By: Steven A. Shapiro, PMP, CSSGB
From L to R: John Salguero, David Tennant, Katie Dillard, Troy Woods
History could look back on November 21, 2013 and see not just a date that the Athens community was first engaged by PMI Atlanta, but a date whereby the seeds of a vibrant and thriving PMI Chapter were first sowed. That Thursday evening saw the PMI Atlanta Athens committee hold their first dinner meeting. The event was held at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education and while the attendance was vastly different, the feel of the event was very similar to the Atlanta Chapter Dunwoody Dinner Meetings.
The event began with PMI Atlanta Athens Committee Chair John Salguero showing the PMI Atlanta Chapter video, ‘What is PMI Atlanta?’ and walking those in attendance through all the great work the Atlanta Chapter is doing and how Athens could benefit from similar efforts in their community, while adding in some unique and specific possibilities the committee can bring to the Athens Community.
Salguero also took opportunities as they afforded themselves to introduce the members of both his team and the PMI Atlanta attendees. This began with Salguero introducing Troy Woods. Woods had been involved in the creation of a PMI Chapter in Alabama and will bring that experience to the Athens Committee. He is also a highly respected business man in the Athens area and can serve to reach out to that community to help the committee grow. The next introduction John made was Katie Dillard. Dillard works at Zaxbys in a Project Management role, and will serve the committee as its ‘Ambassador’. She spoke about how she hopes to expand the Athens Committee to have the type of forums that PMI Atlanta currently has. Finally, Salguero introduced Hajime Uchiyama, for whom the Athens Committee chair is very grateful as Uchiyama has been very helpful to John in creating the committee and bringing that vision to a reality. In return, one could certainly sense that the gratitude was mutual, as Uchiyama thanked Salguero for his mentorship and leadership.
It was at this time that Salguero introduced those in attendance from PMI Atlanta. I was honored to be mentioned and spoke about the great work that the Athens team has done to bring that night to fruition and that the journey had just started. I also stated that the PMI Atlanta Leadership team was in full support of the Athens group and would help in any way we can. Lastly, I spoke about the work the Communications Team has undertaken to drive the use of social media and our reduction of emails to the membership, including our Twitter Follow contest.
Finally, Salguero began to discuss his experience driving the practice of Project Management beyond Information Technology. He used the example of an individual that would be seen as a great tech, but to evolve into a leadership position, they need to understand accounting, budgeting and so many other aspects beyond technical aptitude. This led Salguero into the presenter for the evening, PMI Atlanta Chair David Tennant, who the Athens Chair expressed great gratitude to for being in attendance and also for presenting.
Tennant was very gracious as well and continued the theme of mutual admiration by stating how committed Salguero and his team have been to bringing PMI and PMI Atlanta to Athens and for the hard work they have put in. Tennant began by presenting that he feels there should be a PMBOK knowledge area for leadership, as he sees project management as a “stepping stone to executive [opportunities]”. This statement was supported by a PowerPoint deck that walked those in attendance through the many ways in which project management work aligns with the work performed by those in executive roles. However, Tennant did not stop there, as he also led the group through a series of exercises highlighting both outstanding examples of leadership and poor examples as well. As Tennant wrapped up the meeting he did work in a plug for the Terry School of Business and their continuing education program, and concluded with a profound statement and call to action, stating that exhibiting bad judgment and learning from it was the best path to good judgment, and challenging the room to ask, “How can we each become better leaders?”