Community Updates - November 2014

Hello, Microsoft PPM Community.

This is our monthly blog post about what is happening in the PPM Community around the world.

This means webcasts/webminars, PMI and MPUG chapter events, and all about what you need to know to stay up to date about Microsoft Project, Project Server, and Project Online.

Microsoft Project Webcast Series

Leveraging Scrum/Agile for Project and Project Online

November 18 @ 12:30pm – 2:00pm EST

Some people say that Project cannot be used outside of a Waterfall schedule approach. This is absolutely NOT true. In fact, most of the best scheduling approaches leverage iterative activities, such as Scrum or Agile Planning incorporated into their project. This seminar will address key steps for building an Agile schedule, addressing pros and cons to Scrum features and approaches, while blending a schedule to address the tactical agile needs, while still providing rollup and time boxed reporting to stakeholders. This lively and example-driven webinar should help all who attend understand how they too can build agile, iterative schedules and address the need for having a good schedule that also helps to map, track and report activities, features, story points, backlogs all within MS Project. 

MPUG Events

Agile IS Risk Management
 
November 6 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EST

The existence of a heavyweight risk management process is a good indicator that a company has failed to embrace the essence of what agile is. But software development is risky. You’re creating something new, with an uncertain set of requirements, in an often tight timeframe. And, don’t get me started on unknown dependencies, sudden market changes, and personnel shifts! You know that without some sort of risk mitigation strategy, your bright and shiny new project can tarnish quickly, along with your reputation. So, if you don’t have a formal risk management process, what do you do? After all, agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban don’t explicitly mention risk at all. The solution is a matter of principle–agile principles that is.

In this presentation, Ken Rubin discuss how applying core agile principles can make the development process robust and at times antifragile to the disorder of uncertain events, allowing us to avoid harm and reap the benefits of uncertainty, without the need for heavyweight risk management processes. He will show that our goal is not to eliminate uncertainty, risk, or variability, but to protect ourselves against the variability that harms us and to promote and exploit the variability that benefits us. He will discuss that when appropriate, we should apply simple traditional risk management techniques in a good-enough (barely sufficient) manner. He then discuss how we can manage risk through the product backlog and how we can apply agile principles to avoid the self-creation of inherently risky or uncertain situations. Finally, he will discuss how to apply agile principles to avoid the harm (be robust) and reap the benefits (be antifragile) from uncertain events in the environment.

Tabular Reports to Customized Management Dashboards – Project 2013 Reporting
 
November 19 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EST

This MPUG event will pay you back multiple times – in it I’ll show you how to use the new reporting features of Project 2013 so that you never have to manually create a project report in PowerPoint or Excel again. You will learn how to create everything from simple tabular reports to customised management dashboards with drill-through capabilities.  No stone will be left unturned as we review all of the new reporting capabilities in Project and discuss best practise reporting techniques. We’ll discuss the types of information available for each report (Project and task progress, costs, work) and how to customise and personalise the look and feel of each report.  Finally, I’ll show you how to link the link the reports together to create a drill-through management dashboard linking all of your reports together.  The techniques we discuss are equally applicable to a single project or a programme of work, and I’ll show you how to consolidate several project reports into a single programme report.

MPUG Certificate Series

Forecast Scheduling
 
November 12, 13 and 14 @ 12:00 pm - November 14 @ 1:30 pm EST

Renowned speaker and master scheduler Eric Uyttewaal will present three 1.5-hour webinars on his latest book ‘Forecast Scheduling with Microsoft Project 2013’. He will show you how to forecast your project with just the schedule by itself and minimize the effort doing this. Eric will challenge you to forecast the finish date of your project, which is what most stakeholders expect from the project manager. This presentation will show you how to create a dynamic model of the project to forecast it and take scheduling to the next level. The main tenets of Forecast Scheduling are:
•Capture your promised dates … without killing the dynamic model!
•Minimize your effort on creating and maintaining the schedule
•Find the real Critical Path 2.0 instead of an incomplete old Critical Path 1.0
•Incorporate insights from project execution and update the schedule to forecast

Eric will explain these principles of Forecast Scheduling, demonstrate how they would work in practice as well as their benefits. We will run through several checks that you can perform on your own project schedule.

APMG International

Business Relationship Management: A Bridge Between Business Value and Technology

November 13 @ 15:00 GMT

This webinar will introduce the Business Relationship Management (BRM) discipline with a particular focus on BRMP training and certification. The BRMP (Business Relationship Management Professional) certification was developed by the Business Relationship Management Institute (BRMI) and is administered by APMG International. This session will be of interest to training organizations for whom BRMP training and certification may be a valuable addition to their portfolio, and individuals who could benefit from this certification.

If you are aware of some event that will occur this month and it is not listed here, please, leave a comment with the link.