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Todd C. Williams will be giving a 4 hour presentation at the IT Financial Management Association 25th Anniversary Celebration.

More details can be found in the brochure or by visiting the ITFMA website.

About the presentation - People Process and Estimation

People dealing in accounting and finance must deal with two seemingly simple acts in their daily life—developing and following processes and requesting estimates. Processes are required to maintain consistency and accuracy, not to mention abiding by regulations. Estimates are the guiding light for any organizations into their future. At first, these appear to be the most benign, commonplace activities, causing people to yawn at the thought of the subject. However, add people—people with personality, prejudice, and protest—and these tasks become more demanding.

To deal with the reality of business, you need a toolbox of techniques that can address the needs of the people who supply you information, the managers that consume your information, and their competing interests of stakeholders. To do that, you need to understand how people perform and methods to incentivize them. This seminar starts by looking at the lynch pin of business—process—why it is important, when it works, and how its overuse generates failure. It provides a number of showing why people are unpredictably unreliable and methods to improve their performance.

In addition, we will explore the dynamics of the group and how we do estimates. By doing a series of exercises, we will illustrate how people interact with each other and teach some of the environmental issues that affect estimates and how to deal with their impact. This shows both the psychological and sociological factors biasing estimates and provides leaders with tools to help avoid the common pitfalls. By avoiding these situations, estimates become more representative of the project and the variation more predictable.

The seminar ends with a discussion on motivation and some key research on what makes people excel and how money is not the key factor in improving performance. After a short video, the class breaks into groups to discuss how they can change they environment and improve their organization’s performance.

This seminar covers people, process, and estimation by providing insight to some of the quirks inherent in people, exposing the traits in yourself, and how to handle them.