Time to #BalanceforBetter and get ready to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD)

International Women’s Day (March 8) is fast approaching and we’ve a host of activities lined up to support this fantastic initiative and celebrate the achievements and contribution of women involved in the project profession. The theme for this year’s event is #BalanceForBetter and we’ll be promoting this across our social media channels - we’d love to maximise your efforts too so be sure to tag us in on your posts and we’ll share them far and wide.

So, what’s going on at APM?

In the run up to the day, the APM WiPM SIG will be hosting six regional events across the UK on the 7th March – in Cambridge, London, Belfast, Sheffield, Crawley and Milton Keynes. Each event has its own focus, but topics include building a gender-balanced world, innovation, showcasing the career journeys of remarkable project managers, talking about furthering female leadership and giving top tips for dealing with failure. The Crawley event even features a “Tea with the Taliban” speaker – where attendees will hear from former RAF officer Emma Dutton MBE who will be speaking about understanding influence, using techniques she developed when working with the Taliban.

On the day itself, we have a number of activities to look out for! More specifically:

• We’ll be announcing the date for our 2019 WiPM Conference so do look out for that and make a note of it in your diaries.
• We’ll be celebrating existing research we have conducted on the issue of gender parity, including the recent “Where are the women in project leadership” as well as a range of other tips and advisory blogs
• Last but not least, we will be celebrating the day with a range of content social media, featuring a range of case studies of highly successful women in project management and asking our members to join us in recreating the #BalanceForBetter ‘W’ pose – a viral campaign designed to highlight the need for balance being the responsibility for all, men and women alike.