The first DPM:UK took place today (Wednesday 29th January) at the comedy store in Manchester. The event was really well organised of which you might expect of a PM (Project management) event. However as anybody who has ever organised any sort of social event is aware it is of course very difficult. However they did a fantastic job and the day including food and numerous talks which were bang on subject and flowed nicely through out the day.

The line up for the event DPM:UK in Manchester featured some big big names in the industry such as:

  • Brett Harned – Happy Cog
  • Sam Barnes – Global Personals
  • Paul Boag – Headscape
  • Rob Borley – Dootrix
  • Ian Fenn
  • Suze Haworth
  • + a panel with Paul Boag

Paul Boag has for a long time been a bit of a super star in the world of pushing things forward with clients and knowledge for me personally so it was a real pleasure to finally see him in person and he didn’t disappoint.

The event did lean a lot towards introducing agile processes and people’s individual experience with said processes. Which was a great insight into people’s how people handle varying sizes of project and what did and didn’t work for certain projects.

Brett Harned from Happy Cog was an absolute inspiration the whole audience felt at ease whilst he talked about project managers being cheerleaders for their team whilst stressing the point that sometimes you just have to be a jerk in the PM role. Wise words from the American who advocated bribing people with food and gift vouchers to keep up team spirit. Brett was kind enough to share his favourite tools which you can view right here cog.gd/5ns. Looking at the list Brett does use pretty much use the same tools as we do at Carbon so I guess we are both on the ball when it comes to choosing the right tools for the job in hand. However don’t hesitate to click the link if you are interested in project management as there are a good number of resources available.

I have taken so many notes during this event that I feel every single talk is worth another post. Therefore over the next few days I will be writing my thoughts on the talks and philosophies of the speakers.

Its not easy to stand up in front of 300 project managers and put your opinions forward so to all the people that did much kudos is due and thanks for the great insights.