Neil Ihde (Ee-dee) is a speaker, lecturer, consultant and founder of Life IQ where he motivates groups and individuals to work, play, relate and live intelligently. He has worked with numerous managers, directors, corporate leaders, and teams to improve their personal and professional effectiveness. Neil has worked with over 25 Fortune 500 companies including AT&T, DiscoverCard, Domino's, Transamerica, and GE among others. Neil has also consulted internationally with clients from a dozen countries. He is a TEDx speaker and his Life IQ YouTube channel recently eclipsed a half-million views. Neil's academic background includes a B.A. in Psychology, a B.A. in Sociology, and a MA in Counseling. Neil and his wife Deb have two children and live in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Neil's first presentation is "The Planning Fallacy...and Other Cognitive Biases that Waylay Projects!" We know the goal: get the project done on time. But according to PMI data barely half of projects finish according to plan!! Certainly, there are factors outside of our control, but most of the time the pain is self-inflicted. We fall victim to the planning fallacy. The planning fallacy is a tendency to underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task. The planning fallacy is just one of the cognitive biases–the psychology of human misjudgment–that can waylay projects. A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment where individuals create their own "subjective social reality" from their biased perception. There are many obstacles in completing a project on time. Learn how to avoid being your worst enemy by examining proven estimation techniques and steps to avoid additional cognitive biases. Plan on it!

Neil's second presentation is "Influencing Your Team for Peak Performance Throughout the Project Life Cycle". Project management is essentially people management...managing people managing a project. And homo sapiens come to the table with different personalities, perspectives, and motivations. But there are proven hacks and techniques to deal with the inherent variabilities of human behavior to ensure effective life cycle and performance management. We will walk through a case study of a masterful project manager and how he influenced peak performance throughout the project, highlighting the key motivational and informational needs at the initiation, planning, execution, and closure phases. 

The first topic is categorized under the Strategic Talent Triangle, and the second topic is categorized under the Leadership Talent Triangle.