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The Disciplined Agile (DA) Toolkit – A Foundation for Business Agility

Author: Adi Muslic, PMP

 

Disciplined Agile (DA) has been fairly unknown so far in Switzerland. Just the fact that this is now PMI’s Disciplined Agile made it much better known. Sometime in April, I decided to look into it a bit deeper.
There have been many online events introducing DA to the wider public. I attended several of them and started digging into available online resources. Day by day, I have been more and more convinced that DA aligns well with my experience, especially with complex, cross-functional projects and projects delivering solutions to customers.

I see business agility as the flexibility to react quickly to changes affecting the business results. So the level of business agility may determine whether a company survives or not a sudden unpredictable change.

PMI recognizes that traditional structures and working practices may not always offer the level of flexibility now needed. PMI believes The Disciplined Agile Toolkit should enable businesses to find their way to overcome the new challenges.

To start with, The Disciplined Agile Toolkit is not a framework. It combines the world’s leading agile and lean practices and strategies (e.g. DevOps, Scrum, XP, SAFe, Kanban) and provides advice for when and how to apply them together. It gives you an opportunity to select the most appropriate way of working for you, your team and your organisation.

Another difference between the Disciplined Agile toolkit, and other frameworks, is that DA has always recognized fully distributed teams as one of the options that may be chosen from, or a reality of, how organizations are arranged.

It’s also about continuous improvement, and in DA there is a technique called guided continuous improvement (GCI). Running small, “safe to fail” experiments technique will work well in many situations and business effectiveness will rise faster due to more successful experiments.

Clearly, there are many similarities with existing agile frameworks. However, DA is not competing with them. It is a complimentary toolkit. It presents a bigger picture of all agile practices and strategies because it combines all the good practices and puts it into the toolkit for our benefit. So from a content perspective, DA certainly has a positive future.

WIth PMI, and everybody knows PMI, there is going to be a significant investment in promoting and improving further DA. So there will definitely be a much bigger presence in the project management industry in coming years. It is time to get on board and make the future agile.

 

Best regards,

Adi

Presenting Leadership Power Skills

Author: Stefania Tanasescu, PMP

Director Virtual Events - PMI Switzerland Chapter

Stefania Tanasescu 2

In today’s challenging business environment, complex challenges are not solved through technical project management or strategic/business management alone. To truly navigate current possibilities and use our energy and time more efficiently, we need to start from within ourselves. This is why transforming the way we communicate is at the very core of developing the collaborative leadership skills needed for the future of meaningful life and work.

PMI is continuously advocating the importance of leadership skills and Sunil Prashara shared some of the key “Power Skills”at the 2020 PMI Switzerland Annual meeting in Zürich:

 

Presenting Leadership Power Skills pic 1

In order to meet these needs PMI Switzerland is creating a series of what we call “Emergent Leadership Power Skills”. This series is segmented into subject-specific, interactive sessions. Each session will tackle one Power Skill. We will apply theory-based and practice proven hands-on methods and tools which are rooted in transformative learning and coaching, competence-oriented didactics and systems thinking. The sessions are designed in a virtual format using the Zoom application. 

We will offer an adaptive frame of learning and doing: 

  • Maximize individual learning within an inspiring group of peers in a 90 min online group session with maximum 15 participants
  • Your personal needs and interests are driving the laser(“hit the spot” on a specific area of challenge or interest) coaching sessions as 3 individual online coaching sessions are included
  • Stay accountable by teaming up and expanding your network 

 

Power Skill 1: Courageous Feedback

Wednesday, September 30, 2020, 18:30 – 20:00 pm (CEST)

 

Learn how to: 

  • build solid frameworks for rigorous, excellent feedback
  • raise praise and criticism based on proven tools
  • strip out biases and “moodiness”
  • focus on results and forward the action
  • create better processes
  • better manage your energy

 

Power Skill 2: The Coach Approach

Wednesday, October 21, 2020, 18:30 – 20:00 pm (CEST)

 

Learn how to: 

  • start being more coach-like with 3 micro skills
  • use 1 practical tool with 5 steps to help your people finding their solution
  • shift from advice monster mode (tell-and-control) to considerate guidance and navigation
  • sustain a curiosity-led behavior as your innate way of leading and interacting
  • scale your leadership

 

Power Skill 3: Creative Conflict

Wednesday, November 11, 2020, 18:30 – 20:00 pm (CEST)

 

Learn how to: 

  • interpret the source and stage of the conflict
  • analyze the context that raised the conflict
  • navigate 5 conflict-handling modes
  • appreciate the value of different conflict styles
  • recommend the appropriate conflict resolution solution

About your coach - Julia Posselt

 Presenting Leadership Power Skills pic 2

 

I am...mentor coach for rocket builders, teacher at Swiss universities, learner of insight traditions, sparring partner for project professionals. 

www.juliaposselt.com

Creating breakthrough movements

Since the end of the nineties, I have been working at the forefront of digital innovation with multi-national teams, delivering large-scale transformation agendas and implementing strategic initiatives for Swiss and multinational organizations. 

Born from an eclectic blend of creative disciplines and organizational good practices, my work is tuned with insight traditions. It has over twenty years of professional development and refinement with some of the biggest brands in the financial services and healthcare industries. You now also find inspiring tech companies and nimble startups among my clients.

As a Certified Professional Coach and Project Professional, with me, you get the best of both worlds.Come as you are, bring curiosity and an open mind… and benefit from guaranteed value by knowing what you want to get out of the sessions.

 

 

A coffee with... Susana Moreno

Author: Miguel Hurtado, CAPM

Miguel Hurtado 

For our first "Coffee with" I am very happy to have Susana Moreno as my first guest. Architect, PMP Certified and since April 2020 the new president of PMI Madrid Chapter (my hometown).

 

PMI Swiss Chapter: Hi Susana and welcome to our first "Coffee with". Tell us,when PMI Madrid chapter was founded and many members are in this chapter?

Answer: I want to tell you first, that is always a joy for me to meet people like you, Miguel. To know that whatever you are, with PMI you can always participate in a great community of Project Managers. Thank you so much for your invitation. It is an honor for me.

The Madrid Spain Chapter was founded in 2003. Some years with an incredible growth and forging an incredible community of Project Managers not only in Madrid, but in 7 branches as well. We are a medium chapter, with more than 1.500 members, of which more than 1.200 are PMP certified. I am very honored to have been elected President, and I have a great responsability from now on. 

PMI Swiss Chapter: You are an Architect, PMP certified and now President but how PMI arrived to your life. How did you discover PMI?

Answer: I was an architect, I managed projects, and the previous crisis no longer forgave me in early 2013. I lost my job. I really didnt know about PMI, in Spain in the construction sector, even today, it is quite unknown. It was a very,very hard time both personally and professionally. My husband is a computer engineer and he didnt understand how I, with the management capacity and all experience I had, did not certify me as a PMP. He encouraged me to do it at that point in my career and I can say that it helped me to value myself more, to value my own experience and professionalism.

From that moment, I got to know the Madrid Chapter, its volunteer activities and I couldnt stop volunteering. From the mentoring program as a mentor, to the Volunteer Management Area, passing by being recognized as the most value volunteer in 2018, and elected to manage the membership area like a member of the board of directors.  The award of the best volunteer of the year take me to LIM (PMI Leadership Institute Meeting) celebrated in Dublin and with the previous president decided that we had to organize the "I Congress Women in Project Management". It was held on March 5 2020, one of my last activities before I was elected President. As you can see, I have lived through a huge professional evolution within my chapter. 

PMI Swiss Chapter: Spain is one the most affected european countries regarding COVID-19 healthy situation and Spain suffers an economic crisis because this situation. How is PMI Madrid managing this moment and how is the actual situation for PMP / CAPM?

Answer:  Well, you know Spain. A country in which tourism is one of its main sources of wealth, a paralysis of its sector for several months has been a very hard blow, and not only that... the tremendous number of deceased and affected has caused an anemic status that also inevitably impacts our way of consumption. All of this is affecting our recovery. We are living a very complex moment, the disruption we were glipsing has accelerated. Tele working,home office, digital transformation, personal distance... everything was going to come but COVID-19 has sent it to us in just a couple of months. But I think it was a good opportunity, from PMI Madrid we have understood that there are new ways to continue to grow our partners and in this moment the most important (more than ever) is to be close to them.  We can reach all of them for the first time keeping the social distance, remember there are 7 branches scattered througout Spain including the Canary Islands. Events with them has been very easy for the first time.

And beyond this paradigm shift, I think it is time to raise awareness of the importance, now more than ever, of the figure of the Project Manager. Companies must be competitive if they want to survive in Spain. Organizational strategy has never been so close to Projects, for that I am convinced that from PMI we have a great social responsability to put in value our member, PMP and CAPM certified but PMI-ACP and to the rest of certified as well. They have the abilities, the knowledge, the soft skills to make grow the Spanish organizations again, now more than ever. 

PMI Swiss Chapter: PMI introduced some changes, for example now the PMP exam is also available to be done in a virtual way, they hold virtual events and virtual keynotes. Is PMI Madrid organizing virtual events too? What can you tell us about them?

Answer:  We want to hold events in person again. But the experience of organizing virtual events has been very positive. I think that the virtual and face-to-face world will overlap and things will never be the same again. 

We are already organizing our November Congress that will be totally virtual, and that will allow us for the first time that all our members can attend it wherever they are. It is our great annual event. 

But in June we already had an incredible experience, the first event celebrated by all Chapters in Spain. In Spain, in addition to Madrid there are chapters in Barcelona,Galicia,Andalusia and Valencia. All of them joined for the organization of the Virtual Open Space Summer Edition 2020 (#VOSSE2020). More than 900 people registered, from all over Spain and from allied chapters in Latin America. We were able to debate in 5 rooms simultaneously, in two different rounds on those topics that were proposed and voted by the attendees. With a magician performance in the opening, a contest with prizes and questions on topics related to PMI and PMI certifications. A virtual experience that has made it clear that borders no longer exist and that diversity all it makes is to enrich our knowledge and points of view.

PMI Swiss Chapter: Since April 2020 you are the new president of the PMI Madrid, which are your next challenges for the PMI Madrid chapter?

Answer: My challenge is to value the figure of the Project Manager. Now more than ever, you must know the value of PMI and the professionals who build and nurture the community you build continuously. We dont just become certified, we are commited professionals who continue to grow and learn to add more value to our projects and organizations. 

But I also want our project managers to understand the moment we are living. For the first time, knowledge of our sector and our certification are no longer enough. We must know more than ever the context in which we operate, innovation, transformation, disruption, diversity, agility...technology invades everything. It does not matter in which sector we work. We need to listen, enrich ourselves, interact, share..

Our events will transmit the Project Economy and our professionals will be presented at events with other organizations. I want to show who we are and how important we are to achieve a sustained recovery that help us to be more resilient, in a future that is presented to us loaded with global threats such as Climate Change, Cybersecurity, Pandemics... and these global threats do not understand of races or borders, only people.

 

PMI Swiss Chapter: Dear Susana, thanks a lot for this fantastic coffee talk and for giving us the opportunity to know more about PMI Madrid. Muchas gracias! 

 

You can follow Susana Moreno on her social network profiles:

Twitter: @sumorenoga

Linkedin: https://es.linkedin.com/in/susanamorenogarrido

For more information regarding the "I Congress Women in Project Management": https://pmi-mad.org/mujerespm

For more information regarding "Virtual Open Space Summer Edition 2020": https://pmi-mad.org/eventos/registro-de-eventos/webinar/vosse-virtual-open-space-summer-edition

 

Editorial PMI Switzerland Newsletter September 2020

Author: Miguel Hurtado, CAPM

Miguel Hurtado

Dear newsletter friends,

September is here, we had a very special summer time. With worldwide changes in our way of life. We need to confess this 2020 will be the beginning of a new time. A time full of changes in our lives, our freedom and in our way to understand this world. I am very optimistic in a bright future. 

In this newsletter I am happy to introduce you a new PMI colleague, she is Susana Moreno. PMI Madrid president, in this newsletter we have a very interesting interview with her regarding PMI Madrid chapter and how they adapt to this time. 

I would like to wish you and your family a very happy and healthy September. 

We can do it. 

Editorial PMI Switzerland Newsletter August 2020

Author: Geetanjali Bhat, PMP

Geetanjali Bhat

Dear members and newsletter subscribers,

Beautiful Sunshine and Bright Skies this month, has a special message for all of us giving us more hope and courage to face the challenging times. We are able to se a great sign through hopes and smiles spread across the country. People working hard to bring back the cheerful times that we have cherished and rejoiced so far. I am certain about challenging times transforming into good times soon.

PMI Switzerland Chapter is actively working towards ground-breaking changes and setting new paths.  Online Events launched in March2020, continue to make it a successful breakthrough through varied subjects like “Achieving Discipline in Agile”, “Open Spaces”. With great subject matter expertise, PMI has been ensuring latest contents in tough times through insightful events.

Members or Non-Members participating Online events had insightful takeaways from those sessions. It’s great to see that we were able to put PMI’s structures and processes today in these challenging times into practice. With successful PMI online coffee meets and online events, I am sure there is no stopping us into learning and growing more. Change has definitely brought a newer paths and goals in all our lives.

I would like to ask you all to Stay Safe and Healthy. Let’s all think positive and keep learning ensuring for better tomorrow.

Wishing all of you Stay Safe and Healthy!

Cheers!

Geetanjali Bhat