Live Webinar April 28th, 2015 – 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1 Hour Credits: 1 PDU Category C – Free PDU
Featured Sponsor : Jama

VDC Research analyst Andre Girard (LinkedIn profile) will describe the market drivers for modern requirements management and explain why your organization is in peril if it maintains the status quo.

Andre will discuss how modern requirements management tools can dramatically improve delivery times, slash product line complexity and enhance communication across all players in the product ecosystem.

Embedded market companies face increasingly complex market pressures to accelerate the product-delivery process.

Their business goals require products to be delivered to customer satisfaction, with no defects, and faster than ever. And yet, 42% of embedded systems are behind schedule.

Among the many challenges to efficient, on-time product delivery are:

• Managing growing complexity in distributed organizations, within their products, and across a network of interrelated and interdependent products
• Maintaining consistent software security and quality standards
• Integrating the supply chain, formalizing acceptance benchmarks for code from supply chain partners
• Demonstrating compliance to process standards
• Verifying requirements traceability
• Inadequate and changing specifications
• Shifting priorities

These are competing, yet equally critical, imperatives.

Despite widespread knowledge of these mounting challenges, engineering organizations are not doing enough to adapt.

They need to make fundamental changes in the planning, management, and execution of system designs; they need new tools and methodologies to change outcomes because in-house and ad-hoc tools are inadequate for modern requirements management.

PDU Category C (PMBOK 5) documentation details:
Process Groups: Planning Executing
Knowledge Areas: 5 – Scope

• 5.1 Plan Scope Management
• 5.2 Collect Requirements
• 5.3 Define Scope
• 5.5 Validate Scope
• 5.6 Control Scope

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’

Click to register for Under Pressure: Your Embedded System Needs To Modernize RM

Live Webinar April 17th, 2015 – 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm EDT
Presented by the Corporate Education Group (REP 1011) Course ID: BAW1313
Duration: 1 Hour Credits: 1 Category A PDU – Free PDU

Well-run requirements workshops are considered one of the most effective ways for delivering high-quality requirements quickly and accurately. They can also promote trust, mutual understanding, and strong communications amongst the project stakeholders and project teams, and increase the probability of producing the desired deliverables to the end-users.

In this webinar, you will learn useful guidelines for planning and conducting an effective requirements workshop; additionally, you will also get familiar with some of the most common processes and techniques used to overcome the challenges of requirements elicitation.

About the Presenter: Scott Kastner, (LinkedIn profile) PMP®, CSM (Certified ScrumMaster), manages the IT Systems Operations at jetBlue Airways, and is also a business analysis and project management instructor and consultant. Scott’s strong technical background coupled with his practical business understanding has made him highly regarded in both the business analysis and project management communities.

Click to register for Better, Faster, Stronger: Plan and Conduct More Effective Requirements Workshops

Live Webinar April 16th, 2015 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1 hour webinar Credits: 1 PDU Category A – $20 USD PDU
Presented by: Solutions Cube Group (REP 2451)

You’re a project manager and are managing people that don’t report to you directly.

You’re having some difficulties getting the people on your project to do the tasks required to meet the project’s objectives.

Are there any tools and techniques available to help you overcome the challenges you’re having with matrix managing project team members?

This webinar will introduce techniques for resolving the challenges that we all face when we’re matrix managing team members ensuring team buy-in, ownership, and accountability, responsiveness to requests for action, and appropriate and effective escalation processes.

Participants will learn about:

• Setting up the project kick-off meeting.
• Making a contract with functional managers.
• Obtaining buy-in and ownership.
• Resource planning and the Responsibility Matrix.
• Communication planning.

Learn how to set the stage through your project kick-off meeting, negotiate a suitable matrix management contract with functional managers, and understand how to engage team members and executives through effective communication and escalation planning.

PLEASE NOTE:  If you are on the Solutions Group Site and receive a message that your cart is empty when you go to check out – this is because you are not yet signed in to your account on their site – or you have not registered for a free account on their site.

To resolve this issue simply click the “person” icon on the top of the course description page and either sign in or register.  You can then return to the course Description page and add the course to your cart.

Click here to PURCHASE How to Solve Matrix Management Problems: How Do We Influence People that Don’t Report to Us?

Live Webinar – April 15th, 2015 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm  EDT
Offered by IAG Consulting (REP 2858)
Duration 1 hour 1 PDU or  1 CDU 1 Category A – Free PDU

Enterprise Business Architecture is quickly evolving into a mainstream business capability.

Some would argue that it is already there particularly when 50% of the world’s top performing organizations have embraced business architecture as a strategic differentiator ranging from Government, Telco’s, Manufacturing and Financial Institutions.

However there continues to be a large population of change executives, managers and resources who regard Business Architecture as a theoretical practice.

Strategic change initiatives proliferate in business today. The speed and rate of change demands we maintain holistic oversight of all the moving parts to ensure realization of target operating models and designs.

Historically only a few strategic programs would be at play. In the last decade this number has grown to include on-shoring/off-shoring, centralization, spans of control, business transformation, vendor outsourcing, modernization, mergers/acquisitions, channel optimization, client segmentation, journeys and experience.

To facilitate strategic alignment and execution of these initiatives, firms are investing in business architecture.

Beyond Theory will focus on what are the market and internal forces at work which have been driving and will continue to drive organizations to use the models to better understand business impact, scope, execution and benefits realization.

The discussion will address the deployment and adoption challenges and look at industry standards and Blueprinting for strategic opportunities. It will provide a foundational knowledge of the business architecture framework and model types to crystalize scope, identify stakeholders, manage risk and how early analysis, through the lens of the business architecture, will influence estimating, resourcing, time, cost and quality.

Business Architecture is the link between strategy and execution.

Learning Objectives:

1. Provide clear, rational reasons to do business Architecture.
2. Present a foundational set of Business Architecture Models, views and uses to mitigate project and analysis risk, drive the value proposition
3. Recommend a staged Execution Model

Click to register for Business Architecture: Beyond Theory

Live Webinar April 8th, 2015 – 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm EDT or …
Live Webinar April 8th, 2015 – 9:30 pm – 11:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1.5 Hr Webinar Credits: 1.5 PDU Category A – Free PDU
Sponsored by: RBCS (REP #2986)

Did you ever wonder why your colleagues sometimes look at you funny when you’re explaining your test results, or ask you strange questions like, “Why don’t you find all the bugs in testing?”

Maybe they don’t understand what you do or even why you do what you do. In this free webinar, Rex will reveal ten common misunderstandings that your fellow software professionals have about testing, and discuss ways to resolve those misunderstandings to promote better communication.

Presenter: Rex Black (Amazon profile) is President of RBCS, a leader in software, hardware, and systems testing. RBCS employs the industry’s most experienced and recognized consultants, RBCS conducts product testing, builds and improves testing groups and hires testing staff for hundreds of clients worldwide. As the leader of RBCS, Rex is the most prolific author practicing in the field of software testing today.

Check Out some of Rex Black’s Great Books:

1. Foundations of Software Testing ISTQB Certification
2. Managing the Testing Process: Practical Tools and Techniques for Managing Hardware and Software Testing
3. Advanced Software Testing – Vol. 1: Guide to the ISTQB Advanced Certification as an Advanced Test Analyst (Rockynook Computing)
4. Advanced Software Testing – Vol. 2: Guide to the Istqb Advanced Certification as an Advanced Test Manager
5. Advanced Software Testing – Vol. 3: Guide to the ISTQB Advanced Certification as an Advanced Technical Test Analyst
6. Critical Testing Processes: Plan, Prepare, Perform, Perfect
7. Pragmatic Software Testing: Becoming an Effective and Efficient Test Professional
8. ISTQB Foundation Exam Preparation Guide
9. ISTQB Advanced Test Manager Exam Preparation Guide 2nd edition

Click to register for the 2:00 am – 3:30 pm EDT presentation of Ten Things Managers & Developers Should Know About Testing…But Usually Don’t

Click to register for the 9:30 pm – 11:00 pm EDT presentation of Ten Things Managers & Developers Should Know About Testing…But Usually Don’t

Live Webinar – April 8th, 2015 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT
Offered by IAG Consulting (REP 2858)
Duration 1 hour 1 PDU or 1 CDU 1 Category A – Free PDU

The optimal path to mature requirements practices is often obscured by misinformation. Register now to see how to make significant operational improvement in requirements maturity and select a path based on a strong foundation of research and quantified success.

The Business Analysis Benchmark is rapidly becoming the world’s leading source of information on the impact of requirements quality on project outcome. We are pleased to announce the release of the 2009 survey results.

Learn:

1. The Facts of Performance: What is the impact of requirements maturity on technology projects?
2. Myth Busting: there are many commonly held beliefs that prevent organizations from successfully making change.
3. Path To Success: What activities can be taken to improve development success.

Featured Speaker: Rob Stewart, IAG Consulting (LinkedIn profile)

Click to register for Myth-Busting The Path To Requirements Success