February 2006 ISSUE
PD SPOTLIGHT
The Making of a Conference
How does APEGGA come up with its line-up of Annual Conference Professional
Development offerings? Find out here.
BY NANCY TOTH, MA
Manager, Professional Development
Last year in Calgary, APEGGA’s Annual Conference Professional Development
drew double the previous number of delegates with its six choices of topics.
This year we plan to seat more than three times that number for the PD lunch
on day one. How are we planning to achieve that?
APEGGA currently has almost 44,000 members, making it the largest professional association in Alberta. The diversity of specializations and industries of practice is staggering in its breadth. From year to year we try to address the technical interests of some of these groups.
As members have identified their primary need is work-related soft skills
training, the conference is the only time we offer technical seminars along with
soft skills training. I draw on the reading and observation of presenters and
subjects from decades of assessing PD seminars — and most importantly, from listening
to members and colleagues. It is my role to present a draft schedule of PD to
the Conference Planning Committee, but the draft is an amalgam of many ideas
from several sources.
For each PD event presented throughout the year we ask seminar participants to
complete evaluations. Each evaluation form asks for suggestions about future
PD seminars. Last year we also conducted a needs assessment with 3,000 randomly
selected members. The information from the evaluations and the needs assessment
provide valuable input from members.
On the other hand, sometimes a subject is identified in a needs assessment as being a priority for many people — and does not succeed at all. In the case of human resources management, for example, a scheduled seminar had to be cancelled due to gross under-enrolment.
Conversely, many members who were not familiar with concepts such as mind-mapping or lateral thinking flocked in great numbers to seminars on these topics — topics I knew could be transformational learning experiences!
While training in teamwork by a knowledgeable Alberta presenter may be offered at a fall PD event, we are increasingly aiming for bigger profile speakers for the Annual Conference. We believe members come to a conference to be inspired, to have their thinking transformed in a powerful way so they can return to their workplace mentally regenerated with new, powerful ideas about improving their performance and the performance of others.
How did this year’s four, two-day streams come together? As she has done for three years, Lianne Lefsrud, P.Eng., Assistant Director, Professional Practice, proposed technical streams. Lianne knows that software and computer engineers are at a stage at which they are increasingly realizing the need for ethical standards for their profession.
The Guideline of Professional Responsibilities in Developing Software was
reviewed by Steven McConnell, the American guru and much-published champion of
ethics and professionalism in software development. He has agreed to speak on
day one of the two-day session on this subject.
Day two will continue the theme of professional, ethical and application of standards.
Distinguished speakers will include Dr. Philippe Kruchten, P.Eng., the head architect
for the automated air traffic control in Canada and the author of the Rational
Unified Process.
Dr. Bret Michael, associate professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and John Walz, co-author of Practical Support for CMMI-SW Software Project Documentation, are included, among others.
For this technical session we are partnering with IEEE, CIPS and PMI — associations interested in advertising the event to their members.
The second technical stream is focused on the urban sustainable development initiative from APEGGA’s Environment Committee. More than 10 distinguished speakers from across North America will present leading edge ideas on urban sustainability. Topics include water, waste and storm water, solid waste, transportation, asset management, risk management, stakeholder involvement, and policy and planning.
This session will appeal to professionals and others from government, municipalities,
and consulting.
I’ll have more about what to expect at this year’s conference in
next month’s PEGG. For now, be sure to check out the story on page 12 about
management consultant Michael Canic. And for an overall look at the Annual Conference
and Annual General Meeting, see the centre section of The PEGG.