2014 INCOSE Chicagoland Spring Tutorial -- Project Planning for Engineers

Project Planning for Engineers

Presented by: Randy Iliff

Saturday, May 10, 2014

8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Bjorksten | bit 7, Madison, Wisconsin

Bjorksten | bit 7 will provide hard copies of class materials at the tutorial. Bjorksten | bit 7 will make additional materials available to attendees after the event.

We encourage you to enroll now, as space is limited.

Engineers, particularly Systems Engineers, possess an incredible body of understanding and experience. With the right guidance that engineering insight can be immediately applied in many different fields. Bjorksten | bit 7 has created a family of analogy-based courses that lets engineers do exactly that. This workshop is based on one of the most powerful of those new courses – Project Planning for Engineers.

In this one day workshop we will show you how to leverage what you already know as an engineer to produce outstanding project plans. We’ll work at the fundamental level, so everything you learn will remain valuable in whatever process or tool environment you later encounter. We’ll treat planning as just another kind of engineering model and use that analogy to offer you practical guidance on:

• Establishing scope boundary
• Tailoring level of detail and structure
• Managing stakeholder and participant expectations
• Dealing with dependencies and constraints
• Mitigating cost, schedule and technical risk
• Controlling change and providing continuous improvement

This tutorial is ideal for anyone who “owns” or helps establish project plans, but will also be of enormous interest to anyone who is impacted by those plans. Tired of planning that doesn’t account for creative effort, acknowledge embedded risk, or allow realistic resource level and durations? This workshop will show you exactly why those problems arise and how to avoid them.

If bad planning keeps you from doing good engineering, isn’t it about time you learned how to engineer a plan that really works?

Mr. Randall C. Iliff has over 30 years of experience working on projects ranging in size from a few thousand to well over a billion dollars, and he has participated in all business phases from start-up through close out. He is currently the Vice President, and Director of Strategy, Methods and Learning at Bjorksten | bit 7, where he helps clients maximize market potential through business and strategic planning, product / technology road mapping, project management, systems engineering, and continuous process improvement.

He earned his B.S. in Engineering / Industrial Design from Michigan State University, holds an M.S. in Systems Management, Research and Development from the University of Southern California, and was extensively mentored in technical leadership during his employment at McDonnell-Douglas, Martin-Marietta, and Motorola. Key projects from that period include initial development of hypersonic cruise missile systems, Peacekeeper and Small ICBM weapon systems, Space Shuttle, and the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Randy is a charter member of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), founder / prior Chairman of the INCOSE Commercial Practices Working Group, and a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI). He has developed and conducted thousands of hours of training courses. He has given presentations and keynote addresses at INCOSE events, such as the 2012 Great Lakes Regional Conference.

He has been a great supporter of our INCOSE Chicagoland Chapter. His knowledge, professional insight, and captivating stories have made him a favored presenter at chapter events.