I like to hear 2 types of sessions at PMI Global Congresses:
- real life stories
- disruptive thinking
Real life stories
At the PMI EMEA Congress in Barcelona, I had the opportunity to hear good project management stories that happened for real.
Martial Bellec and Olivier Cottard told us about Contract Manager (CM), a new role in projects that they are currently setting up at Orange Business. They try to define as clearly as possible the roles of CM from the role of PM. They explained how they involve customers and suppliers in their approach. The "implementation" is still on-going so the solution is not completely set yet.
Hakan Olsson and Stefan Bokander told us how their company, Tetra Pak, set-up project, program, and portfolio management over a period of 10 years. Very good story.
Mustafa Dulgerler told us about the relation between business requirements and project at National Bank of Abu Dhabi, in an international context. He had plenty of real life examples to share. I liked it. And he managed to keep the session very interactive!
Disruptive thinking
We hear fashion words like digitalization, collaboration, big data, artificial intelligence... Those buzz words are often very confusing to me. And I'd appreciate to get some keys to understand what to do with them.
Too often, I believe, we tend to become the fashion victims of those buzz words. In order to stay on the page, we run after sessions that deal with fashion issues. And too often, the speaker prefers to avoid risks and hesitates to take a disruptive approach. I can understand that. It is hard to put oneself at risk and to think out of the box.
However, in that case, I like when the speaker gives her/his personal view of the buzz word, even if it is a bit restrictive. At least it makes the session unique. And I hear something here that I dont hear elsewhere.
I want something specific. The contrary to general thoughts. This is why I come to PMI Global Congresses here in EMEA or in North America. And maybe one day in Asia Pacific or Latin America. Who knows.
