Developing your career prospects in project management is no longer the sole domain of higher learning classes, seminars and trade shows. As the evolution of podcasts, webinars and micro-blogging sites like Twitter have proved in recent years, there is always some other tool in the pipeline that can propel your possibilities.

This month, career development is the goal of Tipoffs, and we've tapped some of the leaders on our own Project Management Training Directory - as well as one of our directors, and the editor-in-chief - to delve into CPD and you. You'll learn about the wealth of opportunity that sits before you these days, including:

• Why you need to give Agile more consideration
• The soft skills you can't succeed without
• A re-think about how big a role you play in your communications process
• And more

For this month's edition of Project Management Tipoffs, just as in February, we've handed some of the editorial content over to the trainers who've jumped on board in full-embrace of the goals of the Training Directory - renowned names like ESI International, Real World Training, The Learning People, Logical Model, ChangeQuest, and RADTAC.

Be sure to have a look through current, popular and timely areas of learning and development in the project management field, and find out more about the training market from the members of the new Project Management Training Directory from Arras People. This year, 2011, we want the project management community to think about a "Year of the Professional", one in which professionals such as you ask, am I moving in the right direction with my career development this year?

SPECIAL NOTES: Tipoffs is available in podcast form for all of our audio fans keen on learning the ins and outs on project management, programme management and recruitment in the PPM world. The June podcast is now available, so click here to learn more our podcasts and subscribe to our regular feed, or here to download us on iTunes. For the on-the-go, instantaneous information public, Project Management Tipoffs and Arras People are ready for you.

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Words: Peter Measey, RADTAC

Agility in business is becoming ever-more important as pressures to respond to increasingly demanding customers and to innovate in increasingly turbulent markets grows. When it comes to managing volatile projects in such dynamic environments there are only three options. You can be:

This agile brief provides an overview of ‘Agile’, however, before we get into the detail let’s look at a few statements relating to the brief’s title, "Why should I – as a project management professional – be looking at Agile?"

• 'Agile' is not new, it has been around in different guises since the mid 1980s, gaining prominence in the mid 1990s (the 'Agile Alliance' was formed in 2001).
• The majority of the world’s private sector Software Engineering market is now agile or trying to be agile.
• APMG and DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Method – one of the first agile frameworks) have implemented an Agile Project Management certification; this is likely to be as big as, or bigger than, their other products, Prince2, MSP, MoR etc.
• The IFG (Institute for Government) is driving implementation of Agile within the UK public sector now (June 2011)
• The PMI (Project Management Institute) is implementing an 'Agile Project Management' certification now (June 2011)

Agile frameworks are designed for project (or product) deliveries that are volatile in nature, where it is difficult to define up front exactly what the output will be and difficult to restrict the product from changing throughout the duration of the project. Software Engineering projects are classic examples of these types of projects so we’ll use this as a subject area for the rest of this brief; however Agile is a suitable delivery/management approach for any delivery where volatility and change is required.

An Agile framework is an approach to management and delivery that focuses primarily on satisfying the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable product.

In order to ensure delivery of valuable product, Agile frameworks allow the solution to evolve to meet the needs of the changing business, welcoming changes to requirements throughout the development lifecycle. The ability to harness change throughout the development cycle ensures that the product delivered is fit for purpose on the day of delivery. Further, exploiting the ability to harness change and to deliver product incrementally can deliver significant competitive advantage to the customer through earlier implementation of partial solutions.

If change, for whatever reason and from whatever source, is to be expected and welcomed then there is little value in specifying detailed requirements up front and even less value in constructing detailed plans for realising those requirements as features in the product (the 'waterfall' approach).

Agile frameworks require strong collaboration between the candidate users of the product and those developing it. Such collaboration must facilitate, on an ongoing basis, the users describing and prioritising required features of the solution and technical staff iteratively and incrementally adding such features to the emerging system.

The Agile Alliance (formed 2001) have agreed a series of principles common to all the methods represented which further define what Agile frameworks are. The same group agreed the principles thus:

• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable product.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
• Deliver working product frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
• Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
• Working product is the primary measure of progress.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
• Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

Before we finish this brief let’s have a look at four of the leading Agile frameworks:

• Scrum is the world’s leading agile framework.  Scrum is purposefully designed to be simple, at the core are three roles, three artefacts and three ceremonies. Scrum is highly effective in enabling focus and delivery within Project Management or Product Management organisations.
• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) has a strongly project focused management/development lifecycle supported by a set of eight guiding principles.  DSDM is at the heart of the APM ‘Agile Project Management’ method and is also (in DSDM Atern) an extremely effective corporate strength agile approach in its own right.
• Extreme Programming (XP) practices are more focussed in software engineering practices and less in delivery and management (like Scrum and DSDM), the practices go much deeper in to the way software products should be constructed espousing the virtues of design simplicity and refactoring (the re-engineering of code for simplicity). XP is commonly wrapped within Scrum or DSDM for software engineering companies.
• Lean / Kanban, Lean is really more about being agile than doing agile, Kanban is an agile approach to scheduling work. Lean/Kanban is the agile framework that is growing in stature fastest amongst all agile frameworks at the moment (June 2011)

So, as we come to the end of the brief, it’s pretty clear that the answer to the question,

"Why should I – as a project management professional – be looking at Agile?"

Is...

"Agile is now mainstream; we must become agile, fast or dead (unemployable)";

'The times, they are a changing,' as Mr Zimmerman would say.
 

Words: Rob Walters, Real World Training

When it comes to career development, it is easy to focus on the technical aspects of a particular role and easy to lose sight of the soft skills that are just as important, if not more so, in terms of performing your role successfully.

As someone who has conducted many interviews, the technical competency of a particular candidate is, of course important. For example, if I am interviewing you for a Project Manager role I want to know that you can write a Project Brief, perform Critical Path Analysis or compile Product Breakdown Structures etc. However, if you do have a development need in some of these areas, they can be fairly easily addressed with the wide range of training courses that are on offer.

What is equally important to me is whether you have the essential soft skills necessary to perform the role. You may be great at structuring a Risk Register or filling in a Gantt chart but can you make decisions effectively? How good are you at facilitating a requirements workshop? How well can you manage conflict and will you motivate and lead the project team successfully? These are the real skills that will help shortlist potential candidates for a role as they are often much more difficult to acquire than the technical areas of knowledge. 

In other words, when it comes to career development, you need to make sure that you are developing in ALL areas of competency required for the role, not just the technical aspects.

For Project managers, there are many soft skills that need to be displayed throughout the life of a project. Whilst some of those skills will be similar to an operational role, there are some crucial differences. For example, a Project Manager needs to manage and lead a team that has often been brought together quickly, involving individuals who have never worked together before and can sometimes have external organisations as part of the team structure. Within a project, there can be a lot of conflict that needs to be managed and a real focus on good communication and stakeholder engagement is required.

In whatever role you perform, you will come across situations that you have handled well or not so well and it is well worth keeping a personal ‘Lessons Log’ to capture these experiences. In terms of situations that you have dealt with well in the past, interviewers will be impressed with real world examples that you can refer to rather than hypothetical scenarios. For those situations that, on reflection, you would have handled differently, a Personal Development Plan can then be created to focus on the skills where further training is needed.

Whilst it is difficulty to provide an exhaustive list of all the soft skills that a Project Manager should possess, below are the high level areas that I consider to be particularly relevant and if you do keep a Lessons Log as suggested, these can be used as categories to map your experiences against.

• Communication
• Influencing
• Conflict Management
• Negotiation
• Workshop / Meeting Facilitation
• Decision Making
• Problem Solving
• Time and Priority Management
• People Leadership

If you do recognise a lack of experience in any of these areas or a development need, then as part of your personal and career progression, it is important that you look for opportunities where that shortfall can be addressed.

Many training companies will provide soft skills training but it is certainly worth looking at those that can provide a focus to soft skills training within a project environment so that you get a specific practical focus that is relevant to your role.

In summary, having the technical 'know how' to perform your role is without question, important. Having the actual soft skills though to apply that technical knowledge is absolutely critical. Being focused on both areas will help you optimise your career development.

Words: Dan Strayer

Ranjit Sidhu of ChangeQuest, a training company with the aim of sharing what drives the true nature of communications within projects, has carved an enviable niche in the project management profession. A former practitioner herself that now leads workshops and presentations, Ranjit presents students with opportunities to self-examine their focus on the behavioural and language choice patterns that can alter messages coming in and those going out. A proponent of neuro-linguistic programming, sessionw with Ranjit leave the professional, open-minded student re-thinking their approach to communicating with all stakeholders and in a great position to improve those interactions.

These statements are not made blindly. Having sat through two workshops that provided great opportunities to improve my own communication abilities, I can say all of this about ChangeQuest from a first-hand perspective. Having participated with the rest of the Arras team in Ranjit’s personalised, team building "Advanced Communication Skills Workshop" earlier this month, we at Arras People had an inside track on her ways to help participants better understand traits of effective communication in project management, change management, and even those everyday life settings.

As with many training situations and learning scenarios, Ranjit’s most recent workshop offered some particularly memorable elements, the cream of the crop if you will. In sessions that combined group activity, video and slides in a highly personalised fashion, you can take away particularly strong NLP lessons as a seeker of the best in communications strategies.
 

You Are The One Who Shapes Your Communications Behaviours. Ranjit laid this out for us with a good acronym: Are you the one that is driving the bus? So often, we forget that we’re in charge of our responses and the elements that can best shape those responses. It’s a simple change of perspective really: too often, we’re led to think that the environment, the attitudes, and all these mitigating factors will be the ultimate determinants of your conversations. While they all play roles, what you must remember is that none of those necessarily have to change how you are coming across. You can, in fact, make the choice to re-shape it all by yourself.

You can respond in kind to that loud fellow on the other end of the line; you also have the choice to rise above the tone, stay the course in a professional and polite tone, and ultimately get the right & complete information across, not merely the information your "in kind" tone might unintentionally dictate you to remember. A tone may be offered to shape the behaviour and the ultimate communication that has been made to you; it is equally down to you as the effective communicator to re-shape that tone to fit the content of the message.
 

Transitional Phrases Often Have Too Much Finality and Negativity. Ranjit made mention of some transitional words that can easily shape the response you’re bound to receive: Words like "But", "Or", "Be", "Don't", and "However". Take a look at the two examples I’ve set aside below to see what I mean. Picture yourself listening to a discussion on a sports talk radio station about the greatest midfielders in football history, and imagine that the name of George Best came up suddenly...

"George Best was a great midfielder, but Johan Cruyff was the best midfielder of all time."

"George Best was truly a great midfielder, right up there with Johan Cruyff, who was the best midfielder to ever play the game."

What you are finding in these examples is that with the shorter sentence and use of "but" - a more sudden transition - the listener would come away believing from an authoritative voice that the qualities of the subject in the first part of the sentence, while strong, still seemed diminished. The "Fifth Beatle" didn’t seem to belong on the same pedestal as Cruyff, kicked to the curb by a short, curt statement and a short transition modifying his credentials. Compare that to the second version, where things were now slightly more positive and inclusive. Now, you can picture Bestie on that greatest of all-time pedestal with Cruyff, while still recognising that the ultimate opinion expressed was that the Dutchman ranks (to the speaker’s mind, mind you) as the best ever in the midfield. The pedestal seems bigger and more accommodating to Best's credentials now, whereas things seemed so closed off in the first example. Translating that to working life, imagine not using phrases like "but" and "or" in your conversations for a week, and seeing if that might change the feel and tone of your communications. It may allow for a flow, a bigger sense of openness that those words used to all but close off - it may, in fact, give your communicant options you hadn’t really provided before.
 

Communications Scope: Do people like their information to be given to them with specifics or on a more general basis? Crucial stuff for stakeholder management, namely. And also pretty straightforward stuff, primarily because it so greatly affects a communications strategy for your projects. If you've determined the involvement and interest a stakeholder has in your project (perhaps through the help of a Stakeholder Engagement Grid), you'll know that you have to account for some flexibility in terms of how often and exactly what you’ll tell the principles touched by your project.

It would be unfair to give away the farm and tell you too much about Ranjit’s workshops, so we’ll end with the understanding of a bit of the light that goes on with what once seemed so daunting about NLP and communications strategy. What many people will have the option to take away from her services is a straight-forward understanding that people can account for how the message is going out to the listener, reader, or follower, and how much control we have over it. To effectively manage that control, it is down to the communicator to take thorough consideration for the delivery of that message and massage what exactly is getting through to the other side.

Dan Strayer is the editor-in-chief of Project Management Tipoffs and the Marketing Coordinator for Arras People. Principal Consultant Ranjit Sidhu is an experienced trainer, facilitator, and project management consultant at ChangeQuest, with over 20 years’ experience gained on global projects spanning Europe, North America and Africa. Her credentials include being an accredited trainer for the Change Management Practitioner qualification; a PRINCE2_^® and Agile Project Management accredited trainer; a coach and certified trainer of NLP; and an Assessor for the APM Practitioner.

Words: Patrick Aylmer, The Learning People

It’s a question often asked – which project management certification from the prestigious Project Management Institute (PMI) is the right one for me? And the answer is, it depends! The decision to earn a project management certification is a big one, so make sure you choose one that best fits your current expertise and your future career plans.

Since its founding in 1969, the PMI has grown to be the organisation of choice for project management professionalism. PMI establishes project management standards; and it provides seminars, educational programs, and professional certification that organisations desire for their project leaders. The PMI is now a global organisation with local chapters in many countries throughout the world.

The two most popular certifications from the PMI are the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) and the Project Management Professional (PMP).

So, which one is right for you?

If you’re a less experienced project manager looking to demonstrate your commitment to project management, improve your ability to manage larger projects and earn additional responsibility, and stand out to potential employers, the CAPM certification is right for you.

To apply for the CAPM, you need to have a secondary diploma (high school or the global equivalent) AND at least 1,500 hours experience OR 23 hours of project management education by a registered education provider

If you’re an experienced project manager looking to solidify your skills, stand out to employers and maximize your earning potential, the PMP credential is the right choice for you. The PMP recognizes demonstrated competence in leading and directing project teams

The PMP credential is the most important industry-recognized certification for project managers. Globally recognized and demanded, the PMP demonstrates that you have the experience, education and competency to successfully lead and direct projects.

This recognition is seen through increased marketability to employers and higher salary.  According to a recent salary survey, a PMP increases your salary up to 10% more than your non-credentialed colleagues and peers.

To apply for the PMP, you need to have either a four-year degree (bachelor’s or the global equivalent) and at least three years of project management experience, with 4,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education OR a secondary diploma (high school or the global equivalent) with at least five years of project management experience, with 7,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education.

In addition, as a PMP credential holder, you need to earn 60 Professional Development Units (PDUs) per three-year cycle.

The key thing is to do your research and get advice from experts in the industry. After all, the right certification can have a dramatic impact on your career as a project manager, so it makes sense for your choice of course to be well considered.

Patrick Aylmer has worked in PM education for 14 years for businesses in Australia, the US and the UK. He specialises in PMI training and methodology for The Learning People and has spoken at numerous international conferences. The Learning People have over 15 years experience in providing high quality and effective training and are experts in the Project Management field, particularly in certifications related to PMI.

Words: Simon Harris, Logical Model

This month this has turned out to be a quiet one so I've had some time to think "what next?" and in turn to reflect on the past a little. It set me wondering, especially in the present economic climate, about how many times I have been fired (or otherwise in an involuntary quiet period).

I don’t know what your score is but mine might be three times so far.

Actually, 'Fired' is the wrong word. The right sentiment is 'been moved-on'. By the time I got to this paragraph, I have revised the 'three' upward a few notches.

What I've learned is that 'getting moved on' is always uncomfortable, happens more often than I've voluntarily deciding to move on, and is always, ultimately, an advancement.

The first that comes to mind is 1990 when the London Stock Exchange shed 1,000 people in what was probably the third round of redundancies in nine months. I was a Unix techie and the elected 'Staff Representative' for several departments. I’d been there 11 years. Looking forward at that time was full of uncertainty and thus scary. Looking back, I can see that it was full of opportunity. The 'euphemism' of being 'released to pursue other opportunities' is actually true!

Their severance process was protracted while my role as staff rep required stressful debate with the personnel function (for whom I was also the elected rep!) on behalf of my divisional director, his management team, their secretaries and every other grade in between that was within the corporate hierarchy.

Overnight my role moved on from 99% technical team leader to 80% councillor and negotiator. It moved on three months later to 100% job seeker! Within some months, as an IT contractor, I had doubled my take-home pay!!

At the time I didn’t know that what I had learned from the turmoil was invaluable.
 

Learning

Gaining experience is a journey. I use two ways of looking at how I can learn from experience. One is inspired by David Kolb’s cycle of "Concrete Experience when followed by Reflective Observation leads to Abstract Conceptualisation which when used for Active Experimentation leads to Concrete Experience" and so the cycle repeats. The second is: "Unconscious incompetence before conscious incompetence, before conscious competence before unconscious competence". In 1990 'they' moved me from unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent.
 

The importance of plans

Twenty (errr . . . 30) years ago it was being drummed into me that I had to have a full, deterministic plan at the start of every project.
Often I was bemused by what was asked of me: "but you don’t really know what you want, I don't know all the technical issues to create it", or "but we know this backwards why do you want to waste my energy on drawing a Gantt chart?" The latter answer was "the departmental Quality Management System says so".
 

Unwritten plans

Imagine a troubled corner of a global organisation embracing all on-going projects and calling them 'The Transformation Programme'.

Original budget holders and project managers have zero interest in being 'assimilated'. Zero progress to date means the head of the PMO has recently become conscious of their incompetence: I took the offered contract assignment to strengthen this inexperienced regional programme office.

At the end of the first week I was asked: "Have you got a plan?" I said "No". The same thing happened in weeks 2, 3 and 4 at which point the response was: "Well I think you should look for a new opportunity then".

Perhaps I should have answered differently. The first week I should have said: "Yes, my plan is to go see the project managers and hear what they say". Then week two: "Yes, I'm going to tell London that monthly reports are a fairy tale and we will take a month's reporting holiday in order to create a true picture". In week three: "Yes, I've advised the director that change will generate complaints from sponsors - she is ready to rebut them and I have all the current PMs taking half an hour for lunch on Friday’s – 'to sit together'". And in week four: "The PMs are realising they are working on duplicate and contradictory initiatives! Let’s give them a week and then invite the sponsors around the table."

I think in hindsight this was unconscious competence that needed to be expressed ‘out loud’ to make my consciously incompetent employer have confidence. Instead they fired me an I took the learned lesson away with me, even though it took some years to see it’s value.
 

Now

Lat year I parted company with a partnership I had recently jointly founded. It hadn't quite got off the ground then, but has since. We parted amicably, without great drama, and this week we've been discussing new cooperation. Our goals were aligned, but not our approach, our view of formality, or of what is crucial.

When we started, we could not predict how personalities would mesh. Signing the partnership papers was scary and full of uncertainty. I realize now that at some point in the last 30 years I have learned "go for it: you cannot think out everything, but you can add reactive controls to proactive planning".

The final discussion revolved around balancing: "Do our differences make the partnership stronger and more resilient, or less fun to work within?" This wasn't scary, but it was full of unknowables.

Ultimately we can’t know what lies in that 'other future' – that is, the one we didn't select.

Only sitting here writing this, do I wonder if I was unconsciously competent when faced with the decision to say: "Let's stop now. I'll pay for x, you pay for y. I own this, you own that. OK?"

Different stories but a common theme

We all have different experiences through-out life. Change always looks scary when it approaches (& feels worse for those with little experience of change)! Everyone, at some point in their lives will benefit from being ‘moved-on’ even though they would not do so voluntarily. But: once in motion we are all marvellously able to invent great solutions that would never emerge if motion had not been forced upon us.

And finally...

The more times you see get fired or 'move on', the more you appreciate that all good, all advancement, all progress - comes from a change.

Simon Harris, PMP, CGEIT, IPMA-D, MoR, PRINCE2® is Principal of Logical Model Ltd. Simon speaks, consults, mentors and trains on Project Management. LML no longer trains just to the exams - their training uses a two-part approach: 1) how to do the job for real and optionally, 2) exam preparation. Email arras@LogicalModel.Net or call 084 52 57 57 07.

^{PRINCE2® is a trademark of the Office of Government Commerce in the UK and other countries.}