• Government Policies and Initiatives - Current policies and initiatives of Government agencies with regard to the application, implementation and use of Earned Value and other performance management techniques.
  
  
• Commercial Applications - Applications and lessons learnt from Earned Value and other performance management techniques in organisations other than Government. This would include both public and private, as well as large and small organisations.
  
  
• Integrating Risk with Cost, Schedule and Scope Management - Creative and effective integration of risk management with other performance management techniques.
  
  
• Integrating Technical Measures with Cost, Schedule and Scope Management - Creative and effective integration of technical performance measures with cost and schedule measures for overall project health status.
  
  
• Analysis and Use of Performance Data - Methodologies employed for the effective analysis and reporting of earned value and other forms of project performance management information.
  
  
• Technical Presentations are invited to enable in-depth discussion on topics such as scheduling, material management, subcontractor control, implementation, use of enterprise management systems such as SAP, use of data and other topics.
  
  
• Structured Review of Planning Data - Methodologies for the effective review of performance measurement baselines (eg Integrated Baseline Reviews) from either (or both) a buyer, seller or internal management point of view.

• Balanced Scorecard - Use of the Balanced Scorecard approach to manage the performance of an organisation from the perspectives of people and infrastructure development, improving business practices, customer satisfaction and ultimately, the bottom line of the organisation.
  
  
• Performance Management and Enterprise Resource Planning Systems - Integrating strategic systems such as ERP systems with internal organisation legacy planning and control systems.
  
  
• Supply Chain Performance Management - Implementation or use of performance management systems and data that cut across organisational boundaries of legal entities as in a buyer/seller relationship at various tiers of contractual relationships. The topics could address business processes or contractual aspects.
  
  
• Resource Accounting and Budgeting - Principles and application of RAB in both public and private sectors and the implications for improved achievement of organisational performance objectives.
  
  
• Setting the Targets - Cost and Schedule Estimating. Estimating methodologies for both cost and schedule parameters as related to setting and assessing the targets from a performance management perspective.
  
  
• Business Benefit - In addition to the traditional project cost, schedule and technical objectives, organisations are ultimately concerned that projects fulfill the business benefit for which they were ultimately designed. From a Defence standpoint, this benefit may be specified in operational capability or threat mitigation. For a private organisation, the business benefit may be stock values, market share or public image. Papers are invited which address the contribution that traditional performance management systems can make toward assessing the ultimate business benefit.
  
  
• Maturity Models - Use of capability maturity models for either the implementation of performance management systems or the use of performance management information.
  
  
• Corporate Infrastructures for Performance Management - Disciplined application of project management policies, procedures, processes or tools in the corporate multi-project environment.
  
  
• Benchmarking - Application of Benchmarking to any business process that has the ultimate aim of improving organisational performance.
  
  
• Theory of Constraints - Use of such concepts as Multi-project synchronisation, Critical Chain scheduling and Buffer Management.
  
  
• Practical Systems and Software Measurement - Systematic development of metrics to manage the performance of high technology and software intensive projects.
  
  
• Software Approaches for Performance Management - Software packages or approaches designed specifically for the performance management topics discussed in the symposium.
  
  
• People and Performance - Cultural issues, training needs assessment and delivery, staff proficiency measurement, team dynamics etc. that affect the performance level of staff

The above topics should not be viewed as an exhaustive listing. Any other topics related to the overall theme of Leadership, Culture and Performance at both the Enterprise and Project levels will be considered.

Symposium registration fees are waived for executive speakers. Other speakers are entitled to register at the reduced speaker rate of A$1,000. However, as per the policy last year, only one speaker per presentation will be able to register at the reduced speaker rate, any additional speaker(s) will be subject to the appropriate registration fees.

Presentations are invited which will address the primary theme or one or more of the topics within the symposia. Presentations about contracts, programmes, and projects in all kinds of industry and all levels of government are invited. Note that speakers are to ensure that their presentations address the issues related to the symposium theme and are not presented primarily as a marketing exercise (Presentations concerned primarily with proprietary software are exempted from this guidance).

Individuals interested in presenting in the symposia need to submit an abstract of their presentation and a biography of relevant credentials. The abstract-biography is to be submitted in MS Word format, each of which should not exceed one page in duration. An example abstract-biography is available here.

Abstracts and biographies will be posted on the website to promote your presentation as soon as they are accepted.

Please submit abstracts & biography as soon as possible for first round of selection. Send your abstract and biography to the Symposium Director at austsymp@mtc.aust.com.

All abstracts deemed to be relevant to the theme of the conference, and responsive to the scheme outlined above, will be provisionally selected. The 50 abstracts deemed to be the most relevant and responsive will be selected for presentation. The remaining set of selected abstracts will be alternates. Alternates will be called upon to present as needed. Individuals will be advised of these selections around 7 November 2003. Presenters and alternates will be asked to confirm their availability to present at the allocated timeslot.

Note: Other than executive presentations, preference will be given to speakers intending to attend the entire symposium and to those presentations requiring only one speaker.

The provisional programme together with abstracts and biographies of selected speakers will be published on the symposium website to promote their presentations as well as contribution to the symposium.

All presenters and alternates need to submit their presentation slides preferably in PowerPoint format to the Symposium Director. Presentation slides received before the deadline will be published (unless speaker advised otherwise) in the symposium proceedings CD which will be distributed to all attendees of the symposium. The PowerPoint slides will be converted to PDF format and password protected to allow read and print access only.

Speakers Instructions will be provided to all presenters and alternates on 30 January 2004.