Though there is no recent update regarding the application for Chartered status, the Association for Project Management (APM) appear to be putting significant effort into phase 2 of their “Chartered & Beyond“#1 initiative.
The marketing machine of the APM has initiated a number of threads to increase their take on what professionalism is in the context of project management. APM has churned out articles in Project magazine, a new blog (complete with accompanying Twitter account) and, most enlightening of all, a new website dedicated to the proposition of professionalism in PPM through their new theme of the 5 Dimensions of Professionalism. This was also backed up by a public presentation at Project Challenge by Liz Wilson (Head of Professional Standards and Knowledge at the APM) which can be downloaded here.
Tipoffs contributor John Thorpe has filled readers in before on the details of the 5 Dimensions, so it would seem there is no real need to rehash things in this space. What is worth noting though is that the “pilot” appears to be an exercise in fitting their current members into their new world structure, rather than an exercise that looks to include non members and other PPM disciplines.
Transparent debates and roundtable discussions have been the norm with the APM, including one led by APM Chairman Mike Nichols in September 2008 with representatives of the leading associations for other professions.
A more recent discussion on professionalism and the role of qualifications featured in the May 2010 issue of Project magazine (.PDF). Liz Wilson and Andrew Bragg (chair) represented APM in the nine-person panel. One of the crucial issues for professionalism is the matter of qualifications, and how the industry struggles with an identity-crisis to employers due to practitioners who can pass an exam and be deemed a “project manager.” Wilson is troubled by this.
“I think collectively as an industry we still have some work to do to educate employers about what qualifications say about people,” she said in the Project article. “It is slightly unfair to say a particular qualification, whether APMP or PRINCE2®, doesn’t attest to competence if that is not what it is designed to do. The real issue is people expecting qualifications to indicate other things they are not designed to test. But how do you communicate that to industry and find a programme of learning and qualifications that meets those expectations?”
When it comes to assessing project managers for the charter, Wilson toed the APM 5 Dimensions line on simple course times that take less than a week to complete: For the professional project manager, it was not going to cut it. Moreover, assessment itself would not serve as a be-all, end-all for professionals, either.
“I have difficulty with a qualification where the standard mode of delivery is a two, three or five-day course with an exam at end of it. You have to encourage people to embrace APM’s five dimensions in terms of breadth and depth, so that people sign up to the notion of life-long learning.”
“We need to have more flexible qualifications so senior project managers can engage on where their status already sits. There must be other things; qualifications can only be some of the answer and not all of it. There is tendency to think all the things that make a project work have to focus on the competency of the individual whereas, in fact, the organisation or project team needs to have the confidence and capability to do what needs to be done. Not every project manager has to have the same profile skills or competencies.”
One element of dispute was the role soft skills have to play in professionalism. Arras People’s Lindsay Scott specifically emphasized a need for more focus on the behavioural soft skills and contextual skills which a project management professional needs to perform their roles successfully.
Wilson worried what that might do to perception of the profession as a whole. “But how do we focus on interpersonal or ‘softer’ skills, without being seen to be ‘dumbing’ down on project management qualifications?” she asked. Scott and Peter Simon of Lucidus Consulting both stated that wasn’t the perception in the wider project management marketplace. Toni Wynne (Office of Government Commerce) went one step further and stated that commercial skills were also an important requirement in a project professional’s competence and capability levels.
It is good to see these open debates and initiatives; though as a party with no axe to grind other than a meaningful move to professional status, Arras People would like to see more emphasis on being inclusive. Significant players such as the APM-Group, the OGC, PMI, etc., will need to buy into the future of the profession if the APM is to meet the objective of “becoming the owner of the profession for society”. The feeling would appear to be that the industry recognises the need for a change of emphasis from “trained in project management” to “trained and competent to be a project manager”; so maybe the time has come to take the lead from the politicians and form a working Coalition which can deliver for the practitioners?
