April 2019 Abu Dhabi Event

Event Date: 27 April 2019

Event Venue: Intercontinental Hotel, Al Bateen, Abu Dhabi

Project Management Institute – United Arab Emirates Khaleeji Chapter (PMI-UAE Chapter), the leading professional membership association for the project management profession in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), recently revamped the way it conducts events to educate its members. On April 27th, PMI-UAE Chapter conducted industry-specific education sessions for its members at the Intercontinental Hotel, Abu Dhabi, which featured industry and academic professionals educating attendees in their areas of expertise. Project Management Institute – United Arab Emirates Khaleeji Chapter (PMI-UAE Chapter), the leading professional membership association for the project management profession in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), recently revamped the way it conducts events to educate its members. On April 27th, PMI-UAE Chapter conducted industry-specific education sessions for its members at the Intercontinental Hotel, Abu Dhabi, which featured industry and academic professionals educating attendees in their areas of expertise. After the QR-code based registration which commenced at 10:00 am, industry break-out sessions were held which concluded with questions and answers. The main session commenced after the coffee break with the Chapter President Ms. Laila Faridoon welcoming members and recognizing the Chapter’s delivery of member benefits as suggested through the ‘Voice of the members’ event in November 2018 saying “today, we are trying out a new format of events, delivering on our promise to provide content and sessions relevant to you. You have already attended the industry-specific breakout sessions, which I hope to have been fruitful. We will be following a similar structure for all our major events this year”.

The first of its kind industry breakout sessions were held in Business and Management consulting by Dr. Mazin Gadir from Dubai Health Authority, IT & Telecom by Aalap Ghosh an Entrepreneur & Technology Leader, Construction & Engineering by Mohamed Taher Arafa from Roads and Transport Authority, Oil & Energy by Obi Omoregie an award-winning Public Speaker and Trainer. A Project Management Capability Building Specialist, Obi Omoregie espoused the topic on How to Train a Project Manager – Lessons Learnt from the Energy Sector, by introducing the big 5 strategies for empowering your projects with competent project management professions, namely (i) A Strong Framework, (ii) A Graded Approach, (iii) A Capability Tree, (iv) An Evaluation Method and (v) A Tailored Training. Breaking the ice for the session a puzzle of alphabets set the flow for an interactive session, he highlighted the characteristics of a project and accentuated War of Talent. An Entrepreneur and Technology Project Leader across several verticals, Aalap Ghosh dwelt on Managing Difficult Stakeholders, aligning his session around key strategies to engage stakeholders. He stressed the need to recognize the current and desired type of each stakeholder and to regularly carry out stakeholder discovery in partnership with the project sponsor to achieve desired project results. His key takeaway to all participants, many of whom actively participated in the discussion, was to remember that ‘if you care for their perspectives, they will care for your perspective’.A Senior Consultant and Advisor for organizational transformation, Dr. Mazin Gadir started his session on Business and Management Consulting – A road to client’s satisfaction with a poll question on Slido to assess participant’s perspective on the topic and session. Apart from highlighting the various skills that are needed and the ways to achieve/practice them for proposals and negotiation, he outlined PMI Tools that can be taken advantage of for effective business and management consulting such as Projectified with PMI Podcast, PM Edge and PM Basics. As a conclusion, rapid career advancement and high compensation were noted amongst the advantages of the business consulting profession while pressure, discrimination and preferential treatment were noted as some of the disadvantages. A Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, Experienced and Highly Decorated Civil Engineer, Mohamed Taher Arafa rationalized on the Challenges and Solutions of Mega Infrastructure Projects. He started his session with what makes a project mega in nature. PMI defines mega projects as having budgets of USD 1Bn+, affecting 1m+ people and running for several years. He highlighted the 6C’s of Mega Projects as Colossal, Captivating, Costly, Controversial, Complex and Control Issues. Some of the activities which help alleviate the challenges faced when planning a large number of simultaneous projects are developing project strategy, establishing Enterprise PMO, using a robust Portfolio Management System, Establishing PMO at different levels and the use of electronic project tracking system with dashboards.

The Keynote session on Lean & Agile Project Management was delivered by Dr. Mohammed Salama from Heriot-Watt University, Dubai, an established and recognized author on Lean & Agile. He outlined the learning objectives as (i) Overview of theoretical frameworks, (ii) Evolution of lean in project management context, (iii) Agile project management root in lean philosophy, (iv) Agile project management beyond IT projects, (v) Project management in the era of sustainability an digital transformation and (vi) sustainable project management model and maturity. He laid the foundation of his speech from supply chain planning and control as the basis where most professions sprang from, explaining the pull and push philosophies of planning and control. The market requirements and supply network resources matrix explains the appropriate area of application of Agile SCM and Lean SCM. Deep-diving into lean, he explained the principles and the 7 types of wastes lean tries to eliminate. He stratified values into financial, strategic and social value across country, investors, employees, and customers, where each class of value varying from one category to the other. In his remarks, the four generic processes that underpin organizational competitiveness are: (i) develop product, (ii) win order, (iii) fulfil an order and (iv) support products. He explained the 12 principles of agile project management and compared agile with traditional approaches of project management using various aspects of project management. YouTube videos were used to drive home the differences and complementary nature of Lean and Agile approaches as well as of Scrum and Kanban. Strategic Change Management: O&G PM in an African country, a case study was showcased highlighting the current challenges of the industry, with objectives to identify key enablers and main constraints facing the change from traditional PM to agile methodologies in Oil & Gas projects as well as to verify the suitability of agile tools in managing O&G projects. Findings revealed that not all lean and agile processes are applicable in managing change projects in the O&G sector. Ineffective communication, lack of clearly defined goals and employee resistance were among the most profound constraints to strategy implementation, while stakeholder support, periodic reviews, organic organizational structure, and effective leadership were enablers. Visual tools and aids, concurrent engineering, Kanban systems, last planner system and total quality management are among the tools that will improve the strategy implementation process through projects. Another exhibited case study was customized manufacturing in an Italian company which disclosed that lean philosophy and agile methodologies are being employed intuitively, the organization was working in a hybrid model where it retains suitable practices from conventional and modern project management and manufacturing methodologies. He concluded his session with the following comments: Lean and Agile can be applied beyond software development projects, Lean and Agile are still in the early stages, a hybrid system can also be an option, there is need to move forward building on the past and universities have a significant role to play. The meeting ended with photo shoots and a befitting lunch for all attendees.

Presentations to download:

1. Managing Difficult Stakeholders by Mr. Aalap Ghosh

2. The Road To Client Satisfaction by Dr. Mazin Gadir

3. Mega Infrastructure Projects by Mr. Mohamed Taher Arafa

4. How to Train Your Project Manager by Mr. Obi Omoregie

5. Shaping the Future of Project Management by Dr. Mohammed Salama