Rachel Heitz, PMP, Secretary –PMI Northern Utah Chapter

Brian's project rescue topics for your next corporate event can be handled in anywhere from 1 hour to multi-day sessions to suit your particular needs.  These presentations include the following topics. For information on multi-day workshops, please see our Course Descriptions.

Rescue My Project™: An Overview of Troubled Projects and How We Deal With Them. A discussion amongst project professionals on our real world experiences with Troubled Projects and a methodology for effectively and efficiently planning and executing the entire project rescue process. Together we will discuss the Rescue My Project^™ Methodology and its similarities and differences with other methods that are being used. As project professionals, we have often tried all the tricks and tips to bring a troubled project back on track.  However, as project complexity increases, so too does the root causes of the trouble and often a “back to basics” rescue approach needs to be initiated.  As organizations become more receptive to project managers looking for assistance, we need to develop the skills required to assist these same organizations in project recovery to avoid total failure.

Rescue My Team™: An Overview of Troubled Teams and How We Deal With Them. This presentation is designed to give project team members insight into why teams are important, the impacts of dysfunctional teams and the symptoms, causes and categories of team troubles. This talk will enable participants to identify the human factors that are an inevitable influence on projects. Participants will be introduced to the Rescue My Team™ framework and an overview of the tools and techniques to ensure a solid foundation is built for the team in which there exists healthy conflict, trust, accountability, responsibility, growth and commitment.

Intelligent Decision Making. Intelligent Decision-Making provides the insights and tools required by today’s executive facing a critical decision in a business or government environment. This 1-hour presentation describes the analytical process leading to an “intelligent choice”, including assessing the situation, stakeholders, risks, one’s self as a decision-maker, selling the decision, and the possible outcomes and required follow-up. In your job you make all kinds of decisions. Only a few are critical or “strategic”. What are the signs of a critical decision? How will you recognize it before it’s too late? Follow the roadmap to intelligent decision-making. This one-hour presentation takes you through the process that will lead you to make a more enlightened or “intelligent” choice.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: How Inadequate Requirements Definition Contributes to Project Troubles. This presentation on failure categories explores the pitfalls associated with poor requirements definition and how these contribute to trouble on projects. We then examine best practices for ensuring well written requirements and evaluate criteria for writing great requirements.

When the Project’s Right Hand Doesn’t Even Know Where the Left Hand Is: How the Many Layers of Communications Problems Can Be a Death Knell for Projects. This presentation on failure categories investigates the crucial role effective communications play on a project. We examine the common mistakes and the thornier aspects of communications and discuss best practices for ensuring open, accurate and timely communication on your projects.

That’s Not My Baby: How Lack of Organizational Support and Stakeholder Misalignment Prevent Project Success. This session on failure categories looks at what happens when a project doesn’t have organizational support and/or stakeholders are misaligned. We explore how to identify that these problems exist in the early days of a project, how to correct them and how to avoid this problem in the future.

Project Managers Are Not a Dime a Dozen: How Inadequate Application of Project Management Methodologies and Lack of Project Management Training Spells Disaster. Just being organized, a good communicator and having good interpersonal skills do not make someone a good project manager. There is both a science and an art to project management. This presentation on failure categories looks at the impact that lack of project management methodology and training can have on a project. We provide a brief overview of the different methodologies available today and explore how to coordinate the right approach with the right project and how to identify training gaps, as well as strengths to strengthen in yourself as a PM.

Turning an Ostrich into a Canary: Understanding and Overcoming Factors that Make Individuals and Organizations Reluctant to Declare Trouble. This presentation discusses reasons why people don’t want to raise their hand and state that a project is in trouble. Being cognizant of these factors will help a project manager uncover hidden problems and recognize their own hesitations. We will talk about how to overcome these obstacles, in ourselves and others, to increase comfort with declaring trouble so that it can be flagged while there is still time to react before things get really out of hand.

How to be a Micromanager Without Being a Jerk: Implementing Meticulous Planning, Monitoring and Control and Making it a Good Thing. In this first presentation on “Anatomy of a Rescue Project Manager”, we look at why micromanagement isn’t a dirty word and examine why it is actually an appropriate management style for a project in crisis. We discuss positive ways to implement this level of control that will provide the monitoring levels necessary without making the team feel threatened or irritated.

Shaking Hands, Kissing Babies and Traversing Mine Fields: How to Be a Politician and Negotiator Extraordinaire. In the second presentation on “Anatomy of a Rescue Project Manager”, we talk about the necessity of a rescue PM to be sensitive and tactful while working in a potentially highly politically charged environment. We examine approaches to effectively handle the political side of a troubled project as well as negotiation skills to facilitate bringing the team and stakeholders together to achieve success.

Grace Under Pressure: Providing Leadership, Guidance and Direction in a Time of Crisis. The third presentation on “Anatomy of a Rescue Project Manager” explores the demands placed on a rescue PM to maintain a cool head and calm demeanor in stressful environments. We discuss the need to provide the strong leadership and coaching needed to turn the troubled project towards success and not only keep this project going that way, but ensure future projects don’t repeat the same mistakes.

You’re My Hero: The Rescue Project Manager as a Firefighter, Superhero and Knight in Shining Armor. In the fourth presentation on “Anatomy of a Rescue Project Manager”, we talk about the role of the rescue PM as the hero and solver of problems. We explore both the positive and negative sides of this role and talk about how to achieve the expectations that are reasonable and accurate and how to manage expectations that are unrealistic.

CSI – Troubled Project: Performing Forensics on Project Documentation. While there are many reasons why projects fail – requirements definition, change management, communications problems, stakeholder misalignment – most, if not all, can be traced back to project documentation, or lack thereof. Even if the project documentation isn’t the root cause of the problem, it will often contain clues pointing to the problem. This discussion talks about what project documents will likely contain the greatest information about problems, what to look for, what it tells us and what to do about it.

The War Room Joins the 21^st Century: Exploring the Myriad Options Available for Connecting Teams in Cyberspace. We have probably all heard the term “War Room” and some of us may even have worked on projects that had a physical war room set up. In today’s age of geographically dispersed teams, home based workers and limited office space, physical collocation of a team is becoming a thing of the past. But, the benefits of physical collocation remain undisputed. This session presents a wide variety of options available today that enable a team to achieve the collaboration, cohesiveness and effective communication of collocation without physically being in one room.

Spinning Straw Into Gold: How to Identify, Understand and Resolve Training and Skill Set Issues Within the Project Team. Sometimes projects fail because the team assigned to perform the work did not possess the right training or skill sets to meet the objectives. This session investigates how to identify this problem exists as early in the project as possible and how to resolve it with minimal impact. We also discuss ways to proactively ensure that the right resources are being assigned up front or the right training is provided at the right time for those identified as needing it.

Getting the Hamster Off the Wheel: How to Run Effective Meetings Without Wasting Time and Going in Circles. It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t have stories about ineffective meetings. This session provides best practices and guidelines about when to have meetings (and when not!) and how to plan and run meetings to ensure everyone’s time is used effectively and the objectives of the meeting are met as expediently as reasonably possible.

Getting Down to Brass Tacks: How to Structure, Staff and Fund Recovery Efforts. Okay, so you’ve identified your project is in trouble and needs intervention to avoid outright cancellation, but how do you structure the team and pay for it? This session provides guidance on various options for structuring and staffing the recovery efforts and addresses options for funding the recovery.

It’s a Fine Line: Similarities and Differences Between Corrective Action and Recovery Efforts. Is recovery actually different from corrective action? Well, yes, and no. Recovery is a specialized application of corrective action with some unique elements. This session explores this concept by defining, comparing and contrasting the two activities to provide a more thorough understanding of project rescue and its associated recovery efforts.