Session Information
Title: Innovate or Die: Agile, Innovation and the Project Manager
Presenter: Richard Sheridan, PMP
Duration: 1 hour
Does professional project management even make sense for Agile “innovation” teams? Richard Sheridan will explore the seeming contradictions between the application of professional project management and the need for 21st century organizations to rapidly innovate in order to thrive — or even just survive — in a globally competitive market.
- Learn how rapid innovation can be served — not constrained — by mature project management processes aligned with global standards
- Understand how a rigorous yet agile project management system can align with the teachings in the PMBOK Guide
- Discover how other organizations have applied Agile to project management and avoided all the pitfalls associated with teams looking to deliver quickly without process overhead
About our Speaker
Rich Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations became the Forbes “Hire Yourself” cover story for all those choosing entrepreneurship over unemployment. The next year, it was a Wall Street Journal article on the unique office Menlo uses for software design and development. Within six years, Menlo had become one of Inc. 500’s fastest growing privately held firms in the US. What make this story truly remarkable is that it occurred against the backdrop of an IT industry that everyone assumed was leaving the US for offshore.
Sheridan’s team at Menlo breaks all the rules and, in doing so, produces phenomenal results for its customers. No walls, offices, doors or cubes — one big open room, a la Edison’s original invention factory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. In this noisy, fun atmosphere Menlo has produced software for all walks of industry from health care, to scientific equipment, to high-fashion ecommerce, to diesel motor vehicle diagnostics, and many more.
Software developed by Menlo for its clients is designed for everyday people by Menlo’s High-tech Anthropologists, built to last by Menlo’s world-class agile software development team, and managed by a set of professional project managers listed among the nation’s 50 Most Prolific by the Project Management Institute. Sheridan and Menlo have won numerous awards and honors, and he and his team regularly are invited to present nationally and internationally sharing the secrets of the Menlo Software Factory(tm) with all who wish to learn how to build a Learning Organization that can keep pace with today’s advances in software and design.