Engineering Leadership (1 day) Celia Desmond and Marcia O'Connor
Course Description
For any business to prosper, it needs some important things going for it. It needs vision and purpose; it needs structure and defined responsibility; it needs direction and control. And for any of these good things to be effective, above all it needs leadership.
Leadership is broadly defined as an ability of a person to influence the actions of other people to succeed in a common goal. There is no single answer to the old question about whether leaders are born or made, but the answer is- probably a little of both. Training can be very valuable to help you recognize your leadership ability and make good use of it in your career.
Most businesses have a definite hierarchy of who is answerable to whom, all set out in detailed organization charts. This tends to support the common belief that only senior managers are expected to be leaders, but this kind of thinking is short sighted, and not beneficial to either the employees or the company. Management and leadership are two quite different skills, although hopefully many people in positions of influence are good at both. The ability to lead a team, with or without defined authority is crucial at all levels of an organization. Where leadership skills are encouraged, and potential leaders empowered to make use of them, huge benefits will be realized by the organization.
This course probes the meaning of leadership, discusses how a person displays leadership, and helps people assess and develop their own leadership styles and capabilities. It includes exercises which help to bring out leadership qualities in the student, and help the student to understand how to show leadership in his or her business environment.
Can We Talk? - Essential Communications for Engineers and Managers 1 day Celia Desmond
Course Description: Can we talk? Have you ever had a wonderful idea but been unable to get your boss' support for it? Do people sometimes misunderstand your presentations or reports?
Employers need their employees to write and speak clearly and concisely: to hit the high points and compose tight, clean documents or information that can be understood and acted upon by others. Engineers in particular must be able to relate complex ideas to people with varying backgrounds. Project Managers depend on the effectiveness of the project related communications to ensure that all stakeholders have the same understanding of the product and the management plans and issues. Being able to marshal your thoughts and communicate them rapidly and well when the opportunity arises is a key skill.
The objective of this course is to allow managers, project managers and engineers to better sell their new ideas and to communicate important concepts so that they will be better understood. Attendees will be better aware of the impact of their communications and able to plan for success.
Topics covered include:
Writing reports, proposals and letters to engage the reader for successful results
Closing the deal with your presentation skills - Practical techniques that will show you how to structure your material, speak with confidence, and handle an audience.
Presenting technical material – How to make your points clearly within a short allotted time period
The most requested skill today, aside from the necessary technical competence, is strong communications. Companies look for strong management “soft” skills - particularly the ability to create and communicate clear messages. Many innovative professionals have great ideas for new products, services, or processes which could be extremely beneficial to companies in search of a competitive advantage. However, too often these ideas remain unrealized, due to the inability of the originator to create the information package that would convince management of the benefits of the idea.
This seminar addresses many of the areas which enable technical professionals to communicate effectively, orally and in writing. It directly addresses basic skills of communications, such as preparing presentations, writing reports, and preparing for discussions. Equally as important, the talk addresses the environment in which the communications occur. In many cases, especially with projects, the communications happen in high pressure situations where conflict is very likely to occur . Good interpersonal and negotiation skills are necessary for success. Successful communicators consider the audience for the communications, ensuring that the message is presented in a form which will be attractive to the receiver.
Writing Successful Proposals 1 day Celia Desmond and Marcia O'Connor Course Description: Trying to close a deal? Trying to get funding for a project? Trying to get a job?
All of these will require a written proposal that grabs your audience, and convinces them that what you have to say is a REALLY good idea, and they definitely want to hear more. Proposals are used in the business world to win business from prospective clients, to obtain financing from banks or other sources of funding, or - even within an organization - to convince management to move into new areas or to support one project instead of another. In most situations there will be multiple bidders for the same business, and the winner is often defined by the best proposal rather than the best ultimate deal. It is crucial that you get the proposal right: compelling enough to secure the desired business or funding.
“Writing Successful Proposals” considers how a business takes a sales opportunity and tries to close it into a sold deal by submitting a good proposal to which a customer will say, “Yes.” This course examines the different types of proposals – both solicited and unsolicited – and the different types of responses that may be required – all the way from a simple letter proposal to a formal response to a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quotation (RFQ). Attendees will examine the specific elements that will make a proposition sell. Practical components include outlines of what good proposals contain. It will also provide a strategic framework model as an invaluable tool for evaluating opportunities so that the company can determine if a bid should be submitted in the first place, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the company's potential proposal (and thus the chances of success), and how to leverage its strengths and minimize risks in order to increase the chances of winning at the beginning and throughout the proposal's life cycle.
Topics covered during the one day course include: • The sales/procurement cycle
• What to consider when deciding whether or not to bid or submit a proposal
• What to include in a proposal
• How to assess the target audience and to adapt the proposal to it
• Identifying the problem to be addressed
• Planning the contents
• Making your case – what you bring to the recipient
• Cost and time factors
• Why they should select this proposal as the winning one!
Attendees will leave with real, practical tools to use in their next proposal.
A Visit to the Dark Side- Marketing for the rest of us 2 days John Desmond
Course Summary: Got some great value to sell? The world isn't beating a path to your door? Sounds like some marketing is needed!
But marketing people just play a lot of golf, make outrageous promises to customers over martinis at lunch, and are in general completely out of touch with reality, right? Well, not so much. The marketeer's job is a lot different than what is portrayed in Dilbert or Mad Men. It requires good ideas, attention to detail, good analytical ability, and lots of hard work. Sounds a bit like engineering, doesn't it?
This two-day course is designed to give technical professionals a good overview of the marketing profession in language comfortable to non-marketing people. Especially in high technology industries, there needs to be a good mutual understanding between engineering, manufacturing, operations and marketing groups. It is no coincidence that in these industries the best marketing people come from technical backgrounds. The combination of technical and marketing skills is what is needed to drive a product, and a company, to success. This course opens with an analysis of the elusive but critical concept of value: what it is, why it is important, and what can be done with it. The material covers a number of different topics in a logical progression, but is rooted in the value idea, and keeps returning to it.
Topics covered include: • The concept of value
• Determining and measuring value in your market
• Product differentiation
• The Supply Chain
• Market-driven planning
• Business Development planning
• Market analysis and product positioning
• The new product Business Case
• New product development process and roles
• Sales plans and forecasting
• Customer proposals
The course has a focus on the introduction of new products to market in a high technology industry, and the class participates in a running example role playing the strategy of a high tech company in a competitive market. This is always interesting, and usually a lot of fun. The course will leave the technical professional with a much better understanding of the marketing profession, and an ability to work with marketing colleagues more effectively. And who knows; it may just attract a few more engineers to the Dark Side!
Managing International Projects 1 day Celia Desmond and Haig Baronikian
Course Description : Demand for qualified individuals to run international projects is growing quickly as projects are increasingly conducted with participants – stakeholders, project teams, subcontractors and others – spanning the globe. This applies to most any industry and is relevant to for-profit, public sector, international development or charitable organizations alike. There are many cultural, language, team management, legal/regulatory, risk, logistical and other challenges for project managers when planning and executing international projects. While there may be commonly understood techniques for project management, this course is specifically intended to develop the necessary understanding and practices for effective communications, optimal team development and teamwork, strong risk management and ensuring successful outcomes for international projects.
Instructor bios:
Celia Desmond
Celia Desmond , President of World Class – Telecommunications, which provides training in telecommunications management, has lectured internationally on programs for success in today's changing environment. She holds the PMP certification, and has extensive experience in project/program management in the telecom and financial sectors, and has been instrumental in “soft skill” development and training, establishing new processes for service/product development and the creation and presentation of development coaching programs in the telecom sector. She has held numerous senior executive positions at IEEE including the presidency of the IEEE Communications Society She is author of Project Management for Telecommunications Managers (Springer). Her pocket book Project Management for Telecommunications Projects was published by Wiley in 2010. Ms. Desmond holds an Honours BA(Mathemetics) from Queen's University, and MEng (EE) degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
John Desmond
With a career spanning more than 30 years in the Telecommunications industry, John Desmond has held positions in design, program management, marketing and product management, and always involved in bringing leading edge products to market. This has included more than 20 years focused on the evolving wireless market, from North America's first digital cellular system, through GSM to the latest WiMAX and LTE technologies. He has served as a guest lecturer in wireless technologies and services at Ryerson Polytechnic University and the University of Toronto, and is a frequent speaker at broadband wireless industry events, including SuperComm, WCA, ABTA (Brazil) and others. Mr. Desmond holds BSc(EE) from Queen's University, and MEng (EE) degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
Haig Baronikian
Haig is founder, President and Senior Consultant at eFuel Partners Inc. He has over 25 years of experience in the eLearning, eHealth, telecom and information technology fields. He has held leadership positions in corporate strategy, marketing, R&D, sales engineering, systems integration and software development with Bell Canada. For the past twelve years, as a management consultant, project leader and innovation instigator, he has led a range of eFuel consulting engagements. He has worked in the private, public, educational as well as charitable sectors.
Marcia O'Connor
Marcia O'Connor is a recognized Senior Executive offering fresh insight and passion for innovation and best practices in the Facility Management and Property Management industry. Proven track record in a vast number of sectors, she has successfully lead large scale projects and deliverables that are cross-functional in nature, multi-disciplinary, and resource intensive.
Marcia is a dynamic leader and mentor, able to build team cohesion and inspire individuals and her teams to strive toward success. Her exceptional client relationship and management skills and her intuitive ability to relate and interface easily at the operational and strategically at all levels is a demonstration of her success in resolving complex issues and excellent problem determination.
