The board, fellow chapter volunteers, and project professionals from around the world attended the PMI Global Conference in Las Vegas and also virtually. There were 6,500 project managers from around the world in attendance and over 100 sessions were available to attendees with a variety of topics and speakers. 

Immediately upon arrival, participants could feel the excitement and pride in our profession and in our chapters. PMI provided many new technologies and approaches to keep attendees engaged and informed. One of the favorite items was the app developed for the conference that allowed attendees to quickly evaluate a session by using a survey link provided on the final slide of each presentation. The SFBAC chapter leveraged a similar approach at our Annual General Meeting in San Francisco on October 22nd. The PMI SFBAC board is always looking to hear from our members to ensure that our chapter is growing and evolving to meet the needs of our membership. We are currently working on the 2023 strategic plan and have already discussed conducting expanded member surveys going forward. 

Another source of pride for our chapter was seeing PMI SFBAC leadership alumni continuing to serve the larger organization. The former PMI-SFBAC CEO,  Vijay Ratthinam and current Region 1 Mentor, led a session about our cutting-edge mentor program titled, 5 Steps to Creating a Successful Mentoring Program. Prabhu Gopalan, Chapter CEO, presented key findings on membership statistics and brainstormed creative solutions and partnerships. Former Board Presidents Stephanie Salazar and Dina Tasiou energized the group and joined chapter volunteers at an informal gathering at the exhibit hall. Dina has accepted the PMI Client Relationship Leader role and has already shared some exciting new learnings that will be introduced by PMI. We would also like to congratulate our current Board President, Lorena De Benedittis on her appointment to the Region 7 mentor role. She will be wrapping up her term as Board  President with PMI San Francisco Bay Area Chapter in early 2023 and starting her Mentor Role in April.   

PMI Global outlined key takeaways from the individual sessions. After attending, the chapter’s board and operations team will be reviewing the following takeaways: 

1. PMI’s transition from a chapter reporting tool known as the Chapter Reporting System (CRS) to ThoughtSpot. CRS will be decommissioned in early 2023, and is PMI’s way of getting direct access to chapter data: a tool where chapter leaders can search, ask questions, and find answers. 
2. Optimize chapter experience by monitoring and sharing opportunities such as chapter reimbursement and critical deadlines. As part of the Chapter Empowerment Program, our chapter applied for event reimbursement. This will give us access to event support, enhancing the membership value proposition, and allowing us to host even more events! The board and operations team are continuing to review and refine our 2023 strategy, to help inform the SFBAC annual chapter plan which will be submitted to PMI Global by end of March 2023. 
3. Continue the networks, template sharing, and refining of the board documents to ensure we are benchmarking our support and evolving. PMI released the Chapter Empowerment Toolkit which has many useful templates we adapt, modify, or baseline. At the conference, we exchanged contact information, templates, and chapter information with other chapters and board members. We had a great information exchange with leaders from the PMI United Kingdom chapter! 
4. The ends! In policy governance parlance, the “ends” represent the direction that the board provides to the chapter CEO. The Board continues to look for ways to provide greater value to our membership and to partner more effectively with our chapter operations team. We are eager to learn more about PMI’s Cultural Values launch and review how to embed these values into our ways of working. Below is a highlight of those values.

PMI Cultural Values

• MAKE IT EASY
• AIM HIGHER
• BE WELCOMING
• EMBRACE CURIOSITY
• TOGETHER WE CAN

Picture: Chapter Volunteers at Global Summit 2022 at ILLUMINATE! event. 

Top row left to right Chapter Volunteers Jay Ashford, Lyanuoluwa Joanna Ahmed, Shobitha Vanjikumaran, Arjun Petapermal, and Tim Bombosch

Bottom row left to right Chapter Volunteers: Roxanne Arriaza, Mary Ann Michaels, Prabhu Gopalan, Raymond Chang, Stephanie Salazar (Former Board President), Vijay Ratthinam,  and Mahesh Deshpande