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2021/2022 Q1 Message from Chapter President

Message from the President

PMI Toronto Chapter Members,

I hope you and your families are well. I continue to be grateful to my fellow board members, volunteers, and you, our members, for supporting our Chapter throughout this COVID pandemic. We hope we will be able to get back to the in-person events soon and safely. We now transition from our summer break to getting back to Chapter work. We updated our Calendar of Events with many opportunities for your development and network. Please visit and participate. 

If you have not already done so, please sign up for your Weekly Scope Newsletter to inform you of our upcoming events and activities. 

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Themes for Fiscal 2021–2022

For this fiscal year, our theme focuses on People, Process, and Business Environment. This theme aligns with the new focus of the PMP exam structure. We also see the need to focus on the COVID-related pivot. Many of us had to transition into more online work than we had to in the past. For some, it was not an easy transition. However, we do what is necessary and seek improvement daily. Let us help you develop yourself for the new economy. Together we will get through these challenging times. 

Account Management Company (AMC) Change

As many of you observed in the Weekly Scope, we moved back to Bond Association Management during the summer. Our new Executive Director is Jason Butkus. We look forward to our renewed relations, and we will continue to work with our AMC as we provide value to our members. 

PMI Global Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update

We remain aligned with PMI Global concerning in-person events. PMI Global will not be hosting in-person events in North America through to December 2021. See more details here. However, PMI Global continues to provide member value through virtual sessions similar to the one below. 

PMI October Virtual Experience Series 2021 | Free Member Benefit Event

The 6th to 7th October 2021 Virtual Experience Series event is FREE for PMI members and offers the opportunity to attend inspiring sessions with global leaders, speak to prospective employers, and network with fellow changemakers. Let us rally and gather our global community together and make it the largest attended virtual event for PMI! PMI plans to broadcast this event to all regions, and attendees can enjoy it live in their time zone and watch the rest on demand. Register here

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PMI Leadership Institute Management (LIM) 

Thank you, Ricardo Macorin, Roberta Jane Heggie, and Cristine Blair, for stepping forward to present at the LIM on October 9, 2021, and represent our Chapter. These presentations are great opportunities for them and our Chapter. This global event is a fantastic opportunity to network and learn from the experiences of others. Here are the topic details: 

  1. Bringing Diversity & Inclusion. Where Do We Begin?
    • Inclusion, diversity, and equity are what create a great community. When people do not bring themselves to the community, then the entire community misses out on the diversity of thought. Inclusion and equity should always be part of the benefits of membership. Diversity leaders from PMI Toronto will share their experiences in creating a DE&I community and share the learnings and tangible outcomes
  2. A New Look for Mentoring Program During the Pandemic
    • The PMI Toronto Chapter had an established in-person mentoring program. The need to implement social distancing brought unprecedented challenges to the program. When you have a creative and motivated team of volunteers with the wisdom of highly experienced mentors, you can transform a challenge into an outstanding opportunity. The presenters will share the lessons learned from an international remote mentoring program experience that connected and transformed the lives of hundreds of mentors and mentees.

Upcoming Cross Ontario Professional Development (PD) Day 

Consider putting a placeholder in your calendar for our Cross Ontario PD Day on Saturday, November 6, 2021, between 9 am and 4:00 pm EDT. Please share the details of this opportunity with your friends and professional network. The theme for this year’s event is “Next Generation Project Management.” We look forward to seeing you online. 

Upcoming ATP Certification Courses

Dennis Abuan, Director of Communications & Marketing and our Certification and Training Operations, and Mac Wilson, Certification & Training Manager, continue to do excellent work in this area. Our Chapter continues to hold certification courses through our Authorized Training Provider (ATP) program. Please check out our Certification Course Calendar for the upcoming certification courses. Many of us know the significant impact globally recognized certifications can improve one's career. 

Branches and Communities (BC) + Academia Portfolio 

Claire Dobbin, Director of Branches and Communities, is also leading the Academia portfolio. She is working with Vassilis Anastasiadis, VP Branches and Communities, the Chairs and their teams. Over the summer, they developed their plans for the year. 

One of the upcoming events is "Address, Adapt, Repeat!", a Construction Community's event on October 14, 2021. Register here

Thanks to the prior efforts of Adel Zadeh and the contribution from Claire, we have excellent academic partnerships with Humber and Yorkville. Along with Sergio Rodrigues, VP Academia, and his team, we seek to deepen the relationship with the other schools during our fiscal year and support the Ontario Project Management Competition (OPMC). The team supports the student groups with judges, guest speakers, and panellists for events hosted by PMI Toronto and the student associations. They always welcome the involvement of experienced project professionals to assist the next generation of project professionals. If you are interested in engaging with students by sharing your experiences, see the VRMS posted volunteer opportunities.

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Career Development Portfolio

Bola Otaraki is the Director responsible for this portfolio. She will be accountable for our mentoring programs, the Career Accelerator Program (CAP) led by Pradeep Bonnell and Summer Ridley and the Professional Mentoring Program led by Chirag Shah. We successfully launched our Fall 2021 session of the CAP program recently. She will also be working on Newcomer Programs. These programs will build on-the-job opportunities currently shared and provide more career information including: 

  • Newcomer success stories
  • Newcomer Toolkit, comprising of useful links
  • Newcomer Annual Career Day
  • Career Corner

Communications

Dennis Abuan, Director of Communications & Marketing and our Certification and Training Operations and Sandy Matos, Vice President/Creative Director, Communications, continue to deliver excellent outputs with the Weekly Scope, blogs, and through our social media platforms. These sources will inform you of events and opportunities available directly through our Chapter from PMI Global and our collaborating partners. 

Please continue visiting our social media platforms to remain updated on our Chapter's events and share these details with your contacts:

Disciplined Agile (DA)

Ricardo Macorin, Secretary-Treasurer, continues to work with our DA Ambassador Team to promote iterative workshops focused on the DA Toolkit and brought the participants much hands-on experience. We plan to have similar events in the new fiscal year. 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) Committee

Roberta Heggie, Committee Chair, Christine Blair, Acting Committee Chair, and their team will continue their work on DE&I this year. More details will be available shortly. Over the past few months, they continued the cross-chapter collaboration discussions with the Chapters below and PMI Global: 

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Finance

Michael Becker, Director of Finance, successfully let the Board through the approval of our FY22 budget. He will continue to support our Chapter in our finances as we continue to navigate through the COVID pandemic. We will continue using digital tools like Telpay to manage our Chapter's finances on behalf of our members, volunteers, partners, and vendors. 

Membership

Tracy Dyba is the Director responsible for the Membership portfolio, and with Zhaleh Malek, VP Membership and one of last year's Outstanding Volunteers. The team will start the New Members Orientation (NMO) and networking sessions soon. Keep checking the Calendar of Events for more information. They will also support our Chapter by seeking more ways to provide more member benefits. We recently added information for Storwell Self Storage to our Member Benefits & Discounts page. Please take advantage of this opportunity. You may find additional details on the Storwell Self Storage website

Ontario Project Management Competition (OPMC)

PMIT will co-sponsor the Ontario Project Management Competition (OPMC), a yearly competition hosted by the Wideman Education Foundation (WEF) with the PMI Lakeshore Chapter. This inclusive community promotes Project Management (PM) competencies, skills, and opportunities within the Project Management world to students and the PMI Toronto Chapter. Victoria Lee will continue to lead the program that Mitchell Fong, PMIT, Past President, cofounded. 

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Professional Development

Manaf Malazi, VP of Professional Development and their team, led great Chapter meetings and webinars for the year. Hitomi Mochizuki, Chair of the PD Portfolio, ensured effortless events from communicating with speakers to creating event slides and setting up avenues for members to ask questions. We thank them for a great September Chapter Meeting, PMBOK® Guide 7th Edition: Dispelling the Myths (What's In It For Me).

We look forward to more great Chapter meetings and webinars in the future. 

Quarterly Canadian Online Events—Share Your Success Story

Karthik Srinivasan, Project Lead, Quarterly Canadian Online Events, leads this initiative, and he will identify a few fantastic speakers. Some possible topics include: 

  • Data Monetization 
  • Transformation
  • People Transformation
  • Bio-Diversity
  • Next-Gen Capabilities
  • Innovation

We are grateful for the support of our Past Presidents, Peter Monkhouse, Lynn Shannon, and Marc Blanchette, and Ricardo Macorin, Secretary-Treasurer, for this initiative. Through this initiative, PMIT will highlight Canadian project managers working on exciting, high-profile, and challenging projects during the past year. Do you have a project that you would like to share with our members? If so, we want to hear your story and share it with our members! Please submit your speaking proposal and indicate "Quarterly Canadian Online Events" in the Part B-Presentation Info of the online Speaker Proposal Form

Technology and Analytics Portfolio

Bernie Crawford, Director of Technology and Analytics (TA) and his team continue to provide significant support to our Chapter. They are developing a few approaches to provide more online content for our members potentially. Stay tuned to learn more. 

Volunteer Opportunities + Affiliate Program 

Iain Shao, Director responsible for Volunteers and Pradeep Bonnell, VP, Volunteers, continue to perform excellent work with our volunteers. As we ramp up our year, we will have many new volunteer opportunities available. Please feel free if you or someone you know would be interested in volunteering with our Chapter. Here are the keys steps: 

  1. Visit the Volunteer Relationship Management System (VRMS) tool at https://vrms.pmi.org/
  2. Create a volunteer profile.
  3. Upload resume.
  4. Search and apply for volunteer opportunities in VRMS.
  5. If you did not find a position that fits your qualifications or if you have questions, you can email the volunteer team at volunteers@pmitoronto.ca.

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Youth and Social Impact Coordinator

Led by Ricardo Macorin, Secretary-Treasurer, our Chapter continues to work on its Social Good. After the summer break, we will look to building out our Youth engagement this Fall. We will share more details soon. 

We have many opportunities planned for an eventful year. Feel free to reach out and become more engaged. We will do our best to keep you safe.

Yours Sincerely,

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Dr. Jeffrey Thompson PMP, CSM, DBA
PMI Toronto Chapter President 

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