Agenda

The presentation explains what are Intelligent Governance Framework and how they can be practically applied along with key examples and descibing why framework is important for executives and for PM community providing an implementation framework.

As the world faces unprecedented environmental and urbanization challenges, the pursuit of sustainable urban development is more critical than ever. This session will delve into the transformative journey of King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) as a model for integrating sustainability into large-scale urban projects, aligning with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and global sustainability goals.

I will share insights into how the district has embedded sustainability into every aspect of its development. The presentation will cover KAFD’s approach to:

• Green Building Practices: Adoption of LEED-certified designs and environmentally friendly construction techniques that enhance energy efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint.

• Stakeholder Collaboration: Strategies for fostering cooperation between public and private sectors to overcome challenges and drive project alignment with sustainability targets.

• Innovation in Project Management: Applying forward-thinking methodologies to balance economic, social, and environmental imperatives while managing the complexities of mega projects.

Attendees will walk away with actionable strategies for implementing sustainable practices in their own projects, a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities in sustainable urban planning, and inspiration from KAFD’s innovative solutions.

Experience how just-in-time learning transforms project execution. Discover a leading AI platform that integrates world-class product management education with an advanced AI agent to accelerate outcomes and outputs in real-time.

Artificial Intelligence is being embedded into enterprise workflows at unprecedented speed. Most organizations treat AI risk as a cybersecurity issue or a compliance checkbox, which makes this a strategic mistake.

AI risk is fundamentally a decision-making risk:

probabilistic outputs presented as certainty
automation bias in high-pressure environments
governance lag behind deployment
invisible dependencies in vendor ecosystems

Project and transformation leaders are now accountable for systems they do not fully understand — and frameworks that were not designed for probabilistic technologies.

This session explores:

Why traditional risk registers fail in AI-enabled projects
How governance must evolve beyond compliance
The cognitive traps leaders fall into when using AI tools
Practical guardrails for AI-enabled transformation programs

This is not a technical session. It is a strategic reframing of AI risk for leaders operating inside complexity.

As nations invest heavily in giga and transformation projects, the conversation around sustainability is shifting beyond environmental compliance and reporting obligations. The real challenge is whether projects are building long-term national capability, resilient communities, and sustainable economic and social outcomes.

This panel explores the concept of the “sustainability threshold” — the point where sustainability can no longer exist as a parallel initiative and must become embedded into how projects are selected, governed, delivered, and taught. The discussion will examine why many sustainability efforts fail despite strong intentions, and how project decisions today directly shape future societal resilience, workforce capability, and national competitiveness.

Bringing together perspectives from infrastructure delivery, project leadership, academia, and capability development, the panel will discuss:

How giga projects can create measurable long-term social value beyond construction outcomes.
The role of project management in enabling sustainable national growth and community impact.
Why education and professional development must evolve to prepare future leaders for sustainable delivery.
How organizations can integrate sustainability into governance, delivery models, decision-making, and project culture.
The balance between economic pressure, delivery urgency, and long-term societal responsibility.

This session explores fast-track project delivery through a real case study of a construction project in Jeddah completed in 117 days. It focuses on practical strategies for managing time, risk, and coordination between stakeholders to achieve successful outcomes under accelerated schedules.

While global project management standards provide structured governance frameworks, their implementation in emerging economies presents unique structural, cultural, and institutional challenges. In many African countries, project management is still maturing across both public and private sectors, requiring contextual adaptation rather than direct adoption of global models.

This session explores the evolution of PMOs in Africa, examining the gap between globally established methodologies and local operational realities. It highlights governance constraints, capacity development challenges, leadership dynamics, regulatory environments, and socio-economic factors that influence PMO effectiveness.

Drawing from real-world experience across the region, the presentation proposes a contextualized PMO design approach one that balances international best practices with local adaptability, enabling sustainable value creation, institutional strengthening, and long-term project governance maturity.

Systems Engineering Philosophy and Culture

EPMO 2.0: Governance in the Age of AI explores how Enterprise Project Management Offices must evolve as artificial intelligence transforms access to project and portfolio insight. While AI is dramatically improving reporting speed, forecasting accuracy, and risk detection, many organizations are discovering that insight alone does not create better outcomes. Instead, AI often exposes long-standing weaknesses in governance, decision ownership, and accountability.

This presentation argues that the true challenge of the post-AI era is not technology adoption, but governance redesign. Drawing on real-world experience from large-scale infrastructure, aviation, and real-estate portfolios across Saudi Arabia and the United States, the session demonstrates how EPMOs must move beyond traditional reporting roles to become stewards of decision-making frameworks at the portfolio and board level.

The presentation introduces a practical post-AI governance model where AI augments human judgment through scenario analysis, early warning signals, and financial insight, while executive leadership retains full accountability for approvals, risk ownership, and capital allocation. It emphasizes the importance of human-in-the-loop stage gates, clearly defined escalation paths, and auditability of AI-informed inputs to preserve trust and decision integrity.

Through lessons learned from enterprise-scale transformations, including governance implementation across complex capital portfolios, attendees will gain actionable insight into how EPMOs can protect capital, improve decision confidence, and enable leadership teams to operate effectively in an AI-enabled environment. The session is designed for PMO leaders, executives, and practitioners seeking to understand how governance must adapt to ensure clarity, accountability, and strategic alignment in the age of intelligent systems.

Project portfolio management (PPM) goes beyond rational calculative methods, due to its complex environment. In fact, organizations struggle in successfully implementing portfolios despite significant efforts in tools, methodologies, and processes. Imperfect rationality of project portfolio decision-makers in their perspective of the environment reduces project portfolio implementation success. The article examines how sharing knowledge increases decision-makers' rationality and improves PPM strategic decisions. Based on literature investigation, we develop a conceptual model that illustrates PPM and the relationship between knowledge sharing (KS) and PPM quality (PPMQ) and project portfolio success (PPS). This work enriches knowledge management (KM) theory, and positions KS as a strategic mechanism for portfolio effectiveness, expands the PPM definition and provides a new conceptual foundation for project portfolio theory.Project portfolio management (PPM) goes beyond rational calculative methods, due to its complex environment. In fact, organizations struggle in successfully implementing portfolios despite significant efforts in tools, methodologies, and processes. Imperfect rationality of project portfolio decision-makers in their perspective of the environment reduces project portfolio implementation success. The article examines how sharing knowledge increases decision-makers' rationality and improves PPM strategic decisions. Based on literature investigation, we develop a conceptual model that illustrates PPM and the relationship between knowledge sharing (KS) and PPM quality (PPMQ) and project portfolio success (PPS). This work enriches knowledge management (KM) theory, and positions KS as a strategic mechanism for portfolio effectiveness, expands the PPM definition and provides a new conceptual foundation for project portfolio theory.

I am proposing to present insights from my doctoral research, “The Indirect Impact of Enterprise Architecture on Successful Project Management in UAE Healthcare Organizations: The Mediating Role of Effective Decision Making,” a study that empirically examined how Enterprise Architecture (EA) strengthens project outcomes when paired with structured, high‑quality decision processes. Drawing on quantitative findings collected from 313 senior project managers across UAE healthcare organizations, the research demonstrates that EA alone does not guarantee project success—its impact becomes significant only when mediated through effective, timely, and informed decision‑making mechanisms. My session will unpack this relationship by exploring how EA frameworks improve organizational alignment, governance, interoperability, and strategic clarity, and how these capabilities translate into measurable improvements in project performance when supported by robust decision systems. This presentation offers a practical, evidence‑based model showing how EA, decision‑making quality, and project management practices interconnect to drive successful transformation in healthcare settings—providing PMO, transformation, and technology leaders with actionable insights applicable across complex, regulated environments

Organizations today are under constant pressure to transform, innovate, and deliver faster than ever before. Yet many enterprises are experiencing transformation fatigue — overwhelmed by competing priorities, continuous change initiatives, disconnected innovation efforts, and increasing demands for faster decision-making and measurable outcomes. In this environment, traditional PMO models are no longer enough.

This session explores how AI-powered PMOs are evolving from governance-focused functions into intelligent strategic enablers that help organizations convert innovation into execution and transformation into sustainable enterprise advantage. By integrating Artificial Intelligence into governance, delivery oversight, resource prioritization, forecasting, reporting, and decision-making, modern PMOs are gaining the ability to provide faster insights, improve visibility, reduce delivery noise, and support more adaptive and informed leadership decisions across large-scale programs.

The discussion will examine how organizations can move beyond innovation as isolated ideation exercises and instead build connected systems that enable ideas to be assessed, prioritized, governed, and executed with greater speed and confidence. It will also explore the leadership and organizational shifts required to successfully adopt AI-enabled delivery models while maintaining trust, governance integrity, and human-centered decision-making.

Designed for PMO leaders, transformation executives, strategy and portfolio professionals, and innovation teams, this session provides practical insights into how AI can help organizations reduce transformation fatigue, strengthen execution capability, and create a more resilient and future-ready enterprise.

This session explores fast-track project delivery through a real case study of a construction project in Jeddah completed in 117 days. It focuses on practical strategies for managing time, risk, and coordination between stakeholders to achieve successful outcomes under accelerated schedules.

Digital transformation initiatives frequently place leaders in a challenging position where accountability for outcomes is clear, but decision authority is not.

This session explores the human and strategic tension that emerges when responsibility exceeds authority. Drawing on real-world experience in complex transformation environments. It examines how leaders navigate unclear boundaries, protect delivery integrity under pressure and move beyond execution to become strategic anchors within their organisations.

Digital transformation (DT) projects are increasingly recognized as critical enablers of organizational competitiveness, yet their inherent complexity, uncertainty, and multi-level interdependencies contribute to high rates of failure. While contingency theory offers a useful lens for aligning project management frameworks with contextual demands, existing studies rarely integrate contingency factors across the project (micro), organisational (meso), and external environment (macro) levels. This study addresses this gap through a hybrid methodology combining a systematic literature review (SLR) of 48 peer-reviewed articles published between 2013 and 2024 with qualitative content analysis (QCA) to identify and classify key contingency factors influencing DT project frameworks. The findings reveal that complexity, technology, and uncertainty dominate at the micro level; organisational structure and collaboration are central at the meso level; and regulatory and policy factors, though less frequently cited, remain strategically significant at the macro level. The study advances contingency theory in project management by integrating multi-level influences into a single framework, demonstrating that effective DT project management requires adaptive, context-sensitive approaches. Practically, it provides project managers, organisational leaders, and policymakers with evidence-based insights to design frameworks that enhance agility, responsiveness, and alignment across levels.

Organizations today are investing heavily in transformation initiatives to remain competitive, adapt to rapid technological change, and deliver long-term value. Yet many transformations struggle to translate strategic intent into tangible results. The challenge is no longer defining ambitious strategies; it is building the capability to deliver transformation effectively and consistently.

This session explores the evolving landscape of transformation delivery and how organizations can bridge the gap between strategy and measurable impact. As enterprises manage increasingly complex portfolios of initiatives, traditional project management approaches are often insufficient to orchestrate enterprise-wide change.

The discussion will highlight the emerging shift from project-based execution toward integrated transformation delivery models that align strategy, governance, portfolio management, and execution. It will examine how organizations can strengthen their ability to prioritize the right initiatives, manage complexity across multiple programs, and ensure that transformation efforts deliver sustainable business outcomes.

Drawing on my practical experience across government entities, corporations, and family businesses, the session will share insights on how leaders can build stronger transformation delivery capabilities, enhance governance mechanisms, and create clearer alignment between strategic objectives and execution.

This talk explores how execution deteriorates under pressure—not because of strategy, but because of how decisions are made, delayed, or avoided in real environments.

In complex delivery systems, performance rarely collapses in a single moment. It shifts gradually through small deferrals, unchallenged assumptions, and decisions that prioritise short-term stability over long-term outcomes.

Drawing from real project and organisational experience, this session focuses on how these patterns emerge, how they are often masked by data and reporting, and how leaders can recognise the early signals of execution drift.

The talk will also highlight practical ways to strengthen decision discipline, reduce hidden friction, and ensure that intent is translated into consistent action under pressure.

Winning Both: The AI Race and Ethics focuses on how organizations can move fast with AI while protecting trust, compliance, and reputation. It explains how leaders can put clear governance, accountability, and decision controls in place without slowing innovation. The session offers practical guidance to balance speed and responsibility so AI delivers real value without creating long-term risk.

Join us for an exciting exploration of the "Lean Canvas" framework and discover how “Quality in the AI Era” and “Lean Canvas” tools are revolutionizing the way businesses thrive in the digital age. In this engaging presentation, Dave Harry will delve into the core principles of the Lean Canvas as related to Project Management and highlight how it enables PMs and entrepreneurs to validate ideas, pivot quickly, and build practical scalable business models. Learn how to effectively navigate the uncertainties and complexities of the market, optimize resources, and leverage customer insights to drive sustainable growth. Understand risks and opportunities and how to visualize them collaboratively. Dave will touch upon how AI is revolutionizing the Lean Canvas process. Through brief real-world case studies and actionable strategies, he will empower you to embrace the Lean Canvas revolution and unlock the true potential of your business in today's rapidly evolving landscape. Following this new insight, get ready to ignite your business success with the Lean Canvas framework and methodology!
Learning Objectives:
Understand the fundamental principles of the Lean Canvas framework and how it differs from traditional business planning methods.
• Gain insight into the key elements of the Lean Canvas, such as customer segments, value proposition, channels, and revenue streams, and learn how to effectively analyze and iterate on them.
• Explore real-world examples of successful implementation of the Lean Canvas, highlighting how it has helped entrepreneurs identify market opportunities, pivot their strategies, use AI, and achieve sustainable growth.
• Learn practical strategies and techniques for leveraging the Lean Canvas for Project Managers to navigate uncertainties, make informed decisions, and drive business success in the digital age
• Explore possibilities of AI to enhance Lean Canvas methodology.

Most projects don’t fail because teams lack effort—they fail because the decision system breaks under speed, scrutiny, and competing priorities. In Vision-scale environments, sustainability is no longer a “nice-to-have”—it’s the Delivery Operating System that determines whether outcomes remain valuable, defensible, and trusted long after the ribbon-cutting.

Using the “OS” metaphor, this session shows how to install a practical sustainability layer across predictive, agile, and hybrid delivery: the kernel (how you define value and success), the drivers (governance, risk, procurement, benefits), and the user interface (metrics, reporting, and trade-off decisions that stand up to scrutiny). You’ll leave with a lightweight, repeatable “OS upgrade” you can apply immediately—without slowing delivery.

This presentation examines how Generative AI is transforming the way healthcare leaders in Saudi Arabia make decisions, build strategies, and collaborate — all aligned with Vision 2030.

It covers real Saudi initiatives, required leadership skills, key challenges, and the ethical governance needed to make Saudi Arabia a global leader in AI-powered healthcare.

astering Change Management Under Uncertainty

Protecting Project Economics Through Risk-Informed Decisions

Projects rarely fail because of one big risk.
They fail because change is reacted to too late, without understanding its economic impact.

In this session, Rami Atef will explore how project leaders can move beyond traditional reporting and heatmaps to actively manage change under uncertainty. The discussion will focus on translating cost and schedule risk outputs into decision options, evaluating trade-offs, and funding the right actions before value erosion occurs.

Attendees will learn how to:
* Quantify uncertainty instead of reacting to surprises
* Evaluate change decisions based on IRR, ROI, and cash flow impact
* Turn Monte Carlo outputs into practical executive choices
* Align risk tolerance with project strategy

This session is designed for project directors, PMO leaders, and decision-makers who want to protect capital, strengthen investor confidence, and lead complex projects with clarity under uncertainty.

Global research consistently shows that 60–70% of large-scale transformation initiatives underperform — not because projects fail, but because portfolio governance fails.
Organizations continue to measure scope, schedule, and cost, while strategy leakage occurs through over-approval of initiatives, fragmented funding, weak prioritization discipline, and inconsistent benefits realization.
In this main-stage session, Ali Alhaydar, PMP, PgMP, presents a structured portfolio governance model grounded in global research from PMI, McKinsey, and BCG, and reinforced by real-world application in a SAR 48M nationwide workforce transformation initiative delivered for government entity
The session will demonstrate:
• How portfolio alignment architecture prevents strategic investment leakage
• How structured scoring models reduce political bias in capital allocation
• Why governance frameworks must trigger executive decisions — not generate reports
• How disciplined benefits realization doubles the likelihood of achieving strategic objectives
• Why PgMP-level leadership represents an altitude shift from managing projects to governing outcomes
Attendees will leave with research-backed, executable frameworks to strengthen portfolio maturity, manage systemic risk, and convert national strategy into measurable impact.
This is not a discussion about project management maturity.
It is a discussion about governing transformation at scale.

Megaprojects delivered under compressed schedules face a critical challenge: maintaining quality, safety, and sustainability while meeting aggressive timelines. This presentation shares practical insights from the Aramco Stadium Project, one of Saudi Arabia’s major Vision 2030 developments, where quality assurance systems were integrated into accelerated project execution.

The session explores how prevention-driven quality strategies, structured governance, and technology-enabled inspection systems supported reliable delivery across complex project scopes including structural steel, concrete systems, façade elements, and large-scale cooling infrastructure. Digital tools such as inspection drones, sensor-based monitoring, and centralized quality data systems enhanced real-time visibility and reduced risk during construction.

Through this case study, the presentation demonstrates how integrating quality management with project governance enables disciplined speed, reduces rework, supports sustainability outcomes, and improves stakeholder confidence. The lessons presented provide a scalable model for project managers and engineering leaders delivering high-complexity projects under accelerated conditions.

Presentation is aiming to inspire future trailblazing ideas and visions of desired change and impact, with empowered individuals, leaders, and teams to take a pivotal role as change catalyst, leaders and connectors to co-create empowered communities. It connects visionary leadership with the concept of individual and collective wisdom and strength, emphasizing unlocking untapped potential of each one of us, and all together, and the power of evolving leadership with coaching to get empowered for the desired impact and lead into the future as change catalysts, change leaders and community co-creators.

True empowerment and impactful leadership stem from a visionary mindset that actively seeks out and develops untapped potential within communities, individually and collectively, leading to sustainable growth, where empowered global citizens and stakeholders in partnership ignite, innovate and co-create.

The inspiration behind is acknowledgment of how many scripts have never been done, how many bridges have never built, and how many futures never lived.

We often find ourselves limited by existing narratives and established frameworks, inadvertently sidelining the immense sleeping potential within participatory governance and global citizenship. By weaving together past wisdom, present realities, and future aspirations, we will explore how a clear, compelling vision isn't just about seeing the future; it's about actively shaping it, and powerfully leading with the vision into the future.

We'll emphasize that creating sustainable growth , both individually and communally, is about cultivating a mindset, heart-set, and skillset capable of sustained growth, innovation, and impact.

The aim is to Ignite, Innovate and Elevate the Visionary Potential and Impact by nurturing and evolving the power of leadership and coaching in our organizations, companies, teams, and other communities. This demands self-leadership, mastery, and the art of leading others with unwavering clarity, compassion, courage, curiosity, and collaboration.

This presentation examines how professional project management serves as a strategic enabler within non-profit healthcare systems. It addresses governance maturity, value-based execution, portfolio prioritization, and performance accountability as core drivers of sustainable impact.
The discussion highlights how structured project frameworks strengthen institutional resilience, optimize resource allocation, and accelerate transformation initiatives led by the Ministry of Health, in alignment with the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030.
The session positions project management not as an operational function, but as a leadership discipline that drives measurable value, system integration, and long-term community outcomes.

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Concept in Saudi Arabia
A Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is a collaboration between the government and the private sector to deliver public services or projects, where the private sector implements the project or provides the service in exchange for specific fees or revenue. In Saudi Arabia, PPPs aim to promote private investment, improve the quality of public services, and reduce the financial burden on the government. These partnerships are implemented in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, and are overseen by relevant government authorities.

Most transformation initiatives do not fail because of poor planning, weak tools, or lack of competence. They fail because organizations behave exactly as designed—protecting power, preserving comfort, and avoiding hard trade-offs—while projects are asked to deliver change that contradicts those behaviors.
This session challenges the comforting myths of transformation execution and exposes why “doing project management better” rarely fixes systemic failure. Drawing from large-scale enterprise and national transformation programs, the talk reframes execution as a collision between strategy and organizational reality, not a delivery problem.
Rather than focusing on methodologies, the session explores three uncomfortable truths:
• Transformations fail when decision rights are ambiguous—but projects proceed anyway.
• Governance structures often exist to manage risk, not to enable progress.
• Human dynamics—status, fear, loyalty, and political capital—shape outcomes more than plans ever will.
The session introduces a different execution lens: projects as arenas of power, accountability, and trust, where progress depends less on schedules and more on clarity of authority, courage of sponsorship, and the ability to surface uncomfortable conversations early.
Participants will be exposed to real execution patterns observed in complex organizations—why milestones get approved even when value is not moving, why escalation mechanisms rarely escalate, and why “green dashboards” often mask strategic drift. The talk also presents practical ways project leaders can intervene—not by controlling more, but by redesigning how decisions are made, how success is defined, and how trade-offs are forced.
This is not a talk about tools. It is a talk about reality. Attendees will leave with a sharper lens to diagnose execution failure, the language to challenge it, and the leadership mindset required to turn strategy into results when the system itself resists change.

This presentation looks at how the financial institutions in Saudi Arabia’s real estate market are carrying more delivery risk than is often recognized.
The line between capital provider and project owner has become blurred.
When projects face delays, cost overruns, or late delivery, the impact is felt directly in returns and institutional credibility.
The presentation focuses on where projects typically start to lose control, often well before construction begins. It highlights common early-stage assumptions around cost, program, and procurement, and explains why financial reporting alone is not enough to identify delivery risk before it becomes a problem.
Rather than treating project management as a technical support role, the session argues for its role as a core governance function.
It shows how early and properly empowered project management helps bring discipline to decision making, improves predictability, and protects capital by addressing risk before commitments are made.

As AI adoption accelerates across the GCC, many organizations are launching pilots at speed, yet few are scaling AI into measurable enterprise value. The core challenge is not technology, but governance. AI initiatives are often managed as isolated projects rather than coordinated investment portfolios.
This session introduces a practical framework for governing AI as a strategic portfolio. It covers structured use-case qualification, risk-tiered controls, portfolio balancing across operational, strategic, and transformational initiatives, and disciplined value tracking aligned to enterprise objectives.
Grounded in the context of Vision 2030 a, the session demonstrates how portfolio discipline enables organizations to convert digital ambition into sustainable, risk-managed impact.
The future of enterprise AI will belong to those who govern it strategically.

Organisations are busier than ever with transformation, but strangely stuck. Drawing from his global work, bestselling author Jyoti Guptara reveals a common root issue: when strategic communication isn’t actionable, it sabotages engagement and execution. Guptara introduces Story-Based Leadership as the next evolution in management — a discipline for turning strategy into consistent action. Stories model behaviour, making them the quickest, cheapest, and deepest way to influence. A practical briefing for leaders responsible for change at scale.

Workshop Purpose
Most organizations attempt to improve performance by managing people harder rather than improving systems.
Through Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s Red Bead Experiment, participants will experience firsthand how:
• Variation impacts results
• Systems determine outcomes
• Targets and incentives fail when the system is incapable
• Leaders unintentionally create dysfunctional behaviors
Participants will then apply these lessons to project management, PMOs, and organizational delivery systems.
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Learning Outcomes
Participants will:
• Experience system variation in action
• Understand why performance targets fail
• Recognize Red Bead management behaviors
• Apply Deming principles to PMO and project systems
• Identify actions to improve organizational delivery capability

This keynote introduces the idea that delivery is no longer driven by isolated excellence in leadership, governance, or technology—but by how well these elements operate as a single system. Using real patterns observed across transformation programs and intelligent PMOs, the keynote explains why organisations struggle when People, Process, and Technology evolve at different speeds. It challenges leaders to rethink delivery not as a set of tools or roles, but as an operating system that must be intentionally designed, governed, and continuously adapted.

"This session challenges participants to accept accountability: Most organisational noise comes from leadership behaviour, not process failure Ambiguity, mixed messages, and hidden priorities originate at the top Silence from leaders is also a form of noise Participants debate whether delivery chaos is a technical issue—or a human one."

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is currently executing some of the most ambitious megaprojects in human history under Vision 2030. However, delivering transformation at this unprecedented scale and sustaining that momentum toward the 2040 horizon, requires more than capital and ambition. It requires fundamentally rewiring how Saudi companies and public sector entities operate.
In an era where global disruption has skyrocketed by 200%,, organizations must evolve into modern Project-Driven Organizations (PDOs).
Drawing from the groundbreaking book Powered by Projects, this keynote will explore:
• Building Internal "Transformation Muscle": For Saudi organizations, the scale of current megaprojects means they can no longer rely on external consultants to drive change. Leaders must build deep, internal transformation capabilities by upskilling their domestic workforce and shifting from rigid functional staffing to dynamic, real-time talent allocation.
• Accelerating Megaprojects through PDO Structures: We will look at how to move past the binary "agile vs. waterfall" debate and adopt hybrid execution models tailored for extreme complexity. Drawing on examples like the adaptive innovation hubs required for megaprojects like NEOM and the dynamic portfolio management of the PIF, attendees will learn how to flatten hierarchies and empower fully dedicated execution teams.
• A New Leadership Model Focused on Execution: Vision without execution is a hallucination. This session introduces the new leadership mandate for the transformation age, including the rise of the Chief Project Officer (CPO), the critical executive habit of stopping "zombie projects" to free up capacity, and the shift from the outdated "Triple Constraint" to the "Value Constraint" (measuring tangible benefits) and the "People Constraint" (measuring team engagement).
Ultimately, this keynote will equip leaders in the region with the structural, cultural, and leadership tools required to turn the bold ambitions of Vision 2030 into sustained, measurable value that will shape the Kingdom through 2040 and beyond

Is your operating model quietly sabotaging your transformation? This hands-on session shows how to uncover where value and revenue are leaking in your system, including slow decisions, rework, and too much work in progress, and why those patterns persist. Then we introduce a practical, value-first, waste-out operating model that makes it easier to do the right work, in the right way, at the right speed, with fast-track decision paths, lean standards, clear roles and decision rights, capacity guardrails, and clear guidance on how and when to integrate technology to accelerate execution and deliver stronger business outcomes. You’ll walk away with: 1. A modern operating model: what it is, how it changes the way work moves, and the vital elements that make transformation stick 2. A Value Gap Diagnostic: a practical tool to analyze your operating model and uncover the gaps in your organization preventing accelerated strategy delivery. 3. 90-Day Action Plan: a streamlined approach for the next quarter that accelerates strategy delivery by putting this new operating model into motion.

This session challenges the assumption that leadership remains unchanged in AI-enabled environments. It explores how authority, judgment, and accountability are shifting as algorithms increasingly influence priorities, risk assessments, and decisions. Panelists debate whether leaders are becoming decision-makers, sense-makers, or simply validators of machine logic—and what this means for human relevance in the future of delivery.

Experience how just-in-time learning transforms project execution. Discover Praxis by Emergn—a platform that integrates world-class product management education with an advanced AI agent to accelerate outcomes and outputs in real-time. Live demonstration of Stella AI providing contextual guidance while solving actual project challenges. Attendees will interact with the platform during the session.

This presentation highlights why strategies fail when governance is confined to boardroom-level GRC, treated as oversight and compliance rather than active leadership of execution. It explains how the absence of governance structures, decision authority, and accountability across portfolios, programs, and projects creates a disconnect between strategic intent and delivery reality. The session demonstrates how integrated corporate, organizational, and P3G governance enables boards and executives to steer, supervise, and course-correct implementation, ensuring strategy is translated into outcomes and sustained strategic value.

Master strategies for creating cohesive, high-trust teams across cultural, disciplinary, and organizational boundaries while leveraging diversity as a competitive advantage.

Many organisations want to apply AI in project management but struggle to know where to start. This session presents a practical, strategy-led approach to getting underway, focusing on how AI can be targeted to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and efficacy across project delivery. Drawing on real-world adoption experience, it outlines the early decisions, assessments, and alignment required to move from intent to action in a structured, responsible way.

This session challenges the obsession with visual dashboards: Static dashboards can’t keep up with real-time work Conversational interfaces will become “the new PMO layer” Humans must learn to manage through dialogue with systems Participants debate whether future leaders need design skills as much as decision skills.

Purpose
To help project professionals recognize that many project failures start long before execution and to introduce opportunity framing as a practical discipline for defining the right problem, aligning stakeholders, and setting projects up for success.
Description
Most projects don’t fail because of poor execution, they fail because they start with the wrong problem. In this 2-hour masterclass, we explore why traditional project approaches often rush into solutions, rely on untested assumptions, and create only superficial alignment. These patterns lead to rework, growing risk, and misaligned teams later in execution.
This session will be engaging and interactive, giving participants the opportunity to explore early symptoms of project failure and experience the power of opportunity framing through a practical case study.
You’ll be introduced to opportunity framing - a structured and practical approach used in complex projects to clarify objectives, surface risks, assumptions, align stakeholders, and build a clear decision-driven roadmap.

This session is designed for project managers, project controls professionals, and leaders who want to improve project outcomes by strengthening the first 10% - where projects are truly won or lost.

Transform your PMO from a reporting function into a strategic enabler that drives business outcomes, influences executive decisions, and demonstrates measurable organisational impact. The facilitator divides the tables into one mentor table. 4 tables with one mentor per table. The tables will debate with each other and try to put down the other table, showcase their learning, and the table that debated and communicated it. Each table at the end presents what they learned from their debate.

Awaiting

This session challenges the assumption that flow problems arise from tools or processes. It confronts leaders with evidence that: Waiting time is caused by fear, misalignment, authority gaps, and slow decisions. Human psychology creates invisible queues.

This workshop introduces the Prosci Change Triangle (PCT) as a practical framework for assessing project health and improving transformation outcomes. Many organizations focus heavily on strategy and execution but overlook the critical balance between leadership sponsorship, project management, and change management.
The session demonstrates how the triple integration model (PCT) helps organizations diagnose project risks early, align governance and execution, and strengthen people adoption. Drawing on real-world transformation experience aligned with Vision 2030, participants will learn how to apply PCT assessments to identify gaps, prioritize corrective actions, and position initiatives for success.
The workshop provides actionable tools and practical insights to enhance project health, accelerate adoption, and sustain transformation value in complex organizational environments.

This dynamic simulation immerses participants in the complexities of a biotech (environment with high uncertainty), where
they take on the roles of project managers and line managers navigating resource
constraints, competing priorities, and strategic decision-making. Throughout the
experience, participants must prepare for a high-stakes Steering Committee meeting,
balancing project needs with functional constraints while driving alignment and securing
critical decisions. Designed for multiple perspectives, the simulation challenges
participants to think tactically and strategically, fostering real-world skills in negotiation,
prioritization, and leadership in a fast-paced environment to take the right decisions.

In today’s interconnected business environment, value is no longer created by isolated projects or individual products. It emerges from value ecosystems, where multiple internal and external stakeholders interact and depend on one another to enable value delivery. For project management and product development, managing these ecosystems is essential to ensure that initiatives truly generate meaningful and sustainable value.
This workshop explores why value creation requires systemic alignment across projects, processes, organizational capabilities, partners, and external entities. Focusing only on individual initiatives often leads to fragmented efforts and local optimization, while value is realized through coordinated interactions across the ecosystem. In this context, structures such as the PMO play a key role in orchestrating initiatives to improve coherence, integration, and value delivery.
The Value Ecosystem Management workshop uses hands-on, team-based dynamics to help participants visualize and design value ecosystems. Working collaboratively, participants map the entities involved, the initiatives required, and the relationships and dependencies between them. By the end of the workshop, participants will be better prepared to think systemically, align initiatives, and support more assertive value delivery in complex project and product environments."

Cutting-edge negotiation strategies tailored to the cultural and professional expectation of Saudi project managers.

In the dynamic world of project management, negotiation skills are critical for ensuring project success. This masterclass, provided in English language, designed specifically for PMI Saudi Arabia, will focus on cutting-edge negotiation strategies tailored to the cultural and professional expectations of Saudi project managers. Participants will gain practical insights and
techniques to enhance their negotiation capabilities, enabling them to lead their projects more effectively.

This masterclass strengthens strategic decision-making by integrating PMO structures and AI insights, helping leaders manage high-stakes discussions with clarity and confidence.

Participants will gain clear, actionable techniques to negotiate effectively with stakeholders, manage conflict, and reach agreement faster. Hands-on simulations and AI-supported tools provide practical skills they can apply immediately to improve daily project execution and outcomes.

This forces a deep, uncomfortable comparison: Humans make biased decisions. AI makes structured decisions with invisible biases. Whose mistakes are more dangerous? Participants debate: What is trust built on — accuracy or transparency?

In today’s project and organizational environments, uncertainty is no longer an exception, it is the operating condition. Traditional leadership models, built for predictability and control, often break down when pressure intensifies and decisions must be made with incomplete information. This two-hour interactive workshop introduces Transilient Leadership, a new leadership model designed for high-pressure, high-uncertainty environments. Moving beyond resilience, Transilient Leadership equips leaders to transform disruption, setbacks, and ambiguity into strategic advantage. Drawing on real-world experiences and modern leadership principles, participants will explore how pressure affects judgment, communication, and team dynamics. Through practical frameworks, guided reflection, and scenario-based discussions, leaders will learn how to anticipate uncertainty, manage emotional and cognitive load, and lead with clarity when the stakes are high. Rather than reacting to chaos, Transilient Leaders learn to harness it, creating alignment, trust, and forward momentum even when the path is unclear. This workshop is designed for project leaders, executives, and change agents who want to lead decisively, ethically, and humanely in environments where certainty is no longer guaranteed. Participants will leave with a clear leadership lens, practical tools, and a renewed understanding of how uncertainty, when approached intentionally, can become a powerful source of insight, innovation, and impact.

"We are all heroes on a journey — navigating complexity, solving problems, and inspiring teams. But our ability to rise, lead, and create impact hinges on one thing: how well we communicate. In project management, communication isn’t just a skill — it’s the superpower that fuels clarity, connection, and change. From the moment we are born, communication shapes how we influence, inspire, and collaborate. So how do we make our messages truly land? Through storytelling. In this high-energy, hands-on masterclass, you'll discover how to master the art of compelling communication and powerful storytelling. Whether you're leading a project meeting, presenting to stakeholders, or managing difficult conversations, this session will give you tools to connect and communicate with confidence. What You’ll Learn: Craft Your Alter Ego – Develop a confident persona that helps you perform at your best, even under pressure. Supercharge Your Delivery – Harness vocal variety, strategic body language, and first-impression techniques to make every interaction memorable. Tell Magnetic Stories – Learn simple, repeatable story structures you can apply instantly to influence and engage any audience. You’ll walk away with practical techniques, a burst of creative energy, and a fresh toolkit to become the Superhero Storyteller your project world needs."

The "Corporate Dream" is a masterpiece of alignment: leadership sets the strategy, autonomous teams deliver via OKRs, and a single tool tracks it all. But in the real world, strategy is often a mystery, roadmaps are unreliable, and the organization is "efficiently" busy doing things it shouldn't be doing at all.

In this session, Dr. Christoph Hirnle exposes the Complexity Trap—the gap where management systems collapse under their own weight, leaving middle management crushed between executive demands and employee burnout.

Christoph will share a way out through Middle-Out Integrity. Drawing on distilled observations from over 1,000 organizations, he introduces the logic of Lean PPM™. You will learn how to restore the "Human Center" of your organization, stop the technical fallacy of over-relying on tools, and build a practical transmission layer that finally connects strategic intent to delivery reality.

This provocative angle forces leaders to admit: Most organisational interactions measure effort, not value. Digital economies punish effort-based structures. Participants examine value destruction hidden in approvals, committees, handoffs.

Transform stakeholder engagement, design validation, and team training through augmented and virtual reality technologies purpose-built for project environments.

Project management has (an image) a problem. Despite decades of professionalization of project management practice, PMOs, guides, books, software, and certifications, we still see project management challenges and failures. Being behind schedule or over budget is often expected, tolerated, and accepted.
Conversely, competent project management can be indispensable for organizational success and a competitive advantage. Organizational project management can also be essential for any transformative initiative, such as Energy Transition. However, to maximize the chance of success, organizations must be able to break through the failures and predetermine success. This requires elevating competence and enhancing the organizational project management maturity.
Based on observations and research, we think the current state of practice might be okay for typical and traditional projects, but might fall short in handling disruptive, transformative, and strategic initiatives. Accordingly, we will share an envisioned future as we propose establishing a formally recognized project management function and division, a project management business unit led by a chief project officer!

In the face of automation, digital disruption, and shifting workforce values, project managers must evolve from task executors to strategic architects. This presentation explores how we can empower the next generation of PMs with the mindset, skills, and leadership capabilities to thrive in a hybrid, AI-augmented world. Drawing on over 40 years of experience, this session outlines a future-ready blueprint that integrates emotional intelligence, digital mastery, business acumen, and purpose-driven leadership. It presents proven strategies and practical models, including the PMO-BP® Dojo and the PRENSA Leadership Framework, to develop future-fit talent within PMOs and enterprises.

As projects grow in complexity and scale, inclusive project management is no longer a social consideration, it is a core delivery capability. This session demonstrates how empowering people with disabilities through inclusive project design directly improves risk management, delivery performance, stakeholder trust, and workforce resilience. Drawing on lived experience as a leader with a visible disability, alongside work in complex public-sector delivery environments, this talk reframes disability inclusion as a strategic advantage rather than a compliance obligation. Participants will explore how exclusion, often invisible, introduces downstream risks such as cost overruns, schedule delays, talent attrition, and reputational harm. Using the ENABLE Framework, the session provides practical, scalable approaches project leaders can apply immediately across the project lifecycle, from initiation and procurement to governance, delivery, and performance measurement. Grounded in project management best practices and aligned with global standards (PMBOK®, PRINCE2®, Agile), this session connects human-centered design with measurable project outcomes. Attendees will leave with tools to embed inclusion without slowing execution, strengthening both delivery excellence and long-term organizational capability. Key Takeaways • Why accessibility must be embedded at project inception, not retrofitted later • How inclusive design reduces risk, stabilizes schedules, and improves quality • Practical actions leaders can take to empower people with disabilities while accelerating delivery

Projects fail for the same reason movies do: a cast of characters, conflicting agendas, rising tension, and moments where one bad decision changes everything. In this dynamic panel inspired by the #1 #1 2026 Amazon Hot New Release, “Projectland Goes to the Movies: 22 Blockbuster Strategies for Project Success”, award-winning consultant, co-editor and author Dawn Mahan moderates a conversation with some of the most respected and recognizable voices in the profession. As Lee Lambert puts it, “This is the book I wish I had written—fresh, fun, and inspiring. A true game-changer for the profession…” Each author panelist draws directly from their chapter, using films from different cultures and genres to surface universal truths about project success and failure. The discussion focuses on what these stories reveal about leadership, role clarity, decision-making, stakeholder dynamics, and why well-intentioned projects still derail. This is not movie trivia and not academic theory. It is a practical, globally relevant conversation about what experienced professionals see repeatedly in real projects and how leaders can recognize warning signs earlier, align people faster, and deliver stronger outcomes.

Growing From Structured Control to Sensemaking Under Pressure
This session is grounded in a five-part practitioner series titled PMO Maturity Meets Complexity, written over Eights weeks and shaped by real delivery conversations across different industries and regions. The series started with a simple question: Does the way we define and measure PMO maturity still hold when work becomes unstable, priorities shift frequently, and certainty arrives too late to be useful?

The discussion the growing presence of AI. Rather than framing AI as an acceleration tool, the series positioned Ethical AI as a mechanism for protecting human judgment, slowing interpretation when needed, and supporting sensemaking

In this session, I will synthesize these insights and explore how PMO maturity must evolve from structured control toward sensemaking capability. The focus is not theory, but lived practice: how PMOs help leaders think clearly, decide responsibly, and remain relevant when work refuses to settle.

This panel tackles the power struggle at the heart of modern delivery environments. As AI systems influence planning, forecasting, and risk assessment, the panel debates where final authority should sit and why. Tension points:

• Should systems overrule human bias?

• When policy conflicts with data, which one wins?

• Are leaders prepared to be challenged by machines?

Why 85% of Digital Projects Fail (its not the code)

We often confuse Digital Transformation with just buying new software. But if you automate a broken process, you don't get digital transformation, you just get a faster broken process.

Research suggests that up to 85% of Information Systems projects fail to deliver their intended value. That is a big number. But why?

I've been reflecting on the strategies used to build digital ecosystems, and one truth stands out: People & Process eats Technology for breakfast.

Whether you are building a data consortium like Catena-X (where automakers like BMW and VW share data) or a developer ecosystem like NVIDIA (where the true moat is the CUDA developer community, not just the chips), the biggest challenge isn't the AI or the Cloud.

It's what David Kroenke calls the Five-Component Framework:
Hardware (Easy to buy)
Software (Easy to buy)

Giga projects, as large‑scale high‑stakes initiatives, operate in environments where complexity, uncertainty, and diverse stakeholder expectations converge.

Mega sporting events are often remembered for their celebrations, packed stadiums, and global broadcasts. What the world does not see is the reality behind them: compressed timelines, contractor strikes, multi-city coordination, multi-million dollars budgets, millions of attendees, and a complete absence of margin for error.

This session shares firsthand leadership lessons from delivering large-scale global events, including FIFA World Cups, Olympic Games, and multi-city activations across the GCC. When 1.8 million+ fans are expected, when 64 matches must start exactly on time, and when infrastructure must be delivered under global scrutiny — “good enough” is not enough. There is no Plan B.

Through powerful real-world stories, this talk will explore what it truly means to manage projects under extreme pressure and visibility. It will challenge young professionals to rethink resilience, accountability, systems thinking, and leadership maturity.

Participants will discover:
• Why pressure is a privilege — and how to build the mindset to carry it.
• How strong systems outperform heroic individuals.
• What zero-failure environments teach about preparation, execution, and ownership.
• How to develop decision-making confidence early in your career.

Designed especially for the next generation of project leaders, this keynote is not about theory. It is about real consequences, real teams, and real results — and how young professionals can prepare themselves to lead when failure is not an option.

This presentation explores how project managers can operationalize social responsibility through everyday project decisions and stakeholder engagement practices. Drawing on academic research and real project experience, the session focuses on practical strategies for building trust, managing resistance, and strengthening community impact. Participants will reflect on how social acceptability influences project outcomes and how project leaders can bridge intent and impact in complex project environments.

This session focuses on how leaders drive real results in consulting and transformation initiatives by mastering the discipline of execution. It explores how successful leaders move beyond plans and presentations to ensure delivery, accountability, speed, and measurable impact in complex, high-stakes environments.

This session focuses on the rising role of youth in leading and redefining project delivery. It emphasizes the power of youth-driven leadership built on curiosity, courage, and co-creation. By showcasing how young leaders introduce fresh thinking, faster decision-making, and purpose-driven execution, the session presents a clear case for why empowering the next generation is essential to building the future of high-impact delivery.

This session focuses on human behaviour in moments of extreme pressure—crisis, political scrutiny, time constraints, and public visibility. It examines how stress, cognitive overload, ego, and fear distort judgment, even among highly experienced leaders. The discussion moves away from blaming competence and toward understanding decision psychology in high-stakes environments.

In many organizations, PMOs are expected to deliver strategic value while operating in environments defined by constant pressure, evolving priorities, and limited tolerance for disruption. Traditional maturity models often assume stable conditions, separating structure design from execution. In practice, many PMOs must be built while critical initiatives are already underway.

This presentation explores how PMO maturity can evolve in execution-first environments, where delivery cannot stop to allow for ideal structures. It focuses on the leadership and governance decisions required to protect value while projects continue to run, highlighting the trade-offs between control and speed, structure and flexibility.

The session examines how governance can act as an enabler rather than an obstacle, clarifying decision rights, reducing friction, and supporting teams under pressure. It also emphasises the human dimension of PMO maturity, showing how trust, shared understanding of reality, and pragmatic leadership contribute to sustained performance.

Participants will leave with practical insights on how PMOs can grow in capability without slowing execution, deliberately sequence structure, and ensure that maturity serves value rather than becoming an end in itself.

In a world where megaprojects rarely succeed, how does a PMO remain relevant—and indispensable? This session offers a real-world look at how one organization’s PMO overcame critical organizational challenges to enable the successful delivery of one of the world’s most complex nuclear megaprojects. It explores how the PMO evolved from a traditional support function into a strategic driver of confidence, alignment, and execution by tackling today’s most pressing complexity and delivery challenges head-on. Packed with practical insights, this session is designed for PMO and transformation leaders seeking to evolve their operating models, enable mega-project success, and earn a lasting seat at the strategy table.

Step into a derailed-train scenario and see how first responders turn chaos into coordinated action. In this session, we'll walk through a real-world disaster-response workflow and translate it into project-management practice. You’ll learn how responders create structure in chaos: rapid alignment, clear operational ownership, under-pressure prioritisation, and short coordination cycles. From there, we will make a direct translation to projects that face ambiguity, shifting requirements, and high stakeholder pressure. You’ll see the clear parallels between on-scene coordination and project leadership: assigning ownership early, creating a shared “map” of what matters, prioritising ruthlessly when time and capacity are limited, and running short, repeatable check-ins to keep the team aligned as new information emerges. You will leave with a simple, minimalist coordination routine you can apply immediately to stabilise complex projects without adding unnecessary process overhead.

Panel discussing leadership, governance, capability-building, and digital tools for PMOs operating in complex environments.

This session explores how project managers can elevate their leadership impact through confident and persuasive communication. Participants will learn how to transform technical updates into powerful messages that inspire, influence, and align diverse stakeholders. The presentation will uncover practical strategies for structuring messages, managing stage presence, and using storytelling to build credibility and connection. By mastering these public speaking skills, project managers can lead with greater confidence, clarity, and charisma—turning every presentation into an opportunity to drive engagement and project success.

This presentation introduces P5.express, a minimalist and practical portfolio management system designed to help organizations focus on Value, not bureaucracy. Rather than complex frameworks and heavy governance, P5.express provides a small set of clear activities, roles, and documents that enable better portfolio decisions with limited effort. The session will explain how P5.express works through its 6-monthly, monthly, and daily cycles, and how these cycles help organizations continuously evaluate Value, balance resources, and decide when to start, stop, or pause programs and projects. It will also show how P5.express fits alongside existing project and program management approaches such as PRINCE2, Agile, Scrum, or P3.express, without forcing change at the delivery level. Using practical examples, the presentation will demonstrate how P5.express improves transparency, reduces conflicts, and helps leaders make informed decisions about priorities and investments — making portfolio management simpler, lighter, and more effective.

Capital and infrastructure projects play a critical role in driving business growth and improving societal well-being. Yet, despite their strategic importance, many owners continue to face cost overruns, schedule delays, and underperforming assets. The root causes are often linked to insufficient attention during the early development phases, where strategic alignment, scope definition, and governance should establish the foundation for success. This paper examines common failure patterns observed in recent project assessments conducted by the author’s firm across industrial and infrastructure sectors. The analysis highlights how weak front-end loading (FEL), lack of stage-gate discipline, and inadequate owner decision-making contribute to lost value. By contrasting successful and underperforming projects, the paper demonstrates how structured development, accountability, and governance improve predictability and outcomes. The technical content aims to equip owners with practical insights into closing maturity gaps, reducing risk exposure, and ensuring capital investments deliver the intended long-term value.

This talk builds on the core message of Welcome to Your Project and deliberately challenges the comforting idea that there are “best practices” that guarantee success. Using concrete, contrasting examples of large-scale projects, it shows why identical methods can lead to radically different outcomes when context, constraints, and stakeholder dynamics change. The session makes one point unmistakably clear: projects do not fail because people chose the “wrong framework,” but because they applied the right-looking approach in the wrong situation. One size does not fit all – and pretending otherwise is one of the fastest ways into crisis.

يتناول هذا الحديث السريع ظاهرة شائعة في بيئات التنفيذ الكبيرة: حيث يتم اعتماد الخطط، حضور الاجتماعات، والموافقة على القرارات شكليًا—بينما يغيب الالتزام الحقيقي والمسؤولية الفعلية. يركز الحديث على: الفرق بين الموافقة والالتزام كيف تُستخدم العمليات لتأجيل القرار بدل حسمه لماذا تفشل البرامج رغم اكتمال كل المتطلبات “على الورق” الرسالة الأساسية: المشكلة ليست في غياب العمليات، بل في غياب الشجاعة لاتخاذ القرا

This presentation introduces the Value-Centric Project Management Framework™, a practical approach that repositions procurement from a cost-focused, siloed function into a strategic enabler of project success. Drawing on real-world project and supply-chain experience, the session highlights how traditional procurement metrics, organizational structures, and contracting models contribute to project delays, claims, and lost value. Through a structured framework built around the 6Cs (Consistency, Clarity, Continuity, Collaboration, Control, and Completion) and a real oil & gas case study, the presentation demonstrates how aligning procurement with project economics (NPV, IRR, payback), contractor performance, and delivery timelines can significantly reduce delays, claims, and cycle times—while increasing profitability and stakeholder satisfaction. The session offers actionable insights for project managers, procurement leaders, and executives seeking to deliver complex projects faster, with fewer disputes and greater overall value.

Projects are how organisations execute strategy. Every project should move the organisation toward its new “working just right” future. Yet despite decades of investment in project management capability, results remain persistently poor. Research and practice consistently show that most strategies fail not because they are flawed, but because they are poorly executed. When projects fail, the failure is usually treated as a project delivery problem. In reality, it is far more accurately described as an investment problem. Project professionals can certainly destroy investment returns by allowing costs to overrun, timelines to blow out, or scope to drift. What they cannot do is create value if it was never there in the first place. No hero, guru or hero-project manager can rescue a project that is ill-conceived, mis-conceived, or disconnected from strategic intent — and, unfortunately, too many projects fall into that category. This session challenges the assumption that better delivery alone leads to better outcomes. It explores how and where value is systematically destroyed across the project lifecycle – often long before delivery begins – and why traditional success measures such as time, cost, and scope fail to predict strategic value. Participants will be introduced to a practical, outcomes-driven execution model that explicitly links strategy to projects through clear, specific, measurable outcomes. The session explains the critical role of early decision-making, path dependency, and governance in protecting value as projects progress, particularly in complex and uncertain environments. Designed for project leaders, PMOs, and executives, this presentation provides a repeatable and practical approach to strengthening strategy execution and ensuring projects deliver the results – and value – the organisation actually intends.

Most project teams 'do’ lessons learned at the end, but the same issues still repeat on later projects and programmes. This session introduces LOOP—a practical way to build learning into the flow of projects and programmes: Listen for signals and friction, Observe patterns and make insights usable, Optimise by changing a behaviour/process/decision quickly, and Persist by embedding that change into cadence and governance. Informed by knowledge management principles in project environments, we’ll explore three ready-to-use loops (decisions, risks, benefits) that help teams turn experience into better outcomes—without adding bureaucracy.

Imagine having complete confidence in your teams. Feeling like the people responsible for the organization’s top priorities were connected to the meaning and need for their work. This session will center project managers as the secret weapon for organizational stability amid rapid technological acceleration.

1. The Project Nobody Warns You About (5 min)
Why bank digital transformation is fundamentally different from any other IT project — regulatory overlap, zero-downtime requirements, and cultural resistance all at once.
2. Architecture as a Project Management Decision (8 min)
How choosing multi-cloud (AWS/Azure) + API-first + Banking-as-a-Service wasn’t just a technical call — it was a governance and risk management strategy that shaped the entire delivery model.
3. The Vendor Orchestra Problem (8 min)
Managing multiple technology partners (Appro, Avanza, NI, Temenos) simultaneously — how you structured accountability, avoided blame-shifting, and kept the critical path from fragmenting.
4. Compliance as a Project Constraint, Not an Afterthought (7 min)
Embedding UAE Central Bank IAR compliance and ISO 27001 into the delivery framework from Day 1, and what happens to timelines when you don’t.
5. Lessons for Any Complex Project Leader (7 min)
Transferable insights for PMs managing large-scale transformation — change management, UAT discipline, stakeholder alignment with boards and regulators.
6. Q&A (5 min)

As AI accelerates the speed of transformation, organizations risk optimizing for efficiency at the expense of judgment. Maha Chehab defines as 'The Cost of Unwisdom.' Drawing from her book, Human and Wisdom in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Building Wisdom for Individuals, Societies and Organizations, she introduces the Wisdom-Led PMO: a new governance model that operationalizes ethical anchoring and systemic thinking. Discover how to recover lost value realization by shifting your PMO from a 'process enforcer' to an 'institutional conscience' that safeguards both ROI and human sustainability.

The Future of PMOs in an AI-Driven World explores how Project Management Offices are evolving from traditional governance and reporting functions into execution intelligence hubs. As organizations face accelerating change and increasing portfolio complexity, AI enables PMOs to move from hindsight-based reporting to foresight-driven decision support—enhancing strategic alignment, predictive risk management, benefits realization, and leadership decision agility, while preserving human judgment, accountability, and governance at the core.

This presentation explores how cutting-edge technologies such as AI-enabled delivery, digital twins, and advanced analytics are revolutionizing modern project ecosystems. Attendees will gain insights into how digital systems provide clarity, enhance decision-making, and drive impactful outcomes, shaping the future of efficient, resilient, and innovative delivery processes.

The presentation, "Securing the Future: AI Security in Saudi Arabia's Giga-Construction Projects," is a strategic briefing designed for the GPMF. It explores the critical intersection of AI, cybersecurity, and large-scale infrastructure within the Saudi Vision 2030 framework. The presentation aims to transform Project Managers into "Guardians of the Digital-Physical Link." It argues that for Saudi Arabia’s giga-projects, AI security is a fundamental requirement for operational continuity, site safety, and national resilience. Strategic Necessity: AI security is presented as the bedrock of Vision 2030, protecting massive investments from "silent failures" and logic manipulation. Key themes - The New Attack Surface: It addresses AI-specific threats like Data Poisoning and Model Drift, specifically focusing on the vulnerabilities of Digital Twins and BIM systems. - Governance & Ethics: It provides a roadmap for compliance with SDAIA’s AI Ethics and NCA’s Cybersecurity Controls, emphasizing the mandatory "Human-in-Command" protocol. - Lifecycle Integration: The narrative advocates for "baking in" security from project initiation through to facilities management to prevent costly retrofitting. - Actionable Leadership: It concludes with a Resilient AI Roadmap, a Milestone Checklist, and a Recommended Reading list for continuous professional development.