Project Management Conference Presenters

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about the new project management conference The College of St. Scholastica is co-sponsoring. This conference will take place October 16th and 17th at Central Lakes College in Brainerd, Minnesota. The conference features presentations from project managers across the area.

Now that I recruited the presenters for the conference I thought I would share the lineup of the conference presenters. Below is a list of presenters (myself included) that will present at the Central Minnesota Conference on Project Management. If you would like to attend the conference, you can register on our conference website.

• Becoming a Better Project Manager - Brandon Olson, Ph.D., PMPAn overview of project management competencies and preparing a professional development plan.
• Optimizing Stakeholder Management - Beth Olson, M.Ed.
  Fostering relationships with even the most challenging project stakeholders and the value of these relationships bring to the project.
• Effective Time Management - Chad McCoy, M.A.
  Techniques for improving your team's time management capabilities.
• Organizational Transformation to Agile - Hasnain Somji, M.S., PMP
  Experiences and outcome of moving from traditional to agile project management.
• Dictator to Coach - Kathleen Bartels, M.A.
  Discussion on the differences of the traditional project managers and a scrum coach.
• Designing, Evaluating, and Maintaining Effective Project Teams - Kathy Modin, M.A.
  Hands-on experience with several techniques and tools for effective and cohesive project teams.
• Effective Team Building - David Swenson, Ph.D., LP
  Review of the team factors related to project team success and failure and a model for team building.
• Preparing People for Change - Kent Lacy, Ed.D., PMP
  Project management solutions and tools for understanding, planning, managing, and implementing change in the organization.

Passed My PMP

It has been awhile since I last posted to the blog and there is a reason for this. Over the past few weeks I have been spending my free time preparing to sit for my Project Management Professional (PMP) exam. This past Monday I completed the exam and passed! I am now a certified Project Management Professional.

In preparing to take the exam I decided to use a book rather than the training/boot camp courses offered by many firms. In addition to reading through the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) book I also purchased a copy of Rita Mulcahy's PMP Exam Prep book. Between these two sources I was able to feel prepared to take the examination.

When conversing with other individuals with a PMP I found that each of us used a different means to prepare for the exam. Some, like me, used a type of training book, others attended classes, and others used training materials offered through their workplace. So there are many ways to prepare for the exam and it seems that it is best to pick the resources that you feel will best prepare you for the exam.