Conference Program

8:00am - 9:00am - Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:00am -10:00am
How to Design and Implement an Effective Project and Portfolio Management Program
Terry Doerscher, Chief Process Architect, Planview

Implementing an effective PPM program requires a holistic view and understanding of your environment.  The best way to start is with a current assessment of where your enterprise is today, where it wants to be and defining the IT strategy that is going to help move the business forward.  Although it is a complicated and involved process, if done correctly, it can help IT lead the rest of the organization for growth.

In this session you will learn how to:

• Define the current state of your organization

• Define what your organization should look like within the next five years

• Create a gap analysis between the current and future desired state

• Help define IT strategy to assist in making prioritization decisions

• How portfolio, program, project and service management framework work together

10:00am - 10:30am - Refreshment Break

10:30am - 11:30am

How to Plan and Prioritize Your Projects Within the Entire Enterprise Portfolio

Michael Menard, President, The GenSight Group

Prioritizing the projects of the enterprise requires understanding the business needs of all the other organizations.  This involves determining who the other stakeholders are.  With an enterprise-wide portfolio, all senior managers within the other units will need to be involved, whereas, with one unit the portfolio will be narrower.  Since IT touches every aspect of the business it is best to start with an approach of how IT can support the enterprise as a whole.

In this session attendees will learn:

• How to define the portfolio in terms all stakeholders can understand

• How to determine levels of priorities defined in terms of ‘non-negotiable’, business critical, high priority and ‘nice-to-haves’

• How to determine reasonable scheduling of work for each project

• How to agree on levels of support from other stakeholders

• How to prioritize the works across different business unites

11:30am - 12:30pm

How to Manage Your Portfolio Due to Internal Business/External Economic Changes

Michael Klynstra, Client Partner, Geneca

Steve Pieczko, Client Partner, Geneca

Given the recent changes in the economy, how do you adjust your portfolio to market conditions?  What projects should be cut?  Where should investments be shifted? How are timeframes affected?  Are you being asked to do more with less?

In this session attendees will learn:

• How to adjust the different variables of their PPM program to reflect the changes in the economy

• How to change the priorities of projects based on changes of business direction

• How to adjust projects to the changing needs of each department

• How to recalculate ROI of your PPM program in the face of a different economic environment

12:30pm - 1:30pm - Luncheon

1:30pm - 2:30pm 

Staying in Balance: How to Effectively Manage the Costs, Risk and Returns of Your PPM Program

Managing the costs, risk and returns can be a daunting task for any manager.  While the overall goal is to heavily invest in those projects that move the business forward, you still need to manage and invest in those projects that help ‘keep the lights on’.  What is the right level of balance between being aggressive to help fuel business growth while at the same time protecting the normal functions of the business?

In this session, attendees will learn:

• What is the appropriate level of risk with respect to each project?

• How to determine what % of funding, time and cost should be devoted to “business” forward projects versus business maintenance projects

• How to adjust costs risks and returns when one or more projects looks like they may not achieve projected results?

• If a project is extremely important to one department, but not another, is there a way for another departments to take on more risk?  What about IT chargebacks?

2:30pm - 3:00pm - Refreshment Break

3:00pm - 4:00pm

Measurements that Matter: How to Use Metrics to Determine the Performance of Your Portfolio
Susan Go, Solution Architect, PowerSteering Software, Inc.

The goal of PPM is to make sure that your projects are performing at high levels to support the needs of the business.  But with all the variables involved how do you accurately measure the success of your projects?  What data should you be using and how should you be using it for future directions?

In this session attendees will learn strategies and tactics for:

• Measuring project financial performance

• Measuring project schedule performance

• Metrics that articulate the sustainable value of the projects to the business

• How effective the involvement of teams outside of IT have been to the project

4:00pm - 5:00pm 

Overcoming the Challenge: How to Secure Management Buy-In for an Effective PPM Process

Moderator:

Panelists:

Randy Wimmer, IT Portfolio Manager, Allstate
Sergey Chernov, Assistant Director, IT Strategic Planning, Northeastern Illinois University

Exhibits

As is always the case at CAMP IT Conferences events, the talks will not include product presentations.  During the continental breakfast, coffee breaks, and the luncheon break you will have the opportunity to informally meet representatives from the following sponsoring companies, who have solutions in the area of the conference.