Thursday, February 18, 5:30 p.m.

Maine Chapter, Project Management Institute

Governor's Restaurant, South Portland

    (For information: pmimaine.org)

  Did the project do what it set out to do, on schedule and within budget? If so, why? Project Manager performance, that's why. If not, why not? Project Manager performance, that's why not.

  If the Project Manager makes good decisions, the team members and other stakeholders contribute productively, the process works and the schedule, cost and outcome metrics meet original expectations. If the Project Manager makes poor decisions, poor performance produces poor results, most seriously triggering cascades of problems, disasters and disharmonies.

  Jim Milliken's program explores the decision-making process that can predetermine from Moment One whether a particular project is heading toward the promised land or toward a very steep cliff.

  The premise of the program is that each action taken or bypassed by the Project Manager is based on a broad or immediate decision, and each adds to the construction or erosion of a successful project process. Many of those decisions relate to the human interactions on which the project depends, many others arise from the project process itself - and very many combine people and process elements. The Project Manager's awareness of those realities, and ability to understand and react correctly to them, make all the difference in the quality of the person's decision-making amid project pressures.

  "Right On/Way Off: Good Decisions, Bad Decisions in Managing Projects" results from several decades' research and practice in the real world in which projects are conceived, planned and executed.