INTERNATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT DAY
2020 ONLINE CONFERENCE

Dr. Harold Kerzner

Senior Executive Director
IIL

What Executives and Managers Need to Know about the Future of Project Management

Project management practices, just like other management practices, have undergone changes over the past five decades. Executives in both government agencies and private industry are now realizing that project management is not just a career path position for workers, but a strategic competency necessary for the future of their organization.

The goal is not merely to work on projects, but to create sustainable long-term business value and benefits, and to be able to make rapid decisions based upon evidence and facts rather than guesses. Value-based, intangible, and strategic metrics are now being used in addition to time and cost metrics.

This will require senior managers to have a better understanding of the changes that are taking place in the project management landscape and to implement some of the changes that best fit their vision for the future of their firm.

Executives in both the government and in private industry are the architects of the future of project management. In this session, they will be provided with a “window into the future” so that they can decide how best their organization can implement change. Project managers will see how their job will be changing over the next decade and can prepare for it in a timely manner.

---

Bio:

Dr. Harold Kerzner is Senior Executive Director for Project Management at the International Institute for Learning (IIL). He is a globally recognized expert on project management and strategic planning, and the author of many best-selling textbooks. His latest book is Innovation Project Management: Methods, Case Studies, and Tools for Managing Innovation Projects (Wiley, 2019).

He has a MS and Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from Utah State University. He is a prior Air Force Officer and spent several years at Morton-Thiokol in project management. He taught engineering at the University of Illinois and business administration at Utah State University and for 37 years taught project management at Baldwin-Wallace University.

Dana Brownlee

President
Professionalism Matters, Inc.

Managing Up: The Secret Weapon of Career Success

A key to success for virtually everyone in the workplace is adopting a “managing up” mentality that focuses on how each of us can help our bosses (and other senior leaders) be successful – even if they’re not the “perfect boss”.

Most staff know that a truly dysfunctional or difficult senior leader can become the death knell for virtually any project, task, or organization. Managing up can be a secret weapon, helping project managers and other professionals to work effectively with the average boss, senior level stakeholder, or client and to maneuver difficult senior leader personalities, too.

While managing up can be a powerful tool for virtually any professional, it's important to learn to manage up the right way. This presentation clarifies why managing up is so important, what it is/isn't, and common mistakes to avoid. Learn the critical rules for managing up that most professionals wish they learned sooner!

---

Bio:

After years of working as a business strategy consultant with top IT firms, in 2003 Dana Brownlee founded Professionalism Matters, an Atlanta-based corporate training company. An energetic and innovative speaker and trainer, Dana has thrilled audiences with speaking events across the U.S. and globally.

A Senior Contributor for Forbes Careers, her business expertise has also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, HuffPost, Working Mother, and other notable publications. Her first book "The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up: Project Management Techniques from the Trenches" was published by Berrett-Koehler in February 2019.

A nationally recognized speaker, Dana speaks to groups large and small on a variety of topics including tips for rescuing your meetings, dealing with the difficult boss, secrets of the “Thoroughbred Leader”, and discovering the keys to true work life balance. She holds a BS, BIE, MBA, and PMP.

Alexandre Fara

Innovation Project Management Office Director
Millipore Sigma

Aligning your Innovation Portfolio Prioritization with Strategy

When we are talking about Innovation, one of the first elements that pop up is the budget and resources we are dedicating to this.

Then, some questions are put on the table, for example: if you would have more/less budget, what would you do? Are we investing where we need to?

Our “Strategic Innovation Portfolio Management” experience will give you some hints in order to answer these questions. We will share how to prioritize your activities according to your strategy and ensure an efficient execution.

Participants of this session will learn:

• · How to prioritize your activities according your strategy
• · How to ensure your Innovation budget is efficiently used
• · How to demonstrate the impact on adding/cutting budget for innovation

---

Bio:

Alexandre Fara is a mechanical and plastic engineer by training who started his career in a family company of 600 employees as a Quality Assurance head. His key objectives were dedicated to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement. In that role, he has also been part of the ISO 9001 certification committee in order to achieve the organization’s first certification.

After 10 years, Fara moved to Delphi Mechatronic Systems where he held the position of Project Manager for new product development embedding plastic, mechanic, electronic and software parts for four years.

In 2006, Fara completely changed into a new industry, joining Millipore SAS company in the Life Science Business. Here, he built a PMO group to deal with new product development and implemented Portfolio Management. Fara kept this role with a broader scope when Merck KgAa, Darmstadt Germany acquired Millipore (2010) and then Sigma Aldrich (2015).

Today, Alexandre Fara is the PMO Director for the Applied Solution part of Merck Life Science, where he is focusing on Innovation and new product development.