Professional Development Week is a dedicated time for learning, designed to empower Oracle IT professionals at every stage of their careers. Throughout the week, you’ll have access to skill-building sessions and webinars designed to expand your Oracle network and accelerate your career growth. Join us to gain fresh insights, develop new capabilities, and connect with peers and industry leaders shaping the future of technology and AI.

Topics for the week include:

Emerging Leaders
Mentoring
Oracle ACE Program
Change Management
Project Management
Oracle Navigator
Communication
Presenting
AI

Registration:

OATUG Member Price

Free

All OATUG members can register for free. Make sure you are logged in to your profile when you register.

Non-Member Price

$297

Includes a free 30-day OATUG Preview Membership. You’ll have access to the Professional Development Week recordings as well as all OATUG members-only resources.

Contact membership@oatug.org to learn more about OATUG membership options for you or your organization.

Schedule of Events:

Tuesday, January 20,2026

11:00-12:00 PM ET

Emerging Leaders Welcome

Are you ready to take your career to the next level? Join the OATUG Emerging Leaders for an engaging session to explore the opportunities awaiting you during Professional Development Week. Learn how the Emerging Leaders program can empower your career through its pillars of Education, Outreach, and Mentoring. This interactive session will also feature a live Q&A, providing you with the opportunity to ask questions and engage in meaningful discussions on topics that matter most to your professional journey. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect, learn, and grow.

Presenters:

Madhavi Godbole 
Founder & CEO
Auraweise Consulting LLC

Katie Markle
ERP Business Manager
HRSD

 Manish Naik
Director, Oracle Cloud Services
Infosys, LTD.

1:00-2:00 PM ET

Mentoring : The Art of Building High Performance Implementation Teams

Enterprises have extensive internal subject matter expertise in key business processes as well as implementation experiences. As standard best practice, every enterprise must have a Mentoring program that will ensure the knowledge is imparted to others within the organization to ensure continuity without disruption.  Mentoring also provides an opportunity to cross-train individuals from other areas who can benefit from the experience. OATUG Emerging Leaders Program has a robust mentoring program in place.  This session focuses on outlining the importance of mentoring, sharing key best practices for mentoring, and providing a list of key references for further reading. It also outlines creating, building, and executing Mentoring program best practices from a practical standpoint.

Learning Objectives: 

  1. Understand the need and importance of an enterprise mentoring program
  2. Appreciate the benefits of the Mentoring program to build high-performance implementation teams.
  3. Understand and appreciate the overall framework for mentoring from a practical implementation perspective.

Presenter: 

Ravikanth Prabu, VP Software Engineering, Broadridge

3:00-4:00 PM ET

Boost your Career with the Oracle ACE Program

This open discussion will guide how you can seek help with your Oracle technical challenges, how you can expand your network of peers and tap into experts worldwide, and how you can gain your own global reputation amplified by Oracle. Hear from OATUG Oracle ACE leaders and the Oracle ACE Program as they share insights on making you successful with access to free resources and maximizing the benefits of the 650+ members of the global Oracle ACE community.


Learning Objectives:

  1. Learn about the Oracle Ace Program
  2. Understand the benefits of the Oracle Ace Program
  3. Engage with Oracle Ace

Presenter: 

Gerald Venzl, Vice President, Product Management, Oracle

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

11:00-12:00 PM ET

Navigating Change in Agile Projects: Strategies for Success

Change management is a critical component of any project, but it takes on unique challenges in agile environments, where iterative development and adaptive planning demand a more fluid and dynamic approach. Without effective change management strategies, even the most well-intentioned agile projects can face resistance, misalignment, and missed opportunities for improvement. This session explores eight keys to success in change management for agile projects and identifies common pitfalls to help organizations better navigate the complexities of change.

Learning Objectives: 

  1. Master Key Strategies for Agile Change Management: Learn eight essential strategies to successfully manage change in agile projects.
  2. Identify and Mitigate Common Pitfalls: Understand the most frequent challenges in agile change management and explore practical solutions to overcome them.
  3. Implement Adaptive and Incremental Change Approaches: Discover how to leverage agile’s iterative nature to support change management success.

Presenter: 

Beth McLaughlin, Director, Organizational Change Management, UHY

1:00-2:00 PM ET

Project Management in Today's Complex Cloud and On-Premise World

In this day and age, Enterprise Application projects should not be over-complicated. With the advent of Enterprise Applications running on cloud services as well as on-premise, the tasks required for a successful migration, upgrade or implementation to Cloud Services are well defined. This presentation will focus on the project management method used to ensure a successful project. We will review and break down the Conference Room Pilot Method phases, activities, tasks and work products to support a cloud services migration.

Learning Objectives: 

  1. Learn about the activities and tasks necessary to migrate your on-premise Oracle applications to Cloud Services
  2. Learn about the Conference Room Pilot Method, its overall phases, activities, and tasks to ensure a successful migration to cloud services
  3. Learn about testing iterations and developing scripts and scenarios to validate a successful journey to cloud service

Presenter: 

Bill Dunham, Principal, OATC

3:00-4:00 PM ET

Leveraging Oracle Cloud Success Navigator to get More from Oracle Applications

Learn from the Oracle Customer Success team how Oracle Cloud Success Navigator, the free, AI-enabled platform available to all cloud application customers, can help drive on-time, on-budget cloud transformations, increase understanding of Oracle application best practices, and drive continuous innovation through release management.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Learn how Oracle Cloud Success Navigator can support cloud transformations, leveraging pre-configured environments with Oracle Modern Best Practices
  2. Understand how Oracle Cloud Success Navigator AI agents accelerate the adoption of new feature releases
  3. How you can gain access to the free platform to take advantage of everything Oracle Cloud Success Navigator has to offer

Presenter:

Mitchell Flinn, VP, Program Management, Oracle

Thursday, January 22, 2026

11:00-12:00 PM ET

Saying No: The Intersection of Boundary Setting and Relational Communication

The necessity of boundary setting practices in relational communication. The social dynamics of saying no, emphasizing how effective boundary setting can enhance personal well-being and working relationship quality. This presentation provides practical insights into fostering empathy while asserting boundaries without undue harm to working relationships. Special attention is given to the obstacles faced by technology professionals, such as determining priorities from process owners and how those priorities influence and affect the end-user experience. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the balance between asserting boundaries and responding with empathy, empowering them to lead interpersonal interactions with confidence and professionalism.

Learning Objectives: 

  1. Participants will develop an understanding of what boundary setting is.
  2. Participants will develop an understanding of relational communication theory and applying it in professional settings.
  3. Participants will develop a deeper knowledge of empathy and how it is applied when setting boundaries in professional settings.

Presenter:

Dean Parks, Product Manager, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

1:00-2:00 PM ET

My Experience of Becoming an Ascend Presenter

Presenter: 

Arindam Roy,  Oracle IT Business Analyst, III, Partner.co

4:00-5:00 PM ET

The Humbling Experience of Being an AI Newbie

After 30 years of working with Oracle technology, I felt pretty solid when it comes to getting the best out of it. So it was a humbling experience to return to the realm of total novice when it came to understanding the new world of Artificial Intelligence. If you are in the same position, don't worry - I have done the embarrassing bit for you and fumbled around blindly in the dark to learn the basics. The session will walk you through the concepts, terminologies and technologies to bring you up to speed with AI as it pertains to the Oracle and the Database. If terms like LLM, ONNX, vectors, RAG, Euclidian distance, etc. are all a mystery, then this session is for you.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Introduction to AI fundamentals
  2. What is a vector, and how are they represented in modern databases
  3. How vectors/AI can be used to transform existing applications

Presenter:

Connor McDonald, Database Advocate, Oracle

CPE Credits for Professional Development Week:

  • To receive CPE credit, complete the CPE Credit Form (Coming Soon).

  • Attendees can earn 1 CPE credit for every session attended live. Credits cannot be awarded for viewing session recordings or sessions that do not run at least 50 minutes. 

  • To receive CPE credit the following criteria must be met: 
    • Speakers must deliver a 50-60 minute presentation, and attendees are required to remain logged into the webinar for at least 50 minutes.
    • Ask at least one (1) question through the Q&A box. Questions submitted through the chat window or under a different name will not be accepted.
    • Complete the session survey for each session that CPE is being requested.

  • CPE Field of Study - Professional Development


Questions about CPE Credit? Please email Jamie Reed at jreed@oatug.org.