Recap of the IPMA Global Best Practice Week "The Great Reset"

I just finished watching a series of keynotes and presentations from the first IPMA Best Practice Week. The event happened 3 months ago; I registered and watched it live, but the density and the number of the presentations, often overlapping, didn't allow to follow them all during the event. Hopefully, recordings were made available!

Throughout history, mass extinction events have periodically happened. "These Great Resets always produce lots of losers, but also winners" #ipmabpw

The IPMA Global Best Practice Week 2020 was a 6-day virtual event, focusing on the post-pandemic recovery period to build sustainable business practices.

Keynotes, case studies, and masterclasses were provided by and for project management professionals. Each presentation was moderated and lasted between 60 to 90 minutes. When following live, participants could react and ask questions via a chat function.

What I particularly liked was the variety of the presentations, providing hints around a methodology or a technique, describing case studies from around the world and across industries, or sharing research findings. And soft skills were often a key component.

Covid-19 was obviously a common starting point, but it was very interesting to uncover all the various possibilities to respond to the crisis and to see it as an opportunity maker. In many cases, the boldness of the solution made the difference.

"Are you going to fight against the changes or will you evolve to become a new Self 2.0? And if you don't have to evolve - do you have to survive?" #ipmabpw

I was able to watch around two thirds of the 70+ presentations. For the sake of time, I had to be a little picky and focus on the topics and industries I am familiar with and which I could (re)use in my professional life.

As it is impossible to summarize in one article the richness and variety of the content delivered, I chose to select a couple of inspirational quotes and relevant food for thoughts from the tweets I posted. They are classified under one of the 6 topics-of-the-day from the event.

Leadership

• "Think Projects: Recover your Business", Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez
• Link to Gartner study

• "Driving to the future of PPM Maturity – the #HumanFirst way", Emma-Ruth Arnaz-Pemberton

• "Delivering In-Flight Entertainment systems in reduced time with streamlined processes", Michel Labib

Agility & Flexibility

• "People Transformation in Turbulent Times", Dagmar Woetzel

• "PMO opportunities for the Great Reset: Mastering the Business Driven PMO"", Mark Perry Price

• "Soft Skills:The Key To Success in Life & Business", Benoit Chalifoux

Change & New Ways of Working

• "Successful change with minimum effort", Jan Uriga

• "Lessons from the future", Max Michele Panaro

• "Unintended consequences - how to avoid unwished surprises", Luká? Hána

• "Respond, recover, thrive, the impact of COVID-19 on Project Management from consulting perspective", Luca Cavone

Diversity & Inclusion

• "Redefining Leadership in the New Decade", Jeff Butler

• "How Unconscious Bias Can Derail Projects & Teams", Lester Hoffman & Charles Pettit

• "Driving to the future of PPM Maturity – the #HumanFirst way", Emma-Ruth Arnaz-Pemberton

• "Delivering In-Flight Entertainment systems in reduced time with streamlined processes", Michel Labib

Sustainability

• "Digital acceleration and project execution reset as a pandemic response", Enrico Lantieri & Giovanni Bavestrelli & Marco Corbella & Mark Giese

• "Lessons from the future"", Max Michele Panaro

Adaptiveness

• "Respond, recover, thrive, the impact of COVID-19 on Project Management from consulting perspective", Luca Cavone

• "Successful Career move despite COVID-19 pandemy: is it just a matter of luck?", Patrick Kamba

• "Developing competences for a VUCA world", Peter Coesmans

This edition was probably challenging to organize, so hats off to the IPMA, its members and leaders, for the quality and the execution of the first Global Best Practice Week!

And guess what? The next edition is on the doorstep! The last week of April will see again project management practitioners coming together and exchanging, this time on the topic of individual, team, and organizational resilience. See you there!

Screenshots of tweets made with twinsta as embedding them directly in LinkedIn is buggy.