Emotional Intelligence for the Project Manager;
Why It Matters, and Why You Must Develop Yours

Speaker: Kevin Ciccotti, Certified Professional Coach, Human Factor Formula

PM's - What is your role in the company?

Speaker: Robert Dalbol, Ebara International

Have you ever felt like you could better utilize your Project Management
Principles at work? Have you ever felt unsure of how to integrate these
techniques into your company's culture? Do you wonder if utilizing
these principles could lead more of your projects to a successful
completion? These are just a few questions many Project Managers find
themselves asking – and today we will do something about it.

Today we will talk about how to analyze your company's cultural maturity, and determine which principles will best garner the attention and support needed to finish your projects with every team member and every department on board. First, let's take a personal example of where I work and how we are evolving the PM's role into a position which is altering the dynamics throughout the company. This journey has shown that the path to successfully implementing PM Principles is often correlated to how a Company understands the role of a Project Manager. This process is often give and take until the symbiotic relationship is achieved between PM Principles and the Company's Maturity.

About Our Speaker:  Robert Dalbol started with a background in Mechanical Engineering, obtaining his degree from the University of Nevada, and then achieved his Project Management Certification. He frequently drew on his Engineering degree and married those concepts with what he learned as a PMP to develop process improvements that focus on iterative and analytical methods. Robert has had great success applying PM principles in companies that span a variety of industries: from the Department of Defense and its initiatives, to Microsoft, General Contractors, and Ebara International. When Robert is not delving into the hectic world of Project Management he unwinds by spending time outdoors with his family and friends.

PDU Information: 
1 PDU    Activity Date:  9/24/13

Members; Click on image to view presentation.

Take Me Out To The BallGame!

There's a project in every story. August Dinner meeting was at the Aces BallPark.   We heard about the project to bring baseball to Reno, Dinner at the Freight House, and an Aces game.  Rick Parr, Aces General Manager shared his thoughts on what it took to bring the Aces to Reno.

Speaker: Rick Parr, Aces General Manager

PDU Information: 
1 PDU    Activity Date: 8/22/13

Topic: GOOD SOCIAL BUSINESS

"Everyone is talking - your customers, employees, and suppliers - and anything they say online about you and your organization becomes a permanent marketing message that can spread quickly through social networks to people you might never have imagined you could reach. Bret will discuss good social business which applies the new operating principles of inbound marketing to attract people to your business with influential content and converstaions that build communities of allies for your cause."

Speaker: Bret Simmons Ph.D., Associate Professor of Management at UNR

Everyone is talking - your customers, employees, and suppliers - and anything they say online about you and your organization becomes a permanent marketing message that can spread quickly through social networks to people you might never have imagined you could reach. Are you listening, responding, and participating in these conversations in order to build trust with people, or are you stuck in outdated and ineffective paradigm of marketing? Good social busines applies the new operating principles of inbound marketing to attract people to your business with influencial content and conversation that build communities.
Bret teaches courses in organizational behavior, social business, and personal branding at UNR. He helped enable a team of talented organizers, speakers, and participant to produce TEDxUniversityofNevada on January 25, 2013. Bret blogs about leadership and social business at his website Positive Orgainzational Behavior.

PDU Information: 
1 PDU    Activity Date: July 23, 2013

June's Meeting was a celebration of 5 Years with a BBQ for our members.

No PDU was available for this meeting.

Topic: Creatively Overcoming Obstacles

Speaker: Shirley Beasley 

 President of Promethean Advisors, Inc.

Project management is the most satisfying of professions as projects are planned with perfect foresight, budgets are ample to meet objectives, stakeholders are fully satisfied with results, designs never need to be changed, equipment always costs less than budgeted, arrives on time and in pristine condition, contractors never make mistakes and unionized labor never goes on strike. In our dreams, perhaps!

Shirley Beasley will discuss creatively overcoming obstacles using examples from her diverse experience, having worked for Dow Chemical, Oscar Mayer, Xytel, Proctor & Gamble, IBM and most recently EP Minerals. Shirley is a Chemical Engineer/MBA (Washington University in St. Louis and University of Chicago Booth School of Management) and is currently President of Promethean Advisors, Inc.

In addition, Shirley has a passion for quality education and has served our community as Chair of the Washoe County School District Parent Involvement Council, as Nevada PTA representative on the Nevada Legislature's Washoe County Schools Construction and Revitalization Committee as well as various other PTA positions. Shirley remains keenly interested in legislative matters and was most recently quoted on 4/10/13 in the Reno Gazette-Journal advocating for Senate Bill 445 on School Choice Scholarships

Members; Click on image to view presentation.

PDU Information:
1 PDU    Activity Date:   5/28/13

Topic: LEADERSHIP VS MANAGEMENT

"Lead and inspire people. Don't try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead" Ross Perot.Of all the assets managed during a project, the one that has feelings, emotions, and can ensure a project succeeds or fails is the human being. This is where management is different than leadership.Pieter will clarify the difference between management and leadership and provide insight as to what makes a strong leader. Speaker: Pieter Droog Retired Army officer, Branch Manager for ProNet RenoThe issue today both in the private and public sectors is that management is emphasized. We do not develop leadership skills and yet those are the skills necessary to take the dream to become a reality. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it ”General Dwight Eisenhower.  Over the last 30 years, Pieter Droog has had the experience of observing strong leadership and weak leadership. During his career in both the military and civilian environments he has been able to analyze why one leader succeeds and another fails. Pieter Droog is a retired Army officer. His background is in logistics including aircraft maintenance, vehicle maintenance and closing two military bases.  To successfully ensure equipment was “mission ready” or have employees literally work themselves out of a job, he had to establish a culture where the employee was the key asset. He established the goals, but the “how to” was left to the individual, commonly known as empowerment. His leadership skills ensured every organization achieved “benchmark” status for the company, division or industry.Pieter is in the midst of his third career. First the military, second in manufacturing and distribution culminating in as VP of Operations, and he is now the Branch Manager for ProNet Reno. His organization supports, trains and motivates unemployed professionals in the Northern Nevada area.  Again, his organization is setting the standard. In PY13, he enrolled 198 new clients and exited to employment 207. The success of ProNet Reno has resulted in a documentary on KNPB in Feb 2013 called “The Unemployed Professional.” He has also been invited to be a speaker at the National Association of Workforce Development Professional National Convention in May 2013 in Minneapolis, MN 

Members; Click on image to view presentation.

PDU Information:
1 PDU    Activity Date:   4/23/13

Topic: CHANGES IN THE NEW PMBOK

In January 2013, The Project Management Institute released a new edition of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Major changes include a new Knowledge Area, Stakeholder Management, plus some new processes and realignment of others to a different Knowledge Area. There are also many minor changes to the names of processes, inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs. Bill Ball, PMP, and project management instructor for the UNR Extended Studies program, will talk about the recent changes to the PMBOK as it has evolved from the 4th Edition to the 5th Edition. Bill will review the major changes and talk about how the PMBOK has been revised and improved in this new version. Speaker: Bill R. Ball, PMP, MBA, BSCS Founder and owner of Quality Solutions, a training and consultation firm. William R. Ball, PMP, MBA, BSCS, is the founder and owner of Quality Solutions, a training and consultation firm specializing in the delivery of project management, risk management, and software requirements engineering training to business clients nation-wide. With over twenty years experience in software systems development, customer support, and quality engineering management, Bill helps companies successfully complete highly complex, enterprise-level projects. He holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute, and has a Baccalaureate degree in Computer Science and a Master's degree in Business Administration. Bill was primary author and editor of A Guide to Software Quality System Registration under ISO 9001, and has been a Submarine-qualified Naval Officer and Navy Supply Corps Officer.

Members; Click on image to view presentation.

PDU Information:
1 PDU   Activity Date:  3/26/13

Topic: Managing Innovations - Moana Diverging Diamond Interchange

Our speaker, NDOT Senior Project Manager Adam Searcy will share his experiences with project delivery and process improvements, describe how seemingly innocuous change can infect and derail a project and what you can do to insulate your projects from these negative effects. Speaker: Adam T. Searcy, P.E., Senior Project Manager with the Nevada Department of Transportation. As Project Managers, we are constantly striving for incremental improvements and guiding our teams through the growing pains that this can often introduce. In the recent Moana Interchange Diverging Diamond Project, the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) went beyond incremental change and implemented a number of dramatic innovations. New approaches were taken not only to the fundamental geometric design itself but also to standard project delivery processes. Our speaker, NDOT Senior Project Manager Adam Searcy will share his experiences with project delivery and process improvements, describe how seemingly innocuous change can infect and derail a project and what you can do to insulate your projects from these negative effects. Adam T. Searcy, P.E., is a Senior Project Manager with the Nevada Department of Transportation. He has nearly 10 years of professional engineering, construction management, and project management experience with NDOT and as a consultant. Currently, Adam is managing multiple projects in the Reno, Las Vegas, and Mesquite areas. From 2010-2012 he was the Project Manager responsible for the West Mesquite Interchange Design-Build project that implemented the State’s most substantial use of Accelerated Bridge Technology to completely replace two bridges on Interstate 15 in a total of only 112 hours. Recently, as PM for the Moana Interchange Improvements, Adam led the team through a number of “firsts,” successfully opening the project in only 64 days. Prior to joining NDOT in 2008, he worked as a Construction Manager on major residential land development projects in Northern Nevada including Somersett and D’Andrea Developments. He graduated in 2003 from the University of Iowa with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and is currently pursuing an MBA at the University of Nevada, Reno, anticipating graduation in May 2013.

Members; Click on image to view Adam's presentation.

PDU Information:

1 PDU   Activity Date:  2/26/13

Topic: Organizing an Olympic Bid

The Reno Tahoe Winter Games Coalition is the current organization responsible for developing the bid strategy and the support team capable of effectively competing for a future Winter Olympic Games award. At PMI’s January 22 meeting, RTWGC Chief Executive Officer Jon Killoran will describe organization of the project, the latest Olympic bid developments, continued planning for a potential bid, and other events that are and may be coming to the area. Speaker: Jon Killoran, Chief Executive Officer of the Reno Tahoe Winter Games Coalition.  The Reno Tahoe Winter Games Coalition (RTWGC) has led the way over the past decade in promoting our region as a world class sports tourism opportunity. Most notably, this non-profit group of public and private Nevada and California leaders continues to position Reno-Tahoe as the best choice to host the next North American Olympic Winter Games. This pursuit is a project of many stages. After the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, efforts to bring them back were initiated in the 1980s and the Nevada Commission on Sports (NCOS) was officially established by the legislature in 1989. Reno-Tahoe stayed in the Winter Olympic bid competition in the early 1990’s, but the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) advanced Anchorage to the International Committee for 1992 and Salt Lake City for 1998 and 2002. In 2001, the RTWGC was established to spearhead the bid efforts independent of – but with the full support of – the NCOS. The Reno Tahoe Winter Games Coalition is the current organization responsible for developing the bid strategy and the support team capable of effectively competing for a future Winter Olympic Games award. At PMI’s January 22 meeting, RTWGC Chief Executive Officer Jon Killoran will describe organization of the project, the latest Olympic bid developments, continued planning for a potential bid, and other events that are and may be coming to the area. Jon Killoran is the Chief Executive Officer of the Reno Tahoe Winter Games Coalition. He handles the day-to-day operations for this non-profit organization, with the mission to promote Reno-Tahoe as a world class sports tourism destination by hosting, producing and facilitating events with the ultimate goal of bringing a future Olympic Winter Games back to the region. Jon has served in this position since February 2009, working with leaders from Nevada and California to position our region as a premiere sports destination and favorite to host the Games. Before joining the Olympic effort, Jon spent 21-years in Reno’s television news industry. He earned several awards for his work as a sports broadcaster before being promoted to a similarly distinguished stint as news director for KRNV News 4.    PDU Information: 

1 PDU   Activity Date:  1/22/13