Past Events

How to shape a smart business with cost efficiency - 27 June 2019 Presentation

27th June event at our venue partner BDO was full of action! We started with the delivery of the innovation in Project Management Prize to SA Power Networks, received by Fiona Marden! Fiona is the IT portfolio manager of SA Power Networks, and she kindly shared a short presentation about her experience with the audience.

After that, Christine Cothenet, the cost intelligence manager of SA Water, told us how she leads a team of estimators and analysts to support decision making throughout SA Water's $14 billion asset base. She explained the concept of asset breakdown structure and shared real examples of her work. We all left BDO with great ideas to use cost intelligence to improve our projects.

Juliana do Canto
Events Director

Digital Disruption: How are the experts facing it? - 5 March 2019 Presentation

#PMIAdelaide #event Summary #Digitaldisruption - Digital Disruption Panel Discussion (5 March 2019)

Our honorable mediator, Peter Pavan PMP MACS, raised fundamental questions that kept all speakers engaged on answering them with great knowledge and vast experience.

The different expertises of the panel members have definitely enriched even more the quality of the event. Linda Zeelie has given a practical overview of the challenges that a business must overcome in order to bring new technologies into business processes, and how it can cause significant impact when managing projects, both in public and private sectors.

Similarly, Michael Macolino was able to narrate his daily difficulties and how you can be successful when implementing modern technologies in startup companies, whereas Sam Harley talked more about digital disruption within businesses that have already a very solid process and operations, such as the Infrastructure industry.

Last but not least, Adam Da Costa, who has a large experience in all phases of client engagement from scoping to delivery, has confidently talked about how conscious and aware a business must be when implementing new technologies that will impact directly customers and its final users.

#noprojects - A Culture of Continuous Value - 19 November 2018 Presentation

At our November monthly event, Shane Hastie, co-author of the book "hashtag#noprojects: A Culture of Continuous Value” joined us via Skype to provide insights his book. A presentation followed by Frank Vassallo with facilitated group discussion on the book and the insights generated.

Today success comes from building products people love, creating loyal customers and serving the broader stakeholder community. In this thoughtful exploration on the future of work, the co-author explores the past, present and future of the “project”. He explained why, in today’s fast-changing & hyper-competitive world, running a temporary endeavour is the wrong approach to building sustainable products and how hashtag#noprojects is fundamentally changing the way companies work.

It was great to see a different perspective of project management, showing that following the traditional rules is not the only way to be successful!

Juliana do Canto, Events Director

Photos by Laura Garcia Quijada

Effective Work Breakdown Structure – Key to Project Success - 15 October 2018 Presentation

We have heard repeatedly the popular saying in Project Management “how do you eat a big elephant?” The answer, “one piece at a time”. This is the basic principle of applying what is called Work Breakdown Structure or commonly known as WBS. In our October monthly event, Gholan Medalla explained us how to define the scope of a project into manageable chunks that a project team can understand.

Gholan has over 20 years of hands on Project Management and Project Controls experience. This is with various overseas assignments. He specializes in planning & project controls (claims and forensic analysis background), and with substantial experience in design, project execution, estimating, cost, contracting and risk management. It was a great opportuinity to learn how to set up a WBS from the early stages of the work!

Juliana do Canto
Events Director

Photos by Laura García Quijada

Scheduling Tools improvement in Complex Project Management - 19 September 2018 Presentation

Traditional project management tools such as Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), Critical Path Method (CPM), and Gantt chart allow the modelling of sequential and parallel processes in projects, but they fail to address interdependency of feedback and iteration, which is common in complex projects. In this presentation, we learned ways to solve this issue with the help of our guest speaker Indra Gunawan, Associate Professor in Complex Project Management and Director of Project Management Program in the Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Innovation Centre, Faculty of the Professions, the University of Adelaide. Indra Gunawan introduced us to a method of explicitly accounting for iteration in the design process called Design Structure Matrix (DSM). We also learned ways to improve planning, execution and management of projects using the DSM algorithms (partitioning and tearing). It was a very interesting talk and pleasant night, thanks to the presence of our PMI members!

Juliana do Canto
Events Director

Photos by Laura García Quijada