Update: The revised bylaws were approved by our membership on 5/28/21.
PMI Global Headquarters (PMI GHQ) asks that chapters review their bylaws periodically (every 10+ years or so) to ensure that the chapter is applying best practice governance structures and processes to benefit the chapter.
To that end, the Board of Directors has reviewed the bylaws and has proposed the changes that you can read through by examining the linked Current and Proposed Bylaws documents.
To aid in your understanding of the changes, we’ve highlighted (in yellow) the sections and specific pieces that were updated in the Proposed Bylaws document.
We’re also providing the following summary with our reasoning behind the changes were it might help to enlighten you of the context.
- The biggest change is to the Governance approach to board members both in number and specific roles.
- Number of Officers: we’ve proposed flexibility into the bylaws to allow us to grow or shrink the Board as needed between 7 and 11 members. The Board would determine the number of positions in advance of election cycles based on the needs of the chapter.
- Flexible Board Positions: Historically, elections have been for specific candidates for specific positions. Going forward we’re proposing that the membership vote to approve candidates as Delegates-At-Large who will be on the Board. Then the board will determine the best role for the individual based on current vacancies and needs, and a match to an individual’s skill set. The offices of President, EVP, and VP Finance will always be roles that will need to be filled and will be selected from the elected Delegates-At-Large.
- Term Period: Term periods have historically been from July – June and we’re proposing a change to January – December. We would push elections back so that they would conclude in time for newly-elected members of the Board to be able to participate in Board functions for three months prior to the start of their term. This would also serve as a lower-pressure ramp up period to understand the responsibilities of their new role.
- Term Limits: The prior bylaws document had limits on 2 consecutive terms in a role and 4 terms total without taking a break. In practice, some positions that must be filled (e.g.: VP Finance) have gone without interested or qualified candidates and so have required volunteers to serve longer than the described terms. Because some roles require specific knowledge and that some individuals will be more suited for certain roles and would want to continue to serve the chapter, we’ve added the flexibility to let this happen as a matter of policy.
- Specific Role Duties: The earlier version of the bylaws had job description-like content in the bylaws. The proposed version references positions and only the highest levels of responsibility. The Board will continue to have the specific role requirements documented in job descriptions but keeping those details out of the bylaws allows the board to update and modify them as needed for the chapter without the overhead of a lengthy review period and formal vote of the membership.
- Vacancies and Resignations: The Board is instituting in writing what has been done in practice by introducing the language for the “excused absence.” Especially in the Covid times, emergencies come up and people are living their lives. While attendance continues to be of paramount importance to run the Chapter, we’re also adding this provision to recognize that things come up and that a reasonable approach to handling it should be employed.
- Filling Vacancies: The Board has added a sentence that is standard for other Chapters that was missing from our earlier bylaws version.
If you have any questions you would like to pose in advance of the vote, please send us a message here.
PMI GHQ will email you voting information on or about May 10, 2021 so that you can vote to approve (or reject) the proposed changes. If you need to verify or update the email address that you have on file with PMI GHQ, please login to pmi.org and review your profile.