PMI Global Insights

Good afternoon everyone! 

One feedback and request that came from you (our online community) was that during the conference, you'd want to hear more about the conference from those that are attending and getting a "real" insight into what it's like to attend the conference. So, this is what I've done!  I've spoke to a few people over lunch about their conference so I can give you the latest insight. 

Question: Why did you come to PMIEMEA19?

Hani: I wanted to get more experience from other project managers, companies, and get some specific examples that I can bring back to my company. 

Collette: Im looking to earn PDUs and learn more about which career direction might suit me best/next. 

Abdul: I wanted to share my experience with like-minded individuals

Question 2: Have you enjoyed the conference, so far? 

Hani: Yes, on the whole. I'd like more practical examples from the topics and not just generic slides etc.

Collette: Yes, definitely. I didn't expect it to be this good! The networking sessions really surprised me as Ive got to know a lot of different people from different organisations and countries. I've made some new friends this past few days! 

Abdul: Yes. I liked the variation of topics and learning more from some excellent speakers. 

Question 3: What has been your key takeaway of the conference? 

Hani: Focus! I've learned a lot of lessons learned and got a lot of things I can take back to my company. 

Collette: Look at the opportunities that exist that I'm not really seeing at the moment. 

Abdul: What I can do better in my projects towards the future of project management but also what tools I could use in my project later on. 

Summary

This summary was just a quick chat over lunch but I hope that this has given you a little insight into what attendees have taken from the conference and why they attended. What else would you like to know? Comment below!

Here are two videos that I've made today with other attendees at the conference: 

Laurel: https://youtu.be/FPDiNqdtTUE

Dan: https://youtu.be/coIFN7XkZIg

Off-site visit review: https://youtu.be/9Qs8Bfi8L8s

We are all looking forward to this closing session today! It will be amazing to attend live TED Talks. We will be reporting about them afterwards and I am looking forward to reading our the different blogs from @Emily, @Karthik & @Moritz.

Just 2 pieces of information to that:

1. If you are a PMI Member you can watch the TED Talks life - check your email for information, the link was send out yesterday. 

It is not a shareable link, since it requires log-in and it is only accessible to PMI Members.

2. During the TED Talks we won't be able to use mobile phones. Please don't expect life updates. We will update you as soon as the sessions are over.

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!

Dia daoibh ar maidin! (“Good morning all” in Irish/Gaelic)

Ambition, Achievement, Motivation, and Inspiration!

These phrases bring out my key learnings from Day Two of #PMIEMEA19 at delightful Dublin.

Turning Ambition into Achievement – A Workshop by Jamil Qureshi

Jamil Qureshi was truly a Rockstar of this event. On 13th May, my fellow team member Stephanie Jaeger and I had enjoyed his exclusive workshop for alumni of PMI’s Leadership Institute Master Class (LIMC).

Jamil started today’s workshop with the thought-provoking group activity to suggest global impacts of all humans mandatorily changing sex at age 30. Several impacts came up: a. Increased gender neutrality b. Increase in sales of unisex clothing c. Booming demand for sex-change surgeries, with specialist doctors becoming billionaires!

The speaker stressed how important it was for project managers to provide time & space for team members to get their work done. “It's about driving productivity, not simply activity,” he said.

Jamil pointed out that it was perfectly normal for people to make mistakes. Excellent lessons could be learned from detaching the action from the person.

Having several bobble-heads on the team is detrimental to project success. Instead, he recommended that project managers could play the imaginable/provable game to explore ideas. The game was a safe way to generate healthy conflict.

Mi7! Motivate and Inspire with Seven Proven Leadership Techniques for Project Success by Sripriya Narayanasamy and yours truly.

It was now time to reverse roles. To take the stage, presenting the first of my two sessions at the #PMIEMEA19 event. It was extremely gratifying to see almost a hundred people in our session. My co-presenter and I felt bad that there were almost 20 people who had no chairs for our session. Here’s a summary of what we presented:

• Project Success is elusive. Motivational and Inspiring Leadership is a necessity, not an option. Here were seven practical, proven success secrets:
• Serve as the CEO or your project. Create a compelling vision and communicate clearly. Develop project logos and catchy slogans for project success.
• Understand & Leverage Diversity: Culturally diverse teams won’t magically “gel” well. As PM, you need to proactively build cohesiveness and work hard to ensure trust, teamwork.
• Catch them Doing Things Right: Far too often for comfort, project pressures force us to find fault and assign blame. This negative atmosphere drags morale down. Make it a habit to catch people doing things right and praise them for it. This attitude can work wonders in increasing team morale.
• Cultivate Ethical Behavior: Unethical leaders lose respect and trust. Be open and honest with all your stakeholders. Follow the four pillars of PMI’s Ethics Code: Responsibility, Respect, Fairness, and Honesty.
• Elevate with Empathy: Emotional Intelligence and Empathy are two of the most important skills in a project manager’s success toolkit. Thinking from your stakeholder’s point of view can vastly improve your leadership effectiveness.
• Embrace Social Media: Social Media connections can be leveraged to understand team members’ interests, passions, and motivations. This understanding can be invaluable in customized motivation plans.
• Drive Motivation With Visibility: Almost all humans respond positively to visibility and being assigned important work. However, not all project roles can guarantee these. Leverage WBS-Building, Risk Ownership, and the Critical Path to give visibility to team members with the right attitude.

The tips were an acrostic that forms the word “SUCCEED”

I hope you’re enjoying the continuous coverage of the EMEA Congress 2019 by the Community Engagement Team. In addition to tweets by @PMInstitute and @PMIEvents, regular updates are available on the Twitter handles of our team members, @heykristinj, @Em_the_PM,  @StephanieJaeg10, @moritz_sprenger and yours truly, @KarthikPMO.

Please follow, like, comment, and retweet our continuous coverage on Twitter (https://twitter.com/KarthikPMO), LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/kramamurthy) and Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/forkarthik )

On the last day of the conference. I plan to attend and cover these great sessions. Look for detailed coverage of these sessions tomorrow!

• Strategic Analysis and Decision Making for Complex Projects by Esra Tepeli
• Creating Collective Value through Generativity: A Leadership Approach for Complexity by Stephano Setti
• Closing General Session and Keynote Speaker: TED Talks, Curated for PMI by TED

I will also be presenting this session at 9 am (first session of the day).
If you are at the Congress, I’d love to see you there!

• Agilely Vaulting Over Waterfalls: Applying Agile to Waterfall and Vice Versa

See you soon with updates of the final day.

Meanwhile, have a great day, or as they say in Irish, “Bíodh lá maith agat”

Keep smiling, keep shining, and keep inspiring!

What a second day at the PMI EMEA Congress 2019. Not only did the sun shine again in Dublin. PMI also celebrated it’s 50th birthday with us. Half a century of caring about the people and the profession; I am happy to have witnessed just over a tenth of that time. PMI also brought on a stage the most incredible Irish a-cappella-band for the evening celebrations. They would certainly be in the final of any X-Factor show.

Here my short and punchy summary of the key take-aways of the three sessions today with Maria Fafard, Leonor Viturro, and Anderson Gordon – three very inspiring speakers.

It was the first time Maria Fafard spoke at a PMI Congress, and it will not be the last. As an Executive Coach, Maria’s goal was to emphasize the value of coaching techniques in project management.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Does this question ring a bell? Avoid this question if you want to effectively coach. Coaching is essentially about helping the one being coached to change their beliefs, and with it, their behaviour. Because you touch the belief system of a person, the strongest tools in coaching are open powerful questions: How is your behaviour serving you to achieve your goals? Ok, you received feedback from peers, how are you going to use it? Why is this important to you? A common misconception: As a coach “you are not there to be liked, you are there to give a service. Kindly and firmly state what you observe”, says Maria.

Maria also highlighted to overcome the urge to provide a solution that worked for you in a similar situation. Descriptive support will not provide a change of the belief system in the person being coached. People are not vested in the success of a solution that was brought to them from external. 

In the afternoon Leonor Viturro demystified organisational agility and described the three basic layers of agility needed in today’s organisations to respond rapidly to change: (1) Project Agility, (2) Personal Agility, and (3) Agile Decision Making, of which Personal Agility is the pre-requisite, and also the most difficult to obtain in organisation. Leonor applied a metaphor of a cat to distil the key characteristics of personal agility:

• A cats’ flexible spine: Constantly review your set of beliefs, as a belief system always restricts choice and options
• A cats’ curiosity: Understand and learn from your context to be able to apply the right leadership approach in a given situation
• A cats’ vestibular system for orientation: Define your career growth through developing a clear vision beyond factual goals and know what motivates you.

In order to increase organisational agility, starting to push processes to become agile (project agility) will most certainly fail, if the other levels are not addressed (personal agility and agile decision making).

The last session of the afternoon was highly engaging and sparked a lot of discussion. Anderson Gordon introduced a systematic approach to project monitoring: He extended the common Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle to include the importance of studying the data being collected and then using the insights to constantly review and adapt the monitoring system.

Anderson mastered the task to facilitate discussion and lead the audience to come up with the key take-aways themselves. He showed examples of performance indicators that lacked completeness and were rightfully challenged by the audience. Performance Indicators should combine two set of criteria: CREAM and QQT. Meaning Clear, Precise, Economic, Adequate, and Monitorable indicators, which can be collected in the right Quality, Quantity, and Time.

And don’t forget to evaluate the indicators you have selected before adopting them.

Let’s see what day 3 holds ready for us.

Don't forget to follow my fellow Community Correspondents for updates during PMI EMEA 2019: Emily, Stephanie, and Karthik.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn were we will provide live coverage from the sessions.