PAPER PRESENTATIONS
(White Papers) - April 4

Corporate Merger - Challenges and Lessons

Ian is an Information Technology professional with over thirty years experience in: executive management, senior project management, business process reengineering, strategic planning, government procurement, resource management and logistics. He is also ITIL certified. He is a seasoned government professional coupled with demonstrated success in the telecommunications and insurance technology business, private consulting practice, and large Enterprise Resource Planning (JDE) implementations.

The presentation will walk the audience through the events of a merger where a Western Canadian Company buys a Central Canadian Company that is culturally different and geographically diverse. The challenges include merging a customer driven organization with financial instability with a fiscally prudent organization that tends to be slow to react.

The presentation will highlight what the executive sets out as objectives, what communications it issues, and what governance it creates. It will examine the challenges that are then faced by the project managers and mid level managers to deliver on the executives' vision. There will then be an opportunity to discuss actions that were taken which were both successful and unsuccessful. Further, the importance of appropriate communication and clear requirements will be illustrated.

Brenda is the CEO of EXP Consulting Limited, a Project Management Training and Consulting firm. She has experience in both the public and private sectors including 10 years experience in delivering a variety of Project Management training seminars and providing project management consulting services. She is experienced in proposal writing and conducting research. As well, Brenda has published papers and abstracts in refereed journals. Education and Credentials include: M.Sc. - University of British Columbia, RD - Registered Dietitian, PMP, Project Management Professional

OPM3 is a systematic approach to the management of Projects, Programs and Portfolios to align them with the strategic objectives of the Organization. There is a link between an organization's ability to achieve its strategy and its capabilities in Project management, Program management and Portfolio management.

OPM3 allows organizations to understand organizational project management and measure their maturity against a broad-based set of organizational project management Best Practices. There are nearly 600 Best Practices.

OPM3 requires the application of three basic elements: Knowledge, Assessment and Improvement. The ability for an organization to plan for improvement is what makes OMP3 unique and advantageous. OPM3 is integrated with the processes identified in the Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge.

An organization can evaluate where they are on the OPM3 continuum and plan for improvements using the Best Practices identified by the Project Management Institute. Then, the organization can re-evaluate their improvement periodically using the tool and compare the results. This session will provide an overview of the OPM3 model and share a practical application of the tool.

Project manager with SAIC Canada. Some recent projects:

• clinical information system implementations for SHIN, Regina, Canada
• network implementations and conversions for SHIN, Regina, Canada
• HIPAA remediation project for CHRISTUS Health, San Antonio, USA
• pilot site implementations for new business-class network for ANX, Detroit, USA

President of CIPS SK - Leading efforts to obtain legislation to protect the I.S.P. designation, expected this year.

PMP and I.S.P professional designations BSc, IMBA, and now working toward PhD in Project Management

"The underlying theory of project management is obsolete" - L. Koskela & G. Howell
"Project management theory remains stuck in a 1960s time warp" - P. Morris
"What are needed then are

• new ways of looking at modern, complex projects,
• new models and techniques for analysing them,
• new methods for managing them - in fact,
• new paradigms to underlie our approach to them" - T. Williams

In this session we will review some of the conventional ideas of project management, types of problems being experienced, some of the new ideas being proposed to address those problems, and look at how it affects you.

Barb Laing has over 30 years of project management experience mainly in the Information Technology area and also in the amalgamation of business between companies (transition management). Barb was the General Manager of Canada Life's Regina Operation. With the take-over by Great West Barb moved on to the role of project management consultant.

This presentation will take the journey of Barb's career from project manager to general manager to consultant. She will explain how the leadership skills that she learned as a project manager helped her move to the general manager role. What were the key skills and what do you need to focus on. She will also explain the differences between management skills and leadership skills. Now as a consultant what of those leadership skills are helping her in her current position. A small individual exercise will be done so that participants can decide what skills they should focus for the next step in their career.

Originally from Southern Ontario, Jennifer has spent the past 24 years in Regina. As an employee at Wascana Energy, Jennifer participated in the implementation of 3 financial systems, the final one as Project Manager. As a consultant in the Regina area since 1997, Jennifer has been the Project Manager for several multi-million dollar IT projects, all with geographically dispersed team members.

Co-location has long been lauded as one of the factors contributing to success in IT projects. In today's age of instant communications around the world, and our ever increasing reliance on 'experts' in various technologies or software, co-location has become wishful thinking. More and more, our IT projects involve individuals from many locations, or small teams in several different locations. This adds another realm of complexity to our already complex projects.

This presentation will highlight some of the communication problems and challenges that arise when managing a project that has its team members in several locations, and offers some strategies for avoiding, controlling, and managing these challenges.

Lorne Brown has been involved in Information Technology for his entire professional life, working in various marketing, support, operational and strategic capacities. He now manages the Information Systems group at Saskatchewan Liquor & Gaming Authority (SLGA). Throughout his career he has been convinced time and time again, that the establishment of quality relationships is absolutely necessary - before the inevitable major obstacles occur. Lorne has been involved in various SLGA Leadership programs and has facilitated numerous teambuilding and role clarification sessions for the organization.

As a Project Manager you spend vast amounts of effort working with your team and those outside your project. All of these people have the ability to affect your project's success. When these relationships are going well - "We are doing a great job." When things are not going so well - "They just don't seem to get it." In this session you will learn about the Drama Triangle and how easily it is to get drawn into a "He said.. They did.. She should.." relationship. Learn how you can recognize you are on the Triangle, and what you can do to establish your own personal blueprint that will allow you to be the person you want to be.