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Navigating the Digital Era: How Project Managers Enable Sustainable Growth?

Authors: Mariia Borsuk / Lenka Pincot PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-PBA

   Lenka PincotMariia Borsuk

 

Navigating the Digital Era: How Project Managers Enable Sustainable Growth?

In the fast-paced world of digital advancements, project managers are becoming pivotal navigators, steering organizations toward sustainable growth. PMI Switzerland's strategy is designed to help you smoothly sail in the modern business environment. Renowned for our commitment to equipping professionals with essential skills and knowledge, we ensure project managers are not mere participants but leaders in the digital revolution. Lenka Pincot, Chief of Staff to the PMI CEO and an expert with 20 years of experience in connecting business strategies to IT innovations enlightened the topic and shared invaluable insights in the recently hosted event.

 

Picture1 Mariia Borsuk

Challenges of the Digital Era

The speaker guided the audience through the challenges brought forth by the digital era, such as long-term strategy foresight amidst rapid technological changes, management of constant transformation, and ensuring effective communication and collaboration in a global environment. Lenka highlighted the importance of understanding and adapting to global contexts, making strategic adjustments, and efficiently increasing value for customers, partners, and the community to address these challenges. “Transformation became a new norm,” – emphasized she.

 

The Evolving Role of Project Managers

The presentation continued with delivering a thorough overview of how evolving challenges induced the transformation of the project manager role: it is not confined to traditional task management anymore but requires a blend of project management skills and new-age strategic capabilities, such as collaborative leadership and problem-solving. Lenka mentioned - “tackling what is on top of the CEOs’ minds can boost career opportunities,” and as research shows, helping organizations navigate through digital disruptions and geopolitical and economic changes is a priority.  In light of this, Lenka also emphasized the imperative of embedding agility within teams and organizations to be able to respond to the challenges of the Digital Era.

Picture2 Mariia Borsuk

Embracing Emotional Intelligence

While recognizing the  plethora of advantages AI provides us, the speaker underscored - “digital technologies can bring a lot of value, but the more we use them, the more we need to care about being human.” A number of human aspects, such as lack of leadership and communication, poor engagement with stakeholders, unrealistic expectations, and inadequate vision, all lead to project failure. Emotional Intelligence (EI) remains irreplaceable in project management.

 

Conclusion: A Convergence of Technology and Human Expertise

While project managers must harness their EI to navigate through the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital transformation, Lenka stressed, that the true power lies in the collaboration between technology and human professionals. The event underscored the significance of reimagining strategies and provided a roadmap for project managers to gain a competitive edge and thrive in the Digital Era.

 Picture3 Mariia Borsuk

 

PMI UK Virtual Sustainability Summit 8th November 2023

Author: Mariia Borsuk

Mariia Borsuk

Dear PMI Switzerland Community,

We are thrilled to introduce one of our speakers for the upcoming Sustainability Summit on November 8th, 2023.

Mariia Borsuk, a biotechnology industry professional with a focus on sustainable projects, will be talking about “Tackling Multiple SDGs With The Power Of Cellular Agriculture.” The presentation promises to be a thought-provoking journey into the future of sustainable food production, and the critical role project managers can play in this transformation.

In an era where meat consumption has skyrocketed, Mariia will shed light on the astonishing shift in the perception of meat from a luxury product to a daily staple and the alarming environmental cost of our meat-heavy diets. She highlights excessive land use, deforestation, water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water and soil pollution, and antibiotic resistance. The meat industry is not only an inefficient way to feed humanity, but also detrimental to our planet’s health. 

The question arises: can we address this issue without giving up our beloved meats? Science and technology offer a solution—cultivated meat. This technology is not a distant dream; there are already 156 cultivated meat companies in 26 countries, and products are hitting the market. 

Cultivated meat product prototypes demonstrated thus far by startups include salmon nigiri, hamburgers, pork sausages, shrimp dumplings, pork belly, and fish maw.

                                                                                                                                                                                           Cultivated meat product prototypes demonstrated thus far by startups include salmon nigiri, hamburgers, pork sausages, shrimp dumplings, pork belly, and fish maw. Photo credit: Higher Steaks, Wildtype, Mosa Meat, Shiok Meats, New Age Meats, and Avant Meats.                                                                 

 

Cultivated meat has the potential to revolutionize the meat industry by significantly reducing its environmental impact. Mariia advocates for project managers to become champions of sustainable practices and technologies to achieve multiple UN SDGs. She offers practical strategies for using our unique skills and perspectives to accelerate the transition to a healthy planet.

Don’t miss the opportunity to gain insights on one of the most pressing global challenges, ask questions, and be part of the dialogue on how we can make a difference in our world through innovative solutions like cultivated meat.

 

Join us at the PMI UK Sustainability Summit on November 8th, 2023, and be part of the change!

Register for the Summit here: https://www.pmi.org.uk/events/events-listing/events/sustainability-summit-8th-november-2023.

Together, we can work towards a more sustainable future.

 

 

 

What motivates project managers to work in projects and to pursue a career in project management?

Author: Ruth Christine Lechler

Ruth Christine Lechler

 

 

Survey: Project Career and Talent Management


What motivates project managers to work in projects and to pursue a career in project management? 

This is exactly what a scientific study, conducted by WU Wien and TU Darmstadt is investigating.

This global survey represents a significant extension of the PMI-supported research project, "The Future of Project Work."

You can find the attached Whitepaper, which presents the extensive research findings.

This survey will be distributed globally and the findings will be presented in an online conference early 2024

By taking part, you'll have the opportunity to:
🚀 Learn what motivates you in your specific project type
📋 Receive a personalized report with insights tailored to you
🌟 Compare your motivations with peers

📢 For companies: Curious about how your project teams measure up?

Get your company-specific survey and get in touch with our coordinator, Ruth Lechler at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

PMI Grafik Ruth Christine Lechler

Martin Haerri has won PMI Eric Jenett Person of the Year Award

Author: Adi Muslic, PMP, VP Sponsors and Partners

Adi Muslic

 

PMI community matters!

I am proud to share that our Martin Haerri has been named PMI® Eric Jenett Person of the Year Award winner! The PMI® Eric Jenett Person of the Year Award recognizes and honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the project management profession or its practice through leadership, technical project management, and strategic and business management acumen.

Martin Haerri PMI Eric Jenett Person of the Year Award

 

There are certainly many PMI volunteers which have served their chapter over a long time, and in many different functions. What distinguishes Martin is that he created in 2010 the “Swiss Corporate Networking Group” (SCNG) which is unique in the PMI landscape. Since then, 36 meetings have taken place so it can certainly be called a long-lasting success.

These meetings are a great format to bring organizations (companies and academia), PMI and the Chapter together:

  • Over the course of the years, 32 organizations have been members of the SCNG, the current count is 1 university and 20 companies (e.g. Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Holcim, UBS, Swiss Re, IBM, Schindler, Syngenta).
  • The topics are defined by the SCNG members by majority vote, so they are always what companies in Switzerland are interested in, such as “Benefits Management”, “Scaling Agile”, “Artificial Intelligence in Project Management”, “Organizational Transformation”, etc.
  • The speakers are usually coming from the SCNG members, and it is quite amazing how openly the members share their expertise.
  • The meetings are always hosted by a member organization, which means that there is no cost for the chapter. Sometimes senior managers from the hosting company attend, and at the last event the participants were even welcomed by the CEO. This has the great side-effect that the topic of project management gets visibility at a high level of the hierarchy in the hosting organization.

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Survey

The survey started 1st of June and ended on 30th September. The survey has targeted PMI members, people working in projects and the project management community, in roles that will be impacted by the implementation of AI in project management. 

The survey has been Chapter led including 31 project managers representing 25 Chapters in 23 countries.


pmi chapters

 

In phase 2 the cross-chapter team is performing data and  market analysis, writing the report and marketing the report.

The mission is for the PMI Chapters around the world to find out where the members are on the AI technology adoption life cycle and in this way build a strategy on the best way to support the members on their AI transformation journey. 

 

Social Impact & Youth initiatives

Our sustainability champion, Mariia Borsuk will be presenting at the PMI Sustainability Summit 2023, another cross-chapter initiative supported by our team.

In collaboration with Bevel ON we are delivering a project management foundation training in November for over 80 displaced professionals living abroad.

We are preparing a number of new initiatives. Why don't you join us?

 

All our exciting projects depend on our volunteers and the limited budget coming from the chapter membership and our sponsors.

We are looking for sponsors who would like to support our community. Every little bit helps. 

Contact us

 

Adi Muslic

VP Sponsors & Partners

Problem solving comes to Ticino

Authors: Adi Muslic, PMP, VP Sponsors & Partners / Tetiana Pavliuk, PMP / Joachim Dehais, PMP, VP Volunteers

WPS team

Problem solving comes to Ticino!

In the late and cold days of November, join us Down South for a day workshop. We'll experiment with the tools, techniques, and mindset of solving even the thorniest of problems.

First order of the day, solving the difficult question of eating all the fine foods on offer.
More seriously, the day will feature minimal theory on the structure and approach to problems. We prefer instead to dive deep into practice, with simple and challenging scenarios.

To do so you will practice methods to run workshops and drive collaboration, first.

Second you will experiment with analyses, definitions, design, and validation approaches. But technique is not all, and over the day we will invite you to play several roles.

Roles to understand your stakeholders; roles to guide them to constructive solutions: for their benefit and yours.

WPS workshop


So come on in, see the sights, play the games, and learn the lesson.

We look forward to seeing you there.

https://pmi-switzerland.ch/index.php/events/events-list/pmi-master-class/psw-2023-11-23

Location

Polo universitario Lugano
Campus Est, ROOM FOYER, SECTOR A
Via la Santa 1
CH-6962 Lugano, Viganello

Event Date 23-11-2023 9:30
Event End Date 23-11-2023 16:30
Individual Price 180 CHF for non members ; 125 CHF for members
Event language English