Calendar

February 19 | 6:00-7:30 pm 
Virtual Chapter Meeting
1.5 PDUs (Power Skills) Self Reporting

The first 15 minutes will be focused on chapter information / upcoming events, followed by our learning topic: Managing Difficult People and Projects

When was the last time that you worked on a project under perfect conditions? That’s to say that there were no constraints, such as  

• Resources (Human, Material, and Money/Budget)  

• Time  

• Scope  

All of the unlimited resources were available at your beck and call. You had more monetary resources (budget) than you could spend. You had so many people (human resources) clambering to get on the project that you had to turn people away. And all of your materials, such as software and hardware, arrived on time, was installed without any problems, and was ready to run out of the box. There were no delivery dates or deadlines. And the project scope/requirements never changed because scope creep never occurred. Or you were able to change the deadline to correspond with scope changes.  

Chances are great, that you worked on projects that went through the “perfect storm.” You faced resource problems. Too little money was allocated, the money evaporated too quickly, or the budget was cut for more important projects. Hardware was delivered late and there were problems with installing the software. And you either didn’t have enough people, the right people weren’t available, and/or you experienced turnover of key people during the project. Furthermore, you faced the quagmire of an unmovable deadline and a movable scope. For the most part, we must manage projects during the perfect storm.  

This presentation is based on over thirty years of first-hand experience in managing highly visible IT projects and directing films. The projects were for small businesses, Fortune 500 companies, quasi-governmental, and governmental agencies. The documentaries won over thirty film festival awards in the US, Canada, Sweden, and India.  

Sometimes, our ship capsized during the storm (i.e. the project was abandoned). Other times, we sailed through the storm and survived (i.e. the project was in trouble, but we recovered and it was implemented on time). And we even sailed around the storm and had the perfect project (i.e. a $12 million project was completed for $2.6 million). 

Learning Objectives:

1. Historical overview of projects (and project managers). 
2. Dealing with executive or stakeholder bullies (i.e. narcissists).
3. Manage the negative, victim mentality.

Exercises:

1. Breaking the project manager stereotype – Do stakeholders have positive impressions about project managers? This exercise shows how to create positive stakeholders perceptions about the individual project manager.  
2. Teaching business requirements to executives – This exercise demonstrates the use of the “transfer of learning concept” to illustrate the challenges and complexity of writing business requirements by using an every day activity.
3. Teaching business requirements to executives – This exercise demonstrates the use of the “transfer of learning concept” to illustrate the challenges and complexity of writing business requirements by using an every day activity.

About Our Speaker: Anthony Reed

Anthony Reed, CPA, PMP is a true polymath and excelled in several very diverse areas. 

• Business - Fortune 500 international information technology executive. 
• Academia – Two undergraduate degrees. Two graduate degrees. Management, accounting, and technology adjunct professor. 

• Sports - World history making marathoner with running clothes and other artifacts in the Smithsonian Museum. Two-time national distance running hall of fame inductee. 

• Filmmaking - Thirty-six-time, international award-winning documentary writer, director, and videographer. 

 This high achiever has delivered rock solid, practical advice to over 15,000 professionals and executives throughout the USA, Canada, Brazil, and Europe. 

 He received the 2024 President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition Hero Award. He has appeared in publications, including USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, PMI Today, ESPN’s The Undefeated, Runner’s World, and the Journal of Accountancy. He has authored over fifty articles and six books. More information is available at Reed-CPA.com.