BigVisible Blog

This Saturday I had the opportunity to speak at the PMI Metrolina Chapter’s Professional Development Day in Charlotte. Thanks to everyone who attended, making it a fun and interesting experience. I must highlight the keynote activity, the Musical Paradigm presented by Roger Nierenberg. This was a real powerful experience.

Roger worked with a local orchestra to demonstrate different concepts about organizational dynamics, leadership, and team work. The audience had the opportunity to sit amongst the musicians and observe them play. It was an incredibly powerful experience because the nature of the orchestra delivers immediate feedback. The whole group works together in real time and produces product (music) constantly.

The exercise worked through several powerful examples such as when he singled out the violins, role playing that they were in a reality show where their goal was to play their individual parts as well as possible such to stand out from their peers. I’m not an expert, but the deterioration in the quality of the music was quite noticeable. What a powerful demonstration of how a team is more than a bunch of great individual contributors trying to look their individual best. There were a number of other powerful demonstrations, but I don’t want to give away too much, you really should see it for yourself.

Anyway, I also wanted to the presentations I gave available to anyone who would like them.

Agile from the Project Manager’s Perspective – this is an introductory presentation discussing some of the planning & project management activities that happen with a day, an iteration and a release.

Agile projects within the Enterprise – one of the big challenges we face is applying some of the small team based interactions and mechanics that make Agile projects so effective and figuring out how to reconcile them with the world of enormous teams, specialized roles and multiple interrelated projects.