2018 PMI® Global Conference – Los Angeles, USA.

Created by Sharon Watkins
Last updated: Apr 20, 2019
21 min read

By Sharon Watkins, MBA, PMP®, CSM®

The PMI Global Congress 2018 took place in Los Angeles, USA on October 06-08.  Below, I highlight some take-aways from the keynote speeches by Cam Marston on “Five Generations in the Workplace,” and Abigail Posner’s closing keynote speech, “Cracking Creativity: Re-Engaging our Innate Creativity for Greater Productivity and Growth.” I follow with some highlights from two Areas of Focus sessions: Agents of Change: Managing Collaborative Problem-Solving Style Among Project Teams by Curtis Friedel, James C. Anderson II and Tinesha Woods-Wells, and the Fantastic Feedback-the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by Kate Megaw.

These speeches and sessions provided valuable insights to trending topics. In summarizing them, I seek to give a flavor for some of the ideas presented, and end with general observations on trends in Artificial Intelligence and the impact these developments are likely to have on the Project Management field, culled from multiple focus sessions.

Cam Marston, “Five Generations in the Workplace”

Cam Marston initiated events on the second day of the congress with his keynote speech on inter-generational differences and their impact on the workforce.  Early in his speech, he cleverly challenged the audience to identify the origins of a quote:

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room.“

While those who do not know its origins may have assumed it is a recent statement, it is actually from the Greek philosopher, Socrates.  We are introduced to the subject with an awareness that this story of a specific type of intergenerational challenge or expectation, is far from new. 

Marston demonstrates generational differences through his often-comic illustrations of some of the more obvious contrasts. For example, while he refers to the GenX parents’ as “Helicopter Parents”, he then takes it a step farther describing the Millennial version as “Drone Parenting”. His approach is ‘equal opportunity’, in that he describes the comical side to each generational bucket; notwithstanding his preference for the strong work-ethic, achievement, non-entitled and military-influenced orientation of the Boomers, the group he happens to belong to. A key point he makes is that the intergenerational differences are mostly value-based preferences between the generations, and these are mostly subconscious.

Marston defines ‘generational identifiers’ as follows:  

  1. Boomers. The values of this group are tied to history, name, recognition, and tenure in the workplace. They prefer clearly defined job roles and responsibilities, and are vested in a clear hierarchy, with an attitude of “pay your dues”. Boomers tend to prefer frequent meetings, and tight management oversight and control. They are tied to physical presence at work and have trouble adapting to new models of virtual work. Teams take priority, and this preference is often developed from a member of the family from a military background. This generation was not told that they were ‘special.’ Marston attributes some of the differences between this group and their offspring to: “did you create the affluence, or grow up in it?”
  2. Generation Xers (GenXers): This group says, “We want to figure things out on our own” and hold tight to the work ethos that people need to be left alone to figure things out for themselves, without being micro-managed. They have a preference for creating a boundary between themselves and colleagues, and enforcing that distinction, versus the ‘colleagues as friends’ approach to work-relationships. GenXers value and will prioritize the place of extracurricular activities in their lives. This group currently dominates the Managers in the workforce, with implications for the vision and enforcement of work preferences, values and styles.
  3. Millennials: Some general characteristics of this group are about the individual preceding community. One of the characteristics of Millennials is having been told they are ‘special and unique’ for all that they do, with every amount of effort being awarded with some form of recognition. He uses the example of an 11th place ribbon given to his child at their race event for a 6-lane pool. In this way, he illustrated how the new generation may be socialized to expect frequent rewards for their efforts, and some unrealistic expectations are set. In terms of workplace ethos, this group tends to favor group interactions, are highly approval seeking, and expect individual attention from their superiors. He describes this ethos as, “if you know the answer to something, tell me so I don’t have to figure it out myself “ (and reinvent the wheel?). Regarding the Boomer’s attitude of, ‘pay your dues’, a Millennial may respond with ‘what for?’.  Cam believes that Millennials in affluent societies experience what he refers to as a delayed adulthood, in addition to extended lifetimes. For Millennials you could subtract 5-7 years from the birth age of a GenXer and that would better describe the Millennials’ “life stage” as compared to older generations. However, to aid our deeper understanding of this trend, it is not that the Millennials are asking for a pampered childhood or insisting on an 11th place ribbons.  They are told they earned it just by participating.

Marston sees some shared traits between the GenXers and Millennials. For both, the individual ego is supreme. Transferred to the workplace, there can be an unspoken expectation that one of the functions of work is to “make them happy” rather than a more servant-leader style expectation of it being the other way around. Other important changes: parenting styles and technology reflect less adversity today; we have lost many of the defining struggles of growing up that children in the past had to work through.

Interestingly, he proposes that there are exceptions to these rules on intergenerational differences. Certain life contexts effectively ‘remove’ people from their generational identity group, for example:

  • Military Families and Children. This environment and context changes people, and their behaviors and preferences become more like those of the Boomers.
  • The Immigrant Experience. This life experience adds additional layers of experiencer that cannot be generalized into simple generational buckets. Depending on the country the immigrant has come from, the timeline in different places, and so on.
  • Families and Children of Farmers. Life is tough! The result is similar to that of Military children and families.
  • Children that grow up in a culture with rigorous shared rites of passage. Marston seems to suggest that if we as a society could simulate which rites of passage, we would help our younger folk navigate their life more productively. However, such things are very difficult to simulate if they are not organic to the environment and demonstrated throughout it. 

How do we apply these lessons on inter-generational differences to our work as Project Managers?  We need strategies to understand and manage workplace relationships and workstyles with the underpinning intergenerational issues in mind. Since these preferences are mainly subconscious, they are there to stay, and in order to collaborate effectively we are all required to adapt and understand preferences that are different from our own. For example, the most common demographic today is GenX managers with Millennial employees. In order to succeed in their relationships with Millennials, GenX Managers need to set some of their preferences aside and provide some of the approvals and recognition that Millennials understand. This drives productivity.

Millennials also need to adapt to the style and expectations of their Managers. For instance, Millennials working for a Baby Boomer or GenXer need to take the initiative to fix things themselves and seek less outside collaboration and help, and we can work to bring the groups closer together by changing our parenting styles slightly and gearing our approach more to giving GenX and Millennials difficult things to do rather than removing obstacles. We can also try to create shared rites of passage, although this can be difficult to simulate external to the right societal context. Perhaps training in the workplace to raise awareness of the different work styles so that we can learn to adapt expectations and behaviors.

Cam Marston is a leading expert on the impact of generational change and its impact on the marketplace. He is an author, columnist, blogger, and lecturer. His firm, Generational Insights provides research and consultation on generational issues to companies and professional groups, and to major professional associations. His expertise has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and BusinessWeek, and on Good Morning America, CNN International, and more.  

 

Abigail Posner, “Cracking Creativity: “Re-Engaging our Innate Creativity for Greater Productivity and Growth”

Abigail Posner is an engaging motivational speaker and author among many other things, spoke on the last day of the congress about how to harness and utilize our innate creative powers within our work, and lives.  She described various aspects of the creative process which we can use in our daily lives in order become more creative and inspired, also productive versions of ourselves.

One of the fascinating things about her work are the connections she draws between her role in Marketing and as Head of Strategic Planning at Google's creative think tank for agencies and brand, and her background in social anthropology.  Her work at Google is guided by a relentless pursuit of asking the difficult questions, to understand the motivations and desires underpinning consumer behavior. She also describes an interest in the field of neuro science, and its role in understanding people’s relationships and preferences for brands and products.

A key theme of her work is an answer to : how do we humanize the digital space? In that line of inquiry, she explores how well that space is serving our ‘deep human needs’. She has an  refreshingly optimistic answer to this question, in that she believes our human needs are indeed served in many ways beyond what we realize, and technology is advanced all the time to this end. She has created a series exploring this topic at Google, called Humanizing Digital. 

What does a discussion of creativity and ‘deep human needs’ have to do with Project Management, you may wonder? To me, there were many parallels to how we understand the Requirements Elicitation and Analysis phase of a Project, and the role of change in a project. We are aware that incorrect or incomplete requirements written or communicated the wrong way to Developers, results in the wrong outputs and products. However, the question of human needs and what purpose and need the technology may actually serves, a level or two beyond the obvious, may have the power to prompt us to discover the real ‘why’ for a feature we want to understand or describe. The questions, “Is the technology serving its intended purpose?” and “what is that purpose?” may, and it seems should be asked at a few different levels.  To quote Posner, “Nothing is as powerful is insight into human nature. Once we get to the why then we know what should be created.”

I recently completed Phase 2 of a project in which we had asked all of the obvious, “what business needs is this new technology intended to fill?” questions, but in hindsight, perhaps we could have gone more deeply into the ‘why’, beyond what the client had understood of their own needs. Instead, we discovered the more nuanced and ‘layered’ reasons for certain aspects and features of the project well into the development work, which led to some re-work and re-visioning for the project. It is useful to heed Posner’s prompt to go several layers into the ‘why’ at the start of a project, and guide the client through this exercise. Even at the stage of a fairly advanced integrated technical system there may be drivers that are not yet discovered, and these can lead to major changes in the work. Fortunately, Agile processes enable us to do that throughout the life of the Project.

Relevant to our work as Project Managers, Posner describes ideation as a process, and recommends that it include the following characteristics:

  • Teams and groups are better at ideation than individuals; “Don’t try and be creative on your own, play together like kids!” She urges us to actively create teams with diverse points of view, and to brainstorm by looking outside of our own world; seeking the links between apparently disparate things.
  • Ideation sessions should last for 20 minutes each time. Otherwise, she cautions, we tend to overanalyze and kill our best ideas. Perhaps one session can be one type of client and your insights into them, and the next session, you can change the variables.
  • Whichever idea gets the most energy, go back and ideate with that one again.
  • Continuously enforce additional constraints such as less time or less available options; for example, if we have limited ingredients available in the kitchen, we suddenly become more creative and are forced to make something we have not tried before. She urges us to “seek the constraints.”
  • Focus on the ‘adjacent possibilities.’ One way to ideate and come up with new ideas is to make connections from seemingly disparate. An example was Uber’s business concept, which brings together taxi service with meal reservation systems, or fantasy football, which combines football with online gambling. The act of creating connections by asking ‘Why’ questions at the level of inquiry which taps into our basic human needs, helps to fire our synapses, which leads to more creative ideas.

Agile processes place clients inside the core project team, with all information shared and discussed transparently among team members. This turns all project stakeholders into “co-ideators” in the innovation effort. Likewise, according to Posner, the more people are involved in the development of a product or a ‘campaign,’ in her advertising lingo, the more likely it would be to be diverse enough to reach all of its intended audience/users, and therefore to be a success. Some authors take this a step further and describe the inherent links between Scrum ideation and the capabilities of Agile to spur innovation (see the book, Agile Innovation, the Revolutionary Approach to Accelerate Success, Inspire Engagement and Ignite Creativity by Morris, Ma and Wu). 

Posner suggests that we use creativity, innovation and ideation to address the big-picture challenges facing the tech industry; "...asking ourselves questions about how to deal with the change, how do I grow, how will technology change by offering? … To come up with the solutions we need to be creative.”  She closes with some inspirational comments on seeking the big picture beyond ourselves, and tapping into the bigger mission you are trying to address. Work from the ‘why’ of your company’s mission, what you really stand for, in order to galvanize your team and to create the best products.    

Abigail Posner is a motivational speaker and author, and Head of Strategic Planning at the ZOO, Google's creative think tank for agencies and brands. Her role is to help advertisers and markets make sense of human beings' deep, emotional relationship to the digital space and convert those insights into strategic and creative efforts.

 

Areas of Focus Sessions:

      1. Agents of Change: Managing Collaborative Problem-Solving Style Among Project Teams, Curtis Friedel, James C. Anderson II and Tinesha Woods-Wells.

This session provided insights into organizational inefficiencies that may stem from divergent patterns of problem solving and thinking by individuals.  These patterns have a huge effect on team dynamics and the process and result of organizational decision making.

Certain organizational inefficiencies are caused by the difficulty some teams have in maintaining high focus and productivity. This can be caused the divergent patterns of the individuals that make them up; in how they perceive problems and whether they choose to work within or outside of existing structures to resolve them. It can also be caused by divergent patterns of thinking and behavior in response to change.

Friedel, Anderson and Woods-Wells led a ‘facilitator’-style, interactive presentation, using a practical framework and instrument they call the KAI Score test to identify and manage these differences. This framework identifies two broad problem-solving styles: the adaptive problem-solving style, versus the innovative or pioneering style.

At the start of the session, the audience was asked to describe change from their perspective. This led to descriptors such as: ‘unexpected events,’ ‘people or circumstances injected into a plan,’ and so on. We were then asked to assess whether change as we see it is negative or positive, and for each, in what ways? A common response was that change can be overwhelming, depending on how well an organization is set up to handle and adapt to the change. Other responses: depends how much planning went into the event or activity prior to the change, and the amount of variance between what is expected and what is happening. All great responses, and some interesting parallels between the differences between traditional Project management and more Agile forms of Project management in how they handle and respond to change. Of course, an organization is made up of individuals, so organizational patterns of response to change are driven by the patterns of response to change by the individuals that make up the organization. Each person has a set of preferences in how they respond and adapt to change.

The facilitators then broke the audience into groups to conduct focus sessions on variances in our natural preferences related to change and problem solving. We walked through a crisis scenario with an earthquake and our response to it. We needed to come together quickly as a group and figure out a sequence of emergency events to perform. Members of the group had different perspectives on what came first and last, based on their preferences and approach to things like risk aversion and whether they preferred to work with a more chaotic and disruptive approach. In our groups, we prioritized and ranked different steps in our response to this simulated emergency situation. Certain people preferred more risk averse steps and working within more expected steps first and less obvious ones next, and other group members gravitated towards right away toward the ‘riskier’, out-of-the box, less obvious steps.

In the next facilitated experience, we were asked to self-identify with either the ‘Adaptive’ group, or the ‘Innovative’ group, and then to use adjectives to describe various problem-solving styles. The point of the exercise was to demonstrate that there was a stark difference in the way which the two groups described their opposites. For example, some of the adjectives used by the ‘Innovators’ to describe the ‘Adaptive’ group included: stagnant, boring, risk averse, dogmatic, compliant, timid, conforming, and inflexible. Whereas, adjectives used by the ‘Adapters’ to describe the ‘Innovators’ included: chaotic, disruptive, unsound, impractical, abrasive, undisciplined, and insensitive.

These preferences are measured by the KAI (Kirton Adaption–Innovation) Score, developed by British psychologist, Michael Kirton. The test includes a 32-item questionnaire to measure an individual’s problem-solving style and individual style of problem definition and solving. Looking at the test results, if there is a 10-point difference in score between two people it can be barely noticeable, but when the differences reaches 20 points or more, they can be problematic and interpersonal relations must be managed more proactively. With a difference of 30 points or more, it can be most difficult to manage. The KAI Score test can be used to help organizations and individuals to manage their internal and external communications, in their work with clients, building teams, and managing interpersonal relations.

Insights regarding the Adaptive versus Innovator Problem Solving styles:

  • Adaptive problem solvers prefer to first know and understanding the existing rules, strategies, and structure. They prefer to ‘perfect’ what is already happening. Interestingly, adapters are more likely to take criticisms of their ideas personally, because by the time an idea has left their mouth it is so well thought through that it is bullet-proof! Adapters like rules and details.
  • The Innovator problem solving style dislikes rules and conventions and tend to throw out many random ideas that are not well thought-through, when presented with a problem. They seek to find every option that has not yet been thought of, and innovative problem solving is more about discarding existing structures and finding or creating something new. This style can be perceived as rude or reckless.

Many fascinating lessons from the session. An individual’s preference for problem solving will not change over his or her lifetime. We need both types in our organizations and it is important to have a mix of decision-making styles present within teams, and also within communities and social spheres. There are positives and negatives to each. The challenge is that the different perceptions often cause conflict and misunderstanding.  For example, the adapters tend to produce fewer, but better thought-through ideas. Whereas, the innovators may give a large volume of ideas that are often random and not well thought through but can be ‘edited’ or expanded on later to cull the helpful ones.

How do organizations help the different problem-solving style groups work together? Perhaps we can use brain storming sessions in one style and make decisions from the other? Make up our teams purposefully around the needs whether it be to improve an existing process of create a new one? It may be more relevant in specific cases to have one decision making style versus another, but we can still carry out the decision that has been made in an innovative way. There are many approaches to handling the differences once we are aware of them. The optimum arrangement is about establishing a balances approach; between what we are doing well, and enabling and perfecting it, and limiting chaos, while also producing and supporting vision and growth through innovation.

Dr. Curtis Friedel is an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education at Virginia Tech. For more information, you can reach Curtis at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtfriedel/.

James C. Anderson II is a faculty member in the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication and the Coordinator for the uLEAD Certificate in Leadership and Service at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens. For more information, you can reach James at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcandersonii/.

Dr. Tinesha Woods-Wells is a learning and development and human resources professional with 15+ years of experience leading large-scale training and development programs and projects. She has a proven track record of delivering innovative, people-oriented solutions across public education, nonprofits, and corporate training sectors. For more information, you can reach Tinesha at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmwoodswells/.


    II. Fantastic Feedback - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Kate Megaw

Kate Megaw facilitated a heavily interactive and collaborative workshop to first draw from the audience some common understandings of the concept of ‘feedback;’ its role and importance, and some of its challenges. The room was divided into groups and asked to brainstorm methods to fine tune our skills both in giving, and receiving feedback, as it applies within the personal realm, and to team feedback.

Feedback broadly defined can describe the exchange of information that gives individuals or teams and groups guidance on what has gone well and what has not. Or as Kate puts it: “Feedback is about giving information in a way that encourages the recipient to accept it, reflect on it, learn from it, and make changes for the better”.

We require feedback because it gives us clear indicators that our behavior has or has not reached its intended purpose and intended audience and is therefore crucial to our success. It can serve to both teach and motivate us by enhancing our ability, encouraging effort, and acknowledging results. If given consistently and effectively, feedback can help us to reduce mistakes, enhance performance and increase efficiencies.

Kate walked us through the roles of appreciation, coaching, and evaluation as tools for feedback to individuals, methods and tools to gather feedback from teams, and ideas to apply evaluations and retrospectives as team and organizational feedback mechanisms.  The schema presented for types of feedback for individuals include: appreciation, coaching and evaluation. Sometimes appreciation is the most valuable form of feedback. One idea was the ‘appreciation tree’ which is used to write notes when someone does something you value.

She makes a distinction between the divergent purpose, objective and style of Coaching versus Mentoring. Coaching involves open ended questions whereas Mentoring is about giving our ideas and solutions to problems. Often, she suggests, we mentor too quickly and give our own thoughts and solutions, where we should instead try to leave space for the person to arrive at their own ideas and solutions. While the decision to coach versus mentor can also be situational, Kate recommends coaching over mentoring as it can lead to greater ownership of ideas and their outcomes. She describes the effects of Coaching as being in the ‘growth zone’ from her “GROW MODEL” which consists of Goals, Reality, Options, and Will. Also described as: what do you want, where are you now, what could you do? and What will you do?

The third type of individual feedback tool is evaluations, are most often thought of as performance evaluations. Either 360-degree feedback evaluations or traditional evaluations by managers try and gauge how employees have done over a specified period of time. While there are many positive results of evaluation, many people still fear feedback, and their responses to it can vary widely; from the less useful ‘fight or flight’ response, to more positive outcomes, where the feedback recipient remains open and receptive. In this case, the response to the feedback is rooted in inspection of the feedback, and adaptation of behaviors to meet suggested challenges. This response results in growth and improvement.

Studies have shown that regular employee feedback reviews are far better than annual performance review. Reflecting on this; which types of evaluation are likely to serve the best interests of the organization and its people. I believe that feedback that is seamlessly and regularly integrated into the work process and takes place close in time to when an event requiring feedback actually takes place, is less threatening and far more helpful. This way, by the time the yearly performance evaluation arrives, there are few surprises, and everyone has had a chance to course-correct and improve their performance.

An interesting article in the current Harvard Business Review March-April issue, The Feedback Fallacy is right on point with Ms. Megaw, and delves into what does work. Paul Garland provides evidence from research-based studies that telling people what we think of their performance doesn’t help them thrive and improve; instead, it can often produces a "fight or flight" response, which triggers our sympathetic nervous system and narrows our focus to a survival response. Many of the theories and assumptions underpinning standard approaches to organizational feedback and employee review are wrong. Actually, we need to better understand how we learn. Learning is less a function of adding something that isn’t there, than it is of recognizing, reinforcing, and refining what already is. Feedback based in criticism can actually narrow the activity of our brains and impair its functioning in response to perceived threat; telling people how we think they should improve can hinder learning. Our focus needs to move from peoples' shortcomings, to what they do well. We need to notice and highlight the strengths, put employees into roles that enable them to use those fully, and help them grow their strong points to the advantage of all.

In the last part of this session, Kate discusses effective forms of personal feedback, and effective forms of team feedback as well as tips and tricks for how to improve the way feedback is received.

Personal Feedback Tips:

  • Use the ‘feedback sandwich’. Be positive, timely, and specific with your suggestions. Limit the focus to something that the recipient is able to change; one or two items only, or you may overwhelm them. Make the feedback regular.
  • Use facilitative listening skills: 80/20 rule; 80 percent of the time should be spent listening.
  • Ask permission to give feedback. For example, you can ask, “do you mind me giving you some feedback?”
  • Be aware of emotions and context. It is important to avoid what she calls ‘feedback blockers’; things that may go directly against someone else’s’ Identity, Truth, or Relationship triggers.
  • Choose your feedback environment/location carefully; perhaps over lunch or at a coffee shop and be particularly careful with sensitive subjects.
  • Psychological safety is important! Only colleagues/peers should be present in an evaluation session. In this case, “Vegas rules,”; what is in the room stays in the room. Or, ask permission if you want to share something specific externally to that context.
  • Be aware of blind spots; your own and others! Ask someone else to help identify your blind spots and try and figure them out.

Team Feedback Tips:  

Evaluations and question-based retrospectives are useful tools to gather collaborative feedback from teams and to give and receive team feedback. She used the metaphor of watering your garden to grow your team.

  • Use a “remote court board” to gather collaborative feedback from a team in the form of post it notes. The board visually shows how well a team works together. Put a few descriptor words around a board and ask team members to add their PostIt notes to the items they agree with. Average the results.
  • Inspire your team with humor. You could perhaps write on a candy bar, “what can I do as a PM to better support you?”
  • An Agile Christmas Carol. Each team members may write their ‘greatest regret’ (tear it up after), and also writes about something that went well and shares it. Each team member also writes down 1 work goal to achieve in the next year.
  • Anonymous evaluations. Team members write their opinion of how well they work as a team anonymously on post it notes. The responses are reviewed and compared, and similar ones are put together and the final buckets are averaged and posted visually for everyone to see.
  • Question based retrospective. For example, the three little pigs game. Identify together, what we do as a team that can be blown over? What do we do that is pretty solid, but could be improved? What do we do that is rock solid? What is our big bad wolf?
  • What are your teams’ blind spots? You could enlist the support of someone outside of the team to help you figure out the blind spots of your team.

Kate Megaw, CST, PMP is the President of the Braintrust Consulting Group where she specializes in working with executives and C-level professionals as well as serving as an Agile Coach and Trainer. For more information, you can reach Kate via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katemegaw/


    III.  Focus Sessions on Artificial Intelligence, Various

Lastly, I offer some broad comments on the links between Artificial Intelligence and Project Management from multiple areas of focus sessions, one of which was Beyond Human Intelligence by Marc Lahmann and Manuel Probts. Each of the speakers look at how AI is likely to change the practice of project management in the years ahead, and how we as Project Managers, can stay relevant in a more automated and predictive world?

  • 10 Years from now, artificial intelligence will take away certain roles and functions from workers in the technology field. Arguably, not the more complex planning and logistics functions, and more likely the more mundane and administrative tasks. However, in either case, this change will mean that the ‘soft’ people skills will become more important especially in the PM line of work.
  • Project Management is likely to become increasingly data driven, with many more automated PM functions. Pilot decisions will be supported by fully automated things. I believe what was meant by this, was that even the innovative thinking and steps taking in our future PM World will be driven by lower level data and activities that are automated. If this is indeed what was meant by the description, we may welcome the changes ahead with open arms.
  • In the future, the Project Management Institute will offer an AI certificate. This is exciting news, and I am looking out for more information.


About the Author

These perspectives were contributed by Sharon Watkins, MBA, PMP®, CSM®, who was on-site at the 2018 PMI® Global Conference in Los Angeles. Ms. Watkins is an independent technical consultant, currently living in Istanbul, Turkey. Ms. Watkins will soon relocate with her family to Washington, DC. 

You can read previous articles she has written from Global Congress Events at the PMI Portland Chapter Newsletter website, where she served as Newsletter Director from 2012-2014: EMEA Global Congress 2013 keynote speeches, and EMEA Global Congress 2013 focus sessions.