PMI Madison Professional Development Day 2010

Recently I attended the Madison PMI Professional Development Day at the Monona Terrace. The theme was Going the Distance with Project Management and 2 of the keynote speakers were tri-athletes.

I attended many excellent talks and here are my thoughts on them.

First was key note speaker: Sarah Reinertsen.  At the age of 7 Sarah had her left leg amputated due to proximal femoral focal deficiency in a hope to improve her quality of life.  Sarah went through her personal timeline from that point forward to when she crossed the finish line of the Ironman in Hawaii where she finished in 15 hours and 5 minutes.

Lessons Learned: even if you loose your leg the project must go on.

  

Next I attended a talk titled: Measuring the value of a PMO – The PMO Scorecard: by Tom Mochal; 
Link to the presentation

Tom’s key points about PMO score cards were that you should pick items for it that match up to the goals of your company and that you should tie them into the performance of your project managers. 

Lesson Learned:  monitor your PMO and your PMs.

Next I was off to a talk titled: Introducing Agile to an Organization Through Projects – Experience Report: By Luis Murgas
Link to presentation

Luis wants you to answer 3 questions before you jump into an Agile method of software development.

1. Are your software development projects on time?
2. Does your software do all of the things you requested at the beginning of the project?
3. Do people like your current methodologies for developing software?

If you answered no to these then an Agile methodology may be for you.  You should not just turn all of your projects over to an agile method.  Start with one project, be successful with it and do it again and again until someone notices.

Lesson Learned:  This agile thing isn’t going away so we better embrace it.

At lunch Mark Allen a +15 year tri athlete who has competed in 12 triathlons and has won 6 of them went through his career of competing in the Ironman in Hawaii.

Lesson learned:  Are you willing to give 100% on your project even if the goal looks impossible?

  

Then I was off to a talk titled: Leveraging New Social Media Relationship tools in project management by Wendy Soucie
Link to presentation

Wendy’s main take home point was that you need to develop a social media policy at your office.  Mayo Clinic has their policy available for download.

Lesson Learned:  This social media thing is not going away so we better plan for it, control it and embrace it.

Finally I ended the day with a talk titled: The changing world of work – what it means to PMs and their companies by Wayne Turmel

Wayne took us through the latest ways virtual teams are being assemble and suggested some tools to use.  Wayne ended with an eye opening story about his 14 year old daughter a cheerleader.  Her cheer team made it to the next round of a competition and they had 1 week to come up with a new routine.  The planning  happened in his living room.  Only half the team could make it, but within 1 hour the girls had downloaded the new songs, shot a video of the new moves, posted it to youtube and sent out a text message to the missing team members with a link to the new routine so they could practice.

Lesson Learned:  Gen Y is ready to roll over the Boomers with technology to get the project done!