List of Meetings (details below)

 
Jun 27, 2001:
Management Forum: Sustainable Business: the 3rd Great Technological Revolution – Martin Squibbs (see slides)
After-dinner Talk: Electric Power Management and Energy Conservation: Providing Solutions to the California Energy Crisis – Peter Klock (see slides)
May 30, 2001
Management Forum: How to Keep Engineering Projects on Track – Carl Angotti
After-dinner Talk: A Network Appliance Company For Data Storage? – Dave Hitz
Apr 25, 2001:
Management Forum: Best Practices for Successful Cross-Functional Project Management – Jeanne Cherbeneau
After-dinner Talk: Stepwise Evolution to Design Excellence at LifeScan – Jim Mansour
Mar 28, 2001:
Management Forum: Interviewing In A Seller’s Market – Ed Levine
After-dinner Talk: Challenges of Start-up Management – Dr. Mark E. Allen
Feb 28, 2001:
Management Forum: The Person in (the) Process – Bruce Meyer
After-dinner Talk: Technology Strategy for System Products – Jonathan Propp
Jan 31, 2001:
Management Forum: Manager as Coach – Carole Rehbock
After-dinner Talk: A Key to Creating an Environment for Successful, Projects: Authenticity and Integrity – Randy Englund
Nov 29, 2000:
Management Forum: Generating Sustainable Team Capacity – Gary Selick
After-dinner Talk: Using Web Based Tools for Product Development Excellence – Aritomo Shinozaki
Oct 25, 2000:
Management Forum: Writing with Impact – Kathleen Mohn
After-dinner Talk: The Mystery of New Products Metrics (that also Fit Business Needs) – Chris Meyer
Sep 27, 2000:
Management Forum: Does Your Thinking Limit Your Success? – Jean O’Neill
After-dinner Talk: Tales and Lessons from the Entrepreneurial Front – Cinda Voegtli

 

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MEETING SUMMARIES & BIOS
 
 
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Jun 27, 2001

Management Forum: Sustainable Business – The 3rd Great Technological Revolution

Presented by Martin Squibbs, Business Development Manager, Atmel Inc.

Following the agricultural and industrial revolutions, we now face arguably the third great challenge to humanity’s engineering and innovation: creating and managing sustainable businesses. These are businesses which create their products with recycled materials and renewable energy, versus extracting their material requirements from, and disposing their material waste onto, the planet.
• Why do we need sustainable business? We shall look at some global and national indicators and statistics
quantifying human’s impact on the planet.
• How do we manage a sustainable business? We shall look at a sustainable business from a systems point
of to see how it can be managed, and indeed how its underlying principles can help managers increase
individuals’ motivation and company profits.
• Do you have some examples? We shall look at some examples of how companies are applying these
principles and reducing their environmental impact, increasing their morale, and making more money,
as they move towards sustainability.
• How can I help? What new innovations will we ourselves propose during this TMC forum – with the promise
of only a hot meal as reward?

Martin Squibbs spent his first thirty years living in the UK, graduating from Imperial College, London University with a Masters in Electrical Engineering and Management. After seven years of design experience in the UK, Martin moved to the US in 1994, working first as a Design Center Manager and more recently as a Business Development Manager, for semiconductor manufacturer Atmel Inc. Outside of work, Martin has a keen interest in humanity’s historical development of technology and culture, and its relationship with the environment.

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After-dinner Talk: Electric Power Management and Energy Conservation – Providing Solutions to the California Energy Crisis

Presented by Peter Klock, P.E., Founder & Senior Staff Consultant, ESC Engineering Services Company

Businesses can make a critical contribution to energy resources for California while helping their own bottom line. Presently, lucrative state financial incentives to reduce demand for electric power are available, particularly during forecasted power supply shortage episodes this summer. Expeditious corporate action can exploit the state financial incentives for implementing load reduction programs, while avoiding the impacts of service unreliability, power shortages and blackouts, price increases and periodic spikes, and damage to business continuity and corporate earnings.

Commitment is particularly necessary at the corporate procurement level to approve the budgets needed to acquire needed information and mobilize the electric power management and energy conservation program. As part of the program, critical operations must be identified and facilities targeted for investigation. Strategies include:
• Backup power and uninterruptible power systems for critical operations;
• Service entrance metering, expert software systems and web based software tools to exploit load reduction
incentives and real time pricing signals; and
• Development of energy conservation opportunities.

Peter Klock will address the management of simple internal operational aspects of power usage, system modifications and technology installations available to implement a power management program, as well as the range of contract awards and incentives available to justify implementation costs.

Mr. Klock will present an electric power management solution that includes the likes of an interval meter installation at each building service entrance as the first step: energy demand and usage information for each building is sent to a central corporate database via the corporate communications network. Real time enterprise wide information is then available. Real time information is required to exploit load reduction incentives and respond to real time pricing signals and incentives.

Peter Klock has over 20 years of experience in the design and construction of commercial and industrial energy systems. Since founding ESC in 1976, Mr. Klock has managed a broad range of projects, involving experts and technicians from diverse fields to provide clients with specialized information for decision-making or with specialized design solutions. Over the last five years he has specialized in electric power distribution systems and metering. He is responsible for ESC operations and provides project management services to selected clients. ESC was founded to provide energy conservation solutions to respond to the energy shortages and resulting price spikes created by the Arab oil embargo.

His most recent experience has been manager of the Sun Microsystems enterprise-wide electric power management services provided by ESC. Mr. Klock was selected for this project by Johnson Controls Inc., Integrated Facilities Management, which ocurred during the evolving California Energy Crisis and provides ESC with up to the minute knowledge of the issues, the players and the workable solutions. Mr Klock is a registered professional engineer and is the qualifier for ESC’s C-10 General Electrical Contracting License including CPUC certification as a Meter Service Provider (MSP).

Mr. Klock holds an MS in thermal sciences from Stanford University, a business administration degree from the University of San Francisco and a BS degree in mechanical engineering from San Jose State University.

 

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May 30, 2001

Management Forum: How to Keep Engineering Projects on Track

Presented by Carl Angotti, President, Angotti Product Development

Engineering projects are notoriously difficult to keep on track. This is especially true for high technology product development projects. Unlike a manufacturing process, there is not much repeatability, especially since these products must be developed while the customer need and the technology are changing. Adding to this, the persons working on a project may be in flux also, contributing more to the chaos.

In spite of this environment, there are some strategies that, if employed, will ensure a much higher probability of success. Mr. Angotti will discuss and explore several of the strategies he thinks are most important with the meeting attendees. In this TMC Management Forum, using an interactive format, he will cover a few of the twelve strategies he has captured in his paper entitled “The Twelve Best Strategies to Keep Engineering Projects on Track” located on his website (www.angotti.com).

These have evolved from many years of doing product development in the electronics industry in Silicon Valley, both as a Project Manager and a project participant. They are generally based upon the age old principles of the four steps of Project Management:
A. PLANNING (how the specified tasks will be accomplished and with what resources)
B. REPORTING (how well the project is working compared to the plan)
C. CORRECTIVE ACTION (as required – Management by Exception, Risk Mitigation, etc.)
D. PROCESS FEEDBACK (to improve future project planning and controlling)

Join us for this lively forum to learn about, and explore, real world examples of good potential strategies and their relative effectiveness.

The presenter, Carl Angotti, is President of Angotti Product Development, a consulting company engaged in assisting his clients to accelerate their product development projects. He has more than 30 years of experience in electronics engineering. More than 25 of those years have been spent as a consultant to Bay Area high tech firms. He often serves in the role as project leader and coordinator for the projects he works on for his clients.

Mr. Angotti holds an MBA from San Jose State University, an MSEE from the University of Southern California and a BSEE from Carnegie-Mellon University. He is a member of the IEEE, the IEEE Engineering Management Society, the IEEE Consultants Network, PATCA (Professional and Technical Consultants Association, www.patca.org), the Project Management Institute, the IMC (Institute of Management Consultants and the Technology Alliance Bridge (TAB, www.tabridge.com).

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After-dinner Talk: A Network Appliance Company for Data Storage?

Presented by Dave Hitz, Chief Philosophy Officer and VP Engineering, Network Appliance

How do you take an idea and do it so well that you grow into a multi-million dollar company? Get the full answer from Network Appliance founder, Dave Hitz at our May 30th meeting. NetApp’s brief answer: separate data storage from an application server, and put all that data on a special network appliance tasked with serving data at high speeds. In 1992, Network Appliance originated this high-performance network appliance concept. Today, NetApp is a recognized leader in the storage, management, and delivery of data and content on demand. Corporations and service providers, including Lycos, Yahoo!, Citicorp Securities, Siemens, Lockheed, Cisco, Motorola, and Texas Instruments use NetApp’s center-to-edge™ solutions to reduce the cost and complexity of managing their mission-critical data.

Dave Hitz founded Network Appliance with James Lau in early 1992. Dave’s early job at NetApp was “Chief Philosophy Officer”. He helped people answer the questions: Why are we here? Where did we come vfrom? Where are we going? Now, Dave is responsible for NetApp’s overall hardware and software development, production design and quality.

Prior to NetApp, Dave worked as Senior Engineer at file server manufacturer, Auspex, where he was responsible for file systems and micro-kernel design. He previously held engineering positions at MIPS Computer where he focused on file system and I/O subsystem design for the System V kernel development effort.

Dave attended George Washington University, Swarthmore College and Deep Springs College, receiving a BSE in Computer Science from Princeton University.

 

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Apr 25, 2001

Management Forum: Best Practices for Successful Cross Functional Project Management

Presented by Jeanne Cherbeneau, President, Cherbeneau and Associates

This Forum session will be useful to you if you’ve ever felt like your work, as an individual or part of a project team, has somehow been misunderstood, misused, or altered negatively in the process of transitioning it to another department that was supposed to carry it forward (e.g., from research, to design, to development, to production, and ultimately to marketing and sales).

This Forum will identify “best practices” in managing the overall process of product design, development, production and sales, with a focus on the “human side” of planning, collaborating with others, gaining needed management support, building cross-functional team communication and consensus, and managing interpersonal and inter-group conflicts.

You will gain helpful strategies and insights from your best and worst experiences, as well as principles and best practices used for successful cross-functional teamwork, product development transitions, and product outcomes. You will have an opportunity later to hear the evening speaker describe the application of these principles and others to specific examples of product development efforts and methodology.

Jeanne Cherbeneau, Ph.D., is President and Principal Consultant of Cherbeneau and Associates, an organization, management, and human resources systems consulting firm located in Berkeley, CA. Her background experience includes more than 30 years in management and internal and external consulting for a wide variety of organizations ranging from start-ups and small businesses to medium and very large organizations, including profit, non-profit and public agencies. Industries served include technology, telecommunications, biotechnology, health care, science, construction and manufacturing, among others.

Jeanne specializes in:
1. The planning and managing of organizational change and transition management, such as
redesign/reorganization, reengineering, growth, mergers and joint ventures;
2. Strategic planning;
3. Management, organization and human resource development and management systems,
such as project and performance management, and
4. Work redesign, quality improvement and customer service.

Such work includes team-building, organization-wide communication and consensus-building; leadership development; executive coaching; developing cross-functional and high-performing teams; and inter-personal and inter-group conflict management.

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After-dinner Talk: Stepwise Evolution to Design Excellence at Life

Presented by Jim Mansour, Director, New Product Planning, LifeScan Inc.

LifeScan’s product development organization is in the process of transitioning from using the “rearview mirror” to looking forward in driving the development of new products. By focusing on these and other design excellence practices, improved product and greater customer satisfaction will be obtained. LifeScan’s new product development process is an on-going dynamic process. The current process, involving design control and the overall business process, will be briefly described and illustrated. Areas of recent improvements that focus on the post launch stage of the development process and concern “lesson’s learned” and “transition plans” will be presented and discussed.

LifeScan’s stepwise evolution towards design excellence in its new product development process has been directly aided by these activities. Key learnings and applicable metrics that have previously been made available and applied at the final stages of a new product development effort are now being moved “upstream” to the planning phase of the development process.

The work at LifeScan in maturing their new product development methodology illustrates corporations’ response to competitive forces requiring a focused investment in process work that is as strategically important as the product portfolio strategy. Perhaps the lessons learned in growing product development capability will aid others in designing their own roadmap to advanced capability and project management maturity.

Jim Mansour joined LifeScan Inc. in March 1996, as the Director of the New Product Planning department and has managed the growth of the department from four to fourteen individuals. A scientist by training, Jim earned advanced Biology degrees from Boston College in Bacteriology (M.S.) and Biochemistry (Ph.D.), and has conducted post-doctorate training in Molecular Biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Prior to joining LifeScan, Jim worked 14 years with 4 divisions of Becton Dickinson involved with infectious disease diagnostics where he acquired experience in R&D, program management, marketing, and technical support.

 

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Mar 28, 2001

Management Forum: Interviewing In a Seller’s Market

Presented by Ed Levine, Cofounder, Technically Speaking

“Gee, I really haven’t had a lot of time to look at your resume…so, why do we want to work and here and what are your strengths?”

AARGH!!!

All too often in today’s hectic environment the interviewing process suffers. Creating a positive experience for both parties is exceedingly important, particularly in today’s “seller’s market”. If you are going to attract and hire the best engineering candidates, then your interviewing skills must be the best as well. The interviewer must be able to evaluate applicants AND sell the company in a compelling fashion.

Fail to plan, plan to fail! Preparation does not have to take a lot of time, however the benefits of planning are undeniable. In this presentation we will explore three areas of planning bound to improve the interviewing experience for both parties. They will include:

Profiling the position:
Separating the “nice-to-haves” from the “have-to-haves”. By preplanning the value of each criterion you will spend the appropriate time focusing on the most vital skill sets.

Organizing the team:
Most companies today involve multiple parties in the interviewing process. Learn an easy and powerful way to organize your team and avoid common mistakes, like asking the same questions.

Developing questions:
Learn how to preplan questions that are directly related to the most important skill sets identified when profiling the position. This will uncover the most critical information and save you time, as you can reuse the same questions whenever interviewing for that position! Interviewing skills are often underestimated because it’s easy to do a mediocre job and get away with it. This presentation may very well change the way you look at interviewing and give you great ideas to bring back to your company and team.

Ed Levine is cofounder of Technically Speaking, a San Francisco based training and consulting firm. Ed has been conducting Interviewing Skills and other Management training since 1995. He has been involved in technology and engineering his whole career, including founding one of the first AutoCAD dealerships in the Bay Area. Technically Speaking offers a wide of programs, including Performance Management, Presentations, Interviewing Skills and Sales Strategies. 80% of Technically Speaking’s customers are technology focused and headquartered in the Silicon Valley.

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After-dinner Talk: Challenges of Start-up Management in New & Established Companies

Presented by Dr. Mark E. Allen, Co-Founder and VP, Optical Networking Technologies, Valiant Networks Inc.

Start-up companies present many unique management challenges that may not be visible or exist in well-established organizations. This presentation focuses on situations in a startup company for clarity and directly relateable experience. However the same issues may apply in established corporations as they respond to competitive pressures and seek to leverage their internal core strengths to enter new markets or maintain leadership in their established markets. Either way we can apply these lessons learned to our own businesses. These challenges fall in several areas.

First, the business model must be developed; often this is an iterative and evolving process that involves interesting dynamics between the investors and the founding team members. Success in closing on the funding is an interesting mix of timing, the business model, the team and luck.

Another challenging area is recruiting early members of the team. This requires finding individuals open to taking risks not normally present in an established company. As new management is recruited and hired, the early employees must give up some job functions. This can be a challenge to employees who resist the additional structure as the company becomes more mature. Keeping these employees motivated and excited about the business takes constant attention.

Selecting a location where a talent pool exists (Silicon Valley) can be very advantageous. But, this means that employees are very fickle with their loyalties. With a relatively small workforce within the start-up, determining how to optimally extract quality work from employees while also keeping them trained and challenged requires creative solutions.

Maintaining focus when the adrenaline wears off is another challenge. Recent downturns in the stock market and changes in investor appetite have quickly changed morale in many start-up companies. People willing to make short-term sacrifices only if it means there’s a big payday down the road staff many start-ups. The objective of building a sustainable company is often dismissed for the lure of easy money. It is important to realize that how the opportunity is sold to prospective employees can come back to bite when IPO’s are delayed and valuations shrink.

Dr. Mark E. Allen is the co-founder and VP of Optical Networking Technologies at Valiant Networks Inc. (www.valiantnet.com). Previously, he was involved in defining the architecture for the Williams Communications Group (WCG) as Director of Optical Networks in Tulsa. Mark has worked for WilTel, Raytheon E-Systems, WorldCom and other companies working on all aspects of communication systems including wireless modulation techniques, network design, simulations, and optical networking technologies. Mark is currently Co-chair of the ODSI and is active in other industry groups.

Mark received the BSEE from the University of Kansas and the MSEE and PhD in electrical engineering from Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. Mark is a member of the IEEE communications society and HKN and was recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium award. Mark has taught in the Electrical Engineering departments of Oklahoma State University and San Jose State University.

 

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Feb 28, 2001

Management Forum: The Person in (the) Process

Presented by Bruce Meyer, Ed.D.

There are many forces and factors in the work world today that point to an increased emphasis on process considerations and the people side of the organization. In Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the corporate world, companies are looking for a competitive edge, the latest innovations, and ways to train and retain competent managers and individual contributors. Management consultants are keen to create or have in their bag of tricks what’s “hot” in management training. Engineering managers, as described on the Engineering Management’s (TMC) Santa Clara Valley Chapter’s Management Club Web page, are “expected to be adept in the art of leading and motivating people . . . [and] to transcend the technical skills associated with product development and delivery to acquire people skills.”

In Dr. Meyer’s consulting and training program, The Leadership Process, two of the necessary shifts identified are moving from:
1. Leadership as business acumen to leadership as social artistry and
2. Being an expert and giving answers to facilitating process as a conscious skill.

The increasingly popular use of work teams and coaching approaches has introduced new and expanded ways of dealing more effectively with process needs within organizations. They have also generated more demands on managers who already appear to have a full plate.

Many problem-solvers react by looking for quick-fix solutions, and many training programs attempt to get managers up to speed quickly. While it’s possible to acquire cursory skills and techniques in a short time frame, developing real competence is another matter. What’s often missed in such trainings is a deeper appreciation of the unique individuals that are involved in the process. As a result, many of us simply get “packaged” and “processed.”

With other TMC programs scheduled on coaching and other strategies for better performance and outcomes, this presentation will be on understanding more fully the person in the process. In other words, we will look at factors involved in seeing more clearly who the people are that we encounter as coachee, colleague, supervisor and friend. The focus will be on developing an appreciation for the complexity and richness of each person. This forum session will be primarily interactive around the presentation of content on core aspects of identity, perception, the uniqueness-commonality continuum and a reciprocal influencing process.

Bruce Meyer has 32 years of professional experience in corporate, nonprofit and university settings, both nationally and internationally. He has served as an external consultant and trainer with over 70 organizations, specializing in leadership training, group process, individual and team development, people skills, experiential learning, career transitions, and organizational effectiveness and change.

Bruce earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration and his master’s and doctoral degrees in higher education and holds several credentials in group leadership, counseling and psychology. He has held a number of organizational leadership positions, including Director of Training at the National Center for the Exploration of Human Potential, founder and director of the International Human Development Project, Dean of Counseling, and Career Center Manager. He has traveled widely, having visited over forty countries, and has worked professionally in Asia, Latin America and Europe.

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After-dinner Talk: Technology Strategy for System Products — Technical and organizational challenges of high tech product development

Presented by Jonathan Propp, Manager, Sun Microsystems

This presentation will cover how Sun Microsystems does technology strategy for its system products. Sun tries to balance decentralized product development groups with the need for consistency in product architecture.

With increasing competition in product development, companies are looking more at the front end of product development and the role of product architecture in ensuring lasting success. Sun Microsystems has made significant strides in the last year in changing the way product architecture is done for its system level products.

Using an executive steering committee and technical working groups, Sun is trying to balance decentralized product development groups with the need for consistency in product architecture. These working groups focus on key subsystems, core technologies, and interfaces, and have become true “communities of practice”. The executive steering committee then enforces the architectural guidelines into use by product groups. The effort makes extensive use of Sun’s internet to communicate information.

The result has been improved coordination among product groups, better subsystem development, and better discussion and decision making about key technology issues.

This will be a “nuts and bolts” presentation about how one company has tackled the technical and organizational challenges of high tech product development.

Jonathan Propp is Manager, Strategic Development for the System Products Group of Sun Microsystems. In this role, he is responsible for long-term Engineering capabilities and strategies. Prior to this, he was the architect of the systems product life cycle process. He has worked in high technology operations, product and process development for 14 years. He holds an AB from Harvard University and an MBA from Yale.

 

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Jan 31, 2001

Management Forum: Manager as Coach

Presented by Carole Rehbock, Certified Personal and Professional Coach

In today’s competitive marketplace, managers are faced with maximizing employee potential and retaining high performing technical contributors. Traditionally managers have thought of coaching as synonymous with providing feedback and improving performance. Coaching now involves much more. It requires inspiring and supporting employees to achieve “stretch” goals, discover unique talents and build direction and accountability. In this session, you will learn about the “coaching mindset”, and questioning and listening techniques that result in higher employee retention while maximizing performance levels.

The presenter, Carole Rehbock is a certified personal and professional coach who has worked with managers over the last 25 years to help them develop vision, purpose and plans to deal with change and transition, career decisions, leadership development issues, and conflicting priorities. She holds an MBA and has been involved in the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Hudson Coaching Institute and the International Coaches Federation. Carole teaches a one day “Manager as Coach” seminar sponsored by the IEEE Engineering Management Society. Call (408) 866-6172 for the next open enrollment program.

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After-dinner Talk: A Key to Creating an Environment for Successful Projects: Authenticity and Integrity

Presented by Randy Englund, Strategic Management Group

Many people in organizations lament that their leaders lack authenticity and integrity. When that feeling is prevalent, trust cannot develop, and progress towards creating a project-based organization is greatly hindered. But why are authenticity and integrity so important to project success? And how can managers create a culture that supports these qualities instead of undermining them?

When Bob Graham and I wrote Creating an Environment for Successful Projects, this recurring theme permeated our findings. Our combined experiences and observations, Bob as a cultural anthropologist and mine as an industry practitioner, uncovered many examples of “organizational perversities,” most often caused by leaders who violated authenticity and integrity.

Authenticity means that managers mean what they say. Integrity means that they do what they say they will do, and for the reasons that they originally stated. By linking intentions, words, and actions, authenticity and integrity connect the head and the heart. They help leaders establish credibility among their followers. Demonstrating these values in action often make the difference between success and failure. Simply put, managers who don’t “walk the talk” seldom motivate people to follow them.

This presentation highlights integrity “crimes,” creating a positive culture, and making the change to create an environment that supports project-based organizations. Attendees are encouraged to assess their own environment and compare it with benchmarking data from other companies.

(See the author’s article “Authenticity and Integrity” in the August 2000 issue of the Project Management Institute’s PM Network.)

Randy Englund currently is a senior consultant for the Strategic Management Group in San Francisco (www.smginc.com) where he facilitates programs on project leadership and consults with clients to implement a Project Office. Previously he was a project manager at Hewlett-Packard Company’s Project Management Initiative whose purpose was the continuous improvement of project management across the company. He is co-author of Creating an Environment for Successful Projects: The Quest to Manage Project Management (Jossey-Bass, 1997). He is a PMI member, presenter, and workshop facilitator and is certified as a New Product Development Professional from the Product Development and Management Association.

 

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Nov 29, 2000

Management Forum: Generating Sustainable Team Capacity

Presented by Dr. Gary Selick, GSC – Organization Strategy Design & Development

“OK, now let’s get back to work” may be the most dangerous statement leaders can hear at the close of any product planning or team development session. If the session wasn’t “work”, then what was it? Why is it that team-building offsites hold such promise yet have such brief half-lives?

This is one of the most significant challenges technical leaders face as we seek to decrease product development cycles while developing and retaining the very best people. How can we, as organizational leaders, ensure that every interaction among members, suppliers and customers, builds the team while delivering the results? How can we build upon the principles of “offsites”, using everyday interactions as forums for building capacity in our organizations and people?

Fortunately, there are very pragmatic and executable strategies for aligning, integrating and managing team performance. Gary Selick, founder of GSC, will lead our November SCV IEEE-TMC management forum. His professional experiences include telecommunications engineering management, executive development/organization change as well as emergency room psychiatry and hostage negotiations. Dr. Selick will engage us in exploring long-held beliefs about how teams actually work, describing practical and rewarding ways to provide focus, clarify roles and extract real commitments from seemingly unresolvable conflicts. We’ll explore practices found in clients as varied as Intel, Space/Systems Loral, JDS-Uniphase, WellPoint Health Networks, Sun and Inktomi, leaving our November forum able to confidently say, “I know what I can do!”

Gary has worked in the development of individuals and organizations for nearly 25 years. Originally pursuing a career in architecture, he left his engineering education mid-way to focus on the people side of systems. His degrees are in social, clinical and industrial/organizational psychology. A native of Detroit, Gary balances the growth of GSC by playing guitar, travelling and enjoying family life in San Carlos.

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After-dinner Talk: Using Web Based Tools for Product Development Excellence

Presented by Aritomo Shinozaki – Manager, PRTM

The large-scale adoption of internet based technologies into the fabric of businesses foreshadows a paradigm shift in product development, a set of new practices that PRTM characterizes as Development Web Excellence. Product development practices and performance have advanced significantly over the past two decades. However, these emerging practices should put us on a new learning curve of product development performance improvement in the coming decade. The future will continue to be driven by unprecedented technology turbulence, shortages of skilled workers, and ever rising customer expectations. The new paradigm for product development is enabled by the exploding IT capabilities that leverage the power of the internet. All this will lead to deeper collaboration between business partners to provide customers expanded solutions faster and more efficiently.

Development Web Excellence is a set of practices that will enable organizations to meet the challenges of a future that uses a collaborative development framework. While technology is a core ingredient of these new practices, it is even more critical to strategically, and efficiently, design the product development process. Implementing these new processes quickly will require a clear vision, a well thought-out plan, and disciplined execution – factors which will more greatly differentiate the best practice firms from the rest.

Ari Shinozaki, a Manager in the Mountain View office of PRTM, will present this program. His background includes over a decade of experience in the computer and software industries. This experience includes high-performance computing and networking technologies, object-oriented software development, and business application development.

His recent client engagements involved the implementation of product development improvements using the PRTM Product And Cycle-time Excellence(r) (PACE(r)) framework for several divisions of a large electronics company. His work included analysis of the clients’ existing product development capabilities and the implementation of improved processes in project management, product strategy, pipeline management, and technology management. Ari facilitated cross-functional teams at both middle management and senior management levels to customize and implement structured development processes to improve product delivery and portfolio excellence.

Ari is a graduate of Princeton University with a BA Degree in Physics and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Ph.D. Degree in Physics. He also received an MBA Degree with Distinction from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

 

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Oct 25, 2000

Management Forum: Writing with Impact

Presented by Kathleen Mohn, President, Productive Business Communicating

As business gets more competitive, strong communicating skills become even more important. In no area is that more apparent than with writing skills: a black and white representation of your professionalism and thinking process, along with your desire to make things happen. Fortunately, writing skills for the workplace can be learned.

This presentation won’t make you the next Steinbeck. However, the presenter Kathleen Mohn will discuss and demonstrate techniques that will help you accomplish your intended objective in your next e-mail. These techniques relate to:
1. Determining your focus
2. Organizing your thoughts easily and quickly
3. Deciding on detail
4. Putting your thoughts down freely
5. Avoiding the most common problems in communicating, such as:
a. Not getting to the point;
b. Sounding like everyone else;
c. Taking too long to revise;
d. Using too many words;
e. Failing to address your reader; and
f. Using jargon.

Kathleen Mohn is President of Productive Business Communicating, based in Oakland. She has been offering training and consulting in both writing and presenting skills since 1987.

Kathleen developed a personal approach that held the attention of thousands of seminar participants all over the country. Her background as a faculty member at Hawaii Pacific University grounds her training in research, heightening its credibility.

IEEE is sponsoring Ms. Mohn’s one day course on “Clear Business and Report Writing” scheduled in the Bay Area on October 12, and November 1. For more information check the course write-up from our training page, or to register, call (408) 866-6516.

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After-dinner Talk: The Mystery of New Products Metrics (that also Fit Business Needs)

Presented by Chris Meyer, PhD. ,Chairman, Strategic Alignment Group, Inc.

The innovative nature of new product development argues for a set of measures that are fundamentally different from those used in a business operation. Innovation is driven by creating new knowledge without much history, whereas a business operation applies existing knowledge frequently with great history.

That said, new product developers must define measures that work for innovation and still fit business needs. This talk will be focused on how to create that balance. As a preview, be prepared to hear that the choice of metrics, while important, pales in comparison to how the measures are used.

Numbers by themselves don’t do much. People do. Numbers are seductive. Measures have a powerful impact, positive or negative, depending upon how they contribute to desired results. We need to measure what is important and effective in real time, and use measures that help us to anticipate issues. Measures should be simple, visible, relate to intended results, and look outward with a customer focus. They should be communication enablers and keep us informed so that when a deviation occurs we get the question “What is going on here?” and not the initiation of game playing tactics. To focus on positive behavior and develop clear goals, select measures that forewarn and are the basis for taking positive action.

For more, come listen!

Christopher Meyer, Ph.D. is the Chairman of the Strategic Alignment Group, Inc. Dr. Meyer is internationally recognized as an expert in creating competitive advantage through fast cycle time and innovation in strategy and new product and service development. He is also a recognized leader in designing performance management systems, emphasizing approaches that support creativity – prediction, balanced with managerial control.

For thirty years, he has served as an executive, consultant and academic. Dr. Meyer’s most recent book, Relentless Growth: How Silicon Valley Innovation Strategies Can Work in Your Company, (The Free Press 1998) outlines how to design growth strategies that are relevant to today’s high-speed, global knowledge economy. Based on research of successful Silicon Valley firms, Relentless Growth illustrates how growth values and methods must be as robust and clear as everyday operating practices.

Dr. Meyer is also the author of Fast Cycle Time: How to Align Purpose, Strategy & Structure for Speed. Firms such as Quantum, Cisco, and Hewlett-Packard have reduced time to market, improved service responsiveness and increased operating effectiveness using Fast Cycle Time as their roadmap. His Harvard Business Review article, “How the Right Measures Help Teams Excel,” is a standard in the performance management literature.

Dr. Meyer’s executive experience includes serving as vice-president for Human Resources at Silicon Graphics Computer Systems and organizational effectiveness advisor at Zilog, Inc. He has served on the faculty of the University of Southern California, University of Minnesota, and as academic director of Fast Cycle Time Strategy at Stanford University. He is currently an instructor at the California Institute of Technology Industrial Relations Center and faculty on the Innovation Management program, Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. and masters in organization strategy and design from the University of Southern California, and holds a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce.

 

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Sep 27, 2000

Management Forum: Does Your Thinking Limit Your Success??

Presented by Jean O’Neill, Productive Learning and Leisure

Of course it does! Join us for a dynamic, stimulating event and see the correlation between our “thoughts” and the results we have in our lives. Be ready to participate in experiential exercises that demonstrate how our perspectives are limited and why. You’ll walk away with:
• Ways to expand your pre-programmed notions about a particular situation
• A clearer picture of the perspectives you currently have that are limited
• Tools you can use to break out of these limitations
• An experience that making money doesn’t have to be difficult
• Knowledge of what it takes to make better choices and thereby improve the quality of your life
• Applications of the experience to (your profession)

We start with a process designed to expose people’s assumptions around money. You’ll get a glimpse as to how your thoughts about money directly translate into actions. The actions people take are usually very passive and non-effective. We show you that there is a direct relation between how you perceived the exercise and how you behaved. You will also experience that making money doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact one person in the audience will walk away with $10 or $20 (which we provide) and the effort will be minimal. We follow the exercise with information that clarifies exactly how thoughts lead to feelings, which determine actions and behavior, and consequently the results they have. The point is that one very easy way to increase your income is to improve your thinking. This translates into more productive actions.

Jean O’Neill discovered her love of personal development and began taking seminars in the areas of communication, personal presentation, business, productivity and relationships. As a person clearly focused on helping others, Jean was drawn to the founders of Productive Learning and Leisure and the work she saw them doing with individuals as well as companies. She began working for the company part-time when it was formed in 1993 while still holding a full-time position as Director of Nurses.

Now that Jean has formally retired from the nursing profession she has dedicated her “second career” to her involvement in the training and seminar programs of Productive Learning & Leisure. She is currently both a presenter as well as a sales support specialist.

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After-dinner Talk: Tales and Lessons from the Entrepreneurial Front

Presented by Cinda Voegtli President, Emprend Inc. and ProjectConnections.com

Thinking of starting a business? Already have one going and wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into? The September meeting of the TMC Management Club will provide assorted true tales from the front lines, aimed at passing on valuable, practical start-up knowledge from someone who’s been there. Cinda Voegtli, an EE, onetime engineering director and project manager, and past president of the Engineering Management Society, will talk about the company she launched last year, ProjectConnections.com.

ProjectConnections.com is a web-based service for people managing projects and teams in corporations. Individuals and corporations can access a knowledge base for getting project activities done and resolving typical project issues, contact peers and experts for advice, and find information resources and vendors of products and services. The business so far has involved staffing an initial team, creating a first service launch, landing partner relationships to drive traffic and co-sell services to corporate customers, initiating online subscription sales and a corporate sales program, managing a portfolio of technology and feature projects to keep enhancing the services on good old “Internet time”, and, of course, finding funding.

Cinda’s goal is to relate key lessons learned– including subtleties that usually come only from experience or a really good advisor. She will address subjects such as the funding process — types of investors to approach, how to find them, typical outlooks and questions you’ll encounter, business-plan configurations you’ll need, and the amazing amount of time you may have to allocate to this process; where sales and marketing fall in your start-up cycle (sooner than you think) and why; issues with strategic partnerships– how to make sure they really deliver all the value they promise, innovative partnership arrangements that can dramatically control costs, and techniques for avoiding pitfalls on contracts and schedules; and just-enough management techniques to keep a team humming (as much as that’s possible in a start-up) in crazy times. You’ll hear about why that word “vision” is important in a start-up, and the importance of understanding personal goals and maintaining a sense of humor.

In spite of all the challenges, Cinda is still laughing most of the time, and in that spirit, she’ll be happy to not only share successes, but allow you to laugh at some of the follies… Her talk will also include her just-created personal list of absolute minimum requirements for starting a new business in the future. We hope you’ll join us for this look at the world of a start-up.

 

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