Happy 2012 to all!
The mission of the finance team is to oversee the
management of funds for the purposes of the Chapter as
authorized by the Board. The Finance team includes 2
directors - Joyce Nussbaum (Director of Accounts
Receivable) and Kim Hinton (our newly appointed Director
of Scholarships).
We
are responsible for managing all the Chapter’s receipts,
funds, and securities. An annual budget is prepared,
working with the Board members. It is used to guide the
expenditures for the Chapter. One of our primary drivers
is to keep the cost of dues and programs as stable as
possible for Chapter members. In fact the $20 chapter
dues have been maintained since the chapter's inception.
In other areas, we are focused on minimizing any
increase of fees to our members while expanding services
– for example remote sites for the monthly meetings.
While a lot of our work takes place behind the
scenes – you are probably familiar with the Scholarship
program that was initiated in 2007 as a way of giving
back to our members. For the past 5 years we have
awarded 10 undergraduate scholarships/year to the
children of PMINJ members who have excelled in
academically and also have a record of service and
leadership. To date – we have awarded 50 scholarships,
with our first class graduating in 2011. In 2011 we also
introduced a Master’s scholarship. The scholarship
program is only possible due to the efforts of
volunteers who participate on the selection team. It
takes dedication from the team members – and we are
always happy to have new people join the team!
The finance team is looking forward to a
productive 2012. If you have any questions – feel free
to contact us using our email addresses that can be
found on the Chapter web site – www.pminj.org.
We are excited to announce
that one of PMI’s founders, Jim Snyder, will be speaking
at our 20 Mar 2012 PMINJ Chapter Meeting. Please
pencil this on your calendars and look for upcoming
announcements!
Mr. Snyder is a founder of the Project Management
Institute, a Fellow of the Institute, and a past Volunteer
Executive Director, President and Chairman of the Board.
He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the
PMI Educational Foundation, Treasurer of the Delaware
Valley Chapter, and a member of the Editorial Review Board
of Project Management Journal®. Mr. Snyder, who is
casually referred to as the "Father of PMI," has been
awarded the PMI Man of the Year Award and is an Honorary
Life Member of the Institute. He is also a founding member
of the PMI Delaware Valley Chapter and the Pharmaceuticals
Specific Interest Group (SIG). Mr. Snyder served as the
project manager for the construction of PMI's World
Headquarters in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, USA. The
PMI® James R. Snyder Center for Project Management
Knowledge and Wisdom, located in the headquarters
building, is named in his honor.
A
video about the PMI Founders is available on YouTube
Nominations for the PMINJ Project of the Year (POY) are
now being accepted! We invite you to nominate a worthy
2011 project executed by your organization for this
prestigious award. Deadline for nominations is 31 Jan
2012.
For selection criteria and details
Any project is eligible for consideration provided:
The winner will be announced in February
2012. The award will be presented at the April, 2012
Chapter meeting. Further information on nomination rules and processes, and
the submission template.
Submissions should be emailed to
by 31 Jan 2012.
Questions? Please email
.
For the 7th consecutive year, PMINJ celebrated
International Project Management Day at the beautiful
Palace at Somerset Park, on 03 Nov 2011. It was a
wonderful and informative event attended by over 500
project management practitioners, several sponsors and PMI
Communities of Practice (CoP) representatives, and an
engaged speaker lineup.
The day
started with an opening statement by Chapter President
Judy Balaban, followed by a welcome address to all guests
and speakers by the PMINJ VP of Symposium, Deven Trivedi.
Deven explained the reasons for an IPM Day celebration: to
increase awareness of Project Management as a profession,
to promote Project Management in organizations, and to
thank project managers around the world for their hard
work and perseverance. The next four speakers lead
interactive presentations focused on modern day leadership
skills required to compete in a global economy.
Speaker Angel Carol
Smith introduced the morning keynote speaker, Frank
Saladis, PMP, PE, CCE, founder of IPM Day and tenured
President of the NY City Chapter. Frank began his
presentation on “Architecting the Future through Project
Management” affirming the indispensability of Project
Management and reminding the audience that nothing would
get done without project management principles! The
evolution of Project Management continues and the value of
Project Management is becoming more apparent across all
industries. Risk reduction was cited as one of
several value benefits of Project Management and
Sustainability as a Risk Management solution was discussed
as one of the approaches that project managers can
deploy. Frank provided the audience with a view of
Project Management in a global economy. It is more than
business process; it is “the way work gets done”.
The Project Manager is a leader and a value driver.
Project Integration Management, when performed with strong
leadership, integrates project deliverables with
organizational goals and assures a solution-based approach
for the enterprise / client. Frank called project
managers to action by presented a formula for the future
of project management: Project Management + Strategy =
Future. This inspirational presentation emphasized
that business success and project management are
inseparable.
Joe Lukas, PMP, PE,
CCE, the second speaker in the morning session, provided
the audience with tips on “Project Negotiations: Dealing a
Winning Hand on the International Stage”. Joe called
attention to the fact that in reality not all negotiations
are principled and as such a project manager needs to be
aware of the motives around the table. Joe
highlighted three parts of the negotiation process: the
ever valuable pre-meeting in which planning for the
strategic, administrative and tactical goal setting takes
place; the meeting at which the bargaining toward closure
takes place; and the post-meeting in which additional
negotiations are possible. Joe highlighted 5 common
mistakes in negotiations: low aspirations / weak
negotiating skills, making low initial demands, neglecting
to ask questions, providing too much information, and
reaching a quick settlement. Audience inquiries in
this interactive session lead to additional suggestions
such as using Skype for phone negotiations.
The third speaker of the
day, Sherry Blair, MSSW, MA, LCWS, BCPC in her
presentation “The Positivity Pulse: Transforming Your
Workplace” spoke about the value and need for project
managers to attain Emotional Intelligence. Sherry
cited positive psychology research that correlates with
positive emotions, increased productivity through better
health and increased motivation. Citing additional
research from Ken Blanchard and Barbara Fredrickson,
Sherry described Servant Leadership otherwise described as
Leading from the Heart. A servant leader is able to put
aside self-interests and encourages a culture of
connectivity that results in reduction of unnecessary
conflict among other benefits. A servant leader
leverages communication skills to build positive
relationships, recognizes and rewards positive behavior
and avoids judgment.
John Boyens of the
Boyens Group® conducted a dynamic afternoon workshop
“Avoiding the 5 Fatal Flaws of Management”. John
started by reminding the audience that 90% of management
problems are “people problems” and of these people
problems, 90% are communication problems. He
proceeded with discussion of 5 fatal flaws of
communicating and recommended preferred communication
approaches. For example, unclear and inconsistent
communications need to be addressed with active listening.
Communications related to change management need to
clearly state the change and its benefits as well as
convey optimism for future outcomes. Properly
assessing the readiness of team members for “mission
critical” tasks, including ability and willingness to
perform tasks assigned, was also identified as a key to
project success. This robust workshop also included
discussion of influencing styles with outcome-based
thinking highlighted as one of the team engagement
strategies. John concluded his workshop defining 15
steps to be an effective leader: communicating early and
often, managing the team’s energy, visualizing success,
holding team members accountable, hiring people based on
their potential and leveraging teachable moments.
The speaker presentations can be accessed on the
PMINJ web site.
Jerry Flach, Director of Symposium, concluded the
event by thanking speakers, sponsors, project manager
attendees and over 40 volunteers on 10 teams who helped
make this IPM Day event a success. With final cheers to
Project Management and its practitioners, Jerry reminded
the audience that anyone interested in shaping future
PMINJ events or advancing their team building and
leadership skills should consider volunteering for the
Symposium team and other volunteer opportunities via PMINJ
web-site: Volunteer
Opportunities
.
The 15 Nov 2011 PMINJ Chapter Meeting held at the
Bridgewater Marriott was the last Chapter Meeting of the
year.
The Networking Program featured “Yes, You Are a
Brand” presentation by Ginny Devine, President of Quantum
Performance Systems, LLC. This Program was about knowing
your Brand and how the value one brings to an organization
is essential to maintaining career viability in today’s
work world. Ginny’s presentation provided direction and
support to inventory and identify one’s Brand.
PMINJ
Chapter Business:
The main event began with Judy Balaban, PMP, Chapter
President, discussing the following:
Lisa Blake, PMP, VP Programs,
then took the podium and added:
Featured Presentation: “Project, Program and Portfolio
Metrics” – Henry Will, PMP
Henry began his
presentation with an overview of Project, Program and
Portfolio Management. He conducted a quick review and
pointed out the differences of each. He then proceeded to
discuss the key element of the presentation –
Metrics. How can you leverage metrics to clear
road-blocks, back up your points, and promote progress in
important areas of your projects, programs, and
portfolios? In this presentation, we heard some stories
about how common issues that project managers face can be
solved using metrics. We also received some down-to-earth
examples of how to measure elements of a project in
spreadsheets. In this presentation Henry demonstrated the
old saying “If you want to improve something - measure
it!”
Henry interacted with the group in order to get a
collaborative definition of Metric. It was agreed that a
Metric is a Measurement. We also agreed that for us it is
usually a measurement of something that needs improvement.
Group discussion of the tools commonly used to report
metrics identified Earned Value, Budgets, Dash Boards,
Score Cards, Heat Maps and Charts/Graphs. Henry indicated
that metrics are key to cause a needed change.
Following a discussion around metrics, the
presentation then proceeded into some of the tools that
are used to communicate metrics. Henry shared a quote from
Albert Einstein: “If you can’t communicate something
simple, then you don’t know enough about it.” Some of the
metrics communication tools mentioned:
Some key questions to consider with regard to
metrics:
Henry concluded by summarizing some of his key
“Metric Tips”:
This presentation provided a tool bag of techniques
to increase the value and effectiveness of project
management communications
The evening concluded with a special raffle of
“Skullcap” Earphones presented by FYI Solutions. The
winner of this raffle was Jerry Stone, PMP.
Henry Will, PMP, is currently responsible for a PMO
at IBM, working to achieve audit readiness for the Lender
Services organization.
Ginny Devine, Career Development Specialist at Fairleigh
Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, gave a great
presentation to a full meeting room at the November PMINJ
Career Networking session on the topic of Personal
Branding. The concept of a Personal Brand was first
introduced by Tom Peters in a famous August ‘97 paper [1],
and Ginny explained that understanding and being able to
express what it is that you do well, the value that you
bring to an employer, is a critical part of being able to
market yourself and make you stand out from the crowded
job market that job seekers face these days.
Employers have problems to be solved – and hiring
managers are looking for people who can deliver results,
solve those problems. There are plenty of candidates
– a hiring manager needs to be able to quickly distinguish
what value a candidate will bring and, once interested, be
able to evaluate the evidence to back up the candidates’
claims.
Car brands clearly convey a message – Hummer, Prius,
Mini – we all know what these represent. We should
seek to make our own Brand as clear as these. A Personal
Brand is made up of Attributes, Skills, and Environment.
Skills are, perhaps, the easiest to understand:
skills can be acquired. We learn skills on the job,
through training, volunteering, and from our life’s
experiences. Skills are critical, and everyone lists
them in resumes, but it is the combination of skills with
the other branding aspects that represents our personal
value proposition.
Environment is the context in which you have worked
– a particular industry or organizational culture (e.g.,
corporate vs. non-profit, startup vs. mid size vs. large
company, or consulting). Your value may be long
experience in a particular industry, or it may lie in
having demonstrated that you can be effective in a wide
variety of different contexts.
Attributes are harder to define and
articulate. These are your intrinsic qualities that
might feel automatic, natural and easy for you. This is
your unique way of doing things without thinking too much
about it. So you may not value these Attributes as
much as you should. But to complete your Brand, you
need to identify these Attributes of how you operate and
achieve success in what you do. Think about the
roles you play on a team: do you organize, inspire,
support? What do your managers say about you?
Go back and read several past appraisals and look for
common threads to help identify these traits. Write
down the 3-5 accomplishments about which you are most
proud, and think about these. Another guide is your
Myers Briggs personality preference – Introvert vs.
Extrovert, Sensing vs. Intuitive, Thinking vs. Feeling,
Judging vs. Perceiving [2]. Some examples of
Attributes are strategic thinking, attention to detail,
leadership, and comfort with ambiguity.
So, to better define your Personal Brand, write down
all your skills, achievements, strengths, characteristics,
feedback from others, and then separate these into Skills,
Environment and Attributes. Remember that Skills can
be learned, while Attributes are things that you just do
regardless of the situation. Then set about looking
for evidence for each of these Brand components in your
work history, evidence that you can describe in an
interview by giving examples about where and how you have
used this aspect to achieve results. Use items in
your resume as jumping off points to these stories to
differentiate yourself from other candidates.
Ginny provided several web links during her talk so
attendees could research further, including:
The risk
process produces large amounts of data that are needed
to support analysis, reporting, decision-making and
action. Tools can help us to manage these data
efficiently. But there are many alternative risk tools,
so how can you choose the right one for your needs? The
following factors should be considered:
These factors can be compiled into a “functional
requirement specification” defining what you need from
your risk tool. This categorizes requirements into those
which are essential, the ones that are preferred, and
optional extras. You might even develop a weighted
scoring system based on the various requirements.
You can then use this specification to screen
available risk tools and produce a short-list of
possible candidates that meet all or most of the
criteria. Invite the vendors of these tools to present
their tool in more detail. Try testing each tool using
actual risk data to ensure that the reality lives up to
the vendor’s sales pitch. Invite real users to take part
in trials to give you their feedback on whether it meets
their needs. See if vendors are able to tailor their
tool to meet your specific requirements. Be ready to ask
difficult questions!
A risk tool cannot guarantee effective risk
management, however good that tool may be. Having a copy
of Microsoft Word will not make you a good writer, and
owning a power-drill does not mean you can build a
wardrobe. In the same way, use of a risk tool does not
ensure the ability to manage risk. But tools can
certainly play a part in supporting the risk process –
if we choose the right one.
| Aaron Attwood Aaron Bennett Carrie Braverman Karen A Briggs Craig E. Carey Jessica Chamberlin Ramakrishna Chekuri Steven Craig Hope DeCohen Tammy L Demm David Docherty Frederick L Ferry Karen Fischbach Patricia Ellen Gant |
Perri Husted Manoj Jain Edward S. Klusman Rajya Lakshmi Koppula Rebecca Lam Tom Loscalzo Narasimman Madhavarao Leeza Mathews Wangyang Ni Paul Odell Nita Parikh Sandeep Pathak Delphine Patterson |
Michael J. Pisani Hagay Pollak Priscilla Quattrocchi Houda Rabah Sreeprakash Rangarajan Karen Reif Leslie Romanowski Christopher J Seymour Jacqueline Sheehan Claire Leslie Shields Joseph A Sinopoli David E. Spence Richard C Valanzola Stacy Winters |
| PgMP Greg D. Geib Martin McEnroe Aita Salasoo CAPM Clair Stelus |
PMI-RMP Daniel E. Drain Alan Markey Pradip M. Mehta PMI-SP Pradip M.Mehta PMI-ACP None |
Editor Simon
Tsang, PhD, PMPPublication Information: