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Open Space 20th April – Project Management Tools

Author: Patryk Nosalik, PMP

Patryk Nosalik

Note: this article has two parts - about the facilitation format itself and about the theme of the Open Space event.

Facilitation format
In line with the agile format of Open Spaces (OS), we take feedback from participants and from within the team during our retrospectives. And by how we feel the last Open Space went, we think we’ve got the format working well for our community. Therefore, we shall generally keep to the proposed format I last shared here , though in light of the continuous improvement and reaction to participant needs, we shall try to implement the following changes:

1. Introductions in main room by all participants:
We aim to allow 15 seconds per person which is enough to share: name / position/ company or industry / what you’re coming with; in one sentence. This helps everyone to know who is who.

2. In every breakout room, we really want to ensure everyone in the room gets a chance to provide some brief input into the question or issue at hand before the discussion goes completely freeform. The peers of yours who play the role of facilitator will have this as an explicit goal. Why? So that there is more inclusion especially for the more introverted, more active listening, and elicitation, which should lead to a greater elicited collective intelligence.

3. After the last breakout room, we’d really like everyone to offer at least one bit of feedback live; in one sentence. Why? We really want to address the needs of the community and also the last chance for eliciting participation. We’ll also use the same slido tool that we use for capturing the backlog of ideas, at the very end of the meeting to find out what themes we should have for future sessions. (I have a dozen ideas myself, but that’s not the point - we want to hear yours!)

4. To allow for more networking and chatting after the event, just like at a physical event, you can hang on for a short while. After the official ending (where we share the PDU code), the Zoom session will be open for 15 more minutes to allow a continuation or finalisation of certain topics, contact exchange, etc.
Want to learn experience or get involved with Open Spaces? Come on the 20th April to find out more!

Theme
Last year we covered agile topics, and whilst this was perhaps attractive or aspirational, it seemed most participants found this not in line with their actual experience. At a webinar, everyone can come uninformed and come out a bit wiser. At an Open Space, diversity works better, so that while some people can come purely to ask and learn, you really should share your experience for the session to be valuable. Now there may appear a risk if everyone were to come ‘uninformed’ (which I doubt in our community) that no-one will be there to answer with a solution, but at least you’ll come out with an action plan on how to solve the issue. 

Our first OS this year was around the PMBOK knowledge areas and we did not run out of discussion! 

Following on from this, we’d like to look at the tool project managers use. It should be especially relevant for PMO’s who in a ‘projectified’ economy, are all the more central to their organisations success, and whilst “only a poor workman blames his tools”, the converse “you are only as sharp as your knife” is certainly true too. Thus, to be competitive, PMOs should be very clear on the benefits of the tools they invest in.

What is the approach your organisation has? Do you have a dedicated PM/PMIS/PPMS tool or is it an extension of an ITSM product? What impact does this have on the way you run your portfolio and programs?

At the other, sometimes personally touching, end of the spectrum, if you have been out of work perhaps due to COVID, could it be that organisations have moved ahead with digitalisation of their tools to such an extent that It could be daunting to re-enter the workplace? Just think, have you used Slack? A few months ago I didn’t know anyone that was an active user. Yet Teams was behind Slack in 2018. Then from Nov 2019 it went from 20 million users to 115 million users by the end of 2020. If you weren’t in work, you wouldn’t have had much chance to use this and the rich integration it offers with Office 365. How do you use Teams for project management?

Of course, the joy of Open Spaces comes not from a pre-planned agenda, but what you the participants really come with. We look forward to hearing your questions and issues around the choice and use of project management tools on the 20th April. Register here

 

Disciplined Agile – Interactive Live Online Workshop

Author: Adi Muslic, PMP

Adi Muslic 100x100pix

The workshop prepared by the Alvission team, Frank, Antje, Frederic, and Philipp, was divided into the 5 different sections :

1. Disciplined Agile Introduction
2. Implementation Practice Example
3. 5 steps on how to chose your WoW
4. Certifications
5. Q&A

The 20 minutes DA introduction was well presented by Antje. She used many real-life examples, to demonstrate how the DA toolkit could be used to make better decisions inside of our organizations, and how it helps us to chose our WoW – Way of Working.Screenshot 2021 03 19 at 22.11.21 Adi Muslic

 

Antje also presented how we could better optimize our teams – not only IT teams but all teams in an organization, such as Finance, Sales, Marketing, Legal, etc. Every team should have its own WoW. She also explained that each organization was a Complex Adaptive System (CAS) and how important it was to understand interactions among teams.
The following section was about business agility.

Screenshot 2021 03 19 at 22.14.02 Adi MuslicThe DA tool kit also enables us to extend agility beyond teams to the entire organization. This we can achieve by using the DA four levels model :

1. Foundation
2. Disciplined DevOps
3. Value Stream
4. Disciplined Agile Enterprise

The DA tool kit lets you accelerate value delivery in scaled agile situations. Antje briefly presented the DA Mindset. She ended her presentation with a quick introduction to Process Goals.

Screenshot 2021 03 19 at 22.27.04 Adi Muslic
Philip started his presentation with a «Hyperspeed overview of DA», which highlighted some of the key advantages of the Disciplined Agile toolkit over other Agile frameworks that decide our WoW for us even before we start. Philip made it very clear that «One Size» does not fit all process decisions.

He continued with «Process Tailoring Decisions» with the DA Toolkit. He demonstrated how we could easily choose our WoW by crossing all process elements that do not fit our WoW.

Screenshot 2021 03 19 at 22.37.27 Adi Muslic

The following section was about DA Lightweight Governance, demonstrating how Outcome-oriented gates align well with PMO practices.

In the last section, Philip explained how to move from strategy to implementation and use the GQM - Goal Question Metric.

Screenshot 2021 03 19 at 22.34.24 Adi Muslic
Philip concluded his presentation by telling us why we should use the DA Toolkit: It contains everything yet prescribes nothing.

Frederic walked us through 5 steps on how to chose our WoW that was a very easy-to-use practical example. I use this opportunity to invite you to see it in the recorded session: https://youtu.be/QAmz_rb918c.

Frank presented the DA certifications and compared them to the PMI – ACP certification. He also explained different levels of DA certifications and related requirements. He finished with a short presentation of the Alvisson training team.

In the Q&A session, the Alvisson team explained the Flex value stream and differences between SAFe and DA.

Editorial PMI Switzerland Newsletter April 2021

Author: Shalini Krishnan, PMP

Shalini Krishnan 

Dear Members and Newsletter Subscribers!

“Spring is the time of plans and projects” – Leo Tolstoy 

Happy Easter!  Spring is in the air, with the last week of the ski season in full swing, and those not on the slopes enjoying sunshine with increasing temperatures.  Let’s hope that the renewed life that spring inevitably brings leads to a new celebration of life in Switzerland and around the world soon.  

It’s hard not to notice the negative impact of the pandemic everywhere, but let’s look at it with positivity and hope.  Anywhere you turn, you can see project management practices at work, in the development and testing of vaccines, in the logistics of vaccine delivery and in its administration to hundreds of millions of people. The project management practices are also at work in planning  the return to operations of all the institutions that had to shut down or curtail their services as part of the battle to “flatten the curve” which continues. While we can all agree that this past year has been challenging, there are lots of exciting innovations and positive outcomes if you look close enough, thanks to agile management of projects. 

I am excited to deliver my first ever editorial as one of your new copy editors. I received my PMP credentials in December 2020 and have joined the PMI Switzerland Chapter, hoping to interact with and meet like-minded project professionals such as yourself, in Switzerland. I encourage you to reach out with any ideas and suggestions you have for the newsletter, or if you’d just like to have a chat and meet someone new. I also invite your ideas for how we can further help our PMI members, and the larger community we live in. 

 

The Future of Work is Human

Author : Ruzanna TARVERDYAN, PMP

Ruzzana

Achievement of Sustainable Development is the most urgent and imperative collective duty that all development stakeholders must work on! As stated in the report of the UN Secretary-General: A Life of Dignity for All, the world’s quest for dignity, peace, prosperity, justice, sustainability and an end to poverty has reached an unprecedented moment of urgency. Addressing it without compromising our shared prosperity and the right to development of future generations requires alteration of public sector governance and development of  monitoring and reporting framework for tracking implementation and follow-through on the agreed strategies and policies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Since first United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,  Rio conference in 1992, the international community has inspired to integrate the social, economic, and environmental dimensions within a single framework. Nonetheless, no country has yet succeeded. Prevailing governance systems tend to separate these pillars at policy, planning, and management levels. This disconnect has led to a widening of inequality, both at global and national levels, pervasive social tension, an alarming pace of climate change and environmental degradation.

There is a consensus that given the political complexity of reforms, sustained progress will require ownership and entail a strong focus on capacity-building in key public institutions. And, now how does this Quest for the new paradigm influence the Project Management Community?

I was born in Soviet Armenia, but graduated from the Yerevan State University already when my small country declared independence from former the Soviet Union. And it was precisely in 1992, when I was invited to manage the first Institution Building Project in Armenia, financed by the World Bank Loan. Before taking the directorship of the Aid Coordination Center I was further engaged in multiple, Rehabilitation, Structural Adjustment and Enterprise Development projects. My Government was committed to a detailed program of interventions, and accomplished most of the projects' objectives. The Bank responded with a relevant technical assistance to Armenia's needs and built management capacity, enabling key reforms, for the transition to a private sector based economy. 

The early 2000 were years of transformation of multilateral thinking towards more effective and efficient delivery on Human Development outcomes. Dedicated to promotion of social justice and passionate about the role of international development institutions, in 2001 I embarked on my international career and joint the International Labour Office as a young professional to become part of the decent work generation. It was with an immense pride, that already in Geneva, I received the news that Operations Evaluation Department Independent Evaluation Office(now Group) 2004 OED Good Practice Award went to the Armenia Rehabilitation Credit; and 2005 OED Good Practice Award for Best Country Program was granted to Armenia Country Team 1996-2002, I had the pleasure and the privilege to work with.

Since the inception of ILO's Decent Work Agenda in 1999, Decent work has become a universal objective and has been included in major human rights declarations, UN Resolutions and outcome documents from major conferences including Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the World Summit for Social Development (1995), World Summit Outcome Document (2005), the high level segment of ECOSOC (2006), the Second United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017), Conference on Sustainable Development (2011) and in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2015).

There is a universal acceptance, that productive employment and decent work are key elements to achieving a fair globalization and poverty reduction. The Decent Work Agenda sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives and aims at simultaneous pursuit of four objectives: job creation, rights at work, social protection and social dialogue, with gender equality as a crosscutting objective. It encompasses productive employment opportunities, that delivers a fair income, ensure security in the workplace and provide social protection for families, it calls for working environment that guarantee better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men.

The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by all UN Member States during the UN General Assembly in September 2015, among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, defined Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.  Furthermore, key aspects of decent work- employment creation, social protection, rights at work, and social dialogue, are widely embedded in the targets of many of the other 16 goals of the UN’s new development vision.

During the 101st Session of the International Labour Conference, in 2012 the tripartite constitutes called for “Giving globalization a human face”. There is universal consensus, as supported by the empirical results, that the current model of globalization is evidently yielding uneven results for countries’ sustainable development. Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz gave a powerful speech in 2013, at the annual AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles concluded that not all nations succeed in reaping the fruits of international expansion, a cutting edge technology and making globalization serve their national interest- to create ”shared prosperity”— the only kind of prosperity that can truly be sustainable.

The Agenda 2030 explicitly calls for integration of multiple dimensions of sustainable development into a single framework and there is a wide consensus on a need of trans-disciplinary analysis embracing a complex system consisted of multiple dimensional phenomena such as globalization, poverty and other constituents of sustainable development.

As rightly submitted by the World Economic Forum, already, artificial intelligence is all around us, from self-driving cars and drones to virtual assistants and software that translate or invest has minimised human errors, eliminated low value-adding human work and accelerated the speed of work, while creating a superior employment experience for the broader workforce. Impressive progress has been made in AI in recent years, driven by exponential increases in computing power and by the availability of vast amounts of data, from software used to discover new drugs to algorithms used to predict our cultural interests.  

As Professor Klaus Schwab, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum foresees it, as we are living through the Fourth Industrial Revolution, these new transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before: it may lead to human augmentation, as a result of  the inexorable integration of technology in our lives, some of our quintessential human capacities, such as compassion and cooperation could diminish, the revolutions occurring in biotechnology and AI, will compel us to redefine our moral and ethical boundaries.

In 2004 Finn Kydland during his Novel Lecture recalled the words of Robert Lucas, 1980 Nobel Laurate in Economics, who defined the functions of theoretical economics:

to provide fully articulated, artificial economic systems that can serve as laboratories in which policies that would be prohibitively expensive to experiment with in actual economies can be tested out at much lower cost…  Our task, as I see it…is to write a FORTRAN program that will accept specific economic policy rules as ‘input’ and will generate as ‘output’ statistics describing the operating characteristics of time series we care about, which are predicted to result from these policies.”  

Kidland suggested to place people in desired model environments and record how they behave under alternative policy rules and rightly stated that the required information on “individual responses could be documented relatively cheaply by means of… censuses, panels [and] other surveys…”

 

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, in his briefing to the Security Council on Global Governance Post-COVID-19, stated that the Covid-19 pandemic is one of the most dangerous challenges this world has faced in our lifetime. It is above all a human crisis with severe health and socio-economic consequences.

As stated by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, World Day of Social Justice 2014: “experience shows that economic growth, on its own, is not sufficient. We must do more to empower individuals through decent work, support people through social protection, and ensure the voices of the poor and marginalized are heard.

In 2002 another Nobel laureate Ronald Coase in “Why Economics Will Change” had criticized this failure to look at the system as the object of the study and highlighted objectively that it may well take quiet long time to do so:

„Now how does it look?  Well, that it’s complicated is not a question, nor that it could take a long time if we start, as I hope we will, to study this system. Studying it may take one hundred years. It may take two hundred years.  But anyway, we should start.“

The availability of statistical information has considerably improved during. The advent of information and communication technologies, along with the Fourth industrial revolution provides an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen data collection and statistical analysis. Enhanced data availability will create the information basis for development of global models, thus providing an analytical underpinning for global governance. The methodological advancement of statistical development and analysis, and most importantly the ”data revolution” called by the report of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel will create legal, political and methodological grounds for such a change.

There is an ongoing debate about the shift: from hands to heads to hearts and giving a human face to work! Faced with the immense challenges embodied by the SDGs and accentuated by COVID-19, as the world is embarking on the implementation of the Great Reset initiative, announced by the World Economic Forum, there is an urgent need for global stakeholders to cooperate in simultaneously managing the direct consequences of the COVID-19 crisis and to improve the state of the world. Within this context humanizing the work is becoming an imperative and not just an option!

PM Master Class April: Building your personal brand

Most companies and individuals underestimate the power of social media. Personal branding is a key potential driver for today’s success in business. Establishing your professional brand and competence has never been this important. Beyond this, value in today’s economy is mostly about human relationships. Social networks are a key source of relevant information to get to know your prospects, customers and partners. To connect and engage with them. It has never been this efficient and even easy as it is today. If you do it right.
Learn “why, what and how” in an intense virtual training over 2 Saturday mornings lead by a pioneer and expert in the field. Yes, it will profoundly change how you see and operate your presence and activities on social media. You will see the impact right away, once you apply the
learnings.

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The PM Master Class Team engaged the Digital and Social media pioneer German Ramirez as trainer and is offering you this online seminar for an attractive fee. Mark your calendar and sign up here: https://pmi-switzerland.ch/index.php/events/events-list/pm-master-class-building-your-personal-brand