Summer Knowledge Share Series

2024 Session I: UBC’s Approach to Projects: Successes and Lessons Learned

June 26, 2024 at noon

Every new project has its own objectives, challenges, and opportunities for continual improvement. This session will cover how UBC has approached various projects at Mason, present tips and tricks for methodologies and tools we’ve found successful, and it will share lessons learned the team has gathered from working with different clients across the university.

2024 Session II: Strategic Planning & Implementation

July 17, 2024 at noon

This session will provide an overview of what strategic planning is, including the key components, critical success factors, and a high-level overview of how to approach both strategic planning and implementation.

2024 Session III: Measuring Progress

August 14, 2024 at noon

Collecting and analyzing performance metrics is vital to understanding the impact and success of any project. This session will explore the processes in identifying and measuring project progress and success, such as key performance indicator (KPI) and progress metric development, data collection tools, and a brief overview of visualization tools available to Mason faculty and staff.

Benchmarking and Best Practices Primer (2023)

This session covered the following:

• Benchmark and best practice analyses, including uses in higher education
• Steps, tips and tricks and lessons learned for web research, identifying key individuals to interview, interview techniques, and data analysis and presentation 
• Examples / templates for data gathering and analysis to help maximize effective results

Pitching and Presentation Best Practices (2023)

This session highlighted how to best summarize and position your ideas and projects for your intended audience including: using a Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) or elevator pitch, a business case “lite” when presenting to leadership or funders, outlining project benefits, and presentation tips and tricks.  

Change Management Primer (2023)

This session reviewed tools and techniques on how to manage the people side of change. The audience learned how to prepare, equip, and support individuals going through changes so that they successfully navigate the changes. Attendees also learned how to apply change management frameworks to better meet project objectives and stay on schedule while supporting the university throughout the change journey.

Best Practices for Financial Modeling (2022)

This session covered the following:

• What is a financial model?
• Best practices for financial modeling
• Defining your assumptions
• Structuring your inputs
• Structuring your outputs
• Building your model

Consulting Project Best Practices (2022)

This session covered the following:

• Project Scoping
• Benchmarking
• Peer Reviews
• Stakeholder Working Groups
• Process Improvements
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Communication and Change Management

Successful Facilitation Tips & Tricks (2022)

This session covered the following:

• Facilitation Defined
• Facilitator Role
• Facilitation Planning (Hybrid vs. In-Person)
• Expectation Setting
• Ground Rules
• Team Building Examples
• Brainstorming Techniques
• Meeting Management
• Participation Encouragement and Balance
• Meeting Outcomes