Project Management – Project Management Institute (PMI)

It is estimated that 50% of a company’s activities
can be managed as projects.

Unfortunately many projects fail to achieve their hoped-for objectives, or even complete. Several studies report that up to 75% of all projects miss important deadlines.   This begs the question, “Why a company performing so poorly on what is nearly half of their entire efforts institute “Management by Projects?”    

The main goal of this interactive session is to introduce the best practice framework for Project Management, in agreement with the Project Management Institute’s PMBOK guide (ANSI/PMI -001-2000) in a practical fashion.  This process framework, the basis of the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification , includes, the initiation, planning, executing and controlling as well as closing of projects.

Project Management processes and tools will be discussed, along with examples and experiences of the facilitator in order to gain an understanding of their various interrelationships and value to the overall project. Additionally, the often misunderstood topic of project roles among the Project sponsor, the Project Manager, the Project team and Stakeholders will be discussed. 

The critical concept of tailoring the ANSI processes (strategic simplification) to fit the complexity level of the project as well as the corporate environment will be a central theme.    Incorporation of the entire PMBOK guide would be a highly risky adventure.   A company must develop a method to select and tailor the processes in order to get the best benefit from using Project Management techniques.

The Bull Survey (1998); The KPMG Canada Survey (1997); The Chaos Report (1995); The OASIG Study (1995) See www.pmi.org

INSTRUCTOR

David A. Maynard, MBA, PMP
PMI-NEIC VP of Professional Development

Mr. Maynard graduated from State University of New York with a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering.  Immediately after graduation, he started work at NASA – Houston at a very exciting time.  While there he participated widely in the design phase of the Shuttle project.  

One of the two areas of his engineering emphasis was a problem called ‘TAEM’ -- Terminal Area Energy Management. The essence of this problem was: “How to take a vehicle in orbit, without fuel and land it on a runway where we want it?”  After TAEM was solved, Dave became deeply involved in the Shuttle flight computer configuration, timing, voting and reliability issues.  Additionally, Mr. Maynard was a member of the “Primary Contact” team -- those allowed to work with the flight crew just prior to launch.

After the Challenger disaster, and the loss of close friends, Dave’s life-time focus shifted from solving technical problems to diagnosing troubled projects and assisting in their turn-around.  Leaving NASA, Mr. Maynard worked on several diverse projects from the F16, the Learjet 55 and the Airbus A320 (the world’s first fly-by-wire commercial aircraft).  During this time he earned his MBA – his thesis being “The Accuracy of Stochastic Methods of Risk Assessment.”  His interest remained in examining “what can go wrong?”

In 1986, Dave was asked to become the General Manager of Systems Management Inc (SMI) in Orlando, Fl.  The company’s charter was to buy, obtain and manage troubled projects and operations.  SMI grew rapidly and achieved sales of over $25 million / year with 70 direct employees and “herds” of consultants.  After ten stressful years of analyzing and managing troubled projects and operations, it was jointly decided by the major players to break up the company once the current contracts were completed.  The engineering manager moved to Zurich, the contracts manager moved to Cocoa beach and Dave selected Ft. Wayne as the place to live (having never been there first).  Yes!  He left Orlando for Ft. Wayne and has never regretted it

Upon arrival in Ft. Wayne, Dave looked around for the local Project Management Institute (PMI) chapter. There wasn’t one!   Soon after, Mr. Maynard joined a group of interested parties and helped form the Northeast Indiana Chapter of PMI.  A charter was granted in 1997 and the chapter has been going strong ever since.
Currently Dave serves as the VP of Professional development, and offers an online PMP exam preparation class and frequently gives talks to local companies about “Managing by Projects.”  His current interests include designing and building a recumbent tricycle, writing a self-learning “Project Complexity” model for the web. And of course, helping people obtain their Project Management Certification.
Honors include

• Author of 5 original published papers all centered upon troubled projects.
• “The David Arthur Maynard” scholarship -- $2,000 granted each year by the NEIC to deserving college students
• Personal award from NASA prime crew for “keeping the computers running.”
• NASA presentation of an American flag flown aboard the first Shuttle mission