things – and to become innovators again by learning to have the confidence to try their new ideas.

Here is the Math – If just 1 in 10 Americans gave just $1 USD We could raise $35 million USD in 35 days!  And don’t worry if you are not American – I’m not – and with help from around the world the odds are greater that we will do 35 Million in just 35 Days!

#35in35

Everyone around the world will benefit from this initiative!

The volunteers here who run PDU Of The Day believe that supporting this initiative is important to the next generation. We need to give the new generations the skills they need with the technology they expect to make the projects of tomorrow successful.

We can fly twice as high
At PDU Of The Day we believe in #35in35

We can make a real difference to English literacy all over the world.

Please Give Today!
Every $1 makes a difference!

Oh and BTW Levar Burton (Roots StarTrek TNG)
Is giving away some great swag too!

Day 3 Update – Look at were we are today!

PDU OF The Day was developed to assist Project Managers, Business Analysts, and Agile Professionals with their professional development. We believe strongly in professional development and in giving back to the community.

You can’t have Professional Development without literacy and literacy rates are on the decline.

We believe that learning should be fun – that it is a lifelong prospect not simply a grade school exercise and that we should all be curious and seek out discovery opportunities to learn and grow!

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Live Webinar June 6th, 2014 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1 hour webinar Credits: 1 PDU Category A – $15 USD PDU
Presented by: Solutions Cube Group (REP 2451)

This webinar is second in a five part series series on “Meetings That Work” by Solutions Cube. Although this module is a part of the series – each module in the series can be taken individually.

For many people, 50-75% of their work week is spent in meetings that are unproductive, not needed or fail to produce expected results. Valuable people, time and dollar resources are wasted when meeting objectives and expectations are not clear, agendas are not followed, no one or too many people try to take charge of project meetings. Successful meetings that product results don’t just happen, they are planned, prepared for and orchestrated.

Solutions Cube Group’s Planning and Preparing for a Successful Meeting webinar will teach students how to effectively plan and prepare for a successful meeting. They will discover how to engage key stakeholders in the art of planning the success of every meeting that is held.


In the Planning and Preparing for a Successful Meeting webinar, participants learn:

  • Why planning is a core element of every successful meeting
  • How to leverage the iterative process of planning to uncover and align on the expectations of meeting outcomes
  • How to use a planning document as a collaboration tool when preparing for meetings
  • How to use a Statement of Work as a tool to formalize the scope of each meeting
  • How to create consistency in meeting process and outcomes through the use of standardized templates
  • The difference between a published meeting agenda and a facilitator’s agenda and how each contributes to the success of a meeting

EARN 1 PDU after viewing this webinar

Click to purchase Planning and Preparing for a Successful Meeting: Meetings That Work Series 2 of 5

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Live Webinar June 5th, 2014 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1 Hour  Credits: 1 PDU/CDU  Cat B – Free PDU/CDU
Presented by: IIBA

This webinar provides the motivation for organizations to look beyond a pure profit motive and take on social, economic, environmental, and ethical responsibilities to have a positive influence on global prosperity.

Gregory Balestrero (LinkedIn profile, YouTube) IIL’s Strategic Advisor on Leadership, Sustainability & Corporate Consciousness and co-author of Organizational Survival: Profitable Strategies for a Sustainable Future; will discuss the results of nearly three years of research and share insight on how to increase value, enhance reputation, and improve image and brand through an integrated approach to strategic change.

Click to register for Organizational Survival: The Double Meaning of Sustainability

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Live Webinar June 5th, 2014 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1 Hour  Credits: 1 PDU/CDU  Category A – Free PDU/CDU
Presented by: TheVersatile Project Management Company (REP 1524)

Are You Leveraging SharePoint Effectively?

Many organizations have implemented SharePoint – but few understand how to leverage SharePoint to manage projects.

Eric Verzuh has merged his Fast Forward MBA in Project Management into SharePoint to make a powerful, practical way to manage projects.

Join this webinar to learn::

  • The most important factor to drive project management maturity.
  • Why SharePoint is easier to use than Excel for managing tasks.
  • How to reduce the time spent preparing status reports while you increase you Sponsors engagement.
  • And much more!

Presenterer :  Eric Verzuh (LinkedIn profile) founder and President, of The versatile Management Company is recognized around the world as an authority on practical project leadership. Eric has written the best sellers The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management and  The Portable MBA in Project Management.

Click to register for Managing Small Projects with SharePoint & MS Project

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Live Webinar – June 6th 2014, 12:00-1:00 PM EDT
Offered by ASPE (REP 2161) 1 Category A PDU – Free PDU
Note: Although ASPE is an REP presentations may have to be recorded as a Cat C PDU Event – Contact Traci Lester Marketing Specialist at ASPE for more information

SharePoint is an Enterprise Collaboration platform which drives organizational engagement and allows for teams to work on information together in a central portal.

Document libraries are the key tool for document/information lifecycle management.

We regularly work with individual documents and manage the document lifecycle with version control and metadata.

With workflow we apply business processes around individual documents for things like approval and gathering feedback.

SharePoint 2013 Document Sets can treat multiple documents as one work product for the purposes of version control and workflow.

In situations where more than one document is part of the package of information, we can use Document Sets to group the documents together for the purpose of managing them as a group.

This one hour webinar will give an introduction to SharePoint 2013 Document Sets.

Learn:

  1. Why we utilize Documents Sets,
  2. How to create Document Sets,
  3. How version control works with them, and ….
  4. How to implement workflow around Document Sets.

This webinar will give a real world example of implementing an Emergency Preparedness Program utilizing Libraries, Documents Sets, Version History, and Workflow.

The topics that will be covered in this one hour webinar:

  • What are Document Sets?
  • How to build Documents Sets
  • Creating a new Document Set
  • Taking Snapshots
  • Using Document Sets in a Workflow

Presenter: Tom Robbins (LinkedIn profile) has 25+ years in the telecommunications and IT industry. A Microsoft Certified Trainer and CompTIA Certified Technical Trainer, Tom has been training for more than 15 years on the Microsoft Enterprise suite of products.

PDU Category C (PMBOK 5) documentation details:

Process Groups: Planning, Monitoring & Controlling

Knowledge Areas: 4 – Integration 10 – Communications 13 – Stakeholder

  • 4.3 Direct and Manage Project Work
  • 10.1 Plan Communications Management
  • 10.2 Manage Communications
  • 13.3 Manage Stakeholder Engagement

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 Working with SharePoint 2013 Document Sets

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10 Live / Streamed Webinars June 4th, 2014 & June 5th 2014
10 Webcasts – Earn Up to 1o Category C PDUs – Free PDUs
Hosted By:  StickyMinds/Techwell

The Agile Development & Better Software West
Virtual Conference
Will be streaming live on June 4th & 5th  from Las Vegas.

Session Descriptions below

The Virtual Conference features presentations and interviews straight to your desktop—including the latest software development solutions and networking opportunities.

Watch keynote presentations and sessions as they are happening live at Agile Development & Better Software Conference West.

The virtual conference also features live interviews with conference speakers!

Click to register for:
The Agile Better Software West Conference

June 4th Presentations: 

11:30 am EDT

KEYNOTE–Beyond the Web and Apps: The Domestication of Knowledge

Since the dawn of computing, we’ve invented only two ways to get work done―the web or apps. We hunt for information on the web or we gather functionality from the app store. In each case, users must take the initiative to find the information they need. We’ve become used to this life of hunting and gathering, but its time is ending.

A new era of domesticated information and functionality is dawning. In this new world, the web’s information comes to users when and where they need it. Apps won’t have to be installed and updated; their functionality will simply find its own way to users when it is needed.

James Whittaker describes the technologies that are enabling this new era of domestication and describes how both developing software and using computers will fundamentally change the world in which users—and especially developers—live and work. New knowledge APIs and cloud functionality are waiting to make your apps more capable than ever before. Come hear about it. It’s going to affect us all.

1:15 pm EDT

KEYNOTE–For Maximum Awesome

An agile hardware and engineering company of 500 collaborators in twenty countries, Team WIKISPEED uses test-first development practices, is run by Scrum teams, and produces road legal cars, micro-houses, and social-good projects. Joe Justice shares how their 100-MPG road car was created in just three months through object-oriented design, iterative development, and agile project management.

Joe describes how agile software techniques are applied to physical engineering and manufacturing, and how cross-functional team members can eliminate the constraints we imagine around traditional manufacturing. He shares the example of the design and development of their ultra-efficient, modular cars, and their client’s projects in satellites, laboratory equipment, missile systems, radio systems, medical devices, software projects, service deliveries, marketing, finance, HR, and others.

Hear examples of exactly how to launch or relaunch your projects and organization with Joe’s methods. Get inspired to change your world for the better.

3:45 pm EDT

Driving Lean Innovation on Agile Teams

The Lean StartupÂŽ methodology has taken the business world by storm and is revolutionizing product development through the application of a Build-Measure-Learn cycle, and the systematic application of techniques such as Customer Discovery, Customer Development, and Pirate Metrics. With agile teams in place, how can organizations drive lean product innovation on their agile teams? How can we bootstrap product development with product roadmaps and business requirements that are truly aligned with end-user needs?

Sanjiv Augustine shares how to drive lean innovation on your agile teams by setting up clear, short-term experiments using the popular Lean Canvas tool; structuring direct customer interaction through systematic customer interviews; conducting release planning informed by actionable metrics; and creating a “dual-track” of no- and low-cost UX prototyping in conjunction with agile delivery to reduce the cost of iteration while validating ideas and features. Learn how to extend your agile delivery knowledge into the product space to deliver products that customers love.

5:15 pm EDT

The Secrets of Mobile App Testing

Most app teams aim for 4 stars—not 5. Why? Because delivering and maintaining a high-quality app becomes more challenging every day. Agile engineering and continuous integration put more pressure than ever on testers and quality-focused developers. Add to that the raw complexity of device and platform fragmentation, new sensors, app store processes, star ratings and reviews, increased app competition, mobile automation frameworks that only half work, and users who expect the app to not just work flawlessly, but also to be intuitive and even beautiful and fun.

Jason Arbon shares app testing secrets gleaned from thousands of testers on hundreds of the world’s most popular apps, and data analytics on millions of apps and hundreds of millions of reviews. See how the best teams manage their star ratings and app store reviews. Learn what has been tried—and has failed. Get a glimpse of the future of app testing.

6:45 pm EDT

SAFe: The Scaled Agile Framework

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a popular process for enterprise-wide agile adoption. It is a pre-built framework that describes the individual roles, teams, activities, and artifacts necessary to scale agile from team to enterprise level while providing a cadence for teams to follow. Jared Richardson, an agile coach at a large insurance company in the midst of a SAFe adoption, brings practical lessons from that work to this session. After an overview of the SAFe framework.

Jared describes how the work flows from executives to team members, and then relates that workflow to other agile processes. Learn SAFe anti-patterns and a cautionary message for anyone looking for the silver bullet solution to software challenges. Jared discusses the areas you’ll want to change or monitor to ensure your own efforts succeed. Leave with an understanding of SAFe and an awareness of potential problems—so you can avoid them.

June 5th Presentations:

11:30 am EDT

KEYNOTE–An Agile Throwdown: Munich Takes on the Columbus Agile Benchmark Study

Agile has not only gone mainstream, it’s gone global. Data on agile team performance, time-to-market, and quality have emerged in the past decade. In 2012, a group of Columbus, Ohio, companies—business, IT, and financial services firms—participated in the first ever “Columbus Agile vs. the World” study. They collected velocity, schedule, effort, staffing, and quality data which were compared against QSM’s Software Lifecycle Management (SLIM) database. Analysis revealed delivery was 31 percent faster with 75 percent fewer defects than industry norms. Enter Munich, Germany. At their OOP 2013 conference, the Columbus results were presented. German companies elected to participate in a QSM-led study of their own to compare their results against Columbus, specifically with regard to time-to-market and quality.

Join Michael Mah to look at data patterns for both Munich and Columbus, illustrated side by side. The results might surprise you. See how both cities compared against the SLIM worldwide database of 12,000 completed projects. Michael also discusses what might lie ahead as companies adopt methods from XP to Scrum to lean.

1:15 pm EDT

See the Value: Focus on Delivering the Right Software

Many agile teams focus solely on velocity as their measure of progress. They draw burn-up charts to track it over time and make it the focus of much of their discussion during sprint planning and retrospectives. Is the strong focus on this metric truly in line with the principles of agile software development?

Cheezy and Ardita Karaj lead a workshop to explore this question.

Discover how focusing first on value, rather than velocity, changes the team approach to the work. Through a series of structured activities, work with a story map for a fictitious project and assign value to the discovered stories. Cheezy and Ardita discuss the practices and skills necessary to track earned value on your project. Learn the valuable lesson of discovering what not to build. Take back a set of new skills you can immediately apply to your development planning efforts. This session will be fun and educational. It is one you don’t want to miss.

3:45 pm EDT

Service Virtualization: Speed Up Delivery and Improve Quality

“We could not test this because…” Every technology professional has experienced issues during system testing when unit testing was overlooked or cut short. Every project team has hit roadblocks during system testing when dependent systems or complicated data have been unavailable. Service virtualization is a tool that eliminates the waiting and the excuses, making thorough and complete unit and system testing realistic. Done well, service virtualization improves defect detection and resolution in every phase of a project—driving down cost while improving quality. Done poorly, service virtualization is expensive, time consuming, and difficult to maintain.

Anne Hungate shares her formula for picking the right project, building the business case, and staffing to get the work done. Anne shows how to capture the value of service virtualization―compressing project schedules, delivering high-quality software, and delighting customers along the way. Learn how to ask for and get the most from your service virtualization efforts.

5:15 pm EDT

The Mismeasure of Software: The Last Metrics Talk You’ll Ever Need to Hear

The Mismeasure of Software: The Last Metrics Talk You’ll Ever Need to Hear Lee Copeland claims that most organizations have some kind of metrics program—and almost all are ineffective. After explaining the concept of measurement, Lee describes two key reasons for these almost universal metrics program failures. The first major mistake people make is forgetting that the model we are using for measurement is not necessarily reality. The second major blunder is treating ideas as if they were real things and then counting them.

Lee describes the “Three Don’ts of Metrics”—Don’t measure it unless you know what it means; Don’t measure it if you’re not going to do something with the measurement; and no matter what else you do, Don’t turn your measurement into a goal. Through the years, Lee has discovered his favorite project indicator is not a measurement at all—and you’ll be surprised to learn what it is. Join Lee as he shares his Zeroth Law of Metrics to guide your program to success.

7:15 pm EDT

KEYNOTE–Producing Product Developers

Many teams and organizations have found agile methods help them produce more. Where critical thinking is alive, a more important question arises: Are we producing the right thing?

Even though agile tools and processes have helped produce more, they often fail to help us produce the right product, change our focus to product over process, or improve product learning. David Hussman draws on his successful coaching experience in producing product developers and describes tools and techniques for building teams that value product ownership, product discovery, and product learning based on agile and lean delivery practices.

David introduces ideas in three areas: 

1) Getting Started―forming product centered teams, building product roadmaps;

2) Getting Productive―using agile methods to validate product learning, illuminate uncertainty, and pivot toward the most real value; and

3) Staying Productive―comparing leading indicators to lagging indicators, developing customers iteratively, restructuring teams to meet product needs, and working with people often deemed “outside the team.”

Show up ready to question and challenge your status quo—and learn how to improve your future.

Attendance is complimentary—so reserve your seat now.

PDU Category C (PMBOK 5) documentation details:

Process Groups: Planning Executing

Knowledge Areas: 4 – Integration 5 – Scope 6 – Time

  • 4.3 Direct and Manage Project Work
  • 5.2 Collect Requirements
  • 5.3 Define Scope
  • 5.5 Validate Scope
  • 6.6 Develop Schedule
  • 9.4 Manage Project Team
  • 13.2 Manage Stakeholder Engagement

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 Agile Better Software West Conference