Lean and Agile Project Management

APM Northwest Co-host Major Project Management Event - Lean & Agile Project Management – Macdonald Manchester Hotel, Manchester, 14th July 2008

Research has shown that lean and agile project management has yielded significant benefits, particularly within the information systems industry over the last five to ten years. However, take up has not been universal and there are significant barriers to change in certain sectors – for instance, in construction.

This workshop will seek to address some of those issues and will also illustrate some of the successes achieved to date. The breakout sessions will provide opportunities for exploring the opportunities for change in your own industry.

Organiser and chair for the day will be Bob Owen, senior research fellow in the Salford Centre for Research and Innovation with a great interest in lean and agile project management. Bob also has committee roles within APM.

Our keynote speaker is the incredibly successful chief executive of Manchester City Council, APM Honorary Fellow Sir Howard Bernstein who will, on past performance, be very open to questioning on his approach to strategic change within our dynamic city. Our other speakers are:

Will Lichtig, shareholder and special counsel for McDonough Holland & Allen (law - California, USA) will tackle his development of a new collaborative relational contracting model (Integrated Forms of Agreement) which facilitates distributed project leadership and decision making, while preserving rights for the owner to direct the process and redress any failures of the team. His work is making real change and he has been recognised by Engineering News Record as one of the top newsmakers of 2007.

Nick Nickolaison, CIO and director of strategic planning at Headwaters, Inc. (fuels processing and construction materials Utah, USA) will illustrate his talk with a case study to show that it is possible to improve project quality – without changing project scope – while decreasing both project time and cost. The Purpose Alignment Model can be used to improve the multitude of project decisions which occur. Nick has focused on improving organizational and IT agility, process simplification and the passionate application of lean concepts, and is a very popular speaker.

Hal Macomber started his Reforming Project Management (Massachusetts, USA) blog six years ago and it is now one of the ‘must read’ blogs on the subjects of lean and agile project management, and much more. Hal is a partner in Lean Project Consulting, Inc. From the work of Flores, Goldratt, and Ohno/Shingo, Hal is setting out to bring about a transformation in how projects are led and delivered. The bulk of today's improving efforts are spent on doing a better job applying the same old techniques – in conjunction with the Lean Construction Institute, Hal has set out to change that.

Eric Dean founded and is chief executive of Panaloc (UK), a seamless manufacturing company at the very leading edge of lean manufacture and construction. This leading edge includes sustainability and a drive towards zero waste, the re-use of the dormant ship canal for supply and delivery, and remote off-site manufacture. Eric is achieving things in construction that others merely talk about. We are fortunate to have been invited to tour the Panaloc factory at the end of the day, though numbers will be limited, so reservation is essential.

For further details of this event please click here

To book online (card payment only) please click this link, including your APM membership number in the ‘additional names’ box. For a registration form for payment by other methods, please e-mail Karen West