The presentation will focus on understanding cultural differences and barriers, verbal and non-verbal communication, attitudes toward hierarchy, time, etc. and how managers can become more efficient in leading multicultural teams.

Leadership, management, and motivation are not just metaphors, but things that the physicality of an endurance hike can inform…and it comes with beautiful trail pictures. 9 lessons from the trail remind us of how to self-manage and manage teams, all learned from the physicality of the trail. These lessons lead to a realization of a simple technique to manage personal motivation to take on challenges. Participants will learn a technique for managing motivation that empowers success, as well as be reminded of 9 steps that have application directly to the management of projects to help us be better managers and leaders.

In a fast-paced and demanding work environment serious conflict between individuals, within teams, or across organizations rarely resolve themselves when ignored. Instead, they fester under the surface, only to pop up over the same or a new issue. In other words, when divisive conflict stays unresolved winners never learn, losers never forget, and the battle gets fought again. This churn can cost organizations a lot of money! Immediate impacts can include missed deadlines, breakdowns in communication, work re-cycling, and distracted employees due to gossip, rumors, and sniping. Longer-term and more insidious impacts can include increased absenteeism, reduced collaboration, permanent factions or cliques, and lowered employee morale and engagement. In this session, attendees will receive worksheets for applying the key concepts presented, and they will have the opportunity to work in pairs to practice using several conflict resolution tools.

Through a very interactive seminar combining lecture and workshops, participants will gain a much better idea of how best to deal with key risks on I.T. projects using both Agile approaches and traditional approaches.