PMFORUM Breaking News
Breaking News in the Project Management World
Monday, April 30, 2007
First Professional Development Day by PMI Dallas Chapter a Resounding Success!
The Dallas Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) – PMI Dallas Chapter – conducted its first ever Professional Development Day on Saturday, April 28, 2007. According to PMI Dallas Chapter President Dwaraka Iyengar, “We had over 300 registered, and the feedback was very positive. Our keynote speakers were outstanding, and the paper presenters also did a good job. The hotel was also excellent! So we are all happy with our first PDD!”
The day began with a keynote speech by noted project management guru Gopal Kapur, founder and president of the Center for Project Management in San Ramon, California. Mr. Kapur made a very entertaining and useful presentation full of helpful suggestions for implementing PM successfully in organizations. His material was based on research among executives in large US corporations. Mr. Gopal’s third book “Project Management for Information, Technology, Business and Certification” has recently been published by Prentice Hall in the USA.
Following Gopal’s presentation and a brief coffee break, attendees had choices to attend 12 paper presentations among six tracks from 9:00 until 11:30 a.m. Those presentations were by local Dallas-area project management consultants, experts and professional leaders, including Dwight Davis (Team Based Strategic Planning), David Lanners (Guidelines for Ethical Influence), Tony Johnson (Attacking the Iceberg), Treshia Eaves (Improving Software Quality), Mike Ratcliff (Enabling Executable Requirements), Dwaraka Iyengar (Present Jade Follows Shopping), Susan Lee (Failure Mode & Effect Analysis), Bill Gasikowski (Your Next Project: Managing your PDUs), Gwynne Dawdy (Project Meeting Management), Jack Ferraro (Project Manager as Generalist – Project Manager as Obsolete), Abby Herriman (Career Paths & the Culture of PM) and David Pells (The World of Project Management).
The luncheon keynote speaker was Roger Staubach, Chairman and CEO of the Staubach Company and former quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys professional football team. The Staubach Company is now a leading global real estate advisory and development firm that delivers solutions in the office, retail and industrial real estate markets. Mr. Staubach gave an entertaining, informative and inspiring talk on the importance of teamwork and leadership for success. As he is a local celebrity and leader, he held the attendees in rapt attention for nearly an hour.
The middle of the afternoon also offered attendees to select and hear professional presentations by Paul Burek (Managing the Project Scope Statement), Sam Miambo (Project Success: using Tools to Drive Consistency), Tony Johnson (Work Breakdown Structures), Adrienne Bransky & Maria Cramer (Transformation Management), Abby Herriman (Career Paths & the Culture of PM), Dwight Davis (Parallel Thinking for Best Solutions), Chuck Preecs (Applications of Decision Theory for PM), Gary Rechfertig (Risk Management: Deal with problems before or after they occur), Jack Ferraro (Project Manager as Generalist – Project Manager as obsolete), Rick Smith (Managing Agile Projects with SCRUM) and Dwaraka Iyengar (Present Jade Follows Shopping – on Off Shoring projects). Several of the presentations were repeated from the morning session.
Mr. Greg Balestrero, CEO of PMI, arrived mid-afternoon to deliver the closing keynote speech at 3:45 p.m. Mr. Balestrero had just returned to the USA a day earlier from two weeks of travel around China. Drawing on his recent trip and meetings with Chinese industry and government leaders, Greg delivered a very interesting and educational talk about project management in Asia, the rapidly growing need for more project management professionals, and some trends in the PM world. (For more on Mr. Balestrero’s comments about PM in China, click here.)
In conjunction with the day’s professional development activities, a Job Fair was also running in the foyer, with opportunities for those looking for employment. The PMI Dallas Chapter’s first PDD was sponsored by Crosswind Project Management, Inc. The PDD chapter project team included Sherrie Karram, PMP, chapter VP of Professional Development; Atul Choudhary, PMP; John Keck, PMP; Manohar Rane, PMP; Sulthan Mohammad, PMP; Usha Ayyar; Ellen Paul, PMP, Kurtis Sampson, PMP; Muthuraman Meenakshisundaram; and Trish Bohrer. Many other volunteers contributed to the day’s success; altogether over 50 chapter volunteers helped out.
With over 3,800 members, the PMI Dallas Chapter is one of the oldest and largest PMI chapters in the world. Monthly dinner meetings feature a wide variety of project management experts and topics, and typically attract over 200 attendees. The chapter sponsors workshops, PMP development opportunities, an annual Vendor exhibition, a school outreach program, corporate interaction and other activities.
The president of the PMI Dallas Chapter for 2007 is Mr. Dwaraka Iyengar, PMP (at left in photo with Roger Staubach, Gopal Kapur and David Pells).
The Dallas Chapter fully supports the PMI objective of “Making Project Management Indispensable to Business Results”. For additional information, visit http://www.pmidallas.org/index.phtml
Reported from Dallas, Texas, USA by David Pells and Nelson Soucek.
Following Gopal’s presentation and a brief coffee break, attendees had choices to attend 12 paper presentations among six tracks from 9:00 until 11:30 a.m. Those presentations were by local Dallas-area project management consultants, experts and professional leaders, including Dwight Davis (Team Based Strategic Planning), David Lanners (Guidelines for Ethical Influence), Tony Johnson (Attacking the Iceberg), Treshia Eaves (Improving Software Quality), Mike Ratcliff (Enabling Executable Requirements), Dwaraka Iyengar (Present Jade Follows Shopping), Susan Lee (Failure Mode & Effect Analysis), Bill Gasikowski (Your Next Project: Managing your PDUs), Gwynne Dawdy (Project Meeting Management), Jack Ferraro (Project Manager as Generalist – Project Manager as Obsolete), Abby Herriman (Career Paths & the Culture of PM) and David Pells (The World of Project Management).
The middle of the afternoon also offered attendees to select and hear professional presentations by Paul Burek (Managing the Project Scope Statement), Sam Miambo (Project Success: using Tools to Drive Consistency), Tony Johnson (Work Breakdown Structures), Adrienne Bransky & Maria Cramer (Transformation Management), Abby Herriman (Career Paths & the Culture of PM), Dwight Davis (Parallel Thinking for Best Solutions), Chuck Preecs (Applications of Decision Theory for PM), Gary Rechfertig (Risk Management: Deal with problems before or after they occur), Jack Ferraro (Project Manager as Generalist – Project Manager as obsolete), Rick Smith (Managing Agile Projects with SCRUM) and Dwaraka Iyengar (Present Jade Follows Shopping – on Off Shoring projects). Several of the presentations were repeated from the morning session.
With over 3,800 members, the PMI Dallas Chapter is one of the oldest and largest PMI chapters in the world. Monthly dinner meetings feature a wide variety of project management experts and topics, and typically attract over 200 attendees. The chapter sponsors workshops, PMP development opportunities, an annual Vendor exhibition, a school outreach program, corporate interaction and other activities.
The Dallas Chapter fully supports the PMI objective of “Making Project Management Indispensable to Business Results”. For additional information, visit http://www.pmidallas.org/index.phtml
Reported from Dallas, Texas, USA by David Pells and Nelson Soucek.
