Change and project management

Developing Project Managers and Professionals

….and help them succeed in the new, increasingly demanding, tough world of project delivery

What’s different about project delivery today?

More and more work is now being driven in project mode – labelled as “projects” or “change initiatives” rather than as “business as usual”. And the world in which these projects need to be delivered is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA).

PM’s today still need a high level of technical project delivery skills and techniques – hence the increasing emphasis on project management accreditations such as PMP or Prince 2 as a necessary foundation. But is this enough? Are these baseline skills a real competitive advantage or simply an entry requirement?

Our view (and that of most project managers and directors we speak to) is that PM’s now need much, much more to survive and be successful – they also need:

• Business and commercial know-how to make sure that the bottom line is secure
• Motivational leadership skills to lead diverse and often remote teams who can deliver results faster and more efficiently than ever before
• Top-notch personal skills to persuade and influence their sponsors and stakeholders and get them ‘on side’
• Flexible strategies for making real business change happen
• Powerful communication skills to demonstrate business value to a variety of senior audiences
• Sales acumen and confidence – PMs are increasingly a key component of the ‘sales engine’ – adding new and additional business to the sales pipeline

Doing more of the same will simply not be enough…

There is a growing view that we need to equip PM’s with an additional set of skills and capabilities to face the new reality. Simply adding more technical and process skills will not be sufficient and certainly will not set them apart from their competitors.

The challenge today is how can they best develop their capabilities exponentially and differentiate themselves from the ‘old school’ PM’s in what is an increasingly demanding and competitive world.