PMI Conference in New Orleans

In an earlier blog, I indicated I would reflect on my experiences at the project management Institute global conference in New Orleans. New Orleans is a great place to visit and Teri Beth traveled with me to this conference. One morning, we were able to have coffee and beignets at Café du Monde.  The hotel room was overpriced and the food at the hotel did not meet your typical New Orleans standards. But for October, the weather was great and the walk from the hotel to the conference was an enjoyable little stroll.

The conference itself seemed to have fewer attendees and this is a trend over the past few years. It may be that the cost of the conference is prohibitive, or that the value of the conference relative to the cost is decreasing. It was a large contingent of attendees from Nigeria. Looking at some of the data, Nigeria was the third largest represented country.

Complexity still seems like a hot topic because several presentations had the term complexity in the title. I attended one of these presentations and even though the presentation provided a basic overview of risk there was never mention of complexity in the presentation. So I assume that the author included complexity in the title to increase the likelihood that the subject would be accepted for the conference.

Most of the keynote speakers were high-priced presenters that make the conference circuit based on book sales and some overriding for developing creative topics of interest to readers. Daniel Pink talked about leadership in the principles of influence, Mark Sanborn talked about leadership without titles and John Grotzinger discussed the NASA Mars Rover Mission. Each of these presentations was interesting and although only lightly connected project management, the provided an opportunity for reflection.

I attended a couple of presentations on agile project management and there still seems to be the need for those with a focus on agile to compare agile and traditional project management. As I discussed in other posts, I find this mental construct less helpful in understanding projects and maybe even damaging. One presenter grounded his presentation by discussing the Standish research, which concluded that most projects fail. This research has some major flaws pointed out by a number of researchers, but that has not stopped people from quoting the data to justify the point of view.

During my breakfast, lunch and break conversations I asked people why they were attending the conference. A large majority indicated that they came to the conference to get the PDUs they needed for their PMP recertification. With all the free webinars in the numerous PMI chapter events that provide PDUs, this seems like an expensive way to obtain the PDUs requirements.

Over the years, I found the PMI conferences an opportunity for me to reflect on project management from a number of different perspectives and the latest thinking by the presenters. Typically, I will fill a notebook full of notes and ideas for later development. I walked away from this conference with very few ideas in my notebook.

Russ