February 2018 Book Club Announced!

 

We are excited to announce the ProjectManagement.com February book club! The book club provides an opportunity to participate in webinars and discussions around selected books relevant to the overall practice of project management. The book club occurs in three parts:

1. Opening pre-recorded webinar which will be used to introduce the book. During this 30 minute pre-recorded webinar, the author will provide a high level overview of the concepts in his/her book, familiarizing participants with the information.
2. Discussion thread on ProjectManagement.com with input from the book club host and author. During the last week of the discussion, questions will be collected to present to the author in the closing webinar.
3. Closing Q&A live webinar with the author responding to questions submitted both through the online book club discussion thread and during the webinar. The webinar will be a panel style discussion with open dialogue between the moderator and the author.

The first 25 PMI members registered for the closing book club webinar will receive a complimentary copy of the book and will be notified via email. Additional participants will have the opportunity to purchase a copy of the book at their own expense. 

All community members will be able to view the book club opening webinar and participate in the discussion forum. We will evaluate the content of each opening and closing book club webinar to determine the eligibility and breakdown for PDUs.   

Our book club book for February is Implementing Positive Organizational Change – A Strategic Project Management Approach by Gina Abudi, MBA.

Gina Abudi has 30+ years' experience in providing consulting services and training/education with a focus on projects, process and people to mid- to large, global organizations. She is President of Abudi Consulting Group, LLC and an adjunct faculty member at Granite State College. She blogs regularly at GinaAbudi.com. Gina is the lead author of Best Practices for Managing BPI Projects (J Ross Pub, 2015) and author of Implementing Positive Organizational Change (J Ross Pub, 2017).

About the book:

In today’s increasingly competitive global marketplace, organizations that do not regularly undertake change initiatives will find it difficult—if not impossible—to continue to be successful in the long term.

Most organizations only launch change initiatives when forced to address some pain, such as decreased revenues or profits, where the sole focus is on the benefits to the organization. Often, the people side of change management is overlooked, causing 60-70% of these efforts to fail.

Implementing Positive Organizational Change explains how to develop a continuous improvement culture of change that will be perceived by employees as a positive opportunity to create something new, exciting and valuable, instead of something negative to confront and resist. This comprehensive guide describes how to communicate with and engage stakeholders and employees to gain buy-in and support, and outlines a strategic project management approach that helps ensure successful implementation and desired results.

Our February book club host is David A. Maynard, PMP.  Dave is a native New Yorker who after graduation from college, traveled to Houston to work for NASA at the Johnson Spacecraft Center, where he worked for many years. 

He participated in the Shuttle avionics architecture design, the “glass cockpit” development and in crew training.  Incrementally David’s level of responsibility increased, becoming a Senior Engineer, Project Engineer, Project Manager and Program Manager.

After leaving NASA, Mr. Maynard was asked to become the General Manager of Systems Management Inc. (SMI) in Orlando, FL. whose mission was to turn-around troubled projects, programs or operations. 

David teaches Project Management at Purdue University, Fort Wayne (IPFW). He is active in the PMI-Northeast Indiana Chapter of which he was a founding member. He volunteers for PMI in various capacities.

To register for the closing live book club webinar, please visit the webinar page on ProjectManagement.com, find the book club closing webinar and click on the “Register for this webinar” link.

Please visit the book club information and discussion on the Project Management.com books page. 

For additional questions, please visit the ProjectManagement.com Book Club FAQ page.