Happy holidays. Thanksgiving is over, and the holiday season is moving into full gear. In our new world of coronavirus, masks, and working remotely, I find myself thinking back to how this year started and how it is looking like it is going to end. I find myself realizing how much I have to be thankful for with the PMI Tallahassee chapter and its members.
This year has definitely been laced with challenges. We started hearing about the coronavirus around Nov – Dec of last year on the west coast of the United States. March 11th, coronavirus had been declared a pandemic, and by March 18th, my company went remote in the expectation of a state lockdown. All of our company employees were able to transition to remote work within 48 hours. Thankfully, we are a software development shop, and we were able to seamlessly transition to remote work. This did not decrease any support needed by our customers. Many of us already had some form of a home office already set up in our homes, and the company supplemented that with monitors and other computer related equipment as needed. Some of our customers, on the other hand, were not ready and did not have a business continuity plan (or disaster recovery plan) in place that would allow them to identify their critical business functions, processes, and resources that would be needed to support their operations remotely. I was tasked with creating a business continuity plan with assistance from one customer’s security team. This was something I had never done, but I was ready for the challenge and had some knowledge of disaster recovery plans - or so I thought. I had been part of past state agency meetings where we went through disaster recovery simulations, but the documentation was already in place and only needed minor updates from time to time; that was the extent of my experience. Knowing my limitations as well as the limited time I had to create the plan, I reached out to several chapter members to get some insights. To my disappointment, their experience was more or less the same as mine. For most of us, we come into established companies or agencies that already have some form of business continuity or disaster recovery plans in place. So due to the pandemic, I am thankful that I was able to create a business continuity plan, with suggestions from chapter members, that would provide a roadmap for my customer to use during this and any future disasters that would require them to work remotely. This is not a skill that is seen in a job description but can be extremely useful when needed.
On top of working in overdrive for my customer, I was spearheading my first PMP boot camp for the chapter that included 14 participants and three new chapter instructors (including myself). I am SUPER grateful for the chapter instructors (Nathen McPherson, Curtis Watkins, and Dr. Joe Amanfu) who willingly came back, as well as Karen Scott for providing tremendous support and assistance to provide a needed PMP boot camp this year. Other than attending the last PMP boot camp in 2018, as a participant, I had never organized a project on a scale like this before. This boot camp was an in-person evening class that would span 8 weeks, being conducted in a conference room that was provided by a local business. When the CDC issued guidance to wear masks, stay six feet apart, and not to gather in groups of ten or more and then the state went into lockdown, I thought the boot camp would come to a premature end. Many of the instructors and boot camp participants were not fans of moving our classes to online. Since the lockdown was only supposed to last 30 days, we collectively decided to postpone the boot camp for a few weeks, and we would meet again in person when the lockdown was over. As all of us know, that wasn’t meant to be, but the show must go on. After a two-month hiatus, we polled all boot camp members, and everyone was ready to continue the boot camp. We offered a refresher course on the knowledge areas that we had previously covered in-person. We conducted the rest of the knowledge areas using GoToMeeting and, with all participants' agreement, the remaining sessions were recorded and stored on a drive. Any documents that we used or referred to as well as the recordings were stored on a drive for anyone with access to retrieve or download as needed. Although all of this was challenging, it allowed me to grow as a project manager in ways that I would not have previously thought.
As a relatively new certified PMP, the members in the PMI Tallahassee Chapter have always been willing to help when I needed guidance; this includes the members who have retired. You are all the reason that I am thankful for being a part of this chapter and will continue to participate in the chapter in any capacity that I can. With appreciation to you all, I wish you happy holidays.
Tammy Davis
VP of Professional Development
pmitlh.org