Written by:Mike Ososki, PMP

Overview

Everyone continues adjusting to life with COVID. Despite nearly universal challenges, overall, people seem to be doing well. We’re maintaining a positive mindset, looking forward to a post-pandemic future, whenever it may be.

Beth wears many hats and has a good overview of Nashville and fundraising. She feels that gamification and hybrid events will increase, especially with the enhanced ROI of virtual events vs. costly, high-touch, in-person gatherings of the past.

Along these lines, Eric has reduced spend by doing more online conferences. While TV production has been very slow this year, ads and commercials are still going strong. He states that, “We can deal with whatever challenges happen.”

Nick handles athletics for one of the largest high schools in Georgia. While the going’s been tough, (eg: less attendance and scholarships), he’s learned lots of beneficial new tech, like live streaming and all-electronic ticketing.

Todd’s organization had big plans for large events this year, so it’s been catastrophic. They now mitigate with extensive safety treatments of any indoor venue. He says that, “the pandemic has caused people to change their habits, the holy grail for sales and marketing.”

While Coley asserts doing only online acting is super-frustrating, she echoes a common theme from many that now we have more time to learn and do other things. But like the entire planet, she “looks forward to being with people again and not being afraid we’ll hurt each other.”  

Takeaways

• Online virtual meeting and events continue for now as the #1 way for people to safely interact.
• Humanity is strong and resilient, able to adapt and flex impressively more than we may have previously believed.
• We’ll get through this. Meanwhile, let’s make do as best we can.

Next Event

Join us at the next PMI Atlanta Entertainment Forums in 2021.

Register at www.pmiatlanta.org/events/event-calendar

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: Jacqlyn Shelton

Theodore Revilock delivered a fantastic observation of Value Stream Mapping (VSM), a valuable analytical technique used to map processes. The Agile community often uses VSM in conjunction with Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).

Overview

VSM is an analysis technique that documents and evaluates processes by gathering critical data needed to plan, improve, and implement an organization's operations to a lean state. To demonstrate the power of VSM, Ted walked us through a step by step value stream process that identified bottlenecking and other operational issues.

The VSM technique involves a continuous cycle of process checking that documents gaps and problems in a workflow. Current approaches are analyzed to improve future operations, creating a check and evaluation system that illustrates every development stage. Reviewing, documenting, and visually diagraming a process is necessary to determine if that process produced value during the implementation. Ted discussed the importance of using the appropriate data collection method to ensure accurate information is gathered to resolve bottlenecks. VSM collects Real-time data (RTD) to analyze, design, and plan a lean strategy; an example of RTD is going to the production line to see what caused the bottlenecking. Accurate information is essential when creating a lean plan.

Value Stream Mapping supports a Lean-Agile environment to maximize resources, minimize idle-time, and mitigate operational issues. The benefits VSM brings to an organization is measured by the output of a quality product, a decrease of Time-to-Market (TTM), and a boost in revenue.

Takeaways

· VSM evaluates a "Current State" (Bottleneck) and provides data to improve an organization's "Future State" (Lean Process).

· VSM identifies waste and non-productivity.

· VSM is a "Living Document," a continuous analysis of RTD.

· VSM maximizes resources, minimizes idle-time, produces quality products, reduces TTM, and increases revenue.

Next Event

Join us at the next PMI Atlanta Agile Forum on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 6:00 pm - 7:15 pm.

Keynote Presentation: Up-Level Your Career in 2021- Career Planning Panel Register at www.pmiatlanta.org/events/event-calendar

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: Adam Gazaleh

Overview

Jennifer Bracewell from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided an engaging and unique overview of the life of a government capital construction project from inception to completion. Jennifer outlined the careful considerations that are taken into account at the beginning of the project and the controls in place to ensure that the bid process is fair and balanced. There are numerous controls in government projects that one might not see in private sector projects. Project management for government capital construction projects combines traditional project management with additional safeguards to preserve schedule and budget. The most interesting aspect of Jennifer’s presentation was hearing about the unique challenges involved with designing and relocating people in a laboratory environment. Additional challenges included the extra level of planning and detail required in government building design, particularly for an organization like the CDC.

Takeaways

• Government capital building projects are for the long term. These buildings will outlive the project participants and several groups of inhabitants might cycle through these facilities over the decades.
• Cost of changes increases significantly as you get closer to the end of the project.
• Working tours are performed so that inhabitants can become familiar with the new building and prepare to transition to a new location.
• Significant testing is done after the building is completed prior to occupancy to ensure preparedness for emergency situations.

Next Event

Join us at the next PMI Atlanta AEC Forum on Tuesday, December 8th, 2020 

Keynote Presentation:Predicting Likelihood of a Construction Project Success presented by Mahesh Kumar, CEO of Tiger Analytics.

Register at www.pmiatlanta.org/events/event-calendar

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: Jacqlyn Shelton

Josh Kite, PIVOT Agile / Enterprise Agile Coach, discussed the "Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe),” how the agile structure is implemented across enterprises to ensure optimum operation, teamwork, and valued deliverables. 

Overview

Josh Kite discussed the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), the results, and how the Framework drives the completion of programs versus projects. Josh shared the delivered business results when implementing SAFe.

SAFe Framework facilitates Employee Engagement: Employees are motivated and happier when SAFe is engaged to maximize teamwork, resulting in a 30% increase in employee engagement with SAFe. Productivity: Productivity is relative to employee motivation, happiness, and collaboration, which increases productivity; there is a 35% average increase in productivity with SAFe. Quality: Employee commitment and an organization's expectation foster employee pride, improving product quality by 50% with SAFe. Time to Market: Product deliverable, an average of 50% increase of Product Time to Market with SAFe.

The SAFe Framework is loved for its delivered results and value but is also hated because of the required change of managed thinking. Organizations must move from a project organization to a product deliverable organization; a problem-solving culture is necessary for a successful SAFe transition. The SAFe Framework can be measured during the iteration cycles by evaluating if the team is focused on the right things, is the team delivering value, and are the groups growing to produce an engaging, productive environment. SAFe success is measured if the organization has met its commitments and deliverables while increasing product value.

Takeaways

• SAFe can be applied to software or business platforms.
• SAFe, when integrated throughout an enterprise, minimizes risk and produces valued deliverables.

Next Event
Join us at the next PMI Atlanta Agile Forum on Tuesday, November 17, 2020, 6:00 pm - 7:15 pm.

Keynote Presentation: “Value Stream Mapping” Presenter: Theodore Revilock, Naya Consulting, Principle Consultant.

Register at www.pmiatlanta.org/events/event-calendar

Written by: Cesar Montoya

Overview

On October 28, 2020, the PMI Atlanta Governance Forum hosted speaker Paulette Hamilton, Managing Partner at Freebird Technologies, LLC. Ms. Hamilton delivered a remarkably interesting presentation on risk governance and how software tools could be used to improve strategies and mechanisms to drive decisions about risks. She demonstrated examples on how the typical risk identification, analysis and communication could be improved by tech tools.

Ms. Hamilton began by helping define Risk Governance and how it is traditionally used, as well at various risk governance environments. She compared the traditional way of measuring risk that could impede a project’s quality, time, and cost versus the new project outlook of risks that impact customers, the brand and product.
The discussion then dove into different tool sets and the various purposes for which they could be used, whether to communicate, analyze or measure progress and decision making. Ms Hamilton closed with a few examples of how technology tools could be used for the different elements of a Risk Governance Framework of Risk Identification, Assessment, Monitoring, Controlling, Mitigation & Consistency and Communication. After a Q&A session she emphasized that project managers should be risk champions.

Next Event

Join us at the next PMI Atlanta Governance forum February, 2021
Register at www.pmiatlanta.org/events/event-calendar