A Day of Inspiration and Growth
by Nadia Sunny
On October 8, 2024, the Western Michigan chapter of PMI (WMPMI) hosted its much-anticipated Professional Development Day. This event served as a platform for project management practitioners and aspirants, educators, and administrators to come together and explore the use of various AI tools to maximize their potential in managing projects efficiently and effectively while earning PDUs toward PMP certification.
WMPMI chose distinguished global, national, and zonal speakers for the event. No wonder the participants stayed tuned through the end of this fully packed day with sessions by the six passionate speakers giving talks and demonstrations on AI for PMs.
How lucky we are! We had Lee Lambert, a pioneer in the project management profession and one of the founders of the PMP certification, as the event's keynote speaker. Lee talked about the future of project management through the “eyes of the past.” Lee’s session was full of history and humor as one can imagine.
David Grimsley, AI leadership coach and PMI global speaker, who launched any digital platforms increasing customer access by 50% & reducing risks by 30%, spoke on streamlining productivity by using AI & the future of task management.
Tim Furry, PhD, an AI Ethics and Governance and Data Privacy consultant certified by IAPP and an educator, disambiguated the confusion between the use of AI tools and the ethical dilemma in doing so.
Mei Lin, an AI influencer and Microsoft Copilot 365 champion, ran her session packed with demonstrations on using AI transcriptions in Microsoft Teams meetings, ChatGPT in project planning, and many other shortcuts to save time from a project manager’s day. The session was very energizing and engaging for the participants of the vent.
Mashhood Ahmed, an AI practitioner, and PMI Global Summit speaker ran demonstrations from his AI Masterclass for the participants of the event and walked them through prompt engineering and building custom GPTs for use in a given project.
Steve Pieckzo, our very own local, seasoned management consultant, entrepreneur, software developer, and author, had a fantastic session packed with curiosity-provoking topics like Psycho Linguistic, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Agentic AI, quantification of lessons learned from projects - all of which to show how AI can be enriched for better outcomes.
The event was made possible by the sponsors, who are also heavy users and admirers of AI tools and project management frameworks.
Rosemary Mills, Chapter President, opened the event with a welcome message. Mary Hladio, VP of Professional Development, shared the closing remarks. Board members of the chapter and volunteers provided unparalleled support to make the event successful.
Patricia Brown-May, VP of Member Experience, made a call, encouraging participants to join the chapter’s volunteering activities. An ask was made by Nadia Sunny, Director of 9-12 Academic Outreach, to send high school referrals to familiarize students with project management as a long-term career.
There were more than 200 participants at the event, from PMI members to community leaders, looking at how PMI embraces AI tools to support people in project management careers while under the roof of the spacious ballroom at the Pinnacle Center.
The day concluded with networking, new insights, inspiration, and actionable strategies. It clearly conveyed that the integration of AI in project management is not just a trend; it is a necessity to stay competitive, freeing up time from rudimentary work and spending time on quality activities that only humans can do. As we move further into the digital age, project managers must equip themselves with the tools and knowledge to navigate this landscape effectively.
Thank you to all who made this event possible! The WMPMI Board of Directors' mission is to continue to serve the West Michigan Community and beyond with more professional development and community experience opportunities in the coming days and years ahead.
