It's been a week since #PMIcon17 started and it's been a time to reflect on a few things that were really visible to me during the conference that I think is valuable to share with the wider community.

1. Volunteering: A really valuable way to connect with others and give back to the community is through Volunteering. Either with your local chapter or with other professional organisations.
2. Talent Management: It's vitally important to understand your own worth in your organisation and also as a Project Manager. Make sure that you understand what you're worth and also where you can still develop as a Project Manager.
3. Innovation: Be innovative, be a 'bar raiser', 'thought provoker', 'change maker' and be this not just for one day, but constantly. Analyse what you're doing and what you can do better. What can your organisation do better? Are you thinking about how Project Management could be better?
4. Collaboration: As Project Managers we can be stronger within the community if we collaborate together to give more knowledge to each other. Are you collaborating enough?
5. Generational Project Management: Project Managers seem to have a longer more valuable shelf life than other industries and roles. During the conference, there was a great combination of younger Project Managers just starting their career with other more seasoned Project Managers who had so much knowledge and information to share. As an organisation and industry we need to be aware of this and work on sharing this knowledge together.

Personally, I felt that the Conference not only highlighted the opportunities that we have as Project Managers to learn and develop as stronger Project Managers but also showing the possibilities that are available in the PM world to contribute and grow.

What next?

Where will I be going from now? I'll be continuing to connect with everyone that I met to make sure that we can continue collaborating and sharing knowledge. I'll also be making sure that my 'contribution' to the Project Management industry remains involved, active and giving back just as much as I have been learning!

What will your contribution be? How can we collaborate together?

I've finally arrived back in the Netherlands and it's been a whirlwind few days! I consider the "Ask the Expert" sessions to really be so beneficial to the wider community as well as the individuals involved. I wanted to provide a summary of the main things that really struck me over the weekend and some final thoughts about the conference.

Key elements:

This years session really had a few stand out areas of conversation:

• Career advice: A lot of people wanted to talk to us for career advice as well as knowing where to go next or issues that they had in their career
• Growth plans/ development: This was a really hot topic for a lot of people. They were struggling to know how to establish a development plan and knowing what they really wanted from their career.
• Transitioning to a Scrum Master/working in an agile environment: This came from several people who weren't sure where to start or where to go in their agile career. There seems to be a gap between when you have your training and when you really start using agile in your daily career.

Key areas of advice given:

• Your value: Spend some time understanding who you are, what talents you have and more importantly, what you want to do in your career. Then make any move that you want to make
• Investigate! Research your local job market, look at the area that you're in and see what's available and open to you. Reach out to some recruiters in your area and see what's available.
• PMI Chapters: Look at your local PMI Chapter and see what they can do to help. Network with your other Project Management colleagues and see what opportunities you can get from them.
• Talk to your HR: Ask them what's available for you at your company and tell them what/ where you want to go.

Looking forward at your career and path is the most important thing that you can do for your professional development. You need to understand and analyse within yourself what you want to do and what's important for you. 

Did you attend #PMIcon17 and did you enjoy it? Did you come to the Ask the Expert area? 

I've just finished my final slot on the "Ask the Expert" booth and it's been a jam packed morning! The overriding theme this morning has been coaching people to understand what their value is and what they really want from their careers and lives. It's been a really interesting journey to see how people want to develop and progress in their professional careers and how differently that this looks across the Project Management spectrum. Here's a quick summary of who I met with today*:

• Frank: Frank has been in the same job for over 27 years and been a Project Manager for the last 12 years. He's looking for a change and a different challenge and has been thinking about becoming a consultant and what this means in reality. We spoke about the reality of life as a consultant and the different mindset that is required from his current position. We also looked at understanding the different culture of consultancy and discussed the next steps for him. What was interesting for Frank was that this discussion was based around: "What does he want to do?" He has no monetary concerns and could happily have no job but he wants to work and he wants to. It's a great position to be in and one that I think a lot of more Senior Project Managers are going through at the moment.
• Mohammed: He's been working in his current organization and has worked his way up from a technical role to being a Project Manager. He's looking to keep moving forward with his career and wanted advice as his company was theoretically supportive of his growth plan and where he wanted to go but in practice, they were not and were trying to box him into a smaller position that wouldn't be fulfilling for him. Mohammed left with some ideas and plans for what he can do with his management moving forward to secure the growth that he wants in the organization and what he's able to do now to keep learning. We spoke about working with his local chapter on volunteering and improving his soft skills to move forward into a Management opportunity.
• Sharon: She's currently unfulfilled in her current job and looking at: what next? She's interested in perhaps going independent and we spoke about the initial steps that she needs to do and what to consider before she becomes freelance in: how to market yourself, what do you want to do and what is important to consider in being an entrepreneur in the US.
• John: John came to see me about the best way to empower his team through their agile transformation and how to get his team more empowered to own their change. We spoke about how the could get the team to own their change and their work across distributed locations.
• Olivier: My last talk of the day and Olivier is a brand new Project Manager and wanting to know how he can progress and develop as a Project Manager successfully. It was really interesting to help him with his initial career plan and where he'd like to see himself in 5 years.

Here's some pictures from today:

*Please note all names have been changed for privacy reasons.

Today has been a really hectic day but it's been a really exciting day of listening to some great Project Managers and coaching them to a solution. One the best things about being part of the "Ask the Expert" group is being able to see so many different personalities and with such a different array of problems that they need help with. Here's a quick summary from today:

• Dan: He's working in a government environment that has very limited project management skills and wants to help his organization implement better project management processes. We spoke about how he could sell this to his stakeholders and some pitfalls that he needed to be aware of. He's the only PMP in his organization and is trying to make the case for having his colleagues become PMP certified.
• Sally: She was a technical project manager who was trying to transition into a Scrum Master. She was getting her certification but just didn't know where to start! How do you start being agile when you're struggling to see where to begin! We went through the initial processes that she could start with and additionally what she needed to NOT do. We then spoke about some of the issues that she's having in transitioning and what she's able to control in her transition.
• Thomas: Thomas needed some career advice. He's a highly academic individual who works in a company that will not allow him to progress or develop. There's limited opportunity for him to develop and despite repeated requests to his managers, there's been no support or acknowledgement. We went through his options and how he can make himself more employable. We also discussed the various opportunities that networking with his local PMI chapter could provide.
• Ruth: I spent an hour talking with Ruth about what she can do to 'find the love' in Project Management. She's been a job that isn't ideal for the past 5 years and the company is fine, the job is fine, but she's not enjoying it. We discussed what she enjoys doing and what she can do moving forward to improve her current situation and working environment. It was great to be able to leave Ruth with a list and plan of things that she can actively do moving forward.
• Miguel: Miguel was struggling with his agile transformation and has been trying to go through the agile change with his traditional organization. We discussed the steps that he can do to help with the change management that he needs to do.

We've also had a few 'drop ins' on the couch as well which has been really fun to work together in a group and do some group coaching with people. We've spoken about: Closed industries and what you can do to break through, communication issues between cultures, working in a corrupt environment and how to talk to Senior Management.

We're going to be around tomorrow in case you want to drop by!

This is a backward blog posting!

This will be my final post before leaving for Chicago tomorrow morning.  So, I wanted to do this one more like the way I think about things – BACKWARDS.  Instead of telling what areas I can help with, I thought I’d ramble about what areas I like to talk about!  I guarantee it would be an entertaining discussion.  Just make select an open appointment here:  then wander over, say hello and lets just talk about one of MY favorite things.

1.  Project failure.   I know more than I ever wanted to know about this.  There was a group of us that Left NASA at the same time and moved to Orlando to start a company dedicated to turning around troubled projects, programs and operations.  When we started, we thought we’d seen just about all the problems that project can get into.  WRONG.  For the next 5 or 6 years we only worked on turning around projects that were at least 100% over budget, perhaps 3 or 4 years late, had irate customers… or simply failed to deliver anything of value. 

It’s not easy to judge project failure!  EVA won’t do it.  It’s a very subjective thing.  “Could anyone have done better in the same situation?” is a basic test, but there are many more. 

So, we fired, hired, replaced, improved… bought contracts, had contracts “novated” to us, and were very successful ending up with a stand-along building and 70 employees.  There’s a lot of trouble out there!   There were project mistakes made that I didn’t think cold be made.   We worked on Casino projects, entertainment projects, airline projects, and many other types.  

Our group learned a lot!  I love to talk about a failed project and how it can be recovered.  Number 1: be ready for stress.  We called being personally ready “the full wax job.”  Exercise, diet, mental toughness, how you dress…  no kidding!  But you need to be prepared.

2.  Working with a team that has widely diverse skills.  If the team gets diverse enough, sometimes you can’t understand what the other people are saying.  I’ve managed teams with theoretical physicists, mathematicians, brilliant engineers and more – of course, they were totally convinced they were ALL CORRECT, don’t even think about doubting their work.  This was great fun.  I loved it and learned a whale of a lot about things they didn’t teach me (a humble engineer) in school.

3. Project risk.  How to think about it, how to predict it, how to anticipate it, how to communicate it, how to budget for it, how to look for the often-neglected positive risk.  It’s CRITCAL that project managers and their teams master this skill.   I’ve had friends die a horrible death  because we (in a larger sense) didn’t manage risk well.

4.  Have the courage of your convictions.  Tell people what you believe, tell the bosses what your project team believes.  Don’t fall into the trap of “drinking your own bath water” or the “echo chamber.” 

Well, I feel better!   Wander over and chat with me!

-- Dave Maynard

GOING TO THE 2017 PMI GLOBAL CONFERENCE IN CHICAGO?  

Don’t forget about ASK THE EXPERTS!

Stop by and talk to Dave Maynard or one of the other experts.  There’s more information about it at https://tinyurl.com/y7ff8f3g