Blogging from the PMO Symposium: Day Two

At the opening general session, The Project Economy – The Future of Work,  Bob Safian, Founder of The Flux Group and Former Editor of Fast Company, delievered a whirlwind look at the lessons of innovation, pros and cons of "The Project Economy" and a recap of PMI's 50 most influential projects of the last 50 years (Topping this list: the World Wide Web. That was a pretty easy call, I think.)

Among the lessons of innovation, I was interested to hear, again, in another context, "mindset is everything"! In an environment that combines constant change, we need to be able to work together, to bring speed to processes that formerly took time, to realize that "youth will be served" both in the workplace and as consumers. And so, first, change your mind. Our bias at PM College is that education and experience combine to promote this "growth mindset": a way of being in the workplace and the world that not only deals with change, but looks for the opportunities in it.

This mindset will be important for an economy that thrives on projects, Safian noted. "Speed, flexibility and learning" are requirements to thrive. He urged the audience to ask themselves three questions, frequently:

1. Is this Day One? Stealing a slogan from Amazon's Jeff Bezos, ask yourself Can we do this better?  Starting from scratch with no pre-conceived notions brings fresh creativity to the everyday.
2. Is what you’re doing relevant to the next generation?  That could mean several things, as deep as What will this mean for our children?  Or as practical as, What will this mean for the next generation of customer? I think this is a broader was of saying, begin with the end in mind, a slogan we apply to the disciplines of performance measurement and benefits realization.
3. Are you embracing and encouraging a growth mindset? It's not enough to merely think about it ... "inspiration begins with action" ... so get out there and do something different.

At these events, you swing from the big-picture ideas to the nitty-gritty. I also attended "Developing an Integrated, Project Management IT Solution for a Multibillion Dollar Project Portfolio" by Nabeel Ibrahim from Saudi Aramco, a company dominating the business news these days.  He discussed the benefits they'd derived from implementing an enterprise PM system, such as greater visibility and improved controls; better tracking and documentation; and improvements in efficiency, accountability and decision making. But the discussion of major challenges rang a bell for me: One major challenges was getting over 10k users to use the new systems.  (Ever hear the saying, "Project problems are people problems?") Some key change management planning was required, including input from all stakeholders during development, holding steering committee meetings each quarter during development and monthly steering committee meetings after rollout. So while this workshop seemed to be about nuts and bolts on the surface, actually the whole program success rested on dealing with stakeholders and resistance to change.

This theme ran through our own workshop, a case study co-presented with our client, Michele Graham from Preferred Mutual, and PM Solutions President Bruce Miller. One key takeaway of "Bold EPMO  Value Improvement Through Process Agility and Innovation" was that identifying and measuring benefits for every project has improved the project selection and prioritization process. The company managed organizational change, grew their in-house staff with lots of training, and changed the ... wait for it ... mindset by "starting with the end in mind" and making benefits realization a priority.

Another reorientation to the big picture was required at the end of the day! The final general session focused on PMI's partnership with TED, the non-profit dedicated to ideas worth spreading.  One of the TED talks was by Andrew Pelling of Pelling Labs, who started his career by creating a lab at the University of Ottawa based on combining science, art and engineers to explore curiosity and imagination.  Through one experiment that was expected to fail, they discovered innovative plant-derived biomaterials for medical research, reconstructive surgery and regenerative medicine.  His perspective on how businesses can facilitate a culture of innovation takes lots of time and requires executives encouraging creativity and imagination. That is certainly a counter-intuitive lesson for today's business, which is too often focused on short-term gains.

More tomorrow ... which will be Day 3. Unless it is Day One, again, for me.