I have the great fortune of helping clients to hone their leadership skills to be the best versions of themselves. There is likely to be something relevant to a variety of professionals ranging from CIOs, Office of the CIO, CEO, CFO, Organizational Change Management (OCM) leaders, Digital Strategists, Change Agents, Customer Success leaders, and anyone looking to amplify leadership strengths in their organization.

1. Helping
Leaders
Amplify
their
Strengths
A Sampling of Presentation / Workshop Topics
Delivered by:
Vicki van Alphen
Linkedin.com/in/vickivanalphen
Twitter: @vickiva19
vvanalphen@gmail.com
2017

2. About me:
• I have always had advisory roles, where I was directly
helping clients to be the best versions of themselves.
• I am energized by delivering presentations and
facilitating workshops.
• Clients have included a variety of industries and
company sizes, with a common thread being that
most were IT organizations. In earlier roles, I worked
with IT managers, and now I work directly with CIO’s /
CXO’s. I have honed an ability to ask the right
questions and speak the language of IT.
• Companies for which I have worked include: Ernst &
Young Management Consulting (now Capgemini
Consulting), SmithBucklin (and their largest client at
the time – The Americas’ SAP Users’ Group – ASUG),
and Gartner.

3. Before sharing samples of the topics on which I have
presented, I’d like to share a bit about my overall approach to
presentations / workshops:
My facilitation style is to share a little bit of content, set a framework where
participants are comfortable sharing with each other – and then get out of the way!
My goals as a presenter / facilitator include that:
• Participants experience a useful interaction with another attendee – whether that
be finding a shared experience (always a relief to realize “you’re not alone!”), or
being able to learn from someone else’s success (or missteps).
• Everyone leaves with a conscious realization of the new knowledge and insights they
acquired during the session.
• I lose control of the room a bit (due to the positive energy that is created when
people are having really engaging discussions).

4. The following are
examples of the
types of topics on
which I have
presented /
facilitated sessions:

5. Drip-Feed Digital Insights to C-Level
Executives
• First delivered to CIO’s at Gartner Symposium IT Expo
• Description: CIOs can inform and excite their fellow
executives about the possibilities of the digital era, but
need to consider the best approach. Using real-world
examples, participants in this workshop collaborate on
how to educate the C-suite, and practice these
conversations through role-playing exercises.
• In other words: When you are immersed in something,
and excited about it, you can’t just approach the folks
who did not have first-hand experience, and expect them
to immediately understand it, let alone be enthusiastic
about it. This session provided suggestions on how to
craft a communication plan (a “drip feed” approach).
• Result: One CIO stated, “...it was one of the most useful
sessions of the entire conference.”

6. Avoid Becoming Bimodal
Roadkill: Lessons Learned from
Early Adopters
• Delivered to CIO’s at Gartner Symposium IT Expo; co-
created and presented with Gartner colleague, Chris
Heiliger – pictured right)
• Description: After hearing case studies about IT
organizations that experimented with the concepts of
dual modes of IT, participants discuss (in small groups)
how they would approach the situation.
• Results: This group of approximately 50 CIOs illustrated
that it is a lot easier for a group of strangers to discuss a
scenario about other people than themselves! Had a
hard time ending the small group discussions, and folks
were eager to grab the microphone and report things
out to the larger group (which is rare.)

7. Charting your Course from
a Delivery-Focused to an
Engaged IT Organization
• First Delivered to CIO’s at Gartner Symposium IT Expo – and subsequently
to a variety of clients (CIO’s and the IT Leadership team)
• Description:
This leverages a Gartner research framework (by analysts Patrick
Meehan and Leigh McMullen) illustrating the characteristics of a
Delivery-Focused IT Organization to the Engaged IT Organization can be
a useful tool to help CIO’s and their team realistically assess where their
IT organization is and where they want to be. This workshop provided
CIO’s and their key IT leaders with time and space to explore:
• What goes “great” look like, and are members of the team on the
same page?
• Where are we now? Where do we think we need to be? Where does
the enterprise need us to be?
• What is our focus, as an IT leadership team, that is going to get us
“there”
• Result: One CIO commented, “That section on ‘what great looks
like’....could spend all day on that topic alone.”

8. Secrets to Great Stakeholder Engagement /
Increase your Engagement with Others and
Elevate your Leadership
• Presented different versions of this session at
a variety of events:
• Gartner Symposium (co-created and presented
with Gartner colleague, Chris Heiliger)
• Women in Technology (WIT) Wisconsin
[www.witwisconsin.com]
• Project Management Institute – Northeast
Wisconsin Region – Professional Development
Days
• Premise of this session: Things are moving
quickly. Leaders need to be “in the mix” of
the discussion where stuff is getting decided,
and if that’s the case, they need to be on the
list of folks that decision-makers trust and
find value in speaking with.
Above: (from left): Vicki van Alphen, with WIT Founding Board Members – Vicki
Leinbach (CIO at Ariens Corp.) and Michelle Schuler (Excelion Partners)
Below: Facilitated activity with WIT Leadership Council illustrating the
Commonalities / connectedness among the various CIOs.

9. Generating AND Articulating
the Business Value of your
Programs (it’s all about them!)
• Presented at Project Management Institute (PMI) –
Northeast Wisconsin Region – Professional Development
Days
• Description: Delivering consistency and project controls is
the foundation, and now, to continue to increase the
contribution to the enterprise, PMO’s need to be delivering
innovation and a continuous stream of value.
• Results – Participants:
• “Played with” a model – defining business value purely
from the viewpoint of the customer.
• Practiced defining project value in meaningful terms
that stakeholders will understand and care about.
(Photo courtesy of a PMI Northeast Wisconsin Volunteer.)

10. Taking Ownership: Making Digital Work your
Great Work
• First Delivered at the Gartner CIO Leadership Forum in
conjunction with Gartner Executive Programs colleague,
Marc Andonian.
• Description:
• Shared a framework for considering one’s great work /
good work / bad work.
• Additional considerations – in the age of “digital” – how
do CIO’s ensure that they are focused on these new
opportunities to have a significant impact on their
enterprise (by creating new products, helping to disrupt,
rather than be disrupted, etc.)
• Results: Participants appreciated the opportunity to reflect
on where they spend their time and attention, and to create
some concrete plans for how to adjust those in order to
spend more of their personal resources on great work.
(Right: Do More Great Work by Michael Bungay-Stanier, a
content source for this presentation.)

11. CIO Influence: Awakening the Digital Force
Within You
• Delivered at the Gartner CIO Leadership
Forum in conjunction with Gartner Executive
Programs colleague, Marc Andonian.
• Description: There has been an awakening.
Digital technologies are disrupting every
industry at light speed. On the dark side, CIOs
trying to maintain control over every use of
technology throughout the organization. On
the light side, CIOs seizing the opportunity to
lead through influence.
• Results: Participants had the opportunity to:
• Discuss and explore what it means to lead
via influence, and how that feels different
than leading via direct control.
• Target the best opportunities to lead via
influence and select the best techniques
for doing so.

12. Managing your Teams Through the Digital Journey
– Not Your Parents’ Organizational Change Effort
• First Delivered at the Gartner CIO Leadership Forum in
conjunction with Gartner Analyst Elise Olding and
Gartner Executive Programs colleague Thor Madsen.
• Description: Today’s business environment involves
constant, fast-paced change, and traditional
communication / change management efforts are no
longer viable. A focus on influence and engagement
will fuel sustainable change and allow employees to
succeed and adapt in an environment of uncertainty.
• Results – Participants:
• Had the opportunity to be reminded of what it feels like to
experience uncertainty and lack of context.
• Mapped their IT leadership teams according to the model
presented (which included Risk Appetite and Change
Readiness).
Above: (from left) Gartner colleagues
Thor Madsen, Elise Olding with me –
smelling coffee beans (as
each participant received a packet of
coffee beans – as part of the “brain-
aware” technique – associating a smell
with something helps your brain to
remember.)
Left: Results from a voting activity
where CIOs rated where they
personally rank with respect to
change.

13. Preparing CIOs to Lead Via Influence (a.k.a. How to
Thrive in a World Where the CMO has the Most
Technology Spend)
• First delivered at the American Institute of
Technology Professionals (AITP) Chicago
• Description: It is estimated that 17% of
total enterprise spending on IT products and
services across industries is controlled or
managed outside the enterprise IT budget.
For large enterprises in pursuit of digital
business transformation, this is expected to
rise to upwards of 50% by 2020.
• Results: Participants had the opportunity to
consider and experience what it feels like to
move along a continuum ranging from direct
control to control via influence. They did
role-plays where they experimented with
some techniques to lead via influence.

14. Ensure that Today’s Strategy is
Ready for the Digital Future
• Delivered at the Gartner CIO Leadership Forum in
conjunction with Gartner Executive Programs colleague,
Marc Andonian.
• Description:
• Results:
• Using known examples of digital disruptors (Uber and
Airbnb) participants had the opportunity to reverse-
engineer questions that may have been asked by the
founders of those companies.
• Participants created their own set of questions to
provoke useful discussion in their own enterprises.
• “Pulled back the curtain” and reviewed the steps taken
in the workshop, with the intent that participants could
use it as a framework to conduct a strategy review
session in their own enterprises.

15. Best Practices for Brainstorming (especially in
today’s age of digital)
• Delivered at the Gartner CIO Leadership Forum in
conjunction with Gartner Executive Programs
colleague, Marc Andonian.
• Description:
• Results:
• Shared a proven process for effective brainstorming
and scientific insights on how the brain most
effectively creates new ideas.
• Participants had an opportunity to practice the
brainstorming process (on a shared example that
didn’t require sharing proprietary company
information).
• Facilitators modeled techniques and behaviors that
participants can then adapt and use in their own
organizations.

16. How can I help
you?
• I really enjoy the opportunity to
present to different audiences – it’s
one of the times when I feel most
energized!
• If I can help you with any
presentations, or with any of the
topics listed here – please let me
know.
Vicki van Alphen
Linkedin.com/in/vickivanalphen
Twitter: @vickiva19
vvanalphen@gmail.com