A full day seminar presented by Scott Berkun. This workshop is being coordinated by Dr. Mariam Zahedi, Professor and Trisept Solutions Professor in Management Information, Lubar School of Business, UW-Milwaukee

Overview

Despite all the jargon, methodologies, and magic bullets, most software projects do not end well--certainly not as well as everyone hopes they will when they start. This interactive, practical, and fun workshop, based on a best selling O’Reilly book, explores the true reasons projects work. There are no trendy terms or magic bullets in this workshop. Instead, we talk about the tough situations that arise on every project, explore different ways great project managers have handled them, and nail down how to avoid the big mistakes even experienced leaders make. Bring your toughest situations, challenges, and experiences, and they’ll be worked into the workshop or discussed during breaks.

Topics

•The truth about schedules. If we know most projects will be late, what are the common reasons? What are good tactics for preventing those problems from the beginning? There are common patterns that occur within all projects that you can learn to detect, predict, prevent, and overcome. We’ll also review stories from famous projects and discuss what could have been done differently.

•Communication and leadership. Like Soylent Green, projects are made of people. The most neglected skills in the software industry are the basics of good relationships, clear communication, and strong leadership. We’ll cover all three in the context of software projects and explore common mistakes and how to avoid them.

•Making good decisions. Everything gets better if you improve your decision making ability. Many projects fail because it’s so difficult to make good decisions given politics, the nature of organizations, and the pressures projects create. We’ll explore tough project management situations, learn how to create and evaluate alternatives, review techniques for avoiding mistakes, and more.

•What to do when things go wrong. No matter how good you are, if the project is challenging, things will go wrong. This means success depends on how you handle the unexpected, the unfair, and the unpleasant. We’ll run through a time tested framework for dealing with projects in crisis and apply it to situations you bring to the workshop.

•Bonus topics include: any questions or situations you’d like to challenge the workshop speaker with. If he doesn’t have time to cover them during the workshop, he will follow up with you through e-mail after the session.

About the speaker

Scott Berkun is the best selling author of Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management (O’Reilly, 2008) and The Myths of Innovation (O’Reilly, 2007). He worked at Microsoft from 1994-2003, mostly on the early versions of Internet Explorer (v1-v5). He makes a living as an independent writer and public speaker, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired Magazine and on National Public Radio. He writes regularly for Harvard Business, has appeared frequently on MSNBC and CNBC as a management expert, and runs a popular blog, with videos, podcasts, and essays, at www.scottberkun.com/blog.

Who should Attend?

Team leaders or project managers. The workshop is ideal for people who have team, project, or group management roles in which you have senior responsibility for the work of others.

People who play leadership roles. If you are responsible for the work of others, even if they do not report to you, this workshop is for you. The thrust of the workshop is that project management is a set of responsibilities one or more people might have, not necessarily a job title.

Programmers, testers, marketers, designers, or any individuals who want to understand how project success happens. Even if you never want to be a team leader, your ability to succeed in a team environment hinges on your understanding of how good projects work. This workshop will improve your understanding of how great software teams function and what habits you need to learn to contribute to them.

Coordinator

Dr. Mariam Zahedi is a Professor and Trisept Solutions Professor in Management Information, Lubar School of Business, UW-Milwaukee