PMI Global Insights

By: Priya Patra

I am back after attending PMI Global Summit 2023, and it was just as amazing as ever. The theme of this year's summit was "The Future of Your Work," packed with knowledge and practical tips on how to embrace the changing world of work and prepare ourselves for the future.

Here is a summary of my takeaways from the four days at Summit:

Day 1

• Volunteers are the heart of PMI: The event kicked off with a special session for PMI volunteers. It was heartwarming to hear from Brantlee Underhill, PMI's Chief Community Officer, and to learn more about how PMI is investing in its volunteers.
• AI continues to be a central focus: One of the big announcements at the session was the launch of PMI x AI, a new initiative to help project professionals learn about and use AI in their work. This is a great example of how PMI is committed to staying ahead of the curve and helping its members prepare for the future.
• Be the best you! A keynote from Shane Snow, who spoke about the importance of intellectual humility—the ability to acknowledge that you may be wrong, a skill that is essential for success in the AI age.

Day 2

• Stronger together: CEO Pierre Le Manh's opening remarks on the value of the project management profession were both timely and refreshing. He committed to PMI doing more to raise project success rates responsibly and to maintain a laser focus on the profession. He also announced PMI's acquisition of PMO Global Alliance, a sign of PMI's commitment to the PMO community.
• Change has changed: Cassandra Worthy gave an energetic talk on change, in which she argued that we need to adopt a "change enthusiasm mindset." She also shared a three-step approach to change:
  • The Signal: Identify the signs of change.
  • The Opportunity: See change as an opportunity to learn and grow.
  • The Decision: Decide how you will respond to change.

Day 3

• AI is an accelerant: Armida Ascano gave a fascinating talk on forecasting micro-generational desire. She took us through nine microgeneration formative years—including impactful global events, media, and pop culture—from Baby Boomers to Gen Z. She also shared some tips on how to optimize this information as a project professional, including a reusable framework behind all four generations. The cherry on the cake was the worksheets of 10-15 brainstorming questions to draw about applicability.

Day 4

• Embrace curiosity: I had the privilege of leading a session on how to use curiosity to lead our teams into the future. I shared some everyday tips on how to use the power of questions to make our teams more energized and innovative.
• Start from zero: The closing keynote of the summit was delivered by Christopher Barton, founder of Shazam. Barton shared his story of starting Shazam from scratch and overcoming many challenges to achieve success. He emphasized the importance of defiance, persistence and obsession in achieving your goals.

Here are some of the things I will focus on after attending Summit:

• Hone my intellectual humility: This means being open to new ideas and perspectives, even if they challenge my own beliefs.
• Embrace change with new rigor: Change is inevitable, so it's important to be prepared to adapt and embrace it.
• Lead multi-generational teams effectively: Each generation has its own unique strengths and perspectives. Effective leaders are able to leverage these differences to create high-performing teams.
• Get rid of all inhibitions: Don't be afraid to ask questions, take risks and try new things.
• Start from zero: Don't be afraid to start over if necessary. Sometimes the best way to move forward is to start fresh.
• And last but not least, I would continue to embrace curiosity!

What would you do differently? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

By: Priya Patra

Curiosity killed the Cat – We have heard of it while you were growing up, possibly as a cautionary tale, warning you of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation.

The cat in the idiom presumably became overly curious, so much so that he put himself into a dangerous situation which led to his death.

But is this true even now when the world is disrupted least to say?

A recent Harvard Business Review had an article by Frances Gino from the Harvard Business School that said, “When we’re curious, we view tough situations more creatively.”

We challenge “status quo” - Curiosity helps us to think out of the box.

In the words of Albert Einstein, “The important thing is not to stop questioning … Never lose a holy curiosity.

As children, we always asked questions but maybe not so much as adults.

Increasingly we are expected to follow often conflicting social norms within different contexts. 

Unrestrained curiosity becomes an annoying time waster, however, if targeted it can become the project managers' superpower. Best of all we all have it, we just have to harness it. Project managers can harness curiosity as a power skill to enable better project outcomes and an innovative future fit team – thrive in this disrupted world.

So, is curiosity a power skill?

How can we encourage ourselves and our teams to be more curious?

Can curiosity uncover challenges, and increase our capacity for innovation and growth?

Join me at the PMI Global Summit 2023 on 28 October at 10:15 ET where I will narrate tips and techniques from my day-to-day as a project manager.

1. How curiosity encourages continual growth and learning, which drives positive personal, team, and organizational outcomes by a motivated and future-fit 
2. How asking the right questions to ourselves as leaders can help to polish our power skill – Curiosity
3. How curiosity can make our teams
   1. Ideators
   2. Problem solvers
   3. Energizers - who can barge through any obstacles without burning out, infusing the team with energy and enthusiasm to thrive
   4. Enables continuous learning

Most importantly we will also deliberate if curiosity killed the cat.

I am curious to know your thoughts on this topic. Do you think curiosity is a power skill? How can we encourage ourselves and our teams to be more curious?

By Priya Patra

It’s a new world, new challenges, and new solutions! The nature of our projects has changed, and so have our teams. We have crossed the chasm of geographical boundaries to anyone, anytime, anywhere – the future of work.

According to the PMI report “A Case for Diversity,” being able to draw from a spectrum of backgrounds and experiences fuels innovation—unleashing perspectives that might otherwise go unconsidered.

Diversity and inclusion are on the agenda for all organizations nowadays. Leaders within the D&I movement realize that D&I is more than just cultivating a strong pipeline of diverse candidates. It is more about creating an inclusive workplace that not only brings in diverse talent but also knows how to create avenues for success.

In this session, I will be addressing how we can build an inclusive workplace with Agile using these SCRUM values - courage, focus, respect, openness, and commitment.

Why values? Values drive behavior and, of course, our behavior reflects values. Values take precedence in people’s interactions and collaborative work.

I will be sharing a series of anecdotes that relate my experience of navigating personal bias through an effective tool – my value wall! What is a value wall? They say that if you can make it visible, then you can recognize it and make an attempt to solve it! The SCRUM values were placed on a virtual wall where we had each team member write up how we are demonstrating the value in their working day.

• A value moment is when we lived by the SCRUM values.
• A whoops moment is when we failed to live by the SCRUM values.

Recognizing these moments was a very critical step for me to understand my own personal biases.

Are you interested in learning more about how Agile SCRUM values can help to make your workplace more inclusive? Please join me on June 2 at the PMI Virtual Experience Series when I look forward to taking this discussion forward and responding to your questions.

I am back to Bollywood after spending a week in Hollywood and what a week it has been :

1. Travelling half the way across the world : a 19-hour flight from Bollywood to Hollywood
2. Participating as a “Expert” for “Ask The Expert” sessions
3. Presenting at my third PMI Congress - "Who Wants to Be a More Successful
4. Project Manager? Here's Your New Lifeline: Ask the Crowd! #askthecrowd
5. Recording live podcast for PMI on my experience as a speaker and as an attendee
6. A great support from the #crowd at the conference
7. Looking at Life as a magic along with  John Dorenbos
8. Collecting "GEMS" from 5 generations at the workplace from Cam Martson
9. Cracking Creativity with Abigail Posner
10. Finally a enjoying a cool sunset by the Pacific Ocean at the Santa Monica Pier

My takeaways ? I have noted them down as quotes that I gathered from the sessions that I attended

1. “I blamed a lot of people when I wasn’t having success, the more I blamed people around me, the more I lost myself, bit by bit, piece by piece.” – John Dorenbos – “Life is a magic” Key note day 1

2. “You will become infinitely more powerful if you can understand your preferences and set them aside and let your colleagues’ preferences shine through,” – Cam Marston

3. “The big part of the equation was to work with the community to understand what veterans wanted in their brand-new veteran’s medical center – Fernando Rivera, Director of Medical center – south Louisiana Veterans health care system, 2018, PMI Project of the year winner Do I hear “crowdsourcing ““Ask the crowd “here as well ?

4. “Creativity changes the world!” – Abigail Posner

My experience at the conference are captured in these blogs

Day 1: #PMICON18 – Day 1 The magic starts!

https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/47192/-PMICON18---Day-1-The-magic-starts--

#PMICON18 – Day 2 Collecting the GEMS of the Generations

https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/47273/-PMICON18---Day-2-Collecting-the-GEMS-of-the-Generations

Day 3: #PMICON18 – Day 3 Invest in the wisdom of the crowd and crack creativity

https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/47341/-PMICON18---Day-3-Invest-in-the-wisdom-of-the-crowd-and-crack-creativity

A yearlong celebration of PMI’s 50^th birthday #PMI50 has already begun. Watch this to know more. We even created a live mosaic billboard with the moments of the #PMICON18

And yes, there is more… The experts from “Ask the Expert” group have created some exclusive content just for you.  My exclusive expert content  Projects in the Real World: Agile and Beyond is here.

With this I sign off from Bollywood. I would love to know your thoughts on the coverage. Do post your comments here, also don’t forget to follow me on  twitter , LinkedIn and  Facebook  for other exciting news from the world of agile and project management.

Yes the secret is out.  #ChampionOfChange you have a new lifeline “Ask the crowd”. I led a session on day 3, on something that many of you were curious to know about – your new lifeline

#517a Who Wants to Be a More Successful Project Manager? Here's Your New Lifeline: Ask the Crowd!

I explored how crowdsourcing can be an option to solve the most complex problems in our projects and how it can improve agility and innovation.

I had a great support from the crowd at my session, both from old friends like Bruce Gay and friends that I made through my interactions last few days at the conference – at the gala dinner, on the hallway, at the breakfast, lunch tables and at the “Ask the Expert” booth. I guess that is the bonus of having your session scheduled on the last day. Thank you everyone! The feedback is captured here.

With all that great crowd support, in high spirits I headed back to the exhibit hall. On way I stopped at PMI’s Projectified live podcast booth for  a live podcast on my experience as a speaker as an attendee at #PMICON18.

1.     Be a person of vision, face your own reality and believe in magic

2.     Tap into the collective intelligence of the generations, by understanding the workplace preferences

3.     Passion is one, but that needs to be backed by project management and principles

The last key note of the conference was by Abigail Posner, she provided some amazing tips on how to be creative

1.     #seekthewhy :  Ask yourself why your clients seek your services, answers are the foundations to the creative ideas.

2.     #lookforthelinks : Ideas don't come from nowhere. Look for the links between disparate ideas.

3.     #discoveryourmission: What are you offering that is going to make lives better?

Then wrapping up with energetic Hi fives from the Los Angeles chapter members and volunteers. The moment captured well by my friend Karthik Ramamurthy here

As they call in Hollywood “that was a wrap” of   the PMI Global Congress 2018, hope to see you next time to celebrate PMIs 50^th birthday in Philadelphia. Till then let’s keep the conversation on , on  twitter , linkedIn and  Facebook .