Trends in project management 2011

I gave a free briefing on the future of project management today that identified key trends for the project management profession:

Portfolio Management

Portfolio management techniques are being used by senior management to create an organisation wide summary of all the projects and programmes that are taking place, usually with the intention of removing a larger number as part of their cost cutting or efficiency initiatives.

This means that senior managers are starting to define criteria against which they will evaluate projects before deciding if they offer sufficient value to be authorised. I think this creates an additional pressure for project managers because we now need to ensure that not only are the benefits of our project greater than the costs but we also need to ensure that they are strategically important benefits.

In the briefing we a agreed that project managers need to get in the habit of describing how their projects contribute to strategic objectives because it is the achievement of these objectives that senior management are evaluated against, and they have a strong interest in keeping their jobs!

Benefits Realisation

We recognised that benefits realisation has become a widely recognised term and that senior managers are more likely to talk about achieving the benefits than worry about what is actually being delivered.

We discussed how important it is for project managers who are delivery focused (deliver on time, on budget and to the required standard of quality) to understand how benefits can only be realised if there is successful implementation of what has been delivered.

Change Management

We examined this model to see how knowledge of change management techniques is becoming increasingly important for those working in project management:

Aligning project management and change management is a hot topic. At the conference for the Association of Change Management Professionals in Copenhagen last week there were a high number of project managers in attendance, wanting to know how they could improve their project approach to include more motivation and persuasion activities to encourage operational staff to use the new systems and procedures that they have created.

Do you agree with the conclusions of those attending my briefing? Are you involved in realising benefits or portfolio management? Get in touch and let us know your thoughts.

Aligning project and change management practices

Have just spent 2 days with 150 project managers and change managers at the Association of Change Management Practitioners European Conference. Key topic has been the integration of change management into project management.

Although effective project managers accept that making sure what they deliver is successfully implemented is within the scope of the project lifecycle a lot of project management frameworks don’t have any formal activities or processes for encouraging this. There are also practical considerations which push change outside of the remit of the project managers:
• It is not cost effective for project teams to remain in place once development and testing of the deliverables has been completed.
• Change activities can benefit from the knowledge of the project team, but individuals cannot outsource implementation and embedding, they have to make the changes for themselves.
• Projects are expected to deliver on time, on budget and to specific quality criteria, but the pace and scope of changes that individuals adopt cannot be constrained in this way.
• The objectives of project and change activities are different. Project activities deliver the potential for change: the new processes, systems, organisation structure etc.; change activities create the persuasion, motivation and leading by example that results in the new business environment.

Organisations are now starting to address these issues and some of the actions organisations are taking include:
Renaming all project managers to change managers – as the name reinforces their responsibilities for implementation
Establishing the role of change manager and making sure that there is a change manager for every project
Defining what the change activities are and making sure the cost of them is included in the business case for the project
Building a central ‘business support function’ that is staffed by project managers and change managers who work together on projects
Changing the remit of the PMO to become a centre of excellence for project delivery and the implementation of change

Project activity increasing for September

Tonight I am watching two news items: rioting in London and Birmingham; heightening of tension in the financial markets in Europe and the U.S. Part of my job is to try and predict the future and work out what organisations will be concentrating their efforts on in the next 12-18 months.

Given the news coverage it is hard at times like this not to be pessimistic and think that the immediate future will be dominated by restructuring and redundancy programmes. However, I am cheered by the number of organisations that are rushed off their feet this August as they cope with 'opportunity overload' - holding workshops now to plan and define new projects and programmes so that the work can start as soon as everyone returns (although the amount of holiday being taken this summer is definitely lower).

This stream of new initiatives provides lots of opportunities for getting involved and making lasting improvements in our approach to work, our levels of innovation and customer service. If you are not sure how to get started have a look at the guidance I have put together to explain project, programme and change management: http://www.maventraining.co.uk/project-management-explained/, http://www.maventraining.co.uk/change-management-explained/ and http://www.maventraining.co.uk/programme-management-explained/

Using performance management to increase project success

One of the most interesting aspects of my job is explaining the relevance of project management to those who are not directly responsible for managing projects. This week I met with an HR Director was fed up with projects which she saw as creating more problems than solutions as staff struggled to adopt the new deliverables.
We discussed the need to manage the implementation of what projects deliver as closely as we manage their development during the project lifecycle. Whilst PRINCE2 and other project approaches mention the need for effective implementation and handover, the activities are often specified as project closure activities rather than being embedded in the project from the beginning.
The HR Director asked me to include updating the performance management system as a standard project activity in her organisations project methodology.
Her reasons for this are simple. We know that people prioritise the tasks for which their performance is measured so if we want to drive use of project deliverables after we the project has closed and the project team has disbanded then we should plan for this. We can use performance management to ensure that the new ways of working are identified during testing and training and new performance metrics agreed and incorporated into job descriptions. We have to pass on the responsibility for use of the project deliverables as well as project deliverables that meet the user requirements.
Not unsurprisingly the HR Director said that this was such a simple step, she did not understand why it wasn’t mentioned in project management guidance. My answer was to explain that as project managers many of us do not have extensive experience in performance management because we are not line managers (I have built a career around avoiding the need to line manager large numbers of staff!) so the need to develop job descriptions, performance metrics and carry out staff appraisals is not in our DNA.

New Quick Guides launched

I get so many questions about how to get started, either by those asked to manage a project for the first time, or those that have been given a change management assignment and are looking for clues about what to do first that I have created a couple of Quick Guides - http://www.maventraining.co.uk/quick-guides/

These guides are simple slide presentations that explain the basics, the most common mistakes and some solutions for avoiding the mistakes - I hope you find them useful, but as ever, I would love to hear your comments.

I was watching George Osborne deliver his budget speech on Wednesday, trying to be a super cool executive with my iPad propped up on my desk, happily multitasking by sorting my emails, updating a report, painting my nails and eating a cheese sandwich (that list is a powerful argument against open plan offices!)

Anyway, I was half listening/watching George at work and it reminded me of the worst type of project management meetings that I attend as a Project Sponsor. They are bad because the project manager delivers a speech, doesn't draw breath for my questions and tries to sum up each point with a sound bite as if he/she is being interviewed by Sky News.

If the project is being managed by a less experienced Project Manager then I have a degree of sympathy. Talking at someone is a sign of insecurity, not stopping for questions is driven by fear of not knowing the answers to the questions. When it's an experienced Project Manager I think it's a warning sign that they will rush through their presentation, never staying long enough on one topic for penetrating questions to be asked.

If this applies to you either as a Project Sponsor or a Project Manager my recommendations for a meaningful two way exchange of information, opinion and decisions are:

If you are the Project Manager:
- Give the progress report using milestone reporting - don't give a blow by blow account of every activity but concentrate on the results of that activity I.e. Milestones
- Keep your information factual and in a way that enables each piece of information to be compared. For example, report each milestone as on or over schedule, the reasons for this and what you are doing about it
- Check that there is agreement with your actions (don't forget that this is a chance to ask for advice and guidance)
- Identify when a milestone has been reached and closed off, in contrast to those milestones that are reached but in doing so have identified interdependencies and knock on effects to the next period of activity
- Check that there is agreement with your assessment of the interdependencies (again, don't be afraid to ask for guidance - use the experience of others to check your assumptions and your analysis of the situation)

If you are the Project Sponsor:
- Remember that aggression or impatience generally leads project managers to reduce the information they provide for fear of criticism
- Ask questions that enable you to ensure four outcomes:
o Understanding and agreement of the progress made so far
o Clear instructions on any rework or amendments that are required and the resourcing of these activities - are you prepared to delay other work in order to fix something, or will you authorize overtime, temporary staff etc?
o Agreement to the work proposed for the next period
o Clear instructions on any reductions or increases in expectations for this next period and their impact on resource plans
- Use your experience of other projects to give advice and guidance to the Project Manager

Using change management to scope my project

I continue to write the new book on how project management needs to take the lead in managing change if projects are ever to realise their benefits. This week I am putting together a series of Mini Workshop Guides to help project managers address the key issues of change management including:

1. Understanding the context for the change i.e. seeing the bigger picture by asking how the change will contribute to strategic objectives, who is driving the change that the project will support, who are the likely winners and losers from these changes, how time sensitive is the delivery of the benefits from the change

2. Understanding the detailed changes that the project is supposed to bring about including changes to information used for a process, the process itself, the outputs including information used for the next process, the decisions that need to be taken, the reports that are produced etc, changes in the size and make up of the teams involved in the process, changes in the level of authority and reporting line for each team member

3. Understanding the communication that is required to ensure everyone is informed about the proposed changes and has a chance to comment on them and engage with them prior to the changes taking place

I am interested in how these 3 areas fit with the scoping and the requirements gathering that project managers are responsible for at the start of the programme, but also how this information needs to be reviewed and updated as the project progresses and how this can lead to requests for change.

What are the most important questions you ask before getting started on a project – do you ask about the bigger picture, do you get to know the winners and the likely losers before you plan the project? As ever, all comments and emails welcome.

Change your location, change your motivation

As always I have too much work to do and not enough time to do it, and recently its got to a point where I go home after a really busy day, not having done anything on my To Do list – which is becoming such a size that its now a database rather than a list!
This week I hit a wall – too much doing X not enough thinking = no productive work!

So I took the advice of some of my learners on a recent Project Leadership course – remove yourself from your current environment, your location, the people you are with, the systems you are using. Change your physical perspective to change how you feel. By changing your perspective you break the negative cycle which in my case was being busy on all the wrong things because I could not see the wood for the trees.

Of course, being me I followed the advice to the max and booked myself into a hotel on Park Lane! But it definitely worked, a swim, some sleep, some room service and I got my motivation back and could take a more analytical approach to prioritising my work.

So what works for you – where do you go when you need to change your perspective? As ever, let me know, I love hearing from you.

What can portfolio management do for you?

I have just attended the MoP launch http://www.maventraining.co.uk/news/ which included two useful presentations from people who are applying portfolio management:

David Pitchford is the Executive Director of the Major Projects Directorate (Cabinet Office) and is responsible for creating the portfolio of major projects for the UK government. He started his presentation by explaining that in common with many organisations the UK government does not have a complete understanding of all the major projects planned or already underway. Different government departments run multiple projects and change initiatives and whilst some of these are already visible because of their impact on society or their political sensitivity/media interest there are many more that are not included in the wider view of everything that is happening.

From a cost saving perspective this is interesting because research shows that merely by forming a portfolio an organisation can expect an upfront cost saving of 20% to 30% by removing duplication and stopping low value initiatives.

David made a strong case for the benefits of establishing a portfolio and how this is essential in ensuring transparency of where money and effort are being spent.

Paul Hirst is Head of Project and Programme Management at HMRC. He explained how HMRC have completed the ground work for making portfolio management work. Part of their planning included the creation of a governance structure where responsibilities, levels of authority and relationships with other groups has been agreed, overseen by the Senior Responsible Owner who is also the Chief Executive (I cannot think of a more effective way of gaining senior management commitment to the portfolio that putting the CEO in charge).

Paul talked about the reality of the austerity measures and the need to cut as a result of strategic need and not sentiment. He was very clear that authorisation of each element of the portfolio will be driven by evidence based evaluation of project ideas and the era of ‘pet projects’ has ended. Whilst this might seem a threatening message for some, in common with David’s first speech, Paul believes that the transparency offered by portfolio management is an essential element of getting a grip on expenditure and is a strong force for good in any type of organisation.

If you are interested in finding out more about portfolio management download my free whitepaper http://www.maventraining.co.uk/whitepapers/ or sign up for the Effective Portfolio Management Workshop on the 30th March http://www.maventraining.co.uk/course-detail/_/portfolio-management/20/

Become a Registered Project Professional

Last night I went to a presentation by the APM about their new standard called the Registered Project Professional (RPP) which hopes to be the forerunner of the Chartered Project Professional (ChPP). RPP has been introduced because the APM are still waiting for their status as a chartered body to be awarded which they hope will be soon.

To become an RPP you will have to demonstrate the capabilities of a responsible leader, have the ability to manage a complex project and the ability to use appropriate tools, processes and techniques.

To demonstrate your capability you will need to evidence that you have knowledge and experience across 29 core competencies. This might sound like a lot but there are 47 competencies defined by the APM as important for effective project management!

To demonstrate your knowledge you will need to evidence the qualifications that you have in project management and related skills ensuring a breadth of coverage across all the areas. PRINCE2 alone does not provide this so if you have not yet upgraded your qualifications to include the APMP now is the time to do so - remember if you are a PRINCE2 practitioner then you can take the APMP with prior learning which takes 3 days instead of 5(http://www.maventraining.co.uk/courses/apm/apmp-with-prior-learning/).

To demonstrate your experience you will need to put together a portfolio of evidence which is a brief description of how you have led and managed others in different project situations. I did say to the APM last night that I wished they had not called it a portfolio just when we are launching the new Management of Portfolio (MoP) course!

The total fees for becoming a Registered Project Professional are £595, paid in two parts, when you first submit your portfolio and again when you attend the interview to discuss your experience with 2 assessors, trained by the APM.

I spoke to several people who had undergone the application process during the RPP pilot and they all said that it was a really useful process for reviewing their career and helping them to identify all of their achievements. One of them also mentioned how rare it was to look back and really ask themselves ‘what bits didn’t I do so well, and how can I improve my approach?’

Tony Caccavone was one of the successful RPPs presented with his certificate last night, and he explained that it took about 35-40 hours to complete the portfolio of evidence and putting together the whole application. His approach was to ‘brain dump’ every project experience he could remember for the last few years, and then go back and assign the different examples to the different competencies. Tony has young children so he found it easier to come in early and stay late in the office to complete the application, but even then, it only took a few weeks, not a few months.

To maintain your status as an RPP you will have to commit to doing 35 hours of continual professional development each year but this is no different to the current recommendation from the APM for all of its members.

Applications for the RPP begin in early March, so I will be putting more information up about it then. Meanwhile, please post a quick comment to let me know whether you think it’s of interest as I am always keen to find out if what the professional associations are developing for us are really what we in the profession want/need.

Michael Porter (famous management guru – Porters 5 forces) has written an article in this months Harvard Business Review setting out how he believes companies should operate using long term value and not immediate profits as their goal.

Part of his argument is to stress the importance of the social value of an organisation i.e. what it offers its customers, the environment and the world around it. To me, social value is about the bigger picture, and how we are offering something more back to our customers i.e. added value.

As a company training company, our value is our specialist knowledge and all the tips, techniques and practical advice we offer to our learners. To me, social value is about how we make as much of this available to our economy as possible because ultimately, making things better is what drives everyone at Maven. We want to ensure that our clients improve their ability to manage projects, implement changes, control risks and deliver benefits.

That’s why we put so much effort into developing pre-course materials that allow you to prepare ahead of your course, so that when you are with us you are getting as much as you possibly can from the service you have paid for. We want to interact, to discuss your issues, and help you see them in the context of the best practice that’s available.

We believe that project management touches every area of our lives, and that if we improve the ability of everyone to deliver projects successfully then we are improving our environment. Ultimately, it’s this drive to pass on our knowledge (learned by making countless mistakes) that is the core of our value to you.

That’s why we make so much of our knowledge available to you – go and look at www.mavenprojectmanagement.co.uk to see the free stuff that we regularly post for you to use. I hope it helps and keep the link close to hand as we are adding to it all the time. Or if you want to hear it first hand, come to my regular free briefing held every fortnight in London - http://www.maventraining.co.uk/courses/free-briefings.cfm

The future of project management...

Rather portentous title but I was at a lunch on Friday where part of my role was to explain where next for our industry. The imminent launch of the best practice guide for Management of Portfolios (MoP™) from OGC is leading us to question what happens next.

I think we are coming to the end of the development of best practice which dominated the last decade and a half, starting in 1996/1997 with the launch of PRINCE2, leading to the creation of guidance on risk management (MoR®) and Programme management (MSP®) and now finally MoP™.

I think that how best practice is applied and evidence of the improvements it creates has been a focus for several years and effective application of best management practice will continue to dominate the thoughts of those responsible for the operational management of our organisations. I am being specific about operational managers because I think there is still a distinction between these leaders and chief executives who operate strategic leadership, often in an unstructured way, but implicitly relying on the underlying management infrastructure, which is where best practice comes in.

I think organisational governance is growing in recognition and importance - probably becoming a senior management discipline for this decade.

Organisational governance has many definitions but I think it has two components - a structural/procedural piece and an interpersonal component which is the leadership ability of senior management to sell the benefits of applying the governance structure to everyone in the organisation, whatever their grade or length of service.

We need to explain how organisational governance is a key contributor to organisational excellence and how the best practice established at project (including technical and interpersonal skills), Programme (encompassing change and benefits management disciplines) and portfolio management (evidence based judgement and decision making) are interlinked.

I think this gives those of us involved in delivering projects and change initiatives plenty of scope for getting involved in shaping how our employers operate, and will ensure project management becomes embedded as a mainstream management discipline.

As always, let me know what you think, but if you want to want to know more, please go to http://www.maventraining.co.uk/white-papers.cfm or come and here me speak at one of my free briefings http://www.maventraining.co.uk/courses/free-briefings.cfm

Research, Procrastination & Doing Project Management

I have just been completing some research that is helping me to identify and analyse the possible scope of a project that I will be managing later this summer. During this research, one of the most difficult things has been knowing when to stop reading about the subject and when to start thinking about it. There comes a time when continual research is interesting, but is procrastination - I am reading because I don't want to start the difficult process of sifting through all of the information and coming to a conclusion. the infinite number of information sources available to me via Google, Yahoo etc means that deciding when enough is enough is an act of self discipline. This wasn't always the case. At the risk of sounding very old, when i became a project manager 20 years ago, the research I could do on the possible scope and deliverables of any of my projects involved a visit to the company library, reading professional journals and talking to friends in the same industry. Ultimately, there was never very much about the specifics of my project (usually my project was to launch a new IT systems and changing internal working practices to accommodate them, so fairly specialised).

Anyway, this 'self discipline' made me wonder how I know when I have enough information. Ultimately, it comes down to my level of expertise and the experience I have built up over the years. I use the PRINCE2 methodology for the basis of my projects and I use the skills I have been taught through various APM courses (their APMP qualification primarily) to define the requirements and scope my project using techniques including work breakdown structures, bottom up estimating, analysis techniques and the ability to sift for information on risks and the likely bottle necks of resources involved.

I think project managers are under more pressure than ever to speed through the planning stage of their projects, and to agree with senior management what will be delivered, so that their organisations can show that initiatives are under way and that progress is being made. Therefore, hitting the mid point between too much research and insufficient detail to create a workable plan is going to become a key determinant of whether project managers are seen to be contributing to the business or holding it back.

Building Organisational Culture of Capacity

Capacity is having sufficient quantities of appropriately skilled resources to meet business need. Capacity is built by mapping resources and then building a community where your staff are proud to hold their skills.

To build capacity in your organisation carry out the following:

• Resource Gap Analysis
• Build a Resource Database
• Build a Community
• Community Peer System
• Build a Brand for Your Community


Resource Gap Analysis
To build capacity, this initial picture must be mapped against planned resource usage, using knowledge of future business plans, intended strategic direction of the organisation and the projects and programmes already in the pipeline for delivery.

Build a Resource Database
Building capacity requires a fully populated resource database that captures current skill levels for each individual along with their experiences and preferences so that they can be assigned as opportunities present themselves.

Build a Community
To build organisational capability, the organisation needs to create an environment where having capability means that an individual is part of a community. There needs to be an explicit message that without capability, they cannot join the community.

Community Peer System
Individuals need to know that being a member of this community is advantageous and positive, that it is meaningful and desirable. The community has to have values and exhibit behaviours that they ascribe to or that they aspire to.

Build a Brand for Your Community
In some cases, development of a brand for this community can be helpful in developing a positive view of it. A brand is more than just a logo and a name, it encompasses the fundamental principles of the community. Anyone who hears about the community understands its purpose, its values and behaviours.

If you would like Maven Training to help you build staff capability and organisational resource capacity please call our team on 020 7403 7100

Building Individual Staff’s Capability

Capability is having the ability, potential, aptitude, facility, and qualifications to meet the needs of business today. We expect staff to continually develop new abilities and aptitude at a pace that matches the transformational change taking place within our organisations.

To build capability in your organisation:

• Identify Skills Gap
• Individual Development Path
• Individual Development Plan
• Training Needs Analysis
• Implement Learning Interventions
• Post Learning Activities
• Performance Support
• Give long term support
• Build a Community


Identify Skills Gap
To build capability, this initial picture must be mapped against the required skill set for effective project, programme and change management.

Individual Development Path
To move towards the required skill set involves creating individual development paths as each person starts from a unique position and will have their own desired state – some will wish to develop greater technical ability and others will search for further management opportunities.

Individual Development Plan
A personal development plan cannot be imposed upon someone. Building capability must be a joint effort between each individual and the organisation. Individuals supply the willingness to learn new skills and the organisation provides training courses, management support and practice opportunities in the form of secondments, transfers to new projects and increases in responsibility and authority levels.

Training Needs Analysis
A training needs analysis identifies required training courses and events based upon any skills gaps and for each course pre and post course support activities can be identified. These include briefings by managers to their staff before a course begins to identify with the individual their personal objectives for the course and the objectives that the manager seeks to fulfil on behalf of their team, department and organisation overall.

Implement Learning Interventions
There are many learning options available, you may decide that your staff would learn well on a bespoke training course which can then be followed up with a workshop where your staff can work through real life examples. Senior staff or those on high profile programme or projects may benefit from one to one coaching or mentoring to help with and developing a blueprint and mapping out specific issues.

Post Learning Activities
Post course activities include developing communities of practice and performance support. Communities of practice are effective if they provide access to best practice and a supportive environment in which individuals can share their difficulties in applying new skills and share ideas for how problems can be solved.

Performance Support
Performance support gives help at the point of need. Often, these are short interventions which answer specific ‘how do I?’ type questions. Building capability means that the organisation allows people to practice and accepts the risk that on their first attempts they might get it wrong and resists the temptation to blame them for their early mistakes.

Build a Community
Building capability requires organisations to commit long term effort, investing time and energy in encouraging staff to learn new skills, work in different ways and adopt new technology. They must also provide relevant support as individuals practice these new approaches until they become second nature.

If you would like Maven Training to help you build staff capability and organisational resource capacity please call our team on 020 7403 7100

Develop Staff Skills Resource and Build a Community Where Capability is Respected.

Staff need to be able to adapt to new situations quickly, in fact they need the capability to perform many varied tasks. But how do you give them the tools, skills and environment they need to the capable in the situations that they face? And how do you ensure that your organisation has the capacity to meet the demands of modern business?

Capability and resource capacity can be purchased via recruitment of permanent and temporary resources to meet immediate needs. However, it is far more cost effective for organisations to have development programmes in place that grow from within, using resources that already know and understand their business.

Investment in training and development are also an important differentiator for staff satisfaction and impacts successful staff retention and lower recruitment costs as these activities mark the organisation as an employer of choice.

The WorkTrends Survey KRI 2007 shows that employee motivation and their ability to execute tasks can be improved by:

• Setting a clear career path programme
• Goal development and monitoring
• Regular feedback sessions with managers
• Tracking Progress

The survey also shows that by focusing on talent management organisations in six countries* questioned showed their employees were more engaged and more satisfied with their jobs and employer companies over all.
*Countries surveyed UK, USA, Brazil, China, Germany and India.

Use your staff’s potential combined with a programme to build a capability community and your business will see a return on investment and reap quantifiable rewards in terms of an efficient and able workforce.

Building both capacity and capability begins with a common step ~ understanding the current level of skills, knowledge and ability for each employee.

If you would like Maven Training to help you build staff capability and organisational resource capacity please call our team on 020 7403 7100

Project Management 2010 Benchmark Report

As a valued partner of Arras people (Project Management Recruitment) we are helping promote their ‘Project Management Benchmark Report for 2010. This report covers the project management industry in areas such as salaries, rates, gender, current climate, and specific project management areas like professional bodies, competency and the outlook for 2010.

The kind of questions which are to be asked are based around current issues and hot topics within the PPM arena including statistics on salaries, remuneration and day rates so that a database can be created so comparisons can be drawn on last years statistics.

To take part in the survey please visit:
http://www.arraspeople.co.uk/PMReport/


2009 Survey Highlights

• Recession has hit the project management market, with the majority of professionals fearing redundancies and cuts


• Over a third of all respondents said they were ‘worse off’ last year and 22% of freelancer experienced decreased rates, with a significant number (11%) experiencing cuts of more than 10%


• Employees feared better than contractors with salary expectations being met in 2008


• Project Managers are a resilient lot. Despite the widespread doom and gloom, only 8% described their personal situation as ‘gloomy’, 63% described their situation as ‘steady’ and 18% as ‘neutral’


• A massive 84% of Project Management Professionals believe they have a significant role to play in helping the UK economy out of its current difficulties


• Public sector employees are better protected than private. Twice as many private sector employees and 5% more contractors expect rewards to fall in 2009


• The gender pay gap is not closing

For previous reports please visit: http://www.arraspeople.co.uk/projectmanagementsalarysurvey/2010/projectmanagementbenchmarksurveyreport2010.html

CV requirements in the job market

Minimum requirements have increased across all sectors, due to increased supply of candidates on the job market. Therefore recruiters can expect more qualifications and experience from candidates. This is the direct consequence of the increase levels of relevant and skilled candidates. Even if the specified requirements are not needed, these qualifications/skills provide reassurance to the employer.

However whilst expecting more, the stats indicate that average salaries for Project Managers have begun to rise again. The average salary for a Project Manager is £47,500 compared to £45,500 a year ago. Programme Manager average salaries are static at £70,000.

The CV is greatly underestimated by candidates. Even with the right skills and experience – if it is not presented in the right way then recruiters may not include you in their shortlist as the key areas will not stand out. With increased competition, the CV is a candidates most important sales tool, yet interestingly over 75% of candidates do not have their CV professionally reviewed, even those applying for high level roles. Projectmanagerjobs offer candidates a free CV review: http://www.projectmanagerjobs.co.uk/info/your-cv to help get the most relevant job for candidates.

BPUG Members Annual Conference, 11-12 November 2009

By Melanie Franklin, CEO at Maven Training

Best Practice User Group Members Annual Conference took place at the Mercure Holland House Hotel & Spa, Bristol on 11-12 November 2009. The Conference Theme was 'P4: People, Portfolios, Programmes and Projects'.

Conference delegates enjoyed two days of valuable discussions, presentations and ideas generation across the whole range of OGC PPRM guidance, with special emphasis on 'people' aspects. Past delegates of BPUG conferences have praised them for their wide spread of topics, the quality of the session leaders and the opportunity to network amongst others in similar work circumstances.

I gave a presentation on the importance of emotional intelligence in achieving project success. There was broad agreement in the room at the start of the presentation that building capability and being able to answer the question ' how do we things well' is more important these days than sorting out 'what we do' which results from the implementation of methodologies. That is not to say that the methods offered by PRINCE2 and MSP are not important for project and programme management, its just that many organisations have implemented these now, and are looking to upskill their workforce for successful project delivery, and not just successful following of a methodology.

Interpersonal skills and technical skills combined deliver this 'how to' knowledge. Excellence in interpersonal skills are a result of developing 'emotional intelligence' which involves self awareness - an unflinching assessment of our strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes and how we demonstrate these through our personality and self management - a willingness to tailor some of our personality traits to the situation. We discussed how emotional intelligence grows over time, as we learn from our mistakes, and therefore, it is essential to constantly ask ' how could i have done that better' when engaging with people. We all agreed that we would never get anything done on a project if it weren't for the people around us, so increasing our ability to inspire, motivate, delegate and manage is not optional, its mandatory.

There were a number of questions at the end including the importance of building personal relationships if we are to get the most out of some of our more impersonal meeting formats such as teleconferenes, virtual teams, webinars and email. The removal of face to face communication presents us with even greater challenges for which emotional intelligence gives us a number of solutions

If anyone attended the conference over the two days it would be great to hear your thoughts!

London Project and Programme Management Forum

By Melanie Franklin, CEO at Maven Training

The event was the London Project and Programme Management Forum. This even happens twice each year and on this occasion was hosted at the London Borough of Lewisham. The event is designed to bring Project and Programme Managers from London Local authorities together to share ideas, best practises and success stories. The focus was on Change Management and there were about 90 people in attendance most of whom are from Local Authorities, Met Police and the Fire and Ambulance Services.

I was really pleased to be asked to speak at this event, as embedding change is a subject we are repeatedly asked to design workshops for. Many of our clients are currently planning and implementing change programmes and are keen for practical guidance on how to make the change relevant to all who are impacted by it. It is this relevance that drives their involvement enabling individuals to see a reason for becoming involved and for adopting the change for themselves.

In my presentationg I explored a range of different perspectives that individuals typically take when evaluating an organisational change. The first evaluation is always how it will impact them and their position within the organisation, with pessimists often seeing the change in a negative light, seeing it as a criticism of the work they do today. Optimists can see the change as a way to fix current problems and provide them with new career development opportunities, but can sometimes lose heart when they realise the change does not offer them all of the advantages they had originally associated it with.

In order to address these extremes of view, and all points in between, all activities and communications about the change need to target how people learn, their preferences for receiving information and where they are in their own 'cycle of change' remembering that some people adapt to change very quickly, constantly seeking out the next change and how they can become involved in it, and others will be slower as their resistance to change is much greater.

During my presentation there was lots of notes being taken and at the end there were a number of questions about how to practically address those that resist change, clearly indicating that this is the biggest challenge that we face in change programmes.

Other speakers included Barry Quirk – Chief Exec at Lewisham, Steve Gough – Director of Programme Management and Property at Lewisham, Stephen Jenner – Director, Criminal Justice I.T, Tim Ellis – Kensington and Chelsea and Richard Caton – LB Hackney. Outperform also gave an update on the London Programme Management Methodology.