Agile Daily Standup In my many years of project management training, I often joke that our discussion about project tracking and reporting isn’t going to take long because I don’t like it. Even so, I have always advocated for regular, daily tracking to meet the reporting needs of stakeholders. Students are often put off by …
Continue reading Agile Project Management: Standup and Be Trusted
Andrea Brockmeier, PMP, CSM, PMI-PBA, BRMP is the Director of Project Management for Watermark Learning. Andrea is an experienced trainer, facilitator, speaker, and project manager, with over 25 years of business experience. Andrea oversees certification and skills development curriculum in project management, business analysis, and leadership. She has been a speaker at IIBA® and PMI® conferences and is an active volunteer. She enjoys practicing what she teaches and has a steady stream of projects that she manages. Andrea is highly committed to partnering with her clients through projects, consulting, and training, and seeks to make every engagement enjoyable as well as valuable.
IIBA Slovenia Business Analysis Conference – June 2014 Elizabeth and I were fortunate to be in Slovenia on vacation this summer when the IIBA Slovenia chapter was holding a business analysis conference on Synergies – The Future of Business. We previously met and became friends with the IIBA Slovenia chapter president, Aleš Štempihar, at the 2013 BBC conference in …
Continue reading Business Analysis & Project Management in Collaboration in Slovenia
Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, was the founder of and is now a consultant for Watermark Learning. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in product development, business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. As an internal entrepreneur, Rich led the development of several Watermark Learning online products as a business analyst and product owner. Rich is a frequent speaker at Business Analysis and Project Management national conferences and IIBA® and PMI® chapters around the world. He has contributed as a lead author to the BA Body of Knowledge version 2.0 and 3.0 and was a lead author on PMI’s Business Analysis Practice Guide. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored five books on business analysis.
Key Components of Scrum What do product backlog, story points, and velocity have in common? They are all components of Scrum, an Agile framework, that allow us to estimate how much can be delivered in any given time frame. First, I will outline some basic definitions, and then I will share a real-life practical example …
Vicki develops and maintains Watermark's Business Analysis Training programs and is an instructor for in-person and online classes. James has 15 years’ experience in the public and private sectors as a project manager, business analyst, author, and independent industry consultant and trainer, where her clients included Microsoft Corporation. She also spent time in the public sector successfully delivering projects to support governmental operations. James is co-author of Strategies for Project Sponsorship and contributor to The Complete Project Manager. She is president of the IIBA Seattle Chapter, and past vice president of the PMI Olympia Chapter.
Watermark Learning is proud to be a pioneer of live simulation in project management and business analysis training. We have been offering our Project R.E.A.L Live Simulation and helping students apply their skills and build confidence since 2011. In fact, our Project R.E.A.L. course won the PMI Continuing Education Product of the Year award that year. Find out …
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This is the corporate source for Watermark Learning posts. Watermark delivers engaging and practical training and coaching in Business Analysis, Project Management, Agile & Scrum, Business Process Management, and Influencing Skills since 1992.
Watermark Learning has been busy this spring! The last few months, Watermark Learning has made appearances at several industry events in the Midwest including IN-BADD, WI-BADD, and most recently I-BADD. Below is a roundup of the highlights. IN-BADD – April 22, 2014 Elizabeth Larson presented “Is Your Organization Agile-Ready?” Richard Larson presented “BA Toolkit: Top …
Continue reading Watermark Learning Industry Events Recap – Spring 2014
This is the corporate source for Watermark Learning posts. Watermark delivers engaging and practical training and coaching in Business Analysis, Project Management, Agile & Scrum, Business Process Management, and Influencing Skills since 1992.
It’s always fun to see ProjectsAtWork.com publish my articles. Thanks to the great comments from readers in response to a recently published work on project ownership in PAW: Recently, a project management colleague was expressing frustration with her inability to get a project moving in a constructive direction. She knew the success of the project was her responsibility. …
Continue reading Project Ownership: Who Else Owns your Project?
Andrea Brockmeier, PMP, CSM, PMI-PBA, BRMP is the Director of Project Management for Watermark Learning. Andrea is an experienced trainer, facilitator, speaker, and project manager, with over 25 years of business experience. Andrea oversees certification and skills development curriculum in project management, business analysis, and leadership. She has been a speaker at IIBA® and PMI® conferences and is an active volunteer. She enjoys practicing what she teaches and has a steady stream of projects that she manages. Andrea is highly committed to partnering with her clients through projects, consulting, and training, and seeks to make every engagement enjoyable as well as valuable.
As a project manager, are you more of a giver or a taker? I would guess that most PMs see themselves as givers more than takers. After all, stakeholders don’t come to us bearing gifts; they come to us bearing requests. Much of our job is about providing stakeholders with things they need. We engage in …
Andrea Brockmeier, PMP, CSM, PMI-PBA, BRMP is the Director of Project Management for Watermark Learning. Andrea is an experienced trainer, facilitator, speaker, and project manager, with over 25 years of business experience. Andrea oversees certification and skills development curriculum in project management, business analysis, and leadership. She has been a speaker at IIBA® and PMI® conferences and is an active volunteer. She enjoys practicing what she teaches and has a steady stream of projects that she manages. Andrea is highly committed to partnering with her clients through projects, consulting, and training, and seeks to make every engagement enjoyable as well as valuable.
If you are reading this, it may mean you did not pass your PMP® exam. You are not alone. It is a difficult exam, and I have never heard anyone say it was easy. While you may feel discouraged, I encourage you to consider using the study time you have already invested to take another …
Continue reading 10 Tips for Passing the PMP® Exam…the Second Time
Andrea Brockmeier, PMP, CSM, PMI-PBA, BRMP is the Director of Project Management for Watermark Learning. Andrea is an experienced trainer, facilitator, speaker, and project manager, with over 25 years of business experience. Andrea oversees certification and skills development curriculum in project management, business analysis, and leadership. She has been a speaker at IIBA® and PMI® conferences and is an active volunteer. She enjoys practicing what she teaches and has a steady stream of projects that she manages. Andrea is highly committed to partnering with her clients through projects, consulting, and training, and seeks to make every engagement enjoyable as well as valuable.
On the way home from the Building Business Capability (BBC) conference last week, my wife Elizabeth and I stopped in at an electronics store in Las Vegas. We wanted to listen to an audio book on her new iPod, and the gizmo we have to play the iPod in the car has the traditional iPod connector …
Continue reading Be Careful what you Ask For: A Good Business Case May Uncover Something Better
Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, was the founder of and is now a consultant for Watermark Learning. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in product development, business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. As an internal entrepreneur, Rich led the development of several Watermark Learning online products as a business analyst and product owner. Rich is a frequent speaker at Business Analysis and Project Management national conferences and IIBA® and PMI® chapters around the world. He has contributed as a lead author to the BA Body of Knowledge version 2.0 and 3.0 and was a lead author on PMI’s Business Analysis Practice Guide. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored five books on business analysis.
The trip my wife Elizabeth Larson and I took to South Africa to speak at this year’s BASSA 2013 ended well. The conference had over 200 registered participants, and the organizers kept the sessions moving smoothly. We were delighted with the response from the attendees, made new friends, and re-connected with existing ones. While travelling …
Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, was the founder of and is now a consultant for Watermark Learning. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in product development, business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. As an internal entrepreneur, Rich led the development of several Watermark Learning online products as a business analyst and product owner. Rich is a frequent speaker at Business Analysis and Project Management national conferences and IIBA® and PMI® chapters around the world. He has contributed as a lead author to the BA Body of Knowledge version 2.0 and 3.0 and was a lead author on PMI’s Business Analysis Practice Guide. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored five books on business analysis.
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