A LITERATURE REVIEW ABOUT RECOGNIZING HIGH-POTENTIAL PROJECT MANAGERS AND HOW TO KEEP THEM ON BOARD

Transcription

1 A LITERATURE REVIEW ABOUT RECOGNIZING HIGH-POTENTIAL PROJECT MANAGERS AND HOW TO KEEP THEM ON BOARD J.F. Spoelstra Hogeschool Rotterdam Minor Project- en programmamanagement 2013 In January 2012 ESI announced the Top 10 project management trends of One of these trends was: HR professionals will seek assessments to identify high-potential project managers. (LeRoy Ward, 2012) This paper is an addition to this trend and will provide some insights about high-potential project managers. HR is an important factor in this process of finding highpotentials. Innovation in this area of the project management field is only possible if HR acknowledges their role in the process of innovating and bringing high-potential project managers in the companies. This paper will not provide a new assessment for high-potential project managers. This paper focusses on how HR can recognize high-potentials. Also the characteristics of high-potential project managers will be described, using literature. We will be analysing what competencies they have, their rational and emotional intelligence. Eventually, we will discuss how to keep high-potential project managers on board. Introduction Human Resources (HR) professionals need to step up their game. Project management is becoming a more and more important function in companies (LeRoy Ward, 2012). It is up to HR to seek high-potential project managers. Not only seek and find but they also need to keep the project managers in their companies. This isn t an easy task. This paper will provide some insights about high-potential project managers. Highpotential project manager are often young managers with little project management experience but with the qualities to become a great project manager. Question is, how do we find high-potentials? And more importantly how do we recognize great potential? Just by checking off a list of competencies a project manager should have? How important is rational and emotional intelligence? Recent research shows a connection between Emotional Intelligence and professional success. (Obradovic, Jovanovic, Petrovic, Mihic, & Mitrovic, 2013) And when we finally found a great potential project manager, how do we keep him? (Pant, 2008) 1. Why HR needs to innovate Why should HR be looking for highpotential project managers? Because the function of project manager is very much upcoming. Not too long ago project managers became project managers by accident. When a project needed to be done, the manager often just choose an employee to manage the project. Those people often weren t prepared for the job. Nowadays the function of project manager is very common. Companies realise they can t just randomly pick someone to be the project manager. The probability of a project to succeed is higher when a competent project manager with a range of core competencies is leading it (Zhang, Zuo, & Zillante, 2013). 2. Recognition (Sommerville, Craig, & Hendry, 2010) states that a project manager (PM) is generally taken to be the person accountable for delivering a project safely, on time, within budget and to the desired performance or quality standards determined by the client. This seems like a reasonable definition for a project manager. Digging deeper we will need a definition of the high-potential project manager. Dierdre Strydom, CEO of FOXit (Pty) Ltd., a Project Management 1

2 specialist, Independent Software Vendor and Microsoft-certified Gold Partner across numerous competencies within the Microsoft Partner Network, defines a highpotential project manager: High-potential project managers are people with the capability to think on their feet, manage constant change, ask the difficult question and be able to deal with stressful situations on a daily basis all of which describes the typical project management environment. To recognize high-potential we need more than just a definition. We also need to know what qualities a project manager should have. They need to be a team player but also a leader. They to be friendly but also very strict at times. The profile of a great project manager consists a lot of paradoxes. Today, no research provides us with the profile of the ideal project manager because it will always be a subjective matter. Other than that, the profile of the project manager changes a lot. May be we can t determine the perfect project manager but we can seek for similarities in the different studies. To be able to recognize the high-potential, we have to dig deeper into the different subjects of the high-potential profile. The profile of a high-potential can be divided into several topics: 1. Competencies 2. Rational and emotional intelligence Now we will address these topics one by one. 2.1 Competencies There are no universally agreed definitions or theories of competencies within the project management field (Cheng, 2005). Many researchers have made their opinions about the competencies of a project manager very clear. (Shahhosseini, 2011) divided all competencies into three categories: Technical, behavioural and contextual competencies Technical competencies Project management success Interested parties Project requirements Risk & opportunity Quality Project organization Teamwork Problem resolution Project structures Scope & deliverables Time & project phases Resources Cost & finance Procurement & contract Changes Control & reports Information & documentation Communication Start-up Close-out Behavioural competencies Leadership Engagement & motivation Self-control Assertiveness Relaxation Openness Creativity Results orientation Effiency Consultation Negotiation Conflict & crisis Reliability Values appreciation Ethics Contextual competencies Project orientation Programme orientation Portfolio orientation PPP implementation Permanent organization Business Systems, products & technology Personnel management Health, safety & environment Finance Legal (Shahhosseini, 2011) 2

3 A couple of project management institutes published competency standards. These competency standards are often performance-based. An example is the Project Management Institute (PMI). They published a Project Manager Competency Development Framework (Project Management Institute (PMI), 2002). This framework contains three sections in which they cover: Performance, personal and developing competencies. At this point we can already see a similarity between Shahhosseini and PMI. Both divide the competencies into three, same sections. The third competency-standard we will look at is the International Project Management Association (IPMA) (IPMA Nederland, 2013). IPMA is four-level certification program. These competency-standards have been widely used to certify project managers under the assumption that: (1) management practices are contextindependent and universal and (2) the competencies that certified PM s developed on the basis of Competency Standards can lead to outstanding performance. (Zhang, Zuo, & Zillante, 2013). In conclusion we can say that most literature and institutes use roughly the same competencies. High-potentials are often certified with at least IPMA level D or Prince2. IPMA-certified project managers have proved to possess the standard competencies a project manager (assistant) needs. 2.2 Rational and emotional intelligence During the recruitment process HR professionals often only ask the candidate about their level of education and work experience. Rational and emotional intelligence is often forgotten. Especially emotional intelligence is very important in the project management field. Rational and emotional intelligence are to very different things. The rational intelligence relates more to the innate human ability and as such can t be taught. EI can be inherent but can also be taught and is enhanced by experience gained over time (Pant, 2008). Salovey defined emotional intelligence as: The subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one s own and others feelings and emotions to discriminate amongst them and to use this information to guide one s thinking and actions. (Salovey, 1990). In addition Goleman has offered a matrix with twenty emotional competencies. These competencies are classified in four dimensions: self-awareness, self-regulation, social self-consciousness and relationship management. These four dimensions can be divided in two groups: personal competence (self-management) and social competence (managing others). (Goleman, 2001) Since emotional intelligence can be taught, it s very important to know which dimensions the high-potential needs to work on. If he isn t very strong in the relationship management, HR could consider to send the high-potential to a training in which he can improve himself. Now we know what competencies, IQ, EI and experience an high-potential project manager should have. Thus far we can recognize the high-potential and get them in the organization. The next step is to keep the high-potential in your business. 3. Keep high-potential project managers on board Pursuing a project manager career might, without a doubt, be challenging since it involved high levels of mobility and a continuous deadline pressure (Bredin & Söderlund, 2013). Still, we must not assume that high-potentials are just automatically staying in your company. El-Sabaa (2001) identifies a number of important differences compared to the conventional functional managerial career. For instance, project managers are younger, their average number of movements from one organization to another is higher, the average number of lateral movements across projects and firms is higher, and the 3

4 average number of vertical movements along the hierarchy of firms and projects is higher. In addition, the duration that people stay in one field is shorter for project managers compared to other managerial roles (El-Sabaa, 2001). It is safe to say that project managers are not the boring type and we don t take them for granted. There are two important factors that will probably make the high-potential want to stay in the company: 1. Challenges 2. Training High-potentials are often people who are eager to learn. They want to be challenged daily. The question is, how do we challenge them? 3.1 Challenge High-potential project managers can be challenged in many areas. Two examples of challenges are: - Dynamic between team members and stakeholders When they have the basic competencies under control, the biggest challenge is creating the right relationship with team members and other stakeholders (Pant, 2008). When you let the high-potential figure this dynamic out by himself, he will probably find this very challenging. months. It s important to keep the highpotential motivated and challenged. 3.2 Training Another very important aspect of keeping the high-potential motived and happy in your company is training. Müller said, project managers are more likely to perform better when their characteristics meet the requirements of the position (Müller, 2010). It s up to HR to make sure that the highpotentials are trained. When they fall behind in a certain area, HR has to make sure that the correct training is offered. On the other hand, HR has to provide the high-potential with training if they have the resources. When the company invests in the high-potential, chances of him staying are much higher. Conclusion In conclusion can be stated that HR should innovate concerning high-potentials in the project management field. HR needs to learn how to recognize high-potentials. Highpotentials can be recognized by their competencies and rational en emotional intelligence. Particularly, the competencies and emotional intelligence are an important selection tool in the search for highpotentials. Finally, it is important to keep the high-potentials in the company since project managers frequently change jobs. High-potentials stay in the company when they get challenged and trained. - Multi-project managers After several months, maybe years, another challenge could be to work with multiproject managers. Multi-project managers are known for their unique set of competencies. They are organizational experience, interdependency management, multitasking, simultaneous team management and interproject process (Patanakul & Milosevic, 2008). The highpotential will possibly find this very educational. These are two examples of what activities could challenge the high-potential. By challenging the high-potential you will make sure he does not get bored after several 4

5 Bibliography Bredin, K., & Söderlund, J. (2013). Project managers and career models: An exploratory comparative study. Management, Bredin, K., & Söderlund, J. (2013). Project managers and career models: An exploratory comparative study. Management, Cheng, M. (2005). What makes a good project manager? Human Resource Management Journal 15, El-Sabaa, S. (2001). The skills and career path of a effective project manager. Management, 1-7. Goleman. (2001). An EI-based theory of performance. The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace, Volume 1. Hodgson, D., & Muzio, D. (2011). Prospects for professionalism in project management; Oxford Handbook of Project Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. IPMA Nederland. (2013, 1 1). IPMA. Retrieved 10 26, 2013, from IPMA: LeRoy Ward, J. (2012, 1 5). Top 10 project management trends for Retrieved 10 24, 2013, from ESI International: intl.com/~/media/files/public- Site/US/Newsroom/NewsReleases201 2/PM-Trends-2012.ashx Müller, R. a. (2010). Leadership competency profiles of successful project managers. International Journal of Project Management, Obradovic, V., Jovanovic, P., Petrovic, D., Mihic, M., & Mitrovic, Z. (2013). Project Managers Emotional Intelligence A Ticket to Success. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Pant, I. e. (2008). Project management education: The human skills imperative. International Journal of Project management 26, Patanakul, P., & Milosevic, D. (2008). A competency model for effectiveness in managing multiple projects. The Journal of High Technology Management Research, Project Management Institute (PMI). (2002). Project Manager Competency Development (PMCD) Framework. Four Campus Boulevard, Newton Square, PA, USA: Project Management Institute. Salovey, P. M. (1990). Emotional Intelligence, Imagination. Cognit Personal, Shahhosseini, V. (2011). Competency-based selection and assignment of human resources to construction projects. Scientia Iranica, Sommerville, J., Craig, N., & Hendry, J. (2010). The role of the project manager: all things to all people? Structural Survey, Zhang, F., Zuo, J., & Zillante, G. (2013). Identification and evaluation of the key social competencies for Chinese construction project managers. Management,