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Keynote Speakers Keynote Speaker: Kimberly Wiefling
Globalization in today’s world is rapid and inescapable. Many projects these days involve geographically dispersed teams comprised of members from a wide variety of countries and cultures. While language barriers, decision-making style, and time zones are well-recognized challenges, the positive benefits of global teams continue to drive this trend. As Dr. Deming once said “No one has to change. Survival is optional.” How prepared are you to participate in this global revolution? What can you do to meet these exciting challenges successfully? While web-based team collaboration tools and ‘the cloud’ hold promise, no team collaboration tool can make up for a lack of trust and understanding among human beings. The airplane remains the single most effective tool for distributed project teams. Becoming ‘global minded’ is a 21st century survival skill, but what does it mean and how can you achieve it? This lively and engaging keynote will provoke your thinking and broaden your horizons with statistics, stories, and personal insights gained from experience working with people from over 50 different countries. You’ll leave with a few more handy tools in your global project team toolbox as well as a keener sense of what it means to be a truly global human being. Kimberly Wiefling, Founder and President of Wiefling Consulting, specializes in enabling people to achieve what seems impossible, but is merely difficult.
Kimberly spends about half of her time consulting with globalizing Japanese companies. Her clients include Tokio Marine (the #1 insurance company in Japan, Mazda, Daiichi Sankyo, Toshiba, Dow Corning Toray, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Hitachi. In addition she’s worked with Entelos, the University of California, Siemens, Alcoa, Xerox PARC, Cisco Systems, Symantec, Intuit, Agilent Technologies, vmware, and many more. Keynote Speaker: Todd Williams, PMP
Global and distributed projects require more than project management they require project leadership. Challenging global project’s opportunity for around the clock progress is that the number of teams involved multiply, one-for-one, the normal risks, issues, and personnel problems of any project. Compounding this is the exponential growth in communication difficulties, frustrations with time zones, complications from language fluency, and the invisible barriers of culture incongruity. Visualizing a project—modeling the project’s structure, behaviors, cultures, and risks—with its team members and stakeholders, exposes its unattractive elements giving the team the opportunity to discuss and mitigate them long before they become issues. The model for this change is leadership. We will discuss three of its basic principles—autonomy, mastery, and purpose and the audience will then actively work applying these values to prototype a successful global project. Doing this, the attendees will identify the strengths and weaknesses of global projects, and, as a group, propose solutions to each problem along with methods to amplify its strengths. The open conversation and resulting action items, expose concepts that are innovative and sometimes radical, in changing the interrelationship of people, process, and the inanimate objects that constitute our projects. Todd William’s goal is to change how companies execute projects. In his latest book, Rescue the Problem Project: A Complete Guide to Identifying, Preventing, and Recovering from Project Failure, (AMACOM Books), he defines a project audit and recovery process for rescuing red projects that focuses on root cause correction and prevention.
Keynote Speaker: Kevin Thompson, Ph.D.
Highly-distributed projects always face challenges. These challenges become particularly acute when using Agile processes, such as Scrum, which require close and frequent collaboration between members of the Project team. This presentation will discuss practical strategies for managing collaboration in highly-distributed Agile projects. While distributed projects will always be more difficult to manage than projects with co-located personnel, we will see that the necessary tools and techniques are available to make distributed Agile projects successful. Kevin Thompson, Ph.D., is the Agile Practice Lead for cPrime, and specializes in agile processes such as Scrum. With an extensive background in managing software development projects, he specializes in training individuals, teams, and organizations in agile development. Dr. Thompson helps companies make the challenging transition to agile development by working with development teams and business stakeholders to identify their needs, define the right process for the business, determine the steps needed to implement the process, and work through the steps successfully. Dr. Thompson has a Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University. He also has Project Management Professional (PMP), PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP), ScrumMaster (CSM), and Scrum Professional (CSP) certifications. Keynote Speaker: Roger Kent, PMP
Americans and Europeans are used accustomed to direct communication. We say what we mean and mean what we say. Asian culture does not necessarily follow these patterns. Messages are often communicated indirectly. Western communication partners can be frustrated when they don’t understand the context in which an utterance is made. Both Asians and Euro-Americans need to understand this potential barrier. This workshop will explore how this communication dynamic works and describe aspects of Indian and Chinese culture applicable to other Asian cultures. Participants will pair off and practice exercises that test the limits of cross-cultural communication solely on the verbal channel. Roger Kent has taught and consulted in Project Management topics since 1996. He has trained over 2000 participants on three continents in PM basics and over 500 candidates to take the PMP exam. He holds an M.A. in Communications and has lived overseas in different countries for over 10 years. He is most intrigued at how, in the 21st Century, homo sapiens think they can overcome eons of evolutionary conditioning that stress the non-verbal and visual communication channels and make themselves understood to people of different cultures through collections of dots on glowing screens. Speakers (in alphabetical order)
The Global Gorilla Starts Local: Building a solid foundation will improve your ability to guide a team you never see. Great management is boring… It is a repetitive series of good practices that, when done well, make for a manager who is in touch with their team whether they are down the hall or half a world away. Manager Tools has been providing award winning management advice for seven years. These tools are timeless and universal with adherents to the Manager Tools way stretching from Australia to Sweden and California to Singapore. Whether you manage a team of project managers or are a project manager on a team, these tools can and will make you a better manager and the team more effective. Joel has adapted the Manager Tools models to work in the project management framework and has helped global project teams to successfully deliver and improve their effectiveness. His success has ranged from greatly improved team morale to the very tangible increase of quarterly product output by several hundred percent. In the Global Gorilla Starts Local, he will explore the Manager Tools basics toolset and how it can help you on your next global team. Real tools, real success. Joel Bancroft-Connors is a Gorilla Coach. He specializes in talking about the gorilla in the room; the uncomfortable or difficult subjects and issues that make projects or teams fail. When not managing projects and not learning himself, he is writing a blog at The GorillaCoach.com and coaching others on how to make better projects by making better teams. His motto, "Better People, Better Teams, Better World."
Game Delayed: Lessons from the Project Parking Lot Rapidly changing economic conditions are impacting priorities in most industries, including biopharmaceuticals. Faced with expiring patents, escalating development costs and competition from biosimilars, corporations are utilizing varied approaches to ensure product pipelines are robust and sustainable. The effective investment of resources, both people and funds is paramount and can cause projects to be parked until business conditions change. Definition of endpoints and accurately communicating status, risks and options plays critically in maintaining project integrity and enable potential reactivation. This goal is further complicated by maintaining motivation, creativity and focus among geographically-dispersed team members. This talk will focus on two case studies drawn from the early stages of vaccine development to illustrate how even in a dynamic environment there are lessons to be learned and transmitted to projects that will likely be subjected to similar scenarios. The role of common purpose, communication, teamwork and stakeholder management will be emphasized. As a member of R&D Project Management, Dr. Barnitz brings her extensive experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries to MedImmune’s early stage product development. She has held leadership positions in several rapidly growing companies, including pre-IPO start-ups. Her experience includes development of small molecules, vaccines therapeutic proteins for a variety of therapeutic indications. In addition to teaching project management, she has consulted for biopharmaceutical companies and non-profit organizations. For over five years she facilitated a PMI-SV breakfast forum and has been active in both the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area chapters of PMI. Dr. Livingston has nearly 20 years experience in biologics research and development. He has authored of nearly 50 peer-reviewed publications, is inventor on numerous issued patents and held positions related to new product development, alliance management and global project management.
Hello-Jumbo-Namaste: Managing communication and growth in a multinational team IQCare, developed by Futures Group International, is an electronic medical records system designed to serve low resource health facilities. IQCare is implemented at over 100 facilities across 4 African countries and tracks essential health information to provide life saving care and treatment to over 300,000 patients. As of March 2012, IQCare was adopted by the Kenya National AIDS and STI Control Program as one of their primary national health data collection systems. IQCare is scheduled to be deployed in 300 ministry of health clinics in Kenya in the next year. In this presentation I will discuss what Futures Group and the team has put in place to continue to be successful. With so many stakeholders in so many countries in different time zones there have been growing pains. I will discuss process changes and show you examples of communication protocols, reports and simple tools that have been built to support the growth and increased communication needs. Stacey Berlow is a software product consultant and founder of Project Balance, a practice focused on helping companies address the challenges inherent in developing software and managing IT products. With over 19 years of product and project management experience and she has successfully directed multi-million, large-scale, multinational, and offshore IT development projects. She specializes in managing highly distributed teams, which take her to Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Her background includes healthcare, insurance, and manufacturing industries. She holds Master degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Columbia University, a Master of Science degree in Engineering from Cornell University, Ms. Berlow currently resides in San Jose, California. Lanette Burrows (Presentation Co-author), MPH, PMP is a Project Director at Futures Group with over 10 years of experience. Ms. Burrows provides leadership in management, strategic planning, and organizational support. Currently, Ms. Burrows leads PEPFAR and other US government-funded HIV care and treatment programs for Futures, that provides services in 10 countries at over 230 hospitals and to more than 400,000 patients. Under this position, Ms. Burrows provides technical leadership in monitoring and evaluation and health management information systems to ensure that strategic information is used for improving clinical and program management. She has led the development of electronic medical records and other eHealth systems based on field requirements and designed assessment tools and training curriculum to strengthen capacity. Ms. Burrows’ is an experienced project manager with a proven track record of delivering on time and within scope. She is a talented team builder with an extensive background in developing and implementing results-oriented programs; Ms. Burrows has experience in developing, piloting and implementing organizational assessments, developing action plans to address gaps, and providing technical assistance to foster change. She received her MPH in international health from Johns Hopkins and has worked in Burkina Faso, Guyana, Haiti, Kenya, India, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Robin Canale, PMP, CSM, CCTO Managing and Motivating Geographically Distributed Project Teams The presentation focuses on managing and engaging distributed project teams. Discussion topics will cover core values and cultural diversity, developing trust among team members and tools and techniques for effective communications. Learning outcomes include:
Robin Canale is a Sr. Program Management Consultant for New Millennium Consulting, Inc. Ms. Canale has over 20 years’ experience managing Information Technology Projects and Marketing Programs. She has managed and mentored project managers and provided project management consulting services to Fortune 500 Companies in North America, Asia Pacific, and Europe, State and Federal Government Agencies, and K-12 education. Ms. Canale is an instructor and founding committee member for California’s Chief Technology Officer (CCTO) Mentor Program where she facilitates courses in Project Management, Organizational Management, and Leadership. She is also Adjunct Faculty for University of Phoenix and facilitates courses in Project Management and Business Information Systems. Ms. Canale is a founding member of PMI Silicon Valley Chapter. She holds a BS in Economics from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Science in Project Management from the George Washington University School of Business and Public Management. Denise Harris is a Sr. Project Management Consultant for Earned Value Experts, Inc. Ms. Harris has 20 years' of experience managing Telecommunications, Information Technology and Health Care Programs. She is a former Vice President of Professional Development for the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of PMI. Ms. Harris is a former Co-Vice President of Community Relations, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of PMI, Former Assoc. Director Communications, Microsoft Project User’s Group – Sacramento Chapter, Former West Coast Director, Information Systems Special Interest Group, former Member Microsoft Project Association Ms. Harris holds a BA in English from the California State University, Hayward, a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management from Golden Gate University, and a Master of Science in Project Management from The George Washington University School of Business and Public Management.
Seven Essential Tools for Pharmaceutical Technology Transfer, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing is a highly complex exercise and is closely monitored and regulated by the U.S. FDA for products sold into the US market. Transferring a process requires excellent communication and alignment between the sending and receiving sites, and typically last 9 months to 3 years. The ultimate goal of the transfer is to demonstrate comparability between the sending and receiving site in terms of equipment and process parameters. It is essential to ensure that the stringent quality attributes and controls required to safely manufacture medicines are met. International transfers add another layer of Regulatory complexity and cultural norms that need to be addressed. Laura will use an international technology transfer case study to demonstrate the 7 essential tools, along with templates and examples of the tools mapping them to the PMBOK knowledge areas and processes. Laura Cribbins has a proven track record of successfully guiding teams through the challenges of early and late stage drug development, manufacturing, technology transfer and launch. Laura is familiar with common pitfalls that are encountered by Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology and Medical Device firms when developing products and bringing them to market. During her work as a QC Chemist, Laura was trained in quality and assay development and then moved into the development and manufacturing arena as a Process Engineer. She held positions in Manufacturing in Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology and Medical Device companies prior to her work performing direct market research, for the development of new products used for manufacturing and testing in GMP and clinical testing environments. Laura holds an MBA and is PMP certified.
Agile Adoption with Globally Distributed Teams Waterfall is challenging for geographically remote teams. Agile methodology is the key to success. My presentation will bring in a new perspective for the traditional project managers on how to:
He is the current President of the PMI Silicon Valley chapter and has also served many leadership roles such as Director of Career Management and Evening Programs and Vice President of Programs where he spearheaded ALL Programs run in the chapter.
Best Practices around Performance Monitoring in Distributed Teams In this session the audience will learn about project management strategies applied across a diverse set of industries. For each of the case studies, there will be an example of optimal performance monitoring to achieve project success. The three industries covered include Scientific Research, Film Industry production, and Software and Software Quality Engineering. Scientific Research encompasses long duration, low budget, experimental and theoretical effort, and distributed teams in the case presented. The Film industry, specifically a TV commercial production case, embraces high dollar, high effort, short duration, and global teams. Finally, Software and Software Quality Engineering cases include high effort, multi-cultural, distributed teams for which Earned Schedule metrics are found to be the key success driver. In addition to best practices that vary from one industry to another, the speaker will highlight challenges and lessons learned. Greater emphasis will be given to the Software and Software Quality Engineering. Tom Fisher has a diverse background, most recently as a Project Manager at BD Biosciences in San Jose, CA with many software quality engineering team members in India and locally. 10 years developing software combined with project management with distributed team members in the U.S. Five years contributing to and leading teams in the Hollywood film industry, locally and internationally. This was preceded by 12+ years in environmental and pharmacological analytical chemistry research, both in the USA and Germany.
How to Engage and Motivate Geographically-Separated Team Members This presentation shows how to engage and motivate members of a multi-national, diverse functional drug development team, during a typical 7-12 year long project, costing of the order $1 billion. Strong trusting relationships are needed, along with a sense of connection to the purpose of the project, a belief in its rationale, and a feeling of belonging to the team. Clear practical, logical, administrative processes and sound teamwork practices can make the electronic global teamwork environment more comfortable, familiar and efficient. This infrastructure of relationships and good practices provides a framework for nurturing and developing individuals as needed to motivate them in their specific local cultural organizational environments. Diane Gordon is well recognized in the pharmaceutical industry for using her specialized project management skills to guide and mentor teams through the complex and scientific process of drug discovery and development. She creates high performing teams across organizational, national and cultural boundaries by establishing respectful, professional practices that enable strong communications among stakeholders, realistic planning and budgeting, and active management. She has managed small molecule and biological projects in many therapy areas and stages from discovery through registration for various Research, Development and Strategic groups at Syntex and Roche. She has taught portions of Drug Development courses at Roche and at UC Berkeley Extension.
Life is a Bowl of Noodles Most cross-cultural training focuses on projects and teams among 2 or 3 countries, but what happens when your complexity is multiplied? As many have experienced, real-world programs and projects are more challenging and complicated than our training usually comprehends. This presentation examines a case of collaboration projects spanning 5 countries, 4 languages, 4 companies and varying levels of capability. The presentation will cover successfully planning and executing complex global projects among a distributed team with a focus on lesser-known, but common pitfalls. Using a real-world example with success and failures allows participants learn how to adapt their program management skills to increasingly global and complex work. Tej is a globally focused Program Manager with a background in the Aerospace, Automotive and Medical Device industries in the US and abroad. She has lived and worked in Japan, Singapore, China and Korea, with significant time spent in Thailand and Australia. Tej is currently developing and overseeing the project management function for Bus Mechanical at Space Systems/Loral. Prior to that, she worked as independent product development consultant in Arizona. In Asia, Tej led General Motors’ manufacturing strategy and planning for the region and was responsible for technology and product planning activities among GM’s alliance partners including Isuzu, Suzuki and Subaru. She has comprehensive experience in global product development, program execution, and joint venture management. Tej holds a BS in Business and Asian Studies from Skidmore College and an MIM with a focus in Operations from Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Managing Change in a Multi-Cultural Environment Project Managers must be effective Change Managers. Changing business strategies, reorganizations, mergers and divestitures, process improvements …all will virtually guarantee, to one extent or another, loss of productivity, excitement, resistance, anxiety, opportunity, disruptions to performance and a myriad of other reactions. Increasingly, projects impact stakeholders globally. Cultural diversity as well as geographic remoteness add levels of complexity for Project Managers seeking to reduce disruptions and accelerate acceptance of changes on global projects. This workshop will offer Project Managers and organization leaders selected techniques for preparing the organization for change, implementing the change, and embedding the change so that it is no longer "a change", it is the "the way we do business". For over 25 years, Sharon Grundy has delivered project management facilitation and education programs internationally for corporations including American Airlines, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Baxter International, and Cisco. She has taught in Stanford University's Advanced Project Management Certificate Program, and currently teaches in the Extended Studies Program at the University of Nevada – Reno. Sharon is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) and is a Stanford Certified Project Manager (SCPM). Her service to PMI has included leadership positions in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley Chapters, and is presently Vice-President of Professional Development for the Northern Nevada Chapter. Sharon is committed to advancing the practical application of best project management practices to produce real results by aligning and energizing your teams through personal leadership and process expertise. Senior Manager at Cisco Systems, Isabelle Suares manages a Change Management Office for Cisco Services. Isabelle is responsible for building leadership skills in the organization along with driving the adoption of a portfolio of initiatives. After selling her training and consulting company, Isabelle joined consecutively several large global corporations where she led transformational programs in software R&D, Acquisitions, Supply Chain, and Services. Known to be a thought-leader, Isabelle blends a practical, hands-on approach with strong measurement and survey emphasis, and with the extensive use of training programs, innovative workshops, and creative communication strategies. Thanks to her broad background in training, communication, and workshop facilitation, she champions emerging collaboration technologies in support of accelerated business results. Isabelle’s hallmark is to blend her portfolio and program management experience with her deep expertise in change management to achieve demonstrable results in rapidly changing environments.
When a Vendor on Your Distributed Team is an 800-Pound Gorilla In order to meet strategic objectives, companies are utilizing creative configurations in outsourcing and deal making with research institutions, other companies (sometimes, even competitors) big and small, start-ups, and traditional vendors. Distributed teams are commonplace regardless of the size of company, public or private, or the extent of its geographical reach. Managing distributed project teams to deliver on goals within budget, scope, schedule and quality within an organization is often a challenge. It can be overwhelming, even for an experienced project management professional, to manage distributed global projects teams, particularly those with multi-inter-company vendors/collaborators. What then to speak of when one of those vendors/collaborators is an 800-pound gorilla and knows it! The presentation will on elaborate methods utilized in delivering solutions successfully to problems experienced in a complex and volatile project environment. The methods focus on addressing both the tangible and intangible aspects relating to distributed project teams in every process area, with focus on contract development and finalization, resource planning and management, requirements definition, communication, governance, and team development. Priya Kasturi has a 20+ year career track and outstanding record of accomplishments in the life sciences industry. She has worked extensively in areas of resource planning and management, information management, financial management, and product development spanning research through post-marketing. Priya has a strong heritage of working in global projects at Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. Basel (Switzerland), Nutley, NJ, and Palo Alto, CA sites. Since 2001, Priya Kasturi is founder of Inform LLC, a consulting firm utilizing project, program, portfolio and change management to deliver on strategies in the life sciences industry. A PMP, Priya graduated with M.Sc. from Bangalore University, India, and M.S. in Statistics from The University of Connecticut. Priya volunteers as President of Narika, a non-profit organization, serving women in South Asian community.
Program Director, Project Management Curriculum Surviving Global Projects Business today is global, and so are many projects. Leading a distributed team, often with little authority, can be frustrating and challenging. To succeed in this environment, project leaders need to understand the challenges, work to exploit any benefits, apply effective processes, and (usually) lose some sleep. In his presentation, Tom will share examples of both effective and ineffective project management practices for setting up and successfully leading global project teams. He will draw on his experiences leading international project teams, working in other countries, and his recently published second edition of Results without Authority (AMACOM © 2012). Tom Kendrick (PMP) is currently Program Director for the UC Berkeley Extension Project Management Curriculum. He is also author of Identifying and Managing Project Risk, Second Edition (AMACOM, 2009), Results Without Authority, Second Edition (AMACOM, 2012), and the Project Management Tool Kit, Second Edition (AMACOM, 2010, and 101 Project Management Problems and How to Solve Them (AMACOM, 2010). Tom has regularly conducted classes and presentations on program, project, and risk management. Tom spent 20 years with Hewlett Packard in its Project Management Initiative and a variety of other project management responsibilities. He has over 35 years of worldwide PM experience, including work for Visa Inc, DuPont, General Electric, and as an independent consultant. Tom has a BSEE from Princeton University, an MSEE from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is past president of the PMI Silicon Valley Chapter and a Regional Director for the Risk SIG.
Five Easy & Practical Ways to Engage and Motivate your Global Team Project managers must continuously find ways to keep the team engaged and motivated throughout the project to stay on course, even when difficult situations arise. Here are my five practical and proven ways that I’ve successfully manage my projects with actual examples. I hope by sharing my experiences with you, you can take away and implement these to help you on your future projects. Lived and worked in Japan, US, and in Denmark as an Application Engineer, Takeo is a Technical Program Manager at Altera Corporation. He was the first Application Engineer hired at Altera Japan and has been a Program Manager in San Jose since 2007. He has successfully managed more than 40 projects with teams from all over the globe. Takeo currently manages multiple projects with team members from Sweden, UK, Hungary, Beijing, Penang, Italy and in US. His experience with living in three parts of the world (Asia, US, and EU) and traveling to many more has helped him to successfully manage the challenges of globally distributed teams.
Collaboration Metrics and Reporting Techniques for High Performing Development and Test Groups As companies adopt Agile development techniques, opportunities for misalignment between software engineers, software test organizations, and program management office personnel proliferate. This presentation will discuss collaboration techniques and reporting tools that:
Richard’s experience in the commercial industry includes DirecTV and major equipment suppliers to the semiconductor industry. Richard earned a Bachelor’s degree in Astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley. He holds a Project Manager Professional (PMP) certification and chairs functions in the PMI’s Silicon Valley chapter.
Understanding Decision Making and avoiding overlaps within Distributed project teams The rise of geographically dispersed team in the last decade can be largely attributed to the explosive development of information and communication technologies. As much as global distributed teams have their benefits, there are various challenges associated with the same. Working with dispersed teams remains a challenge for many organizations. Multiple studies show that some of the barriers are related to both the execution of tasks and the relationships among individuals/teams. This presentation identifies decision-making practices that distributed team members should follow to accelerate decision-making and avoid overlap. There is no "perfect" mode for making effective decisions, but clarifying, communicating, and following a clear and consistent approach will help reduce prolonged cycles. Focus on effective practices for staging, deciding, and following through on decisions. Ajay is currently practicing project and program management at Cisco and has been working on project management from last 14 years and has about 20+ years overall experience. Ajay got his PMI certification in 1998 and has been active member of PMI community mentoring and training project managers to achieve certification. Prior to joining Cisco, Ajay was practicing project management at IBM, where he participated and presented in conferences and training.
Experiences Addressing Language and Culture Impacts on Worldwide Projects When a worldwide project team is unable to perform effectively due to language and culture issue, the project, the team and you fail! The culture and language dimension is like an amplifier. Missteps in program management fundamentals become bigger and that means delay. Assuming your project would otherwise be on track, your primary focus area would be communications and the tools for management of change. The presentation will share some first-hand experiences and discuss examples of dealing with culture and language to improve the outcome of your projects.
Retired in 2010 after 36 years with HP, Ted started his career in Vancouver BC working at a university where he developed a faster real-time operating environment for HP computers. He started working at HP as a Systems Engineer (SE.) He held a variety of positions at HP both in the US and Canada. Most recently, he developed a Business Crisis Communications program for the Americas support that was adopted for Y2K and used company-wide, worldwide. He then managed large-scale SAP releases and deployment for internal business processes worldwide.
Best Practices for Managing Large Global Agile Programs It is critical to develop and implement Best Practices for a successful large global Agile Program. In this presentation, we are going to highlight the Best Practices we have developed based on the challenges and lessons learned in managing a large global Agile Program. This program has 50+ cross-functional team members (Software Developers, Testers, Architects, User Experience Designers, Product Managers/Owners, and Scrum Masters / Project Managers) organized into 6 Scrum Teams and a Kanban Team. These Best Practices are being shared and adopted in wider Cisco Services organization based on the success the team has achieved in this large Agile Program. Halsur Sreekantaswamy has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and more than 20 years of Software Development experience as a Developer, Technical Lead, and Development Manager. He has been involved in Agile Software Development for the last 5 years and is a Certified Scrum Master and a Certified Scrum Product Owner. He is currently a Technical Lead and an Agile Coach at Cisco Systems, San Jose, California. He is coaching a large global team on Agile Software Development (Scrum, Kanban, Rally) and is a member of Agile Acceleration Initiative at Cisco Services Organization. He has presented in many international conferences and published in IEEE Journals. Shalika Pargal has a Masters in Computer Science and an MBA. She has more than 15 years of Software Development and Program Management experience as a Developer, Technical lead and Program Manager. She has been involved in Agile Software Development for the last year and is a Certified Scrum Master. She is currently a Senior Program Manager managing the largest Agile program undertaking in the Cisco Services division of Cisco Systems, San Jose, California. She is actively involved in and presented at women in technology forums.
Managing Volunteer Work by Projects: A Cultural Challenge The presentation will be about the shift from traditional volunteer work to a “ Management by Projects and Programs “ mode at the Istanbul Project Management Association (IPYD). The challenge posed by this paradigm shift has been to move people away from the stagnant committee approach to making things happen through projects and programs, taking on responsibilities for deadlines and accountability for quality and financial budgets. In an environment where overrunning scheduled completion dates and financial targets have come to be accepted as inevitable, where the heroics of one or two people have been preferred over getting things done through teamwork and shared decision-making, the IPYD leaders have been managing their development of new products and services as projects and programs with improved results. Ahmet N. Taspinar is a trainer / consultant who works as the Director of Training Services for MacDonald-Bedford, LLC, an Alameda, CA firm specializing in engineering, construction and project management. A 40-year veteran of energy, petrochemical and management information systems projects, Ahmet has been a PMP since 1991, and an REP since 1999. Since his retirement from PG&E in 1993, Ahmet has taught and consulted in nine countries on three continents, and has been a founding member of three project management volunteer associations. A PMI member since 1977, Ahmet has served as the president of PMI Northern California Chapter and of the Istanbul Project Management Association (IPYD), where he has managed the annual symposium project (DYNAMICS) three times. He has received recognition and awards for his services, among which are the Wally Kruse Award of PMI, Northern California, and the PMI Distinguished Service Award in 1996.
The Globally Connected Project Team: How broad is your global horizon? During my tenure at Cisco I have managed several geographically distributed teams as part of project team and as the manager of a worldwide PMO organization. My presentation will be focused on the use of social media to coordinate distributed teams and portfolio of projects, managing change in a multi-cultural environment, and how to engage and motivate geographically separated team members. The presentation will be based on my experience during a 2 year engagement as a PMO Manager and Project Manager working with a team across a team in 5 separate countries, a cross-cultural project case study. Gustav Toppenberg is a senior manager at Cisco. Gustav is currently responsible for IT portfolio management and driving operational excellence in his team. During his career at Cisco, Gustav has led several projects in change leadership, acquisition integration, and globalization strategy. He is also part of Cisco IT's transition to a services-oriented organization (technology, process, and culture), enabling a client-focused, value-driven, cost-effective alignment between IT and business. Gustav is a native of Denmark and serves on the board of directors at the Danish-American Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco and the NorCal chapter of ASP (Association for Strategic Planning). He has a background in strategy consulting, program/project management, and global change management. He is an MBA graduate of the Thunderbird School of Global Management. |
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Becoming a Truly Global Human Being
Her most popular book is “
Visualizing Global Projects: Leadership in Action
He is a professional member of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), National Speakers Association, Project Management Institute, and the Society for Information Management (SIM). He is an expert in executive consulting, project rescue, failure prevention, and engaging people in the solution. His team at eCameron, whose mantra is “People, Process, and then Technology,” specializes in rescuing projects and helping organizations improve their project success rates by delivering business value.
Agile Processes and Distributed Projects: Dream or Nightmare?
What you thought you said to Bangalore is not what they heard in Shanghai
Joel Bancroft-Connors, PMP, PMI-ACP, CSP
Stacey Berlow 
Laura Cribbins, MBA, PMP 
Anup Deshpande, PMP, CSM 
Tom Fisher 
Diane Gordon, Ph.D., PMP
Tejinder K. Grewal (Tej)
Priya Kasturi 
Tom Kendrick, MBA, MSEE, PMP 
Takeo Kimura, PMP, PMI-ACP 
Richard Mazzarella 
Ajay Navaratna
Ted Slater
Ahmet Taspinar 
Gustav Toppenberg