At each PMO Conference, we recruit a few volunteers each time to report on the event – in their own words – so other PMO professionals can get a real feel for the day.
Here’s Pamela with her experiences of the day.
I attended my first PMO Conference at the etc Venues near Aldgate. I didn’t know what to expect but was looking forward to what the day would bring. It started with a nosebleed as I was arriving in the lift! With the buzz of chatter as attendees patiently waited to sign in, I tended to myself and waited for the bleeding to stop!
Once I had registered and entered the venue, I wandered to the APM stand, observed a demo on PMO 365, and Keyedin chatted with Transparent Choice and of course, the House of PMO – where I contributed to their Roadmap and Ideas board.
Reading through the agenda with 16 sessions to choose from, I decided to attend these four sessions:
- Operational Excellence in a PMO,
- The Risk Register – the core of successful delivery,
- PMO as a business function and;
- How Technology Can Transition a PMO.
What made the biggest impact on me was the Opening Key Note, our projects are our future, the pace of change is increasing as AI continues to cause disruption, and all staff working on projects should be trained in using Waterfall and Agile. Yes, people can be trained, but we must encourage innovation and different approaches.
The speaker also asked why companies are not deploying dedicated resources for their priority initiatives. Not sure if this is widely true as where I work resources are asked to be redeployed to deliver high-priority initiatives.
My three takeaways from the Key Notes were PMOs can contribute to organisational success, understand the value of the PMO and organisations in the future may be delivering more projects than doing operational work and that LinkedIn doesn’t work for everyone!
The sessions I attended were mixed. I enjoyed the two that looked at tools to assess maturity and ways to improve an existing underperforming PMO and thinking about PMO as a business function, operating at the strategic level and reporting to a PMO Director. I found the session on Risk Register didn’t offer anything new or insightful. When I sat through the last session, I thought the air conditioning wasn’t working as I couldn’t concentrate throughout the session! It really is a busy day with a lot to pack in.
At the end of the day I had made some new connections, people who had been to previous conferences and some like me, with this being their first. It was interesting to see where technology has reached to help PMOs run more efficiently, providing greater insights into their data and the conversations about Net Zero and what the PMO can do. It’s the session that I missed but heard really good things about! I can catch up on that one later with access to the recordings.
So that was my day at the PMO Conference. I went away feeling energised, inspired and motivated.
Thank you, House of PMO!
