Cafe Talks: a series of project community support sessions with topics, dates and locations. These are informal sessions designed to share and strengthen our knowledge of relevant topics through discussion and collaboration with other staff on an ongoing basis. This is a volunteer effort that hopes to organize 2-3 events each year based on ideas and requests submitted to ist-cop@mit.edu.
Feel free to review the Potential Topics For Cafe Talks and tell us what you think!
May 17, 2012: Lessons Learned Working With Vendors
Peers share what they have learned working with vendors, from selection and negotiation through knowledge transfer and termination: a panel of IS&T staff who shared their experiences working with vendors. As this was a broad subject, a short survey was offered to gauge what questions the audience was most interested in having the panelists speak to first: Lessons Learned Working With Vendors
A summary of the event in the form of questions and answers is available here: Vendor Management Cafe Talk
November 15, 2012: Project Management Leadership - What's Your Style?
Regardless of what type of project leader you are, there are many different recipes people use to initiate and plan a project: a panel of project managers shared individual approaches and what has worked well (and maybe not so well) in their experience planning and initiating a project: Cafe Talk Project Planning and Leadership Panel Questions We also invited participants to take a short survey to get them thinking about what approached they were most comfortable with: Project Leadership - What's Your Style?
A summary of the event in the form of questions and answers is available here: Project Leadership Cafe Talk
March 26, 2013: Help! Is My Project In Trouble?
No matter how good the project team, projects aren't easy. Deadlines get missed, decisions aren't made and communication breaks down, resulting in confusion and frustration. Sometimes these problems can be avoided, sometimes not. Come learn about the red flags and warning signs of a project that is struggling, and what team members can do to get a project back on track. Remember, when a project gets tough, the tough get together and problem solve!
Presentation and notes available here: Help Is My Project In Trouble Final Presentation
A summary of the event in the form of questions and answers is available here: Troubled Projects Cafe Talk Summary
February 11, 2014: Knowledge Management
"What to do when you catch on fire" (aka, knowledge management advice from G.I. Joe)
The basis of this talk was a conversation about how best to capture, develop, share, and use organizational knowledge. The IS&T Knowledge Management Core team facilitated a discussion about what works well, what challenges projects face, and about some of the benefits of using the Knowledge Base. This was also an opportunity to share with colleagues how to manage project and team knowledge.
Presentation and notes are available here (please note Quick Time Player is required to view embedded videos): KM Cafe Talk
A summary of the event in the form of questions and answers is available here: Knowledge Management Cafe Talk Summary
November 20, 2014: Agile Approaches to Project Management
A diverse panel of project members discuss both the benefits and challenges they experienced using agile methodologies, and shared advice for those of us who are considering using these practices in the future.
Presentation is available here: Agile Cafe Talk Slides
A summary of the event in the form of questions and answers is available here: Agile Approaches to PM Cafe Talk Summary
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