This month we have decided to look at some of the current affairs and issues faced by the two main sectors of all employment - public vs private. As Tipoffs often does, we're looking at the issues as they pertain to the project management community, with specific interest in data from this year's Arras People Project Management Benchmark Survey and also from discussions we've recently had with project management practitioners.

Firstly we have a piece that explores the Benchmark Survey as it tackles both sides of the public/private coin, getting a feel for just what the market thought heading into 2011.

We then hit the refresh button, going back into the market to get a project man on the street perspective as to the strengths, weaknesses, tendencies and trends going through each sector.

Project management issues for hiring and workplace effectiveness tackle the person asking our Question of the Month, and guest reviewer Elizabeth Harrin takes a look at Emanuel Camilleri's Project Success.

Words: Lindsay Scott & Dan Strayer

The 2011 Project Management Benchmark Report from Arras People continues the theme of looking at how things stack up for project managers across all swaths of categorical description, including those in both the public and private sector. We've been breaking down such matters since we started tabulating this marketplace-based survey six years ago, and we've found it to be a solid compendium on comparisons between the public and private sectors, as figures and trends create areas for rumination and educated guessing on the future of both sides for PPM.

Pay Now, Pay Later

Consider the situation a year ago. Local governments were slashing payroll and staffing resources, sniffing out quick-fix solutions to the cuts eminent in the public sector with a new government keen to cut the trimmings. Though this trend put the majority of contractors at risk, times changed again.

Although contractors seemed to be an easy target of the quick fix, data from the 2011 Survey showed us that 36% of public contractor PPMs earned anywhere from the sizable £500-750 day rate. By comparison, just 26% of private sector contractors were in the same day rate range. We could surmise the following from this data:

• If contractors were facing the axe, it wasn’t because of any amount of day rate deemed exorbitant; rather, it seemed to be a cutting of the total volume of contractors who didn’t serve an expertise that current important projects of the time really needed.
• As a result, experienced contractors with expertise in key business areas weren’t necessarily suffering - in fact they were in demand and their rates were not putting off the organisations that really needed the expertise
• Change management, in particular, was the crucial expertise needed. Times seemed especially good for those who excelled in handover and also those good at managing fewer resources & personnel, but on a similar project time scale. Ergo, the consultant-type of contractor was the stop-gap godsend for change mechanisms needed in the public sector.

The permanent public sector project professionals were not necessarily feeling the heat at this point in late 2010 but they were feeling it in many other ways. PAYE-employed project managers in the private sector, for instance, were and do continue to see better salaries than their colleagues in the public sector, as 64% of private PAYE earn £40K a year, compared to just 43% of public PAYEs.

The outlook in 2011 shines on the private sector camp: 47% private PPM employees told us they anticipated increased remuneration in 2011, compared to just 31% of the counterparts on the public side. More telling, 33% of public employees expect their pay to drop, or exactly three-fold more than their private contemporaries (11%).

Who Is More Concerned?

Confidence in one’s sector, job security and future opportunities seemed to be a motorway with both sectors heading in opposite directions. Some of the unavoidable facts the Benchmark Report unearthed showed that the private sector life seemed to be much easier on the nerves:

• Those in the private sector expected a salary increase (47%-31%) this year;
• Those in the public sector had a higher fear of redundancy (14%-3%) this year;
• Over the last three years, personal confidence levels within the private sector have risen (90% report things being either buoyant or steady now, compared to 70% two years ago), whilst public sector personal confidence went down last year and rose 4 points this year (82% - 2008; 76% - 2009; 80% - 2010);
• Across the board, private PPMs anticipated a better year in terms of avoiding reductions in PM staff (with more respondents and a higher response rate to boot). Public PPMs weren't as certain: 8% less expected "No cuts", and 11% more expected "Major cuts".

We conclude in these comparisons in the Benchmark Report that "this level of concern is not necessarily unexpected at this point based on the media coverage about the possible impacts of the Government’s austerity measures."

But we weren’t so certain about the confidence travelling in the opposite direction, either. "Possibly more concerning is the still high levels of concern amongst the private sector practitioners with 40% expressing a worry (9% very worried) compared to 45% and (16%) last year," as was written in the Report. "Whilst we can see a lowering in the level of concern, the 7% shift may suggest that overall confidence in the recovery is still fragile!"

Since the Report was published in February we can confirm that private sector project workers are still feeling nervous as organisations continue to issue redundancy and at-risk warnings to the workforce. Project professionals across the many types of organisations available in the private sector such as IT Services, Pharmaceutical, Engineering and Professional Services are making plans to seek out new positions before being pushed.

The public sector project workers are not faring much better than their private sector colleagues; the swinging cuts are still happening as organisations seek the Holy Grail to efficient and effective services through transformation. It is a grim story for any project professional leaving one public sector organisation looking for work in another; the project management marketplace for the public sector has almost been obliterated with vacancies down by over 60% this time last year (research carried out by Arras People’s own marketplace position).

Sector Changers - Are Recruiters to Blame?

With the lack of opportunity available within the public sector for project management right now and the specific and detailed requirements coming from the private sector; the comments and answers to some of our questions about the nature of recruitment could cast aspersions about how project management may be suffering from a false narrative. 15% of the practitioners we polled were unemployed at the time of the survey, 61% of which had been out of employment less than six months.

Of the unemployed, 70% told us they tried to change their sector specialism in some manner. Within that sub-group, 42% told us that they tried to switch sectors (20% from public to private, 22% private to public), with the rest indicating they simply tried to market themselves as either private (49%) or public sector (8%) PPMs. In all, the majority of cases have revealed that it doesn’t seem to matter that much. 56% either got no response, didn’t get an interview, or found the endeavour so pointless as to deem it an impossible sell not worth the effort and time anymore.

When the chips are down, it can seem difficult for a certain classification of unemployed practitioners to assign blame properly in their situation. The case in point here is that the High Street recruitment of project managers doesn’t seem to be in the good graces of the unemployed. Amongst the sector specialism changers, 57% agree in some way that project management is "not generally seen as transferable across sectors", whilst 76% feel that Recruiters lack the domain knowledge to identify transferable skills. Going further, 67% feel the differences between private and public sector PM skills are overstated, whilst a whopping 91% agreed that "organisations recruit with blinkers on".

Some of the comments from the Change Sector contingent backed up this thinking. To wit:

• "Recruiters are not really good at looking/finding a role for candidates as they fail to learn about them and most recruiters do not use common sense. They just get a paper and go through the experiences/skills that an applicant would have - like a tick.”
• "Many employers are not interested in hiring people who are changing sector."
• "Difficult in current climate to go from Private to Public sector."
• "Recruiters and employers will not take the risk of putting someone forward who is not the best fit for the role; when there are plenty of people who are; unless they cannot find a suitable candidate."

And, for those of you who wonder if our being a niche recruiter of project managers makes the listing of these comments a self-serving mission of our capabilities, we counter with this:

• "Arras et al need to educate the public sector that private sector PMs can bring them massive strengths in efficiency; organisation and realisation of Business Benefits."

We concluded in the Benchmark Report: "Whilst it is easy to dismiss this as a one-eyed view, organisations looking to recruit and grow their project management capability will need to address these perceptions at some point. Investing in and developing talent will become more important as the economic situation improves and the “talent wars” begin, you may not be able to afford exactly what you want!"

I’ll go one step further: in studying the field, colleagues at Arras People have previously written volumes on the idea of selling yourself effectively in the search for suitable PPM employment. But it was a suggestion from our own Michael Hides two years ago when we were brainstorming a "Predictions for 2010" article for Tipoffs that truly stood out. From the December 2009 Project Management Tipoffs:

"The Jobs Will Go To The Best Self-Marketing Candidates, Thus Increasing Frustrations of Possibly Better Qualified Candidates

The job candidate who does the best job of promoting and self-marketing may be in with a better shot at success than the perhaps better qualified candidate who can't get people to look at them with the same gusto. Undoubtedly this will alienate and upset the better candidates. But if it leads to such candidates developing their self-marketing for the sake of their career betterment, the frustration could be a blessing in disguise."

Clearly, times have gotten tough. For the sake of the capable project managers seemingly being left out in hard times, adjustment of this sort could provide an opportunity to adjust your sales pitch.

Words: Dan Strayer

The data from a survey and report can only tell us so much about project management today in the public and private sectors. Getting a real sense and feeling of how your colleagues – whether that is in the public or private sectors – are faring in today’s marketplace means we need to go direct to source.

We’ve asked a few project practitioners about the nature of their industries and the true and candid experiences they’re living with right now in the workplace .

How confident are you about your job in your sector? What factor in particular is driving your confidence level?”

Susanne Madsen is a veteran of the financial sector that has seen some tough times in recent years. Today, she is working as a programme/project manager, based in London in high finance & also provides guidance as a certified coach.

"I suppose it depends on two things in terms of your level of confidence right now," she said. "One is that it depends on the amount of experience you have. If you have higher end experience in the sector, you should have reason to be confident. If you are more of a junior level end of the market, it can be tougher. Another factor is simply demand. Some people have gone into different sectors."

Eric McGhee, a Project Manager at Ford Motor Company in Detroit. His feeling about the confidence in projects in general is in direct correlation with costs associated.

"My confidence in my sector (Infrastructure Project Management) is currently tempered by the high costs associated with such projects," he said. "My most recent project was already estimated in the $millions, but after a thorough re-analysis of the work required, and the addition of new information, the cost tripled. That fact alone could put it in the range of the firing squad so-to-speak and get put on hold for another couple of years.

"However, the number of infrastructure projects out in the market seems to be growing as I get daily requests from different contract houses and companies looking for such skills."

Robert Kelly has been working as a Project Manager at Lenovo Worldwide Services in North Carolina before recently finding a new role. "I am confident at this point," he said. "My current employer has outpaced the growth of our competitors for the last five quarters and there are plans for significant hiring in the coming months."

Emma Jarvis is a Programme Office Manager for Devon County Council. "Currently, I’m feeling relatively confident about my job as a PMO Manager within a local authority, but that’s not to say things won’t change over the next 12-18 months," she said. "In common with the rest of the public sector, local government is facing an unprecedented period of change and we are about to embark on some of the biggest changes to the structure and function of the organisation that the Council has seen for many years. In response to the national and local agenda, a Corporate Change Programme has been initiated that will need to deliver some of the largest and most significant changes that we’ve ever seen. Key to supporting the delivery of change are PPM professionals and I’m a believer that an effective PMO (and by that I mean Programme and Project Managers and PMO support staff) can really make a difference to delivery and savings."

Martin Webster is a Systems Support Manager at Leicestershire County Council with an interest in project and programme management. "The public sector is facing unprecedented change and job losses are inevitable," he said. "Local authorities have (made) and continue to make difficult choices to preserve front-line services. Back-office functions such as IT and management are likely to face reduction – so I'm not too confident about job security. That said, the public sector does need change and those with the right skills have an exciting future."

Kevin Gillick works with Jarvis at Devon County Council as a project manager. "I'm fairly confident - our team has avoided large cuts required by the reduction in Government spending," he told us.

What is team morale like, and how would you describe the conditions of your working environment as a factor in motivating the project team?

In the private sector, there seemed to be a range of things to be dispirited about. "Team morale ranges from sincere concern over day-to-day operations and environment post-project to general willingness and cooperation to get the job done," McGhee told us. "The overall motivating factor is that the majority of my team members/SMEs are set to retire in the next few years, and they don't want to see the fruits of their labors fall to the wayside simply because this large scale migration project did not take place."

Kelly didn’t beat around the bush. "Morale is very low," he said. "Since '09, so many folks have been doing two and three jobs. People are getting tired of hearing about the growth, but not seeing it in their pay check. New hires can't come quick enough."

Training budgets have been significantly reduced, reducing loyalty within the sector's employees.

"Morale for the traditional project managers in things like maintenance is suffering, because there is little budget for training and opportunities (e.g. for exciting projects)," she said. "It feels like there's less trust because there is less funding available. And employees in turn, have lost loyalty towards the employers and the industry as a result of it - because they're cutting back to the bare bones."

Funding is also an area of concern for the public sector, though perseverance seems to be the cream that’s rising to the top. "It would be untrue to say that morale hasn’t been affected; people are understandably concerned about their jobs," Jarvis said. "Particularly in relation to grant-funded programmes and projects - we may have funding for this year, but what impacts will that have on staff numbers next year if that funding isn’t available? For my colleagues who are currently involved in a recruitment and appointment process, I continue to be amazed at the high standards and professionalism they continue to maintain during what must be a very worrying time for them."

Webster agrees with Jarvis in terms of perseverance. "Local government employees are resilient and passionate about providing excellent services to the public," he said. "Clearly people are affected by these austere time and threats to job security. Nonetheless, I am often surprised at our capacity to get the job done even when we're under review and know that job losses are inevitable.

"Yes, morale is down. But not as much as what you'd expect. People are busy. People are motivated. We're not simply facing cuts; we are fundamentally changing the way we work."

Gillick added, "Morale is good - though our work is changing into areas such as facilitation and change management."

Would you classify your job as easier or harder than it was 12 months ago? Are you noticing any major alterations like working longer hours, contraction of available resources, or managing smaller project teams?

With loyalty to companies at low ebb, the tide of overwhelming job responsibilities and pressure is closing in on private sector practitioners.

"Because of the contractions and cutbacks, the employees’ loyalty is not very strong right now, and there's more pressure," Madsen said. "Due to reduced staff, production quality has suffered; I have seen that. And I've seen all of the above (longer hours, cutbacks on resources and training, smaller teams) as well. One thing I've also seen is off shoring or near shoring of the work out of London. You see off shoring or near shoring on the fringes of projects."

McGhee fears that infrastructural project personnel lack the drive and are testing other options. "My job is definitely harder than it was 12 months ago," he said.

He notes that his multi-year project still features a large team that has nevertheless seen two other project managers leave already. "As a contractor, I am only allowed to work 40 hours a week, but the amount of work and weight on my shoulders has increased as willing PMs for this type of work are in decline. It seems everyone is jumping ship to web/software development projects."

"It's harder now," adds Kelly. "Business is growing at a quicker rate then some can solve for. Resource constraints are the biggest challenge at this point."

And judging from our public sector respondents, the hard nature of the role seems to be universal. “We were aware of the breadth and scale of cuts long before the coalition government made its announcements last year,” Webster told us. “We've been working hard for a long time. It's common practice for staff to work long hours. But we have to do more with less now, which means difficult decisions. We have more staff on fixed term contracts.

"There is lots of change which means many projects. We now need to be much better at leading change and managing projects. Managing resources across teams is important. So are priorities and the management of risk. Those with the right mix of project and leadership skills will probably do well."

"I think things are definitely more challenging than 12 months ago,” Jarvis said. “I think one of the key issues that we are all going to be faced with is the contraction of available resources. In relation to programmes and projects it is going to become evident that the specialist resources we’ve relied on in the past to deliver projects (i.e. IT, HR, Procurement etc) are going to be reduced. There’s going to need to be a strict approach to prioritisation in order to deal with competing demands."

Gillick laid it out in a single sentence: "It's harder, we have less people, more to do and everyone is expecting more."

How would you describe the wider landscape in your sector? What trends have emerged and where do you see your sector going?

McGhee, for one, senses a better level of appreciation for projects (both in word and in practice) from the external stakeholders.

"I see the overall trend to be more diligent about project selection, monetary requirements, but most of all, clear and precise justification and business case," he told us. "The microscopic attention to what is happening with projects such as this is gaining momentum. Managers are getting more creative by finding ways to fund important business projects by combining project budgets if there is significant overlap and by better ‘trimming the fat’ of existing projects to help them get approved and eventually successful."

Madsen senses that Agile is becoming the way of the future in the industry, so much so that what was once a sector of "snobbery toward off the street applicants" - finance - is now embracing those with quality Agile qualifications, experience and the ability to effectively put it all together.

"In terms of trends, you're hearing a lot more talk about Agile with financial projects," she told us. "There is a demand both for junior PMs with agile and senior PPMs with agile experience (and that's both for the lower end and also the higher end people). That is definitely a trend right now, agile demand. But banks are all about business, so it's kind of left to us to sort through. How do you match it up with a fixed budget, for instance? Some still want that waterfall sometimes."

For those who believe in smaller government, public sector project managers seem to already be acceding that in terms of public services, that may be where we're heading.

"Local government is contracting (perhaps to levels of the late 1990s) and is moving toward a model where we commission services," Webster said. "Moreover, we will see much more collaboration – joint ventures, shared services, etc. - over the next few years. Together, local authorities can deliver better, higher quality services that are not possible individually."

"Such partnerships are likely to involve the private sector and selective outsourcing arrangements. This could be good news for the change leader and project management professional. One thing that is certain is that things are a changin'. And successful change has to be managed exceptionally well!"

"In the future, few services will be provided directly by Councils," Jarvis told us. "Local public services will largely be delivered by independent organisations, whether in the private or not-for-profit sector, with new models such as employee co-operatives being strongly promoted. The local authority will be that of commissioner and enabler rather than provider."

Dan Strayer is a Marketing Coordinator of Arras People and editor of Project Management Tipoffs. To read more of his work on project management at How to Manage a Camel, click here.

This section is here to help you realise where to get help with your most basic and far-reaching questions alike. With just a little search, you can use the Arras People website to get ahead in your hunt for gainful PPM employment and advice. From time to time, we'll go beyond FAQs with this running feature as well - we're also happy to point you towards the tidbits of information you can do with, be it a handout, a testimonial, or reasons as to why a candidate can turn to Arras People. The main idea is to channel your regularly-asked inquiries into sections of the website that are set up to deal with them in a convenient fashion.

This month's Frequently Asked Question:

Image by sarbathory and re-used with permission.

Author: Emanuel Camilleri
Publisher: Gower (A Publishing Partner of Arras People)
Size: 324 pages

Reviewed by Elizabeth Harrin

What makes a project successful? Emanuel Camilleri in the book Project Success: Critical Factors and Behaviours has tried to answer that question. This book from Gower is the bible on getting it right, covering everything from the history of project management to managing information flow and organisational diagnostics.

The problem with a book on project success is that success means different things to different people. "[T]he perception of the stakeholders is fundamental to success," Camilleri writes. He also points out the difference between project success (is the project a good thing) and project management success (was the project delivered in accordance to best practice). In order to address these, he has included bits of both in the book.

Project Success is based upon Camilleri's literature research. He's gone through academic papers since 1971 and looked at all the studies done into project success criteria. Then he has categorised them and ranked them by the number of times those criteria pop up in the research results. That gives us a list of the top things to work on to give ourselves a fighting chance of being successful. He writes: “[T]he most important dimension for ensuring the successful implementation of projects, in order of priority, include:

1. Project Planning and Control;
2. Project Strategic Fit;
3. Project Scope;
4. Employee Commitment and Participation.”

These are the top four in a list of 11, and the rest of the book looks at each of them in turn.

The section on strategic fit is interesting. Whole books have been written about portfolio management and Camilleri has managed to squash project selection into 12 pages – and three of them are diagrams.

The book has plenty of diagrams, flow charts and even a scope definition template, but it still doesn’t feel like a practitioner’s book. For example, there are a few pages on assessing the project team environment and establishing whether it’s conducive to high performance. This is based on five measures:

• Level of role conflict and ambiguity within the project team
• Adequate definitions of roles and responsibilities
• Appropriate level of processes and procedures
• Level of collaboration within the team
• Level of cooperation between the project team and external stakeholders.

Each of these measures is the subject of a flow diagram. The flow diagrams provide a scoring system which ranks your project team. I can see the benefit of this for consultants, people joining a new company in roles where they can influence the outcome, or (maybe) new project managers joining a new team and who want to know what they have let themselves in for. But practical, day-to-day use? I don't need to score the team environment. I live it – I already know.

In some areas the book is very detailed. For example, there is a good section on knowledge management and information flow. There’s a worked example of a project with start and end time constraints which explains float and resource levelling. But lessons learned is covered in just five lines.

One of the reasons I believe this is not a practitioner books is because it widely draws on management theory and is often concerned with the organisational layer, such as putting in place relocation and termination policies for employees. While you could have some influence at an individual level, this is not something most project managers can do.

To be fair to Camilleri, it isn’t meant to be a desk reference for the struggling project manager. If you are studying project management, or working as a consultant for failing projects, then this is a must-have read. If you are setting up a project management function from scratch in your company, then you'll find Project Success very useful for starting off on the right foot. But the working project manager looking for a guide to doing day-to-day things right would be better off investing her reading time in something else.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Elizabeth Harrin has over a decade of experience managing projects. She's a member of PMI's New Media Council, and also heads The Otobos Group, which publishes her award-winning blog, A Girl’s Guide to Project Management. She is also the author of Social Media for Project Managers (PMI, 2010) and Project Management in the Real World (BCS, 2006).

DO YOU WANT TO REVIEW A BOOK FOR TIPOFFS? Contact us today.

"We keep hearing about ‘specialising’ as the key to hiring project managers, mostly when talking about sectors. I was led to believe the project management skills are transferable. Is that really the case right now, and if so, is there a way for candidates to get around this narrow-minded specialism?" – Elaine, Leicester

Gary Holmes of Arras People says: Hi Elaine, good question, and one which we’ve come across a lot from candidates in recent times. I would start off by saying that Project Management as a profession is such a broad area, that to be truly successful in searching for a PM role the 1_^st step for any candidate should be to get a thorough understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses as a Project Manager. As I am sure you are well aware, a Construction Project Manager is a completely different animal to a Software Implementation Project Manager and even within specific sectors there are different nuances within role requirements that play to certain PM’s strengths rather than others. I suppose the best example of this would be within IT, whereby clients tend to come to us looking for very distinct skill sets, be they technical or stakeholder-based for example.

The general problem that we’ve had over the past couple of years since the recession kicked in is that clients, rightly or wrongly, have come to the assumption that within a candidate-heavy market they should be able to find ‘the perfect candidate’, ie, someone who has done pretty much the exact same job previously. As a specialist recruiter this has been a major challenge for us as you can imagine, as although the idea of a ‘perfect candidate’ is fine in theory, in reality that person does not always exist.

The good news is that over recent months we have started to see signs that the market has begun to thaw in this respect. I should point out that this is a slow process which will take time, but clients are beginning to raise confidence levels in terms of not only hiring new staff again, but also in trusting in peoples transferable skills. This trend has been particularly prevalent in areas such as Project Support and PMO, where in many cases it can be argued that specific models and working processes can be adapted to a range of sectors and industries.

Of course on the whole there is still a heavy emphasis on technical specialisms in the recruitment of PM’s at present. Certain sectors such as healthcare or financial services are particularly tough to break into without prior experience in those areas. In terms of getting around this mindset with other areas of the market however, I think the key comes down to how you as an individual match yourself up with a particular job spec. Make sure your CV demonstrates clear evidence based results that relate to the competencies you are looking to transfer across to, whether they be client management or the management of virtual teams to name 2 examples. At the end of the day if you are looking to use your existing skill set to transfer into a new sector, you are going to have to work even harder on your CV to prove that you are results oriented and quick to adapt. The exceptional candidates will always manage this however, and it stands to reason that it is they who have the most success when attacking new areas of the market.

If you would like to put a question to Gary or any of our other project management consultants, contact us and it could end up in a future edition of the Tipoffs Q&A. Also, be sure to check out our Project Management Careers clinic / Project Management Careers Advice pages for more advice related to project management careers.

Got a question for us? Contact us today.