The 28th edition of the IPMA World Congress has ended. We are proud to receive so many attendees from all over the world in Rotterdam.
We thank all of you for your positive contributions and energy which made this to an unforgettable event.
As organizers we are currently working on getting the presentations online (Friday October 10th) on this website.
The photo impression is already published.
We hope you had three inspiring and educational days and would like to invite all of you to continue the dialogue on our collaboration network
on Yammer
www.yammer.com/ipmaworldcongress
or in our LinkedIn group
www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=5190355
Please share you experiences and address your questions to all speakers.
Because Innovation through dialogue does not end with the IPMA World Congress…
An impression by the students of Windesheim Honours College
Summary of the first day at IPMA 2014
This day has brought us many interesting insights in the world of project management. A couple of important things we learned:
Sometimes it’s better to facilitate, and not delegate. When thinking of delegating you can think of top down communication. This could work in a project manager’s disadvantage, because there is not too much room for the employees to come up with their own ideas. When thinking of facilitating, you give the employees the possibility to express themselves and the freedom to do what they are good at. This stimulates the creativity and openness of the employees.
Always make sure to prevent misunderstandings by having one plan and keeping everyone on the same page. This can be achieved by being alert during the set-up and implementation of a project. At the same time it’s important to have one plan to make sure that all of the people involved are in agreement about what needs to be done and what’s happening. If there are certain misunderstandings, then the most important thing is the way you cope with it. That’s why you need to stay alert, and make sure that if there are misunderstandings or things that go wrong, you still have a rapid recovery.
And last but not least transformation can be achieved through innovation. To change certain things, you need to be open to new ideas and new possibilities. And in this modern era, smart innovation is key and unified project management across devices is the future.
Summary of the second day at IPMA 2014
Her Royal Highness Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands opened the second day of the IPMA 2014 congress with her own story about ‘building’ a bridge: project management through the eyes of a child. With an example of a social issue she showed how even children could help during project management. She ended her speech with five thoughts and a quote about project management:
1. Always remain passionate
2. Constantly be flexible
3. It is about intuition
4. The devil is in the details
5. It is about looking ahead
Quote: “When you commit to a vision that has never been done before you have to build a bridge while you walk on it.”
At the first session in Mees auditorium we learned from Elissa Farrow that Professional Coaching is: a professional partnership between a qualified coach and an individual or team that supports the achievement of extraordinary results, based on goals set by the individual or team. Through the process of coaching, individuals focus on the skills and actions needed to successfully produce their personally relevant results. The next session, in Penn room 1, was about unplanned changes emerging while implementing a PMIS. Main thoughts of the speech were: “People create a new reality every second” and “You can’t forget the past”.
Before lunch break we visited ‘infrastructure project excellence’ in diamond room 1. After a brief discussion, the group came up with one of the most important critical success factors for a project: teamwork. Next to that, sustainability of a project (team) was an important subject of the session. After this session we enjoyed lunch break with all the other participants. Besides the food there were some very interesting and interactive activities organized, like the virtual reality rollercoaster and a goldfish race against each other. There was a lot of time to expand your network as well because everyone was having lunch at the same time. After lunch, we visited the presentation of the DUO by Nicole Baard. They prepared two kind of role plays. The first one was about how the relationship was between the PMO’s and the managers in 2008 at DUO. It was an example about how it should not be. The second role play was about the way it goes at this moment and it showed the way it should be going. It was a very interesting change they made. The last session of the day was in the Van Oldebarneveld Room. Martijn Gribnau told about his career and how that was related to project management. The second part was about discussing the necessary competences for the ideal project leader of the future. The participants decided in small groups what those competences are. This was very interesting, because it showed the most important skills for the ideal project leader.
Summary of the third day at IPMA 2014
Today was the third and thus the last day of the IPMA 28th World Congress in the World Trade Center of Rotterdam. As a student, this was an inspiring day. One of the most important things I have learned here is that everyone is a project manager. Whether you are running a family or you work as a project manager at a big NGO: as long as you have projects, small or big, you can define yourself as a project manager. Project management can be applied on everything everywhere. And what makes you then a good project manager? That’s up to you (as long as you use creativity and humor :-D), because I believe everyone is (or can be) a great project manager.