Speakers

John Duval

As a Project Manager and Earned Value Management System (EVMS) Lead on an Air Force contract at Arnold Air Force Base in Middle Tennessee, Mr. Duval is responsible for the development, implementation, and maintenance of an enterprise EVMS which tracks over 600 projects (4 million hours) annually. As a Project Control Officer for many years, he has performed thousands of project integrated baseline reviews and monthly performance reviews on services projects. John has also developed and taught numerous courses on EVM and project management. His career has been focused on quantifying and tracking IT services projects on large multi-project Government Cost-Plus Contracts.

Mr. Duval’s 23 years of EVM experience on government services contracts includes 10 years at Goddard Space Flight Center, 2 years for the Bureau of Land Management and 11 years at Arnold AFB. John has a degree in Industrial Technology from the University of Maryland, holds a CMII certification from the Institute of Configuration Management, and is a Certified Dekker Product User.

Topic: Services and Earned Value – It Does Apply

Mr. Duval’s presentation covered lessons learned in planning and tracking services work in a multi-project government services environment and how Earned Value Management (EVM) is successfully used in services work to manage project risk. Too often, services work is treated inappropriately as Level Of Effort. Ironically, this can make project management more difficult in addition to adding risk.

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Richard Chipman

Mr. Chipman is a Vice President in SAIC’s Office of Corporate Engineering and Technology. He directs the planning, development, implementation, operation and support of the corporate-wide integrated digital environment for program management and engineering. In his years at SAIC, Mr. Chipman has led the engineering and integration of enterprise-level software systems for numerous government and commercial customers, and has conducted research in Information Systems leading to three US patents in Internet technology.

Prior to joining SAIC, Mr. Chipman accumulated over twenty years of experience in the performance and management of aerospace R&D, design and engineering, including major spacecraft and Navy aircraft programs. Richard earned BS and ME degrees in aerospace engineering from Cornell University and studied computer science at the Courant Institute. He is the author of over thirty papers, lectures, and research reports on information systems and engineering technology.

Topic: Implementation Approaches and Risks for System Engineering Environments

Mr. Chipman’s presentation illustrated how to execute and manage complex System Engineering and Integration (SE&I) programs. Developing and operating a digital environment that ties together programmatic, technical, financial, contractual, and resource information becomes a formidable SE&I Program itself with numerous risks to identify, track, and mitigate.

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Steve Volandt

Mr. Volandt is a Senior Consultant with significant experience performing Business Analysis, Risk Management, Operational and Strategic Planning, Balanced Score Card Analysis, Six Sigma Process Management, Information Technology (IT) Analysis, IT Architecture, Scope-of-Work Development, Budget Estimating, and Project Management services from the perspective of enterprise objectives. His experience also includes Department of Defense (DoD) Business Transformation, NetCentric Transformation, C4ISR, global Internet connectivity, and communications.

He has performed hundreds of business process analysis assessments for various organization types (federal, state, commercial), and his experience includes investigating organizational operations and work flow, analyzing information flow within organizations and to/from external organizations, identifying areas that would benefit from process improvement, gap analysis, providing process guidance and leadership, leading and driving (evangelizing) business process change, determining feasibility of automating work functions, providing cost/benefit analyses, providing change management leadership, preparing and providing formal presentations to executive and managerial stakeholders, and developing training plans. Mr. Volandt has led teams that have rolled out projects both nationally and internationally for commercial and federal customers.

Topic: DoD Business Transformation and Enterprise Architecture

Mr. Volandt’s presentation provided a summary of the recent history of DoD business modernization, the drivers behind it, and the overall current approach. He discussed the use of the DoD Architectural Framework within the context of strategic planning, enterprise process, portfolio management, and the impact of the emerging NetCentric data approach.

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Simon Dekker

Simon Dekker is the Chief Executive Officer and President of Dekker, Ltd. He has a broad based experience in the relationship of project management to finance and cost-schedule integration. Mr. Dekker is the original author of Dekker TRAKKER® which supports enterprise project management; he has consulted on contemporary management disciplines and system applications in government agencies and commercial business units. Prior to founding Dekker, Ltd., Simon engineered and developed scientific, defense and business systems for a wide array of customers. Mr. Dekker has published various articles on project management, EVM, and project portfolio management. He appears regularly as a guest speaker at various trade associations throughout the United States and Europe.

Topic: Coping With Unforeseen Project Management Risk

Mr. Dekker highlighted the tools that are necessary to cope with risk that seemingly comes from nowhere. From a quantifiable perspective, the risk mitigation starts by understanding operational performance indicators from the day-to-day objectives of an organization; understanding how these objectives relate back to an individual project can be of vital concern to the project’s future.

Click here to view the presentation in .pdf format.