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In Viral Change™, a small set of behaviours spread by a small number of people through their networks of influence create massive behavioural tipping points, translated into new routines and ‘cultures’ (new ideas established, new ways of working, new process adoption, new culture). Viral Change is about creating an internal epidemic of success in whatever way you have pre-defined success.

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We were recently asked a very incisive question about the relevence of the profession and the APM in today’s world:

I’m fairly new to the APM and my perception is of an organisation and a profession ready to make a step change in how it demonstrates ‘relevance’ for UK PLC.  Do you share this view and if so, what does that mean needs to happen?

My answer was: No – and Yes.

The APM is already demonstrating real relevance, and has credibility, in its role in developing the knowledge, expertise and competence of practitioners.  The qualifications framework and move towards Chartered/Professional status provide a broad-based approach for developing the skills and expertise that the UK needs – and this is now widely recognised, even in sectors that perhaps don’t have a traditional project management culture.  We are at last demonstrating to a wider audience that effective project management is much more than just process or methodology.

However, the APM also has a more strategic aspect to its mission, which is more about where and how the profession (and the disciplines we espouse) can actually contribute most benefit for, as you put it, UK Plc.

It is this second area, the ‘strategic fit’ of our profession within the wider environment, where I think we perhaps do need to look again at where we are going, and maybe a step change is needed.  The benefits of effective project, programme and portfolio management (PPPM) approaches often aren’t appreciated by senior executives – and recognised change experts are still saying that taking a PPPM approach to organisational change often adds no value.  I’m not sure what the answer to this is, but what needs to happen within the APM initially is a debate about what we are here for and where we should be positioning ourselves to best deliver the public benefit set out in our mission statement.  Are we just about the development of technical and professional skills – i.e. in project management – or are we actually about enabling organisations to deliver effective and beneficial change?

It would be interesting to hear what others think.

I suppose the main reason is my uneasiness about the concept that an organisation should be ‘project-facing’.  My experience from both project and operational management has been that organisations need to be customer-facing, and that once we lose our focus on the customer things can begin to go wrong.  For example, few would argue that effective financial control isn’t vital – but what would we think of an organisation that was described as ‘accountancy-facing’?  Yes, there are obviously organisations that need to be project-focussed where projects are the core of the business – construction for instance – but should an organisation whose business is about operational service delivery or process improvement be project-facing?  An argument often made is that we live in a rapidly changing world and that projects are the means of delivering strategy and the changes needed to keep us competitive.  Is this necessarily about making an organisation project-facing and structuring it in a portfolio/programme/project (PPPM) way, or is it really about ensuring organisations have the capability and are agile enough to respond effectively to changing customer needs and environmental influences?   Are we in danger of putting too rigid a framework around what we feel is good PPPM and not taking a wider contextual and ‘systems thinking’ approach to change?  Organisations need to possess the project management skills and capabilities needed to deliver change, and more importantly they need to know how and when to use them.  Isn’t it a key responsibility of our profession to develop the science (or art) of PPPM and Change management in a way that contributes to organisational effectiveness and adds real value for the customers, consumers and shareholders?  To lose our focus on the customer risks a resurgence of the negative aspects of ‘professionalism’ that we’ve sometimes seen in the past in other areas.

The ability of organisations to deliver effective projects, programmes and change relies on performance at the team level – but few organisations invest in coaching for their project or programme managers.

Our experience of working with organisations recently has demonstrated that using coaching approaches in working with project managers and teams can deliver a step-change in effectiveness.  Coaching can increase confidence, remove barriers to improving personal performance and enable managers and teams to reach their full potential. 

Investing in training to develop project management knowledge and skills doesn’t always result in the performance improvements hoped for, but coaching can help managers contextualise their knowledge and apply it more effectively.  Reading a paper recently from the European Coaching Institute, I came across a quote from a study that said “after training alone, the average increase in productivity was 22.4 percent; when training was augmented by coaching, the average increase in productivity was 88.0 percent”.  Whilst we haven’t sought to test these figures, the message they give certainly accords with our experience of the value of coaching in releasing the knowledge and abilities of managers.

In the current economic environment particularly, coaching offers the potential for organisations to develop the capability of their teams, leveraging the maximum benefit from the investment already made in staff, at minimum cost.

Is the hypothesis posed by the question true – is it people that deliver projects and has the profession focussed too much on process?   I think it is.  How many times have we been into organisations where everyone has PRINCE2 - yet no idea how to deliver projects in the real world?  Project management job advertisements seem to universally ask for process-based qualifications.  There was even a Programme Director role I saw advertised recently, with responsibility for major capital programmes running into hundreds of millions of pounds, which asked for PRINCE2 accreditation.  I may be missing something, but quite which of the PRINCE processes would have been relevant in such a role escapes me.

Reflecting back on my own career I thought that although I couldn’t necessarily answer why we have focussed on process, I might be able to shed some light on how it has happened.  Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s we did our formal management training, which was largely generic, covering both operations and strategy.  Some of us, in professions such as civil engineering, also studied project management, which seemed to focus on planning, particularly critical path analysis and Gantt charts.  Managers who were considered ‘good’ managers in other disciplines would be given projects to run.  In the late 1980’s early 90’s, with the failure of a number of large projects (particularly in IT), we began to realise that successful project managers needed something more than general management and planning skills.   New tools, techniques and processes were developed, evolving into PRINCE (now PRINCE2) which the project manager could use to supplement a generic management skills base and the developing Body of Knowledge.

In recent years these ‘methodologies’ as they are often called have become the required accreditation for project managers.  The basic skill-set that used to be a prerequisite for any professional management role has somehow been forgotten in project management.  As a profession, and particularly as we move towards chartered status, we need to bring it back.

Surely, if I want to be a good project manager then I need to be a good manager first.  Project managers need specialist skills and knowledge to be effective in their profession – but fundamentally they need to be good managers, and that is really about knowing how to manage people.

It was an interesting event, not only because of the content of the day, a really informative session on “Web 2.0″ (aka social networking and broadcasting stuff like Facebook, Linked In, My Space and tools like Twitter and this very blog - more at http://www.conferencereaction.co.uk/apm/090326_people_sig) but for me, more so in the response of us, the group, to the communication we were receiving.

The content of the event prompted some really searching questions, which clearly had an impact on the group from the responses they made. For me they gave a real insight into different ways of thinking and how this is could be really useful for practical day to day interactions in the context of projects and change.

For example, as managers what does the shift in thinking towards a way of working where sharing information and collaborative working is the norm, mean for the options we have for communication?  How are the people around us reacting to this change?  What do we need to do differently to make sure we are part of this developing new paradigm?

Any thoughts? Please give me a call on 07815 886 864 or email jane.royden@eandhlimited.com

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In my role as co-owner of E AND H, the BGP has been an extraordinary experience.  Having the opportunity to learn from the best at Cranfield - one of the most respected research and business universities - has been a personal privilege, and the opportunity to strengthen the E AND H business model to extend what we have to offer to our clients is fantastic.

For more information, please give me a call on 07815 886 864 or email jane.royden@eandhlimited.com