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The Asia Pacific regional PMI Leadership Institute
Meeting in Sydney, Australia, opened Saturday, 1 March with a
compelling keynote address by Peter Baines, who focused on how he
led an international project to identify the bodies of thousands of
victims in Thailand following the Asian Tsunami disaster in 2004.
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| Keynote speaker
Peter Baines, a forensic scientist, stressed the importance of
purposeful leadership in project
management. |
Mr. Baines, a forensic scientist with the New South
Wales Police, captivated his audience and stressed clarity of
purpose in leadership, a theme that echoed through subsequent
sessions.
More than 100 volunteers from 16 countries
representing 24 chapters and eight specific interest groups (SIGs)
attended the two-day event.
Ian Wolfe, PMP, president of the
PMI Sydney, Australia Chapter, welcomed attendees to Sydney. He
referenced an important point by bidding them to “give of your
knowledge and expertise.”
The clarity of purpose theme was picked up in the
session called Leveraging the Power of the Profession, by Brantlee
Jacobs, CAE, manager of PMI’s Component and Community Relations
department, and by Community Development Member Advisory Group
member Jane Farley, PMP, and Gordon Bartlett, PMP, component mentor
for Region 10.
The three speakers discussed the importance of PMI
components providing equal value to members by using the Performance
Management Framework (PMF) to align their strategies and activities
to the PMI Strategic Plan. The purpose of PMF is to ensure that
members belonging to any PMI component enjoy the same member
experience.
 Attendees learned what is new at PMI that will
provide greater value to their components and PMI members. This
topic came up in sessions about PMI enterprise architecture and IT
strategy, a certification update and an informational session on the
PMI Educational
Foundation.
All leaders were updated on the Virtual Communities
Project, through which PMI aims to develop virtual communities that
will have resources and tools that work across the components and
the world.
 Attendees also learned from each other: the
traditional component learning and sharing sessions were segmented
in a new way, with breakouts by functional role such as
communications directors, treasurers and others. This made it easy
for leaders get tips from their colleagues in other components.
New for this Leadership Institute Meeting was a
three-part series of workshops that gave attendees hands-on practice
in strategic alignment, writing a multi-year business plan and using
the component services toolkit.
 A session on improving public speaking skills
was presented by Leadership Institute Advisory Group members Kannan
Ganesan, PMP, and Pan Kao, PMP. They gave participants tips on how
to overcome what Mr. Ganesan called “the number one fear in the
world, more than death and snakes—public speaking.”
Mark Ives, a member of the PMI Code of Ethics
Implementation Advisory Committee (CIAC), along with PMI General
Counsel William Scarborough, led a session on resolution of ethics
issues. This session gave participants the opportunity to judge
fictional scenarios that many called extremely true to life.
The final formal session of the Leadership Institute
Meeting was the Leader to Leader Discussion. Members of the PMI
Board of Directors asked leaders to share their views on what is
needed to find, train and retain volunteers. They also suggested
that leaders motivate PMI members to continue to earn Professional
Development Units (PDUs) in order to maintain their credentials.
 Register now for the 2008 EMEA Leadership Institute Meeting,
16–18 May in St. Julians, Malta. This meeting, like the Sydney
event, is an opportunity for professional development, skills
improvement and networking, all in a beautiful location.
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Look for coverage on
PMI® Global Congress 2008—Asia Pacific
in next week’s issue of Friday Facts and PMI Community
Post. | 
