Making the World a Better Place through Project Management
Interview with Deanna Landers
PMI Fellow, Founder and Chair
Project Managers Without Borders
Past Chair, PMI Board of Directors
Los Angeles, California, USA
Interviewed by Yasmina Khelifi
International Correspondent, PM World Journal
Paris, France
Introduction to the interviewee
Deanna Landers is a PMI Fellow, and the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Project Managers Without Borders (PMWB), which has the mission to make a positive difference in the world through collaborative and sustainable projects.
She previously served on the board of directors of IEEE Smart Village, Metro Denver PM Education Foundation, PMI Mile Hi Chapter, and for 6 years on the international board of directors of PMI, leading the board as Chair in 2013.
She was previously the Director of Program Management at Charter Communications, responsible for improving the maturity and effectiveness of project, program and portfolio management for the organization. Prior to working for Charter, she was with IBM for 11 years, contributing to their award-winning Project Management Center of Excellence, as well as delivering a $350M portfolio of projects.
Interview
Q1: First, thank you for accepting an interview request from PMWJ. You have been Chair of the PMI Board of Directors. You were also the leader of Project Managers Without Borders, which was acquired by PMI earlier in 2024. What were the aims and vision of this not-for-profit?
Deanna Landers (Landers): Project Managers Without Borders (PMWB) connects project professionals with not-for-profit organizations to help them achieve their missions more efficiently and effectively, by improving their project management maturity.
When those of us in the project management profession share our skills, knowledge, tools, and techniques with these organizations that are supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we amplify the positive impact they have in the world. Many project managers work for organizations that focus on financial gains but are finding it quite rewarding to also contribute to making social and environmental impacts. We help make those connections to provide a means to contribute project management experience to improve the lives of others.
It was a clear win-win to combine the efforts of PMWB with the huge membership and customer base of PMI, with their chapter model enabling localized delivery of benefits, providing a way to share our positive impact on a greater scale.
Q2: How will the integration into PMI impact these aims and visions?
Landers: Our mission and aims are not changing now that we’re part of PMI. Since we fit very well into PMI’s newly articulated purpose, to “maximize project success to elevate our world”, we are focusing on integrating our core business into the infrastructure and organizational structure that PMI has dedicated to it. The challenge is scaling those to support the expected increase of PMWB Communities in many chapters. As we expand the number of PMWB communities in the world, the positive impact that we have will grow. This will enable greater reach into areas previously not supported.
Q3: How can project management shape a better world?
More…
To read entire interview, click here
How to cite this interview: Khelifi, Y. (2024). Making the World a Better Place through Project Management, Interview with Deanna Landers, PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue VI, June. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/pmwj142-Jun2024-Khelifi-Interview-with-Deanna-Landers.pdf
About the Interviewer
Yasmina Khelifi
Paris, France
Yasmina Khelifi, PMP, PMI- ACP, PMI-PBA is an experienced project manager in the telecom industry. Along with her 20-year career at Orange S.A. (the large French multinational telecommunications corporation), she sharpened her global leadership skills, delivering projects with major manufacturers and SIM makers. Yasmina strives for building collaborative bridges between people to make international projects successful. She relies on three pillars: project management skills, the languages she speaks, and a passion for sharing knowledge.
She is a PMP certification holder since 2013, a PMI- ACP and PMI-PBA certification holder since 2020. She is an active volunteer member at PMI France and PMI UAE, and a member of PMI Germany Chapter. French-native, she can speak German, English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and she is learning Arabic. Yasmina loves sharing her knowledge and experiences at work, in her volunteers’ activities at PMI, and in projectmanagement.com as a regular blogger. She is also the host and co-founder of the podcast Global Leaders Talk with Yasmina Khelifi to help people in becoming better international leaders.
Yasmina can be contacted at https://yasminakhelifi.com/ or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasminakhelifi-pmp-telecom/
Visit her correspondent profile at https://pmworldlibrary.net/yasmina-khelifi/
To view other works by Yasmina, visit her author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/yasmina-khelifi/
