PMI LIM Reflections - April 2023
Posted by [email protected] on May. 22, 2023 / Subscribe 0
I recently attended the PMI North American Leadership Institute Meeting (LIM) in San Diego with several PPRC Chapter Leaders. The purpose of the LIM is to: 1) develop effective leaders; 2) inform leaders about PMI strategies and initiatives, and 3) collaborate with fellow leaders, staff, and executive leaders. Overall, it was a wonderful experience and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to continue to serve and learn in our Chapter. I thought I'd share a short personal reflection on each of the areas.
Develop effective leaders. During the presentation of "Activating PMI Culture", we discussed the five PMI values: 1) Make It Easy; 2) Aim Higher; 3) Be Welcoming; 4) Embrace Curiosity; and 5) Together We Can. We broke into pairs to explore a personal experience of 'Aim Higher'; an exercise to view if we could build our self-awareness skills. You can try it right now! In response to an external stimulus, make your first thought- "What do I know for sure?"
The experience that I shared: I work with a true professional. Very even keel; unflappable dude. One day he came into the office, almost in a rant, mad at the world, "Stakeholder X wants Z. Why haven't we given them Z. What is going on!??!" OK... we all get to choose how we react. What do I know for sure? Well, I knew this action was out of character for my work buddy. I knew this was not a personal attack. I knew there had to be more to the story. And there was more to the story, but that's for another blog! This simple question, "What do I know for sure?", allows us to put our thoughts ahead of our emotions, pause to validate any assumptions, and think about how we want an outcome to end. Give it a shot.
Inform leaders about PMI strategies and initiatives. Did you know....PPRC has an Academic Outreach Project? Yes! The Academic Outreach Project consists of me going out to UCCS during their quarterly College of Business networking sessions. I set up a PMI/PPRC table and talk to students and recent graduates about careers in Project Management. We also advertise chapter meetings and events on Handshake.com for all Southern Colorado colleges and universities. In a recent 'Getting to Know PPRC', a participant asked the Board Leaders, "What is an Opportunity that you wish the chapter could be doing?" GREAT QUESTION! Answer... more/better Academic Outreach!
So, I was excited to attend the LIM breakout for a new initiative: "PMI Chapter Student Club Program". The construct: encourage your partner college to establish a student-led, self-governed, university sanctioned club focused on Project Management. The PPRC role would be advisory; sharing knowledge, networking, and mentorship with the Student Club. As I listened, the lightbulb over my head slowly glowed. Where had I heard this before???Oh yeah....at the last UCCS Networking event, I shared a table with the Colorado Springs Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). Awesome people! And throughout the night, Students from the UCCS SHRM Club kept coming up to our shared table. Hmm, I think they got an idea! As with any opportunity, it takes passion and volunteers, but I'm excited about this initiative.
Collaborate! It's all about relationships. It was wonderful to meet leaders from all the North American chapters. It was amazing to work with our PPRC leaders - I mean, our VP of Operations, Gayl Hahn, hosted our virtual April chapter meeting from San Diego! We all skipped the first part of the PMI LIM Social (oh don't worry, we caught up!). So, we had fun and got stuff done.
What stuff did we do for PMI and PPRC? Some examples: 1) There wasn't a Military Outreach breakout, so a dozen of us got together and I shared the amazing PPRC Military Outreach Committee (MOC) work with other chapters; they can start projects based on your great work; 2) April Jackson is a networking machine; connections with Women in Project Management; New member Sponsorship processes and insights; Better survey ideas; and Corporate Outreach lessons; and 3) Amy Jo Biggs shared all her expertise with our Social Media efforts and the amazing work from the Communications team- Whizzy Heritage, Meghan Lucero and Kela Massaro - Emails, Canva, Facebook, LinkedIn, Newsletters, and Blogs!
Finally, a big shout out to our PPRC President, Krista Phillips, a great leader who keeps the Chapter and its leaders on a sustainable path and protects us from 'burn-out' (paddleboarding at lunch!). Thank you Krista, Gayl, April and Amy Jo!
LIM Slides are at: https://www.pmi.org/lim/north-america
Frank Tank
VP of Professional Development
PMI PPRC
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