The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A project manager yesterday said she created a “community” dedicated to professionals in her sector in response to a “great need” for better networking among Bahamians.

Andrea Pratt Smith, owner/operator of Creative Minds Project Development and Consultation, told Tribune Business she wanted to fill the gap between “professional networking” and “professional development opportunities”. This resulted in her founding the Bahamas Project Management Community (BPMC), which was launched on June 1, 2021.

“I realised that a community of project managers was lacking in The Bahamas,” said Ms Pratt-Smith. “So when I got my project management professional certification last year, and I also got my Scrum Master certification, I felt that the Bahamas could benefit from having a collective central repository of project managers where we can all work together on various projects.”

Continuing education in the project management field is critical to professional success, Ms Pratt-Smith said, and this is what BPMC is offering with the “Certified Scrum Master” certification training under the “agile methodology” mode of project management.

She explained: “The agile methodology is just a new way of working. It incorporates different principles and values from your regular waterfall project management.

“A lot of people in The Bahamas are very familiar with the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the PMP certification, but that’s all they know about.

“But agile methodologies have actually been around for 20-plus years, and you have people all around the world being trained as scrum masters and product owners.” Training, Ms Pratt-Smith said, “originated in the software development field, but it’s being used now in different fields of project management”.

“As a community we are not incorporated and we are allowed to just organise among ourselves and plan our way forward, but we’re in the process of discussing with the team on actually forming a PMI Bahamas chapter,” she added.

“Our first project that was launched on June 22 was a kids club, where project managers are working along with persons who are interested in being project managers and working on a kids club project. So we started on June 22 and it ends on July 24.

“It’s a five-week programme for children aged eight to 12 who are interested in entrepreneurship.

“So we’re teaching them entrepreneurship skills.

“They also learn marketing basics among other professional skills.”