Chapter News

Sometimes, to better understand where you are and where you should be going, it’s important to understand where you have come from. As the PMI Netherlands Chapter founding fathers, René Vielvoije,  Jan Vermeijs and Anton Zandhuis were asked to share some insights into the Chapter’s history; specifically in this episode ‘How it all started’. This is the story in the Founding Fathers own engaging words.

 

We have to go back to early 2000 when the discussion about initiating the PMI Netherlands Chapter was becoming more concrete.

 

At that moment in time, in the Europe region, PMI was not really known, nor the existence of its project management standard, the PMBOK Guide (1st edition). PRINCE2, then still owned by HM Cabinet Office in UK, was the leading PM method in the Netherlands. It had a relatively low entry level, PRINCE2 Foundation, and in addition, it was available in the Dutch language; a prerequisite to gaining entry to any governmental department in the Netherlands. Next to that, there was the “Project Management Instituut”, linked to IPMA. This national PM association was first called "Internet" but given the increasing questions they received about something called ‘the internet’ they decided to change their name to ‘Project Management Instituut’ (and later on we will learn that this decision had a consequence …).

 

Nevertheless, there was also a relatively young PMI BeNeLux Chapter, founded in 1998, and at that moment headed by Louis Mercken,who later became the first non-American Chair of the Global PMI Board of Directors. This PMI BeNeLux Chapter promoted PMI’s global PM standard, the PMBOK Guide, and organized meetings for its members. These meetings were mostly located in Belgium but near the Dutch border; a location better enabling its Dutch members to participate.

 

The yearly highlight of the PMI BeNeLux Chapter was the PMI BeNeLux Day: a Saturday in October, filled with project management learning and development opportunities. This event was also an opportunity for members to meet with representatives of the Global PMI organisation. Later on the PMI BeNeLux Day was extended with a Partner Program, for compensating the spouses of PMs, for yet another day of their PM partners unavailability.

                                  Louis Mercken, Chair PMI BeNeLux Chapter and Jessy Magerl, PMI Board of Directors

Notwithstanding all this positivity, travelling distance was recognized as a limiting factor for connecting many potential Dutch Project Managers to the Chapter. This along with the steady growth of the PMI BeNeLux Chapter membership, and specifically its Dutch membership (then already over 60 Dutch members), Louis started searching for Dutch candidates for the PMI BeNeLux Board of Directors. A key aim of this was to be able to found a Netherlands Chapter in due course. So, with that in mind, in January 2000 two Dutch members, René Vielvoije and Ruud Homburg joined the Board of Directors of the PMI BeNeLux Chapter.

 

Unbeknownst to the Board of Directors of the PMI BeNeLux Chapter, at around the same time there was another separate initiative being driving by Bill Nelson,  a PMI member in the Netherlands, to start a new PMI Chapter in the Netherlands. Fortunately the Board soon became aware of this initiative and got in contact with Bill. At a meeting on May 16th, 2000 the PMI BeNeLux Board of Directors brought together these initiatives, presented their ideas and as a consequence a group of  8 people was formed to initiate activities to create a Chapter in the Netherlands: Bill Nelson, Willy Schneider, Joep Voelkers, Zofia Lewandowska, Jelle Eijzinga, Jan Vermeijs, Anton Zandhuis and the link with the PMI BeNeLux Board of Directors was established by participation of René Vielvoije.

 

On July 13th, 2000 this group had a first meeting, and the Chapter Steering Committee was formed, which was the first step in PMI’s formal process for starting a local Chapter. However, at the December 18th, 2000 meeting it was agreed that due to the lack of availability of some members the roles of the Chapter Steering Committee would be reassigned. Therefore to ensure momentum was not lost at the January 22nd, 2001 meeting it was decided that the Chapter Steering Committee would continue a smaller cohort of four active members, i.e., Zofia Lewandowska, Jan Vermeijs, Rene Vielvoije and Anton Zandhuis. which led to the three now called ‘Founding fathers’ of the PMI Netherlands Chapter being named: Jan Vermeijs, Rene Vielvoije and Anton Zandhuis.

 

The seed for the PMI Netherlands Chapter was planted. If you want to know how it grew and developed keep an eye out for the next episode in the series!

To be continued ….