Agile best practices can be applied to a variety of situations. Most prevalent is IT projects, often for software development.  But can you apply agile methods to a ‘portion’ of a software implementation project?  

In this case study, Todd provides an overview of a successful example where agile techniques were applied to a multi-year, multi-million-dollar IT program – specifically to the testing phase – that included legacy replacement, new software development, creation of a new enterprise data model and document management solution, and complex financial balancing. After briefly describing the challenges faced by the organization, Todd covers the guiding principles from the Agile Manifesto – describing the practical approach he used to implement agile techniques and showing information radiators that were used to track velocity and demonstrate progress to program stakeholders.  Through this discussion, he outlines key benefits this brought to the business as well as lessons the team learned along the way.

Leave with a greater appreciation for the testing complexity of a large-scale software implementation, a better understanding of best practices and lessons learned, and practical agile techniques and tracking tools you can apply to your current project.

This presentation introduces you to the basic concepts of risk management and planning, then explores two real-world tools you can use to manage risk. You will learn how to recognize risk, evaluate the potential impact of risk on your project, and plan responses to risks, all using an easy-to-use risk register template.  You will also receive a live demonstration of schedule risk analysis (SRA) to help you evaluate your project schedule for the probability of finishing your project on-time and on-budget.

We accept technology into our lives without question. We know something new will emerge soon, and we know that society expects us to adopt and adapt when the next new thing shows up. We accept it. Often we welcome it. Thanks to technology, we are saturated with change. You’re working on a project that will introduce more change. In fact, your measure of success is user adoption, and if your users don’t accept your change, then your project will fail. Technology has shifted our change thresholds for better or worse. As project managers, we have to deal with that. We will journey down a slightly different path of change management that focuses on user adaptability versus user adoption.

We’ll explore the impact of technology in shifting change thresholds. While a change management plan focuses on managing changes in such a way as to achieve the best outcome, you’ll learn how to create an adaptability plan, which focuses on the people being impacted by the changes, including individual and group needs required for success.

Speaker: Beth Spriggs, PMP

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Beth Spriggs, PMP, is an experienced trainer, speaker, and author. Currently, she serves as the vice president of technology at Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE). She is also the president and founder of Vision Magnified, a non-profit organization with a mission to innovate and advocate for project, program, and portfolio managers to help them obtain executive level leadership roles.

For more than 18 years, she’s managed technology projects and portfolios. Some of Beth's contributions include delivering webinars for ProjectManagement.com, speaking at PMI’s Information Systems and Technology Symposium, and attending PMI's Global Congress North America 2015 as an Expert and in 2016 as a speaker. Beth was highlighted as one of the 123 Top Influencers in the Project Management Industry in 2016 by Timecamp. She is the author of “The Project Manager’s Little Book of Cheats”. www.bethspriggs.com

Advance registration is required via http://pmicvc.org/.

From the President....

May is a month of transition: it is the last full month of Spring, the end of the academic year at most universities and colleges, and the end of May brings the beginning of summer activities and vacations. Since 1963, President Kennedy proclaimed May as “Senior Citizens Month, “and then President Carter proclaimed May as “Older Americans Month” (some believe that the Romans named May after the Latin word for elders, maiores). May marks a transition for PMICVC. Our Board Nominating Committee, Cindy Parcell, PMP and Ron Younger, PMP, are transitioning from speaking with members to fill the slate of candidates for next year’s board openings (if you are interested in the President, Executive Vice President, Vice President of Communications, or Vice President of Education), speak with any Board member, or complete the nomination form. The candidates will speak to members at the June Richmond Diner meeting.

Do you hate to network? Join Doug Poynter and discover how to find your dream job networking the easy way, without being pushy or needy!

In this action-packed session you’ll learn:

• How to determine if the person you are talking with will be a good networking partner and be able to help you.

• How to network in a way that is so natural and EASY that no one will even know that you’re doing it and people will want to help you!

• The secret you need to know that determines your success!

• And most important, the actual words you can use in everyday, real life scenarios that will jumpstart your networking and supercharge your job search!

It’s a disservice to let a chance to network get away from you. Why? Because you’re great at what you do! There are organizations out there that need you and what you bring to the table. The best way to find those organizations is to network. Let’s get started!