Author: Marco Chiletti, PMP

In 2020, the PMI Switzerland Chapter launched a new series of virtual events called ‘Open Spaces’ with the aim to connect Project Managers and allow them to share their knowledge and experience around Project Management.

‘Planning for success in Agile delivery’, ‘Stakeholder and Team management’, ‘Conversation around the theme of Project Management tools’ are just a few of the Open Spaces topics that took place to date.

After having joined a number of Open Spaces, I am happy to share my experience hoping you can find valuable insights and maybe inspiring you to join the next Open Space. If so, we are certainly going to meet there.

Open Space is a virtual, safe and non-recorded event that takes place on Zoom, where project managers connect and discuss a topic shared beforehand.  The main principles of the event are:

1. Whoever come are the right people
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
3. Whenever the given discussion starts is the right time
4. When it’s over, it’s over, and
5. If any participant finds themselves in a situation where they are neither learning nor contributing, they can go to another breakout room

At the beginning of Open Space, every participant introduces him/herself - a wonderful and easy way to break the ice.

Shortly after introductions, every participant can pose questions to which he or she is looking for answers. Of course, these questions revolve around the main topic of the event. After questions are listed,, the moderator opens the first 3 breakout rooms with the first 3 questions. The breakout rooms last around 10 minutes and each participant is free to join the room he or she desires. 

Here is where the magic happens!

In each breakout room an open discussion starts, to help find the best answer to the question of the room. Each professional shares experience, ideas and possible solutions to solve the issue or to give hints which will ultimately be helpful to find the answer to the question. 

It’s a collaborative and enriching experience for both speakers and participants. You find people with diverse backgrounds, from a variety of industries, who implement different project management methodologies, each with their own style.

It’s the right environment to get to know each other and to work together towards a common goal. Here you can start professional relationships, network or even make new friends.

After the time of the first 3 breakout rooms expires, 3 new breakout rooms with next questions from the list are opened. This process is repeated until all questions are properly explored.

As you can imagine, the number of topics and questions that can be covered are infinite. And the more participants there are, the more enriching the experience is.

If you joined PMI Switzerland Chapter to network and to know more about how other Project Managers work and face challenges, you definitely need to join Open Spaces!

Open Spaces take place on a bi-monthly basis and are announced on the PMI Switzerland Chapter webpage, via Social Networks, and via email as event notification to the ones who subscribe to the Event notification email list. Open Spaces are free to join for all PMI Switzerland Chapter members and are eligible to issue PDUs for the renewal of PMP and other PMI Certifications. The organisers of Open Spaces also warmly encourage people from outside the chapter to participate, as diversity only benefits the experience.

About me: 6+ years of project management experience in organizational improvement and development of industrial projects to enlarge company sites throughout different geographies. Emotional intelligence to understand and lead others, Customer-focus, Accountability, Respect and Curiosity are the principles that guide my action.

Marco Chiletti, PMP

Author: Claudia Rassalski, CA, PMP, PMO-CP

The status report is crucial to the successful governance of any project. Done right, the status report is written with the purpose of engaging the audience. It not only describes progress, it supports informed decision making and urges action. More importantly, this is an opportunity to control the narrative around the project, ensuring the status report is the “go-to”/central source for key project information.

At a basic level, it seems easy to jot down the facts, variances, analysis and next steps. Then again, in the midst of busy meticulous day to day project work, it can be difficult to pause, take a broader view, and articulate a meaningful status. Sometimes it helps to remember why the status report is important. Read on for a few of my chosen reasons.

Often, it is the only record summarizing the ongoing work of the team

When a project begins, stakeholders and team members are introduced, roles and responsibilities are assigned, the purpose, objectives and approach to work are agreed upon. Work begins, setbacks are overcome and challenges are creatively worked through as progress is made. As the weeks draw on, it becomes more difficult to recount the precise detail of the effort to achieve the hard-won results delivered at each milestone. So why not record the challenges encountered and celebrate the wins of the team throughout the project?​​ As a bonus, by project closure there will exist a neat historical record of the life of the project with invaluable information to contribute to “Lessons Learned” and trend analysis.

Serves to keep stakeholders focused on the “end game”

Project distractions abound. It is the job of the project manager to sift through the “noise” and identify the facts that do - or might - impact project objectives, and clearly communicate these to the team and stakeholders. The status report brings attention to tangible progress made, as well as risks and issues that could derail progress. Remembering the agreed purpose of the project is central to giving due consideration to the probability and impact of perceived risks, along with assessing the severity of issues.

Proactive and pragmatic communication with stakeholders

Stakeholder engagement is imperative to project success. The status report is just one tool that can be used consistently to communicate with stakeholders. However, the information must be relevant, complete and current. If not, the report is meaningless. To that end, align the purpose of the status report with the audience and their respective roles and responsibilities to the project. There should be no ambiguity about progress, issues, risks, their impact, and respective mitigation strategies in place. Further, each respective action required must have accountability assigned. It should be clear which actions and/or decisions are required, why, by whom and by when. Further, it may be tempting to omit seemingly minor concerns from the status report. Yet, how many times have you worked on a project when a seemingly small concern, identified quite early on, unexpectedly manifests itself at the most inconvenient time? This usually results in “fire-drills”, overtime for the team and far too many uncomfortable, unpleasant discussions with stakeholders. A well-considered status report will go a long way to avoid such scenarios.

The above and many other reasons for status reporting have been extensively written about, including contributing to internal project portfolio and risk management. 

Conclusion

To communicate the crucial and most relevant facts about a project, without diluting the message with superfluous information or worse, omitting or underplaying real concerns or overstating success, is a fine art. However, the potential rewards of doing so consistently throughout a project far outweigh the inconvenience of preparation. Ensuring that the project team and stakeholders remain focused on the purpose, the key message and immediate priorities, is paramount to spurring action, when required, to help overcome challenges and achieve overall project success.  I trust the reasons described inspire us to persevere towards reaching a higher standard in the quality of project reporting. 

Claudia Rassalski, CA, PMP, PMO-CP

Author: Florian Puschmann, PMP

After attending virtual events for more than a year, I was very excited when I saw the invitation to the in-person event held 31 August in Basel.

Agile - and how to make it work in different company environments, certainly relates to many project management professionals. One pain point was addressed straight at the beginning with a fitting Dilbert comic; Agile has become a hip business buzzword, but typically, not everyone involved is aware of its philosophy and methodology.

Presenters Anna Nestorova, PhD, PMP and Steffen Keller, PMP have hands-on experience at LIVEsciences AG, which focuses on helping organizations define if - and where, agile methodology implementation makes sense, followed by aiding its implementation in a tailored fashion.

Everyone very much enjoyed the interaction that followed:

• Where does Agile make sense on the Cynefin framework background that segments the work environment in clear, complicated, complex, chaotic, and confused areas?
• What does it take to build an environment that enables people to work at the intersection of autonomy, mastery, and purpose to tackle the "impossible" through intrinsically driven teams?
• What's the difference between "doing" (method) and "being" (mindset) agile?

The challenges of such self-organizing organizations were then further put in perspective with two case studies:

• Semco Partners – where a self-organized company was built in Brazil under the "leadership" of Ricardo Semler even long before the Agile Manifesto was born
• Burtzoorg – A low-cost, high profitability home nurse service that is organized through fully independent self-organized teams of nurses

Overall, I deeply enjoyed the content of this event and the vivid discussion and human connection that I was craving after the prolonged period of virtual events only. 

The best part was still to come though: A very enjoyable late summer apero with all participants! The apero was so much fun that I missed two train connections until I finally made it back to Zurich rather late. The only regret I had was not having stayed even longer.

Florian Puschmann, PhD, PMP

Author: Martin Härri, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-ACP, DASSM 

The main target audience of PMI and the PMI Switzerland Chapter has always been project practitioners. There are also activities for academia, schools and social good organizations, but companies have never been a main target audience of our activities, apart from the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3), which died a quiet death some years ago.

On a global level, PMI maintains the Global Executive Council (GEC), which is composed of about 90 elite organizations, and advises PMI on its strategy. The GEC was also the inspiration for creating the PMI Swiss Corporate Networking Group (SCNG) in 2009. Here, the members are not project practitioners, but managers in charge of project management in their organizations, i.e. head of PMO, head of portfolio management, head of project community, etc. The kickoff was in January 2010 at the prestigious Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue near Zurich, with about a dozen participants, and since then the group has grown to 20 companies plus one university and has held more than 30 meetings all over Switzerland.

These meetings take a full day and are hosted in turn by one of the members. The topics are very different from those of a Chapter event: they focus much more on organization than on practitioner level. So, the presentations and discussions are about governance, benefits management, portfolio management, etc. Even during Covid times, the meetings continued online with the same level of engagement and participation.

Synergies between the Chapter and the SCNG however have been rather limited over the years; organizations and practitioners really seemed to be living in “separate worlds”. But finally, for the organization of the PMI Switzerland Conference, this network proved to be a huge benefit: half of the speakers are from SCNG members.

Very few other chapters have something like the SCNG. In fact, the PMI Germany Chapter is very interested in setting up a similar structure, and the model has been shared with several other European Chapters.

For more information about the PMI SCNG, please check out this new page on the Chapter website.

Martin Härri, PMP, PMI-SP, PMI-ACP, DASSM