2011 PMI Global Congress North America in Dallas – Part 2 – Take-Aways from Sessions on Sustainability, Ethics, Innovation, and Agile

This is the second part of my impressions of the 2011 PMI Global Congress North America in Dallas.  Part 1 talks about the conference setup.  You can read it here.

In this second part I am talking about my takeaways from the sessions I attended.  In other words, what have I learned?

Sustainability

On Saturday Oct 21 I attended the day-long research workshop “Sustainability and Project Management”.  It was a good mix of lecture, workshop / breakouts, discussions. If you prefer smaller crowds and like interactive sessions, these research workshops can be very good choice.  My own expectations were met.  Alas, it would have been nice if reading material would have been made available prior to the Congress.  Something PMI and future hosts should seriously consider.

Insights I tweeted during the workshop:

• Corporations will not survive without embracing sustainability.
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a source of opportunity, innovation, and competitive advantage. It hence makes holistic rather than one-dimensional investment analysis mandatory.
• Accounting for sustainability principles ensures a holistic project setup.
• Frame projects as learning opportunities.
• Benefits of considering sustainability principles: cope with the complexity and dynamics of projects.
• Investing in sustainability means having greater flexibility and more options in the future.
• Sustainability is about effective project management and opportunities.
• Understanding the project goals the desired sustainable outcomes forces innovation and out of the box thinking.
• Sustainability requires a holistic management and leadership approach.

Ethics

PRJ15 – Really…Are You a Professional Project Manager? Presented by the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct Implementation Advisory Committee (CIAC)

Speakers: Christiaan Kindermans, MSc, PMP; Saji Madapat, MBA, CSSMBB, PMP; Peter Pfeiffer, PhD, PMP; Michael O’Brochta, MPM, PMP

This session was a pleasant surprise.  Not only was the content really valuable, the structure of the session was wonderful, involved attendants from the very beginning.  After a few Pecha-Kucha style presentations (3-5 minutes each) the audience split into 4 groups discussing how to improve applying the code of ethics (1) responsibility, 2) honesty, 3) fairness, 4) respect) in our everyday project life.  Each group discussed the various codes for 5 minutes, then moved on to the next topic.  The session concluded with the presentation of the group discussions.

This session was exceptionally well prepared.  It proves that you can interact even with a big audience and get a lot out of 75 minutes.  Congrats!

My tweets during this session included:

• You will attract more with honey than will vinegar. Hence, lead through your own positive example.
• Saying what you mean and meaning what you say = integrity.
• Opposite of professional conduct? An empty suit.

Maxwell Gladwell’s Keynote on innovation and the right organizational culture

Excellent keynote if you are interested in innovation in your project environment.  I loved it.

My tweets during this session:

• You have to understand the social dimension of technology.
• Innovation is a mass phenomenon and not an elite one.
• We privilege resources too much.
• Innovative tweakers take someone else’s ideas and turn them into money makers.  Perfect example: Google.

Want to learn more of what I am thinking and doing about innovation?  – Visit and follow www.i-sparks.com.

Agile

TRN10 – Agile Collaboration in a Virtual World: Harnessing Social Media, Web 2.0 and Beyond Presented by PMI’s New Media Counsel

Speakers: Elizabeth Harrin; Cornelius Fichtner; and (sorry, forgot the name of the 3^rd speaker)

Very good session.  It was hands-on.  The speakers did not elaborate on abstract theories but covered what matters in day-to-day work when you are working with and for virtual teams in an agile setting.

Among my tweets during this session was:

• The best architecture, requirements and design emerge from self-organizing teams.  However, even self-organizing teams still need a strategic decision.

Jesse Fewell’s session “PRJ26 – Fixed Price Agile Projects: Making the Impossible Possible Part of Agile Community Track”

Boy, let me tell you Jesse does understand and live Agile. He is the person to go to if you have any questions about Agile.  Excellent session!  Thank you, Jesse, for sharing your experience.

——

Part III of my impressions and take-aways coming soon.  Topics will include leadership, the lazy project manager, the learning project organization, the future PMO, and upcoming conferences.  Stay tuned!

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The 2011 PMI Global Congress North America in Dallas – What a great event! – Part 1

The 2011 PMI Global Congress North America in Dallas is history.  Time to look back and see what I took back from this conference.  Overall, it was yet another GREAT conference.  It is impossible to describe all impressions and lessons learned.  It would fill volumes.  Since unfortunately I don’t have this time I will limit myself to the most significant take aways.  Here we go.

Networking, networking, networking

If there is one good reason to attend the PMI Global Congress it is networking.  Where else can you meet thousands of people working in project management, share experiences and learn.  If you are seriously interested in the project management profession attending such a big conference is a must at least every other year.

Sessions, sessions, sessions – which to choose?

There are so many sessions to choose from it is easy to get lost.  This is especially so if you attend a Congress for the first time.  My advice:  come prepared.  Take the time to read the abstracts of the sessions which sound interesting to you, then make your decision.  If you find out after a few minutes the session is not what you expected from it, it is up to you.  You can always stay for maybe you learn something after all.  Or you jump up and escape before it is too late. Unfortunately, this happened to me in one occasion (SFT11). Rather than an interactive session it was a lecture where the two folks were reading a transcript.  Disastrous and a waste of time for I can always read the article (which, by the way, is excellent and worth reading. I wish the presentation would have come close to it.  It didn’t).  It is faster and I may even get more out of it.
A conference is about content and the presentation.  – The good news is that most sessions are indeed worth attending.  At least this has been my experience.

Venue – in Texas everything is bigger than anywhere else

The Gaylord Convention Center is no exception.  It is BIG.  For those people who could stay at the hotel it was a convenient walk to the conference halls.  For the rest of us, either we were lucky to stay at hotels with shuttle-service, we took cabs or drove.  The Gaylord is in the middle of nowhere.  Personally, this year I didn’t mind at all as I was not really too interested in the city of Dallas or Fort Worth.  Still, if you wanted to go elsewhere in the evening, choices were limited.  Fortunately, next year’s Congress will not be at another Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center.  Instead, we will be in beautiful Vancouver.

Exhibition Hall – so much to see

The exhibition hall was just as big as last year’s.  It takes some time to see everything.  Either you focus on a select few or skip one or two sessions to visit all booths.  It would be nice if the Exhibition Halls would open earlier and stay up open longer.  A feedback I heard from many other people.  Will see if PMI takes this feedback seriously.

Do you twitter?

It is interesting to see / read how many participants have twittered about the event.  A trend which could be observed during the last 2 or 3 conferences.  The more people carry their iPads with them, the more they seem to twitter.  Maybe I have to get one of them in the near future for typing with your Blackberry is not that much fun.

If you are interested in my tweets, my twitter alias is @thomasjuli.

 

To come in part 2 following:  Insights from the sessions I attended; topics include sustainability ethics in project management, agile, leadership, innovation, and PMO.

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The Learning Project Organization

My presentation “The Learning Project Organization” I gave at the PMI Global Congress North America in Dallas on Oct 25 is now available on Slideshare.  A pdf version can be downloaded here.

Synopsis of presentation:

We live in a dynamic, ever-changing world where we can expect lots of changes. Project objectives, requirements and collaboration rules are subject to change, performance levels may fluctuate and even the vision may vary. Knowing this is one thing. Doing something about it is another thing. In order to cope with changes and lead our projects to success we have to be flexible and adjust our plans accordingly. However, a flexible project plan alone is not sufficient to master project dynamics. One of the prerequisites for project success is to actively create a culture of learning. It is an environment where team members are not punished when they make mistakes; making mistakes is normal. What we want to do is build project teams that are capable of learning from mistakes and mastering change. This cannot happen overnight. The key is that from the very first day we establish learning routines in our projects. Learning has to be part of our daily project routines. This holds true for individual projects as much as project organizations including programs and project management offices. This lecture sheds light on project organizations and how they can create a learning culture for all projects it coordinates.

The lecture starts out with explaining the need of a learning culture in project organizations and outlines how we can create this culture. One example is the definition of learning standards which address team synchronizations, project reviews and training. Other examples include facilitating knowledge sharing across projects and setting up innovation days. The lecture explains the critical success factors of learning in a project organization. It identifies common learning obstacles and shows how we can overcome them. The lecture closes with an illustration of the benefits of a project learning culture. Last but not least, it shows how a learning organization can nurture the ground for project success.

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Webinar Presentation “The 5 Team Leadership Principles for Project Success” now available

Today’s webinar presentation “The 5 Team Leadership Principles for Project Success”  is now available on Slideshare and as pdf-download, here.  In addition you can download a synopsis of the presentation, here.

All of the 55 questions will be posted on the PMI IS CoP website / blog soon and I will answer all of them shortly.  Stay tuned.

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Free Webinar “The 5 Team Leadership Principles for Project Success”, Oct 5, 12 PM EST

On October 5, 2011 I will conduct a one hour webinar entitled “The 5 Team Leadership Principles for Project Success”.

What is it about?
We all need and thrive for successful projects.  But what does it take to get there?  There is no doubt that good project management is a critical success factor.  But is it really sufficient?  I don’t think so.  I claim that effective project management needs to have a solid foundation in project leadership AND team work.  It takes a performing team to run a project successfully.  And it takes effective leadership to empower the team to do so.  This is why team building is a decisive factor for project success. 

Webinar Date: Wednesday October 5^th 2011
Webinar Time: 12:00PM EST (Eastern Daylight Saving Time USA/Canada)
Webinar Duration: 1hour

Webinar Title: The 5 Team Leadership Principles for Project Success  
Webinar Presenter  Dr Thomas Juli

To Register: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=82418

WebCast Log-In Instructions for Participants:

For your reference, all participants will log into the Webcast via the following registration URL: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=82418

As a reminder, participants will hear the audio via their computer speakers If participants are unable to hear the audio via their computer speakers, would prefer to listen via their telephone, please have them call the following phone number at anytime.

Dial-In Instructions for all Participants:

Toll-Free (US & Canada):  (888) 567-1603

International Dial-In (Toll):  (201) 604-5052

Callers will reference the PMI  webcast.

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Valuable Collaboration [includes presentation and white paper]

Everyone is talking about collaboration these days, especially in projects.  Hence it was no big surprise that “collaboration” was one of the key words at this week’s PMI Global Congress EMEA in Dublin, Ireland.  Social media, communication, collaboration tools, …, you name it.  Thank to technology it seems that collaboration is ever become easier these days.  But is it really? I am not convinced.  Yes, there are some new widgets and gadgets out there that make us think that all of us can become great communicator if we only use the right tools.  But it is not that easy.  As a matter of fact if we really think that tools are at the center of collaboration we are missing the point.  Collaboration is not about technology.  It is about people and relationships!  Therefore we have to understand people and their relationships first before we even consider any technology.  Once again I am catching myself having to admit that this is common knowledge – which is – what a surprise! – not common knowledge.

So, what do I recommend with respect to collaboration tools.
First of all, it is a fact that technical collaboration tools can enable collaboration if and only if you understand the critical success factors of collaboration.  These critical success factors include the power of team synergy, discipline, shared values, a simple yet strong structure of collaboration rules, results-orientation (especially in projects) and many more.  Have a look at the presentation I gave in Dublin on this topic.

Second, assess the collaboration requirements. This starts with an understanding of the purpose of your project.  Why do you want to start your project in the first place, i.e., what motivates you? And what do you envision as the ultimate outcome? What is the bigger picture where your project fits in? And more specifically, what do you want to accomplish in a given time frame?
Then ask what kind of collaboration you need to achieve those desired results? And, what kind of collaboration do you and your team value?
Don’t stop there. Instead think of possible impediments to this kind of collaboration.  What is that could prevent this desired collaboration to evolve?  Examples could be:

• Wasted effort due to mismatch of goals or politics
• Disconnect in understanding
• Excessive time spent interpreting communication or artifacts
• Time spent searching for information
• Delays due to reviews, approvals, and bottlenecks
• Incorrect use of methods and techniques

Identifying possible or actual collaboration blockades is one thing.  What you and your team want to do now is finding ways and means to overcome these blocks.  This brings me to the next point:

Third, select the right tools with your team.  Tools can help overcome collaboration inefficiencies; they can help enable and promote active and productive collaboration in your team.  Don’t select these tools by yourself.  Involve your team.  Find out which tools can facilitate your work, are in sync with your daily workflows.

Fourth, know how to use tools.  This should be a given, but often times this point is forgotten.  Bottom line: keep your tools simple, start small and invest in necessary trainings.

Fifth, align the tools with the purpose of your project.  Beware thought that your project and hence collaboration requirements can and probably will change during the project life cycle.  Keep your eyes on the goals and adjust your collaboration and tools accordingly.  Tools don’t exist for the sake of technology.  They are there to help you.  They need to serve your purpose and not the other way around.

Once again, I invite you to have a look at the presentation I gave at the PMI Global Congress EMEA in Dublin on May 9, 2011.  In addition, you can read the corresponding White Paper.

Related blog posts: The wise use of collaboration tools for project success, Effective Teams Don’t Need Collaboration Toos. Really?
Tags: #collaboration, #project management, #teams, #leadership

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PMI Global Congress EMEA 2011 in Dublin

Today is the second day of the PMI Global Congress EMEA 2011 in Dublin.  More than 800 people came to Dublin to share their stories about project management and get inspired by new ideas.  A fabulous event!

My own presentation “The Good and Evil of Collaboration Tools” went very well I think and was well received.  I will uploaded the final version of my presentation tomorrow to Slideshare.  Stay tuned for more.

In the meantime I have started a new discussion on the LinkedIn Group of the Congress.  It is entitled “Can baselining and agile go together? I think this may be possible. Actually, I believe that baselining has to incorporate agile elements, otherwise it is doomed to fail. ” If you are on LinkedIn, join the discussion at  http://lnkd.in/x9g_Gq.

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The wise use of collaboration tools for project success

Collaboration is and always has been a central factor for project success.  In times of international projects and virtual team environments collaboration is more important than ever.  Technology can help overcome geographical boundaries to active collaboration.  Indeed, technology has become an enabler of communication and collaboration.  This is no call though for the introduction of more technology in our projects.  Technology can enable, facilitate and promote collaboration.  However, collaboration is not about technology.  It is first and foremost about people and human interaction.

Effective collaboration in a project setting serves the purpose of the project; it is results-driven.  Hence, the key to successfully introducing collaboration tools is not the understanding of technology.  It is understanding the critical factors for project success of which collaboration is one element. In other words, collaboration is a means to achieve project objectives.  This is why we have to nurture collaboration.

The good news is that collaboration tools can help us achieve this.  Provided we are aware of the many possible pitfalls of collaboration tools.  In my upcoming presentation at the PMI Global Congress EMEA in Dublin, Ireland (May 9-11, 2011) I identify these pitfalls.  And I lay out a roadmap how to overcome them and successfully utilize collaboration tools. 

First, we need to have a good understanding of the real collaboration requirements in our project. 
Second, we have to select the right tools which help enable, facilitate and promote collaboration. 
Third, we have to know how to use the tools effectively and efficiently. 
Last but not least, we have to align all collaboration tools with the project objectives and keep them aligned throughout the project life cycle.  Changing project environments require us to adjust our tools accordingly.  It also means that we must never forget that a tool is always a tool and remains a tool.  We must not let technology dictate our workflows and become an end in itself.  It is up to us to overcome the obvious limitations of technology and utilize its huge potentials instead.

Have a look at the preliminary ppt-file of my upcoming presention in Dublin.  Feedback is welcome and highly appreciated.

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Effective teams don’t need collaboration tools. Really? [includes podcast and presentation]

Last February I had a chance to attend (and speak at) the NASA Project Management Challenge in Long Beach, CA. In a session about collaboration tools one of the attendants claimed that “effective project teams don’t need collaboration tools”.
I admit that this statement made me think. I am interested in your opinion about this provocative hypothesis:

• What collaboration tools do you use in your teams?
• What can you recommend?
• And what impediments have you been faced with and how did you overcome them?

To give you an idea about my own thinking listen to a recent podcast http://tinyurl.com/63wj84a or attend my presentation at the upcoming PMI Global Congress EMEA in Dublin, Ireland (May 9-11, 2011).

My presentation at the PMI Global Congress North America 2010 in Washington, DC, on the possible pitfalls of introducing collaboration tools  is available at Slideshare.  Click here to view and download a copy.

I am looking forward to your comments.

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One of the most important keys to project success: building vision

There are many factors that contribute to project success.  It starts with your attitude toward project success and your belief in success.  Without a clear vision of project success, your project is likely to fail.  This is why it is important that you spend enough time to build a commonly understood and agreed upon project vision at the very beginning of your new project.

In this video (taped in Washington, DC in October 2010) I am talking about a project where I led a team of parents founding a local preschool in our home town:

To learn more about this important principle for project success, read my book “Leadership Principles for Project Success” of which the first chapters are available in Google preview.

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