Yesterday, I spoke at the Association for Project Management conference in London. My presentation focused on equipping project managers to meet the challenges of modern businesses, including the credit crunch and outsourcing and offshoring. It also highlighted the role of new technology in 21st-century ways to work.
I arrived just as Geoff Whittaker was wrapping up his presentation on objective-setting in project management. I was able to attend the Q&A session with Geoff, David Daly, and the wonderful blog Outside of the Triangle. David’s talk was about the state of project management. I didn’t have the opportunity to see it but he had prepared a detailed paper that I thoroughly enjoyed. As part of the Q&A, the audience was asked to vote on questions. Only 61% of those surveyed agreed with David’s view that project management is in a midlife crisis.
I was one of the 61%. My argument was centered on the fact that we aren’t working as smartly and efficiently as we should. It was difficult to stand up knowing that 40% felt everything was fine in the project management world and that we don’t have to change anything.
After lunch, it was my turn. As I clicked on my first slide, I realized that the version being shown to the monitors to either side of me was an older version of my presentation. The audio-visual company had experienced some difficulties and hadn’t received the most recent version of my slides. Although they didn’t make any changes, I don’t think it was a problem for the audience. However, it did throw me off balance because the version I had on the Lectern with all my notes and scribbles on it wasn’t the same one as what was on the screen. I was not behind the lectern the majority of the time, so if I had stood behind it, no one would have been capable to see me.
Nick invited me back to the awards dinner last evening. Unfortunately, the stress of the day was too much and I was unable to attend the awards dinner last night. The APM website has a complete list of winners.
Some interesting feedback was received from my presentation. The session I shared with Martin Price also featured interactive Q&A with an audience vote. I’ll return to that in another post. I’ll also upload the correct version of slides here for anyone who is interested in what you should’ve seen.
