In January of this year, I was invited to participate in a meeting with fellow PMI Toronto members and volunteers where we were speaking about Agile initiatives. It is here where I first met our Member of the Month, Cristiane Xavier. Cristiane had already been working with other members and volunteers for quite some time to bring together a new community to the Chapter. Agile methodologies have been around for many years but there seems to be a growing need and interest to applying the agile approach. Managing projects and teams has certainly changed and become more agile. Leading this initiative to create a community dedicated to Agile, its methodologies, and bringing other like-minded individuals together is in large part due to Cristiane. Even though she worked with several others it was clear from that first meeting how passionate she was for Agile and building this community at PMI Toronto. It’s no wonder that she’s featured as PMIT’s Member of the Month.

An Agile Leader Championing its Principles

Cristiane started her agile journey studying Mechanical Engineering and Process Management. She has an array of education credentials including a diploma in business management, an MBA focused on Project Management, various certifications including a PMP, Scrum Master, PRINCE2, SAFe, ITIL, Professional Coach, Leader as a Coach and an AWS Cloud Practitioner.

Her career began over 20 years ago in project management roles with consulting companies, mainly in IT. She’s worked in several fast-paced industries, particularly Telecom. Now, she’s a senior business project manager at CIBC working on Infrastructure project delivery and transformation focusing on People and Change Management.

Since 2020, she’s been the local leader in Toronto of Women in Agile where she shows that we can all make a difference to the community and inspire others through women's leadership. In 2021, she joined WomenTech Network as a Global Ambassador and Mentor helping the Tech Community drive change through purpose and impact.

Now, she leads PMI Toronto’s Agile Community. Have you been to one of the Agile Community’s events yet? Don’t miss out on the amazing speakers and agile leaders that come and share their knowledge with our community.

My dream is to show that Agile is beyond scrum and software development, and that everyone can follow agile and project management principles.

What Lessons Has Cristiane Learned

She believes in “always embracing new opportunities, be passionate about innovation, thrilled by design thinking, and addicted to getting better.” In working to build the Agile Community Cristiane was excited to have the chance to reinvent how we approach and engage our members and even non-members. She is truly a community builder and agile advocate.

She joined PMI in 2010 and since joining the PMI Toronto community in November 2021, Cristiane has made a lasting impact and brough great value to the Chapter and its members. She explains:

I embraced the opportunity to launch the brand-new Agile Community, started to build this community, engaged members and my goal was to show that everything adapts to deliver value, including PMI Toronto Chapter.

Over the years she’s gained great insights from the work she’s done, her education, and the people she’s met. She says her biggest lesson learned is to “always build trusting relationships because it’s essential.”

So, what’s next on the horizon? While she believes her PMP opened doors for project manager roles, she loves the idea of micro-credentials so she’s going to work toward her DASSM next.

A Passionate Leader and Innovator

Born in Brazil Cristiane has now been living in Toronto for the last four years with her husband and two daughters. She is adaptable, trustworthy, organized but has got a competitive edge. What great leader doesn’t? She strongly believes that everyone can be a project management professional, all it takes is teamwork and building trusting relationships. Having had a successful career so far, she believes the meaning of success is “people over process and interactions over tools.”

 

Favourite Quote: I’ve got two that are both by Peter Drucker. They are:

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

 

Work Passions: Connect people, integrate them, and be creative in solving problems.

 

Personal Passions: My daughters. I would also say driving too, because I love to drive a car.

 

Favourite PMI Toronto moment: The first event of PMIT agile community was really special.

 

Don’t miss an Agile Community event. Always check PMI Toronto’s event calendar. The next two events include, Choosing the Right Agile Process for Your Culture and Goals, on June 8th and Coaching Practices for High Performance on August 10th. Sign up today!