Yesterday was the wrapup of the PMI Leadership Institute Meeting here in Orlando. As I made my way to the morning’s events, I noticed started to see some final preparations for Congress.
I started my day sitting in a session on “visualization as a tool for leaders”. The presenter walked us through an exercise around visualizing your goals in your mind, as an accelerator for accomplishing them. Try this: write a description of a butterfly, then mentally visualize it in great detail, then write down what you visualized. If you compare the differences, you’ll notice more charactar and detail in the second writeup than in the first. He then cited the examples of Jack Nicklaus, Jean Claude Kitty, Sean Casey as successfully using “mental visualization” for athletic training. The science behind it is interesting. I’ve always known about the left-right brain dichotomy, as dramatically explained by Jill Bolte Taylor on TED.com. However, I didn’t realize that what Shakespeare calls the “Minds Eye” is actually your Reticular Activation System.
Fascinating.
To hammer it home, he walked us through a meditative visual of an what an outrageously successful communication plan would look like. If you’ve ever had problems crafting a vision of where you want your organization to go, this can be a very helpful tool.
During a long afternoon break, I got a chance to sit in on the Annual Membership Meeting for the Retail Community of Practice. The Retail CoP recently completed their transition from the legacy SIG model to the Virtual Community model, so we had a lot of similar lessons learned. It was really affirming to hear that PMI Agile is not the only one experiencing the challenges we’ve had.
Afterwards, I got a chance to say goodbye to some of the excellent leaders I met this week. Over 700 people came to LIM to collaborate on how best to advance the discipline of project management, as a means to improve the world. These are very, very passionate people. And for that reason alone, I really enjoy hanging out with them.
Finally, the evening featured the awards ceremony, where Agile Project Management author Karen R.J. White was awarded a PMI fellowship for her decade-long contribution to PMI.
Tomorrow begins the Congress, with lots of Agile PM activity. Stay tuned. LIM was great for promoting the PMI Agile community to fellow leaders, but Congress promises to influence the profession with the Agile mindset.
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Hi Jesse.
just reading your blog. Great summary.
I visited you at the agile booth during the lunch break on Friday. I had asked about ‘eating your own dog food’. Not sure if you remember me, as I’m sure you get loads of people asking you questions.
I’m from London Ontario and we are struggling with where to put our backlog of ideas….sharepoint, excel, version1, rally, etc.
I look forward to connecting with you in a few months to see how you’re making out with your backlog.
Have a great time at Congress.
Danelle.