I'm just back from the PMI Global Congress 2009--Asia Pacific in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and I wanted to share with you what I have seen in the various presentations and in the more general cultural aspects of the Asia Pacific area.
The congress was small, compared with the North American ones, but the quality of attendees and speakers was very high. Plus, small congresses offer much more opportunity for meaningful networking. Malaysia is a very diverse country: 60% Malay, 35% Chinese, 3% Indian and the rest a mix of other races. The country's official religion is Islam, but everybody is very open, and all faiths are practiced. I have seldom been in a country where more people always smile and are so keen to strike a conversation and learn more about you.
The interesting thing about the congress was that many papers and presentations focused on the strategic aspect of projects and the need for project managers to start thinking more intuitively. Many studies have shown that managers make decisions based on intuition and soft factors rather than hard data. Anyway, before you get all the necessary data to make a "sure bet" decision, the opportunity has passed. Project management often focuses on the need to collect hard data. In a "pure" project environment, where deliverables, time and cost are quite well scoped, this is fine; but as project management is used more and more to manage organizations, this does not hold true anymore.
Let me summarize three good sessions I attended. Patrick Weaver, from Australia, explained how the concept of scheduling must change when dealing with complex projects. In such cases, the schedule will be high-level and flexible to accommodate for opportunities.
Manon Deguire, from London, England made a distinction between the data that can be handled statistically, which has limited boundaries, and the data that cannot, which has limitless boundaries. In the latter case, project managers cannot use rational decision making tools and should rely more on intuition.
Michel Gagné, originally from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, who has lived in Malaysia for the last 20 years, presented a session on how to sell projects to C-suite executives. He talked about executives as the "why" people and of project managers as the "how" people. Both are needed, but if you want to talk to and sell your projects to the C-Level, you need to speak their language.
In summary, the message I got from the congress was that project managers are best placed to become leaders in the new economy, but they need to be open-minded and seize all the opportunities. They also need to be able to communicate with the executive level of the organization to sell their ideas. Project-based organizations are the way to the future, are you up to it?
The congress was small, compared with the North American ones, but the quality of attendees and speakers was very high. Plus, small congresses offer much more opportunity for meaningful networking. Malaysia is a very diverse country: 60% Malay, 35% Chinese, 3% Indian and the rest a mix of other races. The country's official religion is Islam, but everybody is very open, and all faiths are practiced. I have seldom been in a country where more people always smile and are so keen to strike a conversation and learn more about you.
The interesting thing about the congress was that many papers and presentations focused on the strategic aspect of projects and the need for project managers to start thinking more intuitively. Many studies have shown that managers make decisions based on intuition and soft factors rather than hard data. Anyway, before you get all the necessary data to make a "sure bet" decision, the opportunity has passed. Project management often focuses on the need to collect hard data. In a "pure" project environment, where deliverables, time and cost are quite well scoped, this is fine; but as project management is used more and more to manage organizations, this does not hold true anymore.
Let me summarize three good sessions I attended. Patrick Weaver, from Australia, explained how the concept of scheduling must change when dealing with complex projects. In such cases, the schedule will be high-level and flexible to accommodate for opportunities.
Manon Deguire, from London, England made a distinction between the data that can be handled statistically, which has limited boundaries, and the data that cannot, which has limitless boundaries. In the latter case, project managers cannot use rational decision making tools and should rely more on intuition.
Michel Gagné, originally from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, who has lived in Malaysia for the last 20 years, presented a session on how to sell projects to C-suite executives. He talked about executives as the "why" people and of project managers as the "how" people. Both are needed, but if you want to talk to and sell your projects to the C-Level, you need to speak their language.
In summary, the message I got from the congress was that project managers are best placed to become leaders in the new economy, but they need to be open-minded and seize all the opportunities. They also need to be able to communicate with the executive level of the organization to sell their ideas. Project-based organizations are the way to the future, are you up to it?
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