Keynote Speakers

Morning Keynote

David Dye and Karin HurtBuilding Team of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates

How to Be a More Courageous and Innovative Project Manager Building Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates What would happen if every member of your team came to work focused on finding solutions and creating better results? Based on ground-breaking new research in innovation and problem-solving, you’ll learn what leaders like you are doing to build more creative and solutions-oriented teams. You’ll explore the root causes of FOSU (fear of speaking up) and techniques to turn your team’s fears and frustration into innovation. You’ll learn techniques to navigate the elegant dance between clarity and curiosity and practical tools to help your team discover micro-innovations and share best practices.

Karin Hurt and David Dye help human-centered leaders resolve workplace ambiguity and chaos, so that they can drive innovation, productivity and revenue without burning out employees. As CEO and President of Let’s Grow Leaders, they are known for practical tools and leadership development programs that stick. Karin and David are the award-winning authors of five books including, Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates and Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results-Without Losing Your Soul A former Verizon Wireless executive, Karin was named to Inc. Magazine’s list of great leadership speakers. David Dye is a former executive and elected official. Karin and David are committed to their philanthropic initiative, Winning Wells – building clean water wells for the people of Cambodia.

Afternoon Keynote

Laura Barnard: Measure and Communicate Your PMO and Project Management Value

PMI Talent Triangle: Strategic & Business Management Description: Can you point to exactly how your PMO and project teams are adding value to the organization? If you asked your stakeholders, would they say they can’t function without you, or do you find yourself wondering why they don’t “get it”? It’s not enough to say that projects are on time and on budget. In fact, you might be surprised to learn this isn’t even at the top of their list! Before your leaders start wondering if they need you, arm yourself with the key metrics that make it abundantly clear how your team contributes to the bottom line. Hint: It’s not EVM. In this keynote session, you’ll discover the places you might not be looking that offer the most opportunity for value creation in the eyes of your stakeholders and learn how to talk about it in a way that has them begging for more!

Founder and CEO, PMO Strategies

Host, PMO Strategies Podcast

Host, PMO IMPACT Summit

Co-Founder & President, Project Management for Change, nonprofit

Laura has been instrumental in bringing PMOs and Project Management to the strategy table for 25 years. She knows just how hard it can be to drive effective and sustainable change in organizations, having spent 15 years in the role of PMO leader beginning in 1999. For the last 9 years, she’s been helping organizations drive higher return on investment for their strategy by unleashing the full potential and power of project management and the PMO. She has developed a unique and powerful system for growing organizational project management competency with a deliberate focus on driving high-IMPACT outcomes on every project.

In 2021, Laura was named the Global PMO influencer of the Year, the only award of its kind, by the PMO Global Alliance for her many accomplishments in shaking up the way the world sees and values the PMO through her popular PMO Strategies Podcast and as a part of the longest running PMO-specific virtual conference, the PMO IMPACT Summit. Laura welcomes you to join her community of IMPACT Drivers on their mobile app the IMPACT Driver Network and learn more about how they can help you at PMOStratetgies.com.

Morning Technical Session

Betsy KaufmanTransforming into a Next Gen Project Delivery Organization

Automation, empirical decision making, upskilling our people to be analytical and technical, a relentless focus on delivering outcomes over output, value driven delivery- this is the future of project delivery. In this presentation, I will take you through several real life case studies where we have been tasked with helping organizations to transform their existing Project Management Offices and Enterprise Agile Offices into high performing Next Gen value delivery organizations. These organizations realize in order to better serve their internal partners and external customers they must transform all aspects of their organizations - the people, the systems, the tools and technologies, the processes, their role within their organizations. I will share with you all aspects of these transformations to date - the wins, the failures, the learnings, the mindsets needed, and the complexity of what it takes to lead organizations through the complexity of change. Please join me on this journey of what it takes to turn a traditional project delivery organization on its head and transform into a next gen value delivery organization.

Alcides SantopietroSwissport Case

The concept of T-Shaped people* will be familiar to many project managers. But, in this thought-provoking talk, Mike Clayton will argue we really need to be J-shaped. That's like T-shaped, but with a little twist. And he'll go further. He'll show you how you can develop your J-shaped skills and experience to forge a lasting project management career. But, what's beyond that? Project Management is the launching pad for so many career options. The Swissport case reveals how agile project management techniques can be successfully used to deliver real value to organizations that are not related to the IT sector, with an emphasis on the context of remote work and the skills that project managers should embrace to experience similar results in their projects. This case study details a real project that was executed at Swissport North America, an organization operating in the aviation industry. You'll learn the 7 reasons why an agile methodology fit the mandate and 11 agile techniques that were used: what they are, how they were used, how they relate to skills that we want to see in future PMs, and their actual results.

Betsy Kauffman is a globally recognized Organizational Agility Coach with more than 20 years of experience working in Fortune 500 companies. Her company, Cross Impact Coaching, is an organizational design firm focused on working with companies to help them solve the big problems impeding them from achieving agility, collaboration, alignment, and innovation. She is a published author providing thought leadership to the agile and project management communities and speaks internationally on leadership, corporate culture, and organizational agility. She just completed her first TED Talk: “4 Tips to Kickstart Honest Conversations at Work'' in conjunction with the TED@PMI partnership and was selected by the TED editors to have her talk brought to the main stage. Check it out at TED.com!

Alcides Santopietro is the owner of Santopietro Project Management, a Project Management training company based in Montreal, Canada. He is also a lecturer at two universities in Canada: UQTR and UQAC.

He has 20 years of experience managing international projects in IT, web/media, engineering and aviation sectors, and has been designing and delivering training in the Project Management field for over 10 years.

His career includes the management of projects in over 10 countries and a portfolio of transformational projects for a Swiss organization, where he also worked as VP of Operations.

Alcides has been a PMI member since 2002 and an active volunteer of different chapters since then, recently acting as PMI-Montreal mentor, VP of the board and Disciplined Agile Chapter Champion.

An Industrial Engineer with a Masters in Project Management, Alcides is PMP®, PMI-ACP®, CSM and DASSM certified and is a PMI Leadership Institute Masters Class alumni.

Originally from Brazil, he's been living in Montreal, Canada since 2007.

Michael ClaytonJ-Shaped Person: Crafting a Lasting Project Management Career... and Beyond

Dr Mike Clayton is the founder of OnlinePMCourses.com. He's also the founder and host of popular Project Management YouTube channel, OnlinePMCourses.

After a first career managing large projects in the UK for 12 years, Mike has been training Project Managers for 20 years. He has also written 14 print books (5 about Project Management), started 3 businesses, advised business leaders, and spoken widely. Mike proves that Project experience is a springboard for many distinct career options.

Afternoon Technical Session

Marcus UdokangThe Business Analyst in an Agile World

The person in the next cube knows something you don’t. Really. In this session, you get a chance to find out what it is. This hour focuses on the keys in capturing and sharing lessons learned through real-world rehearsal. Participants will share their best insights on surviving and thriving in the project environment and will examine ways to get their messages out across their organizational communities. Agile can be a friendly and rewarding environment to work in. The Agile way is a productive way for teams to operate. The benefits can certainly outweigh the challenges. Understanding and embracing the Agile environment in a practical way can bring multiple benefits. Undertaking responsibilities, guiding productivity using best practices and frameworks is a step in the right direction. Producing that Minimum Viable Product is the starting step to success on an Agile team. The Business Analyst planning and percolating ideas in an Agile team is instrumental to help deliver value. Objectives to be covered: - the value a BA brings to an Agile team - understanding how Agile teams work - the challenges and benefits in an Agile environment - writing user stories with the help of a BA

Marcus Udokang is an IT Consultant, and a writer and presenter, specializing in project management and business analysis, specifically business applications, requirements analysis, and business process management. He has worked in various industries including Financial Services, Oil and Gas, and IT Training/Education.

Marcus is also the host of the YouTube and Podcast channel The Inquisitive Analyst, where he interviews thought leaders and mid-level professionals. On the show, they discuss the triumphs and challenges within the Business Analysis and Project Management fields.

John StenbeckEmbrace the Infinite Flow Evolutionary Period

During this reality-based, technically-sophisticated demonstration you will see how to integrate two world standards and translate them into pragmatic steps that will dramatically accelerate your career. You will see how decision latency is crippling your projects and undermining your career! You will observe how decision latency is crippling your projects and undermining your career! You will witness the revolutionary new skills required for every enterprise… and project leader! You cannot afford to miss this powerful presentation!

John Stenbeck, PMP, PMI CDAI (Certified Disciplined Agile Instructor), PMI-ACP, Certified Scrum Professional and Certified Scrum Master is a three-time Amazon #1 Best Selling Author and GR8PM Founder. He will make sure this will not be like any other professional development experience you’ve experienced. Because John’s goal is to achieve maximum knowledge transfer, giving you useful, powerful information in an easily accessible format, expect him to keep you on your toes. Prepare to buckle up and hold on … this event will fast-track your expertise to the next level