#PMICON18 – Day 2 Collecting the GEMS of the Generations

 

Day 2 started with collecting the gems of generational insights of the 5 generations at the workplace.

Cam Marston walked us through the generational themes, workplace preferences and tips how to solve this puzzle of different workplace preferences of the 5 generations at the workplace.

He ends his presentation with this final note: “He gets me, She gets me.. and that is the beginning of a high-performance team “.

With all these gems of wisdom in my kitty now I head to the “Ask The Expert” booth. On my way back to the “Ask The Expert” booth I get the opportunity to collect a few more gems:

A rendezvous with the living legend – James Snyder, the founder member of PMI. James narrated his story of attaining his PMP certification. He is PMP ID # 2. The 6 months journey to be a PMP, starting with filling a hard copy form, the 2 days of pen-paper exam and 6 months wait for the result. Fast forward today, the form is digital, the exam is online, and we get the results plus the analysis within minutes of you hitting the “Finish” button. A classic case of Digital transformation

A meetup with Stephen Maye, EMCEE for this year’s Global Congress and the host of “Projectified” – the PMIs podcast channel - forward-looking series of conversations about hot topics and emerging trends impacting the world of project managers, from digital transformation to artificial intelligence to career development. Again, taking us beyond the books, putting technology to work!

Finally, a visit to the PMI book store with my another respected “Expert” fellow member PMI ID – 7055 Dave Maynard. He never fails to amaze me with his experience at NASA and beyond. Glad to know him.

Talking about Digital transformation, I engaged with some of the attendees on the hall-way at the breakfast table, at lunch and at the “Ask the expert” booth, Some salient points from my discussions:

 “We have so many disparate systems, how do we implement enterprise agility here”

Standardization is the key here, tackle one system at a time, go slow and steady. We cannot achieve enterprise agility in one leap. We can explore the opportunity of implementing the Gartner’s Bi-Modal IT strategy to innovate the newer applications and renovate the older applications

“With all this digital disruption on our way, what should we do as project managers to keep up with these emerging trends”

Project managers needs to understand the emerging trends both on technology and business front, but their primary job focus would be what PMs do best: Setting the essential criteria, integrating projects and project components, and winning over and engaging stakeholders!

 “Ours is a regulated industry, we have a lot checks and validations, how can we be agile ?”

Yes we can leverage Agile even for projects in regulated industries. Add the regulatory requirements to the DoD ( Definition of Done). This will ensure that we are complying to the regulatory requirements, and finally we can add a final sprint just for validation to ensure that the integrated product is validated and signed off.

I finished off my day with the networking dine around at the “Conga room” indulging in traditional Spanish flavours, contemporary American cooking ,networking and looking forward to day 3 of #PMICON18.

So as we cruise into Day 3, I all charged up for more learning, networking, wellness and fun, are you ready ? More on twitter , linkedIn or Facebook . See you there !