Highlights from PMI Global 2019

Meisterplan was extremely excited to be a silver sponsor at the Project Management Institute (PMI) Global conference in Philadelphia. We sent our Project Portfolio Management (PPM) experts Emma Hanes and Karoline Holicky, our Vice President of Business Development, Brian Hintz, and our CEO Christoph Hirnle. We also had the privilege of inviting one of our customers, Darrin McLaughlin, Senior Vice President of Technology at Interra Credit Union. Darrin gave an engaging presentation on how he used Meisterplan to build a Project Management Office (PMO) for Interra Credit Union.

Highlights from the Show

We had the pleasure of meeting people from all over the world in many different industries over the course of three days. PMI Global provided us with an excellent opportunity to talk with project managers and portfolio coordinators and learn what problems they are facing when trying to keep projects on schedule, determining what projects should be executed over others, and figuring out if they have the resources needed for their projects.

At Meisterplan, we like to ask people how they are managing their project portfolios. This was a question we asked many attendees and the answers were varied, but they all had one common theme: it wasn’t working. Some attendees were trying to manage their portfolio with spreadsheets and others were utilizing project management software that didn’t actually have portfolio and resource management functionalities. This provided the opportunity for us to have great conversations about project portfolio management and how easy it can be to make plans that work with Meisterplan.

In talking with attendees, we also heard that many portfolio coordinators (and many other professionals who work on projects) were missing something in their PPM: a framework. PPM can be complicated which is why we developed the Lean PPM™ framework. We explained how our framework can complement Meisterplan by providing a process for managing new project initiatives, developing strategy, making strategic decisions, and executing projects.

A Guide To Making Better Plans

Meisterplan was excited to have Darrin speak at PMI Global. When brought on at Interra Credit Union, Darrin was tasked with building a PMO. Building a PMO from the ground up can be extremely challenging in any industry, but Darrin was able to share his experience for how companies can build PMOs and how Meisterplan helped him do it. The most rewarding part of the conference was speaking with attendees after Darrin’s presentation. We heard time and time again that the attendees were struggling to build their own PMOs and that the session was extremely helpful.

50 Years of Project Management

This year marked the 50^th Anniversary of PMI and Meisterplan is extremely grateful to the entire staff at PMI that made the conference so engaging, educational, and fun. We can’t wait to attend the conference next year, and look forward to sponsoring the next PMI event, PMO Symposium in Denver this November 3^rd-6^th. If you’re heading to PMO Symposium be sure to stop by our booth and say hello and if you are interested, Darrin McLaughlin will be presenting again how Meisterplan helped him build his PMO. If you are interested in learning more about Meisterplan, you can sign up for a free 30 day trial or schedule a one-on-one demo today.