Written by: Jacqlyn Shelton

On October 16, 2018 the Agile Forum- PMI Atlanta Chapter presented a “Recruiter Panel Discussion” session which consisted of panelist whom provided tips and pointers to professionals looking to expand their careers into Agile, Scrum, or similar Project Manager (PM) opportunities. The attendees were professionals who desired career advice and/or expert evaluation of their credentials from Recruiters with decades of experience.  

The interactive session began by capturing questions from the attendees and the panelist providing advice. The forum was moderated by Joshua Jack (Director of Transformation for MATRIX Resources) standing on right.  Panelist were (right to left): Brandon Goodson (Recruiting and Talent Specialist for Strive Consulting), Chris Gegoudas (Recruiting Manager for MATRIX Resources), Nicole Plaisted (Professional Solutions/Business Development Manager for TRC), Dalas Burns (Senior Recruiter for TRC Professional Solutions), Rachel Howard (Chief Cultural Officer for LeadingAgile) and Lisa Leff (Director of Recruiting for Genuent Technologies).

Panelist Tips/Pointers:

• Always be ready to represent who you are and what you have to offer.
• Be flexible with change, process, technology, opportunities, and commuting. The more flexible the more opportunities to get your dream job.
• Honesty is critical on your resume and during an interview: Be transparent and open.
• Managers want to hire people they like and trust.
• If you meet 50% of the requirements on a job post, apply for the position. Apply for positions even if do not think you qualify because most job descriptions on websites or postings are not accurate.
• Gaps in your Resume: Be honest about gaps in resume, hiring Managers know life happens.

• Top 5 hard and soft skills that are in high demand for these roles

• Interpersonal Skills (let your personality and drive sell you)
• Honesty (be transparent)
• Flexible (be willing to try a new opportunity, to compromise to get your dream job)
• Growth (be open to opportunities that are offered to you)
• Teamwork (communicate and interact with everyone)

The forum concluded with two breakout sessions with Panelist and Attendees:

Resume-at-a-Glance (Review and evaluate individual attendee’s resumes),

Panelist and Individual Attendees Questions/Answers (individual Attendees Question/Answers). Many attendees consulted with both groups.

The PMI Atlanta Agile Forum wishes to thank our location sponsor: MATRIX Resources. MATRIX Resources has 35 Years of Excellence experience providing Staffing, Agile and Digital transformation services to help companies solve tough IT and business challenges.

The PMI Atlanta Agile Forum provides value by helping members enhance their Agile implementation knowledge in an interactive setting, as well as, learn and share ideas on various Agile tools, techniques and best practices. Everyone is welcome!  We look forward to seeing you at the meeting in January 2019.

Visit the PMI Atlanta website www.pmiatlanta.org to register.

About PMI

Atlanta Chapter serves Project Management Community in Metro Atlanta, and we're an active resource to corporations, community and government agencies throughout north Georgia. With over 5,000 members, PMI Atlanta is among the top 5 chapters in the world. Our professional expertise span across industries; we’re the professionals building healthcare information technology systems, the engineers developing smarter public transportation, and the planners growing our communities more efficiently.

Written by Neil Rivenburgh

The October Healthcare forum attendees were enthralled with the experiences of Jill Morrisey, CEO of Camp Twin Lakes. Jill began by sharing her impressive career running neuroscience programs at Piedmont Hospital and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.  She discussed how she is able to wear all of these hats and pull from the varied experience each time she faces a new challenge.

After years of working in large hospital systems, she was looking forward to a role that would be a fun and carefree experience – casual dress, working outdoors at camp.

Camp Twin Lakes provides a safe place for special needs children to meet others like themselves and have a development plan that helps them grow. “Through intentional play, we develop mindful and confident children who are prepared to triumph over challenges. By learning perseverance, resilience, and a sense of community, our campers leave transformed and capable of extraordinary things.”

It takes a big team to run the camp. Jill and her people work with about 65 partners to enable it to operate. It provides an experience for 10,000 kids. She spends a lot of her time raising funds to keep the camp running and growing.  Jill's passion to help kids build life skills, friendships and self-esteem propels her and camp volunteers to serve at Camp Twin Lakes.

Jill developed operational policies and procedures to run an efficient and sustainable camp. She shared an enlighten example of how project management was needed to manage and maintain Camp Twin Lakes farm. This farm consisted of 70 cows and 200 chickens who produces food for the camp. The importance of farm, led Jill to work closely with the camp farmer to develop a project plan that can be trained to other staff to run the farm efficiently end to end.

Jill talked about the importance of having contingency plans (“Think about Plan B … then Plan C … and Plan D”). She emphasized to “Plan as much as possible then think through every ‘what if’.”  Jill also address the need for Enterprise Risk Management for every project. Utilizing a risk matrix enabled her to plan for various risk that can occur.  Risk were ranked on a scale from “Remote” chance of occurring to “Very Likely” and how bad the impact could be from “Insignificant” to “Critical.”

Jill shared the project management process that is used for the camp.

• Program Evaluation
• Initiate Planning
• Program Design
• Training and Contingency Planning
• Implementation

She also stressed the importance of an effective communication plan. Effective communication is imperative especially for first time campers, as parents are very anxious when their kids have never been away from them. Therefore, frequent communication is needed to maintain parent’s confidence and trust in the camp abilities to take care of their kids.

Overall, Jill Morrisey delivered an inspiring message on how project management is used at Camp Twin Lakes to provide a wonderful experience to so many children.

Please join us Tuesday, November 27th from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Joint Technology & Healthcare Forum for the: Keynote Presentation: “Living the Innovator’s Lifestyle” presented by Rob Wilson, Professional Speaker, Author & Storyteller

Location: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
5555 Windward Parkway, Alpharetta, Georgia 30004

About PMI

Atlanta Chapter serves Project Management Community in Metro Atlanta, and we're an active resource to corporations, community and government agencies throughout north Georgia. With over 5,000 members, PMI Atlanta is among the top 5 chapters in the world. Our professional expertise span across industries; we’re the professionals building healthcare information technology systems, the engineers developing smarter public transportation, and the planners growing our communities more efficiently.

Written by Neil Rivenburgh

On August 15^th, the attendees at the PMI Healthcare forum was informed and entertained by Dr. Jerrica Dodd, founder and CEO of Your Pharmacy Advocate, LLC. Your Pharmacy Advocate is a personalized pharmacy consulting service company. Her presentation “How to Leverage Your Project Manager Strengths in an Unfamiliar Role” addressed how a Project Managers can support a startup founder or a new business owner in driving multiple projects and initiatives forward.

Dr. Dodd has 20 years of experience in the pharmacy industry. Over the past year she has dedicated herself to growing a startup company called Your Pharmacy Advocate. She believes “everyone needs a pharmacist advocate in their life”. Her desire to pursue this opportunity spun from a series of medical situations with herself and her parents where she had to advocate for the best possible care. The average person would not been equipped to do so.

Dr. Dodd asked the audience, “Have you ever found yourself in an unfamiliar situation?” This is where she found herself when trying to grow and develop a start-up company. After some hesitation, she decided, “you just have to move!” And move she did.

As she started her new endeavor, Dr. Dodd realized she would need capable individuals in order to reach her goal. She enlisted a good Project Manager and other key roles to drive her vision forward. She considered her own role to be one of building future leaders and executives who would continue to grow the company.

Dr. Dodd’s suggestions for career success and development were outlined as:

• Understand the mission and vision of the organization you are joining      
• Learn the company culture and how to add to it
• Do your research – study the company’s social media posts and website
• Learn about the industry segment
• Understand the governing bodies
• Be Flexible
• Be coachable
• Commit to something bigger than yourself
• Commit to grow others around you
• Never stop learning

Please join us Wednesday, September 19^th from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Healthcare Forum for the:

Keynote Presentation: “Population Health and U.S. Healthcare System: Opportunities for Project Management Applications” presented by Dr. Imoh Okon, Georgia State University/ Assistant Professor, Clinical Research PhD. MSc, MPH (c), PMP

Location: Philips Healthcare

PHA Academy
One Deerfield Centre
13560 Morris Road
Alpharetta, GA 30004

About PMI

Atlanta Chapter serves Project Management Community in Metro Atlanta, and we're an active resource to corporations, community and government agencies throughout north Georgia. With over 5,000 members, PMI Atlanta is among the top 5 chapters in the world. Our professional expertise span across industries; we’re the professionals building healthcare information technology systems, the engineers developing smarter public transportation, and the planners growing our communities more efficiently.

The PMI Atlanta Special Interest Team met in July in their Quarterly Retrospective Meeting to review best practices and lessons learned for our Q2 Industry Forum events. During the meeting, Kashif Choudry, VP of Special Interest, and Nevella Paul, AVP of Industry Forums, recognized Gray Terry and Nelly Eziashi, both volunteering for our Healthcare Forum.  Please read about our volunteers below:

Gray has been an integral part of the  Healthcare Forum success for the past 4 years. In 2014 he began as a volunteer with the Healthcare forum and transition to the Healthcare Forum Program Manager in 2016 -2017 term. Under his leadership, Gray did a phenomenal job leading the forum. As the current Logistics lead, he continues to be a huge contributor to the Healthcare Forum. He ensures the meeting room is set up appropriately and the environment is pleasantly appealing to our speaker and attendees. Gray is always ready to assist his peer volunteers with any task. No matter how big or small the task, Gray will get it done! His displays an unwavering commitment to the forum through his team work, high level of engagement and dedication.

Nelly has volunteered for the Healthcare Forum for 2 years. She has done an outstanding job managing the pre-forum logistics. She ensures all volunteer roles, responsibilities and registrations supplies/needs are covered for every forum. Nelly proactively takes on additional duties to ensure the team is equipped to provide a professional environment for our attendees.

Please take a moment to thank them for their efforts when you are at the next Healthcare Forum!  If you would like to become a volunteer to bring dynamic events and support our chapter, please visit vrms.pmi.org and create a profile!

By Neil Rivenbaugh

The Healthcare and Technology Forum conducted a joint forum to present the annual Career Night Recruiter Panel.  The event brought together three experienced recruiters and a corporate HR expert to provide insight and advice to help attendees improve their resume and assist in their job search.

The Recruiter Panel included the following recruiters:

• Brittney Schelich, Business Development Manager from the Rezult Group
• David Sheehan, Branch Manager for the Atlanta Robert Half Technology and The Creative Group
• Holly Bail, Talent Manager for OneSpring
• Ebonee Younger, HR Employment Practices consultant for Cox Communications
• David Baba of the Intersect Group was also available to answer questions and offer advice

A large and eager audience brought a high degree of interest to the Forum and there was an extended networking session to begin the activities. Nancy Berlin, Program Manager for the Technology Forum, asked questions to the panel and each panelist shared many nuggets of wisdom around the subjects of current hiring trends, compensation, how to be an effective networker, creating a resume that gets attention, and other topics to help candidates land the job they want.

One of the points made by Ebonee was that a company is empowered by its people. Ebonee stated that an employee should put their best foot forward at work by “owning their happiness”. Ebonee and Holly both emphasized that a job hunter should perform research and have a solid understanding of what they are worth and what is wanted from the employer. The recruiters recommended thinking outside the box on what the company can provide, beyond just salary. Examples of this include looking for more intrinsic benefits such as paying for certificates and additional vacation days. Ebonee highly recommended the book “Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team” by Simon Sinek. It is important to know what makes you happy.

One of the recruiting challenges mentioned by David Sheehan is that the current climate makes it very difficult for finding qualified candidates. According to David, there are about 5 openings for project managers in Atlanta for each qualified candidate. Due to this shortage, companies have been raising the salaries they are offering and adding new perks. It was suggested that if an employee desires a pay raise or more responsibilities, have the conversation with the employer now instead of waiting for when a new offer in in hand to leverage. Holly added that most people quit because of poor experiences with bosses and not because of the company per se. Brittany mentioned that career choices are often family decisions.Each recruiter highlighted the importance of networking for career growth. They stressed that it is important to make networking an intentional and regular activity. The key to building a sound network is to build relationships by finding ways to help others. It is critical to build a strong and supportive network before you actually need it.

Another trend that was discussed was the growth of contingency workers. Many young workers now want a series of short gigs, allowing them to feel more in control over their own career paths. The “Temp to Perm” model is perceived as slowly going away.

Another popular topic was how to have an effective resume. Some general recommendations included: trying to keep it to 2 or 3 pages, Show your certifications, and focus on last 3 to 5 years of experience with the number of bullets getting smaller as it goes back in time. There is no need to really go back more than 10 or 15 years. List accomplishments that evoke the most pride such as how much money a project saved for the company or how a project was delivered ahead of schedule.

Please join us Wednesday, August 15^th from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Healthcare Forum for the Keynote Presentation:

"How to Leverage Your PM Strengths in an Unfamiliar Role"
Presented Dr. Jerrica Dodds, Your Pharmacy Advocate, LLC/ CEO and Principal Pharmacist Advocate

Location: Philips Healthcare
PHA Academy
One Deerfield Centre