Your Phoenix PMI Chapter is taking action to help stamp out hunger and to give the gift of food to our local community by sponsoring a Virtual Fund Drive for the benefit of the St. Mary’s Food Bank.  We are encouraging our members to help us in the effort during this holiday time of need by contributing any amount that you feel comfortable giving at  https://fundraise.stmarysfoodbank.org/give/t390061/#!/donation/checkout.

Inflation has exacerbated the already dire situation with hunger in the State of Arizona where there are now 1 in 4 children living in poverty.  Our PMI chapter has recognized the need to help address this situation by leveraging our partnership with St. Mary’s Food Bank to provide funds for this effort.  Your contribution will be instrumental in maximizing St. Mary’s resources by providing enough food for 7 meals with every $1 donated.  This means that your efforts will be multiplied by 7 and help stamp out hunger by feeding Arizona families. 

Your charitable giving in 2021 may provide an extra tax deduction on your federal tax return or a credit on your State of Arizona income tax return. Arizona allows you to take a dollar-for-dollar Arizona Charitable Credit on your state tax return when you donate up to $400 for single filers or $800 for married couples filing jointly to a qualified organization. The tax credit was previously known as the Working Poor Tax Credit.

Thank you for helping to alleviate hunger in Arizona!

Aaron started his journey to become a project manager from a developer path and feels strongly that his technical skills, along with learning the project management skillset led to his nickname, “the fixer.” His colleagues would describe him as the person to call for help.

Non-technical pms were causing a lot of noise amongst the development team and he came to the realization that it is hard to figure out technical problems while managing a project. “I got to a crossroads, it is very difficult to have a dual role, software developer and project manager. I did not want to water down both professions, so I chose project management. Fast-forward, my department saw the value of approaching problems from a technical perspective and I received more complex projects and the roadblocks led me to a formal PMP.”  Aaron expressed he would have been perfectly okay not taking the PMP and happy where he was at, but the study groups opened his eyes to the new tools in my toolbox and allowed me to be more preventative.

“The Chandler study group instructors who I most admired were, John Robertson, who used his knowledge on how to study and then Tom Wilp, an expert on the risk management process opened my eyes to be more proactive to consider risks so you have multiple options and plans you can put in place.” “I liked that I was in a classroom sharing styles and sharing of industries and was impressed that you could have the answers before a problem surfaced by using the risk management process so I could think of these things beforehand.”

Aaron Jang is happy to share his project management tips and is approached often with questions for but if they really knew what I was most proficient in they would ask me for cooking tips!

To learn more on how to successfully integrate ERP systems, you need to explore project management from the perspective of Dev Ops and what it takes for project results, a current trend in corporate information technology.

“Skills required for executing DevOps projects require you to be all in one, in technology and show good communication skills, leadership skills, collaboration skills and lead the team and also be a team player. However, the most important skill areas are dedication, interest, and passion,” Star Agile.

CHARLES SEYBOLD agrees that the days of the siloed project manager and “skilled” development team are becoming a thing of the past, thanks to the increasing complexity of dev projects.  That said, project management doesn’t happen magically, and it would be foolish to assume that just because someone is a skilled developer, they know how to manage a project. The most critical skills needed for this type of project are:

• Estimation and Scheduling, the estimation of a completion date triggers many other teams to perform their functions across the company and you need to sequence the work in the correct developmental order. A work breakdown schedule is essential
• Critical Communication, as a team, it’s essential to keep the lines of communication open for project updates. This includes having strong interpersonal skills, namely the ability to maintain clear team communication across the technical development and collaboration; complete document reviews and have succinct interactions about project deliverables and expectations. Ensure document sharing with searchable capability so team updates are enabled, and so there are no excuses for missed or mixed messages.
• Problem-Solving of issues still need to treat problem-solving as a skill that should be continuously strengthened so they can be dealt with efficiently before a situation spirals.
• Risk Management is another key to being proactive with agreed upon options that can mitigate the issue if an event occurs. It allows for the most realistic planning possible, requiring each team member to take accountability for precise timelines for their piece of the project. These timelines then roll up to the greater project plan and provide a more accurate estimation of completion date and potential pitfalls.

We presented our 2022 objectives, discussed what was accomplished in 2021, introduced the new board of directors and how we align to PMI Global 4.0.

Objective 1:

Improve Membership and Volunteer Recruitment Programs and Retention Strategy

Objective 2:

Increase Awareness of PMI Phoenix Chapter and PMI Global Product Offerings

Objective 3:

Broaden the Social Impact of the Chapter

2022 Board of Directors

Hello PMI Phoenix!

My name is Matthew Gallagher, and I am a PhD Candidate at Arizona State University. I am also a professional program evaluator, which means my job is to collect and use quantitative and qualitative data to aid program leaders and their teams in developing knowledge about, making data-informed decision on, and managing their programs.

Matthew Gallagher (right) collaborating with program leaders on program evaluation activities in Dili, Timor Leste.

Program leadership’s decision to include an evaluator during the planning and design phase of their programs is the critical first step necessary for evaluators to provide the benefits associated with the discipline of evaluation. Within the evaluation field, federal legislation, including the recently passed Evidence Act of 2019, promotes the inclusion of evaluators in the planning and design phase of federal programs. Additionally, evaluation academics and practitioners advocate for this level of inclusion within all types of programs.

However, despite legislation and advocacy efforts, the evaluation literature depicts a situation where evaluators are not consistently included in the planning and design phase of programs due to numerous barriers, including: 1) program funding announcements which request the inclusion of evaluation activities in proposed programs, but do not require evidence of any collaboration with a program evaluator; 2) training programs that offer little or no training on the benefits of hiring an evaluator during the program planning and design phase. Overall, the literature portrays programs as plagued by rushed and/or symbolic evaluations that are of limited use for program management, thereby frustrating program leaders and demoralizing evaluation practitioners.

To date, academic studies have examined approaches on how to incorporate an evaluator into a program’s planning and design phase (Fitzpatrick, 1988) and multiple researchers have advocated on behalf of the inclusion of the evaluator throughout all the phases of the project cycle (see: Patton, 1978; Stufflebeam, 2001; Preskill & Torres 2001; Mark, 2012; Scheirer, 2012). However, no studies have examined the extent to which evaluator inclusion occurs, or explored the reasons why a program leader decides whether to include an evaluator in a program’s planning and design phase. My PhD research aims to study this topic from the perspectives of both program evaluators and program leaders (who include program directors and program managers).

From the program evaluation side, I am currently collaborating with the American Evaluation Association to procure perspectives on this topic from 1,000 of their members, who were selected at random. To capture the perspectives of program leaders on this topic, I am collaborating with local chapters of the Project Management Institute. I have developed a questionnaire to collect your perspectives, and I hope I can count on your participation.

The new knowledge generated from this study has the potential to affect how program leaders and program evaluators are trained. When we have a mutual understanding of the extent to which evaluators are not included in the program planning and design phase, as well as what influences program leaders’ decisions to include or exclude evaluators during this phase, then we can develop a roadmap for how training content should be augmented to meet the federal mandate, fulfill advocacy efforts, and be proactive on exploring the topic more broadly.

If you are interested in providing your viewpoint on the topic of evaluator inclusion in the program planning and design phase, please click on the survey link below. The survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete, and will be open until November 15th. Information about the study, your voluntary participation, and data privacy are on the first page of the link before you enter the survey. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful and honest responses!

Take the Survey Here:

https://asu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1S8gMVSCOJOSBKe

Kyle joined the chapter in 2014 and has been a volunteer since 2017. He is part of the team that has integrated and developed our technology tools so that we can focus more of our volunteer time on getting things done rather than on the mundane administrative operational tasks.

A little bit about Kyle, did you know that he was a police officer and deputy. His proudest moment was when his mom pinned on his badge. The people who know him describe him as a person with good intentions which makes sense since he has served his community.

Kyle identifies himself as an engineer and a gear head on his Mustang convertible so basically, he likes to fix things and make it work.  He thrives and is driven due to his family, his motivator. Kyle's greatest joy is taking his wife and grandkids on a car ride enjoying nature and letting time stand still. His advice to others, "keep things simple, or at least make complex things simple for others. It makes more of an impact than most people think it will." Continue to try new adventure, Kyle embraces being a grandfather and playing with the kids while teaching new things, like caring for the environment so the planet remains beautiful. "Educating youth makes me feel good - it is a connection to the new generation to get kids interested in cars and while making memories and it’s a cool thing to share." Kyle worries about the younger education quality. Everyone needs to focus on being educated and about their impact your personal world to make things better.

As an engineer he identifies with is analytical side and grew up with the arts. Kyle's heroes is his parents who taught him to mix technology and creativity, he was given the technical edge and found a way to merge technology and art. His other hero, Kyle's wife who is a teacher forming young minds so youth have a strong foundation to grow.

Kyle's personal motto is a quote borrowed from Teddy Roosevelt, “do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” It is a message he would like to pass on to prospective volunteers, there are plenty of opportunities with work to be done and feels it is important to help the chapter since it is volunteer led. It is important and fate led me to be a member of the technology team.

Kyle feels fortunate and likes his journey. "I am happy with my journey and am right where i want to be. I feel blessed."