This month’s new offer comes from Gower Publishing, who are giving a special discount of 40% off their project management titles

Popular books such as;  Leading Complex Projects and Tools for Complex Projects; Leading Successful PMOs; Tame, Messy and Wicked Risk Leadership and Benefit Realisation Management can all be purchased with 40% off.

To access the special offer, project practitioners can register with Arras People for more information

Here are five tips that can help you distinguish the difference between the good and the great.

1. Are they committed to their profession?

Do they invest the time and energy into staying current with new thinking and techniques in project management? Do they find the right balance between accreditations that your organisation needs and what they need for professional growth? Do they keep a wider view on your industry, not just from a project management point of view but also your sector; domain and product skill set? Spend more time exploring these aspects during interviews.

2. Do they expand their repertoire?

Being a project manager doesn’t mean their knowledge has to stop at project management. Project managers are working to bring change to an organisation – at a micro level within a product or service based project or at more macro level like business transformation. It stands to reason that a project manager with a greater understanding of the business and of where their project fits into the bigger picture of an organisation will deliver more successfully. Areas such as benefits realisation, business analysis; corporate strategy and business planning are areas that should be covered during the interview too.

3. How self-aware are they?

The importance of the behavioural aspects of a project manager’s job are well documented. Personality and approach to the work they do has far-reaching consequences – on their immediate team; stakeholders and senior management. Their self-awareness, ability to understand how others see them and how they influence in their work are some of the cornerstones of communication and people management. Questions designed to understand these behavioural aspects are key in interviews.

4. Are they interested in psychology?

Project managers know that often the difference between success and failure on a project is down to the people aspects. Understanding more about human behaviour and more specifically occupational psychology can help them perform better with the people on which their success depends. Psychological models are already underpinning a lot of the management techniques in use such as negotiation; influence; motivation and instigating change. Current and emerging models can be discussed in interviews and questions asked about their use in everyday management tasks.

5. Do they listen closely enough?

A successful project manager is one that knows the truth of the quote, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Epictetus. The project manager is the facilitator of project success and how can they hope to build a realistic picture of what needs delivering from others if they’re talking all the time? Develop questions or exercises that help test this aspect during interviewing.

If you’re interested in working with Arras People to find great project managers for your organisation contact us for further information about our project management recruitment and careers services.

The event takes place on Wednesday 5th June from 6.00pm to 9.00pm in the City near Cannon Street.

>> Further details and bookings

This seminar has been created for senior experienced practitioners due to the increase in project management professionals moving from full-time employment to contractor / consultant roles. There has been an increase in the demand for practical advice on making a successful transition.

Making this move is often seen as high risk – leaving a salaried role for an immediate future filled with uncertainty. To make a successful transition project management practitioners have to consider a variety of factors.

We have brought together 3 different perspectives – training, trade association and recruitment to share their observations and explore what this means, including:

• Exploring the difference between contracting vs consulting
• Advice and insights into making the move
• Change management, leadership and “softer skills” required to meet the expectations organisation
• Concrete plans Project Managers can start to make before leaving employment
• Get equipped and ready with practical tips on areas like CV, websites, LinkedIn etc

The remainder of the event will be an opportunity for networking with drinks, canapes and brilliant views across the City skyline.

Benefits to attendees

• Real practical advice on making the transition from permanent employee to contractor
• Access to further support from all three presenters
• Networking opportunity with peers

One of our aims during 2013 at Arras People is to look at broadening our view of best practice and how this can be shared to the benefit of our profession here in the UK. This has led us into discussions with a number of organisations who specialise in areas within the PPM space about how we can put on events, master classes and career development sessions.

Our first event was recently run in conjunction with QA which provided excellent feedback from the delegates who attended. Further Arras People led events are being planned along with others such as the Programme Management Master Class which will be led by external organisations, in this case Condor PM whose experience base spans the commercial and public sectors including; defence, financial services, manufacturing, retail, aerospace, healthcare, information technology and construction.

Overview of the Masterclass in Programme Delivery

Large-scale change programmes have become the norm within organisations, both large and small. Again, organisations think that they can use project management approaches, tools and techniques to successfully deliver large programmes of change.

This is a key reason why more than 60% of change programmes fail to deliver the outcomes and benefits they were designed to deliver.

These factors call for a move to competency-based training to replace rote learning and other approaches that have failed or are inappropriate for highly regulated or accountable programmes.

The CondorPM Key Skills for Programme Delivery event has been created to give programme managers and senior project managers an opportunity to update their skills and examine lessons learnt from programmes in Government, Defence, Civil Engineering, Aerospace, Financial Services and Private sectors.

Key topics over the two days includes:

• Programme Management Overview
• Governance
• Design Review
• Test & Evaluation
• Acceptance
• Quality

For a full overview of each topic, the agenda and other details please visit the Masterclass in Programme Delivery website. This is a key event for senior project and programme management practitioners looking for programme management development over and above that of the current accreditations available.

Julie Legge from the APM will give an overview on the development of professional standards and qualifications and Lindsay then shares experiences and insights into how project managers can differentiate themselves and standout in a crowded marketplace. Lindsay will provide practical guidance on how to find the right career opportunity; how to present yourself (against what organisations are looking for); the project management CV and interviews.

The event is aimed at project professional interested in personal development and promises to be a practical and insightful evening.  Prices for members are £free, non-members £10

For more information see the website

Arras People will be the only recruitment and resourcing based organisation at the show; where copies of the latest project management benchmark report will be available. The report, which includes current salaries and rates for the UK project management marketplace is essential viewing for hirers of PMs as well as practitioners.

For more details on the presentation “7½ Ways of Managing Your Project Management Career“ please view the recent post

For more information and free registration to Project Challenge next week, please visit the website

7½ Ways of Managing Your Project Management Career is a session aimed at anyone in the project management profession who is interested in being at the top of their game. The session will cover what the project management marketplace is looking for in project management professionals and how you can meet the demand. This fast paced presentation will give you insights and ideas that you can practically apply to your own career.

Anyone can attend Project Challenge for free by signing up on the website. Further details about other presentations will be available soon. Lindsay will also be available on the PMI exhibition stand to take any questions about your project management career too throughout the day.

Julie Legge will give an overview on the development of professional standards and qualifications. Lindsay Scott shares experiences and insights into how project managers can differentiate themselves and standout in a crowded marketplace. Lindsay will provide practical guidance on how to find the right career opportunity; how to present yourself (against what organisations are looking for); the project management CV and interviews. People Deliver Projects focus on the important theme of ‘change’, and more specifically the challenge of engaging project stakeholders who are leading and going through, change.

The day event is aimed at project professional interested in personal development and promises to be a packed afternoon. Prices for members are £15, non-members £35

For more information see the website

Leading companies are also tuned into those workers that are neither top talent or poor performers. By development and affirmation, the middle tiers of the organisation will improve in their performance and job satisfaction too.

The McKinsey report focuses on the needs of the organisation, and the desire to recognise and reward the most talented people they have so performance levels remain high and they retain those people. With many years spent in the project management field, with the majority of those years spent working with project management professionals at all levels of experience and career length one thing is clear. Not everyone wants to be the top talented project manager or a rising star;  and not everyone can be the most talented in the country either. The aim for the individual is job satisfaction and the question I ask is are the two correlated, would a project manager have more satisfaction in their work if they were recognised by their organisation as being the most talented?

Before we can really understand what talent management can do for the project management field we need delve deeper in order to define what “talented” really means in this profession. What would a “talented” project manager do or say that would be different to a “mainstream” project manager?

In our next article we’ll look at what project managers think about the difference.

There will always be differences in where a project manager wants to take their career. Some will be happy working at a senior project level, others making the steps to programme management and portfolio management. Others will have their eye on business lead roles like heads of departments or board levels. An organisation who wants to keep their talented project managers should have a clearer idea of the paths that interest their PMs through regular performance reviews and 1-2-1 with line managers. The question is, what can an organisation do to make these aspirations work?

To be a great leader, an organisation has to give its employees the challenges – the opportunity to be in different situations, with different people and with more complex objectives to achieve. The organisation also has to do this in a supportive way – recognising that throwing employees into the deep end without the support of, say mentors or development aides could lead to disaster. For project managers to become senior project managers, more complex and high-profile projects to manage is the obvious route to take. For other career paths it becomes much more complex. Just this morning via Twitter, the progression from Project Manager to Programme Manager was being discussed:

@projectmgmt @nothingfaced Hi Lindsay, that’s the point thought isn’t it? As a Prg Manager, you have to TRUST your PM’s to do the job right

— nirmal singh (@nirmski) January 18, 2013

@projectmgmt @nothingfaced Yep, combination of being new and not feeling in controlof environment

— nirmal singh (@nirmski) January 18, 2013

@nothingfaced @nirmski it’s an interesting point just how much the role changes – expectation that it should be seamless?

— Lindsay Scott (@projectmgmt) January 18, 2013

@projectmgmt Shouldn’t expect it to be seamless, its a different game entirely. I enjoyed how it changed my perspectives! @nirmski

— noTHINGfaced (@noTHINGfaced) January 18, 2013

@nirmski .. Agree – we (A)PMP up all our PMs. Prog managers receive no training unless they seek it out themselves… Shame. @projectmgmt

— noTHINGfaced (@noTHINGfaced) January 18, 2013

@projectmgmt @nothingfaced Good point, maybe that’s an opp for one of us to produce a training course

— nirmal singh (@nirmski) January 18, 2013

The same can be said about making the move from projects and programmes into portfolios – just because a talented manager excels in their current position it doesn’t necessarily mean taking the next steps up can be done seamlessly without support and development in new posts. For project professionals that have their eye on senior level positions outside the realms of project management it is generally agreed that they bring a substantial skill set with them although what remains unclear is what do they need in addition to this skill set to become a great business leader?

Part of the answer will depend on the organisation – what do THEY need in their top senior managers? Once this is understood, a future leaders career package can be put together that combines skills development, mentoring, identification of opportunities, special projects instigated, even a sabbatical to help future leaders learn the ropes.

In the next final article on talent management we’ll look at the need for organisations to differentiate between top performers and low performers.

If you’re interested in leadership within project management, take a look at the leadership assessment on the Arras People website