2016 Annual Conference #sessionsnapshots
Looking for a quick, mostly tweet-length takeaway on a session you missed? Check here!
Looking for a longer read? Go here to read the Session Spotlights article.
Keynote: CSI Project Management: Paul Pelletier’s talk on crime scene investigation project management was fascinating. For most of us in the room, this kind of project management was entirely new. It was great to have an opportunity to hear about this new and growing field at the conference. Paul’s deep background in law enforcement and many examples made the talk convincing and the prospect of entering this field intriguing. There was even one person in the audience who was already working in this field!
The Transforming a Waterfall Team into an Agile Juggernaut: this session offered practical suggestions for converting to Agile, rather than just using the lingo.
How to Ensure Trust and Engaged Communication in Dispersed Global Teams: this was the best presentation! Awesome speaker, super practical and relevant for my work team now.
The speaker really brought into focus the importance of understanding "distance" can go beyond geography. Thanks for sharing practical methods to engage with remote teams.
This was a fantastic educational interactive experience. I will remember this material far longer and with deeper understanding because of how well she used the instructional method plus excellent presentation material.
How to Talk Good: this session was highly interactive. Rewarding. Informational.
Setting Strategic Direction, or Listening to the Cheshire Cat: Awesome session! So many ideas, concepts and techniques! I left the session inspired to read more and think about how to get my organization on board. The balance of presentation vs. discussion was perfect and was my favorite session of the day in terms of learning opportunities.
Open Space: This was the first time the chapter had attempted using Open Space at the conference. I was honored to be the first Open Space convener for the chapter and found the closing comments in the retrospective supported the value of this approach to coming together to talk about what matters most to us. Clearly the participants wanted more of this format, and Jimmy and Saby indicated there would be more opportunities for Open Space later in the year. I encourage everyone to view the Open Space videos we prepared before the conference as a means of preparing to participate next time. The spontaneity and range of topics was great.
What’s Up with Project Management?: This panel was delightful even if the participants were very careful not to step on toes. This is the first time I’ve seen PMI actively reach out to related organizations that care about project management in the Portland metro area and attempt a dialogue. Jimmy gave an introduction to the history of PMI including the interesting tidbit that PMI was founded in 1985 by only five people!
Contemporary Project, Program, and Portfolio Management: A View from the PMO: This panel provided an opportunity for us to see four PMO senior leaders from four very different domains: Multnomah County, Portland General Electric, Intel, and Providence Health and Services all on the stage at the same time. The similarities and differences were also very interesting, and I appreciated their panelists forthrightness in responding to questions. Kudos to Mark Johnson for pursuing the goal of making the PMO he leads the most desirable PMO to work in in Portland!