Toyota Exec Shares Ideas for Project Management Success

Karen Nocket, Toyota’s vice president for Enterprise Services, packed a lifetime of project-management experience into a one-hour presentation at the 10th Annual UT Dallas Project Management Symposium.

Nocket’s keynote presentation at the Aug. 11 and 12 event was full of lessons learned, secrets of success and words of advice, acquired from decades of experience overseeing multimillion dollar projects for the world’s largest car manufacturer. While her project-management acumen was on display, Nocket continually reminded her audience of more than 450 project managers that “soft skills” were critical.

“Take time to know your stakeholders,” Nocket told attendees at the symposium, sponsored by the Project Management program in the Naveen Jindal School of Management. And later, she recommended ways to keep the team motivated, with everything from mascots, trophies and “WOWsomest” awards to parties.“We went out of our way to celebrate,” she said.

“Over the years, I’ve become a really good cheerleader.” She said team celebrations could span time zones via Skype and with food appropriate to the clock – doughnuts in one time zone, pizza in another.

Toyota announced in 2015 that it was moving its North American headquarters to a Plano site about 10 miles northwest of UT Dallas. Simon Nagata, executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Toyota Motor North America, spoke at an event on campus earlier this year, saying, “We hope to build a deep and meaningful partnership with [UT Dallas].” The automaker already has hired UT Dallas graduates for positions in its Plano operations.

This month’s symposium honored its 10th anniversary with a presentation to project managers who had attended each event since its inception with less than 100 people. The seven recognized for “perfect” attendance included Zelda Jones, PMP, who has been a presenter at each year’s symposium.