8 June 2023 - Sofia, Bulgaria: PMI Bulgaria Chapter is organizing the second edition of Bulgarian Project Management Awards in 2023, in the format of a “peer review” competition to recognize outstanding projects and professionals actively contributing to the project management profession and best practices in nine categories:

1. Project Professional Of The Year
2. Young Project professional Of The Year
3. Agile Practitioner Of The Year
4. Project Team Of The Year
5. Project Department/PMO Of The Year
6. Innovative Project Of The Year Award 2023
7. Sector-Specific Project Of The Year
8. Start-Up Project Of The Year
9. Social Project Of The Year

Phase 1: Volunteering Recruitment and Organization Process (April-October 2022)

PMI Bulgaria Chapter publishes a public call for volunteers and coordinates more than 30 project managers appointed to Marketing, Website, Sponsorship, Logistics, Nominations and Evaluation team responsibilities. The entire organization is planned and executed by volunteers from the Bulgarian project management community to work closely with the Board of PMI Bulgaria Chapter and external stakeholders.

Phase 2: Awareness and Nomination Process (February 2023-March 2023)

PM Awards Team develops and publishes award categories, eligibility criteria, competition rules and contact/interest forms on the event website https://pmi.bg/pmawards, followed by a call for nominations. Bulgarian project management community and network are made aware through marketing activities and outreach programs (via email, LinkedIn and facebook), as well as word of mouth and professional networking. Media partnerships are also activated to raise awareness across wider audiences.

A separate application form for each category is made available to anyone who submits an interest form on the website until the deadline: April 15, 2023

The nomination team engages in prospecting, inviting, informing, onboarding, and admitting candidates during the application process. Guidance is provided to both nominators and nominees throughout the nomination process in order to decide which categories to apply, to check eligibility/admissibility, and to ultimately improve the quality and relevance of submitted applications. 

Each applying entity (organization or individual) can submit a single nomination in up to 3 different categories. Only qualified and completed applications will be admitted to the evaluation phase. Sponsoring organizations will not be allowed to compete in any specific category if they are entitled to hand out the category award to the winners in the same category.

Applicants (nominator and/or nominee) are expected to give consent to making some of their content and biographies public and the information they provide must be declared compliant with confidentiality and data privacy laws. All applications and provided data will otherwise be treated as confidential by the PMI Bulgaria Chapter and the volunteer organization team, even though they cannot be held responsible for the content provided. Any sensitive information should be removed and necessary clearance protocols must be followed.

Phase 3: Application Process (1 February 2023 - 15 April 2023)

The PM Bulgaria Awards 2023 Application and Evaluation phases will be conducted online.
The registration form contains required personal data fields for the applicant (nominee and/or nominator). The application form/s for the corresponding Award category/ies will be accessible after a successful registration. 

Upon registration the applicants (nominee and/or nominator) receive an email with an access link to their application portal where to manage their application/s or can access directly from the “Access your registration” button. 

Once the application is submitted, it is sent for an admission check. In case the application is returned for resubmission or it is rejected, the Evaluation Team will contact the applicant further.

Once the application is approved, the Evaluation Team will assign it to the Jury. 

Phase 4: Evaluation Process (15 April 2023 - 15 May 2023)

The Jury panel consists of independent local and international project management professionals and experts. 

Each application is divided into 4-5 sections depending on the Award category, and each application will be separately scored by at least 3 members of the Jury panel. The maximum score of each application is 100.

The total score will be automatically calculated via the awards management tool and the shortlisted applications will be sorted based on the Jury results. The applicant will be informed whether they were shortlisted or not, without revealing the score. The highest scoring shortlisted candidate is tagged as winner, and the other shortlisted candidate(s) as runner-up(s).

In case two or more applications - on the 3 shortlisted - will score equals the Jury panel will have a plenary session and evaluate question by question and applicants by applicants following a top-down approach.

The Evaluation Team and the Jury reserve the right not to announce a winner for a given category if there is no such distinction among the applications, and the entire category may be removed if there is not a sufficient number of qualified candidates in that category to call it a competition.

Phase 5: Shortlist Announcement (May 2023) & Award Ceremony (08 June 2023)

Shortlisted applicants will be informed at least two weeks before the Awards Ceremony. Winners and runner-ups will be sealed in envelopes until then and will only be opened for announcement during the PM Awards Ceremony on 08 June 2023. 

Conflicts of Interest and Disclaimer with Regards to Objectivity and Finality of Decisions

Conflicts of interest will be avoided to the best of the organizers’ knowledge and effort. PMI Bulgaria Chapter, or the sponsors, as the awarding body will not attempt to influence the evaluators in any shape or form and has selected a diverse and random panel of evaluators that are known to be objective, trusted, respected, and knowledgeable members of the project management community.

Evaluators will not vote for any entry with which they have a conflict of interest. Evaluators will not be assigned to any categories which may be subject to a conflict of interest. Evaluators will abstain from scoring in a specific category if there is even a slight chance of prejudice in that category due to: 

• The evaluator is employee or affiliated partner or has any other form of commercial interest or relationship with the nominee or the category sponsor (current or in the last 3 years)
• The evaluator is employee or affiliated partner of a direct competitor or has any other form of competing interest or relationship with the nominee or the category sponsor (current or in the last 3 years)
• There is a personal relationship (marital, family, kinship, friendship,..) between the evaluator and the nominee or the category sponsor. 
• The evaluator is a nominee or sponsor.
• The evaluator decides not to participate under any other potential conflict of interest, or suspicion, if they are not 100% sure of making an objective “peer review”.

In the absence of such direct conflict of interest of a commercial or personal nature, the score given by an evaluator will be considered relatively “objective” as it is provided by a peer practicing and respecting the norms and standard of the same profession (i.e., working as a project manager). “Peer reviews” are not expert opinions and provided as is without any guarantee of scientific objectivity.

Applicants must understand the voluntary nature of the evaluation process and accept all results as final without recourse to appeal. In order to avoid any issues, PMI Bulgaria Chapter will not announce publicly the names of the evaluation team members. For any evaluation questions or doubts regarding conflicts of interest please contact volunteers@pmi.bg  

The Board of the PMI Bulgaria Chapter declines any responsibility that may result from voluntary participation in this competition, and any interpersonal conflicts of any kind among the stakeholders, except those that can be linked to a fully informed decision by the Board members proven to be prejudiced, and will do its utmost to avoid conflicts of interest and inform the general public and/or interested parties if any such issues arise.

Confidentiality and Privacy

Nominators (on behalf of nominees) must declare their compliance with all legal matters, including privacy laws, confidentiality agreements, trade secrets, intellectual property rights that organizers and evaluators may not be aware of.

PMI Bulgaria Chapter will treat all information provided as confidential and will never release to third parties, with the notable exception of legal obligations.

Participating in this competition implies that the applicants implicitly consent and willingly enter to obtain marketing and media exposure, and cannot claim that the marketing briefings and biographies provided for marketing purposes are private. PMI Bulgaria Chapter has the right to share names and organizations that apply as long as they have given the specific marketing permissions (“opt-in”) included in the application forms. However, all applicants have the right to be removed from such publicity at any point in time, which will be applied retroactively to the extent possible (“right to be forgotten”).

PMI Bulgaria Chapter reserves the right to announce and share publicly all news regarding shortlisted candidates, until the moment of receiving a written request to remove such communications from official information boards and channels.

For further information on PMI Bulgaria Chapter’s privacy policies please contact the privacy officer: privacy@pmi.bg