PMI–CPM Inaugural Conference Tokyo, Japan Trip Report

I have returned from the inaugural PMI College of Performance Management (CPM) conference held in Tokyo Japan over the 27th to 29th October 03. This is a doubly historic event because it was also the first time a PMI-CPM conference has ever been held outside of the United States.

I was privileged to attend to provide a commercial and information technology sector perspectives on the relevance of Earned Value Management (EVM) to the conference as well as having the opportunity to represent Australia and PMI in Australia at this event.

Nearly 300 delegates representing various sectors of Japanese government and industry gathered at the new state of the art Roppongi Academy Hills venue in Tokyo. Delegates gathered on the 49th floor of the Mori Tower Building to hear speakers and instructors from Japan, Australia, United Kingdom and the United States. At the post conference debrief meeting, all agreed that Japan is rapidly emerging as a world leader in Integrated Performance Management and EVM.

Planning discussions have already commenced for a second PMI-CPM Japan Conference. The impetus for these discussions included the responses to a number of planned and impromptu follow up meetings in Tokyo and the delegate’s feedback (in the post conference questionnaire) that over 70% indicated that they would attend a follow-on PMI-CPM Japan conference.

The Japanese are actively embracing both Project Management and EVM at a speed which is breathtaking.  They believe both to be critical to successfully emerging from the economic difficulties Japan has experienced over the past decade.

Evidence of this includes:

• The update presented to the Conference in a keynote presentation by Mr Megumi Seo (Seo-san), Chairman of PMI Tokyo that in the past 4 months PMI in Japan has sold over 10,000 copies of the Japanese edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge while PMI Tokyo Chapter has grown from approximately 600 to 1,200 members in less than 12 months
• The Society for Project Management in Japan has published a handbook called EVM: Earned Value Management, written in Japanese, copies of which were presented to Mr Wayne Abba and me at a post conference dinner by Mr Akiro Tominaga (Tominaga-san).

As an example of the executive level sponsorship project management is receiving within Japan, Tominaga-san is both Vice President of the Society of Project Management, Vice President for Competency Management for IBM Global Services, Asia Pacific and the IBM Japan Senior Managing Director.  Tominaga-san also provided a keynote address on the subject of adapting EVM to Japanese requirements, a process which is surprisingly well advanced, assisted by his extremely detailed and comprehensive knowledge of EVM.

I was also surprised to learn that Tominaga-san has personal experience of implementing and using of EVM in 1971 to manage a large and complex commercial systems engineering project in the Japanese newspaper industry.

Another observation, which challenges common Western perceptions about Japan, is that potential advances to EVM theory currently being researched, particularly with respect to time based measures of schedule performance, variance and prediction are included in the Japanese handbook as accepted practice. This observation is possible due to comments made in Tominaga-san’s keynote address and the use of Western EVM acronyms and terminology (where direct translation to Japanese is not feasible) in the handbook.

Historically significant and very exciting events are in progress in the world wide Integrated Performance Management and EVM communities as a result of an ongoing process of open and honest global collaboration. With their historical precedent of the adoption and adaptation of Total Quality Management (TQM) and the work of Deming after World War II, I believe Japanese developments in EVM deserve close scrutiny. I will be following Japan’s progress with particular interest.

In other news much closer to home, the 8th Australian International Performance Management Symposium being held at the Rydges Lakeside Hotel in Canberra from 18th to 20th February 2004 will officially become the second PMI – CPM Conference held outside of the United States. I believe this Conference provides a timely opportunity for Australia to assess these developments as well as our position and ongoing contributions as a respected member of the global Integrated Performance Management and EVM community.

Kym Henderson
Education Director
PMI Sydney Australia Chapter
2nd November 2003