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Project Management Institute, Ghana held its National Project Management Conference on
Thursday, 20 th to Friday, 21 st July, 2023 at the Royal Senchi Hotel and Resort, Akosombo located
in the Eastern Region of Ghana.

The two day event was awe inspiring as it was packed with great speakers, exhilarated delegates
and engaging volunteers at hand to attend to needs of both speakers and delegates ensuring a
resounding conference success.
Day 1 of the Conference saw the opening of the Conference with a rich cultural display. The first

point of call for anyone attending the conference was the registration desk where names were
checked against the registered list, before lanyards; which had the name and role of a person
(particularly in relation to the conference, e.g. Speaker, delegate, Board Member) clearly stated.
Next was the souvenir table where members had to pick up complimentary souvenirs from PMI
Ghana for attending the conference. There were also booths for sponsors to display their
products and pass out souvenirs as well. From the registration area, one moved into the
networking area before getting into the main conference hall.
The President of PMI Ghana, Mr. Frank Owusu- Asamoah in his welcome address began on a rather sad note, this was because the immediate Past President of PMI Ghana, Ms Jumoke Lafenwa lost her daughter, the late Miss Alberta Oduraa Quartey, who had once been a volunteer for the chapter. The burial was to take place on the same day of the conference in the United States of America, the President of PMI Ghana, allowed for a minute of silence observation for the departed soul of the erstwhile volunteer and conveyed the chapters’ condolence and support to Ms Jumoke Lafenwa. He further reiterated the theme for the conference as “Driving
Organizational Performance and Agility with Project Management” this he said would run
through the two day delivery by the various speakers. He assured members of a successful Conference and warmly welcomed all to the NPMC 23.

The Keynote Address was delivered by Dr Moses Adoko, Chief Knowledge Officer of NASA, U.S.A. In his remarks, Dr Adoko stated that with his over 24 years’ experience at NASA, he affirmed that contributions of Space Science was in everyday living and attested to his conviction that space science started in Africa, by giving names to cosmic symbols. The key take away from his remarks was that his role as Chief Knowledge Officer at NASA was to ensure Project/ Mission success and nothing less. His firm conviction in Africa could not be underscored enough as he acknowledged that though Africa had challenges, these could be turned around into solutions to change the narrative positively in the continents favour. His
delivery captured the audience attention since there was a wealth of knowledge to be shared; no
surprise there since he was the C.N.O of NASA and though this was his second time attending an NPMC, there was still so much to unpack in so little time. He promised to continue his presentation on Day 2 as other speakers had to deliver their presentations.

Hon. Francis Asenso- Boakye, Member of Parliament for Bantama Constituency and Minister
for Works and Housing was the Special Guest of Honour. In his address he remarked that though he was a development planner by profession, he had been practicing project management over the years. He admitted that the profession was a critical one and underlined the need to learn from best practices in U.S.A as well as other nations that had prioritized Project Management as a must for professionals delivering projects.
After this banquet of ideas and knowledge sharing, there was a 30 minutes break for a
conference group photograph, followed by Tea and networking.

Mr. Edwin Provencal, the Managing Director for Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation was the
first speaker for the plenary session. His presentation was on “Driving Organizational
Performance through Effective Strategy Execution”. He practically walked members through the situation at BOST from 2016 to the current situation. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind that the BOST story had been turned around and since he assumed office in 2019 the gains that the company made to offset its indebtedness and later on turn profitable remains commendable. He maintained that his team at BOST were the real heroes as they had been responsible for this tremendous performance. He explained that his team had been at post even before he became MD, he stressed on selling strategy to his team and getting their buy- in; since he explained when strategy becomes a culture it had a higher success rate. He claimed that his teams’ efforts coupled with incentive packages introduced by Management had seen BOST win both global
and local awards and making profits having the company become a case study of how it is done
for other Organizations to emulate.

From this electrifying presentation, the conference moved to its first break away session for Day
1.
Mr. Daniel Monney, Project Manager for Bank of Ghana Project Management Office was one of
the breakaway session speakers, he spoke on the topic “Can Bureaucracy, Agility and Innovation
Co- Exist in an Organization in the 21 st Century?”

 

Mr. Abraham Aguriba, Project Manager at Cal Bank also spoke on “Cost- Benefit considerations
of Green Projects (Green Buildings). The presentation was on climate change, its impact on our
environment and the need for green buildings as a way to mitigate against climate change hence
efficient use of our environment for future generations to benefit from. It cannot be gainsaid that
green projects didn’t use to be a problem 10 years ago but now it is a topical issue and comes
highly recommended. The three things that makes a building green are Energy, Water and
building materials used which are non- toxic, ethical and sustainable. Again pollution and waste reduction measures that enable reuse and recycling also adds to classifying a building as green. If in doubt use the acronym EDGE; Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiency.

There was a break for lunch as the day had been packed with some amazing speakers and ideas
sharing but there was still a bit more sessions to get through before the conference Day 1 could
be brought to a close.

The MTN Chief Capital Officer for MTN Capital Projects, Mr. William Tetteh was the second
plenary speaker of the day. He spoke on the topic, “Leveraging Project Leadership to drive Profits”. Using MTN as a case study, he admitted that the company was marketing led and not technology led. He added that Project Leadership in MTN had moved from Project Delivery Driven mindset to a Value Driven mindset. He acknowledged that though Artificial Intelligence was now a reality it shouldn’t scare anyone due to fear of job losses but rather A.I should be viewed as a tool that could enhance performance.

The Conference moved into its first panel discussion, moderated by Mr. Emmanuel
Amankwanor. Amongst the panelists included; Jack Adjetey, Manuela Asianoa (MTN) and Efua Ntiriwa Takyi- Mills (GIPC). The panelists shared experiences from their fields on “Project Management as a catalyst for Organizational Performance and Agility”. In summary the panelists shared experiences on what the future would look like if all businesses/ Institutions adopted agile.

The Third plenary session of the day, was by Mr. Cyril Tsribi Odonkor, Head of PMO, Ecobank
Group. He spoke on “Leveraging A.I to deliver greater value”. His presentation highlighted the need to be more facilitative instead of directive. He again reiterated the need to embrace and prepare to use A.I since it had come to stay. There was a tea and networking break after which the conference had its second breakaway session for the day. This second breakaway session had three speakers namely; Ing. Bernard Owusu Danqua whose presentation was on, “Measuring what matters- The PMO advantage”, Mr. Percy Asante Antwi- Agyei presented on “The AfCFTA and Project Management, Mr Eric Zunuoh Banye presented on “Planning Fallacy:

Optimism bias and Strategic Misrepresentation: A bane to project failures in Africa”. The Conference Day 1 closed with the PMI Ghana President, Mr. Frank Owusu- Asamoah thanking delegates, speakers and sponsors for their patience and fortitude since time management had not been the best and further commending members for keeping faith since the start till close of Day 1. He promised the Conference Day 2 would be equally enlightening and insightful.

Mr. Samuel Mahama, MD for Electricity Company of Ghana kicked off the plenary session for Day 2 of the conference. He spoke on the topic, “Leveraging the Power of Leadership in Influencing Project Management to drive Organizational Performance and Sustainability”. Using ECG as the case study, he explained to members how the narrative had changed from a debt ridden company to one that is now innovative and going after its debtors to recoup much needed funds for optimum performance in their mandate of delivering electricity to Ghanaians. He entrusted the successes chalked to the hardworking staff of ECG who he said owned his vision of robust hunting down non- paying customers and illegally connected one’s to start paying up. He emphasized that nobody was difficult but only how one was spoken to, he added that as a leader if people own the vision you perceive then you have succeeded.

Mr. Ransford Nana Addo Jnr, Head of Fraud Management at Fidelity Bank was the next plenary speaker. He delivered his presentation titled “Project Procurement Fraud Risk: The Warning Signs”. His presentation espoused that fraud mostly involves people from within the Organization and it’s done for personal gains. He itemized that fraud impacts the triple constraints thus scope, time and cost. The impact of fraud on projects according to him were; abandonment of projects, loss of lives and increase in overall project cost. He also gave a few red flags on how to spot a fraudster in an Organization as well as prevention detection guide of fraud.

Mr. Emmanuel Gamor, Digital Channels Senior Manager at MTN, the sixth plenary speaker for the conference delivered his presentation titled “Digital Transformation as a Tool for Organizational Agility and Performance”. His presentation was unique as he was the only speaker to get members up on their feet to dance to an afrobeat music. Not surprising since he’s a millennial! His presentation highlighted the need for ruthless prioritization, he admitted that people matter, mindset matter and given the opportunity great things could be achieved together. He emphasized that digitalization was giving more with less, thus efficiency. He recounted that we need to do is to either innovate or die and explained that digital tools that we are using was built by someone for their environment therefore we needed to build something for our environment. He reiterated the need to work as a team and stressed communication as a necessary key to ensure success.

In the profession of Project management, one cannot be certified especially with the envious Project Management Professional certification without hearing of Lee R. Lambert, PMI Fellow, PMP certification founding member. He was to deliver the Opening Keynote for the conference but due to flight delay he made it to Day 2. His remarks was on the topic “The future of Ghana- the Role of the Project Manager and the PMP certification”. He said he had trained 50,000 people in 23 countries but added that the idea of PMP certification started with only 5 people. He added that though the remaining 4 founding members had passed making him the lone survivor he was thrilled by how well the PMP certification was doing. He shared that from travelling round the various chapters he had only heard good things about the Ghana chapter so was thrilled to finally make it to the NPMC 23. He gave the history of the PMP as taking some 3 years to put together and by 1984 the first batch of 55 people took the exam. He said out of the 55 members who took the exam 39 passed. He explained that those times one had to be a PMI member before
taking the exam. He stated that as founding members he and his friends (other founding
members) had been banned from taking the PMP certification exam for 10 years. He said he was eligible to take the PMP certification exam in 1996 and since passing he had been holding the PMP certification only. After 10 years of existence there were 6000 people with PMP certification and since then the numbers have been soaring till currently having 1.5 million PMP certification holders. He commended Pierre Le Manh, Chief Executive Officer of Project Management Institute and his team for coming up with more certifications. He affirmed that he wanted to prove that the PMP certification was a career path and not a hobby as was perceived at the time it was invented and began. He stressed that the PMP is not only about getting certified but rather the beginning of a career journey. He assured members that “whatever you put your
mind to, could be done”. On the debate of agile vs. waterfall he stressed that knowing when to
use what is key. He urged that being PMP one could go either way, agile or waterfall or even blend both depending on the particular endeavor. He compared some similarities between agile and waterfall, WBS (work breakdown structure) comparable to sprint or short story in agile, lessons learnt comparable to retrospective in agile, project manager comparable to scrum master in agile. He agreed that agile picks up problems early on in the project and assured all the earlier certified PMP’s that they do not need to take the exam again but rather bring on board agile since it had taken over the world, this he explained was the reason why agile made up more than 80% of the exam. Regarding A.I he admitted it had been around awhile but we were now seeing benefits of it, he reiterated that it’s a tool and how we use it could determine what we derive from it.

George Asamani, MD for PMI Sub- Saharan Africa, followed up with a message. He alluded football in the ‘80’s to football now. The difference he compared to companies/ institutions using project management professionals against those not using project management. He acclaimed that countries with stronger economies had the most professionals certified. He maintained that there was a strong correlation between strong economies and high certification rate. He commended Frank Owusu- Asamoah and his team for making the Ghana Chapter great. He said that of the 310 chapters in the world, community was at the center. He wondered why Africa was not getting on board with certifications. He advocated for more certifications in Africa as this had a direct correlation between project success and stronger economies. He reiterated the need for volunteers as he alluded to the good work done by volunteers all over from various chapters through to PMI Board as they made up 2% of membership. He stressed there was more room for volunteers and urged members to volunteer. He thanked Lee R. Lambert for his contributions to PMI and said we all gathered due to him. He explained that Africa made up 17% of the world’s
population therefore the vision for PMI Africa was with three stakeholders namely; Government,
Corporate Institutions and Academics.

The conference had its final breakaway session with a capacity building workshop by Surv. Dr.
Mrs. Ivy Abu on “Sustainable Procurement” whilst Mr. Emmanuel Amankwanor spoke on
“Enterprise Agility: The Why and How to’s”.

Dr. Moses Adoko, Chief Knowledge Officer at NASA, as promised in Day 1 came back to deliver the special keynote. He affirmed that project management in Africa must be used as a driver for implementation. He attested to the talents in Africa and stated his confidence in Africa and its people. He commended the Ghana Chapter as a house of excellence and said he was proud to be a part of it. He stressed the need for celebration of excellence, hard work and brilliance. He alluded to surrounding oneself with experts and thinkers. He beseeched members not to leave the development of Africa for others but to rather roll up one’s sleeves and get to work wherever one finds him/ herself. He corroborated Team strength, knowing where and how to plug in, Embrace emerging tools, Produce, manage and lead as the litmus test to optimize performance. His parting words on leadership was that leadership was about service and not lordship. Ike Nwankwo, PMI Board Member, gave the closing keynote for the conference. He affirmed that PMI had transitioned from a U.S.A based organization to a global one. He stated what PMI delivers as; Connections, Giving back and learning. He said the saying “culture eats strategy for breakfast” was a reality and to stem against that PMI had made its cultural values easy to imbibe. He expatiated PMI cultural values as; make it easy, aim higher, be welcoming, embrace curiosity and together we can. He insisted that “never stop learning” should be a guiding principle for everyone, also he asserted that success could be achieved in any endeavour so far as its treated as a project. He ended his address with PMI’s fundamental principle; Empowering People to make ideas a reality.

Mr Frank Owusu- Asamoah, PMI Ghana President, in his conference closing remarks expressed his gratitude to the Speakers, delegates, sponsors, volunteers and all who made the two day conference a success. He promised that all that had been discussed will be put in a communique and presented to the powers that be. He apologized for the lack of proper time management and assured that going forward subsequent conferences would do better with time.