In this session, Matthew was joined by another lodger, Nicole Reilly. Together they talked about the different Agile related tools that are available and what the PMO needs to know.
There are literally hundreds of different tools out there that are used by Agile teams. There are also many different options to extract data which is then used by management teams to understand what progress is being made and what decisions and actions are needed to be taken.
The PMO needs people to make decisions and take action pretty much everyday. We provide reports, we have conversations, we try and influence yet still we struggle sometimes to make a message really land and even more so when it comes to people making critical decisions.
You will have heard of storytelling in a business context - most likely you've heard it called data storytelling - it's the same thing. You can use storytelling structures, techniques and a whole myriad of plot devices and character details within your day-to-day work.
In this session we had an introduction to Microsoft's Power Platform which includes PowerBi, Automate and Apps. Our lodger Nicole Reilly introduced the session plus we saw a demo from the PMO team at UK Parliament who showed how they have started using Power Apps.
Power Platform is a suite of business applications that enhance the base functionality of Microsoft 365, providing you with a powerful engine to create solutions that can streamline day-to-day PMO operations and make the most of the tools you already have available in your organisation.
We had a new event launched in 2021 as part of the PMO Conference. It was a one-day learning event called PMOLearn! which took place before the conference and was billed as the largest PMO classroom with 100 learners taking part.
The day itself was split into 4 different topics - benefits management, resource management, portfolio management and this one, dashboards & reporting.
In this post, you'll be able to see the main presentation or class. You'll not be able to see the interactive parts that the learners got involved in but you'll still take a lot away from the session itself.
Technology continues to make advances that can be embraced or ignored (at least temporarily) by our PMOs.
The latest bunch of technologies include Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Machine Learning (ML) and Predictive Analytics (PA). Few PMOs have embedded these technologies, with many more not fully understanding what the technologies can do, but concerned by the scare stories that the PMO roles will disappear within the next 5 years.
In the latest report, we take a look at how these technologies can be used within the PMO; how to get started and how the PMO is changing.
Last week's PMO Flashmob was held at Channel 4 in London. We were lucky to have a great space and one which was already decked out in our favourite colour!
In this session, we were joined by Lori Silverman. Lori has become a great friend of PMO Flashmob after keynoting at the PMO Conference back in 2018.
That came on the back of a trip I made to New York to take part in Lori's Data Storytelling based workshop. Lori is also the co-author of Business Storytelling for Dummies which also formed the basis for a workshop we did before the conference in 2018. If you're looking for a book that gets into the detail of stories in a business context, it is packed with lots of practical learnings, tips, advice and so on. We couldn't hope to get into this kind of detail at a PMO Flashmob.
So, back to our evening.
This PMO Flashmob was slightly different because we were in a cinema setting so decided to go for more of a 'conversation with...' which allowed us to get into a number of different areas.
Here's what we covered:
Join us as we take a journey through the future PMO today – touching on data; AI; RPA, machine learning; analytics – with Martin Paver, the creator of Project:Hack in conversation with Lindsay Scott.
We’re having a chat about the kind of things the PMO practitioners got involved in at Project:Hack as we start to understand “the art of the possible”.
We want to talk about how the PMO is evolving and changing with the use of new technologies; new skillsets and new roles.
Both Martin and Lindsay will be sharing what’s been happening in this space over the last 18 months, so it’s your chance to get up to speed and make sense of it all!
At the end of June, in the hottest day of the year, a few PMO Flashmobbers attended a weekend event that PMO Flashmob and PMO Learning were sponsoring.
The Project: Hack organised by the Project Data Analytics Meetup team is a two day event aimed at getting the project community closer to the data science community so skills can be combined and magic can start to happen. The next one is in October (12th and 13th) if you're interested, take a look here.
We'll be letting you know what magic we created soon but in the meantime we wanted to share some insights from a Masterclass that took place on the day. These were one hour sessions from the people that really know their stuff. In this one, Rishi Sapra talks about storytelling with data and he shares some real practical advice and resources.
Here's what we learnt:
Why Stories?
The reason why storytelling is synonymous with data is the need for people to understand what the data is telling them and take action based on the insights the data is revealing.
There's a whole raft of reasons why its needed and if you're interested in stuff like neuroscience and psychological reasons here's one article to read to get you started.
