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 Community leaders at the PMI Leadership Institute Meeting in Amsterdam, Netherlands received a valuable addition to their
leadership skills. PMI Netherlands Chapter president, Andre Legerman, PMP, welcomed attendees to Amsterdam during a Leadership Institute Meeting Opening Session that also featured PMI Chair, Ricardo Vargas, PMP, and PMI President and CEO, Gregory Balestrero.
Mr. Balestrero addressed the uncertain economic climate when he told the community leaders, “This is the time for project managers to stand up and be a leader, and to be better than before.”
Fredrik Härén inspired the 155 PMI community leaders from 38 countries (representing 53 chapters and 15 virtual communities) with a keynote address on the ever-increasing importance of absorbing new knowledge and making new ideas come true.
Mr. Härén spoke of the problems today’s organizations face when it comes to adapting to the speed of change.
Director of International Communities, Moscow Chapter, Jennifer Graham, stated that, “Fredrik was great! He left us with a lot of food for thought, and was very motivating in making us realize we need to change in order to move forward.”
An interactive discussion in which participants explored the current PMI Core Values was led by PMI Executive Vice President and COO, Mark Langley, and Yanping Chen, PMP of the PMI Board of Directors. The session engaged the leaders to assist
in articulating the completeness of the Institute’s Core Values as those present shared their thoughts and feedback on this important initiative.
 Lively discussions went on during the component learning and sharing sessions as leaders received updates on regional and
virtual community activities and engaged in guided discussions on best practices.
The second day featured interactive educational tracks that provided attendees with opportunities to develop their leadership skills and to gain tips and techniques on how to run PMI communities. One highlight of the day was a general session
facilitated by Craig Killough, Director, Practitioner Products, Brantlee Underhill, Director, Practitioner Markets and Cindy Anderson, Manager, Marketing on leveraging PMI practitioner products and marketing tools to acquire and retain members.
During the Virtual Communities Update, attendees were asked to participate in a live demonstration of just a few of the features of the new VC platform. Participants separated into teams and were tasked with building draft policies and procedures
for the VC site respective to how the community manages wikis, discussions and shared documents. These initial drafts were posted to the
Virtual Community Leadership Online Community live during the meeting and are subject to being updated by VC Leaders who have access to the site. We actively encourage ALL VC leaders who have not yet accessed the VC Leadership site to weigh in on these
policies regarding the site.
 The final session of the day was the leader-to-leader session. The PMI Governance Committee engaged in a strategic dialogue with
attendees and shared their thoughts and answered many concerns about the future of project management in an uncertain economic landscape.
The third day of the meeting included interactive educational tracks and learning and sharing by role sessions.
The Leadership Institute Meeting Closing Session offered an uplifting retrospective of the entire event.
Ccommunity leaders were pleased with the three days of networking, education and fun. First time attendee Gili Avishay, PMI Israel Chapter, summed up his experience: “I am getting to meet colleagues from all over the world. The meeting is well-organized
as has the right portion of professional and organizational information.”
The next Leadership Institute Meeting will be held in Orlando, Florida on 8-10 October 2009.
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Registration for the North America