David Barrett
Project Management Speaker, Author, Blogger, Education Director, Entrepreneur

Take your event to the next level
My job as your featured or keynote speaker is to inspire, motivate and educate.
The inspiration comes from my stories, delivery and audience engagement – all essential elements of a great presentation. The motivation comes from a high energy and exciting one hour together and the education comes from the nuggets of knowledge, ideas and concepts that I leave behind to ensure my effectiveness. All of my presentations can be customized to suit any audience.
Presentation Topics
Strategic planning is now a part of the PMI’s Talent Triangle – now identified as a critical component to our current and future roles. However, reading and hearing is one thing but how many of us are in a position to practice strategic planning and execution? ALL OF US.
This session will show us how strategic planning is a key to our success at work but, as well, to our careers and our lives. We will learn how to create a solid plan for any of the three legs and we will leave with the start to our own Professional Strategic Plans.
Key Outcomes:
- Education on strategic planning and execution
- Inspiration on applying this important knowledge and skill to all here legs of our own lives
- Key take-aways to encourage us to think about applying all of this to our jobs, our careers and our lives.
Key Deliverables
- Education on strategic planning and execution
- Inspiration on applying this important knowledge and skill to all here legs of our own lives
- Key take-aways to encourage us to think about applying all of this to our jobs, our careers and our lives.
Project management is often promoted as the solution to every organization’s pains. But is it? We’ve tried hiring the best project managers. We have adapted a great methodology. We have even created a new PMO. We still don’t seem to get it.
What’s missing? The word is culture. Not the BIG corporate culture but a sub culture within called Project Execution Culture.
This session is more of a facilitated discussion around the idea of building a culture around your project management people, practices, methodology, software and more.
Do it right and you will see more than just project management benefits within your organization.
Key Deliverables
- Understand the key foundation blocks to strategic planning
- Learn why strategic plans do and don’t work
- Understand how to create a strategy execution culture that can give you plans a better chance of survival
The project management field out there is pretty crowded out there. Its no longer enough to be just really good at what you do. You have to be more. It’s no longer build it on time, on scope and budget. You have to add value over and above the normal requirements of project managers.
So how do we add value? How do we stand out in the crowd? How do we get recognized in this very crowded field?
This session will get us thinking about what we can do to innovate our careers and get to the next level.
We all manage projects regardless of how small they are. Some are extremely important and time sensitive to us personally. Others are just as critical to our organizations, our jobs and our careers. But we have never thought of ourselves as project managers. And we never will. We have never taken a project management course and we won’t.
This high energy, down-to-earth presentation, based on David’s book by the same name, will make everyone think differently as they begin planning the next party, wedding, house move, product roll-out, office relocation, course development or conference.
Key Deliverables
- Gain the confidence to take on any small project
- Understand the basics of scheduling, budgeting and managing people
- Learn what to ask right at the beginning to avoid common pitfalls
Many of us want to take on a senior leadership position within our organizations. Our employers want us to take on senior leadership positions. This is a win-win for everyone.
This presentation is designed to inspire us to reach to the next level and most importantly to be able to plot our paths to those positions. What does a great leader look like? What qualities do we already have that are similar? Where are the gaps and how do we fill them?
As we investigate the qualities of a great leader, we will look at communication skills, leadership styles, thinking strategically like a leader and even looking like a leader.
For a general audience of any kind this is a great look at the qualities and great leaders and how we can obtain them.
A note to project management communities (PMI Chapters, project teams). As my background has been project management for over 18 years I am pretty passionate about inspiring good project managers to become great leaders. In your space I would use the optional title: From a Good Project Manager to a Great Leader
All of the work we do relies on a steady flow of well-timed, accurate and manageable information. We have tools, technology, techniques and a lot of people around us to make this information available to ourselves and others. But are we using them properly? Are using the right tools at the right time in the right place? Are the techniques we employ doing the job? And are the people around us helping or hindering the process?
Communicating effectively is one the most important keys to our success. This session will allow us to think about some of the key communication tools and techniques available to us to ensure our success.
And more importantly, we find the oil that makes it all work: passion, structure & process, clarity and empathy.
- Understand what tools and techniques are available to us
- Learn how to use the right tool in the right place
- Learn how to establish a sound communications process for all levels
Testimonials
Books by David Barrett
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Swimming in the Deep-End
$45.00 -
Leadership Perspectives
$17.00 -
The Power of the Plan
$20.00 -
The Keys to Our Success
$40.00
Latest Blog Posts by David Barrett

Working with a Disengaged Team
I have been watching a friend struggle recently as she tries to manage a team of people who were not engaged. Read… ‘they really didn’t care’. The result is demoralizing

Does Your Project Sponsor Know What They Are Doing?
Being a project sponsor is not easy. The role is often misunderstood, misrepresented, and misused – leading to a host of problems between the Project Manager (PM) and the Project

Now is the Time to Find Your Coach
Well, actually it was time to find your coach a long time ago. But that’s alright. There’s still time. They figured out many moons ago that professional athletes needed coaches.
Projects by David Barrett
ProjectBites
Project Management Education and Inspiration in 20-Minute Video and Audio Bites. With Project Bites you can earn PMI® PDUs or allowable CEUs, CDUs or SEUs at Your Own Pace.
ProjectTalks
4 speakers, 20 minutes each. Delivering unique, cutting-edge ideas and thoughts to project managers of all levels from all industries.