It's great to be at APQC in Houston right now! Those of you who aren't here… well… you're missing out. First of all, Houston weather is perfect this time of year. When the rest of North America starts shivering, we venture outside to enjoy temperate perfection. And if it happens to rain, no problem. This week, we're inside the Houstonian Hotel, learning about process management from thought leaders and experts.
APQC's 2011 Process Conference is in full swing. After three days of training in process management, benchmarking, and knowledge management, we've started keynote presentations, thought leader panels, and presentations by practitioners who know how process management really works on the ground floor. I'm already overloaded with information but still hungry for more! My brain will have time to sort through it all later.
Of course, as soon as I sort the information, I'll be writing about it. And before I put pen to paper, I'll be uploading the conference's breakout presentations and other information into APQC's Knowledge Base for all of our members to share. This Thursday and Friday will be an exciting couple of days from which we all get to learn.
One of the best parts (if not the best part) about being at the conference is the people. The information, insights, and revelations this conference offers are practical and useful, but talking to people who actually put process management into action provides something even more special. Their stories contextualize all the ideas at the conference and bring our lofty notions and concepts down to earth, where we can actually use them. Plus, a lot of the people here are just plain fun.
This reminds me to encourage everyone out there who feels curious about process management—those who wonder if it will work in their organizations or those who do not know how to make existing process management work better—to reach out to other people who are doing process management. Talk to organizations like APQC, join LinkedIn groups devoted to process management, attend a conference, join a benchmarking community, or phone a couple of colleagues.
The personal stories of how process management works in real life are the pieces of the puzzle no book, article, or blog post can offer. Start a conversation that will help you and your organization do business better.
For now, I'm headed back into the Houstonian to learn some more!