Frank Saladis has been fantastic with his knowledge and sense of humour… but did I really understand how:

• Define the World Class Project Based Enterprise
• Reinforce the fact that all projects are financial investments
• Upgrade the project manager from implementer to strategic planner and business value generator
• Emphasize the importance of a top down and bottom up, business case focused, managerial approach to project selection

The concepts have indeed been approached and drawn in the presentation but IMHO too many shortcuts to go through the thought process leading to some confusion… Now that I reviewed the material, I must say the confusions vanishes.

It gives the right leads to go deeper in the named concepts and the references that help to get increased knowledge. The reference for Business Case is a good exemple to better understand the different competency levels of maturity.

I really appreciated to get a full list of elements for a highly successful Business Centric
project environment which is leading to the opportunity to deliver business needs and so making project management even more relevant to the businesses.
Where the presentation is adding value, is also that from the environment, we link this to leadership skills, metrics to implement and not the usual ones like budget/time and scope but more based on business sustainability and benefits realization.

Yes strategy is also mentioned… personally I would have started with that one then portfolio but this is just me! That would have provided a more logical story. Having said that, the way portfolio cycle is described is nice and accurate providing a holistic view from strategy to project.

I was also glad Frank touched on risk management which is one of my hobby horses… and referred to the Cynefin framework to make decisions.

Great material and fantastic speaker… getting older I am getting also more difficult and my standards going up as well! 🙂