Time: March 9, 8:30am - 9:00am
Speaker: Ludovic Hauduc, Microsoft Project Business Unit

Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Ludovic Hauduc is then General Manager, for the Microsoft Project Division, the leading provider of project and portfolio management (PPM) solution in the industry.

Ludo will outline why Microsoft is the leading provider of Portfolio Management and Project Scheduling solutions. He will also offer key investment insights into the new Project Portfolio Management 2010 solution and how our extensive partner community will be “2010 ready” to deliver these new capabilities to our customers.

Time: March 9, 9:00 - 10:30am, 2:45pm - 3:45pm
Speaker: Dr Harold Kerzner, International Institute for Learning

During the past 30 years, we have focused primarily on time and cost as being the two drivers for defining success on a project. Today, because of the financial crises in world markets, the concept of project value has become just as important as time and cost. The creation of enterprise project management methodologies in the future must have a value component. Also, the PMO of the future must understand the importance of value.

• How do we define “Project Value?”
• What role does value play in project management?
• How do we determine value?
• How will value impact the future of project management?

Time: March 9, 10:30am - 11:30am
Speaker: Bruno Lecoq, Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Human Resources wants to more effectively manage its portfolio of projects and drive better business value to the overall Microsoft Business. Bruno Lecoq will be presenting the challenges, the approach and results they have achieved in the last three years.

Time: March 9, 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Speaker: Mark Morgan, StratEx Advisors, Inc.

Getting full value from portfolio management means approaching the subject in a systemic way.  Many organizations miss the opportunity to implement portfolio management as a core process in their management systems for the overall enterprise.  In this session, we will explore the issues involved and provide a path forward to getting a greater level of benefit from portfolio management by taking a system level view.  Bring your experience, energy and best thinking on portfolio management and be ready to color outside the lines in creating your next level of portfolio management capability.

Time: March 9, 2:45pm - 3:45pm, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Speaker: Eric Smith, ProModel

ProModel offers a suite of predictive analytic tools that integrate with Microsoft EPM, Project, Project Server and Visio. This collaboration between tools allows users to gain the powerful capability of simulation/predictive analytics through the familiar interface and proven technology of Microsoft tools and platforms.

This presentation explores how the PMO, portfolio planners, project managers, as wells as business process analysts can improve performance using these more accurate and robust decision making tools. We will examine how ProModel and Microsoft technologies complement each other to provide a more effective means to:

1. Evaluate alternative portfolio plans side-by-side with risk-adjusted, resource constrained outcomes.
2. Optimize your portfolio’s financial and schedule performance using automated experimentation - with inclusion/exclusion of projects, sliding start dates, impact of priorities, and resources constraints.
3. Understand resource requirements over time, high risk milestones, and options for mitigation.
4. Create, evaluate and manage business processes directly in Visio, then quantify the benefits of change and identify the barriers to higher performance in the virtual environment, without interrupting your live systems.
5. Optimize processes then manage them with SharePoint’s functionality for rights, roles and version control with Maguro DataAssist technology.

The session offers a view from the perspective of the manager and executive as well as a feel for the user environment and how analytics are used to make decisions. Attendees will come away with an understanding of why incorporating simulation into their planning process and Microsoft tools will improve their decision making capability.

Time: March 9, 2:45pm - 3:45pm, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Speaker: Carl M. Manello, Slalom Consulting

Most project management organizations are known as PMO’s regardless of their function, span of control or place within the organization. Since there is not a globally accepted definition for what a PMO is, how can we compare PMO’s, agree on their value, and determine a baseline level for performance? What happens to “best practice” when every company implements their own flavor of PMO based on their own needs? Even within the Project Management Industry there is a casual reference to PMO that lumps all of these “offices” together regardless of their implementation. But not all PMO’s are the same!

This presentation will review concepts for defining a PMO based on key capabilities and oversight responsibility. Mr. Manello will also review baseline activities and deliverables associated with key PMO functions.

Time: March 9, 2:45pm - 3:45pm
Speaker: Jim Patterson, EPM Live

Microsoft Project and Project Server provide a great solution for Enterprise Project Management (EPM), and execution of the project management discipline. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server provides the most widely used collaboration platform on the market today, with a powerful set of capabilities and features. However, in most organizations, these solutions operate mostly in parallel and separate from one another. See how EPM Live combines the power of both technologies to provide a powerful solution for effectively managing project, operational, development and all other types of work in your organization. EPM Live’s templates leverage SharePoint Server capabilities including workspaces, forms, Excel Services, workflows, enterprise search and more to meet customers unique requirements. Join this session to learn how leveraging a common platform and getting more value from technologies you already own, can streamline your operations, save money and have direct impact to your bottom line.

Time: March 9, 2:45pm - 3:45pm
Speaker: Eric Uyttewaal, ProjectPro Corp

The first version of the Critical Path Method (CPM 1.0) is coming to its 60th birthday. CPM 1.0 is a beautiful product of human logic. It helps project managers focus on activities that affect the project end date. However, some people say it takes too much time to identify and enter all the dependencies. Some say, they hardly ever see a complete and reliable Critical Path in their schedule. Others say, it does not work any longer when you start to level the workloads. Whom of you does not live in a resource-constrained situation since our last recession has forced us to do even more with less resources? These are all real issues, but please … do not stop there. These issues can effectively be addressed with some simple techniques and some new tools. In this presentation, you will find out how you can overcome most of these obstacles. We are quite confident that you will experience a refreshing new look at CPM, and we are therefore calling it “Critical Path 2.0”. I promise that you will enjoy a sense of refreshment even if you live in a resource-constrained situation, like most of us do these days.

Time: March 9, 2:45pm - 3:45pm
Speaker: Julie Sanford, Pcubed

Learn how the Microsoft Information Worker BMO is leading the US launch of Office 2010, one of the largest revenue generators in Microsoft’s Portfolio of products. The launch is being managed using a solid project management foundation and includes the use of their own 2010 products.

The Launch management activities include coordinating the execution of 18 work areas, (e.g., products, segments, etc.) and hundreds of 2010 focused marketing activities. The program management approach focuses on achieving specific business benefits and driving scorecard metrics. Combined, the four products are expected to account for over $4bn of revenue.

In this breakout session, you will learn how the US IW BMO is challenged to achieve the same level of success as past launches, but with 20% of the budget and staff. The guiding principle “Launch is more than a point in time” is helping to address this challenge. Three work streams of the launch include integrating their campaigns and activities into the ongoing business, infusing launch funds to enhance specific marketing activities and increase impact.

Time: March 9, 2:45pm - 3:45pm
Speaker: Ava Dadabhoy, UMT Consulting Group

Learn about new top down financial planning capabilities that seamlessly integrate with Microsoft Project 2010 including:

• Iterative top down planning with data validations, user driven workflow, and approvals.
  
• Review integration with Project 2010 (combined Project detailed pages, and same user experience)
• Data and business intelligence
• Brief overview of configuration / administration capabilities

Time: March 9, 2:45pm - 3:45pm
Speaker: Scott Chapman, Project Hosts

Tips for migrations from 2007 to 2010 - or 2003 to 2010. What migrates and what doesn't? What are the common pitfalls? What tools and resources are available?

Time: March 9, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Speaker: Jim Patterson, EPM Live

There are many great new capabilities coming in 2010. What do you need to do and what do you need to consider to be "2010 Ready"? This session will explore considerations in the areas of:

• Choosing the right solution tier
• Planning for features and capabilities that did not exist in 2007
• Technology changes and prerequisites
• Implementation, upgrade and migration approaches

It is not too early to begin planning for 2010. Start taking the right steps by learning the answers to your key questions for 2010 readiness!

Time: March 9, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Speaker: Dr Harold Kerzner, International Institute for Learning

What are best practices in project management and how can executives use these best practices to maximize the effectiveness of their organizations? These are just some of the questions that will be discussed. Examples of best practices will include development of an enterprise project management approach, effective use of a project management office, the hexagon of excellence in project management (i.e. how the best-in-class differentiate themselves from everyone else), use of project management maturity models, the use of traffic light status reporting, and development of a best practices library.

Time: March 9, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Speaker: Eric Uyttewaal, ProjectPro Corp

How can you manage 500 handoffs between 15 subprojects in a 10,000 task program? Programs are notoriously hard to schedule: the amount of data is mind-boggling, subprojects are dependent upon each other and the client wants to see a Critical Path for the entire program. Is program scheduling do-able? At ProjectPro, we believe it is do-able, but not without the right tools that enhance the Links-between-Projects feature in Microsoft Project. ProjectPro developed a toolset that allows you to monitor and manage up to 2500 handoffs (cross-project links) in a 50,000 task program. The toolset also allows you to identify the Critical Path into a major milestone, even if the path takes you across multiple subproject schedules. Come and have a view how we can help you make your program visible and controllable.

Time: March 9, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Speaker: Mr. William E Raymond, Pcubed

Microsoft offers a powerful platform to enable the management of your entire portfolio of projects.  Among the products offered are Portfolio Server, Project Server, SharePoint and any partner solutions to complement them.

Once running these tools, organizations will look to gain more insight into the performance of their portfolios. To do so, key metrics, performance indicators need to be defined. This session will demonstrate how Microsoft’s Business Intelligence platform can be used to gain more visibility into the health and progress of your portfolio.

Time: March 9, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Speaker: Rocket Williams, UMT Consulting Group

UMT Consulting Group has worked with several clients implementing both Portfolio and Project capabilities using Microsoft Project 2010 beta including implementations to several internal departments in Microsoft. This presentation will provide an overview of our experience with the new version of Microsoft Project 2010 covering at a high level the value of upgrading and some of the lessons learned that we and our clients have discovered over the last year.

Time: March 9, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Speaker: Scott Chapman, Project Hosts

Test a sample environment with tutorials. Pilot EPM 2010 with your own data. Share projects with preconfigured solutions that can grow with you. Online provides an easy onramp to 2010 for any organization.