PMI Global Insights

Day 2 has really kicked off with a bang! This morning, I joined one of the offsite activities that PMI offers at their EMEA Conference. The options available were: A visit to the Microsoft Campus, A visit to the Royal College of Surgeons and finally a trip to Teeling Whiskey Distillery. As a fan of Whiskey, this last option was the biggest highlight for me!

Everyone was really excited and enthused to go to the distillery! I presented a video live from the Distillery on Twitter for everyone and I hope some of you managed to see it! The Distillery tour itself took you through how Whiskey is made but on a boarder level about how the Teeling company has overcome a lot of adversity and challenges to be in the strong market position they are in today and what this means for us as Project Managers. The biggest takeaways for me can be summed up in this picture.

After coming back from the Distillery, it was already time for lunch and I love being able to use this time to Network with other PMs. I always find a table of people that I have never met and just start talking to them about their morning session. It was really fun to be able to see how different people take in different things from each session. During this networking break, we had quite an open discussion about the functionality and practicality of hotdesking/open space working in a project team environment and what worked for them in their projects. I find it fascinating to see how many different ways people can approach challenges in their projects and organisations.

After Lunch, it was time to for us to contribute in the Virtual working /leadership session. I really liked that there was such a large audience interaction and participation in this session as it really showed the wealth of knowledge and experience in the room but also the facilitation skills of the speakers to be able to handle such a passionate group of Project Managers. It was a constant stream of sharing knowledge/ asking questions and giving their feedback which really made this session very worthwhile. I posted a series of pictures live on my Twitter feed (@Em_The_PM) that I can strongly recommend that you look at.

The final session of the day was: Why women make better Project Managers and I felt that this title was a big misleading for the topic that it covered as it was more about the Leadership style needed for 21st Century projects and although the topic was well covered from a Leadership perspective, I wished there would have been more of some takeaways for why and how you can utilise women in your project teams/environments.

The day ended with a fabulous celebration from PMI for their 50th Birthday and what a celebration it was! Live music, acrobatics, fabulous food and networking. This was a really lovely end to the day and although you can see that everyone is very tired from an intense two days of conference, they are really emboldened by what's to come!

It's going to be the last day of the conference today and we are looking forward to some more great sessions and what we're able to learn in this last jam packed day! I'm really looking forward to the TED Talks closing ceremony and can't wait to see what more I can learn today!

Please don't forget to follow me and the other correspondents on Twitter and make sure you're checking the Projectmanagement.com Twitter for the latest snippets!

Today was the first day of #PMIEMEA19 and what a great start to this year's conference. I'm not sure if it was the fantastic Irish hospitality and friendliness or it was just how welcoming the PMI is, but this year's conference is really turning into something special! What makes this conference unique is that there are few other conferences in the world where you will get over 800 Project Professionals, from 70 countries and over 500 different organisations. This gives you a great opportunity to network with your peers and learn so much in such a short period of time.

The Keynote session started off with a PMI introduction regarding the aims and celebration that PMI will be doing for their 50th birthday year and including the activities behind the "Year of the volunteer". 

The keynote speaker this year was: Jamil Qureshi who was giving us his three principles for being a success and more importantly what we think, has an impact on how we feel and subsequently act. Everyone that I've spoken to today, has really taken a lot from his talk and more importantly what they can apply to their daily lives.

The next session that I attended was "Influencing without authority. An essential skill for Project Managers". This was run by Pat Lucey and Norma Lynch who gave their presentation to a packed room. One of the most interesting things for me from this talk was "assuming everyone is a potential ally". I had never really considered this in my stakeholder management but it really did make me think about how I could improve my management skills. Based upon the feedback from this community, I managed to interview Pat and Norma after their session to hear what they thought as first time speakers at a PMIEMEA conference.

Next was lunch which is always a great affair during a PMI Conference. It's really nice to see that they have such a great variety of food available which definitely set us up for a great afternoon session.

For me, my next session was Agata Czopek who was giving us advice on how to future proof our career. I really found it interesting to hear how the career path and careers are changing. The main bit of advice that I took from this talk was to: Never stop learning and always be prepared to learn and learn again.

The rest of the afternoon for me were about agile planning and learning from agile mistakes which were of great interest to me. One thing that really stood out to me was just how collaborative everyone is about sharing their knowledge and ideas. It really made each session invaluable.

Another feedback from the community was people wanting to know what happens outside of the sessions and I decided to capture two videos today showing you the Networking event and also interviewing a first timer.

Here are some more pictures from today's networking event:

This was one of the offerings for food:

This is dessert:

I'd love to know what you'd like to see tomorrow? More interviews with people? or videoing the event sessions? Please comment below!

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at: ProjectMgtcom as well our community correspondents:

Emily

Stephanie 

Karthik

Moritz

During the conference (I - Em_The_PM) will be taking over the Twitter feed of Projectmanagement.com to share with you my views on the conference so I'd love to hear what you'd like to see more of!

Until tomorrow, have a great evening!

It’s coming up soon! Have you already started thinking about which sessions you’ll attend to get the most of your conference? Do you know where you need to be?

Here’s the list of sessions that I cannot wait to see and why. I’d love to hear also about what sessions you’d like to hear more about/ have us cover during the conference itself.

First things first: check out the PMI EMEA app and download this. This way you can mark the sessions that you want to attend and get notifications. For now, I’d recommend checking out the programme overview so that you can see the potential sessions that you might want to go and plan out your day.

Don’t forget to identify where the break/lunch/networking areas are so that you can know where to grab some food/drink during the conference. There’s also the sponsor area where you can meet providers and get some great input.

Day 1:

• 08:00: If this is your first conference, then I can highly recommend the first time Orientation session, where you’ll get the best introduction to what the conference can offer you. You can also grab some coffee before the keynote begins.
• 09:00: Opening Keynote: I’m really interested to hear how I can think differently/ change my thinking habits to become a better, more effective PM. I’m hoping that I can speak to the Keynote speaker after this session.
• 10:30: I’m currently thinking of attending the session: Influencing without authority : An Essential skill for Project Managers as I’m hoping that it will give me some ideas for the current project that I’m working in
• Lunch Break: It’s important to make sure that you take time to not only process the mornings activities but also to refuel for a great afternoon.
• 12.30: The next session is from the great speaker: Agata Czopek about: Project manage your professional career and future proof yourself  for your next challenges. Agata is a great speaker and I’m really interested in seeing how I can take my career to the next level with her input.
• 14:15: After the break; I’m planning to attend: Planning matters – even if you are agile. Working in an agile environment, this is really important for me in also knowing if I’m following the right planning/track in my projects.
• 15:45: The final session of the day for me will be: The journey towards agility: Lessons Learned from successes and failures. I think this is a really important topic and I want to see if there are better ways of doing Lessons Learned.
• Post conference networking: This is a really important part of any conference for me. I like to connect with other Project Managers and also catch up with any of the speakers to ask questions or even grab a selfie with them! One thing that I often do is arrange to have dinner with other colleagues and discuss the conference over dinner/drinks before getting an early night.

After each day’s conference, I make notes regarding the key items to learn/remember but also think about other questions that I might want to follow up with the speakers the following day.

Day 2:

• 09:00: Offsite learning: Teeling Distillery: The offsite learning opportunity is a unique part of the PMI conference experience and I recommend that you sign up for one of the three opportunities. I absolutely love Irish Whiskey and I cannot wait to learn more about how a distillery works and how they use Project Management in their industry.
• Lunch: Another great opportunity to network over lunch. I often use this opportunity to great some fresh air and (hopefully) sunshine.
• 13:30: Creating your own virtual band: virtual team build to enhance virtual collaboration: As a Project Manager who leads a lot of virtual teams, I’m always looking for ways to improve how I team build with my virtual colleagues
• 15:15: The final session of the day will hopefully be: Why women make better Project Managers. I wonder what I’ll be able to learn why Jordi thinks that women are better Project Managers.

Day 3:

• 09:00: The Cutting Edge PM: The future of technology in Project Management. I’m really interested in what’s going to happen in the next 5/10 years to be able to understand how I can make myself future proof.
• 10:30: Relationships:  The currency of influence for Project Managers. This is a really important topic for me and I want to see how I can improve my relationship skills to help my team and projects.
• 12:30: Creating collective value through generativity: A leadership approach for complexity. Complexity seems to be a commonality in most projects these days so I’m hoping to learn how I can improve my leadership skills to better manage complex projects.
• 14:00: Closing Keynote: TED Talks. This has to be one of the main reasons that I’m attending the PMI conference. I am a massive fan of TED and I can’t wait to see what is presented and having the conference go off with a bang.

What topics are you looking forward to?

The PMI EMEA Conference is just a few weeks away! As a lot of attendees are already preparing and thinking about the sessions that they want to attend or what are the best ways to network at the conference, I thought that I'd take a step back and ask my followers on Twitter what are the essentials that they take to any conference and more specifically for PMI EMEA. Here are some of the answers and I'd love to hear from you what you think and what's on your must-take list for a conference.

I know that a lot of us are smart phone addicts so I'd really like to know if any of you can recommend good apps for staying efficient and making the most of out a conference. What do you use? I'm sure that the EMEA Conference App will be really popular again this year and I highly recommend downloading this app and connecting with our participants before the event.

Here are a few initial recommendations/thoughts:

1. Business Cards. Makes sure that you have enough to connect with your peers. I always like to make notes on Business cards so I can remember someone/ important information (e.g. if I need to email them with something important etc).

2. Camera: Sometimes a phone camera isn't enough or it drains my Phone battery too much to use effectively.

3. Scarf/ Spare jumper: Conference centres can get very chilly so I try to dress with plenty of layers in case it gets too hot/cold.

4. Registration Confirmation: Make sure that you've printed out your confirmation and have it available for when you check in. This is vital to a prompt and easy access to the conference. I forgot it once before and it took a lot longer to get processed and through.

Here's a few recommendations from my post on Twitter.

@fabiorigamonti says that a good notepad is vital for him. He uses moleskin but I'm a fan of a good spiral bound notepad where I can easily rip out pages etc. I'll also add to this that I always carry at least 3 pens and highlighters (ideally all different colours) so  that i'm able to track/ highlight anything important. This could be important take-aways from a session or something that I want to ask/follow up on later.

@LetsGrowLeaders recommends bringing a Tripod with them for recording or videoing during the conference. This can be great for presenters but might be a bit cumbersome for attendees to bring.

@KarthikPMO Agrees with my suggestion of bringing at least one powerbank with you! He also adds to make sure that you have enough travel connectors for all of your devices. At a recent conference, I saw one Project Manager with an extender cable that had 5 sockets attached to it. He soon became the best friend of a few power hungry people!

So, what is important for you? What can you not be without during a conference? Please comment below!

Please don't forget to follow me and my fellow representatives from the online Community for updates during the conference itself. They'll be announcing themselves during the next few days.

For the past year, PMI has been going undergoing a strategic transformation to be able to support Project Managers in every aspect of their career journey.

This has really made me think about myself and my own career journey and I've asked myself: What am I doing to invest in myself? What am I doing to become a stronger, better Project Manager? Here are a few suggestions that I'd recommend

1. Develop your career strategy

One thing that I'd recommend you start with is looking at where you want your career to go. If you can see where you want to be in 3,5,10 years then it'll help you analyse how you can get there. Do you want to move towards Program Management? Diversify your skills as a Project Manager and become an expert in a specific area (agile/ transformation etc)? 

2. Know your resources!

Your PMI membership can be a great way for you to know and utilise resources at your fingertips. Free On-Demand Webinars, Virtual conferences, in person conferences and great Career Development blogs are all available for you to be able to support and help you along the way. Don't forget that there are many Vendor offers available for you that might be useful to find available resources.

3. Plan!

When it comes to the renewal cycle for PDUs, I try to plan to achieve a minimum of 20 PDUs every year. Within that, I break it down into topic areas where I want to personally improve and then I look for resources that can support me in this area.  So it could look like this:

4. Ask the right questions:

Here's a few questions that might help you understand / learn where you want to develop/progress to:

• What is important for you in your daily job?
• What do you enjoy doing?
• How are you a champion of change?
• How are you making the Project Management world a better place?
• Where do you see yourself in 3/5/10 years?
• What do you need to achieve your career goals? (e.g. additional qualifications? more experience?)

Why is this important?

I completely agree with the PMI strategy of focusing on the individual Project Manager and their career path. It's important to remember and really look long term about our career path and how we can get there. I also think that it's important to have this discussion with your company/ manager about where you want to go and how you want to develop.

During my recent yearly discussions with my boss I discussed that my interests over this year have developed and change and this is where i'd like to move/develop towards. My company appreciates that I take control of my career path and let them know how this will link with their wider strategy/organisational goals.

Conclusion

When it comes to career planning, I think that it's important that you take the time out of your daily work to think really hard and honestly about the answers and work out what's best for you in your long term career. What does your career plan look like? How do you plan your career development? One great thing is that the PMI will be there to support you on your journey and keep providing you great opportunities to help you be the Best Project Manager that you can be!