PMI BeNeLux Day

Just like IT projects, climbing a mountain is a challenging undertaking. The success of this undertaking heavily depends on good planning and control. Applying project management techniques to mountaineering increases your chance of success and survival. And applying some mountaineering lessons to projects has helped Wim Smets to become successful in project management. 

In this presentation he intends to focus on the following topics:

Scope management: achieving the right goals, achieving your vision
Time management: working according an agreed timeline, but also being able to change your timeline to adapt to the circumstances. Not all the circumstances will be under your control, but how you respond to them is.

Communication management: the importance of communication between team members and between teams on a mountain.

Resource management: selecting the right team members, building the team and the importance of diversity in a team.

Risk management: understanding the risks, mitigating them but also finding the right balance between risk and opportunity.

Integration management: the importance of the expedition leader (project manager) who balances the objectives, the team’s strengths and weakness, safety, the timeline, external factors, …to make the expedition successful. The expedition leader needs to be “on the ground” with the team to be able to make a proper assessment of the factors that influence success and safety.