By Allan Anderson, Professor of Product Development, Massey University

This year’s conference is to be held from October 31 to November 4 at the Disneyland Hotel in Los Angeles. The Conference starts with a range of workshops including Portfolio Planning, Accelerated Product Development and Lean Product Development. The main Conference theme is Gaining Traction for What’s Ahead and includes a wide range of speakers from industry and academia, either presenting papers or facilitating the many group discussions available to attendees.

A key feature of the Conference is a gathering of representatives from most of the international affiliates of PDMA. This will provide an opportunity for me to talk a little about our experiences in starting up PDMA-NZ, and to learn from the experiences of others in similar situations in other parts of the world.

Additionally, I will be taking the opportunity to meet with members of the PDMA executive team who lead the certification programme. My main aim is to learn more about what is involved in being an accredited training provider for PDMA and to seek accreditation for Massey University. This is my first PDMA conference and I am very much looking forward to immersing myself in an environment of NPD for a whole week.

For further information about the conference, click here.