A Practice-Based Methodology for Productive Innovation

Project Management is the hallmark of successful human organizations in the 21 st century. It is the most effective way to meet the challenges of this unparalleled era.

Technology and the accompanying methodologies are changing the environment for every kind of organization. They are creating incredible opportunities, yet intensifying end-user expectations and competitive pressures. Product/service life cycles are shortening; skill demands are rising. Global competition and opportunity are in every corner of the economy, for organizations large and small.

This revolution is accelerating, and penetrating every corner of our civilization.

To thrive in such an environment, people must become more productive, in ways that do not exhaust their capacity to learn, create and invest effective effort.

Projects are the defined processes of moving organizations, ideas and groups of people from Point A to Point B when there are significant areas of uncertainty and complexity. They invest resources in efforts specifically designed to build a significant innovation. There always is risk in projects, and the risk increases in proportion to the value of the intended outcome.

Project Management is the discipline by which diverse groups of people develop team synergy in making productive investments of time and physical resources in controlled risk environments to produce maximum defined quality in innovations.

Jim Milliken's Project Management curriculum is a set of workplace-based training modules that move groups of people through the orderly steps of an effective process, using cases and team simulations as a base for realistic discussions and practice.

In these designs, the work breakdown structures, precedent diagrams and Gantt charts are the tools through which people of varying specialties can communicate, problem-solve, goal-set, negotiate and manage through the uncertain circumstances of the typical project.

The training is available for multidisciplinary groups or intact work teams. It comes in designs from one to eight days, or customizations of any duration. It is in 90-minute modules, so can be scheduled to allow for workplace tryout of each sequential step before moving to the next. Customization can go even to the point of creating original cases based on worksite-specific consultation, questionnaires and focus groups.

An eight-day version is regularly offered through the Center for Continuing Education at the University of Southern Maine

Typical titles of presentations are:

Organizing for Project Management

Implementing Project Management

Advanced Project Management

Project Management Operations

Building Project Teams

Mastering Multiple Projects, Priorities & Demands

Jim Milliken holds the Project Management Professional certification of the Project Management Institute, and can provide training designs based on the PMI Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge as desired.

Organizations need frequent tune-ups to maintain effective workflow amid change. Jim has long experience – plus creative tools -- to help executives analyze their organizations, then design and implement better ways.

Project Management is the 21st-century model for managing complex, risky innovations to on-time outcomes within budget. Jim Milliken offers workplace-tested designs in customized formats for onsite implementation and classroom training.

Communication is the lifeblood of human organization, in small partnerships and large corporations – and the pipeline to their markets. Jim provides practical approaches to all the oral and written forms.

Personal Productivity is fundamental, and it consists of skills that can be examined, practiced and perfected. Likewise Leadership and Supervision. Jim has common-sense training designs for dozens of these essentials.

There is no obligation, financial or otherwise, arising from a preliminary discussion of consultation or training solutions.