Last week, I flew to Philadelphia to participate in LIVPM, which is the leadership volunteer workshop for senior volunteers. In the next year, i’ll be working with a group of volunteers on the R.E.P Advisory Group. We’ll be working directly with PMI staff and how we can influence the transformation that the PMI is currently undergoing.

I really love being able to contribute and volunteer with other like minded individuals.

Not only, was it the start of LIVPM but it was also the start of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the PMI itself. They were kicking it off in style by having all the volunteers, volunteer their time at various initiatives around Philadelphia helping the local community. From school outreach programs to healthy eating programs/food collections, all the volunteers worked together for an afternoon. This was part of an initiative run by PMI to commit to 50,000 hours to support the United Nations global sustainable development goals through their “Global Project Management Celebration of Service”. Over the course of this year, they are asking all Project Managers or those involved in projects to dedicate time for 50,000 hours to help the UN with their goals. You can find out more here.

During the rest of the days, we were kicking off the work that we will be doing over the course of the year and identifying the key areas of success that we need to work on. It was really valuable to connect with other volunteers and learn about what works best whilst also looking at our own personal development opportunities.

It wasn’t all work and no play! We had some great networking parties and opportunities to connect with other project managers and leaders. I’ve made some great connections that i’ll be following up with to be able to share knowledge with other Project Managers across the world.

One key thing that has really resonated with me was having a discussion with another volunteer and talking about: Trust and how we can effectively build trust within our projects and teams and what it looks like. I’m going to write another blog post on this as I think it’ll be a really valuable knowledge addition to other Project Managers.