According to a recent Forbes study, four out of ten tech leaders are failing due to lack of effort that industry puts into developing its leaders. I believe most technical project managers do not have the right skills, leaving them open to project failures and cancellations. I realized I want to teach others how to be better project managers, so I signed up to teach graduate school classes.  My students’ interest piqued when I told stories of my professional experiences. Now, I have used these techniques to ensure my project managers become irreplaceable, not irrelevant, on all of their project assignments.

Which of the many PM tools are the minimum needed to run a successful project? This presentation will identify the PM minimum viable product (MVP) and provide examples and templates for immediate use on successful projects. Hear the hard-won lessons of how these tools are used in real-world case studies to equip you for success as a project manager. Stop issuing endless status reports and engage your PMs to make a difference in mission impact by applying the PM MVP immediately to maximize your impact.

The PMI defines tools intended to minimize risks and help communicate progress throughout the project lifecycle. Turns out that some of them are helpful and some of them are not. How do  you know which tools to apply and when?  The 3 most critical tools are intended to help project managers best define project scope from different viewpoints. One tool helps the user understand the impact of the change. Another tool helps the team break down the scope into executable pieces. And the third tool helps stakeholders understand the progress towards achieving the project scope. 

Both the project manager and the product owner oversee teams that work hard to bring projects across the finish line together. But their paths to that finish line often don't follow the same trajectory. So, which role is more important to your organization? Trick question: they're both important.

These roles are two parts of a Venn diagram; they're unique roles united by the intersection where leadership methods overlap. In this session, Donna Gregorio will break down the Venn diagram and provide best practices and templates you can use in your work environment, all with an eye toward this fundamental truth: the project manager and product owner's methodologies may differ, but their goals are the same – a successful outcome.