Author: Jeff Bongiovani

Training and Development (T&D) Manager Jeff Bongiovani currently works for Edwards Performance Solutions as their Training and Development Manager. Jeff is responsible for managing and supporting training-focused customer engagements as well as overseeing the design and development of new and existing Edwards training courses (both internal and external) across a variety of topics including project management, leadership skills, systems engineering, business process management, and cybersecurity. He has 20+ years of classroom training and course development project experience.

SIPOC Workshop Facilitation – Part 3: Workshop Facilitation and Questions

  Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDU in the Strategic category of the Talent Triangle.   Event Description: In this final session, we will walk through how to facilitate a SIPOC workshop. Beyond the strategy, we will examine specific questions to elicit results leading to optimal process development. Learning Objectives: • Define effective questions that enable greater workshop results • Describe workshop facilitation techniques that best engage the participants   Presenter Info: Jeff Bongiovani is currently the Lead Course Developer for Edwards Performance Solutions who oversees the production and maintenance of courses on Project Management, Systems Engineering, Software Development, Business Process Improvement, and Cybersecurity. He is also a trainer with over 20,000 hours of classroom experience spanning 17 years.   Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]

SIPOC Workshop Facilitation – Part 2: SIPOC Workshop Strategies

  Watch part 3 on-demand   Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDU in the Strategic category of the Talent Triangle.   Event Description: In this second session, we will outline how to establish SIPOC workshop goals and expectations as well as explore multiple strategies you can apply depending on what those goals and expectations are. Learning Objectives: • Describe how to set SIPOC workshop goals and strategies   Presenter Info: Jeff Bongiovani is currently the Lead Course Developer for Edwards Performance Solutions who oversees the production and maintenance of courses on Project Management, Systems Engineering, Software Development, Business Process Improvement, and Cybersecurity. He is also a trainer with over 20,000 hours of classroom experience spanning 17 years.   Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]

SIPOC Workshop Facilitation – Part 1: Overview of SIPOC and Systems

  Watch Part 2 On-Demand   Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDU in the Strategic category of the Talent Triangle.   Event Description: In this first session, we will provide an overview of what SIPOC is and how it can be used in business process creation and improvement. We will also identify techniques that can help enable a more robust mapping of business processes. Learning Objectives: • Describe the context of SIPOC within business process creation and improvement • Define techniques that help enable a more robust mapping of business processes   Presenter Info: Jeff Bongiovani is currently the Lead Course Developer for Edwards Performance Solutions who oversees the production and maintenance of courses on Project Management, Systems Engineering, Software Development, Business Process Improvement, and Cybersecurity. He is also a trainer with over 20,000 hours of classroom experience spanning 17 years.   Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]

Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, and Customers—Oh My!

Close to about three years ago, I was part of a Training and Development team. We were tasked with creating a flowchart of our overall business processes and product production for an upcoming CMMI audit. At the time, I was new to the team, so the effort behind constructing it didn’t fall to me. From what I gathered though, many hours and tears were spent putting it together. Fortunately, I was invited to sit in on the audit process while my teammates were interrogated over each and every step of our process. Behind us, taped to the wall, were these giant plotter-printed posters packed with boxes upon boxes of processes, documents, and the people associated with them. I was quite impressed with how, when the auditor asked about our quality control of instructional materials, one of my teammates hopped up from the conference table and pointed directly to one of the process boxes and said, “this is where the Lead Developer, with confirmation from the Director, submits the document to the QC team, who, in turn evaluates the materials based on the QC guidelines…” Maybe I’m a big-time flowchart and process geek, but I couldn’t help approaching the wall posters and just staring in awe after the interview was over and the dust settled. I felt like I was part of a team that had its act together, or, at least if we didn’t, had the tools to diagnose what was preventing greater success and work towards remedying the situation. Upon closer inspection and further investigation, I was intrigued to find the method used to construct our process flowcharts was called SIPOC.  SIPOC stands for “Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, and Customers.” Using it to expand a task assignment beyond “the act itself,” we can begin asking fundamental questions such as: “What information or materials does the assigned person or people need to perform this? Who supplies the information or materials? What reports, analysis, and/or physical materials are created from this activity? Who evaluates the outcome? What next steps does this facilitate? Who is waiting impatiently for ‘that guy’ to get his work done?” From the grand scope of any pursuit to the minor steps, the concept and application of SIPOC sounded quite familiar. As project managers, we are well-versed in customers, requirements, scope, decomposing, logical dependencies, assignments, etc. While we can identify these qualities in any activity, it is typically the project manager’s craft to predict the most sustainable course of action, pursue it, and stay the course to achieve all requirements. However, if we were to observe most day-to-day processes and routines in a similar light, we would find, amongst their seemingly countless iterations, a patchwork of “baked-in” contingencies and a plethora of “this is the way I like to do it” exceptions. It may “get the job done,” but is it the best we can do? In my upcoming three-part course series, SIPOC Workshop Facilitation, I want us to explore the significance behind the concept of SIPOC. Beyond the theory, we’ll discuss how to apply it through holding SIPOC workshops—team collaborations help influence improvement. Additionally, we will address techniques for pushback and how the workshop itself is more than just backwards engineering a better path; it may just lead to strengthening the team. Watch part 1 on-demand: SIPOC Workshop Facilitation – Part 1: Overview of SIPOC and Systems.  

Data Analysis Using Project with Excel

Download a copy of the presentation Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs):This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDUs in the Technical category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description:As a project manager with the State of Maryland Department of Social Services, I was tasked with clearing up case backlogs for Medical Assistance and Food Supplement Payments. In order to break the yearly cycle of backlogs recurring, I was not only able to advocate using Microsoft Project, but helped establish an ongoing method of analysis across multiple projects. I’d like to share my real world experiences and the techniques I employed within Project as well as Excel to produce meaningful and significant reports. Presenter Info:Jeff Bongiovani is an Instructional Designer for Edwards Performance Solutions, creating and developing courses in Project Management and Systems Engineering. Previously, he had been a technology trainer for fifteen plus years, teaching courses in Microsoft Office, Adobe Suite, and several programming languages. He was also a self-employed piano and trumpet teacher.   Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]

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