The Project Management Institute (PMI) is the international non-profit organization under whose umbrella the Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification was created, of which it is the guarantor. PMP is based on the set of best practices PMBoK (Project Management Base of Knowledge) and is, de facto, the most international standard in terms of project management. Moreover, it is a certification turned into a standard by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Organizationally, PMI is structured into Chapters (generally covering the territory of a country or a large part of a country) and, in some cases, these chapters are composed of several branches called Branches, as extensions of the Chapters over other territories. In Spain, there are three chapters: Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, with Madrid being by far the most relevant (in terms of entity, sponsorships, number of members, etc.).
In mid-2014, several engineers and architects from Extremadura began working voluntarily and spontaneously to design and found a Branch of the Madrid Chapter of PMI with the territorial scope of Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha (⅓ of the national territory). Branches, recognized by PMI, allow the extension of Chapter services beyond their usual geographical areas. With this, we aimed to bring the services of the Madrid Chapter of PMI closer to Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha in a much more direct and on-the-ground way.
In September 2015, one year later, the Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha Branch of the Madrid Chapter of PMI was created, whose official and massive presentation took place at the Polytechnic School of Cáceres. In this presentation, the enthusiasm of all attendees for project management was evident, as well as the need to form an interest group in project management not only focused on PMI but on any other methodology/certification or even none, so that this group would be method-agnostic.
Creation of GIDIP
Almost a year later, in September 2016, after great efforts to find formulas that would allow the creation of this group and, more importantly, its management, coordination, and maintenance, the Interest Group in Integrated Project Management (GIDIP) was created, initially and currently sponsored by the Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha Branch of the Madrid Chapter of PMI but open to coordination and sponsorship by anyone interested in its continued operation.
The characteristics of this group are:
- It is 100% based on volunteer work
- It is open to anyone
- It is free for participants
- It is held regularly
- All participants help it evolve in the direction they want
- Meetings are held in different locations in Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha
- It seeks participation from people of different fields or professions
- It aims to share real experiences in project management for professional growth
- It seeks to establish collaboration ties among people working on projects, in a relaxed and informal atmosphere
After the first meeting of the group in Badajoz, with abundant attendance, participants established the priority topics for future meetings, their frequency, and format.
2nd GIDIP Meeting: Scope Management
Following what was proposed by GIDIP participants in the September 2016 meeting in Badajoz, the second GIDIP meeting was held in Mérida on October 27, 2016. As voted in the first meeting, the selected topic was project scope management, in its broadest sense.
About thirty friends from Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha attended; mainly from the province of Badajoz since the meeting was held in Mérida. GIDIP meetings are usually quite informal because the idea is to meet, connect, and talk, as if in a bar with friends discussing an interesting topic (which is usually exactly the case). However, this time, due to last-minute issues with the original location, it had to be held in the meeting room of Hotel Velada. Very nice, very professional… and very formal; too much for the group. So during the first few minutes of the gastro-meeting, we dedicated ourselves to dismantling a bit of the carefully prepared setup by the hotel.
Once comfortable, we enjoyed the talks of two exceptional speakers: José Manuel Honrado and Miguel Ángel de la Calle, who shared their experiences related to scope management from two different perspectives. José Manuel spoke about private internationalization projects in Latin America, with real problems from a specific project, and Miguel Ángel discussed scope management in European projects, mainly from H2020, also from a very practical point of view and with real cases.
The meeting continued with an open debate session, with questions to the speakers and among the participants regarding scope management, which was very interesting as it revealed different issues depending on the sector and type of project.
Finally, the evening extended almost an hour more, standing, where we enjoyed a small buffet with something to eat and some wine and beer—after all, we call it a gastro-meeting. During this time, attendees mingled, talked, and shared ideas and experiences, wearing the circular stickers we used to “announce” our interests to the rest of the group. In short, a very positive experience that we will repeat soon.
Join the next gastro-meeting
Honestly, I can’t think of any reason not to regularly attend GIDIP. It’s free, no commitment, no hassle. We talk about projects, share ideas, learn, make friends and contacts… So sign up for the next one:
You can stay up to date with GIDIP through:
- The Meetup group of the Madrid Chapter of PMI. This is the preferred channel—join and participate.
- The LinkedIn group of GIDIP
- The GIDIP Twitter account
- The GIDIP email
Come on, join us!