2016 Annual Conference Call for Speakers

2016 ac web header new 

Welcome to the 15th year of our Annual Conference, presented by the Project Management Institute–Portland Chapter.

This event, held once a year, is our largest educational experience for the project management community. Attendees come to this conference to grow their knowledge, learn from other practitioners, and hear about products and services which support the project management profession and their career goals.

Last year we closed registration at 400 participants. This year we are excited to announce a larger venue and a 2-day format, with an expected gathering of 500 attendees. 

This year’s program features opening and closing panels or keynotes each day.  In addition, there are seven invited speakers.  This call is for an additional seven selected speakers on the first day of the conference.

Top 10 reasons to become a speaker at this year’s conference:

  1. Showcase your knowledge/expertise in areas of interest to project management professionals, executives managing strategic initiatives and an emerging project management professional audience.
  2. Connect with decision makers and key influencers resulting in new contacts and networking opportunities.
  3. Get publicity through the PMI e-mail distribution of 5,700+ project professionals receiving e-mails and monthly newsletters through conference marketing. 
  4. Be featured as a speaker on our Annual Conference website.
  5. Gain exposure to experienced project management professionals and executives managing strategic initiatives using multiple, complex programs and projects as the vehicle for those initiatives.
  6. Gain credibility through success with PMI Portland Chapter and through “word of mouth” referrals.
  7. Gain the potential for additional invitations to speak at PMI events and with other local area organizations interested in the ideas you are presenting.
  8. Make a contribution back to the professional community.
  9. If you feel that the project management profession needs to change, this is your opportunity to get your ideas out directly to project management professionals.
  10. Be part of the largest annual event in the PMI Portland Chapter.

Deadline for application is May 15, 2016  See How to Apply, below. 


About the Annual Conference

Although this years conference spans 2-days, we will only be soliciting speakers for the first day. Day one will be a traditional style conference day with keynote speakers, panel discussions and 5 speaker tracks. Day two will be an Open Space conference day with breakout sessions being facilitated by conference members. And, the actual topics for the breakout sessions will not be known until they are presented by interested attendees on the morning of the conference day itself. See "DAY 2" below for a more detailed description of the process itself.

Location

The Oregon Convention Center
777 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd
Portland, OR 97232

DAY 1

5 Conference Tracks, 15 Breakout Sessions

Leadership Track

Focus: Project Managers must often be change agents and are always leading. Leadership is the ability to articulate a vision and guide or influence others to help achieve that objective. This track will focus on the knowledge, skills and behaviors specific to motivating and guiding others.

Topics to Consider:

  • Negotiation
  • Communication
  • Motivation
  • Team building
  • Problem solving
  • Conflict resolution

Business Strategy Track

Focus:  Strategic and Business Management is the ability to connect the dots between your work and larger organizational strategy to drive project outcomes. This track focuses on the knowledge of and expertise in the industry or organization that enhances performance and better delivers business outcomes.

Topics to Consider:

  • Business acumen
  • Finance
  • Operational functions – e.g. marketing, legal
  • Strategic planning/alignment
  • Contract management
  • Complexity management

Technical Track

Focus:  This track focuses on the knowledge, skills and behaviors related to specific domains of project, program and portfolio management or the technical aspects of performing one’s job/role.

Topics to Consider:

  • Requirements gathering techniques
  • Techniques to improve your WBS
  • Project controls and scheduling
  • Risk management
  • Scope management
  • Advanced project management

Agile Track

Focus:  Agile is at the forefront of change in project management practice. New frameworks, principles, practices, and deep theory are emerging in the project management space. This track will focus on how to support and improve team level, project level, and organizational agility overall. Project managers are eager to understand this new domain.

Topics to Consider:

  • Experience reports
  • Scrum, Scrum‐hybrids, XP, and Kanban
  • The project manager in Agile-aspiring organizations
  • Retrospective methods
  • Multi-team Agile projects
  • Working with distributed Agile teams

Business Analysis Track

Focus:  Poor requirements elicitation and elaboration is one of the top two reasons projects fail. The role of the business analyst in traditional project management and the practice of building and maintaining a high quality product backlog in Agile project management are key interests of contemporary project managers. This track focuses on practices and models for ensuring the right thing gets defined and delivered to project stakeholders.

Topics to Consider:

  • Business problem definition and analysis
  • Requirements decomposition techniques
  • Models for supporting collaboration between project teams and customers
  • Practices that streamline requirements gathering and management

DAY 2

Open Space Meeting

Welcome to our first Open Space conference day in the history of the PMI-Portland Chapter! Open Space Technology is an approach to organizing meetings that has been in existence for over 30 years now. It is a framework that lets a group of people create the event schedule in real time, focusing entirely on what the actual attendees want to hear, share and talk about—the problems they want to solve and the ideas they have to solve them.

Some of the inspiring side effects are contagious laughter, hard work which feels like play, surprising results and fascinating questions.


How to Apply

Speaker submissions are reviewed on a competitive basis by the Annual Conference Speaker Selection Committee.

Potential Speakers are required to complete the online Speaker's Proposal Application Form — click here.

Deadline for application is May 15, 2016.

Speaker Guidelines

  • Topic and message must deliver education value and be focused on providing skills and/or participant action items which will give or improve project/program management competencies. 
  • The Speaker Committee will select speakers based on the most appropriate topics, the speaker's experience as a professional speaker, and references supplied by members, the speakers and other sources. 
  • Speakers should refrain from giving any sales pitches or sale promotions during the presentation.  Handouts are acceptable but should be congruent with message and approved in advance by the speaker committee. Handout replication is the responsibility of the speaker.
  • All speakers are expected to adhere to the PMI Code of Ethics.
  • The PMI Portland Chapter does not distribute member information so many speakers collect business cards via a raffle item basket.  This should be discussed in advance with the Speaker Committee. 
  • We do not provide honoraria to track speakers. Speakers are expected to cover  travel and hotel expenses. Special registration instructions will be provided to those selected by the Speakers Committee