For our January 2025 Monthly Webinar, we will be watching a video together from the Project Management Podcast by Cornelius Fichtner on the power of soft skills in project management.
The Power of Soft Skills in Project Management
In this conversation, we are delving into one particular area of project management – mastering the essential soft skills. Soft skills, often dubbed as ‘power skills,’ form the backbone of project management, shaping the culture, ethics, motivation, and creativity in a team. As the world of project management continues to evolve, the emphasis on these skills has grown significantly. Yet, despite their importance, they often remain underappreciated and underdeveloped.If you would like to view the slides that Kris and Paula presented, please click here.
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Building effective teams is critical to the success of any organization, particularly in higher education institutions where collaboration and innovation are essential. This presentation will explore the key elements required to build effective teams (especially across departments and disciplines and with varied abilities and skill sets) that can work towards a common purpose. Specifically, we will examine how empowerment, trust, and a common purpose are crucial to the success of an IT team and how having strong bonds can help overcome challenges and lead to positive outcomes. If you would like to view the slides that Kris presented, please click here.
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Do we have enough team members to work on this upcoming project? We have a project that will require a six-month commitment. Who currently has the capacity to take on some extra work? An expedited request just came up. Who from our team is available to help with completing it in a timely manner? When it comes to executing projects and project requests, organizations manage team members’ workloads differently. In this session, ITEC will lead you through how their PMO manages project resource allocation. Highlights of this session will include how project resource allocation was managed prior to TDX; how TDX was setup to manage resources; how TDX is now used to manage project requests and projects; as well as future planning and reporting. If you would like to view the slides that Kris presented, please click here. If you would like to view the slides that Jason presented, please click here.
For our July 2024 Monthly Webinar, we will be watching a video together from the Educause Project Management Community Group on vendor management. Alex Holland, University North Central Texas, presents on the topic of vendor management. He walks us through current vendor challenges, communicating with vendors, vendor management strategies. As a group we will discuss the video’s key takeaways and relevance to SUNY campuses. If you would like to view the slides that Christa and Kris presented, please click here. If you would like to view the Stakeholder/Communications Log that we provide as part of the Project Management Fundamentals class, please click here.
PMI Links –
Vendor Management Strategies – PMI.org
The Disciplined Agile® (DA™) Tool Kit
For our April 2024 Monthly Webinar, we watched a video together from the PM Podcast on managing multiple projects. While watching this video, we explored some of Cornelius’s and Elizabeth’s approaches and tips and trick to manage more than one project at a time. If you would like to view the slides that Christa and Kris presented, please click here.
For our February 2024 Monthly Webinar, Phil Vecchione from ITEC agreed to present their Wizard 2023 presentation again just for us! Phil joined us to present the following:
ITEC PMO 2.0
The ITEC Project Management Office has undergone an overhaul starting in August 2022. In this session, we will talk about the history of our PMO, our overhaul, our recent migration to TeamDynamix, and what lies ahead. We will look at the PMO’s role and its philosophy. We will also talk about some of the new features we implemented: Project Intake, Project Slack, and Performance Metrics. If you would like to view the slides that Christa and Kris presented, please click here. If you would like to view the slides that Phil presented, please click here.
For our January 2024 Monthly Webinar, Zachary Jones (Binghamton University) agreed to present their SUNY Technology Conference (STC) 2023 Presentation again just for us! Zach joined us to present the following:
Procurement & Budget Process using Smartsheets
Previously, we used Excel spreadsheets and emails to submit and track purchases in the Telecom dept. In the past year, we have purchased Smartsheets and created an electronic form and automated processes to alert managers of approval requests and the submitter that their request has been ordered. We also created sheets to summarize project costs/purchases and budget sheets to track our annual spending. Using Smartsheets has increased our departmental purchasing visibility for a very minimal investment. If you would like to view the slides that Christa and Kris presented, please click here.