Main Content
Project Management
for Globalization Professionals
Instructor: Sandy McKethan
09:00 - 17:00 : Tuesday, April 13
Overview
Globalization project management is not a black art. But it might as well be, given the level of misunderstanding often associated with it.
Project managers in this space are often left to make their own way, ill-equipped to meet external challenges from tight, shifting schedules, scope creep, inflexible budgets, and unrealistic customer expectations.
Internal challenges can be equally daunting. These typically include lack of process awareness and support on the part of development, sales, and management.
This workshop provides practical helps to equip the project manager how to not just survive, but to productively assume greater control over projects. Software developers and service provider managers will likewise come away with practical insights on empowering their project managers for better results.
Case study inductive analysis will be used to impart practical project management principles through an interactive approach. Team exercises will provide synthesis with the individual’s own experience to the benefit of other participants.
Areas of focus include the following project management disciplines:
- Expectation management
- Communication management
- Scope management
- Defining deliverables
- Realistic milestones
- Change management
- Risk management
- Earned Value Analysis
- Lessons Learned
The workshop authors draw on their combined many years of experience in virtually every facet of the business: translation, localization and internationalization, as well as project management. In addition, each has experience in freelance, SME and large corporate environments.
Who will benefit from this workshop and why?
Anyone interested in surviving, supporting, and improving project management in the fast-paced world of software SimShip.
In particular, service providers will benefit both in terms of internal operations and interactions with their software developer customers.
Globalization project managers interested in
- Empowerment through professional skill improvement.
- Introducing greater control and consistency over projects.
- Improving interrelationships amongst project stakeholders.
- Increasing buy-in from customers and management.
- Controlling project churn.
Service provider managers interested in
- Increasing understanding of the high-pressure business of software G11N project management.
- Improving project planning.
- Taking project management resource optimization to a new level.
- Improving management of customer expectations.
Product development managers interested in
- Collaborating with G11N vendors to plan realistic SimShip release schedules, budgets, scopes.
- Leveraging relationships with internal or vendor project managers.
Agenda
09:00 - 09:30 Welcome and Introduction
- Who's who?
- Participant expectations
- Workshop overview
- Divide into teams
09:30 - 10:15 Case Study, Part 1: The Project as Plan and Reality
We will analyze a case study from the standpoint of the project as planned. Analysis centers around the three familiar constraints of:
- Scope
- Schedule
- Budget
We will then continue analysis from the standpoint of impacts to plan by external and internal challenges.
10:15 - 10:45 Coffee Break
10:45 - 12:00 Case Study, Part 2: Lessons Through Induction
We will recap the case study using inductive analysis to extract key lessons learned.
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch
13:00 - 15:00 Team exercises
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 - 16:30 Basic Project Management Disciplines
We will perform a high-level study of the following project management disciplines:
- Expectation management
- Communication management
- Scope management
- Change management
- Lessons learned
16:30 - 17:00 Wrap-up
Program
Welcome and Introduction
- Who's who?
- Presenters
- Participants
- Participant expectations
- Workshop overview
- Goals
- Outline
- Methodology
- Divide into teams
Case Study, The Project as Plan and Reality
External vs. Internal Challenges
- Scope
- Schedule
- Budget
Case Study, Part 2: Lessons Learned by Induction
Team exercises
Basic Project Management Disciplines
- Expectation management
- Communication management
- Scope management
- Change management
- Lessons Learned
Wrap-up
About Kenneth McKethan
Kenneth (Sandy) McKethan, Jr. is currently a software development project manager with IBM based at Research Triangle Park, NC, USA, having completed 10 years as a globalization project manager in IBM’s Tivoli division. His 30+ year career as a foreign language professional also includes: translation, interpreting, recruiting sales, marketing, international business development, vendor management. McKethan currently has two patents filed and two issued by the USPTO. These include “Method and System to Gauge and Control Project Churn.”
He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP©) and a German-government certified technical interpreter and translator (Staatlich geprüfter Dolmetscher und Übersetzer für die englische Sprache [Technik]). Major languages are German and Russian. Sandy is a licensed glider pilot and holds the rank of Lt Col in the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary (Civil Air Patrol).
About LISA Workshops
LISA Workshops make use of presenters with real-world experience in the subjects they teach about. Workshops do not pitch any products or services, but instead provide a general overview with candid and practical evaluations of tools and products that impact your business.
