PMI Northern Nevada Chapter
2011 Meetings & Presentations
2011
December
The 2011 PMI-NNV Holiday Party was held at The Firkin & Wolf Tuesday, Nov 29th 6:00-8:30 pm
Thank you to all of our members who attended our Holiday party and our sponsors who donated generously to the evening: TEKsystems for providing our Beverages, Fiala Project Resources for the $100 gift card to the Grill, Intuit for the donation of QuickBooks Pro, the Board for their fantastic raffle prizes and the many other wonderful gifts our members brought for the White Elephant Gift Exchange…A great time was had by all who attended.
PDU Information: This event did not qualify for any PDUs.
October
Communication – the Lifeblood of Project Management with Nishu Varma
Nishu Varma, PMP, is a project management professional with nineteen years of experience in project and program management, business process analysis, and application of technology solutions to meet corporate objectives. She is the founder and president of NIIV Inc. which provides strategic and project management consulting and training, and helps organizations set up PMOs as a center of excellence. She is experienced in leading multi-million dollar projects to on-time and on-budget completion for organizations like Covance, Intuit, and Tata Unisys. Nishu was the Technical Director for a local startup that created one of the largest community portals. Her broad industry experience spans global financial clients, a clinical research organization, international consulting firms, and software solution providers. Nishu contributed to the PMP Exam prep program within the PMI-NNV Chapter by creating content and teaching classes.
PDU Info: Activity Date: 10/18/11 1 PDU
September
An NDOT Perspective on Project Management
Join us with Bill Hoffman
As funding sources continue to shrink while travel demand remains high, it becomes ever more important to manage highway projects effectively and efficiently. Major projects last many years, spanning cycles of economic ups and downs, varying inflation, changing public and political priorities, and evolving transportation technology. To respond to this, existing procedures and approaches are continuously updated and new project management philosophies and delivery methods are adopted. Bill Hoffman, Assistant Director of Engineering, will describe how Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) meets these challenges.
As Assistant Director of Engineering, Mr. Hoffman is in charge of NDOT's pre-construction engineering divisions including Project Management, Design, Bridge, Environmental, Location, and Right-of-Way. His focus is on project delivery, ensuring that NDOT's projects are of the highest quality, and that they are delivered on time and within budget. In this role, Mr. Hoffman supervises six divisions within NDOT headquarters. This encompasses more than 300 professionals responsible for developing all engineering work necessary to deliver design plans and specifications used in the construction of NDOT projects.
Members; Click on image to view Bill's presentation. Activity Date: 9/27/11 - 1 PDU.
August
Project Phasegates
Our speaker this month will be Lorie Roberts from IGT. She will talk to the group about project phasegates” as tools to obtain customer acceptance at milestones throughout the project life cycle. Lorie Roberts is the Sr. Technical Project Manager for IGT’s Professional Services group. She has been with IGT for 10 years, and held senior positions in IGT’s Labs, Marketing and Systems divisions before joining the Professional Services team in July of 2009. Lorie has more than 20 years experience in various Project and Program Management roles within gaming, manufacturing, distribution, construction, telecommunications and data storage technologies.
Lorie is PMP certified and has been a volunteer with the local chapter for the past year. She holds degrees in English and Business and earned her Advanced Management Certification from the University of Nevada, Reno. IGT is a leading global gaming machine manufacturer and systems provider. The company is based in Nevada, with offices around the world, and currently employs more than 3,500 employees worldwide
Activity Date: 8/23/11 - 1 PDUJuly
Topic details coming soon...
June
Annual Member Meeting
This is our biggest meeting of the year and all members are strongly urged to attend.
- You will hear the state-of-the-chapter report to the membership on our activities and financial status over the past 12 months.
- We will recognize chapter officers, volunteers and sponsors.
Case Study: Planning a Region Conference For PMI Leaders
Our speaker for the evening is our own special projects PM, Tracy Sharp, PMP. Tracy will present a quick case study of a project the chapter sponsored this year that has applications and lessons for all PMs in the areas of risk management, coping with multiple changes, making decisions on the fly and corralling a large number of diverse PMs – and she has lots of pictures of local volunteers!
Activity Date: 6/28/11 - 1 PDU
May
Topic Details coming soon...
April
The Dying Art of Critical Path Management”Speaker: Terry C. Savage
In the last several decades, understanding of the importance of proper schedules has continuously declined. Back in the old days, schedules mattered. The Grand Tour of the planets, conceived in the late 1960s, had a launch window that occurred only every 176 years. If there was a serious schedule slip, you couldn’t just slip the launch a few months! Now, things are different. Even among major corporations, an exhaustive list of micro-tasks is passed off as a ‘schedule’. If you ask what the critical path for the project is, you get a ‘deer in the headlights’ look in response. Terry Savage received his project management certification under a NASA program while he was managing the manufacture of spacecraft parts. In this presentation, he will provide three simple rules for vastly improving schedule quality, and a simple method for quantitatively measuring schedule quality.
Terry has managed a multitude of multi-million dollar projects. He has just concluded a project for the California Prison Health Care System (CPHCS) where his main focus is on managing the SAP development team, deployment and change management and resolution of overlapping and sometimes conflicting priorities between multiple organizations. He is NASA PM certified, (prior to PMI/PMP certifications), and has been featured as a guest lecturer for the National Governor’s Association Best Practices Policy Academy, and the National Defense University Information Resource Management College. He is the published author of “The End of Winter” and, its sequel, “The Circle of Fire” is in final pre-publication edit.
Activity Date: 4/26/11 - 1 PDU
March
Accepting Project Risk: Wynnlee Crisp
Project threats can be systematically reduced. If the degree of remaining risk is measured each time a threat is reduced, conditions can reach the point where the PM and sponsor are comfortable with accepting the residual risk. Then, the remaining chance of failure can be counterbalanced with corresponding contingency. How much is “corresponding” contingency; 5%, 10%, pi, speed of light squared?? To be effective, the amount of contingency must match the amount of risk, rather than be an arbitrary quantity. This talk explains practical risk acceptance techniques used by PMs who can’t leave success to chance.
This presentation is by chapter member Wynnlee Crisp (H. Wynnlee Crisp LLC Project Management Training), who has managed risky projects around the world. The principles are based on real projects and are among those taught in his “Managing Project Risk” class. Mr. Crisp and his eight instructors offer 19 project management trainings through the University of Washington, League of Oregon Cities, and Association of Washington Cities, and for organizations’ in their own facilities throughout the West.
Activity Date: 3/22/11 - 1 PDUFebruary
No Project is an Island: Rhané Thomas
This presentation will introduce placing the activities of project management within the framework of the organization. The presentation will also discuss is the role of the project manager as a collector and communicator of organizational knowledge related to the project. Tools and practices will be identified that a project manager can employ to enhance and maintain alignment of a project with organizational goals and objectives.
Rhané Thomas is a Senior Consultant at MetaVista Consulting Group. She brings more than 30 years of analysis, project management and training experience to the table. Prior to joining MetaVista, Rhané was a Senior Information Systems Analyst/Project Manager with the State of California. Rhané has taught computer science at the Los Rios Community College District and ITIL Foundations for Global Knowledge, an international training company. Rhané is a dynamic and entertaining speaker and enjoys the give and take of an active, involved audience.
Activity Date: 2/22/11 - 1 PDU
January
NDOT US-95 Project 'A Project Manager's Perspective of Transition Phases and Lessons Learned: Jenica Finnerty
Speaker: Jenica Finnerty is a registered professional engineer in Nevada and has 18 years of progressive experience with the Nevada Department of Transportation. Jenica is currently the project manager for several transportation projects in the Las Vegas area and is also working on innovative project delivery through NDOT’s Pioneer Program. She is married, has 3 daughters, and enjoys her free time with family and being outside.
