The PMI Atlanta Dinner Meeting, The Project Management Event of the month, features networking, two presentations, and dinner.
Newcomers Meeting: 5:00pm - 6:00pm
If you are a new member to PMI Atlanta, you do not want to miss this opportunity to hear how PMI Atlanta can help you achieve your goals and meet members of the leadership team.
Professional Growth Session: 5:00pm - 6:00pm
"Communications Within the Project Team and With Stakeholders as a Key to Project Success" by Leon Morales and Kriss Poll, DNA Behavior
Keynote Presentation - 6:30pm - 8:00pm
When:
March 9, 2015
5:00pm - 8:00pm
Location:
The Westin Atlanta Perimeter North
7 Concourse Parkway Northeast
Atlanta, GA 30328
Earn up to 2 PDUs while building your professional network, viewing new products and services, and enjoying dinner. Earn 1 PDU for attending the Professional Growth event and 1 PDU for attending the dinner meeting. Click Here to view the Fee Schedule for this event.
Professional Growth Presentation Details:
The bulk of Program and Project Managers’ time is spent on communications: making sure people understand their role/tasks, following up on tasks, handling conflict, breaking down barriers, corresponding with stakeholders, influencing, etc. Communications within the project team and with Stakeholders is the key to project success.
If you would like to take a communication preferences discovery prior to the meeting, it will only take 5-7 minutes to answer 12 questions: Communication DNA
Biographies:
Leon Morales - Vice President, Human Behavior Solutions Integrator
Human Behavior Advisor, Human Capital Management, Customer Experience Specialist
“Connecting at a human level – leading and managing individuals, not just ‘people’ – is the what sets great organizations apart.”
Leon Morales is a builder of successful people driven organizations. With a deep conviction that organizational success is only achieved when leadership really understands each employee, Leon is certified in the DNA Behavior Method and Birkman Method® of personality assessment and has crafted his professional career around high-impact consultative roles. These include serving as Business Development Principal and Leadership Practice Principal for Innovar Collective, LLC and in various corporate leadership roles during his 17-year tenure with Cox Communications.
During his time at Cox, Leon led diverse functional areas, including large enterprise projects in customer care, accounting and finance, was a founding Senior Leader of Cox Communication’s Diversity Council, and is a graduate of Cox Communication’s Executive Development Program. As an entrepreneur and licensed Certified Public Accountant, Leon founded a successful accounting firm which he later sold; subsequently, he created an innovative new media forum in which aspiring artists showcase their talent.
Kriss Poll - Vice President, Relationship Management Integration
Kriss is passionate about helping organizations unlock the power of behavioral understanding to successfully accomplish business goals. She works with leaders to further develop their organizational goals and to build collaborative teams than can execute. Kriss believes that tailoring solutions, communications, and experiences for customers, vendors and employees based on behavioral insights will propel companies ahead in our highly interactive and competitive landscape.
Kriss Poll has almost 20 years as a seasoned leader and consultant with experience working in technology, operations, accounting and finance. She specializes in transforming and optimizing organizations and customer experiences using behavioral management solutions. She achieves this through enhancing performance across the key areas of:
• Leadership and Strategy,
• Program Development and Project Management,
• Change Management,
• Organizational Structure, Employee Engagement, and Hiring,
• Relationship Management and Tailored Communications for Clients' Behavioral Style,
• Process Improvement and Systems Optimization.
Kriss is a seasoned leader and director who oversaw a portfolio of projects that included enterprise-wide change management programs for multi-million dollar process improvement and technology implementations:
• Created a $100 MM program to implement new system controls and processes for increased throughput with fewer errors at a pipeline company.
• Improved end-user satisfaction, communications and processes for a $50 MM call center upgrade at a large cable company.
• Developed a new Online Markets division from a hand-full of people to over a hundred with over a $40 MM budget within a year for a large telecommunications company.
• Transformed a troubled IT department into a thriving department with a $35 MM successful Enterprise Resource Planning system implementation across 17 offices of a large cable company.
• Established procure-to-pay outsourcing governance program to improve sourcing process for a large beverage company.
• Streamlined disbursements processes and systems as part of the creation of a shared services center for a large telecommunications company; received customer service awards.
• Established roadmap for merger of online account management systems for two large telecommunications companies.
In a global society, leaders from all walks of life demonstrate common behavior patterns that fuel turning their dreams into their reality. The presenter has coined the term "Strategic hustler" to describe the attitude of essential professionals engaged in any type of transformation--personal, professional, organizational, and business. In a 30 minute presentation and 15 minute Q & A the presenter discusses some of these behavior patterns.
Prof. Dr. Frank L. Harper Jr., Ph.D., PMP®; author, former "Top 5 IS Project Manager in North America" Finalist and senior IT executive, is senior process and technology leader for Intelligent Systems Services, LLC. An adjunct associate professor of business administration for Cambridge Corporate University (CCU) in Switzerland he lectures in the online Post-Graduate program to executives/managers on leadership and business transformation. Having personally managed programs/projects with budgets ranging from $1M to $2.2 Billion, his technical savvy, leadership, teaching, and solutions-focused thinking and execution has contributed to the success of strategic programs/projects with combined budgets of over $4 Billion enabling for-profit/not-for-profit businesses to generate combined revenues and savings of over $10 Billion on five continents [North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa].
A thirty-plus-year career has experienced a professional progression building, improving, and maintaining division and corporate level PMOs and CoEs, managing vendors, establishing process excellence and technology programs, leading application development and consulting teams. He has been featured globally in various media for his trailblazing successes delivering value through innovative solutions. Project Management Institute (PMI®), applauded his leadership contributions serving as Organizational Project Management Maturity Model® (OPM3®) quality assurance lead; lead researcher during the seminal project, Project Managers as Senior Executives, sponsored by PMI® and ESC Lille School of Management in France; and Standard for Program Management reviewer. An “amazingly brilliant speaker,” he has led webinars; been either a guest, or keynote speaker, inspiring audiences globally.
As a recognized community leader, Dr. Harper developed outstanding community-based proactive educational programs. Local, city and state government leaders, in addition to President Bill Clinton, have recognized his creative thoughts on education. He has served as a State Advisor to the United States Congressional Advisory Board, a board member to the Georgia School Age Care Association and Vice Chairperson to the School Council of Towers High School located in Decatur, Georgia. He also participates in “Career Day” programs at various elementary and high schools in Georgia.
A former at-risk youth who survived the perils of the inner-city, Dr. Harper, a first generation high school and college graduate, lifetime member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. was a two-sport scholar-athlete in high school and college—along with brief stints professionally. For 25-years he mentored at-risk youths coaching football at the park-rec and high school levels in Connecticut and Georgia.
Dr. Harper earned a PhD, with distinction, from Columbia Commonwealth University in administration and management. He attended the University of New Haven earning an MBA in marketing, MSc in industrial engineering, and BS (cum laude) in computer technology. A Kepnor-Tregoe, Rummler-Brache, and Prosci practitioner, holding many professional certifications, the most current being: Project Management Professional (PMP®), IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Certified Six Sigma Green Belt (CSSGB), Certified Process Improvement Facilitator (PIF) and Certified Governance of Enterprise IT (candidate). A member of the International Biographe Centre of Cambridge England “World Who’s Who Hall of Fame”, his biography has appeared in numerous Who’s Who publications (high school, college, professional, and executive).
A self-proclaimed Strategic hustler™, Dr. Harper has authored a “leadership bible” on leadership and management entitled, “A.G.I.L.E. L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. with a G.R.I.P.: A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY JOURNEY: From Street hustler to Strategic hustler.” The book has earned a “five-star” rating on amazon.com and amazon.india from a global readership covering: United States, Switzerland, Europe, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Paris, and Kenya, to name a few. Because it is such an “easy read with a plethora of practical leadership and management information”, it is required reading for a post-graduate leadership course offered by Cambridge Corporate University in Switzerland, which holds the distinction as being the only university in the world to offer a MBA in Critical Thinking.
Dr. Harper is the proud uncle-daddy, legal guardian and godfather to fourteen. A devoted Christian, spiritual journeyman and Sunday school teacher, his favorite motto is “Every Child Deserves a Chance!”