PMI SOC Greater Toronto
Information Systems Branch

UPCOMING EVENTS

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event Feb 16 , 2012

Building Castles on Sand - Managing Change in Distributed Environments

Maintaining project sanity in an environment of ever-changing requirements is one of the main challenges of a successful completion of a software development initiative. While being tough enough to manage the changes while face-to-face with the end-users, distributed projects face the additional challenge of maintaining the users happy over long-distance relationships.

This session will explore several critical elements that are required for an IT project to achieve success while coping with multiple locations, diverse mentalities and various time zones.
 

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event Jan 21 , 2012

How Smart PM's are Using Social Media for Stakeholder Engagement and Management in Large Projects

Social Media has expanded quickly in the last few years and many organizations all over the world rely on this amazing tool to communicate with their project teams; many of which are virtual and distributed all over the world.

Do not miss this opportunity to attend this workshop as Dr. Norrie will challenge our thinking about new and innovative ways of using social media for our project communications.

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event Jan 19 , 2012

Risk Management in Project Rescues

“Risk Management in Project Rescues” talks about how to leverage risk management techniques to save a project in trouble.

Handed a mess that another project manager could not handle? Risk Management in Project Rescues provides a method for understanding why a project is in trouble and a process for using risk to identify he key areas for remediation. It also covers how to track progress when saving a project and when to call it quits. A case study will illustrate the approaches.

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC PMO-GTIS-HLIG Joint Event Dec 8, 2011

PMO Lifecycle: Quantitative Results

PMOs have been taking on a more prominent role in their level of authority, structure, reporting lines and mandate. Project Management Offices (PMOs) have been growing and going through change and transformation and today literature defines PMO types, roles, functions, as well as their impact on performance. The lifecycle journey that PMOs go through requires attention since there is little or lack of knowledge regarding PMO lifecycle (PMOLC) pertaining to set-up, build-out, and sustainability.

Due to the evolution of the PMO and there is a need to cover the lifecycle of PMO which would allow those interested in building PMOs to learn what is required in each phase of the PMOLC, the complexities associated with each phase, and the challenges and rewards.

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event Nov 17, 2011

Perspectives on Outsourcing

Business Outsourcing continues to remain a significant discussion topic in a company’s strategic planning process, irrespective of the industry. Recent economic downturn has further heightened the importance of this topic. While continuously evolving, it comes with myths, challenges, and complexities and yet it represents opportunities.

This presentation will cover various aspects on Outsourcing, including addressing some myths and perceptions, outlining key market trends, different types of outsourcing, and sound practices on areas such as transition, contract management, pricing, governance, etc. It will also touch on how Cloud is changing and impacting some aspects of traditional outsourcing and demonstrate how Project Managers have a significant role to play in the outsourcing cycle.

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event Oct 22, 2011

Project Manager and Business Analyst - Friend or Foe?

Business Analysis knowledge for project managers? Absolutely! While the Business Analyst position is still rather new to many organizations, their primary role — to define and document user requirements and thereby help bridge the gap between the client and the solution team, has always been an essential ingredient for achieving project success.

Participants will learn:
• Highlight the interrelationship between PM, BA, and SME roles
• Introduce BA Knowledge Areas
• Understand how business analysis benefits a project
• Introduce core BA tools
• Recognizing and resolving conflicts between PM and BA

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event Oct 20, 2011

Evolution of the PM Methodology

Project Management continues to grow in many organizations around the world. Today, more businesses are injecting formal project management best practices into the central nervous system of their organization. As companies expand to respond to booming Market needs, or budget cuts to comply with an industry recession, the PM Methodology is always evolving.

This presentation will showcase the journey of a leading national law firm’s Project Management Office from its early beginnings to present day, while illustrating how a PM Methodology can evolve from a governance based model to an in-demand service oriented platform.

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event June 22, 2011

Quality Estimation Through Function Point Analysis

Do you know how to compare two projects with respect to the user functionality they would each deliver? Are you writing a business case and must come up with a rough estimate of the size of a possible solution? Are you preparing a project plan and must provide more accurate estimates of the effort required to complete the project deliverables? Do you know how to utilize your hard-earned experience from past successful projects to more accurately estimate the effort at your current project?

Function Points are an established technique that can be used to provide answers to the above questions.

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event April 30, 2011

Workshop: Innovative Techniques for Agile Estimating and Planning: Predictability in the Face of High Levels of Change and Complexity

The marketplace is showing keen interest in agile methods as a way of dealing with complex or high change projects. While the adoption rate for agile methods is increasing, people interested in trying these new approaches are struggling with a common challenge: How to estimate costs and schedules up front when using methods that break projects into iterations that uncover requirements and produce emerging solution designs throughout the Projects.

This session will present participants with some innovative and practical estimating and planning techniques that can help them cope with the uncertainty of complex projects while still helping them prepare reliable budget and timelines.

Participants will learn:

• Why we plan in the first place and what makes a good plan
• Why traditional planning fails
• The basics of agile planning

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC GT IS, Healthcare and PMO Branches Joint Event April 20, 2011

Communicating Change in Chaotic Times

In every country, not just in Canada, the ongoing recession is beginning to have a toll on people's optimism. Decreased budgets, sometimes decreased headcounts, but no decrease in expected productivity - if anything? There's growing pressure to produce significantly more with significantly less. How individual organizations will respond to these pressures will vary greatly from one organization to the next, but individuals will respond to this loss of control with less variation.

There are well defined Change Process Models which can predict how we respond to Change and that provides us, if we're paying attention, a set of guidelines for charting our course out of this mess.

For details please Click Here

PMI SOC Event March 5, 2011

PMI Southern Ontario Chapter Professional Development Day

PMI Southern Ontario Chapter is proud to announce the 2011 Annual Professional Development Day. An event filled with learning, networking and fun to be held on Saturday, March 5th 2011, and featuring 2 top level keynotes and a great line-up of industry experts and renowned speakers for track sessions.

From the 5 parallel tracks being offered 3 are held at the main location, Courtyard Marriott Downtown Toronto, and – for the first time – 2 tracks will be located at Georgian College in Barrie with live streaming of keynotes from the main venue!

For details please visit www.soc.pmi.on.ca and follow Professional Development Day logo to the event website.

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event February 17, 2011

Collaborating with Content: Empower your team with information!

Getting people the right information at the right time is half the battle in project communication. Due to information overload, project communication is starting to consume a good portion of Project Manager’s time and energy. Failing to address this situation can result in undesired project outcomes. Witness how Project Managers are addressing this project risk with their project teams.!
 

Sathi Vanigasooriar is the Managing Director at Governing Concepts Incorporated (GCI). Decision-making in today’s world is slowing down due to information overload. People are bombarded with information and therefore are struggling to effectively utilize it for decision making. GCI has become a pioneer in utilizing content management platforms such as SharePoint for getting the right information to the right people at the right time.

 
Click here for details.

PMI SOC GT IS Branch Event Jan. 20, 2011

Baselining The Schedule, What’s The Big Deal?

What do we mean by a schedule baseline?
 

Generally most PM’s discuss and present schedule baselines purely in the technical context. Those schedules are generally technically sound and contain all the appropriate technical attributes for success, yet the project runs into scheduling challenges!
 

Romeo discusses the non-technical aspects of baselining a schedule in order to facilitate a successful outcome to the project. He presents a perspective to project schedule development that is seldom given much thought, yet extremely critical!

 
Click here for details.

CPMP Event Sat. Dec 11, 2010

CPMP 5th Anniversary and 2010 Christmas Party
Romeo Mitchell

Saturday, December 11, 2010, 6-10pm
Early Bird Price: $30 for CPMP members; $35 for non-members

At this holiday season of the year, the CPMP is also coming to its special day - 5 years birthday! In the past five years, the CPMP has grown from seven people group to over four hundred member's professional organization (Including many non-Chinese). It has greatly contributed to our members and the professional communities through over 50 educational seminars and social activities. It has played pivotal roles and influences in the Project Management field and in the Chinese Professional Communities.

Click here for details.

GT ISLIG Event Nov. 18, 2010

The People Side of Implementing Technology

Mary Neff, President & Sr. Project Manager, PeopleSide Inc.
 

In today’s world, as the pace of change accelerates, the bottleneck for implementing new information technology is no longer technical, but is human adaptability. Fully deploying new technology is more than just building and installing a quality product. Understanding all the changes that the new technology imposes on the business and preparing and executing the transition journey for the business saves time, saves money and allows the end user to more quickly and more fully utilize the new technology
 

Click here for details.

GT ISLIG Event Oct. 30, 2010

ADR-Ontario, CMC-Ontario-GTA & PMI - GTISLIG Joint Event

Collaborative Contracting for IT Projects
 

IT projects have become very sophisticated and complex especially with the emergence of outsourcing and off shoring. Often, the implemented solution requires an ongoing relationship between buyer and seller that need to last decades. Additionally, project teams more frequently are virtual and geographically distributed made up of people from several inter and intra organizations. This seminar focuses on how to collaboratively build and administer contract to create win-win situations between all parties during (and post) project. The panel speakers consists of different professions having wide range of application and contracting experience which will make this seminar very worth while to attend.

Click here for details.

CPMP Event September 26, 2010

CPMP September Event - Practical Agile Project Management
 

In a world of high customer expectations, quick turn-around and tighter budgets how can projects sustain and deliver? Agile Methodology is touted to be one way of delivering projects in a world of expectations and in a tighter economic situation. This topic will explore what is Agile development? How to manage and deliver projects in Agile manner. Furthermore, this topic will explore some additional success factors for Agile methodology such as Leadership agility, Agile Spaces etc. In the later panel session, Larry will use a real business case to introduce concurrent product development system in the process engineering. Then Vijay, Larry, John and Shenyin will discuss agile related topics, such as, Change management and resistance, major challenges, Agile phases and Leading self-organizing team.

Click here for details.

GT ISLIG Event September 15, 2010

Coach's Corner: Your Share of the IT Job Market
 

TEKsystems will be hosting the PMI GTISLIG event on September 15th, 2010. This event will be a panel discussion where Project Managers will have the opportunity to speak with top industry professionals regarding topics such as current market conditions, hiring trends, resume writing, interview tips, as well as best practices in identifying suitable opportunities through the power of networking.

Click here for details.

With the widespread growth of agile project management and agile development methods, we face challenges when these projects don’t (or can’t) provide us with our standard performance metrics for project health assessment and project portfolio management. Proponents of agile methodologies, who tend to emerge from the development community, rebel against standard organizational processes for project tracking and control, and few in the project management world really understand these agile methods well enough to try and adapt traditional tracking mechanisms to these high-change projects. Many ask “how can I apply earned value measurements when the baseline keeps shifting?” Click here for details.

Risk management normally is overlooked by many companies and program/project managers, so the projects easily go over budget and behind schedule, thus how to utilize and balance the risk management to ensure project success is a more demanded topic. .... Click here to go to CPMP site for details.

Canadian organizations are continuing to adopt outsourcing strategies for many IT and business processes. Operating effectively in this complex process is challenging -- an area that project managers need to understand. This presentation will provide an overview of the entire outsourcing life cycle, providing participants with an appreciation for how outsourcing deals are structured, implemented and managed, giving examples of project management considerations and best practices.

After the session you will have a more comprehensive understanding of:
■ The lifecycle and key stages of outsourcing arrangements
■ How the focus of PM effort changes over time
■ How to manage for a successful outcome ? ..... Click here to see the details.
 

Keynote Speaker: Rowena Lamy, PMP, Program Manager in Royal Bank of Canada, specializing in Project Management, Procurement Management and Business Analysis. As an accomplished professional, she has a broad base of experience managing complex projects for multi-national companies in the Financial, Insurance, Telecommunications and Manufacturing industries.

Speech Introduction: The seminar “Managing your Projects- Managing your Life - the Synchronicities” present you the insights of the Project Management Practices in real life, and teach you how to apply the Project Management methodologies and skills to better manage your projects - career life and person life. You will find that you will be greatly benefited from learning the in-depth project management knowledge and more importantly from the interactive communication with a PM veteran.

Location: City Hall - Scarborough Committee Room 1 & 2
Date: Sunday, March 21, 2010
Time: 9:30 - 12:00pm
PDU: 2

Click here to see go to CPMP Registration site for details.

GT ISLIG Event on Jan. 21, 2010

 
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