Live Webinar – Wednesday January 26, 2:00-3:00 PM EST
This webinar is offered by IAG Consulting (REP 2858)
1 Cat 3 Free

Great requirements practices put teeth into contracts for system development and integration and ensure a more successful relationship with your vendor. Not only can excellent requirements dramatically compress the time needed to get systems into production, these best practices are about defining and managing business outcome – without also dictating solution. This means opening options for fair competition while procuring solutions that are tightly scoped and less subject to cost overruns. This session will answer the following questions:

• What is the impact of requirements quality on project outcome?
• How can business requirements be made effective for controlling outcome-based contracts?
• How do you contract for great requirements on projects?
• What do you need to consider in measuring RFP responses?

Click here to register for this opportunity.

Live webinar Tuesday January 25, 1:00 am EST
Presented byConstrux Software (REP 1424)
Duration: 1 Hour Credits: 1 PDU Free

“Technical Debt” refers to delayed technical work that is incurred when technical short cuts are taken, usually in pursuit of calendar-driven software schedules.

Technical debt is inherently neither good nor bad. Just like financial debt, some technical debts can serve valuable business purposes. Other technical debts are simply counterproductive. However, just as with financial debt, it’s important to know what you’re getting into.

In this one-hour webinar, Steve McConnell explains in detail the different types of technical debt, when organizations should and shouldn’t take them on, and best practices in managing, tracking and paying down debt. You’ll gain insights into how to use technical debt strategically and how to keep technical and business staff involved in the process. Seats are limited, so sign up for this in-depth webinar today!

Professional Biography

Steve McConnell is CEO and Chief Software Engineer atConstrux Softwarewhere he writes books and articles, teaches classes, and oversees Construx’s software engineering practices.

Steve is the author ofCode Complete (1993, 2004) andRapid Development(1996), both winners ofSoftware Development magazine’s Jolt award for outstanding software development books of their respective years. In 1998, he publishedSoftware Project Survival Guide, in 2004 he publishedProfessional Software Development (2004), and in 2006 he publishedSoftware Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art. Steve blogs on professional topics at10x Software Development and also has apersonal blog.

Click here to register for this opportunity.

This chapter, from the book, The Art of Project Management,
By Scott Berkuns is a Category C (formerly) 2 SDL opportunity.

This chapter is titled “How to Make Things Happen” and is an excerpt from Scott Berkun’s book The Art of Project Management. In this book, Scott provides lessons from his experience as a project manager at Microsoft. The second edition of this book was renamed to Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management. Both editions cover project management topics organized into three sections – Plans, Skills and Management.

In the 16 pages of this chapter, Scott gives practical advice on Management and How to Make Things Happen.

Contents of this chapter include:

1. Priorities Make Things Happen
   • Priority 1 versus everything else
   • Priorities are power
   • Be a prioritization machine
2. Things Happen When You Say No
   • Master the many ways to say no
3. Keeping It Real
4. Know the Critical Path
5. Be Relentless
6. Be Savvy
   • Guerilla tactics

“Of the 3 sections of this book – Plans, Skills and Management – I found Scott’s insight into Management issues the most useful. Scott describes the building and losing of trust.This book helped shape my focus on trust, transparency and accountability. I have seen too many teams of smart people falter when the project manager or other teams members couldn’t be trusted to complete their commitments.” EdmontonPM

Summary

• Everything can be represented in an ordered list. Most of the work of project management is correctly prioritizing things and leading the team in carrying them out.
• The three most basic ordered lists are: project goals (vision), list of features, and list of work items. They should always be in sync with each other. Each work item contributes to a feature, and each feature contributes to a goal.
• There is a bright yellow line between priority 1 work and everything else.
• Things happen when you say no. If you can’t say no, you effectively have no priorities
• The PM has to keep the team honest and keep them close to reality.
• Knowing the critical path in engineering and team processes enables efficiency.
• You must be both relentless and savvy to make things happen.

This book is 400 pages. Reading this book would qualify for up to 15 Category C Self Directed Learning PDUs (formerly Category 2 SDL PDUs).

The NEW Category C increases the limit of PDUs allowed in a recertification cycle to 30 from the previous level of 15. Category C PDUs are an excellent way to Increase your Knowledge and Skills as a PM in your time frame.

As a Category C ‘Self Directed Learning Activity’ remember to document your learning experience and its relationship to project management for your ‘PDU Audit Trail Folder’

(PDF) Book Review of The Art of Project Management by Craig Murphy
(11 Pages) Book receives 5 Of 5 stars – A MUST READ.

Purchase this book from Amazon Canada – Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

Purchase this book from Amazon USA – Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management (Theory in Practice)

CLICK HERE for the CHAPTER of the book The Art Of Project Management

This Chapter is 18 pages. Reading this Chapter would qualify for up to 1 Category C Self Directed Learning PDUs (formerly Category 2 SDL PDUs).