#AIPM2019 Top Highlights Part 3: The Workshops

For a conference themed with "Revolution", it felt appropriate to END with the START! Each week, I’ve been posting my key takeouts from the Australian Institute for Project Management (AIPM) National Conference in Melbourne from 20-22 October. And having covered The Keynotes, The Concurrents - Part 1, and then The Concurrents - Part 2, this brings us to our final article: The Workshops.

I, myself, love a good workshop. As a Change Management Consultant, I must admit running a workshop is my second favourite activity to facilitate, surpassed only by inspiring people with a powerful training program. Even a speaking slot at conferences, like my Concurrent Session at #AIPM2019, comes in third after a training program and a workshop.

What workshops offer

Why? Because workshops offer 3 powerful C's that presentations often don't, and training programs always should:

• Capability: Sharing new knowledge, teaching new skills, and supporting practical application back into your own workplace.
• Collaboration: Sharing and building on the ideas of each other, not just of the trainer or presenter. Everyone's an expert with something to offer!
• Conversation: Sharing insights, opinions, views and stories for a richness of experience and connection.

I always do build capability into my speaking presentations, because my belief is that theory and case studies mean little unless we are actually empowering people to action positive change (Change Management and NLP is always focused on results).

But with presentations, there's often not the room set-up or the time to encourage the other two: collaboration and conversation. So conferences and summits are increasingly dedicating a day or two to workshops. At #AIPM2019, the workshop day was Sunday afternoon, before the 2-day main event. And here are the workshops I went to.

COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

Developing PMOs into a profession: Vision and strategy

Dr Robert Joslin - SBS Swiss Business School and AIPMO

For a Project Management conference, I thought it was great to have a workshop on the current state and future opportunities for Project Management Offices. As a Change Manager, I rely heavily on a well-run PMO to help prioritise and declutter the pipeline of organisational change to increase the chances of change success. Little did I know how riddled with challenge the PMO space is!!

Some interesting ideas and insights from Robert's session:

• Is PMO a "service" (providing project resources) or a "function" (policing project planning and delivery)?
• Which is more important: "project success" (the delivery of the required project outcome, such as the Sydney Opera House being built) OR "project management success" (a well-managed project, unlike the Sydney Opera House build spending 14x its original budget and taking 3.5x longer than the original plan)?
• The difference between benefits (objective) and value (subjective - a perception).
• The importance of principles over rules to guide decision-making with flexibility (which reminded me of a podcast I listened to recently about investing legend Ray Dalio's book - Principles)

For more on the Swiss Business School: https://www.sbs.edu/team/robert-joslin/

For more on AIPMO: https://aipmo.org/

WORKSHOP 2

The power of authenticity: The importance of empathy and vulnerability in leadership

Andrea Travers, standing in for Claire Turner - Liminal Solutions

As a Change Manager and Coach, the topic of authenticity and I go way back. Can you believe my fourth ever article on LinkedIn explored how to balance generosity (giving to others) and authenticity (giving to yourself)?

Andrea's workshop introduced ideas and concepts that would later keep coming up in keynotes, panels and concurrent sessions:

• Psychologically safe workplaces - are places of trust.
• The authentic leader focuses on caring, inspiring and serving, and being the "oasis" - "the calm quiet voice in the face of uncertainty" with a consistency that can be relied upon.
• The risks of stress-soaked professionals, with cortisol being the "fast track to heart attack".
• The fact that our so-called "soft skills" are actually hard work!
• And the importance of a back story of struggle because resilience is relatable.

And I feel most importantly, authenticity is about integrity - or as Andrea beautifully put it: "Who are you when no one is looking?"

For more on Liminal Solutions: www.dhirubhai.net/company/liminal-solutions

PANEL KEYNOTE

TALES FROM THE PLAYING FIELD

Si Phan - ANZ

Laurice Temple - Ripple Affect

Peter Dombkins - Gilbert + Tobin

Ok, so not traditionally a workshop but an awesome panel on the main stage certainly wasn't a Concurrent Session, and had the workshop collaboration and conversation elements down-pat. So I thought I'd slide the gems I loved from this excellent panel of experts in here.

• E = mc(2) explained by Si as: "Excellence" is the "masses" x "clarity" and "culture". And it's true - the best customer experience is created by your people being clear on your vision and supported by your culture to achieve it.
• Peter's insight that even in traditional industries like Law, it's important for today's professionals to become T-shaped professionals, with a deep vertical of expertise balanced and a horizontal across other competencies such as Project Management, Marketing, and Product Development.
• University of Sydney is hosting law hackathons - which fitted so snugly with the idea of "job hackathons" that I launched in my Concurrent Session.
• The idea of innovating yourself out of a job - which is the topic of an upcoming article so stay tuned!
• And lastly, Laurice's incredible comment that: “Culture is the lowest common denominator of what we allow”.

And on that note, this brings me to the end of my sharing from the AIPM National Conference 2019. I sincerely hope you've enjoyed getting this opportunity to revisit the pearls of information and experience if you were there, or this sneak peek of the breadth and depth of the topics and talent if you weren't. Our "Job Hackathon Planning Workbook is still available to download for free from our website. And before we know it, the 2020 conference will be on our doorstep. I can't wait!

Lata Hamilton is the Founder and Head Coach of Passion Pioneers. Head across to our website to discover how we can support your next workshop, training or conference as a speaker or facilitator.