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In 2019, we learned, along with much of the major projects sector, how to switch from in-person to virtual, almost overnight. We experimented with webinars, round tables and the Major Projects Association Fringe was born, off the back of our annual conference that year. We’ve come a long way since then.
The Fringe, for those of you who have yet to experience it, covers the events and activities which are not part of our core programme of seminars, conferences and lectures. Fringe events are almost always virtual, they tend to rely much more heavily on audience/delegate contribution than our seminar programme. They provide a good platform for shared events with other organizations, for example, ICE, IEMA or APM and they thrive on variety; taking full advantage of the opportunities provided by the ever increasing platform of Apps, websites and other media designed to engage people who are interacting together at a distance.
Over the last two years, the Fringe has taught us that we can use activities and events of all kinds to expand the Association’s reach, either to those members who may find travelling to events impractical or sometimes to individuals beyond the membership. It allows us to be more spontaneous and to respond to external developments, for example by setting up roundtables to showcase a report or a new industry initiative and it also allows us to amplify our core programme; extending involvement to a wider audience or sustaining and building on the messages and lessons generated from a seminar.
For the 2022 programme, the Fringe is changing and developing to include new media whilst very consciously integrating with our main programme to prevent us from ‘going off in different directions’.
We’ll continue to champion new ways of virtual working through our collaboration with the wonderful world of QUBE. The Association’s QUBE@Work programme of four events will kick off with our first session on 17th February 2022.
This Autumn we relaunched the Association’s podcast and we’ll be developing this as we go into the new year, starting with an episode that invites our current and past Rising Stars to offer their own take on the challenge raised by our seminar on 19th January: Reimagining Skills for the Next Generation of Major Projects.
Our programme of regular roundtables restarts in February with the fourth in the series run in association with IPA that looks at how their Project Routemap, now in its second edition, has been applied in practice. The first event explores user experience of the Risk Management module and reflects on the maturity (or otherwise) of some of our risk management practice.
The new initiative for 2022 is our experiment with Opiner. Opiner is an App that you download onto your mobile phone and through which, we can launch some of the big questions facing major projects in 2022 and solicit spontaneous video responses from across our membership, which build into a Wonderwall which everyone can access. It’s a brilliant medium for sharing tacit knowledge in a way that includes personality, values and emotion and it’s a great medium for anyone who struggles with the written word, whether through dyslexia or any other disability. We’ll be using Opiner to launch questions off the back of the main events programme as well as as a vehicle for our Rising Stars, our Sustainability Ambassadors and the Sponsorship network to engage with each other and the wider membership.
We have come a long way since 2019 and whilst 2022 may present all of us with a host of new challenges that threaten to curtail or constrain our ability to network in person, these and other Association Fringe activities will ensure that you can always connect with us and with your peers to share the experiences you are having and the insight you are generating.