Program for:
     Thursday, February 11, 1999

Y2K

How to Organize Your Company-Wide Y2K Project

• Craig Sicard, Quality Assurance Manager
  Northern States Power Company
  
• Mary Cripe, Global Year 2000 Project Manager
  3M

Presentation Level: Y2K Project Management,
                                  especially businesses that are just getting serious about Y2K

About the Presentation:

On the surface, Y2K seems like merely a technical problem, albeit a significant one. But Y2K is not confined to just the Information Technology group! It involves all aspects of your business!

Once you accept the need to do "something": how do you organize the process, and what else is involved? Two of the great unsolved (and often unasked) questions are: "What is the best project and methodology approach to use, and how do I ensure that we are including all aspects of our business?"

Too often Y2K project teams work so hard at making the computer programs work, they forget the manufacturing processes, supplier readiness, customer relations, and other parts of the company that are also affected by Y2K.

• How will you organize the Y2K project to ensure success?
• How will you know the results of this effort – BEFORE January 1, 2000?
• How will you manage the complexity of updating programs while carrying on normal business operations?
• How will you make certain that Quality Assurance and Legal departments are effectively involved? That tools are Y2K compliant?
• What is necessary reporting and tracking – to your own management and technical people, to shareholders, to customers and to outsiders? And how do you ensure that is done?
• What is the Y2K impact on non-IT areas of your company:

• Manufacturing?
• Customer Service?
• Suppliers?
• Product Development?
• Legal?

• Have you considered contingency plans?
• What kinds of things should you have in place?

At NSP and 3M they have been asking these and other questions about Y2K. Craig Sicard and Mary Cripe will talk about these and other questions which may come up about the organizational & process implications of Y2K. And how you can deal with them NOW!

Concrete examples, based on the experiences at NSP and 3M will be discussed. Craig will present a process for project management, using NSP’s Y2K project definition as an example. Mary will address how non-IT areas of your company may be impacted – and how they should be involved.

About the Presenters:

• Craig Sicard is currently the Quality Assurance Manager for the Year 2000 Project for Northern States Power Company. He has been with NSP for 30 years and has worked in the Information Technology field for 18 years. He has coding, analysis, design and quality assurance experience. He also has over 25 years’ experience in project management dealing with both information technology and construction projects. He is a QAI Certified Quality Analyst and an PMI Project Management Professional. Craig also is a current Board member and a Past President of the Twin Cities Quality Assurance Association.
  
• Mary Cripe is 3M’s Global Year 2000 Project Manager. She has been in this position since the project started in November 1996 and is looking forward to its successful completion in 2000. Mary has been with 3M for 22 years, spending most of her time in Information Technology with assignments in project leader roles.

SW-CMM Special Interest Group

Following our main presentation, you are invited to join the meeting of TCQAA’s CMM Special Interest Group (CMM-SIG).  They will meet for about an hour, starting shortly after the general program.

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