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Webinar Library
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For many years, there were two major approaches for structuring Information Technology (IT) development projects - traditional waterfall or iterative development. New approaches are now available that fall under the general category of “light” or Agile methodologies. Calling them methodologies is probably too broad a word. It might be better to refer to them as development approaches, or even philosophies. The purpose of this webinar is to provide a quick overview of Agile terminology, concepts and roles. The webinar will also highlight an Agile lifecycle model so that attendees can see how an Agile project could be structured from start to finish. By the end of the session students will see why these Agile processes are exciting and unique. |
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Agile on Enterprise Initiatives Using the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) |
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You are probably all familiar with Agile. The term has historically applied to IT development work, but is now more of a general project mindset about delivering project value early in short iterations. (That being said, it is still predominantly an IT development model.) Agile is becoming more and more important in the future for organizations of all kinds. One of the perceived weaknesses of Agile is that it worked great on small teams, but was not so easy to scale up to organizations that have hundreds (or thousands) of team members. A few years ago, an Agile framework was created by Dean Leffingwell called the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). (www.scaledagileframework.com/). It is a model for scaling up Agile to 50, 100, 1000+ people. This is a unique and interesting model that is being used by more and more large companies to scale Agile to the enterprise level. Your speaker, Tom Mochal, is a SAFe Certified Professional (SPC4). He will describe the SAFE framework. Join us for a fascinating discussion to see if this is the right model for your organization. |
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Governance is the term used to describe the creation and enforcement of your processes, policies and standards. There are two components - defining good processes and enforcing them. Governance is a top-down management process and requires each manager to be accountable for ensuring their direct reports follow the rules. Implementing good project management practices requires some level of governance. The governance is typically applied by the manager of the project manager and the sponsor. These managers don’t need to be involved in every detail of the project. However, there are a number of areas where they need to be involved to make sure the project is progressing as it should. The purpose of this webinar is to explain the role of governance on projects and explain the likely touchpoints where the governance is applied. |
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Recently over 20 global TenStep managers came to Atlanta for a two-day class on organization assessments using the aPRO model from the asapm - the member affiliate of the IPMA organization. This is a simple yet holistic assessment of your ability to implement projects successfully. It takes into account strategic alignment of projects, executive leadership, allocation of resources, use of methodology, skills and development actions, and more. We think this is a great organization assessment model for projects and project management. Armed with assessment results you can rapidly make more effective decisions that increase overall organizational performance. |
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The Big 3 - Understanding Project, Program, and Portfolio Management |
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Many people hear the terms projects, programs and portfolios, but are not sure what they all mean and how they fit together. All three are structures that allow you to organize certain types of work. It is important to understand the nature of the work so that you can apply the right process. For example, if you apply program management processes to a portfolio, the results will not be what you expect. Join us for a discussion where we compare and contrast these three fundamental work processes. The results may surprise you. |
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You have probably heard us say that TenStep helps organizations build an environment where projects are successful. You might have wondered what this really means. Now is the time to find out. The purpose of this free webinar is to describe the TenStep approach to organization effectiveness. It is more than templates and training. We will lay out a model where processes are aligned, roles are clear and people are well trained. After the webinar you can evaluate your own organization to see how close or how far you are to this model. |
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A reactive Project Manager tries to resolve issues when they occur. A proactive Project Manager tries to resolve potential problems before they occur. Many problems can be seen ahead of time. Risk management is a proactive process to eliminate these potential problems before they occur, and therefore increase the likelihood of success on the project. Many project managers do not proactively manage risks. It is a shame. It is really not a hard process. You can be effective in four easy steps. Attend the webinar to learn more. |
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The field of project management is not static. The nature of projects ten years ago is not the same as projects ten years from now. Therefore, the approaches and processes that worked ten years ago are not going to be adequate ten years from now. In this webinar we will discuss future trends in project, program and portfolio management. We will also discuss how the role of the project manager will likely evolve. The conclusions are based on the experience and perceptions of Tom Mochal and the other senior managers at TenStep. Join us and add your opinions as well. |
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The world is going green. We are collectively realizing that we do not have an unlimited amount of air or water or space to continue to utilize resources as we have done in the past. How can we apply these “green” concepts to our project management discipline? One obvious way is that we can manage green projects more efficiently. The sooner that project ends, the sooner the green benefits will be achieved. Most project managers however, do not manage these kinds of projects. Most of us manage projects such as installing a new software package or upgrading network infrastructure. How can these projects become more environmentally friendly? The answer is Green Project Management (GreenPM). Green Project Management is a model where we think green throughout our project and make decisions that take into account the impact on the environment – if any. It is a way to ingrain “GreenThink” into every project management process. |
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Over the past 15 years, Agile development models
have moved from the underground to the mainstream. At the same
time, the nature of Agile has also changed. The pure Agile model
of 15 years ago has been refined, expanded and made friendlier
to corporate America. View this session to hear how many companies implement a hybrid Agile model - successfully combining Agile techniques while supporting traditional organization processes as well. |
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When projects get very, very, very large it is very difficult to deliver them successfully - even with good project management discipline. They are just too complex to manage as a single, coherent project. A better approach is to break up the very large projects into multiple smaller projects. It is easier to be successful on each of these multiple smaller projects than the one large project. Some of these smaller projects may still be large, but they are not as large as the entire initiative. Programs are a structure that allows you to manage a group of projects to achieve overall benefits that are greater than what could be delivered from managing the projects separately. The program, then, allows us the best of both worlds. The very large initiative is broken down into many smaller projects and the program is then used to coordinate the projects to make sure that the common objectives and common benefits are achieved. At TenStep, we have had program management training and consulting services for many years. Now we have a methodology product as well. ProgramStep provides a clear and comprehensive set of processes and techniques for managing programs. The purpose of this webinar is to provide a short overview of program management and then discuss TenStep's newest methodology product - ProgramStep. We will go over the philosophy of ProgramStep and the underlying program management model. We will show how you can utilize ProgramStep to successfully manage programs in your organization. |
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Organizations have goals and strategies to help them reach their future state. Projects are the way to achieve these goals and strategies. (Support and operations are important, but they do not help you reach your future state.) This makes it essential that your organization is able to execute projects successfully. This webinar is focused on helping organizations successfully execute projects by implementing scalable project management practices. It is interesting and informative - perhaps even eye-opening. We will also spend a few minutes describing how TenStep can help companies in this important effort. |
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Many (perhaps most) organizations do not follow common and consistent project management practices. Implementing project management practices requires people to change how they do their job. This means that the deployment effort should be seen as a culture change initiative. Training and templates are part of the answer, but there is a lot more to it than that. Culture change initiatives require a holistic and multifaceted approach – one that has long-term sponsorship and staying power. It would not be unusual for a large organization to take three years (or longer) to successfully implement a project management culture, while a small organization will take up to a year or more. Listen to this webinar to hear Tom Mochal discuss what is required to implement project management practices. |
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Implementing Value-Add, Scalable Project Management Processes |
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Project management processes must provide value to a project, and the way to make sure that they provide value is to make sure they are scalable. Large projects need more rigorous processes. Small projects need lighter, agile processes. This webinar will explore the concept of implementing value-added, scalable project management processes. It is a must-view webinar for PMOs and organizations trying to implement good project management without getting too bureaucratic. |
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Organizations around the world are implementing formal project management processes and disciplines to deliver their work initiatives on time, within budget and to an agreed upon level of quality. Many organizations have focused this effort using a Project Management Office (PMO). Unfortunately PMOs can quickly be viewed as an overheard organization that are a barrier to the swift completion of projects. Of course, that is just the opposite of what they should be doing. In fact, the focus of the PMO should be to help projects execute better, faster and cheaper. The focus of this webinar is how to build a the “Value-Add” PMO. You can also use these techniques to validate that your current PMO is providing the value you need. |
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When is the last time you worked on a project that was planned and executed perfectly and where you met expectations in terms of budget, deadline and product quality? Although no project is absolutely perfect, most projects are completed with an “acceptable” amount of problems and stress. Of course, there are some projects that actually are in real trouble. These projects have significant problems in meeting their deadline, budget or deliverables – perhaps all three. The purpose of this webinar is to help determine whether a project is “troubled” and if so, to lay out a process to turn the project around. |
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Most organizations implement project management in an ad-hoc manner. These organizations focus on the project managers and provide them with training and templates. This is a good start, but it is not going to result in a strong project-driven culture. In fact, the majority of problems encountered in culture change initiatives of this type originate in the management ranks. These managers typically think it is up to the project managers to deploy project management successfully, but in reality the success or failure of the initiative is within their control. All of the management hierarchy has a key role to play in ensuring their organizations successfully implement the project management discipline. This webinar describes the role of management in creating this project-driven culture. |
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Outsourcing project work is more common today than ever. In the past many managers felt that if they outsourced the work, they also outsourced the problems. Most managers today know that this is not the case. Even though you outsource work, you cannot outsource your obligation to make sure the project is progressing smoothly. Unfortunately, in many instances, the vendor does not perform against expectations. Tune into this webinar to hear the key elements and techniques for managing your critical outsourced projects. |
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Process mapping is a way to gain an understanding of your business processes at a detailed level, allowing you to see the redundancies, the extra handoffs and the inefficiencies that are occurring on an ongoing basis. Mapping provides a precise syntax of pictures and words that allow you to see what is going on and identify process improvements in terms of cost, time, effort, safety, governance, etc. Tom Mochal covers the basics of process mapping, and then discusses the major benefits organizations gain by mapping their business processes. |
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We often state that a PMO must provide value to the organization or else it is likely to be cut or eliminated. Many PMOs struggle trying to show this value. This is generally for two reasons.
If you fit this second category (providing value but don’t know how to measure) this webinar will help. |
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Organizations are becoming more and more conscious of the environment and sustainable processes. PMOs have a lot to contribute in this initiative. A Green PMO is one that helps implement green processes in a company. This includes Green Project Management, Green Portfolio Management, Green Governance and more. Learn what it takes to move from a "normal" PMO to a Green PMO. |
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The Project Charter and Scope Statement describe "what" your project will achieve. The schedule tells you "how" you are going to achieve it. This webinar will focus on the project schedule and how to make it more valuable to your project. We will start with some fundamentals that you know but have probably forgotten. Then we will proceed into approaches and techniques to provide new insight into scheduling. We think you will find some new ideas and new motivations for the traditional project schedule. This is a joint webinar presented by Tom Mochal, President of TenStep and Jason Westland, President of Method123. |
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Organizations all over the world are trying to get better at project management. For the vast majority of companies this means using their own employee backgrounds and experiences to map a course for improvement. This approach is fine but it also limiting. Different people have different views for what an optimized project management organization looks like. In this webinar we will discuss assessments in general, and three models in particular - OPM3® from PMI®, aPRO from asapm and CMMI. You will learn the value associated with an organization assessment, plus an overview of these three project management standards. |
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No company has the resources to meet all of its business needs. This is true in the best of times. It certainly is even truer when times are tough. Even if your company is a rare one that has all the money it needs, you definitely do not have the people to complete everything you would like. Portfolio management is a process to ensure that your company spends its scarce resources on the work that is of the most value to your company, and work that is most closely aligned to your business goals and strategies. This webinar shows attendees the many aspects of portfolio management that must be understood before the concepts can be deployed. |
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One of the greatest challenges that company management faces is how to successfully achieve its mission (reason for existing), move toward its vision (desired perfect future state) and achieve its goals (higher-level business outcomes) consistent with its strategy (how the goals are achieved). It can only be done through a coordinated effort from the entire company. Each division - Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing, HR, IT, etc. - must do its part for the entire enterprise to be successful. Alignment is a very powerful process for making sure everyone is pulling the same direction. Full alignment is not easy, especially at first. In fact, it is very difficult, which is why few organizations achieve it. Like all culture change initiatives it takes management focus, perseverance and courage. The purpose of this webinar is to explore the challenges and value toward fully implementing an Aligned Enterprise. |
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Project and Portfolio Management Using TenStep and Planisware |
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Project management is used to proactively initiate, plan, manage and close projects. Portfolios are collections of work that are managed in a way to optimize the business value of the projects running within. Projects are managed by project managers. Portfolios are monitored by your management team. It is important that the project management and portfolio management processes are aligned so that each process can be executed as effectively as possible. When your portfolio of work has one or two dozen projects it is possible to keep track of what is going on with a minimum toolset. However, these simple tools are more and more problematic as you get 50, 100 and more projects in your portfolio. At that point you need to give serious thoughts to a robust software solution. At this webinar you will hear from the best - Planisware. This webinar will focus in two areas. First is the connection between the project management and portfolio management processes. This is information all of you should understand. The second part will be a demo of the Planisware software tool. Planisware provides Enterprise Project & Product Portfolio Management software solutions that support the end-to-end governance of company portfolios. |
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Projects are the way that your company moves toward its desired future state. Project management is an enabler to help you execute these projects successfully. This session looks at the value of project management as a general discipline. We then discuss how each project management process contributes to and enables project success. It seems project managers get kicked around a lot by clients, sponsors and team members that do not understand project management. This session also serves as a pep talk to project managers and reminds us all of the value project management provides to projects and to the organization. Let’s hear it for project managers! You will feel much better about yourself at the end of this session. |
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The Project Manager's New Responsibilities for Benefits Management |
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The project sponsor is the person that creates the Business Case highlighting the project benefits, costs and alignment to the strategy. If a project was approved, it used to be that the project manager was responsible for delivering a project on time, within budget and with the complete scope. If the project was completed within expectations, the project manager could then walk away as a success - regardless of whether the project benefits were achieved or not. Today, that line is being blurred, Project managers are increasingly being asked to understand the project benefits, and to manage the project in a way that will make it more likely the business benefits will be achieved. This is a pretty new change to the project management model. Join us to hear Tom Mochal describe these new responsibilities and how it can impact the job of every project manager. |
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When projects get very, very, very large it is very difficult to deliver them successfully - even with good project management discipline. A better approach is to break up the very large projects into multiple smaller projects. It is easier to be successful on each of these multiple smaller projects than the one large project. Programs are a structure that allows you to manage a group of projects to achieve overall benefits that are greater than what could be delivered from managing the projects separately. The program, then, allows us the best of both worlds. The very large initiative is broken down into many smaller projects and the program is then used to coordinate the projects to make sure that the common objectives and common benefits are achieved. The purpose of this webinar is to describe programs and how they differ from projects. We will see how a program helps to realize the benefits of very large business initiatives. |
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Most organizations tend to manage large projects in a similar way. This repeatable approach can be used, re-used and improved over time. However, there is not just one way to manage large projects. Different organizations use different models. People that work in the same organizations for a long time may not realize the multitude of approaches that can be used. The purpose of this webinar is to explain and highlight many of these various approaches for managing large projects - especially related to managing schedules . Learn about master scheduling, project leadership, integrated project planning, critical chain, and more. There may be interesting alternative models that you can try in your organizations. |
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All projects should be managed well using good processes for scheduling, budgeting, communication, risk management, etc. However, the purpose of the project is not project management. The purpose of the project is to build something. The process that you use to build the deliverables is referred to as the "lifecycle". There are many lifecycle models depending on the type of deliverables you are building. In this webinar we will explore the three major types of IT development lifecycles - waterfall, iterative and Agile. We will compare and contrast them to see which ones make most sense for your projects. |
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Organizations set goals and strategies to define their desired future state. Everything else falls out from there - portfolios, programs, projects, operations, etc. The goals focus on what you are trying to achieve. Strategies describe how you achieve the goals. It is important that your organization has goals and strategies, and it is especially important that they be correct. Organizations that fully align to goals and strategies can achieve powerful results. TenStep has a strategic planning model called LEAD to help organizations set the correct goals and strategies and to ensure that the work aligns to support them.
1. Learn. Collect critical baseline data and assess current
organization. This validates where you are today. LEAD gives you a head start to move your organization forward to the future. |
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A project schedule is one of the fundamental tools for a project manager. It is also one of the most indispensible. It is hard to imagine most projects being successful without a viable project schedule. Yet, there is a lot about a project schedule that eludes many project managers. This webinar will explain many of these "secrets". Some you may already know. Some you have probably not thought about for a while. Some are insights will be new. When the webinar is over you will have a new appreciation for this basic yet essential tool. |
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“Time is money” the saying goes, and lots of it gets lost in disorganization and disruption. We want to control our day, but often the day controls us. Some days it seems we are slaves to our calendar and emails – with no free will to independently impact events. This webinar will help you gain control of your day by explaining ten great time management tips. Organize your day, your workload and your work space. |
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One of the primary reasons that projects struggle is that the project team does not fully understand the customer requirements. This leads to rework, missed expectations, extensive changes and ultimately missed deadlines and budgets. The project team must meet the needs and expectations of the client to be successful. These client needs and expectations are set through the gathering and agreement on the requirements of the final solution. Gathering requirements involves more than just asking a few questions and then building the solution. Projects with any degree of complexity need a formal process to ensure that all of the requirements are accurately gathered, reviewed, documented and approved. In this webinar, we will discuss the TenStep model for gathering requirements - elicitation, validation, specification and verification. You will see it is a logical model that you can implement on your projects. |
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Let’s face it. Most of us don’t work in best-in-class project organizations. Most of us don’t work in worst-in-class organizations either – although many of you might say you are closer to this designation. The fact is that too many organizations have basic problems executing projects. Let’s just call them “challenged”. In other words, projects seem to get done in spite of you. The projects rely on heroics from project managers and team members. They have to since your organization does not have good processes that you can repeat over and over again for project success. In this webinar we will discuss some characteristics of challenged organizations. That is the easy part. The webinar will also provide insight into some ways to elevate your organization to a higher level. That is the hard part. We won’t set expectations that there is one technique or approach that will magically make everything perfect. But there are logical techniques and approaches that can help you improve. This webinar will help you decide which ones make sense for your organization. |
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Let’s face it. Most of us don’t work in best-in-class project organizations. But... most of us don’t work in worst-in-class organizations either – although many of you might say you are closer to this designation. The fact is that too many organizations have basic problems executing projects. Let’s just call them “challenged”. The projects rely on heroics from project managers and team members. They have to since your organization does not have good processes that you can repeat over and over again for project success. In this webinar we will discuss the top ten organization challenges that make it difficult to complete projects successfully. That is the easy part. We will also provide insight into some ways to elevate your organization to a higher level. That is the hard part. We won’t set expectations that there is one technique or approach that will magically make everything perfect. But there are logical techniques and approaches that can help you improve. This webinar will help you decide which ones make sense for your organization. |
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Headquartered in Bahrain, Zain is a leading telecommunications service provider across the Middle East and Africa providing mobile voice and data service to nearly 70 million customers in 24 countries. Group IT and Zain partnered with TenStep Middle East and cordin8 technologies, llc on a combined project management methodology and technology solution. Now Zain has established a common base of project management methodology and metrics; initiatives are under way to:
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Use a Strategic Execution Office (SXO) to Align Project and Program Processes |
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The Strategy Execution Office (SXO) is an office that supports and integrates strategic performance management, portfolio management, program/project management, and operational process improvement across the organization for the senior management teams. It can (and should) be cascaded to lower level units as required. This office integrates a number of management tools and competencies to ensure synergy and communication are optimized. This webinar will provide an overview of the SXO. We will also demonstrate an SXO software tool - cordin8 collaborative. This product supports key sets of functionality for the SXO as well as helps to integrate them into one seamless strategic execution tool that can address both performance management and help realize strategic plans. View this webinar to learn more about this exciting new concept and supporting tool. |
PMBOK, PMI, and OPM3 are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
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