Simulation Powered Learning

ZENTANGLE®
2022-06-10 00:00 UTC
BRIAN TOREN
None scheduled at this time
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

This webinar introduces you to an art and meditation form called Zentangle®. You will learn some of the basic steps required to create the drawings and be provided sources of information for learning more.

Through the meditative aspects, Zentangle® may:

Reduce stress and anxiety at work and in your personal life
Be useful as an anger management tool, like counting to 10
Increase focus
Be useful to insomniacs

Zentangle® is also a fascinating art form which:

Inspires and releases creativity by bringing out the artist in you
Provides artistic satisfaction
Develops or restores fine motor skills in the young, old and infirm
Is intuitive

TOOLS FOR FUTURIST
2022-06-10 00:00 UTC
STEVE TROUTMAN
None scheduled at this time
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

Futuring, or “foresight” as it is becoming known, is the disciplined study of the future. It utilizes some techniques that are different from those used in normal business forecasting and strategy development and planning. We will describe a few of the unique foresight methodologies and tools, and discuss how the techniques are used in practice. You leave with knowledge that you can apply to business or personal life.
Stephen Troutman is a Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Facilitator, and Community Volunteer.

As a Futurist, since 1999, he is on regular speaker and member of both the Minnesota Futurists and the World Future Society.
At IBM for 33 years, Steve held a number of management and professional positions in transformation consulting, organization change, process leadership, and sales.
As a US Naval Reservist for 23 years, he was the Commanding Officer of four units, and attained the rank of Captain.
As a keynote speaker and facilitator he shares his depth of knowledgeable in consulting methodologies, change management, process improvement, team facilitation, and managing remote teams.
As a community volunteer he serves on the Boards of Director of four organizations, including his current role as President of the Board of the Rochester Art Center, a world class, a contemporary art museum.

Steve Troutman is the co-author of the book: Remote Control: A Practitioner’s Guide to Managing Virtual Teams (IHRIM Press 2005). Steve has a BS in Management and an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Venture Management both from the University of Southern California.

Why Implementation Fails March 13,2019
2019-03-13 00:00 UTC
Irina Fursman
March 13, 2019
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

We all have nightmare like experiences trying to implement projects and initiatives on time and on budget. There are few instances when it worked. What happens in another 90% of the time? People get in the way!
In this session you will learn a simple framework that allows people to get on the same page early in the process, provides clarity about the expectations, gain buy-in and ensure accountability.
ToP Action Planning process is a participatory approach to project planning, widely used by hundreds of practitioners in both government and private sector.

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Irina Fursman is Chief Facilitator and OD Practitioner at HueLife, an organization development, training and facilitation firm that focuses on human understanding and engagement as a core strategy for change. Her work includes a variety of strategic consulting services with national and international organizations, where she teaches the art and science of facilitation, engagement and strategic thinking.

ASSESSING THE AGILE MINDSET - February 13,2019
2019-02-13 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
Colleen O’Neill
February 13, 2019
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

Facing competitive pressure, many organizations launch an initiative based adoption of Agile practices. Often they launch without preparation to support complex agile team configurations at the enterprise level. Organizational impediments can hinder team productivity. Hearing the voice of the team through the lenses of performance, leadership, culture, foundation and clarity will help grow an Agile team environment that is fully supported in process refinement and engaged leadership. Assessing the Agile Mindset can be approached by several methods. These methods will be discussed in terms of trust, transparency and growth potential. In this session we will examine:
• Real world pain points that hinder achievement of the Agile value
• A framework for growth: measure, evaluate, grow • Case study results
• Additional resources

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Colleen O’Neill, PMP, CSM, SP 4.0, CCMP, is an Agile Practice Leader for SPL. In this role Colleen brings outstanding strategist experience specializing in innovation for process improvement and IT delivery. With over 25 years of experience as a portfolio, program and project professional, she has developed a unique blend of technology expertise, leadership and business strategy perspective to provide innovative solutions to meet business needs.

SCALING AGILE WITH SAFE
2018-12-06 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
SAMIR PENKAR
December 6, 2018
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

Organizations are trying to increase their internal speed and flexibility by shedding current bureaucratic governance models and structures. These organizations are looking at Agile as a potential “answer” to becoming faster and flexible.
Agile principles have proven effective for software development at a team level, but can they do the same at the organizational level?
How do you scale agile principles and practices across the enterprise?
In this webinar we will introduce Scaled Agile Framework – SAFe and attempt to answer these questions.
In the pursuit of enterprise agility, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) offers a framework that you can customize for your organization.
In this webinar we will:

Introduce the Scaled Agile Framework – SAFe – what is it?
Share a few key scaling agile concepts.
Look at some case studies of companies who have successfully applied SAFe.

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Samir Penkar, SAFe SPC, CSM, PMP, Product Owner. As an avid evangelist for agile practices, Samir Penkar attended the first SAFe 4.0 training program led by SAFe founder Dean Leffingwell. He has more than a decade of experience in program and project management leading and running agile initiatives. Samir is the author of the program management book From Projects to Programs. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Fox9 News and has presented on project management topics throughout the world.

THE ART OF NEGOTIATION
2018-12-05 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
John Kaman
December 5, 2018
1:00-2:00 CT
1PDU
Negotiation is a skill we utilize on a daily basis both in business and in our personal lives. We typically use negotiation to achieve an outcome that will satisfy both ourselves and the other party. On a project team, we are typically negotiating with stakeholders, customers and team members. This presentation will cover the key concepts and processes of effective negotiation. The focus is on helping you build a firm foundation and skill set
John Kaman, is a long-time guide and curriculum contributor for SPL’s project management simulation workshops, as he discusses this important topic. John, is the founder of Whitewater Coaching & Consulting; he is a PMP, management coach, mentor and educator. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota teaching in the Masters of Computer Science. John holds a Masters degree in Psychology/Human Development, a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a certificate in Professional Personal Coaching.

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Five Key Steps to Effective Requirements Management Webinar
2018-11-05 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
BILL JOHNSON
Project success starts and ends with knowing and understanding what the stakeholders require.
The Five Key Steps to Effective Requirements Management webinar will closely exam what every project manager needs to be successful in managing requirements on their projects.
The presentation provides a solid understanding of how to exhaustively elicit, accurately analyze, definitely approve, and thoroughly manage requirements by looking at global best practices put forth by PMI.
REGISTER HERE
Bill Johnson, PMP, MSPM, is a project management consultant and educator. He is an Adjunct Professor and Teaching Fellow at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in the Project Management Masters Degree program.
He has 15 years as an independent project manager and consultant where he has worked for clients including American Rhodes Trust and The State of Minnesota. As a contractor, Bill has extensive experience negotiating with fellow contractors and clients alike.

STEPS TO BECOMING A MEMORABLE LEADER
2018-10-01 13:00 - 14:00 UTC
FLOYD CARLSON
OCTOBER 1, 2018
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

The shift that is driving leaders to become more impactful is that we all desire more consciousness and connection in our lives, and especially from our leaders. We are yearning to feel inspired, but are often surrounded by poor examples of leadership. We see everything from leaders leaving a legacy of long lasting emotional scars to many leaders being average at best and being unmemorable. When I ask the question, what percentage of the leaders in your career, would you want to work for again, I get less than 27%.
Two key elements are making leaders unmemorable. First, they do not know how to be an impactful leader because they never had a positive example in their career to follow. Second, they have not shifted their own perception to truly believe they are a leader and embrace it. They get occupied with administering tasks and not making connections that move people to be their best.

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Floyd Carlson is the author of “Conscious Leadership In Action!” (Panoma Press, 2015). Floyd is presently a business executive serving as Director Talent Management and Acquisition for a manufacturing company Greenheck. Prior to this position he spent fifteen years in Belgium working for Cisco Systems in various Operations Leadership roles for Cisco’s Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia organization. He led a number of cross-cultural teams in Cisco focused on solving customers’ most important business problems.
Floyd has been leading teams for over 27 years. Prior to Cisco, he served 13 years in the US Army and was an Airborne, Ranger, Infantry Officer, who served in Germany, Operations Desert Storm, Panama and commanded two companies in the 101st Airborne Division.

HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS ARE ESSENTIAL TO CONCURRENT PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT SUCCESS
2018-09-05 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
ROB BEACHY
SEPTEMBER 5, 2017
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

Concurrent Product Development and Concurrent Engineering are successful because of effective “cross-functional” teaming, a sixty year old concept that is still evolving and changing with technology and global teaming.
Concurrent product development is not just doing tasks in parallel, but focusing on project definition, cross-functional teaming and constant refinement of the final product based on end user requirements. Cross-functional teams are the key to accelerating innovation, reducing time to market and delivery the right product or service to the end user.
The Webinar will provide insight into how high performance teams establish the following to make Concurrent Product Development and Concurrent Engineering successful:

Establishing Goals, Objectives and Process/Project Management
Defining Roles and Responsibilities
Identifying and Dealing with Barriers
Managing Interpersonal relationship

Robert W. Beachy, NPDP, MBM, ME – Rob is the CTO and a founder Axiom. Rob is a PDMA certified New Product Development Professional and consultant whose resume includes over 25 years in New Product Development, Product Management, Marketing Management, Brand Management, Organic Chemistry, Operations, Engineering and R&D efforts at General Electric, Gould(GNB), and The Toro Company.
He has coauthored many articles on product development, a JPIM article Experimental Education in New Product Design and Business Development, advanced market research techniques, knowledge management and the culture of continuous innovation.

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Fixing Project Pain Points
2018-08-01 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
CHUCK STAKSTON
AUGUST 1, 2018
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

The lessons learned from project teams over the past few years have shown there are common pain points that exist. These pain points show up on all types of projects and inflict pain for both the Project Manager and the team members. This data shows the pain points cluster around communications, scope, time and resources. If we dig into the root causes we can find that there are opportunities for us to fix these pain points and transform our teams into the high performance teams we desire. Learning Objectives: • Explore the primary sources of pain for Project Managers and Team Members • Discover how the PMI 10 Knowledge Areas provide context for Root Cause Analysis • Identify pain-point fixes using the available processes, tools, techniques or approaches that will address root cause

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Chuck Stakston has worked for 3M for 39 years. He has lead projects for 35 of those years.
9 Years – Project Management Consulting Services – LSSO
17 years – R&D, NPI Manager – Medical Division
13 years – Manufacturing – Medical Division
Certifications / Licenses
Project Management Professional (PMP®) through PMI®
Licensed Professional Engineer – Chemical Engineering (Minnesota)
Education:
BS Chemical Engineering, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND
MBA, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN

Dancing To Better Leadership
2018-07-18 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
Past webinar – Dancing To Better Leadership

July 18, 2018
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

Did you know that dancers use the same soft skills that are required to be an effective leader?
These skills include:

Connecting through good communications, being both an effective leader and follower
Maintaining keen situational awareness and adaptability
Building a high performance team.

Join us to explore how enjoying a social activity can be a fun way to experience and build leadership skills.

Sandy Haydon, PMP, is a teaching associate of SPL (Simulation Powered Learning) and an active member of PMI MN.
She has 40 years of experience with IBM (in Rochester, MN) in operating system development projects and working with companies providing software for IBM systems. Since IBM, she has been a team coach with Whitewater Coaching and Consulting, the presenter for a video learning series “Preparing for Project Management Certification”, and an instructor for PMI MN’s PMP Certification class.
After retirement, Sandy decided to take a few ballroom dance lessons. One thing led to another and now she owns a dance studio. She has learned there are many personal benefits to dancing, plus skills used in dancing are like those skills used in business.

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NEGOTIATIONS IN A PROJECT ENVIRONMENT
2018-07-11 13:00 - 14:00 (America/Chicago)
BILL JOHNSON
JULY 11, 2017
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

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Is sitting down at the negotiating table scary? Not sure how to strike the best deal? Let’s take the mystery out of negotiations and develop the confidence to achieve the best possible agreement. This webinar will look at the various tools and techniques that will help ensure success at the negotiating table. It will begin with a look at the theory behind negotiating and its various strategies. Followed by a look at the three styles of negotiators along with tactics that they employee. It concludes with a look at how culture impacts negotiations, and how this all is incorporated into project management. Join us for a highly informative and engaging look at removing the mystery around negotiating.
Learning Objectives:

Exploring the theory behind negotiations and its various strategies.
Finding out the various styles of negotiators and their tactics.
Looking at how the culture of various countries impact negotiations.
Discovering how and when various strategies, styles and tactics should be used in project management.

Bill Johnson, PMP, MSPM, is a project management consultant and educator. He is an Adjunct Professor and Teaching Fellow at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in the Project Management Masters Degree program.
He has 15 years as an independent project manager and consultant where he has worked for clients including American Rhodes Trust and The State of Minnesota. As a contractor, Bill has extensive experience negotiating with fellow contractors and clients alike.

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AGILE BEYOND SCRUM
2018-06-05 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
June 5, 2018
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

As we all know, agile adoption is on the rise and scrum is a very popular flavor of agile. As agile teams and organizations adopt scrum, they commonly run into:

Gotchas/challenges that many teams/organizations encounter
Unique gotchas due to a team’s specific situation
Situations where teams create a new rigid process, that in an often subtle sense, breaks a fundamental concept of agile

However they get there, in long run, teams learn and find their way to function as an effective scrum team. At that point, they may wonder, what’s next? How can we get better?
In this session, we will cover some of those common gotchas and brainstorm how to identify them and how to deal with them. This will lead us to — What is next? In the second half of the webinar we will explore ideas and mindset that can make a scrum team awesome.

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PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE FOR PROJECT MANAGERS
2018-05-11 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
KAY QUINN
MAY 11, 2018
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

According to the Project Management Institute, “When your organization is good at change, twice as many of your strategic initiatives are successful.” Every project introduces some degree of change. For you as the project manager, the secret is acknowledging that change and preparing to address it both proactively and reactively. In this webinar, we will introduce successful strategies for tackling change using basic psychology, proven tools and real life stories.
We will focus primarily on stakeholder and communication management, with considerations around risk and team makeup. Topics include:

All projects are not created equal
What causes resistance?
Working with those affected by the change
Who are your change agents?
Your communication plan “on steroids”

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Kay Quinn, PMP, MBA has over thirty years of leadership experience in all facets of project management, as well as strategic planning and organizational change. Kay has been a career Project Manager; highlights include managing multi-million dollar projects, leading Senior Project Managers, establishing corporate project management offices (PMOs), and performing quality assessments of strategic, high risk initiatives.
Kay has extensive experience in teaching, facilitation, and public speaking in global corporate settings, conferences, and in the university classroom. She has served as adjunct professor for the University of St Thomas Executive Education Program teaching the Mini Masters of Project Management.
Kay is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) through the internationally-recognized Project Management Institute (PMI®) and served on the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Chapter. She received both her Undergraduate and Executive MBA degrees from the University of Minnesota-Carlson School of Business.

AGILE ORGANIZATIONAL RUBS & ANTI PATTERNS
2018-04-19 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
GEOF LORY
APRIL 19, 2018
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

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Change means giving up old behaviors and adopting new ones. When organization or teams start on a journey to adopt agile, both practices and mindset, these new behaviors can create some friction with established and comfortable behaviors. Recognizing where these “rubs” will occur and the all too common anti-patterns typically adopted to address them can prepare managers and teams for this change. If you’ve ever been in a discussion and found yourself saying, “But we can’t do that here.” or Yeah, we tried that too; didn’t work for us, either!”, then you have experienced either a rub or an anti-patterns.
Teams and organizations that are new to Agile often face some common challenges. Through trial and error they attempt to adjust and resolve these issues. Agile will challenge existing policies and processes that are comfortable but may not be getting the desired results. Often, what seem to be logical and prudent responses actually produce a result that is the opposite of the desired outcome creating more problems than it solves. These solutions that seem to make sense but in practice don’t work are called anti-patterns. In this session we will examine numerous Agile Organizational Rubs and Anti-patterns that are commonly encountered, why they would seem to work and why they don’t, along with suggestions for solutions that truly do work.

Geof Lory is a SPL instructor and Board member. He is a project manager, consultant, trainer and writer. With more than 30 years of practical experience in the Information Technology field, Geof integrates the unique aspects of software development and infrastructure deployment projects into both Agile and traditional project management disciplines.
Geof is an engaging speaker and trainer with more than 30 years of practical project management consulting experience. He is the Product Owner for the SPL PM and Agile/Scrum Simulations and is certified to deliver various other team, leadership and project management curricula. He is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and an Agile Certified Professional (ACP) from PMI as well as a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) from the Scrum Alliance.

AN INTRODUCTION TO KANBAN
2018-03-07 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
JIM BROWN
MARCH 7, 2018
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

The concepts Kanban, originally developed in Japan as a scheduling and inventory control system in the Toyota Production System, can transform management of modern knowledge work. But what does Kanban really mean for knowledge work? In this webinar we will introduce some of the key concepts of Kanban as an lean/agile work management and process improvement tool for your organization.
We will discuss the basics of:

Getting started
Setting up a Kanban board
Visualizing your work
Establishing work in process limits
Managing flow in a pull system
Using Kanban as a tool for process improvement

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Jim Brown, CSPO, CSM, PMI-ACP, PMP is a SPL instructor and brings over 20 years of experience in software development and information technology leadership to his agile training and coaching. Jim has provided technical leadership, strategy, process design, and detailed technical services to clients in a wide variety of industries including Finance, Banking, Insurance, Government, Transportation, Health Care, and Educational Software.
Jim is certified to deliver all the SPL Agile training in addition to various other project management curricula. Jim holds the Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Certified Scrum Practitioner/professional (CSP), Scaled Agile Process Consultant (SPC4), Project Management Professional (PMP), and Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certifications.

STOP MANAGING START COACHING!
2017-12-20 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
JOHN KAMAN
DECEMBER 20, 2017
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

CREATE A TEAM TO WHICH PEOPLE WANT TO BELONG! Stop managing and start coaching! Coaching is the ability to bring out the best in people. It is the ability to work with a diverse set of team members to help them be creative, empowered and motivated. Coaching is the art of asking powerful questions and using powerful language so that the person being coached will come up with answers for him or herself. The focus is on helping your team members to be resourceful and accountable while getting the job done. Join us for an engaging and interactive presentation
Key Learning Objectives:

Discover the difference between traditional management and coaching
Find out how and why coaching works
Learn how to develop powerful questions and how to hold people accountable
Building rapport, a key to developing strong relationships
Tips on how to develop a group into a team

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John Kaman PMP, is a management coach, mentor and educator. He the president of Whitewater Coaching & Consulting, also teaches at the University of Minnesota and is an associate at SPL. John has 22 years of experience in Research and Development Management with both 3M Company and Imation. He holds a Masters degree in Psychology/Human Development, a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a certificate in Professional Personal Coaching.

PROJECT COMMUNICATION
2017-11-15 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
SANDY HAYDON
NOVEMBER 15, 2017
1:00-2:00 PM CT
1 PDU

Everyone agrees that good communication is important for project success. Yet, how many of us actually plan for communication in our projects? Or, do we just “let it happen”?
Successful projects require a documented plan for communicating with all people on the project, including but not limited to: project managers, team members, stakeholders, vendors and support people. Once the individuals are identified, it’s important to identify what type of information needs to be shared, how it will be shared, and when we communicate.
Join us to explore the components and complexities of building a project communication plan.
We will cover:

Who to communicate to?
What to communicate?
When and how often to communicate?
How to select the best media (in person, phone, email, etc.)
As well as other considerations, such as location (the next office, across the country, or around the world), cultures, and generational differences.

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Sandy Haydon is is a SPL instructor and a team coach with Whitewater Coaching and Consulting. She is an active member of PMI MN and was the project manager for the PMI MN project to update their PMP Certification course for the PMBOK Guide 5th Edition..
She has 40 years of experience with IBM (in Rochester, MN) in operating system development projects and working with companies providing software for IBM systems. Since IBM, she has been a team coach with Whitewater Coaching and Consulting.
Sandy holds a BA in Mathematics and a MA in Management became a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) in 1998, an IBM Senior Certified Project Manager in 2004, and an Authorized Facilitator of Team Coaching International’s Team Diagnostic TM assessment tool in 2010.
