On Time. On Budget. On Fire. — A Live Project Rescue | Marquis Ballroom - 2:00 - 3:50 PM
Nicole Baxter & Brad Tandet

Every metric says this project is healthy — schedule green, budget green, scope green. So why are users refusing to log in, training attendance sitting at 18%, and the executive sponsor skipping meetings?

In this fast-paced, team-based simulation, attendees become project rescue consultants working a single unfolding case. Every few minutes, a new curveball lands — a leadership change, a resistant stakeholder, an AI-drafted email gone wrong — and tables must make a real-time call. A Project Manager and Change Manager facilitate side by side, often disagreeing, showing how schedule logic and people logic pull against each other on real projects. Tables score their decisions, a winning team is named, and the session closes with a twist that reframes what "on track" really means.

Attendees leave with a compact Project Rescue Toolkit they can put to use on their very next project.

Key Takeaways

1. Identify the gap between project status metrics and actual organizational readiness for change.
2. Apply a simple decision framework for balancing schedule/scope pressure (PM world) against stakeholder and adoption risk (People side of change).
3. Practice evaluating AI-generated project communications for tone, accuracy, and human judgment before use.