Business Acumen

We are very proud to present you a range of exceptional learning sprints and reflection points on the Business Acumen tenants of the PMI triangle. Each of these topics include a 1-hour [1PDU] learning sprint and a 1-hour [1 PDU] reflection point.

Here is the list:

Redesigning Work for a New World - Ayse Birsel

This past March, companies ran head-first into a new world. In an instant, where and how we work changed. But so far, most of those changes were dictated by urgency and the absence of any other choice. Now it’s time to get creative, proactive and resourceful about what your leadership team and company does next.

Ayse Birsel’s REDESIGNING WORK helps project leaders have room to step back and think differently about what is now possible. Using Ayse’s proven Deconstruction:Reconstruction™ process, participants will rethink how we got here and redesign what their team does next.

Shifting the Worry Curve - Clint Padgett

In this session we are talking about Shifting the Worry Curve.

Most teams break trust with their customers because they fail to deliver on commitments for high-stakes projects. Does this sound like your last project?

You had a project timeline but no one believed it was accurate.
Team members avoided you and your project meetings.
Customers no longer trust you to deliver on your commitments.
There wasn't ownership or commitment among the team.
People were confused about what was important and what to work on.
The project resulted in lost profits and significantly missed deadlines.

The Entrepreneurial Project Manager - Marcus Whitney

In today's session we’re talking with Marcus Whitney about The Entrepreneurial Project Manager.

The number of projects with predictable inputs is dramatically decreasing and project managers have to learn to adjust and become linchpins.

You will leave this session knowing the core concepts of entrepreneurship and how to apply them as a project manager. More specifically this session will cover these key points:

*We are seeing that value creation is more important and measured more strictly. You have to go above and beyond your role.

*We have found innovation works well, more specifically shipping things quickly, learning and adapting.

*What is most important now is that we get comfortable with the pace and consistency of change.

The Startup is The Project - Charlie Paparelli

In this session, we’re talking with Charlie Paparelli about 'The Startup is the Project.' Charlie is among the most experienced angel investors in the greater Atlanta area. He has invested in over thirty-five technology startups, many of them at the back of the napkin stage. These investments are high risk, high reward. Charlie sees startups as complex projects that promise high financial returns. And in good times and bad, the project, the startup, must continue to guarantee a high financial payback for it to succeed.

In uncertain economic times, project sponsors seem to lose interest as their budget comes under closer scrutiny. By working with the sponsor, project managers must continue to identify the real problem to be solved.

Waterfall vs Agile Methodologies - Jason Westland

In this session, we’re talking about the use of waterfall and agile methodologies – when to use them, or some combination in between.

The situation looks like this – with Covid-19, large programs of work are being put on hold and smaller initiatives are getting underway to try and boost performance quickly. However those initiatives are often being untracked and as a result, work is turning into chaos. This is made doubly worst with the work from home model, as it’s even harder to collaborate than before.

You’ll learn when to use a waterfall or agile methodology for your projects and when to use a hybrid so that you can use the right approach for the right style of work.

Creating a Culture of Experimentation - David Nour

When it comes to improving your project, trying new processes, or an attempt to please a new internal or external customer, even the most experienced project professionals often get it wrong.

They discover that opinions, gut feel, decades of PMP experiences, and big data alone don’t always work.

What works isn’t just coming up with new, cool, or interesting products, processes, and programs. What works is running disciplined business experiments.

Crisis Resilience - David Nour

Did you know that the current global pandemic is an example of what’s referred to as a Black Swan Event?

These are crisis that we intellectually understand and know they’ll happen; we just don’t know when or the societal and economic impact of them on our lives.

Two challenges many of us face at the moment: A) this global pandemic is here to stay for a while and instead of thinking of it as a “beginning-middle- and an -end,” the sooner you embrace that ideas like working from home, masks, and 6’ social distancing will be with us for some time, the sooner you can work on building your crisis resilience.

For the next Black Swan Event that will come our way.

Introspection, Blind Spots, and Steady Stewardship - Shaun Roedel

In this highly engaging interview, Shaun shares wisdom in his experiences. Through leading initiatives to implement subsea and space technologies or responding to some of the most horrific natural disasters, Shaun has gained special expertise in leading organizations through some of the most uncertain times. He’s learned the fundamentals of what works and what doesn’t, and he shares what he’s finding that works now for his global organizations.