Greetings PMINYC Members, The PDD was a tremendous success! Many thanks to all of those who worked on the project team, volunteered the day of the event, shared their knowledge and perspectives, contributed in any way, and who participated at the beautiful Credit Suisse venue.
We started the day honored by the keynote presentation from PMI's Chairman of the Board, Ricardo Vargas. He shared with us how to use the value of project management. He focused on three critical areas: Execution, Integration and Learning. Execution was about doing more with less time and money, and delivering results faster. Integration touched on the value of strategic assets and maintaining alignment within our projects. Learning was the ability of the organization to improve and add real business value through innovation. The coupling of project management and innovation creates tremendous synergies to create value for the organization. Please check out the podcast Ricardo created on this event: http://www.ricardo-vargas.com/podcasts/pdd_nyc/.
Jane Gavronsky, Director with Credit Suisse, is responsible for managing the global IT PMO team for the Strategic Derivatives Infrastructure Initiative (SDII) and Fern Lopez, Managing Director of SDII shared with us some key messages in building a PMO. Jane has transitioned in her life personally and professionally from Russia to the USA and from software development to project management. SDII's PMO model included three areas: Contribution and perceived value, knowledge and domain expertise and bottom-line results.
Many valuable breakout sessions were held throughout the day and a panel discussion ended the day with five of our speakers present: Al Zeitoun - "Passionate Execution," Gary Putlock - "Agile Project Management," Lou Gasco - "Managing Change: Business Transformation and Project Management," Jerry Julian - "Facilitating Transformation in Project and Program Performance" and our PMI Chairman, Ricardo Vargas.
There was lots of discussion and energy around agile projects, how to balance agile with the PMBOK, and that indeed they are complementary rather than mutually exclusive, with emphasis on doing what is right for your project. "Just because there are 42 processes in the PMBOK, does not mean that we use all of them on every project. We focus on what is right for the project and stay flexible and agile to deliver the right results." said Ricardo when asked how these relate.
Each of the panelists shared their most significant transformation and gave advice on keys to successful transformation in planning for one's future. One key shared was that "You have to know what you want, identify this first, then get the skill and training necessary to go there." Considering "Passionate Execution" Al shared that his top two in planning for transformation are "relevant and heart." He encouraged a focus on the "Should be done" items first, and then it's a matter of "continuous scrubbing of talent and capabilities." Focus on the soft skill training too.
The end result is that you must bring value to your company, stay focused on project execution, integration with strategy and improving the ability to innovate, and be adoptive to the new trends in our world.
We thank all of our speakers for dedicating their time, energy and expertise to contribute to and add value to the PMI New York City Chapter.
Beth Ouellette, PgMP, PMP
Chapter President
