PMI Global Insights

As offices thought they had a plan to get back to offices in September and October, plans have been delayed. If these past 18 months haven’t been hard enough, now your organization needs to transform its business to adapt and succeed in the new normal world. Equipping leaders to quickly anticipate and react to the speed of change is one of the most challenging issues for organizations. At this point, burnout and attrition are other key challenges faced by organizations today. Do you need inspiration on how other project managers are dealing with change? If you do, you need to attend PMI’s Virtual Experience 6-7 October to rejuvenate your project management skills and learn from leaders to think differently so you can lead your organization through an ever-changing environment!

Hear from prominent rising leaders around the world who are spearheading impactful movements to determine what is needed to make real change. These inspiring sessions will help you to think differently and look out of the box to develop the solutions needed for your organization. PMI’s Virtual Experience has brought together a diverse group of influential speakers to share their experiences and outcomes. Get inspired by Fatima Ibrahim, Global Citizen's UK Hero of the Year, Gitanjali Rao, Young Inventor, Author, and TIME Magazine's 2020 Kid of the Year, and Jordan Chanesta, LGBTQIA+ Rights Activist, come together to discuss spearheading impactful global movements to make real change. Hear from author Peter Hinssen as he discusses his book, The Phoenix and The Unicorn: The Why, What and How of Corporate Innovation, and how organizations aren't afraid to reinvent and adapt to the new normal of digital disruption.

Join breakout sessions to hear how other project management leaders are managing change and learn from their best practices and mistakes. Sessions include:

• Measuring the Maturity of Your Digital Transformation Efforts: Christine Aykac,  Transformational Coach, Akuna Consulting
• Tools to Identify and Fix Trust Breakdowns in Project Teams: Yoram Solomon, Founder Innovation Culture Institute, LLC
• Change or Get Left Behind: Why Organizational Change Management Is Imperative Now: Nancie Celini, President, THINK-OCM.org
• Collaborative Leadership in the Age of Artificial Intelligence; Erik Agudelo, Founder of Play Learn and Develop.

In addition to all the great sessions and speakers, Virtual Experience Series 6-7 October has multiple ways to connect and network with the PMI global community. The Lounge chat is where you will meet attendees from all around the world. Join industry chats where you drive the conversation! Chats are focused on the following areas: Construction, Energy (Electric, Gas, Mining, Oil), Financial Services, Government/Legal, Healthcare/Pharmaceutical, IT, Manufacturing, Telecom, and Training/Education.

We are so excited for this powerful virtual event because we know how much change happens when our incredible community comes together from around the world to share these experiences. We’ve had past attendees tell us they’ve never felt more connected virtually — and that is something we are truly proud of and will continue to strive for.

Join us. Free for PMI Member, US$79 for Non-members. Register Now and we look forward to seeing you there!

By Norma Lynch, PMP

As 2020 began, we never realised that this global pandemic would be on the menu, invading both our lives and livelihood. As we try to process the implications of living and working under the shadow of Covid-19, we are all trying to rethink and reframe how we do business whilst at the same time safeguarding our lives. We are going through unprecedented change.

What is required is rapid innovation and time is of the essence. In the absence of a crystal ball, we have to consider all the possible scenarios and lead through strategic ambiguity. Success depends on moving the organisation forward precisely at times when the path ahead is hazy. We need to take pragmatic action in order to survive in this period of strategic uncertainty. We need to lead through change.

Communication is critical and leaders need to be visible and maintain frequent dialogue. It must be open and honest to maintain credibility. Even though leaders don’t have all the answers, communication is important to put everyone’s mind at ease and provide hope for the future. We need to communicate through change.

At the upcoming Virtual Experience event on 9 September I will be presenting the rollercoaster of emotions that people go through when adapting to change and how to successfully navigate through the crisis by leveraging change management principles. We explore:

• The Five Stages of Disruption Denial
• The Burning Platform
• Successful Innovation  
• Decisive Action
• Leading the New Strategic Direction

Interested in learning more and furthering the dialogue? Join me on 9^th September 2020 at the next PMI Virtual Experience Series event for this presentation and take part in the question and answers with me and the rest of the PM community.

PMI EMEA 2019 is over and just slowly I start to realize what a great Congress it was. And foremost, it was a fantastic opportunity to meet fellow project managers from many different countries and backgrounds, share experiences, and celebrate PMI's 50^th anniversary. It has been a week since I arrived back home, enough time to organize some thoughts and reflect on the experience.

I initially attended the Congress to get more involved as a volunteer, learn from global thought leaders and practitioners, and to look out for inspiration. I have realized for why I am passionate about the profession of project management: It’s all about mind-set. Furthermore, it's the freedom of choice and personality to use a variety of tools, insights, methods, processes, and competences to achieve goals. The people I have met in Dublin all had these things in common: Personal drive, the willingness to communicate, being results driven, working passionately towards personal goals, and foremost: curiosity. These are exactly the traits that distinguishes a good project managers.

I can’t speak for the rest of the attendees, but inspiration is what I found. Most of the speakers transported a real passion for what they do and what they talked about. That’s probably the reason for why some sentences and learnings still occupy me every day at work.

Five key sentences from the Congress really got stuck and already made a difference in the way I look at projects in my organisations and at the effectiveness of project leaders today. I use these sentences to challenge my own thinking at work. They are thought anchors, not actual learnings. Maybe they will have an impact on how you go to work tomorrow, as well:

“People are drawn to their most dominant thoughts”: Change the way people think, then you can change the way people feel and act; it’s all about mind-set – Jamil Qureshi

“Key emerging competences in project management will be agility, customer empathy, advanced analytics, and curiosity”: Traditional roles will be disrupted by a more complex and uncertain environment organisations are embedded in, be part of that change – Hilary Baker

“Many companies measure how they implement change, but not the actual change itself”: A change is no longer a change when it is part of the DNA of the organisation. It is often difficult to attend change until full implementation as Management or Sponsors prioritise new initiatives, when change management projects are perceived to be completed. – Olivier Lazar

“The next big challenge will be to standardise terminology of agile beyond the small task group and define an integrated framework with the 3Ps: project, programme, and portfolio management”: The hype around agile methodologies is profound, however, they still fall short of providing an integrated framework in relation to the 3Ps on organisational level – Nicholas Clemens

“How does your behaviour support you in achieving your goals?”: The one who asks the right questions leads. The importance of coaching skills for effective communication cannot be underestimated for project managers – Maria Fafard

What do you think? Will these five anchors provoke your thoughts and actions, too?

Thank you Kristin Jones for providing me with the opportunity to volunteer as community correspondent at this years’ congress. I hope there will be a chance in the future to volunteer once more.

A big thank you also to my team of community correspondents, Emily, Stephanie, and Karthik – it was fun working with and learning from you. Hope to see you all soon.

Hi everyone, thanks for following me all through the Congress and reading my blogs and Tweets about the Congress. It really has been a privilege to be Community Correspondent for the #PMIEMEA19.

It is a lot of fun, but also hard work. During all sessions you attend, you listen, take notes, tweet and keep your Social Media Updates going. That takes a lot of concentration. Even during the Networking events, you take notes and keep track of who you meet and what you do. Then in the evening when everyone orders their second beer in the Pub of choice for the day, you go back to your hotel room to write a blog about your day.

What an experience! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially tweeting on Twitter was a new experience for me. I only opened an account successfully about 1 month ago.

What an eventful few days it has been!

I was privileged to listen to Jamil Qureshi twice, once during the PMI LIMC Alumni Workshop on Sunday and then on Monday again during the Keynote. So much information in such a short time! Then during the Opening Session to hear from Jim Snyder, that his best memories are all about the people. Not the Mega Milestones and achievements, no, the people! Yes his best memories are about you and me. I actually agree with him. Yes in PMI events I have always learned a lot, but the best has always been the people. And you keep meeting again at events. For me they are also the go to Network when I need advice or help.

Meeting Sunil Pashara and seeing him attending sessions, mingling with people and freely networking with delegates was special. Knowing that he is a true citizen of the world, born & raised in Kenya, worked in almost every continent, living in London, working in Philadelphia. When we talk to him, he can relate.

Every session I attended, even then one I felt lost in, since the discussions used a Scrum Vocabulary, that is Greek to me, I took important lessons from. They are all in my notebook, but if I share them all, this will be a book.

So what are my 3 biggest lessons:

1. We need to identify and dismantle belief systems that hold us back. Jamil Qureshi talked about it, but it came up in several other sessions as well. What really hampers innovation and progress is belief systems. Things like “It can not be done”, “It has never been done”, “this is not how we do it here” and “It will never work” to name just a few, is often what holds us back. We need to figure out what our own belief systems are and those in our team. Then we need to identify the rogue monkey, whose urge to succeed is bigger than the belief system and is willing to try. If we work together with the rogue monkey and achieve even only this 1 degree change, we will succeed.

2. The future in Project Management in my eyes lies in hybrid projects and virtual teams. We will all handle be involved in hybrid projects and projects with virtual teams at one point or another. When I reflected on it some time back, I realized a lot of my projects ended up using agile elements due to the unique project needs. Often we had at least one Technical Expert who was not in the country (see the virtual team right there). Volunteering with PMI you often end up in a virtual team.

    For both hybrid projects & virtual teams you need to scale your                        communication up a notch. Hence I will concentrate on improving my communication skills and my EQ skills, both will come in handy for both environments. I want to become a Project Motivator and of course I bought the book by Ruth Pearce during the Congress.

3. There is evidence of successful project management everywhere, just look for it. The seeming side shows of the Congress, like Networking events, including the tours through the host city and off site learning sessions, as well as your own trips exploring the city and surroundings are full of successful projects, with lessons for us to learn.
   1. During Networking Sessions you get to know new people and make new friends. In your exchange with them you hear about their project successes, but also the failures. And you learn right there
   2. Think about the Host Chapter together with the Congress Organizing Team and the PMI Staff involved. Think about how much work they put into the Congress Project. Finding and recruiting the right entertainers, finding and recruiting the right caterers etc, all that are major deliverables in this project. Recruiting and organizing all the volunteers who worked so hard in making us feel welcome, takes a lot of PM skills.

Hat’s off to the Host Chapter, the PMI Ireland Chapter for a job well done.

3. When we were taking the Teeling Distillery Tour and heard how the Teeling Family, after selling off their old distillery, that had moved out of town, worked on building a new – but old style – distillery in Dublin, I was thinking about the enormity of the project they were undertaking. While the guide was telling us about the history, he did touch on a lot of points from their project planning and some of the risks they encountered. What a project!  
4. Dublin is full of successful projects. Look at Christ Church Cathedral, which dates back to the time of the Vikings. Look at Guiness Brewery, but also look at the City’s history, where the different centuries can be seen in the different parts of town. Look at the history of the Irish people – in Epic Center you could find more of it, see where Irish Emigrants settled, what they achieved and you could also trace your family if you have Irish roots. Look at the successful city expansion in Dublin into the docklands & quays – recovering land, that was previously thought of as not inhabitable. Look at the Famine Boats – that helped evacuate thousands of starving Irish people into other countries for a better future. There are museums and statues that remind of it everywhere. Imagine the logistical nightmare. And did you know that Landlords paid for their starving squatters to emigrate? Next time you go through your city look for the historical epic projects and think about the risks and unknown unknowns they faced. That puts your own projects in perspective.

It was also very exciting to see and be inspired by live TED Talks. I am looking forward to seeing more of the new engagement between PMI & TED. Karthik had shared the links to all the original TED Talks, so you can watch them yourself.

This was for me the first time attending the PMI EMEA Congress. I had previously only attended PMI Africa Conferences, the first day of 2 PMI Global Conferences and a host of Leadership Institute Meetings (LIM, RLIM). What they said is true. Each Conference / Congress has its own character. In Africa it is all about Networking and the social events are attended by all, it is like a big carnival with learning sessions. In the US it is more about Business, and the Conference is so big (up to 5000 people), that you are happy to see your Network Friends. However it is fun, and somehow you do meet your friends. The EMEA Congress I had been told is all about the Learning and the PDUs. But in Dublin I saw that the fun counts as well in Europe and the parties were great. I think each has its big positive sites and I will definitely attend any of them again.

See you at the next Congress:

One thing that I asked the community before the conference was what would like they to see during the conference? What was the best way to share the conference with you all? The feedback and answer that came from several of you was that you wanted to see various points of the conference via video. To be able to have this in a format that could be watched by everyone, I have uploaded to Youtube all of the videos and would really appreciate your feedback.

Are these the videos that you wanted to see? Would you want to see any others/different ones?

• Interview with a first time attendee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-v9zlmVBBo
• Interview with a first time attendee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pyrDyM5nls
• Interview with Presenter Pat Lucey and Norma Lynch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csLf03KfFVI
• What to expect: Networking opportunities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7D6LYbPWys
• Offsite Visit to Teeling Distillery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-kkRyCR-Zk
• Offsite Visit: Review of Teeling Distillery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qs8Bfi8L8s
• Interview with Dan Lefsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coIFN7XkZIg
• Interview with Laurel Sim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPDiNqdtTUE
• The closing keynote finale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMTHI3oRELw

- Emily.