PMI Global Insights

By David Summers
Executive Communications, PMI

At  PMI's Virtual Experience Series: PMXPO on 24 March, attendees engaged members of our Board of Directors on various topics in an “Ask Me Anything” style session. Unfortunately, we could not answer all the questions individually due to a lack of time. But we have had a chance to review submitted questions and have selected a few topics to highlight in the interest of sharing insights which will help you understand the what PMI is doing to address your needs, wants, and aspirations.

Project professionals will always be at the heart of our community, and PMI is committed to continuing to provide the resources, experience, and knowledge they need to support their personal and professional success. As we expand our focus to include individuals who seek to drive change but do not consider themselves project professionals, our core community will play a critical role in welcoming and mentoring these aspiring changemakers.

PIVOT YOUR CAREER

We saw a lot of questions centered on how to kickstart your project management career and what’s next. In an increasingly projectized world, PMI professional certification ensures that you’re ready to meet the demands of projects and employers across the globe. With a PMI certification behind your name, you can work in virtually any industry, anywhere globally, and with any project management methodology. Wherever you are in your career, we have a certification for you. Find out more about our current certificates.

PMO MATURITY

A lot of you had questions about “PMO” maturity. Since the 1990s, there has been a significant movement worldwide toward creating a Project Management Office (PMO), which has increased during the last decade. The PMO has a vital role to play as the world transitions into a post-pandemic era. Often misunderstood as a department confined to governance and compliance, we see PMOs moving beyond the tactical execution of projects and performing a broader range of activities that drive strategic value for their organizations. These evolved PMOs embrace new technology, focus on team culture, and help develop project managers into ambassadors for value creation. For a deep dive into the evolution and the role of PMO, download this free report – PMO Maturity.

THE MANY SHADES OF AGILE AND WHY DISCIPLINED AGILE?

Agile took center stage with many questions. Let’s be honest - Agile frameworks can be a good starting point, but they keep many organizations from the improvement they expect. This is because business agility comes from freedom, not frameworks. And when you pair the freedom to choose from the best of agile, lean, and traditional sources with the guidance to make better choices, you get Disciplined Agile (DA). This hybrid tool kit harnesses hundreds of agile practices to guide you to the best way of working for your team or organization.

Find out more about What can DA do for you?

UPSKILLING TO THRIVE AND SUCCEED

A consistent theme from participants across career stages is how to evolve to the next level. “How can I be a better project professional?”, you asked. At PMI, we believe in continuous learning that comes from upskilling. Unless organizations promote a culture of continual learning, the global demand for project management talent is unlikely to be filled by 2030. Organizations need to champion new learning initiatives and explore partnerships to equip employees with the necessary project management skills to foster their talent.

These capabilities include power skills such as collaboration and leadership; business acumen to create more well-rounded employees; and mastering new ways of working, such as tech-enhanced problem-solving tools.

Download the Talent Gap report to know more about the Ten-Year Employment Trends, Costs, and Global Implications.

THE TRENDS IMPACTING THE PM LANDSCAPE

While the future is yet to come, we always want to grasp it. Today PMs are keen on knowing how the key trends will impact their careers. This event was no exception, with lots of questions coming about the outlook for project professionals and what direction to look for in the future.

We hear you loud and clear!

A great place to start is the recently released Global Megatrends 2022 report. Megatrends gives you a more extensive outlook at the impact of critical trends on project professionals and provide them with a direction to understand the world’s rapid transformation and the global context in which they work, so they can use projects to solve complex problems.

SUSTAINABILITY

Maintaining relevance is always central to PMI’s agenda. It was great to see so much interest from attendees on sustainability. We are looking aggressively at concepts like Environment, Sustainability, and Governance (ESG). PMI is also excited to announce that  Green Project Management (GPM) and PMI have forged a strategic partnership to equip project managers with the tools and expertise needed to deliver more excellent value on global sustainability strategies, goals, and visions. GPM is an internationally certified social enterprise whose mission is to decouple socio-environmental degradation from economic growth on a global scale.

The alliance will provide PMI’s global community of certification holders, members, volunteers, and other stakeholders with an introduction to GPM’s industry-leading models and deep expertise in advancing sustainability through innovative practices in project management.  Find out more on this partnership.

PARTING SHOT

Like any community and enabler of knowledge, we at PMI constantly innovate to bring a high degree of relevancy to our offerings. We bring the inherent skills for project managers across industries to continuously evolve to a changing business landscape and enable the project managers to deliver the intended business outcomes.

Today, project management skills are essential for diverse industries, not just for IT professionals. A case in point: we have been engaging with other sectors like construction industry professionals for many years, and late last year, we launched the Construction Professional in Built Environment Projects (CPBEP), our first industry-specific solution tailored for construction professionals. These are exciting times for project managers, and they are uniquely positioned to pivot organizational and societal changes on a grand scale.

By April Callis Birchmeier CSP, CCMP™, PMP®

Project management professionals are a unique breed. Organized, focused and process driven, project professionals have tremendous impact on organizations and their people. Project management professionals create order and accountability to move organizations forward. Yet, project professionals often overlook the need for organizational change management to ensure successful stakeholder adoption.  Enhancing the capabilities of project managers by adding an organizational change management framework to their skillset provides a more comprehensive and human-centric approach to projects and change initiatives.

The goal of organizational change management is to identify, plan, and execute stakeholder activities to achieve the benefit of the change through stakeholder adoption. In other words, if people accept and use the change being implemented, the benefit expected from change is realized.  Organizational change management used to be considered a “nice-to-have” addition to a project. In our current unending and compounding change environment organizational change management is a “must-have” for success. Stakeholders, Sponsors and End-users are people who need information and emotional support while adopting new physical spaces, behaviors, and processes.

My experience as a PMP and certified change management professional (CCMP) involved with change initiatives involving technology and programs was enlightening.  I wore both the PMP and CCMP hats while implementing projects and discovered a disconnect when discussing change activities with my project management colleagues. Technical milestones seemed to be considered more important people focused milestones. Test cases and outcomes were considered more critical results of metrics measuring what people knew about and felt about the change. Organizational change management was often viewed with suspicion and seemed unclear.

In response, I developed a 5-step framework, the READY, Set, Change! framework, which aligns Project Plan phases and Change Management Plan stages in a way to simplify integration and accelerate change.

The second step of this 5-step framework is to Engage Leaders while creating change strategy. Leaders must share the vision, provide direction, and reassure people when times are tough. If leaders are not engaged, they cannot lead change effectively. If leaders do not engage because they lack the ability to prioritize and communicate essential action, they lose the leverage and loyalty of those around them. In our current state of unexpected, unorganized, and unpredictable change we need engaged leaders to lead through the unknown.  As each news cycle seems to cascade despair it’s imperative for leaders of projects, changes, and people to step forward, engage and lead.

Project management professionals and change management professionals can assist organizations as they adapt to new circumstances and adopt new technology, structure, or programs. Aligning and integrating plans, norms, and status by using this 5-step framework will provide a clear and simpler path for individuals and organizations to navigate adoption in the midst of unending change.

Find out more during my two-day PMI Training course Ready, Set, Change!

Virtual: 25-26 April 2022
Orlando: 22-23 June 2022
Virtual: 19-20 September 2022

For more on my other PMI Training course, please visit: Creating and Sustaining a Positive Work Team: Breaking the 7 Habits of Negativity and Other Secrets of Getting Along!

I look forward to seeing you at an upcoming PMI Training!

By Lily Woi
Executive Leadership & Career Advancement, Lily Woi Coaching

It was a pleasure presenting at PMI's Virtual Experience Series: PMXPO on 24 March, a global event attracting more than 60,000 attendees.

I presented on the topic Leading in the New Normal: Hybrid Inclusive Teams, focusing on the three key conditions needed to foster greater inclusion and more meaningful work in the workplace, all the while having fun!

Diversity is NOT the same as inclusion. Just because you have a diverse team, it doesn’t mean you have an inclusive work environment. Diversity is about recognizing and celebrating our differences. Inclusion is about belonging and valuing our differences. Leaders must have the skills to create environments where their teams thrive and talents shine! This is no longer a nice-to-have; it is a must-have, especially in the hybrid virtual work environment where change is constant.

I shared practical actions that individuals can start doing immediately to nurture psychological safety within teams, promote open feedback, and use key coaching skills to create a shared responsibility to nurture inclusive environments.

During my presentation, I received a lot of great questions and I am responding to them below.

1. How is the definition of inclusion changing?

The definition of inclusion hasn’t changed, rather it is our understanding, appreciation and ability to foster a truly inclusive environment that has evolved and will continue to evolve. Inclusion is about continually challenging our biases and misconception, developing greater awareness and understanding of diverse lived experiences and needs, and adjusting our ways of working and communicating to maintain an environment where everyone feels like they belong. 
 

2. In cross-functional teams, how do you get all team members aligned?

Team alignment happens when everyone within your team understands and agrees on how they individually and collectively work towards a shared purpose or goals. It takes constant attention and engagement to ensure alignment, especially in large cross-functional teams as there are more degrees of complexity to consider.

I invite you to consider if you have the below three elements in place.

• Quality of engagement - does everyone feel engaged and do they know how their role contributes to the team's shared purpose or goals?
• Clear guidelines - does everyone know, accept and stick to the agreed ways to collaborate, make decisions, raise issues and resolve conflict?
• Consistent communication - do you use a variety of communication styles to consistently land key messages?

If you’re ever in doubt, ask your team members to share their understanding. Make it a two-way communication. It is as much on you as it is on them to achieve alignment.

3. How difficult is it to “train” being curious? How do you shift a company’s culture to one of curiosity?

It is not so much about “training” individuals to be curious. It is more about how we are fostering an environment where we are encouraged to be curious. As we advance in our careers and field of expertise, we tend to lose curiosity because we believe we know all the answers and/or feel a need or pressure to be seen as the expert. When you’re expected to constantly have the answers, you stop learning and start telling.

To promote curiosity, create safe and contained spaces where people are encouraged to unleash their creativity, try new things, have permission to fail and be supported to learn when things don’t work out. Start small and slowly expand to create a bigger space to do this.

4. How do we foster a culture where feedback can be viewed as an opportunity for curiosity and growth as opposed to a negative form of communication?

Lay a clear foundation and understanding of the purpose of feedback, that it is used for growth and development, not judgement.

Offering and receiving feedback is also a skill. Consider providing training and development to improve the ways individuals can offer and receive quality feedback. The few ways I highlighted in my presentation are:

• Focus on observable feedback - this can be on strengths and areas of development
• Share what was the impact and why is it important - make it meaningful to them
• Make the feedback actionable - something the individual can control and change
• Make it a conversation - get their perspective and coach them on ways they can act on the feedback

Make offering and accepting feedback a common part of your day-to-day work activities so it feels relevant, digestible and easily actionable. Avoid piling up a list of feedback to be given later where it is no longer relevant, and it risks overwhelming the individual receiving the feedback. In those instances, feedback can be easily perceived as negative and criticism. Also, feedback can be used for both strengths-based and corrective development. Focus on how they can keep using and expanding their strengths, as well as, on areas they can further develop.

Lastly, hold individuals who misuse feedback accountable. Feedback is not criticism and should never be delivered with ill intention.

I had a great time presenting, and the full presentation will be available on-demand through 31 January 2023. Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2022 for more details.

By Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez
Author; Founder, Projects & Co

I had the honor of presenting at PMI's Virtual Experience Series: PMXPO on 24 March, a global event attracting more than 64,000 attendees. My presentation, "INSPIRE — Rising Leaders Shaping the World: A Secret Formula for Project Managers," explained a framework I developed after researching hundreds of successful projects led by younger generations, such as the movement created by Greta Thunberg around climate change. As a reminder, here are the seven elements of the INSPIRE framework:

In this blog, I am responding to some of the questions raised during my presentation. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank everyone that participated and provided such fantastic feedback about my session.

Question #1:  Interesting framework, but can it be universally applicable to every project?

In principle, all the seven elements of the INSPIRE framework can be applied to every project. However, depending on the type of project, some of the elements are less important. This is, in particular, the case for the purpose. Every project needs one; however, not all of them need a higher purpose that will have a massive impact on society. I would say the more important the change that our project is bringing, the more important the purpose. Also, some of the projects at work will not be possible all the time, due to different reasons, for example, a lack of resources or other priority projects. On the other hand, self-confidence, psychological safety, diversity, and engagement are elements that should always be considered when working on any project. As a project manager, it is essential to know when and to which extent to apply these elements in our projects.

Question #2:  What do you mean when you talk about one project in organizations that makes their employees proud?

This is one of the most critical tools that organizations and their leaders should be using when looking at increasing the motivation of their employees and reducing the effects of the great resignation. Nowadays, most organizations have a purpose, but that is not enough. What makes employees proud is when there is an ambitious project linked to that higher purpose. For example, it is not enough to say we want to be a sustainable company. We need an ambitious and well-articulated project linked to it; for example, we are transforming all our products to be made of 100-percent recyclable materials by 2025. Contributing to this kind of project linked to a higher purpose is what makes employees eager to go to work every day and make a difference. My recommendation is that if organizations want to have more engaged employees, they should launch a project that will INSPIRE them.

Question #3:  I'm not sure I agree with your overarching philosophy that children are smarter than adults. Remembering my own life experience is vital in learning to work with diverse technical groups and people with differing opinions. I think that is one reason there are not too many successful 20-year-old PMs.

I am not talking about young generations being smarter; I am saying that they look at the world very differently than adults. And we tend to impose our views on them, trying to fit them into our ways of thinking and behaving. This is what I think we should be changing. We should let young generations express their dreams and empower them to carry them out. Instead of telling them what to do, we should work together and benefit from their fresh perspectives, ambitious dreams, and lack of constraints that we have built over the years working in organizations. A great example is Boyden Slat, the 16-year-old Dutch who, after taking his first scuba dive in Greece, he launched The Ocean Cleanup project with just €300 in seed money, with the goal of removing 90 percent of marine plastic pollution by 2040. Incredible, right?

Question #4:  To change the future, we should encourage the kids to understand that they do have the power to influence change.

Absolutely, this is the main point I shared in my presentation.We indeed need to let young professionals know that they have this special gift that adults don't have; the young have not been shaped in their way of thinking as adults have. Remember the two exercises we did together about the cake and the question of who can paint; in both cases, young professionals outperformed experienced professionals. We should encourage them to pursue their dreams, even if, to our eyes, they seem impossible - note that to their eyes, everything is possible.

Question #5: I don't ever think to make sure my team understands why they're doing what they're doing and the benefits surrounding what they do.

Thanks for sharing your experience about not spending time on the "why" of your projects, but you are not alone. Our existing methodologies have focused on the less inspiring elements of a project, which are mostly focused on the financial business case, scope, time, quality, budget, and deliverables, and we forget to spend time articulating on "why" we do the projects. A lot of my work has been on including the purpose of a project in the day-to-day practices of project management. The purpose is a key building block in my Project Canvas. What problem do we want to solve? What opportunity do we want to capture? Answering in simple terms and with a smart objective are among the most powerful ways to generate engagement in your projects, from your teams and your stakeholders. For example, instead of talking about your project delivering a new IT system, talk about why we do it. Talking about the purpose of your project with a SMART goal is transformational.

Question #6: As a PM in a supportive PMO in an organization that is not familiar with project management per se, the challenge has been to open up the box and get people to start thinking about "how can we..."or" what would it take to...". People are more used to looking at and worrying about the limits, even when those limits are artificial and self-imposed.

Good point. I think you are doing the right thing by letting people start thinking about how the PMO can help to overcome some of the traditional worries in an organization. By breaking up some of these old habits, leaders and managers will start to see projects as a strategic tool that delivers change, creates new value, and drives the organization into the future. Well done!

Question #7: This is a very important session. I learned what young people are doing successfully and how to apply those things done well to other projects. This is more useful than focusing solely on what was wrong. Focusing on gratitude and success creates more appreciation and successes.

Glad to hear that you learned such essential concepts during my presentation. What these young professionals are doing through their ambitious projects is not only making dreams a reality, but they are also generating a positive outlook on the world. Indeed, we tend to focus on the bad news and failures. The failure of the Berlin Airport or the Amazon Headquarters in New York got much more press. In the past, I have researched how our brain works. From my early book, The Focused Organization, and my TEDx talk, "Yes, Our Brain is Masochist," I found our brain focuses and spends seven times more on a negative story than on positive news, which is unbelievable. That is why most of the examples I use in my courses are around successful projects; some of them are amazing. And there is as much to learn from them as from any project failure. I'm glad that a few years ago PMI also turned towards successful projects with the list of the 50 most impactful projects. I think this is one of the most important research activities that PMI does every two years; unfortunately, it has not yet been captured by mainstream business media. But we definitely need to focus more on positives and success. That is what we do in project management, and people should know about that. 

Have you come across other amazing projects carried out by youngsters? Any lessons learned?

My presentation is available on demand until 31 January 2023. Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2022  for more details. I am looking forward to seeing you at another event!

By Renaldi Gondosubroto, CAPM, PMP, Project Lead, GReS Studio

I had the pleasure and honour of delivering my presentation at PMI's Virtual Experience Series: PMXPO on 24 March, a global event attracting more than 64,000 attendees. My presentation, “Cloudy with a Chance of Agile,” addressed the growing trend of managing projects on the cloud, the skills project managers need to possess to be able to manage projects on the cloud well, and how they need to consider a multitude of factors, including organizational capacity and communication plans, while utilizing the agile methodology to best facilitate the management of such projects. 

It is imperative to note that although I focus on the agile methodology on managing cloud projects in this presentation, it is important to keep what works from traditional project management methodology and combine it with agile to create a hybrid way of work that will be effective for managing your projects. In this recap, I will respond to several questions asked during my presentation.

1. Is there a good source/website that compares the various services across the major cloud providers and positives/negatives of each? The cloud services are evolving rapidly, and it is difficult to provide advice/assess which is most cost effective and offers best long-term ROI.

There are certainly many sites that provide this. Companies like VMWare or community and educational sites like ACloudGuru or ComputerWorld provide some insights on this, highlighting the pros and cons of each service. These tend to be very technical though, which is why it is imperative for a project manager to also gain general cloud knowledge to be able to get a foundational level understanding of what is being discussed and better assess which offers best long-term ROI. If you have any subject matter experts on select cloud platforms within the company, it would be great to ask for their expertise, or also consult with available stakeholders that may be able to provide valuable insights on this. 

Another avenue for advice would be directly from the cloud platforms themselves or their relevant partners. Libraries such as the AWS Solutions Consulting Offers from AWS provides selections of qualified companies and personnel that can be consulted to provide advice if the platform serves well towards your needs. Experimentation on the usage of different providers will also determine which can work best. Take advantage of cloud platforms’ free tiers in experimenting without cost to get a feel for them as a start within the learning process for managing these cloud projects as a project manager.

2. Please discuss the relationship / contradictions between Scope Management and an ever-changing product backlog.

When managing product backlogs in cloud projects, it is crucial to ensure that appropriate scope management is maintained. Often, scope creep happens due to failure to adhere to proper backlog grooming practices as part of agile. Doing grooming helps with the removal of irrelevant items which do not help with adding the value to the product and align priorities to what is needed from the current sprint. It is the project managers’ job to ensure that items are aligned with the needs and goals for the sprint.

During these sessions, project managers need to arrange for the priorities of items in the backlog based on priority, setting them based on value provided to the business, complexity, cost and how ready the item is to be taken up to be worked on. When there is a clear definition for what needs to be done for the item, teams can effectively understand what needs to be done for the current sprint. This will also help them with having efficient sprint planning sessions and not be surprised when an item turns out to be much simpler or complicated than expected.

Another important aspect is to ensure that new items go through a specific process and are not forced in the middle of a sprint. Scope creep often happens when a team thinks they can just add in a new item because they believe the item can easily be done, although it would certainly affect the sprint whether they like it or not. Such items need to go through a proper cost and requirements analysis and follow the same process of grooming, planning and push for inclusion in an upcoming sprint.

3. We are comingling project management and Agile software development as if they are the same thing and they are not the same. Getting people to understand this is a challenge we see in practice. Do you have suggestions on how best to marry traditional project management knowledge areas to the daily protocols inherent in Agile software development?

Many of the efforts of combining traditional project management knowledge areas to the daily protocols inherent in agile software development can be seen from what has been done with hybrid project management. Essentially, this will depend on simply seeing which works best for you in certain case scenarios and how you can bring the best of both from your experience. From my experience, I have had a couple of examples in combining them based on what has worked with me, such as with combining both methodologies in scope management and communications management.

Within scope management, we have seen the prevalence of the work breakdown structure (WBS) in traditional project management. In defining project scope, we could still need a WBS to lay out the scope, goals, and the overall big picture of the process of the project, but we can then combine it with the sprints that will be used to manage sprints based on the roadmap laid out by the WBS. This concurrent coordination makes for effective scope management based on using both methodologies and creates a great combination that would have been better than if either were used themselves.

In project communications, we are used to creating the relevant communications management plan for stakeholders and the details for the method and frequency of communication with them. We can combine the relevant documents for the communication plans for different stakeholders with the agile software development protocols we use in communication such as stand-ups and sprint-based tools such as Jira or Trello. Doing so would increase the value of just having traditional communication plans, particularly since we would be able to have a more robust communication system with understanding how each could contribute towards the bigger picture of the project management plan.

The other knowledge areas can be comingled in the same way; we just need to find what we already have that currently works and what could be improved with agile. This is not to say that some aspects may not be as easily comingled, so if this is the case, it is necessary to see which works better in the case scenario and choose one of the methodologies to approach it with. This must be done from a perspective gauging which approach would bring more value to the project.

4. Do we need to have any IT technical background to be PM of a cloud project?

Normally, you do not need to have an in-depth IT background to manage a cloud project, but it is recommended that you at least have a minimum understanding of the work that members of the team are doing. This was why I recommended project managers to pursue foundational level certifications for cloud platforms; to understand many important items that will be worked on and considerations for the project, the project manager should have the appropriate context. When delving into a cloud project, a project manager who is less experienced in IT-related matters should set aside time to also orient themselves with the learning necessary.

Learning and project management can be executed concurrently, although this will also depend on the deadlines put on the team and the team itself on how ready they are based on their cloud background as well. If the team members are well-prepared to perform their specific roles for the cloud project based on their background, you can also rely on their advice if you are still in the process of orienting yourself. It is imperative to understand how to coordinate your time to manage deadlines and your time spent learning well when doing so.

5. Do you find a challenge with Cloud being able to support a robust testing environment?

In my experience, there have not been many problems with the cloud supporting a robust testing environment, given that tests can be performed on the pipeline as part of the build process of software. In most cases, testing languages and frameworks will be supported, and this is also supported by the failover and other configurations set if there is a problem within what has been deployed on the production or testing environments.

The problem lies more on the need to test in more areas, including with security considerations on cloud deployment, live upgrades, and third-party dependence. These factors affect the extent to which we need to consider our checks. Luckily, there are also various cloud tools that help with this as well; so despite the more robust testing needed due to this, proper understanding about the cloud environment and extensive research should be able to address this requirement properly.

6. Is there any free source on the internet for getting basic knowledge about cloud systems?

Often, I would recommend vendor-specific resources to learn about cloud systems such as from Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure resources directly, as doing this both allows you to study from material of great quality and gain in-depth knowledge into a specific cloud provider. You could then consider taking a foundational level certification to validate your knowledge. For more general cloud knowledge, there are free courses available on providers such as Udacity or on YouTube explaining many important concepts that need to be understood about the cloud.

The important thing to understand about the cloud is that many providers – despite the different features with each of the services they offer – offer services that are fundamentally delivering the same purpose. Because of this, applying cloud concepts when having to jump from one platform to another is going to be much simpler than having to learn cloud systems from scratch. Therefore, it is important to note that learning for one provider will not restrict your knowledge; it is simply ensuring you specialize in one but also gain general knowledge that can be applied to another platform should it be necessary to change to another provider.

Presentations including mine will be on demand through 31 January 2023. Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2022 for more details.