In order to maintain a PMP credential (Project Management Professional), you need sixty PDUs (Professional Development Units) per three-year period, which you can get by attending classes, writing articles, and various other means. While this gets warm bodies to show up for professional events, those warm bodies aren't necessarily eager.

In November I attended the Singapore Project Management Institute's annual Symposium, a one-day event taking up a few low-ceilinged, windowless rooms in the Suntec Convention Center. This was roughly as exciting as you would expect; as the keynote speaker said, "I know many of you want to attend just for the PDUs." I'll try to give you just the highlights in my notes.

• We started fifteen minutes late. Project Managers aren't any more organized than anybody else.
• There were over 300 people present; most were male and Asian, Chinese in particular. Of fourteen speakers, twelve were male.
• The keynote address was entitled "Project Management 2.0 and a Flat World". Ehhn.
• Idle thoughts during a presentation: there's a maxim that "you fall behind one day at a time". I wonder if that's really useful? Equally valid, it seems to me, would be "you fall behind a year at a time", which happens every time somebody drafts an unrealistic schedule.
• Gaah! IBM has seven levels of Project Manager, from Project Assisstant to Portfolio Manager.
• Do you have "T-shaped SSME" skills? "Every PM should have SSME skills in order that we are valuable employee for the new economy"
• A speaker, talking about consulting work for an Indonesian company, said that she couldn't give the key presentation herself as they needed to hear it from an ang moh.
• The merger of Chase Manhattan and Chemical Banks entailed 4000 projects for 58 units. The GANTT chart covered three walls of a conference room, and was used to prove to analysts that the merged entity would enjoy $1.5 billion in savings, which caused the stock price to go up. Not covered in the presentation: what savings actually materialized. (I'm too chicken! I should have asked)
• I have an entry in my notes for "MS Omega". I'm not sure if that's an actual software program from Microsoft, or a doomsday device.
• Lunch was excellent; any catered lunch that has a whole separate table for "Indian Vegetarian" has my love
• I did make an effort to talk to people. Everyone I talked to was there for PDUs to maintain their PMP, except for one person who works for a training company. I had lunch with a local telecom project manager, and never quite managed to understand what exactly he did. I also chatted with a Korean guy who works for a company that does telecom support for oil companies. He said he's done one trip to Nigeria, and it was very harrowing because the locals are cut out of the oil wealth and so target everyone associated with the oil companies.
• I am interested in doing some PMP training, not only for the $$ but also to help keep the material fresh in my own head, and also because, heck, teaching is something professionals in any field should do. However, that apparently will only be possible if Singapore changes the rules for student visas.

Overall, I didn't learn very much. I probably should have gotten my act together and proposed a presentation of my own, either on using Open Source (not very PM-specific) or how to incorporate Agile techniques without swallowing the full pitcher of Koolaid. Next year.

Here's the photo album. That's my balding head in the second and sixth pictures.