Dear Member,

Summer 2012 is finally here and school is out. Congratulations everyone! Summer offers all of us two choices, Vacation or Staycation. I opted for vacation for 3 weeks this time around. For this trip, I had to book several flights. Every place I visited offered me zillion choices to shape up my vacation. The vacation was fun but honestly, at times I got confused with all the options offered. I wish I had an assistant who would make all those choices for me and I could be stress free. We might think having lots of choices is good, but let me tell you - not always. Follow me on this thread to the next section.

We all want customized experiences and products but when faced with 700 options, consumers freeze up. With fascinating new research in recent years, Sheena Iyengar demonstrates how businesses (and others) can improve the experience of choosing. Sheena studies how people choose and what makes us think we're good at it. Here is a partial transcript for you to see how it goes. Do watch the video by clicking on Sheena’s picture:

See the video for more information.” Just click Sheena’s picture above to watch the video.
Today I want to talk about one of the biggest modern day choosing problems that we have, which is the choice overload problem. I want to talk about the problem and some potential solutions. Now as I talk about this problem, I'm going to have some questions for you and I'm going to want to know your answers. So when I ask you a question, since I'm blind, only raise your hand if you want to burn off some calories. (Laughter) Otherwise, when I ask you a question, and if your answer is yes, I'd like you to clap your hands. So for my first question for you today: Are you guys ready to hear about the choice overload problem?

PMI recently announced that the results for 2012 Chapter Satisfaction Survey that was conducted a couple months are now available online. All 260,000 chapter members were invited to participate in the survey and approximately 48,000 provided their valuable feedback. PMI would like to thank you for your participation and support which helped us achieve a very good overall response rate and demonstrates your continued commitment to PMI.

I encourage you to review our chapter’s results, which you can do quickly and easily by simply clicking on the link below. You can also copy and paste the link into your browser, but remember to copy the entire link or it will not work properly. Please note that there is no login or password so anyone who has the link has access to your chapter’s results. Click here

If you would like to download and save the report in .PDF format, please click on the “Convert to PDF” button in the upper right hand side of the report.

PMI appreciates your support as we continually strive to improve the value that we deliver to our members. Thanks to all chapter members for their participation in the survey.

We are pleased to announce its 2012 Annual Symposium on October 8 & 9 in Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Presentations: We are now inviting submissions from speakers who wish to participate in this year’s event. The program will include approximately twenty presentations in two tracks. Presentations will be scheduled for 55-minute time slots (containing time at the end for questions). Presentations will be selected using the following criteria:

Content: Proposed topics are to be aligned with the symposium theme of “Global Challenges: Succeeding with Distributed Project Teams” and should be compelling to attendees. Topics should be practical and applicable to individuals and organizations. Interpretation of this theme is welcome, and presenters from any project environment are encouraged.

Speaker Credentials: Speaker selection will also be based on proven presentation skills and good project management credentials, reputation and credibility.

Your Submission: If you wish to propose a presentation for consideration, please provide the following information:

1 - Presenter details Your name, organization, job title, contact details (email, telephone, mailing address), and a short (~100-word) biography.
2 - Presentation details A short abstract describing your main message, and an outline of your proposed presentation.
3 - Learning outcomes Three to five bullet points detailing the main learning points from your presentation.

Please provide your submission information in Word format, and submit it as an attachment by email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The closing date for submissions is July 20, 2012.

Selections will be made by August 3, 2012. All submitters will be contacted.

Speaker Benefits: Accepted presenters will receive one complimentary symposium registration, including access to all conference presentations and keynotes, refreshments and meals provided during the conference, and entry into all other scheduled conference activities. (Note: Presenters will be responsible for their own travel and accommodation arrangements, if any.)

Individuals (not organizations) can be provided exhibit space to display their educational material (books, tapes, etc.), upon request.

If you have any queries or need any further details, please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Our chapter continues to grow with 143 new and 258 renewing members joining us this month!

Congratulations to our 33 new PMPs this month, bringing the total to 1615 PMPs in the chapter (64% of the membership)! This figure does not include members with other certificates such as CAPM, ACP, SP and RMP. Total of 26 CAPM, 9 PgMP, 2 RMP, 14 ACP, and 2 SP certified professional make that mix of other certifications PMI offers. There are 29 members with remarkable dual certification. A reminder for new members: Remember to login to the website first to receive our reduced member price to various chapter sponsored events. To receive your login, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or refer to your Welcome to the Chapter letter. To receive email reminders, you will need to login and opt-in for the events you would like to get reminders for.

This summer there are many new opportunities to meet and greet, gain knowledge and enhance your leadership qualities and seek job opportunities. Chapter volunteers are dedicated to providing you with every bit of Knowledge, Connection, and Excellence. How about trying out some of these events and practice some networking skills at either a Breakfast / Happy Hour gatherings or an evening event like Tools & Techniques, Career Management Seminar or a signature Dinner event every month? There are multiple choices available for you. Opportunities abound at events from San Bruno to San Jose to Dublin, so check out the Calendar and make the most of these events. Of course, each of these events gets you some PDUs. Successful events don’t just happen. They need planning, organization, professional knowledge, ownership and dedication. They need vision, from start to finish. They demand attention to details, from conception to spectacular conclusion. With a conviction to provide you with Knowledge, Connection and Excellence, our Programs Volunteers bring you a bouquet of events each month. Attending multiple events would be ideal but make a decision to attend at least one event this month.

With the job scene apparently getting better, we hope to ramp up quite a bit on job broadcasts this year. Although, we saw a dip in Job Broadcasts last two months. 36 Job broadcasts in May and June combined make a total of 114 job broadcasts this year. That’s an average of 19 job opportunities every month. Help out your fellow members by sending your open positions to James Peery, our Job Broadcast Director. If you or your organization is looking for other project or program management professionals, increase your chances of finding great candidates by using our free Job Broadcast service! Send the job description to James and he will send it out pronto. Remember it’s a free service. Click on this link to access the page: free Job Broadcast service! Should you have questions on this service, please do not hesitate to contact the Job Broadcast Director.

On May 12, PMISV chapter led a gala multi-chapter event “NorCal 2012” that enticed 284 attendees from all over NorCAL. This event was hosted in partnership with all the Northern California chapters (San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Wine Country and Monterey Bay Chapters). Mohan Govardhanan, currently VP of Programs first conceptualized this event in March 2011 and became the sponsor from the board. Aji Rajappan, former PMI SV President (2009) led this event end to end from planning, execution till closure. Shailesh Sahasrabuddhe was instrumental in planning and execution with all details. All participating chapters were represented in planning, vetting the process and execution. The planning with all the chapters together took around 4 months starting this year. There were 10 gracious sponsors for the event which allowed us to offer the event at a reasonable price point for the attendees.

The morning was full of networking. The first session by Robert Harrison started with valuable knowledge points and huge entertainment. The topic - The power of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) was very exciting. Robert provided insight into behavior patterns and offered tips on how to utilize this knowledge to help achieve goals.

The second session was mind blowing. The seasoned executives from Cisco, Symantec, Sequoia Retail systems and C. C. Myers shed a light on many aspects of stakeholder satisfaction. They covered a large spectrum of stakeholder expectations from small and medium business to large enterprises and shared many solutions to satisfy them. The experience sharing was exciting and informative. The Panel Moderator, Cinda Voegtli, Founder and CEO of ProjectConnections.com demonstrated an incredible energy and passion around the subject. Her facilitation of discussion with our panel was unparalleled.

Our Chapter has kicked off effort towards providing state-of-the-art experience to the members. Tools and Techniques team will hold the first webinar on Thursday, July 5, 2012. Our thanks to Volunteers for the many hours spent to bring Webinars to our offerings. Please note that not all Tools and Techniques sessions in the future will be webinars. The event in July is the only one scheduled as a webinar so far. Special thanks to Bob Montreuil our Director of Tools and Techniques and the entire T&T crew. Jerry Wang will be the remote speaker for this webinar – Team Dynamics and Conflict Management. Click here to register for this exciting webinar and enjoy this event from comfort of your home.

Volunteers are the breath and sole of one of the most active chapters (of course, PMI Silicon Valley) in the world. Chapter kicked off a new initiative to provide volunteers some special benefits. One of the benefits would be once in a while FREE Workshop. These are special workshops only available for volunteers. Only the Active Volunteers are eligible to enroll for these workshops. Chapter appreciates all efforts by Wayne Goulding, President Elect 2012, and his crew to lead this initiative.

The first of such kind was offered to active volunteers on Jun 23, 2012. “Be a better Leader” - Robin Canale, a senior program management consultant for new millennium consulting, instructed this workshop. Thank you, Robin for your time over a weekend to teach this class. The workshop was well received and volunteers were intrigued by Robin’s style and knowledge offered at the workshop. Chapter plans to offer such workshops for volunteers time to time to ensure volunteer’s personal progress with the chapter.

This year the chapter restarted an Educational Outreach effort. We visited Mission College, SJSU and now Hult International Business School at San Francisco. PMI Silicon Valley chapter representatives, Mohan Govardhanan, VP of Programs, and myself visited this school on May 16th, 2012. Students were provided knowledge about PMI.org, PMI Silicon Valley chapter, PMI offered certifications and job prospects with Project Management. The students were keen to know more about Project Management as a profession and overall prospects. Focusing on the chapter, information on various categories of the programs that the Chapter offers was provided. The students were very well engaged and asked a lot of questions. While speaking about the certifications, all the information about prequalification, the three-tier structure of CAPM, PMP and PgMP was provided. Also, described how PMP and CAPM certifications compare with each other on duration, number of questions and cost aspects. The session was highly interactive and enjoyable.

Our Community Outreach Group volunteers gathered at the Sunnyvale Full Circle Farm Education Garden on June 9, 2012 for a morning of harvesting, pruning, and planting activities. Meichu Cheng, a dedicated volunteer of our chapter chaired this Community Outreach event. Some of the activities participated in were harvesting vegetables (garlic, broccoli, cabbage, turnips, carrots, and New Zealand Spinach), planting pumpkin and pole bean seeds, and chopping materials for composting.

Volunteers had the opportunity to contribute to FCF while picking up tips about seasonal planting, garden maintenance, and harvesting, and learning about some new garden crops. The group enjoyed a picnic lunch after 3 hours of work at the garden on a sunny Saturday morning, and took home samples of fresh garden produce. More information on Full circle farm available here.

Thank you for your interest in reading through this article through the end. I have tried to incorporate all that happened in May/June in this article! This takes me enormous amount of time to collect and present the data in the Newsletter each month. As always, we strive hard to cover all the topics that interest you and the ones that keep you abreast of the latest information on PMI and PM community at large. I would appreciate if each one of you keeps providing us feedback for the events you attend. Should you need a better coverage on topics that you are interested in but are missing, I will be happy to know about them so we constantly improve. Do reach me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to share your ideas. All your feedback is welcome! The chapter board and all the volunteers work enormous hours every week ONLY to see the chapter members and PM community grow and excel. That includes YOU!