PMI Silver Spring Chapter

 
Please join us on Wednesday evening, August 11, 2010 to welcome our guest speaker for the month of August, Dorothy Tiffany, the NASA EVM Program Executive and the NASA PM Challenge Project Manager in NASA's Office of the Chief Engineer. The February 9-10, 2011 "PM Challenge 2011" conference which Ms. Tiffany co-chairs will focus on the quest for knowledge and spirit of discovery that drives NASA’s missions in space exploration and aeronautics. Recipient of two NASA Exceptional Achievement Medals, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, and PMI's Distinguished Contribution Award, Ms. Tiffany will be discussing NASA's approach to Earned Value Management (EVM), and the challenges faced in gaining institutional support for EVM within NASA, both on its major contracts and on its in-house development activities.

We will be meeting at the Blair Mansion Inn at 7711 Eastern Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20912. Cost is $35 if you pay in advance, $40 if you pay at the door.

To register for this event, click here.

PMI Silver Spring Chapter is now offering a two-day PMP 4th Edition Prep Course!!!! The PMP certification is one of the most coveted certificates in the country today.  With the average salary of a PMP nearing $105,000 in the United States, the time is right to earn your PMP credential. The PMP certification is both a validation of your experience and a validation of your positive approach to project management. Dr. Abhay V. Trivedi, a project management and systems engineering consultant with over 20 years of experience assessing project management needs for complex businesses, will be conducting the training.

DATE: Friday and Saturday, 27 and 28 August 2010. TIME: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. each day. COST: $850 for PMI Silver Spring Chapter members ($950 for all others). WHERE: Blair Mansion Inn (7711 Eastern Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20912). PDUs: Attendance at the event (for PMPs seeking to refresh their knowledge of the PMBOK) is worth 16 PDUs.

To register for the August 27-28, 2010 PMP Prep Course, click here.

Take advantage of this local opportunity, offered by LitheSpeed in conjunction with PMI Silver Spring Chapter, to become a Certified ScrumMaster and begin your transition to Agile methods. Sanjiv Augustine, President of LitheSpeed, will be presenting the class. DATE: Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - Thursday, September 9, 2010. TIME: 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM each day.  WHERE: MicroTek/Washington, DC Facility - 1101 Vermont Avenue NW  - (at L St.) - Suite 300 - Washington, DC, 20005 (Telephone: 202-289-3811). COST: $1,395; Use discount code ‘PMI’ (without quotes) to receive a 15% discount.

Click here to register. NOTE: If you encounter problems opening this link for registration (which opens a page on the LitheSpeed website), please click here to contact the VP of Professional Development, Marcus Parker, to let him know of your interest in registering for this training.

Carl's Corner
by Carl Pritchard, PMP (July 2,  2010)

Freedom to Walk Away

by Carl Pritchard, PMP, PMI-RMP

Sometimes the hardest part in any business relationship is ackknowledging that there's a time to stay, and a time to walk away.

A Message from the President, Rusty Richards
May 22, 2010

My first memory of attending a PMI Silver Spring chapter meeting is from sometime in 2002, in the back room of a little restaurant in a strip mall up in Olney, MD. There were about fifteen people at the meeting. Although a number of individuals were named as Board members, only one of them, as I recall – the founding President, Bobby Blevins – was present at that and subsequent meetings. The chapter had no website, a small mailing list (fewer than a couple hundred individuals), no place to meet on a regular basis, no consistent schedule of meetings or speakers, and no chapter newsletter.

WELCOME to the Silver Spring Chapter, a registered component of the Project Management Institute®, the world's leading not-for-profit association for the project management profession.

The Silver Spring Chapter provides an open forum for professionals in the field of project management in Silver Spring, Maryland and the surrounding Washington, DC metropolitan area to promote the principles of the Project Management Institute through networking with other project managers, sharing project experiences, providing and receiving training, and supporting project managers in their certification and continuing professional development efforts. Our community of project management practitioners is ever alert to the needs of the journey, following the path of awareness, and like swans, our members glide on, leaving behind their former resting places.

Our chapter normally meets at the Blair Mansion Inn in Silver Spring, Maryland, on the second Wednesday evening of the month (unless otherwise indicated). The monthly meetings are determined by traditional methods of calculation, and are not always the same as the precise astronomical occurrences. Therefore, please consult this website for periodic updates. Cost of an evening event is $35, which includes dinner and the presentation by our guest speaker.