Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire PMO corporate event

It’s been a month of firsts for the PMO SIG! Once again we were invited to the YNL Branch first ever corporate event on 3 October 2017, with PMO being the hot topic. A small intimate group gathered in Leeds at the event sponsored by Wellingtone Project Management to talk about two key areas:

how to set up a value adding PMO,
how to take a step in organisational maturity by driving the PMO.

These presentations were followed by a knowledge sharing session dealing with all sorts of questions and challenges faced by the organisations in attendance, which included Yorkshire Water and Lloyds Bank.

The key messages taken from the discussions on the day featured largely around the embedding of PMO into the wider organisation. Whether the challenge is around proving the value and gaining acceptance from outside the change functions, to the use of Lessons Learned to inform future investment decisions. What was interesting for me is that it helps me to understand more about my theory that all PMOs go through the same journey – just a different flavour.

We talked at length about the metrics that PMOs can use to both communicate out and internally focus on performance. We shared the tactics that have worked at different organisations to manage the knowledge gleaned from lessons learned (or identified!). A positive event for us, again bringing PMO to the forefront – we hope to be visiting again soon!

Emma-Ruth Arnaz-Pemberton

A copy of the presentation can be found on APM Slideshare.

YNL presentation Leeds Oct 2017 from Association for Project Management

The YNL branch of the APM held its first corporate development event at the Cloth Hall Court in Leeds on Tuesday 3 October 2017. The event was attended by 21 registrations representing eight of APM’s corporate partners/affiliates and current corporate members. Those attending were from a plethora of disciplines within project management which generated an entertaining networking opportunity for all.

The delegates enjoyed excellent presentations by Emma-Ruth Arnaz-Pemberton, and the chair of APM’s PMO SIG. Petra Dlabacova, APM’s Business Development Manager, also updated them on the progress of the APM’s Chartered Standard and the Corporate Partnership Programme.

This was a great opportunity for delegates to share with each other their experiences of managing projects, programmes and portfolios through their PMOs, based on differing levels of maturity within their organisations. It was obvious that lessons were learnt from the presentations and the general feed-back from those attending was extremely positive and complimentary.

Both branch representatives – David Burton (Chair) and Hilary Pattison (Corporate Liaison) were pleased with the positive feedback and as this was the inaugural event, they felt that the pathway to more successful corporate events had been laid.

Another feature of the day was the announcement by Hilary Pattison, YNL’s corporate liaison representative, of the branch’s ‘Young Project Manager and Undergraduate Student of the Year competitions’. These competitions are being trialed by the branch for the first time in the hope that the Corporate Partners/Affiliates and corporate members will embrace them for their best young PMs and students. The competitions will be judged by a panel of APM Volunteers for presentation in March 2018. Find out more about these competitions including an introductory letter, entry guide and rules of the competition for both the Undergraduate of the Year and the Young PM of the Year competition.

It is intended that the corporate events and competitions will become a staple of YNL’s offering to corporate members and will add to the benefits enjoyed by organisations as part of their APM membership.