Purpose

Provide a medium for discussion and dissemination of information regarding the project management discipline at The Ohio State University.

Participants

Interested faculty, staff, and students from all units within or affiliated with Ohio State may participate in the group’s events.

Potential Discussion/Presentation Topics

• Sharing – Share experiences and lessons learned applying project management principles throughout the University.  Help each other grow the use of proven project management techniques in our respective areas.
• Techniques – Selling the use of project management within your organization; Managing projects in a weak matrix environment; Managing up (how to interact with executives); Project initiation (building a business case, ROI in higher education); etc.
• Methodologies – The CIO’s office is currently in the process of creating a Project Management Framework.  Discussion of how what other methodologies are currently in use.  Raising awareness about the importance and role that a common methodology plays in improving our project success rate.  Identifying strategies for how to apply methodologies appropriate to
• Best Practices – Sharing of proven templates, processes, and perspectives from throughout the university, such as what makes a good project manager, communication planning, calculation of ROI/Value, defining project scope, tools for estimating projects, tracking project status, selecting project team members, involving the user community, managing the expectations of the sponsor(s), conducting lessons learned, etc.
• Informal Project Reviews – A place to turn for peer assistance with troubled or challenging projects.
• Tools – Identification of what tools are being used across the university. Identification of needs and perhaps development of plans to procure tools that can benefit the whole project management community at OSU.
• Resources – Maintenance of  a physical and possible on-line repository of articles, books, and other materials that can be shared among the group members.
• Certification – Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Professional certification (PMP) certification preparation.  Formation of study groups to prepare for the certification exam.  Best practices shared from those who have already achieved certification.  (Books, courses, software, etc.)
• Professional Project Management Community News – Share information about PMI Conferences; Local Chapter meetings; Membership; and Events.
• Training – Share information about what training is available in the local area. 
• Curriculum – Promotion and support of the inclusion of project management concepts in the OSU undergraduate and graduate curriculum.
• Guest Speakers – Invitation of outside speakers as requested to present on topics relating to project management.