in january the chicago area chapter of meeting professionals international hosted a full day project management workshop with franklin covey. the workshop was hosted by facilitator coral rice who took us through the project management process. as we began we were all asked to share about a project that we were working on and how we hoped this course would impact us. most of the group struggled with issues regarding time management - particularly prioritization and dealing with distractions. the course gave us the tools we needed to overcome these obstacles and to become better project managers. one of the biggest take aways for me was that we often skip the critical steps in the planning process and go right from visualization into implementation and later realize that the project should have 'died' before we even got started - "you need to begin with an end in mind".

the committee decided not to include lunch as part of the program to keep costs down and their efforts were appreciated by all attendees. not only did i get to catch up with some of the other members during this informal break but it only cost me $7.00! hinton+grusich partnered with food box, the corporate drop off divisions of food for thought, part of h+g's partners+ collection, to provide the breakfast and the breaks that were enjoyed by all. as both a sponsor and a educational programs committee member i am proud to have been part of a chapter program that met both the financial and educational needs of our membership!