After PMI Congress Day One

 

Just completed Day #1 of Congress and all I can say is what an awesome experience so far!

The keynote presentation was simply a perfect way to kick off the sessions.  The guys from Afterburner were phenomenal.  Their talk about flawless execution was…well...flawless…or as close as it gets anyway.   Paraphrasing the words of Joel “Thor” Neeb, “There is no true flawless execution.  We should empower our teams to be able to fail.  The expectation is not to be perfect but to adapt an learn.  The goal is relentlessly pursuit for perfection.” 

In my mind “Thor” and the gang certainly achieved just that anyway, perfection.  The atmosphere of participants leaving the session was electric as folks chatted and tweeted with excitement about all the tidbits they picked up.  How do you beat that?

We come to conferences like this with the hope of gaining some new insights to help us in our profession.  We don’t expect all insights to be brand new ideas, never considered before.  Especially when it comes to project management, a knowledge set which has been around for centuries.  What we do hope for is a broader or deeper perception of what we already know.  We can only learn what is in our capacity to understand, that is, those things for which we have existing context from our experiences and reading and conversations with others.   We sit up in our seats and take notice when something in particular really resonates with us.

Well I can tell you I was pretty much on the edge of my seat the whole presentation but parts that really resounded for me was about the need for simplicity to combat complexity.  We truly are living in a chaotic world of information (data) overload and the inexorable rush for change and innovation to stay competitive in todays market.  So many competing priorities for our time and our attention.  I can bet you that most of us in the audience were thinking about a time when we with our teams experienced ‘channelized attention’ while trying to problem solve something perhaps a little less important or relevant, and momentarily taking our eyes off the target, the big picture. 

I know I walked away with a deeper awareness about things that can distract us, as well as some strategies for focusing attention – solid objectives with “high definition destination”, proactive identification of possible threats, mobilization of the resources, to name a few, and my favourite was avoiding task saturation (task shed) – the slow, silent killer of performance.

Come to think about it, coming to PMI Congress is like task shedding… at least for a short period of time.  For the next couple of days, I only have one focus – to learn and share.  I have turned on my out of office and re-directed all important tasks, so I should have no other distractions.  With Day #2 about to begin, I am looking forward to more great sessions and more great conversations with my fellow participants.

Attending the PMI Global congress in San Diego?  Come meet me with the “Ask an Expert” booth in the Solutions Center (exhibit hall).  I am one of the several experts here to answer your questions on a variety of topics.  Or...post your questions here in comments and I will answer.