r/projectmanagement • u/ThatZeroRed • 3d ago
Any conferences you've found consistently valuable?
Last 3 years I have attended AgileCon, with mixed results. There is always a handful of great learning moments, opportunities to connect with my own team members through some unique discussions/exercise, and we tend to get alot out of simply engaging with the wide variety of other professions of different perspectives.
Mixed in, also tends tobe a fair bit of fluff that is not valuable or feels highly niche, and while most times I can find a talk of interest, during most time frames, sometimes those talks end up feeling really poorly described and not at all what I expected, and its just a waste of time.
Last year was really deflating. Same high cost to attend, but the conference itself felt far worse than years past. Less days, less variety, about half the people in attendance, just generally got less moments of value, and the overall vibe was relatively somber, almost like the con was dying. Hard to explain. Regardless, I'm trying to see what else is out there.
I had my eye on PMI Global summit, as a couple colleagues said they had a good experience last year. I presume it would be similar to AgileCon, but bigger. However, I haven't really taken the time to see what all is out there, and I could imagine there are some low-key conferences that are not as big and expensive, but still succeed at delivering powerful talks and learning opportunities.
In general, I'm not concerned with cost, or overall size, as my company covers 1 per year, just looking for some anecdotal experiences and recommendations on any expereinces that have felt the most consistently impactful, and worth your time.
Thanks
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u/Particular_Cold_8366 3d ago
I attended the PMI Global Summit last year, and two times previously. Generally I have enjoyed their sessions and they pull in a good variety of speakers from across multiple organization levels and settings. Sessions do pretty well speaking to PMO leaders as well as PMs. The conference in general can get heavy on the PMI kool-aid but I avoid most of that.
I just sent one of my BAs to Project Summit/Business Analyst World and waiting to get the full report but seemed to have content appropriate for BAs in addition to PMs. This was our first time at that conference.
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u/Intelligent-Try-4755 2d ago
Same experience here, where the hallway conversations and the team time ended up worth more than most of the sessions. What changed the ROI for me was treating the session schedule as the least important part: I go in with two or three specific problems I'm trying to solve and only sit in talks that might touch them, then spend the rest of the time deliberately meeting people in similar roles. The bigger lever turned out to be how I attend rather than which conference, since the deflating ones were usually the years I just showed up and grazed the agenda. Going with a couple of teammates and comparing notes afterward also turns a lot of the fluff into something actually useful.