AOM 2010 Montreal (Day One)
Hi, now I know you might not be too interested but I love to write about stuff when I am travelling. I recently attended the 2010 AOM Annual Conference which was held in Montreal, and the experience allowed me to see and hear so much, and meet so many people. I can’t help but share it with you… so here is the first of several updates recounting those experiences.
SINGAPORE: The trip started with meetings in Singapore where the conversations were all pretty much the same. “Projects are in trouble, can’t afford to fix them, I’ll get the money to fix it when it fails”. Of course I explored the why of failure and was surprised with the low level of regard held by executives towards project managers (not ours of course) but generally I’d say its true that project and program people are considered as expensive agents of failure – ouch! (I could go on here but it gets a bit depressing so I’ll move on…)
LONDON: On to London where I hoped the recent financial crisis might bring me more uplifting PM stories. Alas, it was the same thing!!! What’s happening here? I’d be lying if I didn’t confess that I was a bit down by these conversations – down but at the same time curiously energized as I know we can make a difference and the only obstacle to that is ridding the world of poor PMs.
(Well ok, I know that’s no small obstacle but I figure what we need to do is find a way to enable people to allow themselves to succeed and to do that we need to be able to explain why and how effective PMs contribute/are different etc – if they know the difference hopefully they’ll choose for it.)……
MONTREAL … AND AOM – THE CONFERENCE!: And so I arrived in Montreal for the Academy of Management annual conference. Over 9000 people attended the 5 day conference and there were over 1800 sessions to choose from (boy, was that hard). They have a cool system where you can choose your preferred sessions before the conference and plan your days (there were sessions starting at 4.30am – I kid you not – and most evenings finished very late – this conference requires stamina, determination and commitment if you are to get the best out of it).
Of course I planned to attend every session that discussed project, program or portfolio management as this is the place where these subjects are discussed in the context of overall management – as against the inward looking subjects often covered at project conferences. And so at 8am on day one (I confess I did not make any sessions earlier than that) I turned up at a session called ‘Closing the Talent Gap in Project Management’. Excitedly I took my seat and waited to have oceans of advanced thinking and good ideas wash over me.
Well it was interesting but wasn’t what I was expecting. It was more of an explanation of the ‘talent gap’ as viewed by executives and project/program people. I’ve drawn a reference diagram - before you look at it though, the presenters were the PMI – development representative and three heads of PM education at Universities. (Whilst there was no executive representative, I got the feeling that their research was valid – and they are seriously looking to help).
So please have a look at the attachment and then I’ll be back, tomorrow with the next instalment – but don’t worry I won’t give you a summary of EVERY session, this one just sets the tone…….
Ok, I’ll get up and out to some meetings and hopefully will soon be able to report some positive stories about project/program management.
Please direct all questions to me, I have pages and pages and pages of notes and am delighted to share. Best regards, Diane
Click here to view the attachment – “Project Management – The Talent Gap”: http://www.slideshare.net/rncglobal/talent-gap-aom-2010-192010