PMI Global Insights

Trust your team, lead with agility, befriend the machine and be human sums up my day 3 in one sentence.

My first session was on Delivering value in consulting projects – The Agile Way: Maciej Kaniewski took us through the journey of a life cycle of consulting projects. His take on delivering value in consulting project – the agile way?

1. Be in touch with reality, be that Octopus when dealing with customers
2. Harmonize the project management and business analysis
3. Fast forward with agility

Maciej Kaniewski presented the Agile manifesto for Consulting projects as follows

So how do we measure value from consulting projects? Through outcomes, feedback, observations, measurements and decisions. 

And what about the value to the consultant? It is the experience and the learnings.

He ends with a quote from Janis Joplin Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.

Now that I was all armed with tips for success in consulting projects I wonder “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could predict our cost overruns for our projects ?” Werner Meyer session on Beyond Humans: Using Machine Learning to Calculate Contingency for Systemic Risks introduced us to machine learning and how it can help us to improve our chances of success.  An amazing story of Man Vs Machine, where machines learns from historical data and predict the systemic risk overrun. So does this mean our jobs would be at risk? Per Werner Meyer there is a low probability for construction managers and IT managers like me. What a relief!

Later that afternoon I attended a panel discussion on Leading effective virtual teams: Fiona Charonnat, Hagit Landman, Sunday Faronbi and Ibrahim Dani.  Some tips for successfully leading virtual teams :

1. Get to know your team even before the project
2. Understand the culture of others if working in a multi-cultural team
3. Care for your team member as an individual and not as a team
4. Be flexible
5. Set expectations, agree and repeat again and again

The grand finale was the closing key note on  Developing Creative Approaches to Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace in the Times of Accelerated Digitalisation  Inma Martinez . Ms. Martinez took us through the journey of HPC to Exascale - Tianhe-3, a supercomputer which is capable of at least one exaFLOPS, or a billions and billions of calculations per second, from AR augmented reality to VR virtual reality to SR sensorial reality. So what does this mean for us human beings ? Will we be replaced by machines ?  Ms Martinez says “ Machines will always be machines, they can never outperform the human brain. Tacit knowledge cannot be put into words. That is why humans will remain relevant: ”  She adds on to say

1. Machines would do the heavy lifting like crunching the numbers
2. Use that data to pin- point a cancerous cell, or mental health
3. Data can transform our living to smart urban living e.g as in Boston, MA
4. And with all these time at our hands we will have time to be human

That wraps up #PMIEMEA18 in Berlin, the next edition of #PMIEMEA19 would be in Dublin, Ireland. Maybe we will we have some robot participants next year ? What do you think?

What a great few days it's been! I've been helping PMI with their social media for the EMEA conference alongside Karthik Ramamurthy and Priya Patra (both very well known individuals in their own right!). We were tasked with the aim of bringing the conference to those who couldn't attend in person so I made sure that I was tweeting (@Em_The_PM) as much as I could to bring you the different sessions that I attended and what a day at the conference looks like.

It's important to know that the PMI conferences are not just about the sessions that you attend or the PDUs that you can earn by attending. It's got so much more value! The opportunities to be able to speak to your peers and Subject Matter Professionals really gives you live advice and coaching (and all included in the conference price!). This is my first time at the EMEA conference and I've really learnt so much about how projects run (and also how they fail) in the EMEA conference area. 

I decided to arrive a day early for the conference and took the time to spend the afternoon picking up my badge (a.k.a finding where the conference centre is and how long it'll take to walk in the morning) and then also enjoying the beautiful weather that we had in Berlin. We were really spoilt with high temperatures, beautiful sunshine and a relaxed environment.

The first day of the conference is ALWAYS jam-packed so I took the time to make sure I knew where everything was (including the lunch location!) and then making my way to the keynote session. The great thing about PMI conferences is that they tend to bring in some awesome keynote speakers and they didn't disappoint with Rowan Gibson (@RowanGibson) 

He delivered a really motivating talk about his work with Caterpillar, Boeing, Airbus and so many other companies to help focus our mind through the upcoming days about what we need to be looking at.

You can read more about my Day 1 here but suffice to say that it was really enjoyable and they did have to kick us out at the end of the day because we couldn't stop talking to each other!

Day 2 (Tuesday) was another really great day. A full breakdown of my day is here  but whilst others chose to go offsite to visit the central station or the airport, I decided to stay and attend the workshop: Winning Well. Becoming a more strategic Project Manager with the great Karin Hart (@letsgrowleaders) .

It was the first time that I've blown bubbles at the start of a session! This has to be one of my favourite sessions because not only was it very interactive and made you really think about how YOU can become more strategic but it was also about how we can constantly improve ourselves and always look for improvements.

In the afternoon, I presented my own topic "Dude, where's my control. Transitioning from Project Manager to Scrum Master" to a packed room of attendees. It was fantastic to see so many engaged people and be able to spend time afterwards to answer questions and help others with their issues. It was a really great day for me and I really enjoyed being able to present my thoughts to others.

My second day concluded by talking to others during Happy Hour. I managed to make a lot of great connections and really connect with them about what they were doing and where I could help.

Happy Hours are one of the best events for me because I'm able to really talk to other people in a more relaxed setting (as opposed to the formal session structure). It's great being able to talk to others over a drink and a few snacks to really get to know each other.

Day 3 was the final day of the main conference and I did a short summary here. Being able to connect with others on the PMI Events app was a great way to round off the entire conference because we ended up sharing a lot of contact details and information with each other that wouldn't have been possible with just exchanging business cards. By being able to message other attendees we could arrange to meet up for a coffee during the break or alternatively message about which session we were thinking of attending next. 

What did I get out of the conference?

• The main thing for me was Knowledge. I really learnt a lot that I'm going to be able to apply in my upcoming work and projects. It's really motivated me to look at the value that i'm providing as a Project Manager and also to give me more tools to address issues when they occur.
• Wider network: I've made over 50 connections (as of today) on LinkedIn and Projectmanagement.com. I've received emails from other Project Managers/Scrum Masters to engage with later on and even to meet up for a beer in our 'local' area.
• Motivated! I'm so pumped to be able to go back to work and apply the things that I've learnt. I'm also really excited to be able to connect with others to share knowledge and get more information.

Is a PMI Conference for me?

I'd say yes ;-) But in all honesty, the PMI conferences are great for being able to get A LOT of information and knowledge in a very short period of time and to make new connections along the way. The conferences are 3 days in total and they're very intense days, but you're well taken of with food, drink and a great atmosphere.

So! It's been Day 3 and I'm writing this blog post from Berlin Tegel Airport where I'm sitting down before my plane leaves for my return flight to Amsterdam. To try and sum up the final day of the conference is really difficult! It's a mixture of sadness and tiredness as I've met so many fantastic people and those who I would still love to collaborate with in future.

This morning I managed to catch a quick coffee with some of the attendees of the conference whilst we chatted about the upcoming day and what we were most looking forward to. There seems to be an ongoing theme of: innovation and improving to keep competitive' from the people that I'm talking to as there is such a motivation to keep working out the best way forward in a landscape of ever changing requirements and technical situations.

I decided to attend the session called: "Delivering real value in Business consulting projects - the agile way" as I was hoping that I could gain some insights into the best way to manage complex projects. The speaker (Maciej Kaniewski) gave us a lot of interesting titbits of information. One of the biggest takeaways that i had was the importance of value and making sure that we're constantly looking at where that value is being delivered.

One of the interesting things that I took from this presentation was the "octopus" mentality and as you'll see from the picture below. The definition of what it means and what you need to do to make sure that you're keeping on top of everything.

The important thing for me from this is that you need to remember the different 'tentacles' and not just favour one specific method of communicating or working with your clients.

After this session, I had to leave the conference but I'm sure that my other volunteer counterparts will be able to give you more information about the day and what the closing keynote was like.

My next blog post will go into a summary of the conference and what I found the most important aspects to take from it.

Did you feel like you were attending the conference through us? Could we have done anything different/better? Please let me know!

It's Day 2 of the conference and it's been really fun to network and meet other colleagues today.

I spent the morning in: "Winning Well. Becoming a more strategic Project Manager". This session started in the best way possible... by blowing bubbles! The presenters were really engaging and really made us think very hard about what we were doing to improve and becoming more strategic. There were a lot of good take-a-ways from this presentation including: “One good expectations management conversation prevents 14 “Why didn’t you” conversations "

After another fantastic lunch, it was time for me to present! I presented a topic called: Dude, where's my control? Transitioning from Project Manager to Scrum Master. This was my first time presenting at PMI EMEA so it was definitely nerve wrecking but I've received some very good feedback about it and hopefully people found it useful and were able to take things away from the presentation. Due to the number of questions that I was asked after the session, I unfortunately missed the final session of the day as I felt it was more important to make sure that everyone's questions was answered. I've been requested by a few people to do a follow up and i'll speak to the team at projectmanagement.com to see if we can make that a reality!

The day ended well with another fantastic opportunity to network with peers during the Happy Hour. I was really pleased to be able to see and speak to so many interesting peers and getting to hear so many interesting experiences and fully understanding what we need to do to become more innovative in today's world.

Day 3 will be the final day of the conference and i'll be attending the morning session before rushing off to the airport so make sure that you're following Karthik and Priya for the latest updates and information!

Don't forget to follow: #PMIEMEA18 and the Twitter accounts to make sure that you're seeing the latest information and what we're doing!

Guten Tag (Good day in German)!

Play to your Strengths. Resolve Conflicts using Brain Science. Teach the Machines to help you!

These phrases bring out my key learnings from Day Two of #PMIEMEA18 at historic learning.

For those who could not be there, here are short videos interviews that summarize the key takeaways from each session:

Conor Traynor, Strengthsfinder Workshop Presenter: http://bit.ly/CTEMEA18

Phil Bristol, presenter of the session “Pivot-Point – From ME to WE – A Leadership Transformation”:  http://bit.ly/PMEMEA18

Werner Meyer, presenter of the session, “Beyond Humans: Using Machine Learning to Calculate Contingency Reserve for Systemic Risks”: Adding soon

Play to your Strengths - Conor Traynor

• Quick: Try writing your full name with your non-dominant hand. How many seconds did it take? Now try with your dominant hand. One-third the time? That’s a good reason to play to your strengths rather than waste time reducing weaknesses!
• Based on the Gallup Strengthsfinder system, this very engaging workshop involved not one, but two treasure hunts! Participants raced against time meeting other attendees to find their strengths and how it helped them in their jobs.
• What happens when you overuse your strengths? And what are the ill-effects?
• Understand the unique strengths of your team members to help them be most productive as a team.
• Does your current role allow you to leverage your strengths to be at your productive best? If not, you might want to think of a change!

Helping Machines Learn to help calculate Contingency Reserve – Werner Meyer

• Can machines consistently beat humans? One machine indeed did. Though the machine got off to a slow start, it indeed outsmarted a session attendee by guessing whether the human would choose “Heads” or “Tails” across 100 coin tosses!
• Compared to machines, humans are much more unpredictable and suffer biases. Machines are therefore very useful in some decision-making situations.
• Calculating Contingency Reserve for Systemic Risks is an ideal scenario where machines can consistently be more accurate.
• Werner walked the participants through a simple and elegant example of machine learning using as rudimentary a tool as Excel!
• Not all human jobs are at risk with machines. Some such as “Construction Managers” and “IT Managers” have a low probability of being taken over by machines.

Use Brain Science to Resolve Conflicts and Excel as a Leader – Phil Bristol

• Do you know about the extreme impacts chemicals have on your Brain? An intense conflict can increase Cortisol levels and make you unproductive for up to eight hours!
• You can consciously reduce that time by increasing your Oxytocin levels.
• A classic story of two project team members in severe conflict and how it endangered the project.
• Deep dive into their motivations and mindsets helped resolve the conflict.
• The resolution took several months but was well worth the effort since it created a long-lasting solution.

I hope you are enjoying the continuous coverage of the EMEA Congress 2018 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, @KarthikPMO, @PriyaPatra, and @Em_the_PM

Meanwhile, have a wonderful day, or as they say in German, “Ich wünsche ihnen einen wunderbaren Tag!”

Today, I plan to attend and cover these great sessions. Look for detailed coverage of these sessions tomorrow!

• Complex Project Success: Practical Steps to Create Problem Solving Teams by
• Half-Double Methodology: Creating Double Impact in Half the Time
• Speak with Confidence – Learn with a European Champion of Public Speaking (@FreeTheOCP)
• Developing Creative Approaches to AI in the Workplace: Inma Martinez, Keynote Speaker