PMI United Kingdom Chapter Celebrates International Project Management Day
Effectively engaging project teams, choosing the best people and managing oneself emerged as common themes throughout the day. From senior politicians and sportspeople to TV celebrities, participants learned how project management spans across many industries. “Delivering a Successful Society, Together” was also the theme of the day. Claire Young, finalist of BBC1’s hit TV show The Apprentice, shared the stage with participants from three PMI projects all aimed at developing project management skills in school children. An inspirational project taking shape in Italy and the United Kingdom is the Teaching Project Management in Schools. This was the dream child of an Italian PMI member who, inspired by his teacher wife, felt it was never too early for schoolchildren to learn about project management. He believed in grooming them for the business world of the future. He developed a curriculum based on A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) and simple material to compliment this. Teachers were then trained on this material by the PMI team and allowed to apply their knowledge in the classroom. This set the precedent for schools in Scotland and London to follow suit. Emile Faurie, horse dressage rider and trainer, was eloquent as he shared his passion with attendees. He is zealous about horses. He transformed a difficult horse into a champion by setting aside what he previously knew about race horses and doing things differently. He risked his reputation and his career on believing in an animal that he wasn’t sure would perform. He changed his team at the risk of alienating the people he had trusted in the past and adopted a new approach to communicate with the horse. He empowered an introverted team member to connect with an extroverted horse and his vision worked like a charm. He reaped the benefits in the forms of numerous dressage successes. Didi Hopkins of the National Theatre discussed how even subtle tone and body language changes can strengthen project communication. She led the laughing audience through effective verbal and body language exercises and pushed people out of their comfort zones. They could view themselves as others would and modify their behaviour to adapt to changing environments. Steve Carver, a lecturer at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, captivated the audience with his rugby inspired Scrum ball games. He demonstrated how to achieve synergy in your projects by using Scrum methodology and agility with the help of the audience. He challenged PMI to beat the Association for Project Management’s (APM) average of 12 seconds to pass a ball through a randomly picked team. Teamwork quickly emerged and performance improved, as passes became shorter with the project sponsor being kept in the middle of the action. The tasks time nosedived from the initial 43 seconds to 2 seconds by the end of the game. The event closed with the comedian, David Armand, and his interpretive dance moves. He had the crowd in hysterics, and history was in the making as 800 project managers left the venue completely entertained. This article was written by Ommara Hussain of the PMI UK Chapter |  Ken Livingstone, politician in the United Kingdom and speaker at the Synergy 2011 event  Captivated audience at the Synergy 2011 event  PMI UK Chapter board members and volunteers who organised the successful Synergy 2011 event |
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