Next Chapter Meeting

Meeting Sponsor

Program

4:00  Registration table opens
4:30  Educational presentation
5:30  Networking
5:35  New member welcome meeting
6:00  Dinner & announcements
7:00  Keynote presentation

Location

Doubletree Lloyd Center, 1000 NE Multnomah, Portland, Oregon

Pick up your parking voucher at the registration table–Parking is FREE!

Room Change

Education meeting on the main floor near the base of the stairs (Morrison/Ross Island Room).  Dinner meeting is upstairs in the Mt. Hood/Mt. Bachelor/3 Sisters rooms.

October Menu

Chicken Marsala with Garlic Mashed Potatoes...OR...Wild Mushroom Ravioli, Balsamic and Sage Butter, with Roasted Vegetables

Praline Tart and Cinnamon Mousse

The Killer Competency–How a Soft Skill is the Hard Currency of Technical and Professional Productivity

Your ability to influence and resolve conflicts rests almost solely on your ability to communicate, to relate to and with people. The myth that this is solely an inborn talent, that technical professionals have an innate weakness in this area must be exploded. You can develop a higher level of competency in these skills. Kimi presents a practical and fun process where you can increase your level of professional and technical productivity.

About the Speaker

Kimi Hirotsu Ziemski, is president of Energizing Enterprises.  She has built a reputation for delivering projects, market requirements and revenue on time and within budget.  Her expertise in account management, product and project management resulted in awards year after year during her career.  She has taken her experience in project management and focused on the issues of emotional intelligence, higher level decision-making, communications and conflict resolution.

Ms. Hirotsu Ziemski contributed to the PMBOK Fourth Edition, wrote the first of a trio of books on leadership (second due out 1Q2013) and has been honored to present to the PMI Leadership teams for more than six years.

As a keynote speaker Kimi has focused on audiences of technical professionals and organizations.  Her audiences love the energy, take home workable techniques, and enjoy the unique take on the wisdom garnered over decades of experience and success.

The True Fundamentals of Project Management

Let's face it.  Project managers are too frequently thought of as “Geeks with Gantt charts.”  We are enamored with the tools and lingo of project management.  Admit it: what could be better than a great meeting focused on our BCWP and critical path and ETC with a little float thrown in.  Ahhhhh......

But is it enough to only understand and use the tools of project management to achieve project success?  Not really.  In fact, not at all.  Unless all of your projects only involve one person (you), projects virtually always involve gathering a team, evaluating options and determining the best course to achieve project objectives while dodging obstacles along the way, and then orchestrating the team so (almost) everybody is happy.  Good luck! 

Achieving the mission of project management takes an array of skills and a lot of discipline.  This talk distills project management life to five absolute fundamentals of project management.  These fundamentals are mostly behavioral in nature, and are a basic requirement for project management success.

The good news?  Being funny is not a fundamental of project management, so everybody has a chance.  But thankfully the talk includes some humor.

About the Speaker

Brad Hermanson, PE, PMP, MBA is a senior project manager with GEI Consultants, a 500-person consulting firm delivering integrated civil, geotechnical, environmental, water resources and ecological solutions from 30 offices to diverse clientele nationwide.

Brad has worked in the engineering consulting field for almost 30 years.  For virtually all of that time he has been a project manager.  He has either managed or provided project management support to some of the most complex environmental projects in the northwest. 

Brad has served in a leadership role directing project delivery operations at a regional or firmwide level for several consulting firms.  For over four years he served as Director of Project Delivery and Quality for a 550-person consulting firm in the northwest.  That position allowed him to immerse himself in a real-life laboratory of project delivery.  He has provided consulting to numerous project delivery organizations seeking to improve their project delivery practices.

Brad is passionate about teaching and giving back to the profession that he has enjoyed.  He is a frequent and enthusiastic speaker and trainer, helping aspiring and practicing project managers to understand the best practices of project management.   He co-taught the risk management section of the PMI Portland Chapter PMP training program for almost 10 years, and has been the keynote or educational presenter at numerous PMI chapter meetings and roundtables.