A few weeks ago I went along to Cass Business School to listen to Susanne Madsen talking about project leadership. Susanne is a coach specialising in project management and also author of the Project Management Coaching Workbook

Project leadership is defined by Susanne as the elements of the PM role that are related to the people aspects of project management, making the clear distinction from the management of tasks or activities. I think we’re all well aware of the importance of this side of the role but it often seems neglected – especially in those who are newer to project management.

One of the simple reminders I enjoyed in the presentation was about self-management, in particular time management. It seems like the simplest aspects of successful management practice are taught once, at the beginning of your career, and never touched on again.

Susanne talked about the triangle in relation to managing your time proactively, focusing on the strategic or proactive activities and minimising the reactive and non-productive. Not only will it lead to more success but ultimately it helps with the stress levels. I’m sure we all want to be spending time on the Proactive, but how many of us find ourselves in the Firefighting or Time-wasting. There’s no prizes for guessing where good PMs spend their time.

What is interesting about this is just how many people actually enjoy working in the Firefighting (create a crisis and then fly to the rescue to sort it, ring any bells?) or like Time-wasting (because it makes me look busy and not out of my depth at all?!).

So truthfully, how do you spend your time as a PM? And even more importantly why do you choose to spend your time in this way? Difficult questions that need tackling before you can hope to unleash your potential.

Each month, the Recruitment Employment Confederation and KPMG, release a report on general jobs for the UK market. In this month’s report there are a number of highlights worth sharing with the project management community.

• There is a faster rise on permanent placements however contract and temporary billing levels have fallen. Job vacancies have increased on last month. “The latest figures, however, hint at a positive turn with permanent placements accelerating, the rate of demand for permanent staff remaining solid and average starting salaries continuing to rise.” “The reality is that there are likely to be storm clouds ahead before the employment rainbow will really be allowed to shine.”
  
• Permanent starting salaries rose in the Midlands, the North and the South during April, but fell in London. Hourly rates of pay for staff in temporary/contract employment rose for the third month running during April. That said, the rate of inflation was only modest and slower than in March.

• Engineering and IT & Computing are the current sectors where permanent placements are being made. For contract work, nursing and medical sectors aside, engineering and financial are hiring the most contractors.

• Unemployment is 7.9% it’s been around this figure for the last six months – compared to the high of 8.4% we saw around January 2012.

For project management we’re seeing a mixed bag of opportunity – there has been more interest in healthcare experienced project professionals; education, marketing and defence. We’re also still a keen interest in people wanting to move into the project management industry although the report has not highlighted any shortage of project management professionals available in the marketplace at the moment. This makes it a tough move for people considering project management as a profession.

I was wondering if you were able to help with some advice? I’m work within Sales (account management, BDM, etc) with some experience of Sales Management and I was looking at taking a new route for my career and looked at project Management. I suppose I was wondering what kind of qualifications were needed in order to be considered for PM – and also, whether Trainee roles were something that would come up regularly in order to get into PM….most of the roles I have seen require a good solid PM background/with experience…but there must be a route into the career…

This question is taken from our Facebook page.

You’re right in that there must be a way into project management but what tends to happen when people already have a current career and want to move into project management is that they use what they already have. Project management is an accidental career for many people – for example, if your current place of work needed someone to work on a change – like a new CRM system – they would often find someone already working within the department who would have the skills and ability to help deliver the new system. That’s the beginning of someone’s career into project management.

Then you’ll start to look at how I can deliver this change better and start looking at project management courses that suit the industry and projects you work in. There’s no point looking at PRINCE2 at this stage if the business you’re working in doesn’t use it. You need courses that are going to help you better deliver the change so opt for courses that help you get better at the techniques of project management – like scoping a project; scheduling; managing issues and looking at risks.

Finding a way into project management with a previous career is often down to luck – it’s about being in the right place at the right time when your current employer is looking for someone to step up and manage a project (often at the same time as managing your day job). If there are no opportunities like this within your current place of work and you’re adamant that project management is the career for you (you don’t say why you’re interested in PM, but you need to make sure it’s a well thought through decision because you’ll need dedication to get there) self-funding an introduction to project management course could be the first step.

Once you have more insight into project management through this education I can guarantee that your outlook to finding a new position will change. It won’t guarantee you a new position in project management but it will open your eyes to what kind of industries and organisations would be interested in you as a potential project practitioner. And that’s the key really – the first step on the path to where you want to get to will come from you, once you’ve started to understand the world of project management a little more. I’ve always said that you don’t know what you don’t know until you start looking into something properly. Have a look at any basic or introductory courses into project management to start this path to self-awareness.

“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.”

Aldous Huxley

So on that note we’re happy to announce that Arras People have just launched their new job and career portal for project management practitioners. We do want to change the world eventually (……muahahahahahhahahahha!) well the world of project management recruitment anyway, and to do that we’ve just made the first stepped change.

The first step is creating a platform that allows us to carrying on bringing additional changes to project practitioners – for ones that are currently job seeking and the ones that are interested in developing their career.

Today, the platform enables project practitioners to gain control of their data at Arras People; have the ability to manage when they get alerted about new vacancies; are able to benchmark against others based on role and sector and receive exclusive offers.

Tomorrow? Watch this space, we’re serious about changing the way project management recruitment works and this is just the beginning.

“If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.”

Marian Wright Edelman

I went along to one of Maven Training‘s free seminars a few weeks ago – they’re bite size overviews of some of the courses they have on offer and this one was Change Management. That’s change management in relation to organisational change or business transformation – not change as in change control. I love this subject – partly because my degree was in psychology and partly because this was a huge subject area for HP where I used to work years ago. I’m convinced that the change management training course is just a psychology course really because of the huge amount of focus on the people impacted by the change.

It was great to have an hour or so top-up on the subject and one of the things that stuck with me after the session was the different types of people – their ways of learning and how they take on new information. So if there is a change in their work due to a larger transformation taking place in the business they’ll either approach it as  Theorists; Activists; Reflectors or Pragmatists.

It’s the Kolb learning styles or experiential learning theory. Here are the four groups in a little more detail:

• Activists are the people who most like change – they jump straight in there, not afraid to take a few risks, rolling up their sleeves and getting involved with others. The downside can be that is has to have personal relevance to them and doing what interests them.
• Theorists are the people who take a more structured approach to change, they want to read about the changes before acting; they want to know what the wider community thinks; they’ll be more logical in their thought processes and test the changes before fully committing. They like to learn alone and want to know all the facts and figures.
• Reflectors are the people who like different perspectives and enjoy having the opportunity to get involved with the changes whilst having time to reflect. They’re also more interested in the people aspect of change as opposed to structure although they’re interested in the processes. They’re the watchers and listeners.
• Pragmatists are the people who like to play and experiment when faced with something new. Practical application and gaining hands on experience is crucial to them. Testing the more structural elements of the change as opposed to the people aspects are most important.

The idea is that we’re all different, we’re all going to have different ways of learning and adapting. Of course we’re more complex than four boxes but as a starter for 10 it’s certainly worth thinking about the people who will be impacted by your projects or programmes and start thinking now about how you’ll get those users on your side. The Kolb styles are also interesting when thinking about organisational groups – like the PMO for instance. This was mentioned at the PMOSIG conference just last week when thinking about staff development – what is the best way for staff to learn and develop and as managers of such teams how do we blend the type of learning.

I think I fall into the Pragmatist group – always keen to try something out; trying to break it if I can but ultimately learning as I go along – definitely not someone who looks at the instructions when building IKEA furniture

We’re doing an evening seminar with Maven on the 5th June, find out more details about becoming a PM contractor

Yesterday it was the PMOSIG Spring Conference and the focus was my favourite subject – the people*. The whole day was about focusing on the people aspects of PMO – how we find them; develop them and understand what it is about them that makes one PMO successful over another.

There are a few takeaways from the conference that I wanted to share: Gold Dust; development influences; and challenging the status quo.

Gold Dust

An excellent term introduced at the conference in relation to understanding more about the individual types of people within a PMO and what “gold dust” is required in those roles to take an average PMO and turn it into an excellent PMO.

So if we think about a PMO Manager what attributes are we looking for – what’s essential, what’s preferred and what’s the icing on the cake – the gold dust? Equally we’re also thinking about what’s not good. I’m sure you can think of your own gold dusts but for me a PMO Manager who has the ability to work with and within the politics in the organisation; has gravitas and likeability; and isn’t an “in-the-details” bore who sits staring at reports on the PC just about does it for me on the gold dust front. Without these gold dust aspects they would be average or good at their job but with them it’ll set them apart.

Development Influences

If you’re looking to advance in PMO it’s crucial that you understand what can influence your development. We don’t develop our careers in isolation – ultimately it’s the organisation’s choice about what they want and need that will form some kind of framework. Sure we will develop as individuals through training, on-the-job experiences, feedback and mentoring but ultimately the type of training, experiences, feedback and mentoring we receive will depend on at least six factors. The type of PMO you work in; the maturity of the PPM organisation; the size of the PMO; the sector you work in; the level of seniority of the PMO and people within it and the future opportunities of the PMO will all influence your career.

Challenging the Status Quo

I love any kind of quirkiness that helps drive a message home – and in summing up the conference it was a reminder that people within the PMO are ultimately more important than processes and tools. As people we have the capability to change and challenge, build relationships and influence outcomes. It was a reminder that we should take the time to stop and check how we do things – and think about how we can do things better.

*Couldn’t resist – POWER to the PEOPLE – Tooting Popular Front

Many of my conversations with people who are trying to break into a project management role often start with the question, “so why do you want to get into project management?”. The majority of the answers are initially quite woolly. It’s usually something like, “I enjoy working with a team to get something done” or “I’m a great organiser” or “I’ve had a taste for it since managing a small project at work“.

When I then go on to ask, “Why would someone employ you to manage their projects?” suddenly the conversation has turned just that little bit more serious. Being a great organiser, or getting enjoyment out of working on a one-off project is just not enough. The reality is no-one in their right-mind would employ you as a project manager based on some whimsical romantic notion you’ve got about taking some basic work competencies and suddenly becoming a fully fledged “project manager”.

The interesting things about this is that almost everyone in the world is a project manager – and that statement is based on the fact that at some point we all apply some “informal” project management in our everyday lives. That could be decorating a room, planning a wedding or booking next year’s holiday. We all use informal project management steps like taking an idea and putting some concrete plans to it. We purchase resources or allocate work to others. We keep an eye on what we’re spending and we’ll consider the risks of it not working out.

To make a career change into project management, you’ve got to think about how you will change your informal experiences and skills into more formal skills – the kind where people are willing to pay or employ you for them.  The first step for many is taking a PRINCE2 course – which is perfectly fine if you are taking the course to understand more about a formal project management method. With no prior experience in formal project management, the PRINCE2 qualification will NOT magically open doors for you. It just means you understand more about a formal project management method.

You still need to understand more about formal project management – that’s the nuts and bolts of project management, the tools and techniques like creating a schedule; allocating resources; budgeting and risk management etc. This is about taking the experiences and understanding you have in informal project management and starting the journey to a more formal project management way of working.

And that’s the key of informal to formal project management – it’s a journey. It won’t happen overnight. There are no courses in the world that can make that happen because the true journey to formal project management happens when you experience it – on the job, in a practical way.

Now I can almost hear the question you’ll have – how on earth do I start that journey if I don’t have any formal project management experience? Well, the answer is different for everyone, because different people have different careers to date and different motivators for making a career change. If you want to understand more about your own personal circumstances and what you should be doing, invest in a careers clinic.

Optimising The Return From Investments – A Senior Manager’s Guide to Managing Benefits, by Steve Jenner
Priced £5.00
Available from TSO bookshop and Amazon

Reviewed by Chris Walters

• Was Steve going to be able to rein in his exuberance and boundless energy (if you’ve heard him talk benefits management, you’ll know exactly what I mean!) for the topic to be able to talk to senior managers in their own language and keep them engaged?
• Would senior managers gain enough knowledge to understand the benefit of managing benefits?
• Is there enough in the book to stimulate and enable action?
• I wouldn’t have to read a monster tome before writing this review – this one can fit comfortably in a shirt pocket!

Starting with structure, Steve covers the following topics in concise chapters:

1. What are Benefits and Benefits Management?
2. Why Do You Need Benefits Management and What Will You Get From It?
3. What Are The Barriers To Success
4. How Do You Overcome The Barriers To Benefits Realization?
5. How Do You Get Started and Sustain Progress?
6. What Techniques are Available to You?
7. What are the Key Questions You Should be Asking?

Without even reading the content, it becomes really apparent that the book is making a huge effort to talk to the intended audience, in simple terms, and with no jargon. Indeed the jargon is explained towards the end of the booklet in a very handy glossary, and nicely aligned with all those other terms we have come to love from Prince2™, MSP™ et al. What I really like though is that Steve has plucked out only the most important items to explain in the glossary, keeping it focused on the job in hand and the aforementioned senior management readership.

Starting from the beginning then, the introduction provides a compelling reason for the busy executive to invest an hour of their precious time, because that is all the time that it takes to thoroughly absorb the whole of this 50-page A6 booklet. I particularly like the “call to arms” which reminds senior management of the necessity of their involvement in the process of managing benefits and most importantly their responsibility in setting the culture of the organisation to embrace Benefits Management as a worthwhile practise to optimise shareholder value.

Unlike some book reviews, I’m not going to précis all of the content. Suffice to say, Steve succinctly and accessibly covers what senior management need to understand. I’m sure practitioners will also gain significant value from this little book in that it gives implicit guidance on what their lords and masters most need to know, and is a great example of how to communicate upwards for impact. If you’ve read the big thick Management of Benefits reference work, then you will not learn any new theory. But that’s really not the point of this book.

Taking a “Jennerism” to heart (“when all is said and done, more is said than done”), where the book really excels is the practical, no-nonsense final trio of chapters, focusing the mind on the “doing”. Here, the energised senior manager will be able to contextualise the theory against their own organisation. One of the traits that I think really set aside the best senior leaders is the ability to take an intellectual retreat from the hurly-burly of running a demanding business or unit, and do a bit of reflection and wide thinking. Bill Gates was famous for his “think week” lakeside retreats where he took a whole bunch of new ideas and spent time just thinking about the “what if…” – here’s an opportunity to take your own mini-retreat – one that could have a profound impact on your business.

The strength of the book is therefore how it tells an important story to senior managers, and also gives them a framework for deciding on the applicability to their world, and some common-sense steps to implementation – the “doing” guide and the self assessment are invaluable tools to animate the implementation process.

Looking across the available reports and literature, it is well-established that benefits management has traditionally been the poor cousin (and the poorest implemented) of other more commonly understood aspects of project and portfolio management maturity. Now that “Managing Benefits” is available and strongly aligned to the other Best Management Practise guides (noticeably for portfolio and programme management), I predict much more interest in the topic, leading to a general improvement in the rate of projects deemed to be successful. This tiny and cheap booklet could well provide the tipping point by demonstrating the imperative to the leaders who can make benefits management happen in and add value to an organisation.

Back to my original three questions then, my answers are yes, yes and yes. Buy lots of them (only £5.00), and distribute them wisely if you’re serious about managing benefits (and you should be, if you spend any money on projects in your organisation!).

> Read more about Benefits Management with Steve Jenner in our newsletter

There is no perfect methodology for software development. All approaches, both adaptive and discipline-oriented, have a lot of pros and cons. Discipline-oriented methodologies are criticized due to its inflexibility, slow decision-making processes, the inability to adapt to change during the project, and the excessive production of documents.

Even Extreme Programming (XP) has its weaknesses. One of them is the requirement that the client works with a development team. Sometimes clients are very busy and cannot meet these requirements. In this case, XP would lack written documentation, which makes it difficult to implement a change in a complex system. Also, another disadvantage of XP is that it is too short for project planning.

The objectives that guided the development of the methodology XPrince (eXtreme PRogramming IN Controlled Environments) were designed to combine adaptability with an XP process that enforces discipline and methodology like the one known as Prince2™

What are the strengths of the XPrince methodology?

XPrince is an agile methodology. It has all the basic assumptions of the XP methodology. It is focused on producing a working product as soon as possible. All stages of the production are short. Change management is carried out throughout the duration of the project. This allows the client to quickly receive subsequent versions of the product and have constant control over its scope.

XPrince also allows you to control the product on four levels. The first is to control changes to the project, the second is to control the risk in the project, the third is quality control, while the fourth is the job of the project manager, using all the features of PRINCE2™ methodology.

XPrince maintains an optimal level of technical documentation. The requirements are documented using the system and use cases using UML modeling. Every programmer knows these methods because they are proven and popular, and they reduce development time.

The methodology is a simple and allows efficient organizational structure. With XP, there is such a thing as a clear division of roles in the process. The hierarchy of the people involved in the project is optimized, so the responsibility for parts of the process is divided into team members.

XPrince introduces the main role of the analyst, who is responsible for all business drivers, and the architect, who is responsible for technological factors. The superior of the two specialists is the project manager, who uses project risk management and is guided by signals from both specialists.

Another PRINCE2™ methodology feature: the structure of the project is transparent to management. XPrince organizational structure helps senior management to look at the project. Management of the project, as a decision-making body, is separated from the daily work in the project and controls it on the basis of information from the project manager. In addition, the accuracy of the information provided to the project manager is verified by an inspection of the project (like the PRINCE2™ methodology).

XPrince uses all the good programming practices. Version management, continuous integration, unit testing, acceptance testing, and implementation lead to practice tests that ensure product quality. The XP has also been taken to develop test solutions that XPrince uses at the beginning of the project, under development architecture. Test-driven development (TDD) is a software development technique that relies on the repetition of a very short development cycle: first, the developer writes a failing unit test case that defines a desired improvement or new function, and then he produces code to pass that test before he finally re-factors the new code to acceptable standards.

Summary

Agile methodologies are not conducive. Bureaucracy projects for a long time were devoted to the analysis and description of requirements, and it became too late to start coding. Creating applications starts relatively late and a lot of things come out in the wash. “Business” fears suddenly come to light, with half of the programmer’s work becoming pointless.

With agile methodology and experience, we can replace the five consultants and the two managers of the project. The application creation time will be reduced, the quality will be even better and the end product will be more suited to customer requirements because a lot of requirements vary during application development. Eliminating inaccuracies is why we created XPrince.

Is it worth using XPrince? Of course it is. The methodology takes into account all possible XPrince business concerns. The software is developed quickly, and the entire risk of the project is always under control. But it’s not an ideal methodology for everyone. XPrince is a tool, and like any tool, if it does not work, it can be removed and replaced with another.

Try XPrince, because it is really worth it, but if you have something else that’s equally good, stay with it. The tool may not be the best or the worst, but the tool must always be sufficient.

For a more in-depth look into Project Management, check out the PMP boot camp offered by the InfoSec Institute.

Image By Marcin Wichary

Just about every project management training course espouses the self-adhesive sticky-note as a planning tool. Do you actually plan with them? You should do!

Roots

Sometimes the roots of accepted wisdom are lost. Let us review in order that unspoken assumptions are replaced by explicit reasoning.

Social Planning

Planning is a social affair. When done properly planning shares understanding of an end point across those involved. Planning with sticky-notes on a wall provides a group thinking tool that has multiple attributes helpful to building teams and plans.

A good plan is the sum of the team’s experiences applied to a required future world state. That requires open debate to explore alternative ideas.

Unfortunately frank exchange of ideas requires more social, tribal bonding than the average project team posses – at least to start with. The value of a Sprint planning meeting and daily Scrum is as much in what it does to build tribe as anything else.

Pandering to the Brain

In ’95 US doctor Peter Strick discovered that the cerebellum, the part of the brain involved in the control of movement is also important for cognitive processes, working memory, learning, attention, perception and planning future behaviour: it seems people really and provably ‘think better on their feet’ – Due to enhanced blood flow when actively not falling over!

Disagreement

It is also true that people debate ideas better when they are able to break the link between person and idea. Standing at a wall allows eyes to focus on the shared point of debate while people express contradictory points of view. Now conflicting opinions are easier to deal with than the eye-to-eye challenge that results from sitting around a table.

Disassociating an idea from the person who contributed it diffuses inter-personal challenge while expression of disagreement allows team exploration to find a course of action that the group agree is relevant and realistic for them.

Team Building

Reaching agreement on how to achieve the desired result, who contributes what, when and how is a process that creates the motivation or buy-in that is so often talked about in wistful tones.

As Eisenhower (or Von Moltke?) said “Planning is everything, the plan is nothing”. The first reason is the social, tribal team aspect; the second is preparation for when we are off-plan – more on this in a moment.

Size and Dimensions

The Post-It™  based wall planning session (or white-board, shared virtual Kanban board etc) maintains a flexible, evolving record of the team’s contributions and conclusions. [A quick digital camera snap and later transcription allows documentation in your favourite software tool.]

As a tool the wall of notes supports dimensions such as decomposition or time-line and perhaps more if tricks like colour pens and colour notes are used.

A ‘limitation’ might be “just how many people and Post-Its™ are practical to manage?”

Natural Limits – 1

In 1956 George Miller published “The Magic Number Seven ±2: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information”. If we use Miller’s insight we will divide any project goal into five to nine deliverable results, or phases or reporting lines depending on whether we are planning outcome, realisation or allocation of responsibility.

If each of these is further broken into 7±2 we arrive at circa 50 elements of any project at any management level. A good rule of thumb.

Where greater granularity is useful the team should either be very experienced (different short-term memory, working and long-term memory dependencies) or be delegating to specialists with less breadth to accommodate greater depth of subject matter expertise.

Natural Limits – 2

Post-it™ based planning provides a natural check on granularity or detail before subdivision and delegation is needed and thus suggests the number of management levels a project team needs!

Natural Limits – 3

The project’s customer should be concerned with a result, a ‘what’, while the technical team is concerned with the ‘how’. This distinction is addressed very practically by PRINCE2®’s Product Based Planning technique and fits well with concepts of Product Backlogs (and Earned Value!).

Thus another rule of thumb is project manager and customer use Post-It™ planning to define Product Breakdown Structure and acceptance criteria. Then the PM and technical staff add the development life-cycle to create Work Breakdown Structure and method statements prior to reorganising the work in a precedence network and estimating. The basics don’t change whether the final representation is Kanban board or Gantt Chart.

Just a Tool

The sticky note (or white-board marker) is not the crucial element. The discussion where the team creates a single record of shared understanding is the crucial element. That doesn’t happen so well in meetings sat around a table and doesn’t happen at all with solo-software based planning attempts.

When everyone makes a personal record of their interpretation of what was said differences creep in. Because protagonists are eye-to-eye open disagreement is avoided or becomes personalised. Project scope and approach is subject to less challenge and the growth of belief is slowed or halted.

The sticky note is the catalyst: perhaps it is crucial!

Replanning

Paraphrasing Von Moltke “no plan survives first contact with the enemy”. Done right the post-It™ sessions threw-up and debated many alternate solutions whose merits could not be assessed at the time of planning.

During the project’s execution a shared history of alternate, valid, unselected options leads to swift agreement on a revised route to the objective.

On the correct use of Sticky-Notes

There isn’t too much to know but a few observations do help.

Sticky-notes fall off of most office wall coverings and white-boards cleaned with board cleaner. They also fall of faster if peeled off the pad from bottom to top so that the gummed portion curls up. When peeled from one side to the other and stuck to flip-chart paper they stick for much longer!

Sticky notes also work well on glass as do dry-wipe marker pens! Colleagues walking past ‘fish-bowl’ offices are often very intrigued to discover what is going on but have to be adept at reading backwards!

And a Final Thought

Many years ago as a newly appointed PM I worried that no one would ‘accept’ me in this ‘different’ role.

The simple fact is that by running the workshop, getting everyone on their feet, holding the pen as scribe and passing it to others to contribute immediately establishes who is PM.

The Author

Simon Harris, PMP, CGEIT, MoR-RP, P2-RP & IPMA-D, D4®-Accredited is Principal of Logical Model Ltd. Simon speaks, consults, mentors and trains on #pm_ngt New Generation Thinking for Project Management. #pm_ngt builds a three layer (Direct, Manage, Build) three time-frame (Define, Build, Harvest) model of capital use – projects are just a fraction of the whole. LML is a PRINCE2® ATO and D4® examining authority.  www.logicalmodel.net.

Image By mat_walker

In this third piece about PPM Practitioners and professional membership we take a look at their views around the ongoing saga of “is PPM a Profession?”

As a reminder the first two pieces in this review of the PMBR Survey data looked at membership levels amongst PPM Practitioners and then involvement and expectations from their membership.

The first question we asked is “Are you aware that the Association for Project Management (APM) are trying to achieve Chartered status?” which gave us a response of 56% in the affirmative. Looking across the job roles we saw the following response levels:

By gender, the awareness was 60:40 for the male respondents and 50:50 for the female cohort. When the response was viewed by age group the 50+ cohort had the highest positive response at 58%, with the under 34’s recording 53%.

Having segmented the respondent group, we then asked those in the know to share their views on the following series of questions based on the override of “With the PMI’s opposition to the APM’s application for chartered status now in the open, what are your views regarding the following statements;”

1. Project Management is not a Profession; the application should be rejected by the Privy Council. – 86 % of our respondents disagreed with this statement (61% strongly) with 6% in agreement and 8% offering no view in either direction.

2. This is a turf war between two organisations looking to protect their revenue streams. – Just 9% of the group disagreed with this statement against 64% who indicated agreement, with the balancing 27% offering no view in either direction.

3. Neither the PMI nor the APM have enough members in the UK to stake a claim for “ownership” of the profession. – 30 % of our respondents disagreed with this statement (8% strongly) with this statement against 32% (8% strongly) who were in agreement and 38% offering no view in either direction.

4. Whatever the outcome, the case for raising professional standards in project management is overwhelming. – Just 4% of the group disagreed with this statement against 88% (46% strongly) who indicated agreement, with the balancing 8% offering no view in either direction

5. The introduction of the pan-sector APM Registered Project Professional (RPP) standard is a major step forward for the profession. – 10% of the group disagreed with this statement against 63% (18% strongly) who indicated agreement, with the balancing 27% offering no view in either direction

6. Whatever the outcome, Chartership will not impact the vast majority of companies and individuals who deliver projects. – 33% of the group disagreed with this statement against 44% (9% strongly) who indicated agreement, with the balancing 23% offering no view in either direction

So, what does all this mean?

Overall it is a concern that just 56% of the respondents who provided the data for this years Arras People Project Management Benchmark report (2013 PMBR) are aware of an initiative that, should it be successful, could have a major impact in the PPM field here in the UK.

An 81% response from those who indicated APM membership suggests one of two things; firstly that there is ongoing confusion regarding who the APM are! We continue to see practitioner confusion between the APM-Group and the APM (Association for Project Management). An alternative view would be that the APM are not marketing this effectively within their membership group, never mind the wider UK PPM community. Whilst this may be part of the “APM’s dignified silence” approach, which has been their standard response since this initiative was launched back in 2007, in terms of stakeholder management (20,000+ of them?) this still feels like a hard pill to swallow for me as a PPM practitioner.

In terms of the questions posed, the response highlights the differing views of practitioners based on their allegiance to either the APM or PMI (Project Management Institute) and the ongoing struggle with the question, ‘are we a profession or are we professional in what we do?’  86% of 56% (48%) disagreeing with the statement “Project Management is not a Profession; the application should be rejected by the Privy Council”  gives no one organisation a glowing endorsement that they are talking on behalf of all UK PPM practitioners, especially when combined with the response to question 3 “Neither the PMI nor the APM have enough members in the UK to stake a claim for “ownership” of the profession” which only 30% disagreed with. As worrying is the fact that only 33% of this knowledgeable sub group disagree that Whatever the outcome, Chartership will not impact the vast majority of companies and individuals who deliver projects.

Recognition of a “turf war” by practitioners is maybe the biggest worry, as we can not ignore the fact that both the APM and PMI have brand and revenue streams to protect. Maybe in the long run this precludes both parties from being the true representative of the UK practitioner.

So, is it time for the arrival of an agnostic white knight to form a body which recognises the value that they both the APM and PMI can bring as contributors’ rather than “owners” of the PPM profession here in the UK?

To carry on the discussion take a look at the following stream on the APM LinkedIn group (you need to be a member to access it) Is the Problem with/between PMI and APM at Institutional Board Level Only

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Each month, the Recruitment Employment Confederation and KPMG, release a report on jobs for the UK market. In this month’s report there are a number of highlights worth sharing with the project management community.

• Permanent placements are on the increase however job vacancies are at their slowest growth for seven months – what does this mean? We need to see more job vacancies being created in order to keep seeing the permanent placements being made.

• IT & Computing remains the sectors in most need of permanent staff – specifically these are Business Intelligence; DBA, Developers, Digital Marketing; Java, .Net; Online marketing, PHP, PPC, SEO and SQL server. This perhaps gives us an indication of the types of projects that are on the go at the moment.

• Vacancies within the private sector are continuing to increase – but at a slower rate. Demand for temporary workers in the public sector has increased for the first time in three months.

• Positive impact on business confidence needed – to start tackling the issue of current employees feeling overstretched and becoming less productive. With muted pay inflation too, this month’s report is recording a “half-year low”

For project management we’re seeing a mixed bag of opportunity – there has been more interest in public sector experienced project professionals; digital marketing project management and defence.

A couple of weeks ago I took part in #pmchat. It’s a weekly Twitter get together for project managers to chat about.. well project management. Each Friday – using the hashtag #pmchat – a discussion on a particular topic takes place. I was asked to do one on the theme – how to move from being a full-time employee project manager to a contractor.

To set the scene a blog post is put together – followed by a short radio show – you can check both of those out on the #pmchat website

The great thing about Twitter is being able to have that focused conversation with people – and with limited characters so it’s fast paced and full of little nuggets

The downside is that it’s incredibly difficult to share that experience with other people who are not using Twitter – because there really is some great advice out there that you could be missing out on.

So I was thrilled to find that @edmontonpm makes the effort each week to produce a recap

Here’s the additional things I’ve learnt from the session

Moving from Employment to Contractor

1. @michael_greer made a great point about what drives people to consider moving from permanent to contractor, “Running from failure/frustration as an organizational citizen — You’ll ALWAYS be in an organization“. The feeling that you’ve had enough of working within a large faceless organisation that is rife with politics and that the grass would be a lot greener if you could just get away from that… It’s true that as a contractor you’ll still be working within organisations – it’s just that you’ll be working with them from another angle. The angle you choose to adopt will rely on your own individual approach and the consultative skills you’ll need to allow yourself to get on with the job in hand

2. “Thinking you’ll get to cherry pick the assignments/projects. Wrong, they go to full-time employees” a point from @PPMpractitioner which I partially agree with. There will be times when you’re just picked up to deliver the same kind of projects you’ve always managed – after all that’s what organisations are looking for in their contractors – a proven track record in their sector. Sometimes though interesting contracts do come up because they don’t have anyone available internally to do them – you see this a lot with PMO Manager type positions where the concept will be new to the organisation and therefore they’re really looking for a consultant contractor – a thinker and doer.

3. The idea of going it alone get feel too risky so the idea of perhaps pairing up with someone else in the first instance could make the transition easier. @michael_greer  highlighted that the risks are still there “solo vs. with buddies contracting: You could lose one or more buddies & end up in legal battles. Partner for ONE project as trial” An extreme example but actually I agree totally with this. It’s often hard enough trying to make the transition without having to manage someone else too – and unfortunately this is what can happen. You both have to put in the same effort to ensure no resentment because ultimately this is what will kill the partnership.

4. Plan, plan, plan – not just in setting yourself up as a contractor but also within the contract roles you take on. Another point from @PPMpractitioner  “Have 30 (or 60/90) day strategy to deliver value. Plus exit strategy (handover, mentor, learnings etc).” Being able to leave the contract professionally is not just about delivering the project and leaving – it’s also about the extras that will make you stand out as a great contractor. Great contractors are never afraid to transfer some final knowledge before leaving because ultimately this contract could lead to repeat business further down the line.

5. Finally, “Rule of thumb, any contracting: Be prepared to self-finance your life for 6 months in case too few clients or late-payers” from @michael_greer a great bit of practical advice that should mitigate a few of those risks that are floating about in your thoughts…

>> Find out more about the Arras People evening seminar on becoming a PM contractor

Last week I was invited along to the Manchester Metropolitan University‘s Business School to talk to soon-to-be graduating project management students. We’ve done a number of presentations at different universities around the country – and it’s mainly a presentation about getting ready for the realities of life after studies.

Part of the presentation can feel demotivating – but the bottom line is, it’s a challenge for most people these days to end up in the job they’re going to love – which means it’s no different for students that are soon graduating too.

Like any presentation – you can’t just knock people down without bringing them back up so the second half focuses on what you need to do in preparation for the marketplace. There’s the practical advice around personal stock taking – understanding who you are and what you have to offer. This applies to practitioners as much as it does graduates.  There will be plenty of graduates in the marketplace at the end of the academic year – so what can be done to stand out?

There are two important pieces of advice I can give:

Get some experience – any experience.

Without some works experience of some kind you’re just a graduate with a degree. So why not be a graduate with a degree with works experience? This experience can be whilst studying – paid or unpaid, or making immediate plans when the exams are over. Graduates in PM often make the assumption that they’ll be able to secure a project management related position straightaway – but it is not so. Many graduates still enter the workplace through any means they can – and the key to pursuing the PM career this way is to find a position within an organisation that has a project management department.

Think like a project management graduate – write like one too

Half of the battle with graduates finding good opportunities is this issue of “people won’t employ you if you have no experience; but you can’t get experience because no one will hire you”. Classic Catch-22. So you have to work with what you have – which is some works experience (PM related or not), project management knowledge and understanding, plus (hopefully) the intelligent, ambition and drive to make it happen.

Let’s take the CV which will be used to try and open doors. What I would expect to see is the works experience written with a project management slant wherever possible – I’d like to know how your approach to planning your work; dealing with issues; handling people; leadership possibly. With a degree in project management there will be an expectation that you’ve managed projects within the course. Again, good detailed information about what the projects were and what project management competencies you used and demonstrated are the most important things you’re trading with in the job market.

For more information on graduate led advice in project management recruitment, visit the website.

Manchester Met University PM graduates

Manchester Met Business School

In the Project Management Benchmark Report (PMBR) survey we track our respondents’ relationship with Professional bodies such as the APM (Association for Project Management) and the PMI (Project Management Institute) on an annual basis. We feel this is an important aspect of the sector as it has an impact on the ongoing discussions regarding the “professional status” of the sector and the practitioners who are active within it. Our previous blog post on professional affiliations serves as an introduction to this post.

Last year we looked at the levels of participation across those who indicated that they are a member of a professional body:

We then went on to look at this against the PMI and APM to see if there was any significant difference against the whole group and against each other:

As we can from the tables, whilst the figures are slightly better than the overall group for both APM and PMI the numbers who regularly attend events organized by the body are still low.

This apparent lack of “user involvement” made us wonder why 25,000 practitioners in the UK have aligned themselves to the PMI (6,000 UK members with 50% in the UK Chapter) and APM (19,500 members). What do they expect/receive for their annual subscription?

We asked our respondents who are currently members to rank their level of satisfaction against five criteria which are commonly used to measure the effectiveness of a membership organization.

Please rate your view of the APM’s performance against key deliverables associated with a professional body (click to see full table);

Please rate your view of the PMI’s performance against key deliverables associated with a professional body (click to see full table);

 Looking at the highest level and taking the average across the questions both the PMI (61.2%) and the APM (65.4%) are satisfying this subset of their membership. A relatively high proportion PMI (30.7%) and the APM (27.6%) are neutral and the remainder have a level of dissatisfaction PMI (8.1%) and the APM (6.9%).Without a reference point at this date it is difficult to say if this is a good or typical result for a membership organization. However as this data comes from a set of practitioners who are active (found the time and inclination to complete the survey) and who represent less than 5% of the overall membership they may be overly positive.

Driving Professional Recognition

This continues to be an interesting conundrum for the sector in terms of what professional recognition means and how it affects organizations and the individual practitioner. The APM are still pushing for Chartered status and have a number of Registered Project Professionals (RPP) who are waiting for an upgrade should this be successful.  (More about this in my next blog).In terms of satisfied members the APM came out ahead with 77% compared to 69% for the PMI, however both roughly the same in terms of Very Satisfied  at around 23%. At the other end of the scale both the APM and PMI came out on equal terms with 5% expressing dissatisfaction in terms of their performance in driving professional recognition.

From our experience this is an area where both the APM and PMI have much work to do as they both have a low recognition factor amongst both candidates and clients who we deal with here at Arras People. If we take the “recognition” that Prince2® has in the UK market and its position as the de-facto standard of project management capability (fantastic marketing!) then they both can see the market impact that they need to aspire to!

Providing Information and Advice

From the responses this would appear to be the strongest element for the PMI against all the other categories and it scores slightly higher also against the APM with 73% and 70% satisfaction levels respectively. Against its average score the PMI scores +11.6% in this area suggesting that they are doing a good job for their members.This question may be worthy of future investigation to see what kind of information and advice is being provided to members in terms of the balance between generic PPM and their own views on the world.

Moving forward if the APM do get the Chartered status this will become more important as they will need to represent the whole field of PPM and the various paths and flavors’ that  that are on offer.

Creating Networking Opportunities

One of the key roles for many membership organisations is creating opportunities where members and the wider community can come together to learn and share experiences. In our responses both the APM and PMI fell below their average scores in terms of satisfied customers with -2.2% and -9.0% respectively. In the case of PMI just 52% were satisfied which could be a cause for concern.This response again throws up some interesting questions when considered in terms of the responses at the beginning of this piece about those who turn up for such events. With 13% (PMI) and 11% (APM) of members regularly attending branch/chapter meeting do we have a disconnect between what members perceive they want and what they are offered in terms of opportunities to network?

Producing Magazines/Web Content

As the information age has progressed, the web has enabled the proliferation of content around our subject area; possibly to the point where it is sometimes difficult to see the wood for the trees. Both the APM and PMI have significant web presence and also produce traditionally printed publications for their membership. 7% of respondents both PMI and APM are dissatisfied with their efforts in this area with a further quarter being neutral. Moving forward the challenge for both will be to use all the channels of communication effectively and in a way that enables members to easily find and consume materials that they feel are relevant.

Driving Career Development

Surprisingly or maybe not this produced the lowest scores for both PMI (49%) and APM (48%) in terms of satisfied members it also provided the highest scores for those expressing dissatisfaction at PMI (12%) and APM (11%). Those expressing a neutral stance were similar for both around the 40% mark.Again we have a response that may be worthy of further investigation to understand this subject matter in a greater level of detail to better understand what they are expecting their membership organisations to be doing in this important area. Both organizations have their views on career structure, accreditations and lifelong learning (CPD/PDUs) but maybe these are too focused on the internal view rather than that of the external market?

Maybe Driving Career Development actually goes hand in hand with Driving Professional Recognition and one can not be done successfully without the other? Again taking the Prince2® view on the world the APM Group (not to be confused with the APM) have convinced over 250,000 people who took this accreditation that it is part of their career development and without it they will struggle to find a role within the project management domain. A rough calculation shows that the sum of PMI and APM members in the UK equates to just 10% of the Prince2® figure, which maybe suggests that neither the APM nor PMI have been able to effectively drive the agenda or secure the necessary traction in this area?

It would seem that the training and accreditation bodies have the upper hand in making, marketing  and exploiting options that are deemed to be an essential part of a practitioners development.

Final thoughts? Well the data collected over the last two surveys suggests that both the PMI and the APM have much to do in terms of engaging and retaining their members as well as finding ways to grow across the UK practitioner group. Growth, not only in terms of numbers but also the services they provide will be essential if either or both are to be recognised across the wider practitioner community and employing organizations as having something that “they need” rather than something that can for most, be “easily ignored”. If you have any thoughts on this I would love to hear them.

For a very long time people have argued over what defines project success. An answer is simple – success like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Five Successes

Analysis of some beholder’s viewpoints show there are five themes in the key contenders for ‘the’ definition of a measure of success:

1. The investor wants a return on their investment within the constraints that are their commercial reality – right thing done
2. The PM’s boss wants the thing done right and to promises of time cost scope and quality – a quiet life
3. The technicians in the team want an interesting challenge that grows their skill base – a better resume/cv
4. The recipients of the project’s results don’t want change and disruption to comfortable day-to-day routine – most specifically negative effect on any bonuses or incentives
5. The PM wants everyone else to be happy for as much of the time as possible, and hopefully everyone simultaneously when the project moves through implementation, closure and final payments (even for in-house notional-payment projects)

So to reach success the steps are:

Step 1

Establish in the heads of the stakeholders a shared understanding of what is wanted and what constraints really exist. This requires the investor’s presence to express what they want: What PRINCE2® calls a Product Breakdown Structure and PMBoK Guide® calls a Work Breakdown is really useful here. What Dimension Four® calls a Recognition Event® is even more useful.

Encourage the debate about how to deliver within as many simultaneous real-world constraint as possible – this does not need the investor’s presence: what most of us think of as a work breakdown structure is useful here, so is a precedence diagram then a resource levelled Gantt or flow-chart or Kanban board are all useful here.

Step 2

Take the trade-offs between concurrent, contradictory constraints back to the investor to arbitrate between choices. Repeats steps 1 and 2 as needed for your product life-cycle either ‘traditional’ or ‘agile’ or ‘lean’ or any hybrid. Move on whenever everyone is content with the level of uncertainty they are signing up to, pause when they are not.

Step 3
Send the technical folk off to do the ‘how’ stuff and take the investor to discuss with the recipients how new bonus and incentive arrangements will work and raise the topic of how current working patterns will be transitioned. Repeat 1 & 2 as opportunity, threat or issue arise.

Voilà

Three steps to PM and PM’s boss getting what they want too

Ok so I cheated a bit because we really do need 1) access to relevant decision makers (financial or technical) at decision times or they must have explicitly delegated authority, 2) we really do need to be able to estimate if we are to forecast otherwise we have to accept uncertainty and do lots more monitoring and rerouting and 3) we really do need to be able to determine what is truly achieved, done, finished and judged fit-for-purpose by the recipient’s.

Hmm – maybe these are the three true steps?

Simon Harris, PMP, CGEIT, MoR-RP, P2-RP & IPMA-D, D4®-Accredited is Principal of Logical Model Ltd.  LML is a PRINCE2® ATO and D4® examining authority. Simon@LogicalModel.Net, +44 84 52 57 57 07 or visit Logical Model

Image By andydr

Once again this year in the Project Management Benchmark Report we asked our respondents about their affiliation with professional organizations’ and membership groups to get a feel for the landscape. This is the first in a series of blogs that explores the data collected about this topical subject.

Numbers Up: As we can see in the table above, 61% of our respondents indicated that they are currently members of a professional body, a number that has continued to increase year on year through this recurring question. This year we have seen an increase of 6% from 55% which in turn was an increase of 8% from 47% in the two previous years. Whilst this increase is interesting in its own right, our real interest is how this membership is made up and which bodies are attracting membership from the Project Management community.

Project Management Affiliation:  If we look at the breakdown in terms of pure project management we can look at the two leading recognised membership organisations that cater for this space in the UK; namely the APM (Association for Project Management) and PMI (Project Management Institute). As we can see in the table above, of those that indicated an affiliation 61% said they are aligned to the APM. This figure again shows an increase year on year with an 8% increase across our respondent group from 53%. In terms of the overall sample this accounts for 37% of the respondent group indicating some affiliation to the APM be that through the individual membership grades or corporate membership.

PMI on the other hand accounted for 17% of the practitioner group who indicated an affiliation, a figure that has dropped from 21% last year and in turn accounts for 10% of the overall practitioner group.

Respondents indicating membership of both APM and PMI at 4.6% (2.8% overall) is something we can look at in a later blog to see if there is any difference in perceived value of these affiliations.

For Project Management practitioners the figures associated with “APM and Other” and “PMI and Other” provide a window into how the practitioner group is made up. Traditionally we have seen many practitioners entering PPM (Programme and Project Management) as a second career, say for example a Chartered Engineer; the big question then is do they remain a professional engineer who delivers projects, or look to find an affiliation to their new specialism of PPM? As can be seen in the table the APM would appear to have a higher number of practitioners in their midst who have dual (or more) affiliation at 20% than the PMI at 15%.

Others? So what are these “others” and does it paint any kind of picture for us about where the PPM practitioners may have come from? In order to look at this we have identified the top 10 in the table below. As we can see the highest ranking other is the BCS with 20.7% or 7.5% of all our respondents; a not surprising result for many as Project Management is still seen as an IT kind of role? Further investigation of the top ten shows groupings that are also traditionally linked with the delivery of projects, namely construction, engineering general management. Interestingly the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) and CIM – Chartered Institute of Marketing made it into the top 10 list. A more comprehensive listing of the “others” can be found at the end of this piece.

Gender and Affiliation: Being traditional organisations in terms of projects we were interested to see how this impacted gender spread within the affiliated groups. Does the commonly heard “men in suits” tag have any semblance of fact? Our reference point being the overall gender split for respondents to the last three surveys which averaged at 70:30 Male to Female.

As we can see in the table above the CIPD came in with a stunning result of 50:50 (maybe all that diversity training works?)

The APM came in with the nearest result to the 70:30 split, followed up by PMI.

We can then see a number of associations running around the 80:20 levels and finally a group of four with single digit female respondents. The results beg for further investigation, such as, is the gender imbalance so big within the sector or just the affiliated body? If it is just within the body why is that so?

Age Impact: As well as gender, age is a split that provides an interesting insight into any membership organisation as well as the practitioner group that it services. One imagines that it should be representative of the practitioner group and the mix should not only include the older (experience) and young (fresh life blood) as well as a solid practitioner group.

The following tables look at the APM, PMI and top 10 others in this context against the overall breakdown of our respondents to the 2013 PMBR (Project Management Benchmark Report) which was 19% under 34’s, 47% 34 to 49 and 32% 50+.

As we can see above the PMI has the lowest proportion of 50+ PPM practitioners at 22% which is significantly (10%) below the average in our sample. The APM is also under the average with 29% along with the Institution of Civil Engineers. At the other extreme we have five of the top ten others with 60%+ in this age group which could be a concern for their ongoing relevance? A surprise in these figures is the British Computer Society with 47% in the 50+ age group.

When sorted by the 34 to 49 age group as we can see in the table above the spread is very similar to the 50+ though the start and end points are significantly different. Both the PMI and APM have a higher population than the sample average at +6% and +12% respectively. Once again we also see some of the older more recognised institutes with low membership levels in this age group which is something to investigate further.

Our final sort is probably one of the most significant as it probably indicates not only the relevance of any membership organization but also the flow of new blood into them. PMI and APM once again score well against the overall respondent group at 19%. Other more traditional institutes may be being hit by a double whammy of contraction in their aligned industry sectors and possibly project management becoming a career of first choice; which is leading to alignment against practitioner grouping (APM/PMI) rather than industry grouping. It is too early in the cycle to prove this for sure but something we need to keep an eye on over the coming years. Others such as CMI (Chartered Management Institute) and CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) may naturally pull their members from an older age pool as practitioners gain the relevant experience that allows then to become members.

So, what does this all say?

My take away from this analysis is that Programme and Project Management is a broad church made up of practitioners with a broad body of knowledge and experience that crosses many sectors and professional groupings. Whilst PPM may not yet have a true professional group in the sense of a chartered body both the PMI and APM are attracting growing numbers of practitioners who wish to be aligned in this space. The ongoing challenges will be the “first career” aspect and how practitioners wish to be aligned “Engineer or PM” and then, how they choose to spend their money in terms of maintaining membership(s). The challenge for the APM and PMI is not only to remain relevant but also increase the visibility and relevance of membership across employing organisations so that membership has a broader recognition and status in the wider community.

Below is a summary of other professional bodies identified by respondents when answering questions for the Arras People 2013 Project Management Benchmark Report.

>> The Project Management Benchmark Report is available to download today

Arras People held its first (of many) get-togethers of project professionals and hirers of project management staff last Thursday evening. We wanted to launch this year’s Project Management Benchmark Report a little differently this year and thought why not get together a few people over drinks and nibbles and at the same time have a few presentations that people might like

We went with the theme, “Future Trends in Project Management” and later this month our newsletter will bring the highlights from the evening.

In the meantime it got us thinking about get-togethers – especially ones where we bring the hirers of project managers closer to the project practitioners. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do this more regularly – and in different formats – so we could really talk amongst us about the realities of the project management marketplace in the UK. In fact one of the presentations highlighted that the future of project management could indeed be impacted by the apathy of practitioners – we need practitioners – and hiring organisations to be interested in the debate of project management and the value it brings.

We asked the people who attended to take a little 30 second survey which you can take it too if you’re interested in this kind of thing in the London area.

The Project Management Benchmark Report can be downloaded via the website

Mary McKinlay

Ron Edwards

Arras People PMBR Launch

John Thorpe – Arras People

I’d like to take more control in actively managing my career in project management rather than just leaving it to luck, how can I start doing this?

Career planning and management should really be a state of mind rather than being something which is switched on or off and many factors will come in and out of play throughout your career.  As you move through life, your knowledge grows and your situation changes. Your career is definitely a journey – a lifetime’s journey – but a journey that doesn’t always have a specific location or end goal. Careers in project management are never as linear as you might think. Career paths can extend in different directions due to organisational demand; specific requirements in industry sectors; new products and services. Even now we have no idea what the future holds in terms of technological and organisational developments that will be the catalyst for new types of projects.

The path your career takes will also largely depend on where you are with your life commitments too; mortgages to pay and families to raise at one stage of your life will mean some opportunities are just not right for you at that time. Leaving your career to luck or just being in the “right place at the right time” is how many people view their career planning. For others, career planning is all about performing in their current role whilst looking out and spotting potential opportunities to take their career to the next stage.

With that in mind, career planning has to be something which becomes habitual and ingrained and not just something to be thought about at when prompted at an annual performance appraisal. The most difficult part of career planning – self awareness – is the most important part. Without understanding who you are and what it is you currently have to offer, taking steps to change or improve is impossible. Self-awareness is all about understanding your current knowledge; your skill set; the values you have; what kind of personality you are; what interests you; what motivates you and what the blockers are that stop you from moving on.

For a project management professional the first step in becoming more enlightened starts with a personal inventory or stocktaking. Being able to clearly understand and convey exactly what knowledge and skills you possess may seem obvious but my experience has shown that many PMs still find it difficult to do this. Try a two-minute elevator pitch yourself and you might quickly see that PMs tend to focus more on the organisation they work for, or the subject matter of their projects rather than their own personal skills and knowledge they use to deliver effectively. The first steps in understanding knowledge and skills levels in project management can be done through Competence Frameworks; the outcome can confirm what you might already know but it will also start to highlight some gaps in your knowledge which will be useful in your career going forward. You should also take time to carry out this assessment throughout your career regardless of how you perceive your knowledge levels in project management.

Understanding your personality and values in relation to your work in project management may not be immediately apparent but it is a deeper understanding of this side of you that will determine how you work; where you work and ultimately what you work on in future. Assessments of your leadership skills; communication style; team management; approach to conflict; your attitude to risk and how you influence stakeholders are all areas which will have an impact on your career going forward. Throughout your career one major blocker that can derail your plans is your approach to the nuances of office politics that are often rife in project management.  If you choose to climb the project management ladder to programme management and beyond or just being able to work on more complex projects; the managerial style you cultivate will be a major factor in how successful you will be.

Self awareness activities continue with an understanding of what really motivates you – both at work and personally. Being conscious of your intrinsic (a challenging, high paced position) and extrinsic (pay, more holidays, better compensation) motivators will also have a strong bearing on your future work. It is these motivators that help you to understand the opportunities you will be presented with throughout your career or help you to proactively seek out new challenges. Finally the constraints you have, whether placed there by you or externally, real or imagined; understanding what are real roadblocks or just obstacles to be navigated will affect the way you manage your career throughout your life.

All this work on self-awareness goes hand in hand with a deeper understanding of the profession and marketplace that you work in. Project management obviously spans most industry sectors and the opportunities for project managers are vast. To effectively manage your career you need to understand more about the marketplace that affects you. Looking outside your current organisation to understand where your industry sector is going in the future; if you have a specialism for delivering certain types of projects, which direction will these be taking; understanding where the opportunities are being generated and taking an active part in developments in the project management profession.

Ongoing information gathering is made easier by not doing it in isolation – and that is the other part of career management and planning which is crucial. Your ability to network and build relationships with people will be vital in your career. It will be your network where your future opportunities will come from; the people you will be benchmarking yourself against; and the people who will be helping you move forward in your career.

80% of new opportunities come through your own network (20% through job advertisements, recruitment agencies etc). The strength of your network; the quality of the relationships you have; the way you find the balance of “give and take” with these relationships will have a strong bearing on the path your career takes. This is an area of your career planning that you can choose to influence – or not. For project managers, this network is a combination of the people you know personally -from your current and past organisations; the third partners you’ve worked with and people met through training courses and seminars. It also includes people who are prominent in your industry and your profession – people you meet along the way either in person or on-line. On-line networking has made it much easier to connect with people who you’ve never met in person but nevertheless these connections help to widen your network – and your world, significantly.

Widening your horizons is one way to start influencing the types of opportunities that could come your way. To gain more you need to pay attention to how you are marketing yourself. It is not enough that you are good at your job; able to take on new challenges and deliver successfully if no-one else knows. Positive marketing about yourself is not just about the way you present yourself in your current organisation but also about how you convey it externally – with people you don’t yet know.

Within your current role it is about being noticed and visible for all the right reasons; being the project manager that senior management will immediately think about when a new opportunity needs a successful project manager. It is also about being the project manager that will be promoted and rewarded time after time. Proactive career planning is about making promotions happen rather than sitting back and waiting to be recognised.

Looking at the widen horizon, good career planning activities include creating the kind of resume that gets attention; mastering interview techniques; being able to demonstrate how your knowledge and skills can be easily transferred to new projects; that you can emulate success for a new organisation.

Actively managing yourself and your career is not an easy thing to do but it can be learnt if you’re motivated enough to not just accept the status quo.

If you’re interesting in taking control of your career planning – consider a project management careers clinic session with us

Image By JD Hancock

It’s finally here – the day we launch the project management benchmark report to the wider project management community. We’re launching it at 6pm to coincide with our launch party in London this event “Future Trends in Project Management”

To receive a copy of the full report please visit the website

Just click the infographic below to gain some insights, please feel free to share it with your own peers