Case Study: PMI - How a purposeful culture created new momentum across more than 200 countries and territories
A Global Community of Project Professionals
Founded in 1969 by five volunteers who believed project management should be recognized as a distinct professional discipline, Project Management Institute (PMI), a global not-for-profit organization, began as a small community committed to sharing knowledge and advancing the practice of delivering successful projects.
Project Management Institute. Early PMI.
That same year, humanity watched the Apollo 11 moon landing - a lasting symbol of what becomes possible when complex technical activities are planned, coordinated and executed as a successful project.
Apollo 11
Over the decades, PMI grew into a global institution helping define the standards, certifications and professional pathways that shape modern project management.
Today, PMI serves millions of professionals, including over 775,000 members, in more than 200 countries and territories. Through this global network, its gold-standard certifications and its career-long learning opportunities, PMI empowers current and aspiring project professionals and organizations with the tools to lead effectively and deliver projects that create meaningful impact.
PMI is more than a membership organization that trains and certifies project managers; it is a vast global community with over 300 chapters and more than 17,500 active volunteers supporting local communities all over the world with their project management skills.
This growth was not a given though - it came out of addressing a challenge PMI faced after over 50 years of operating: the work enabling so much progress around the world often remained largely invisible to the people benefiting from it. This raised a key question: what do you do when your organization powers some of the world’s greatest transformations, yet the profession is rarely linked to the success behind these transformations?
Against this backdrop, the growth challenge of PMI was two-fold:
Despite enabling progress everywhere and the skills itself having clear value - from driving day-to-day projects and corporate transformations to big infrastructure initiatives - project management as a profession itself often remained invisible: functional, undervalued and low-profile. PMI leadership recognized the need to elevate the reputation and relevance of the profession, demonstrate the real-world impact of project success to decision makers and society, and attract more people into the field.
At the same time, PMI has been stewarding one of the largest professional communities in the world. Aligning hundreds of chapters, thousands of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of members behind a single unifying ambition was no small task. Without a powerful Purpose and shared culture to bring this ecosystem together, the extraordinary PMI global network could not fully translate its scale into deeper participation, stronger engagement and the collective momentum required to elevate the profession and grow it for the future.
Meeting this moment required more than strategy. In partnership with us, PMI embarked on a transformation to define a shared Purpose, one that could elevate the relevance of the profession while uniting its global community around a common ambition.
Asking the Defining Question
Every major infrastructure build, digital transformation, humanitarian response, climate initiative, or corporate reinvention depends on one thing: projects that succeed. Yet for decades, project management itself often operated in the background. Essential, but under‑appreciated. While the work of PMI ultimately enables transformation across industries and geographies, the profession it represented was rarely seen as the architect of that transformation. To change this, the leadership team needed to go back to the fundamentals and ask: Why do we exist, and why does the world need us now?
Leadership: Clarifying what matters most
PMI leadership realized that it needed to rediscover what PMI was about, and what societal impact defined its very essence. In partnership with Menaka Gopinath, PMI Chief Marketing Officer, and the wider PMI executive team, we set out to understand the two main ingredients of Purpose: PMI superpowers, and what the world needs, now and in the future.
On the Superpower side of the equation, we identified undeniable strengths of PMI:
Recognition as the global gold standard in project management
Deep institutional knowledge and credibility
A heritage of advancing the profession
And, most importantly, a vast, highly engaged global community of leaders, employees, members, local chapters, volunteers, partners and millions of project professionals
One idea consistently surfaced: community.
Not just as a membership base, but a global network of project professionals who get things done, and who are passionate to connect, share and learn.
Project Management Institute. Global Employee Summit.
On the other side stood a defining reality about what the world needs now:
Organizations large and small are under relentless pressure to transform. AI disruption, shifting consumer expectations, regulatory change, sustainability demands and geopolitical volatility require companies to constantly evolve how they operate.
Transformation is no longer episodic, it is continuous. And every transformation, no matter how strategic, ultimately depends on countless projects executed well.
Yet the challenge extends beyond the corporate arena.
Governments everywhere need to rebuild infrastructure, healthcare systems need to be modernized, and communities need to respond to climate change, just to name a few. And at the end of the day, across all of this, society’s most urgent ambitions are delivered through projects.
Infrastructure & project management
And as research shows, too often those projects fail. The conclusion was stark and simple: Our world needs more projects to succeed.
At the intersection of superpowers and what the world needs, we helped articulate the PMI Purpose: We maximize project success to elevate our world.
This new Purpose reframed project success from an operational KPI into a societal lever. It elevated project professionals from process administrators to architects behind progress that matters. With this, PMI leadership clarified two essential anchors:
Project success would become the defining metric of impact.
Community would be the multiplier capable of delivering that impact at scale.
To operationalize this ambition, PMI backed it with proprietary global research into what truly drives project success. That research revealed that solely relying on traditional measures such as time, scope and budget was insufficient. What ultimately determined success was perception of value: whether a project delivered outcomes worth the effort and expense invested. Project success, in other words, is defined not only by efficiency, but by impact as experienced by stakeholders.
Out of this research emerged M.O.R.E., the bold vision of PMI for the future of the profession and the unlock to maximizing project success:
Manage perceptions: For a project to be considered successful, the key stakeholders - customers, executives and others - should perceive that the project's outputs create more value than the perceived investment of resources.
Own success: Project professionals need to take ownership of the entire breadth of a project, moving beyond mostly execution focus to take accountability for delivering tangible and perceived value while minimizing waste.
Relentlessly reassess: Project professionals need to recognize the reality of inevitable and ongoing change and, in collaboration with stakeholders, continuously reassess the perception of value and adjust plans.
Expand perspective: All projects have impacts beyond just the scope of the project itself. We all should consider the broader picture and how the project fits within the larger business goals or objectives of the enterprise, and ultimately our world.
Together, the elements M.O.R.E. articulate what will elevate the profession in the future, shifting from managing projects to owning outcomes that create recognized value.
To quantify progress, PMI also introduced a brand new KPI: the Net Project Success Score (NPSS), a perception-based metric calculated as the difference between those who believe a project delivered value worth its investment and those who do not. This moved project success from an abstract aspiration to a measurable standard.
Culture: Unlocking project success
After articulating the new PMI Purpose, the next job was to turn that ambition into coordinated action. Culture needed to become the key enabler of the most important PMI superpower: its global community of highly engaged project professionals - actively embedding and advancing the elements of M.O.R.E. across that community. By aligning and inspiring leaders, employees, chapters, volunteers and members around a shared Purpose and a vision for what drives project success, culture empowered the PMI community with a sharper, more consistent focus on project success.
Purpose created a new story for the profession to believe in
As reflected in our Culture Flywheel, the first shift towards a purposeful culture was narrative. Project management had long been described in terms of process, timelines and budgets. The new story of PMI focused instead on outcomes, and what project success makes possible in the world:
Project managers as architects of progress
Project success as measurable impact
Community as a force capable of shaping industries and societies
Wind Power Development, Project Managers.
These stories didn't have to be invented, they were real examples of impact already present across the PMI global ecosystem. From rebuilding communities after natural disasters, to delivering critical healthcare infrastructure, to enabling large‑scale change management inside global enterprises. Projects completed against the odds, organizations transformed through better governance, and communities strengthened because someone applied project management excellence at the right moment, all became powerful stories that made the new PMI Purpose meaningful and inspired the PMI global community to align its norms and behaviors behind a sharper definition of project success.
Project Manager Planning
Experiences made community tangible at scale
As we've shared in our culture theory chapter, narrative alone rarely sustains cultural momentum, so PMI turned its superpower - community - into shared experiences: Its global and regional summits became more than Project Management conferences. They became powerful cultural engines. In these moments:
Thousands gathered around a unifying ambition: maximizing project success.
Real project stories demonstrated measurable impact, in both organizations and society
Members from all over the world shared meaningful work
Recognition elevated project professionals to visible protagonists
What had once felt technical became meaningful. Project success shifted from a dry metric to a collective mission, creating pride, passion and belonging. And beyond flagship events, PMI extended these community experiences through local chapters and new digital platforms, creating ongoing forums for connection, knowledge exchange and shared excellence.
Behaviors that enable Project Success at scale
We've argued that the real currency of culture is behavior. It's where the rubber hits the road and where Purpose turns from aspiration into action.
While M.O.R.E. articulated a bold vision for the future of the profession, realizing that vision across a global community required something more fundamental: shared behaviors that reinforce ownership, accountability, curiosity and collective ambition every day. Research can clarify the path forward, but only culture can determine whether that path is consistently followed.
In this case, PMI culture needed to be clearly defined and consistently lived across a global ecosystem that transcends the boundaries between what is inside and outside of “the organization.” To unlock the full potential of the worldwide PMI community in service of project success, shared behaviors had to move like a ripple from leaders and employees to local chapters, volunteers and members - and from there out into the world.
With that in mind, PMI went back to their five culture behaviors, articulated before the Purpose was defined, but made more intentional with a clarified Purpose and the M.O.R.E. vision for the profession. Importantly, these behaviors were developed not just for, but with the PMI global community, reflecting input, experience and perspective from across its ecosystem.
Make It Easy
We are easy to deal with.
When things slow us down, we find a better way.
We prioritize the impact that matters most and take the most direct route to it.
Maximizing project success requires focus on value, not bureaucracy. By reducing the friction experienced by stakeholders and simplifying complexity, this behavior helps teams concentrate on what ultimately drives success: delivering outcomes worth the effort and investment.
Aim Higher
We set the standard in top-quality work to create the greatest impact for the PMI community.
We lead the way by thinking long-term and acting in the short term.
We fearlessly take ownership of what we do, knowing every action counts.
Project success, as defined by M.O.R.E., demands ownership beyond execution. This behavior reinforces accountability for real impact, encouraging professionals to take responsibility not just for delivering tasks, but for delivering value that stakeholders recognize.
Be Welcoming
We create genuine belonging for all because our differences make us stronger.
We act with humanity, showing care, empathy and respect for others' needs.
We assume good intent and seek to understand, not judge.
Managing perceptions and expanding perspective are central to project success. By fostering inclusion and trust, this behavior ensures that diverse viewpoints are strengthening decisions that shape project outcomes.
Embrace Curiosity
We are always seeking ways to better serve the PMI community.
We see challenges as opportunities to innovate, and take them.
We feel able to fail fast in order to get it right.
Relentlessly reassessing assumptions is critical in environments defined by change. This behavior enables continuous learning and adaptation, increasing the likelihood that projects stay aligned with evolving stakeholder expectations and deliver meaningful results.
Together We Can
We build deep, trusting relationships that help us work towards our mission together.
We use our shared purpose to unite us as a community and drive us forward to create impact.
We act in alignment with our global goals, while being empowered to deliver locally
Project success is a collective effort. By reinforcing collaboration and shared ambition across a global community, this behavior scales the elements of M.O.R.E., turning individual excellence into community-wide impact.
Together, these culture behaviors ensure that project success is enabled by a shared way of working across the global PMI community.
PMI Project Management Summit
Purpose as a Springboard for Innovation
Once project success became the central metric, and the culture of the PMI global community started to align around it, the stage was set for new innovation. Each new product, service or experience was born out of answering the same question: how do we increase the probability that projects succeed.
At the center of these efforts was the ambition to unlock the power of generative AI. PMI realized that in the context of project success, AI is both an opportunity and a risk: a powerful accelerator when applied well, and a potential source of failure when misapplied. Below are three notable examples of how the PMI purpose drove AI-related innovation for its community:
PMI Infinity™, an AI-powered offering, embeds artificial intelligence directly into the project management workflow, assisting and augmenting how project professionals work. Grounded in the PMI global standards and enriched by insights from its global expert community, Infinity™ delivers project-specific guidance that helps teams make smarter, faster decisions with clarity and control. It can provide accurate, context-aware answers while keeping organizational data private and protected. Through the PMI website and a dedicated mobile app, Infinity™ connects users to the full breadth and depth of project management knowledge, all in service of one outcome: increasing the likelihood that projects succeed.
AI-focused research and online courses helped project professionals stay updated on the latest uses of AI in their profession. The ongoing launch of AI-focused research, learning resources, and guidance is designed to help professionals integrate AI responsibly and effectively into their project work - strengthening judgment, governance, and ultimately, results.
The PMI-CPMAI™ certification enabled PMI to extend its definition of success into a new frontier of work, and one of the fastest‑growing sources of project failure: artificial intelligence initiatives. To help project professionals best lead the onslaught of AI projects – which function much differently than a regular IT project – that were inevitably coming their way, PMI acquired Cognilytica®, a leading AI-focused research, advisory, and education firm, in September 2024, and with it came the PMI Certified Professional in Managing AI (PMI-CPMAI)™ certification. The integration of the PMI-CPMAI™ framework into its product portfolio enabled PMI to equip professionals with proven methods for governing, designing, and delivering AI and data projects, thereby increasing success for these transformative initiatives. PMI enabled innovation not by promoting technology adoption for its own sake, but by increasing the likelihood that high‑risk, high‑impact projects actually deliver value.
PMI Infinity and PMI-CPMAI™ certification
These innovations are not incremental product launches, they are purposeful and complementary enablers, equipping the profession with the tools and platforms required to consistently deliver project success.
Brand: telling stories of impact
In our brand theory chapter, we have laid out that in order for Purpose to boost Brand Power, marketing and storytelling need to be based on real action and meaningful engagement, which PMI now has in spades.
Leading with action
While PMI itself demonstrated meaningful action towards maximizing project success through initiatives like its powerful new AI tool PMI Infinity™, the ultimate proof point has been the daily work of project professionals around the world. Across industries, sectors and geographies, project leaders are navigating complexity, aligning stakeholders, managing change and delivering outcomes that move organizations and communities forward. Real projects succeeding in real organizations and across the world, translating ambition into tangible results, is the kind of action no marketing campaign could manufacture.
Engagement with impact
In many ways, PMI brand action itself is focused on the engagement of its global community. Vibrant global and regional summits, highly empowered local chapters and active digital communities are all designed to drive and sustain engagement not just between PMI and its wider community, but also with people who may be looking to start or pivot their careers, recruiting them into the world of project management. Beyond events and digital forums, the PMI global network of volunteering opportunities invites project professionals and those who aspire to become one, to apply their skills to help non-profits all over the world improve outcomes.
Product development
Storytelling rooted in project success
As culture strengthened internally around real stories of project success, PMI started to carry those same stories out into the world. Again, the brand did not have to invent anything, rather it amplified meaningful real world project outcomes already celebrated within the community.
Whether helping communities recover in the wake of natural disasters, enabling hospitals to modernize critical infrastructure, or guiding enterprise-wide transformations inside complex global organizations, PMI brought forward inspirational stories where effective project management, and excellent project managers, created meaningful outcomes.
Of note was the inaugural Solutionaries Series, a PMI + TIME Studios docuseries, spotlighting the role of project management in developing, scaling, and sustaining breakthrough ideas.This docuseries and many other stories from PMI told of moments when uncertainty was navigated, resources were aligned, and bold ambitions were translated into tangible results - every project became a story of action that carried the profession’s impact from inside the community out into the world.
Watch each episode of the Project Management Institute, TIME Studios Solutionaries series here.
Results that matter
Purposeful Growth at PMI started on the inside. A clear Purpose - maximizing project success to elevate our world - aligned and inspired leaders, employees, chapters, volunteers and members around a shared ambition. This strengthened participation and engagement across the community and created the momentum needed to elevate the PMI brand along with the profession’s relevance and attract more people into it. The numbers speak for themselves:
As of November 2025, the PMI global community included over 1.85 million active certification holders (+7% year over year) and more than 775,000 members (+4% year over year). Chapter membership surpassed 411,000 globally, growing by 55% over the past three years combined (vs. -9% in the three years prior), while volunteers increased by 68% over the past three years combined (vs. 10% in the three years prior), reaching an all-time high.
With culture aligned, innovation equipping professionals with better tools, and brand telling powerful stories, the impact began to register externally. Since 2023, PMI has significantly strengthened its brand meaning, shifting from a credentialing authority toward a trusted career and project success partner, with measurable gains in perceived quality, relevance, and professional credibility, evidence that project success is being understood as a business imperative. PMI research also introduced a new brand attribute in 2024, “helps me increase project success”, reinforcing the alignment between Purpose, professional practice and measurable value creation at scale.
As this momentum built, it also translated into accelerated global revenue growth, with an average growth rate of 8% per year over the past three years (vs. 1% prior).
Taken together, these shifts demonstrate Purposeful Growth in action: clarity, meaning and focus of a powerful Purpose emanating across a massive global organization, ultimately increasing relevance on the outside. For PMI, growth is now evident across multiple dimensions: a larger and more engaged global community, stronger volunteer and chapter participation, increasing brand power among decision makers and project professionals, an overall improved perception of the profession’s impact, and global revenue growth.
Engineering Project Managers
Looking ahead, the stakes for project success are only increasing. The coming decades will demand unprecedented levels of transformation. In this context, the ability to turn ambition into successful projects may become one of society’s most important capabilities. The PMI Purpose, and the global community behind it, offer a reason for optimism: when people around the world are equipped to lead projects that deliver real value, progress itself becomes more achievable.
If anything sparks your interest in this or the following articles, please do email philipp@purposefulgrowth.co