March
2021

PRESIDENT'S CORNER

Chapter President Ric Ferrin, PMP, MBA, DBA

Hello PMI Portland Chapter Members,

“March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb”. At PMI Portland, we enter each month with a lion's appetite, with the most challenging tasks that appear insurmountable, and leave with our appetite satisfied, having accomplished them all. This is due primarily to the incredible volunteers and members we have supporting PMI Portland!

Jody Shaw (Dir of Program Support) continues to work hard on bringing you the very best in events. She is leveraging her experience to develop a platform to host on-demand video presentations along with preview videos for promotion and other projects. This helps the Chapter members in earning more PDUs and staying current on all things Project Management.

Hakan Kutgun (VP of Operations) will be leaving his position after nearly four years in a senior leadership role to focus on his studies. He leaves behind a very capable team - composed of Gary Marx (AVP Operations), Lily Fitzpatrick and Marianne Pho (two very technically strong subject matter experts), Scott White (our web page Guru), and last but not least Ticole Waller (our audio-visual specialist). I want to sincerely thank Hakan for his support and dedication to PMI Portland throughout his years. 

This is the month we set our clocks forward to adjust for Daylight Saving. Some dread this, but I am actually looking forward to getting an hour closer to holding in-person chapter meetings again. As we prepare for our in-person return, we will need more volunteers. We will also need to fill the leadership positions in our upcoming May elections to help Rochelle Petty (President Elect) successfully lead PMI Portland into the future.

If you want to be part of this winning team, please consider volunteering. Your contribution is needed and greatly appreciated.

Ric Ferrin, PMP, MBA, DBA
President
PMI-Portland

To better serve you while continuing to provide optimal content, please help answer the survey and questions. Your participation is much appreciated.

https://forms.gle/K3x1R8cmvoBjGnLg8

ARTICLES

Volunteer of the Month: Jahzeel Ormeno - March 2021

By Membership Selection Committee

Jahzeel was nominated for Volunteer of the Month and it's no surprise as to why. Personally, she is a self-starter and genuine person who is always ready to jump in and lend a helping hand. She has great ideas, excellent communication skills and outstanding follow-through. 

She has been excellent at finding and implementing workshop opportunities for PMI Portland members and understands our Mission of providing value to members. She arranges our paid workshop events and has single-handedly kept the Professional Development Portfolio in business. 

Jahzeel has volunteered with PMI Portland since October 2019 after a working interview at an event. Asked to step in and help “make things happen,” she was drawn by the energy and community at the event and wanted to continue to contribute. 

In her volunteer role, Jahzeel took on the challenge of crafting meaningful workshops. She notes that with the necessity to be virtual, community and connection beyond those in our personal and professional network is more important than ever.

When selecting facilitators, Jahzeel looks for individuals who can share stories of significance that resonate with members. For the virtual workshops, she also assesses a facilitator's comfort with technology and ability to navigate break out rooms, muting, chats, etc. 

Her one request of members is that they speak up about what programming they want. The most value that PMI Portland can provide to members is through relevant, impactful content. With an impressive annual goal of 10 virtual workshops with 30 or more members in attendance, Jahzeel and her team welcome all input into what you as a PMI Portland member would like to learn.

Professionally, project management found Jahzeel, not the other way around. Beginning her career consulting for Liberty Mutual and eventually as a full time project manager, Jahzeel has traveled the world, implementing national and international projects and process improvements. 

When asked what she does with her spare time, she responded that she doesn't like to have spare time. Beyond her full time job at Liberty Mutual, Jahzeel volunteers for Easter Seals, City of Lake Oswego, her UC Davis sorority chapter and the Oregon Visual Arts Institute. She also teaches business courses at PCC. Needless to say, Jahzeel enjoys making a difference wherever she chooses to spend her time. PMI Portland is fortunate to have her working for the betterment of its members.

To those interested in volunteering with PMI Portland, Jahzeel says “just do it!” The structure of PMI Portland enables volunteers to make a big impact. She notes that volunteering allows members to do good for those around them, stay current on project management trends and meet new people. So come and volunteer!

Many thanks to Jahzeel for all that she does for PMI Portland and we cannot wait to see what workshops she has under her sleeve!

A Message from the Membership Selection Committee:
Have you volunteered with someone from the PMI Portland Chapter who goes above and beyond expectations? Nominating your fellow volunteers is easy! Nominations can come from Board members, Directors and fellow volunteers. Candidates are chosen based on hours worked and the impact of the work on the Portland Chapter. 
Click here to submit your nomination form.

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EVENTS

Lessons Learned from Scaling Quickly

Chapter Meeting | Lessons Learned From Scaling Quickly

March 16, 2021 | 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm

Join us for this fireside chat with Gregory Daniels, PMP, MS, CSM, ITIL,  Andrea Emmanuel and Austin Martin as they discuss lessons learned when they scaled the Zoom platform quickly and what challenges they faced along the way. Join the conversation with other project managers and peers to share your lessons learned when scaling projects in an agile world. The event is FREE for all members and $5 for non-members. Participants are encouraged to have their webcams on for the breakout sessions of the workshop and the networking portion of the chapter meeting to participate fully. Participants will be able to self-report 1 technical PDU for attending.

Gregory Daniels, PMP, MS, CSM, ITIL is currently the Project Manager in Business Services and IT at Zoom. He is an American-Canadian global technology and business leader with more than 10 years of experience successfully designing and delivering strategies and managing portfolios of revenue-producing, cost-saving, and risk-mitigating programs and projects for multinational companies and organizations. Gregory focuses on solving complex problems and transforming vision and strategy into meaningful business outcomes. He has managed projects all over the world, leading remote, hybrid, flex and co-located teams. Gregory has been named Project Management Future 50 by the Project Management Institute and is a previous winner of the Global Peter Drucker Challenge.

To find out more about the Future 50 and find out how Zoom saw daily meeting participation soar to 300 million, a 30-fold increase in just 4 months, click here.

Austin Martin is an Account Based Marketing Manager at Zoom. Over the course of his 2 1/2 years at Zoom, he has built and implemented the account based approach throughout the organization. In his purview are cross functional initiatives related to systems, market intelligence, go to market strategy and playmaking. In his personal life, Austin has eclectic music tastes, loves gourmet ramen and is expecting a new baby boy on April 6th!

Andrea Emmanuel joined Zoom a little over 8 months ago, driving programs/projects for the Office of the CIO, supporting the Global CIO, Global Deputy CIO and a team of CIO Advisors. In her short time, she has made an impact on standardizing executive engagement at Zoom. Prior to her current role, Andrea worked at Box, Salesforce, LinkedIn and Stanford University. In her personal life, Andrea resides in Brooklyn, New York - loves to explore her neighborhood, trying new restaurants and supporting her local businesses by way of retail therapy.

Sign up for the fireside chat now.

Why All the Conflict

Workshop | Why All the Conflict

March 25, 2021 | 9:00 am - 1:00 pm

When one considers the six generational characteristics, gender inequality, cultural clashes, power dynamics, microaggressions, and implicit biases occurring in nearly every workplace, conflict is inevitable. If workplace conflict is therefore foreseeable, how do you approach it constructively rather than destructively? During this seminar, attendees will learn strategies to respectfully and empathetically approach conflicts that they often avoid. A word of caution, this training comes with a “twist” which will have attendees walking away examining where conflict truly resides.

Attendees will leave with the following takeaways;

• Pick up key ideas on how to advance your career
• Benchmark your current leadership attributes, skills, and knowledge with public leaders
• Develop your own Professional Strategic Plan

Cole Chatterton’s professional contributions include the restaurant industry as a regional project manager, national account management with the Xerox Corporation, small business developer/owner, and founder of Weathered Hands & Hearts. He holds a BS in Business/Project Management and an MBA from George Fox University, emphasizing in Marketing, Prosci, Six Sigma, Lean, ISO 900, Baldrige Assessor and a Career Coach. He currently teaches at seven different institutions and provides business consulting, corporate training and executive coaching services through his company, Paradigm Swift. And if that wasn’t enough, his global outreach includes trips all over the world to build homes and provide disaster relief to those less fortunate.

Sign up here and learn from someone who tackles conflict head-on.

Cost: $30 Chapter members, $25 Student Chapter members. $55 non-members. Attendees will be able to self-report 4 Leadership PDUs.

IINTERFACE PORTLAND

INTERFACE Portland 2021

March 31, 2021 | 8:30 am – 4:30 pm

IIT Infrastructure is constantly changing, bringing new challenges with it every day. From ransomware and the latest security threats, to the needs for increased bandwidth and storage, it’s nearly impossible to keep up-to-date. This conference is designed to help. F2F Events assembled a combination of Best-in-Breed hardware and software solutions, along with local experts and organizations to help educate, advise and connect you to resources that can help you meet your goals. Covering Information Security, Infrastructure, Cloud, Disaster Recovery, Communications, and more, you’ll find presentations, panel discussions, and exhibitors covering a variety of topics, as well as the latest innovations and best practices. Click here for more details. Free admission for all PMI and Chapter members, registration here.

PMI PMP® 2021 CHANGES

Chat & Learn | April 1, 2021 | 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Join our Chat & Learn with esteemed speaker, PMI-Fellow, Michel Thiry, and learn about new PMI PMP® certification requirements and changes to the PMP exam in 2021.

Michel Thiry, PhD co-founder and managing partner of Valense Ltd. has extensive worldwide experience and has worked in many cultural environments. He has been recognized as a worldwide authority in strategic applications of project, program and value at organizational level and supported the development and implementation of numerous strategic programs for major corporations in various fields.

Michel has obtained a PhD from Middlesex University in London on Contextualizing Project Organizations and was awarded the title of Fellow by the Project Management Institute in 2006. In 2007 he became a Fellow of the Association for Project Management in the UK and in 2008, he was awarded the Life Value Achievement Award by the Canadian Society for Value Analysis.   In 2014, he was awarded the PMI Eric Jenett Project Management Excellence Award for outstanding contributions to the practice of the profession and leadership in advancing project management concepts, techniques, practices or theories.

During this session he will cover:

Changes in the Certification process:

• Certification Requirements
• Exam Contents
• Sitting for the Exam

Changes in the Study References:

• PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition
• PMI Agile Practice Guide
• PMBOK® Guide 7th Edition

COMMUNITY

PMI Hardship Provision

PMI is offering a hardship provision if your membership has been in good standing for at least three consecutive years, designed to help those who are currently experiencing financial hardship. If approved, you will receive a waiver for one year of PMI membership dues and one year of dues for membership in any two PMI chapters in which you held membership the previous year. The hardship provision may be granted for a maximum of two years for each member.

Any individuals that are interested in utilizing the PMI hardship, should contact Customer Care. https://www.pmi.org/about/contact

Book Review

The information provided in this review is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a source of advice with respect to the material presented. The information provided is done so without any solicitation and is not meant to persuade or influence any decision. The opinions here are strictly those of the reviewer and are meant only for sharing. Please enjoy.

Scrum by Jeff Sutherland

Review by Josh Bathon, AVP Sponsorship

Agile project management is not a fad. Over the past 20 years it has become the dominant organizational system for software development, and has also started to flourish in other industries as well. You have most likely come across either an agile tool or an agile team, such as Scrum, Kanban, or SAFe. You might even have an agile certification; PMI offers the PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) and agile theory is included in the PMP and CAPM.

Regarding agile, there are thousands of books and tens of thousands of articles online. Everyone has an opinion. So if you want to learn more, where should you start? Why not learn from the founder of Scrum, the most popular agile methodology out there?

In his book, Scrum, The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, Jeff Sutherland is a master teacher. He slowly unravels the various parts of Scrum, illustrating with examples from his clients over the years. The goal of his book is to make Scrum usable for people who don’t work in software. And he succeeds. 

Transitioning to agile can seem like a paradigm shift for many people but Sutherland demonstrates how this change doesn’t have to be dramatic. Throughout the book, he works through various aspects of Scrum, breaking them down into digestible chunks that could be used by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Take for example a venture capital company which decided to embrace Scrum in their daily operations. Investors, management, researchers, and administrative staff all started to use Scrum to organize their work. Sprint planning, daily standups and team retrospectives resulted in transparency: everyone could see what was currently being worked on, major blockers were identified early and the team regularly reviewed the way they worked. These small changes had large benefits: the average work week at the company dropped from over 60 hours to less than 40, and the team started completing almost twice as much work.

A key problem with agile project management is the army of purists that help implement it. They advocate for strict adoption and rigorous adherence to an entire system. But this dramatic, one-size-fits-all approach fails because businesses come in all shapes and sizes. This book is different. Sutherland provides practical advice for adopting agile, using real world examples of success. 

This is a must-read for project managers, even for seasoned agile professionals. I have 2 scrum certifications and have worked in several agile environments, and I still found Sutherland’s book to be a valuable exploration of how and why to use agile. In my experience, it’s hard to do agile without understanding why it works. Level-up your skills with this quick read, straight from the founder of Scrum himself.

International Women’s Day is celebrated each year on March 8th, giving us a time to reflect on women’s contribution to civilization, raising awareness about the fight for gender parity and inspiring support for organizations that help women all over the world. To be a woman in project management, typically considered a man’s game, is rewarding and humbling and key for continued improvement.

Project management spans all industry sectors, large and small organizations, short and long term assignments, international opportunities, gives lots of scope for personal growth and a career path which can surpass any aspiration. The number of women undertaking project management roles is a testament to the profession and its significance in today’s world.

This day is a chance to exercise gratitude for being involved in a profession which has created opportunities, purpose and collaboration for both men and women. We are grateful for the partnerships we have gained, regardless of gender. However, March 8th allows us time to reflect and be grateful for how far we’ve come and how much closer we are to shattering the ceiling above.

If you’re interested in learning more, please follow PDXWIT (PDX Women in Tech). Their mission and purpose, “To strengthen the role of women in the tech community through educational programs, partnerships and events that provide information, connections, resources, opportunities, and a supportive environment for current and potential women in tech; all of whom are committed to helping each other. The goal is to bring together and empower current women in tech and encourage others to pursue tech careers to help reduce gender imbalance in the industry and address the current negative effects of that imbalance on women.” 

Click here to see more. https://www.linkedin.com/company/pdx-women-in-tech-pdxwit-/

For networking events and upcoming events, please see below.
https://www.pdxwit.org/upcoming-events
https://www.pdxwit.org/mentorship

Latest trends and/or reports courtesy of Experis.

Skills Revolution Reboot: The 3Rs - Renew, Reskill, Redeploy
The Impact of Covid-19 on Digitization and Skills: The New Future for Workers. Click on the PDF icon to view or download.