by Mike Ososki, PMP, Public Relations Committee

Fast-paced, intense and confident high energy—this is Nadia Bilchik’s personality and presentation style, brimming with motivational content. Nadia practices what she preaches, and Monday’s Dunwoody Dinner meeting attendees enjoyed her advice how to “Maximize Your Presence : Persuade Influence Inspire.”

As a CNN Editorial Producer, entrepreneur, coach, consultant, and keynote speaker, Ms. Bilchik also has impressive credentials interviewing such luminaries as Nelson Mandela, Tom Hanks, and Meryl Streep. Her clients have included Time Warner / Turner Broadcasting, The Home Depot, Coca-Cola, and Porsche USA—can we kick it up a notch?

Nadia defines presence as “the quality that projects calm and competence, and inspires confidence.” She expands to also include “your ability to positively INFLUENCE and PERSUADE,” and recommends that we light the FIRE ...

We always source from our self. If our thoughts cycle around negative, troubled attitudes like work sucks, life sucks, and I want to be somewhere else, then it will self-defeat our positive presence. We will struggle to maximize our powers to persuade, influence, and inspire. Nadia advises that, instead, we use our story and reach into our positive emotional memory database as a rapport-building cornerstone. This helps empower us to network and build relationships outside of our comfort zone. Courage can be thought of as taking action despite fear, as we are always free to stop, challenge, and choose.

Now consider communication. It’s always a combination of verbal—the words we choose—and non-verbal : the subtleties of our expression, such as tone, inflection, pitch, volume, emphasis, pauses, body language, gestures, etc. Non-verbal is always the most impactful.

How about content and delivery? Nadia recommends that we strive to be HEARD, comprising Hook, Evidence, Anecdotes, Reel in, and Delivery style. Important elements include your energy, eye contact, effective visuals, and body language.

Other ideas shared: Start grounded, move with purpose, show palms, don’t use a podium, and start with questions. Hem-mem-mem is a good voice warmup. Strive to make others feel honored: respect, revere and appreciate. No words of judgment; instead go for a sense of joy. Experience more at www.NadiaBilchik.com. 

Written by Nevella Paul, MBA, PMP

PMI Atlanta’s Healthcare Forum attendees were pleasantly enlightened with the engaging presentation delivered by Brett Byrnes, Project Manager, Implementation Services at nThrive. Brett began has presentation with three intriguing questions:

1. Where do the Client expectations originate?
2. What is Statement of Work (SOW)?
3. How do they become mismatched?

These questions led into a case study that created an interactive discussion on project expectations and what to do when the expectations are not clearly defined. The case study focused on a Patient Accounting System (PAS) conversion project.

Brett delved into the case study by sharing the general background information, initial requirements and the standard timeline for the project. He discussed the importance of having a SOW defined at the beginning of the project and the need to continuously managing expectations throughout the project. The lack of a SOW will mostly like cause scope creep and other changes to the projects. These unmanaged and unexpected changes will create rework in the project management life cycle and subsequently increase the likelihood of project failure.

When this occurs, what do you do now?
Option 1: RUN AWAY or Option 2: Manage Expectations

You should manage the expectations by:

• Communicating with the Project Team
• Communicating with the Stakeholders
• Enact the Change Management Process

Executing these steps will help get the project back in line and increase the potential of project success.

Presentation key takeaways:

• If there is no SOW or SOW is not clearly defined do not move forward with the project.
• Plan, Plan, Plan before you execute! If it takes 4 months to plan, DO IT!
• Pre-planning, do more up front. It will save time and effort throughout the project.
• Everyone should know their responsibilities and they should be outlined in the Master agreement.
• Client responsibilities and “Our” responsibilities need to be quantified with dates.
• The Change Management Process is key in any project

Brett concluded his presentation with a question and answer session, and Lasondria Hill closed the meeting by thanking Brett and the Healthcare Forum participants.

Please join us Wednesday, April 16 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Healthcare Forum for the:

Keynote Presentation: “How a Combination of Treatments and Vaccines Is Creating a Paradigm Shift in Combating Infectious Diseases” presented by Darnisha Harrison, President and CEO, Ennaid Therapeutics

Location: Philips Healthcare
PHA Academy
One Deerfield Centre
13560 Morris Road
Alpharetta, GA 30004

Enrollment is underway for the Summer 2017 term of the Mentorship Programs offered at PMI Atlanta!

• The program is only open to PMI Atlanta members - participants may earn up to 8 PDUs AT NO COST
• WE NEED MENTORS! Mentors have the opportunity to share Project Management knowledge with another PMI Atlanta Member
• Mentors and Mentees will be matched according to goals/objectives or area of interest
• The enrollment period will last through April followed by a mandatory Kick Off Meeting, in early/mid May
• The mentoring term lasts about 3 months (much like a college ‘semester’) with a minimum of a 6 hour commitment (May-July 2017)
• Space is limited to the number of mentors who volunteer. A waiting list will be created for those that do not make it into the Summer term
• Those interested will need to complete a survey so they may be matched appropriately
• Email us to get started

PMI Atlanta’s Executive Board authorized (in early 2016) the creation of an annual report to the membership. This report represents a summary of events and accomplishments of the prior year, and a preview into the coming year’s strategic initiatives.

The initiative complements the State of the Chapter presentation delivered by the Chair at the December Holiday Party or the chapter’s first monthly dinner event in the new year. While these events are widely attended, attendance is limited considering the chapter’s size, and thus represents only a small fraction of the entire chapter’s 4,600+ membership. The net result, the majority of the membership has limited insight and remains largely uninformed as to goals accomplishment.

Our intent is to:

• hold ourselves (the Leadership Team) accountable to you (the membership) by producing a formal year-end summary.
• broaden our reach with respect to communicating accomplishments to a wider membership audience.
• increase membership satisfaction by demonstration of financial accountability and goals completion.
• increase member participation in chapter activities by increasing visibility into chapter affairs.
  
  

Our volunteer-leaders are among some of the most dedicated. They are fueled by a fire of optimism and highly motivated by situations in which they are held accountable for results -- and we are proud to communicate their accomplishments. We hope you find the information helpful and informative.

As you read the report, think of areas where you might want to become involved. We have many areas that need more attention and time.

On behalf of the entire leadership team, board members and volunteers that make it happen, we would like to thank you for your support. Your support and positive comments are the fuel that keeps us moving forward to make PMI Atlanta one of the largest and most active chapters in the world.

Sincerely,

Bill Kay, MSOL, PMP
Director 3, At-Large
PMI Atlanta Board

Lead Project Manager - Jim Rowland, PMP