Whose is the Chapter anyway?

 

PMI Organization and chapters are constituted by volunteers. The Organization itself started as a volunteering initiative, with the main goal to cultivate, and promote modern project management practice. 

To be effective it is important to sum rather than to compete with such an initiative, because summing efforts, greater things can be constructed, more publications, bigger network. With this in mind, many of us, look to integrate with this laudable effort. The first way to do that is volunteering. 

PMI chapter are organized as franchise, in the way that no more than one Chapter can be started if there is already one in your local area, or at least that is what is stated in the PMI chapter rules. 

In the other hand, we cannot deny that those who are in charge of PMI Chapter are in a special situation to promote its career, and gain contracts or employment in Project management field. In other words, a PMI Chapter is an important market interest prey. Once you have Chapter in your possession, there are big incentives to try deny access to others, which may be competitors in the field. 

How can such conflict of interest can be controlled?, Of course that there is a ruling PMI document of ethics, and also there is a complaint mechanism. But these two countermeasures are not enough to counter the big incentive to capture a Chapter for personal interest. Once a Chapter is captured, volunteering and chapter community diminishes, and such a beautiful initiative stops being of use. 

One way to find a way through this common problematic situation, is to ask, Who should be the receiver of the benefit of a PMI Chapter?,  Who loses if there is not a healthy functioning Chapter in your area?, the answer does not need to be complicated: The first winner of a healthy Chapters are those involved with it:  Chapters members and Volunteers; secondly Society, the Profession and so on. 

So the best control to prevent Chapter kidnapping, is to have an enthusiastic Chapter community that does not conforms to low Chapter-leaders performance, that participates intensively, not letting to be left outside. A Chapter community that push for its rights of having the experience of being a member and / or a volunteer in the  profession they love.

Whose is the Chapter anyway?