www.ilxgroup.com WHITEPAPER Achieving Business Agility in the Project Management Lifecycle
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Today s organisations cannot stand still. Change is the only constant if organisations are to compete and deliver value for money. The agile approach, born in the software development environment, has now become a buzzword for project management as executives look to run projects and programmes in a slim, fast and effective way to create an agile organisation. To achieve agility there is a clear need to underpin the project management lifecycle from end to end with the best people, yet, as part of the pressure they have been under, organisations have trimmed any spare capacity. There is an increasing tension between keeping day-to-day activities running while improving business performance. PEOPLE UNDER PRESSURE Both dedicated project managers and those who have been seconded into project management roles are feeling the pressure. When people are deployed temporarily into projects, alongside their day-to-day job, they can become overwhelmed by their workload or unclear as to whether the project or their usual responsibilities should have priority. Organisations that have a major and ongoing requirement for change such as in Financial Services, FMCG, Public Sector, engineering, construction and IT sectors may have dedicated project managers who move from project to project. In this case the organisation is always looking to maximise its project management resource and puts project managers under pressure to take on more and more. DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES LOST Both dedicated project managers and those who have been seconded into project management roles are feeling the pressure. It is a real challenge for organisations to transform from being inflexible, monolithic entities to becoming agile. The key is to build in agility at every level, creating a mind-set that gets the best out of people. Employees should be primed to take any opportunity to learn and develop themselves. Seconding staff from their usual roles and giving them project management experience can be a really effective route to staff development and allow a company to broaden its skills base. It is a huge opportunity but many organisations are not making this a formal part of their staff development strategy, resulting in lost opportunities. To supplement internal resources many companies recognise the need to tap into an interim or contractor market to access some strategic skills as and when needed. There is a need to identify the expected return on the project and whether it is worth bringing someone in with additional skills for a set period to add value. An agile approach would look at whether it may be possible to plan to gain additional value from an external contractor by building knowledge transfer into the process and agreed contract, allowing the organisation to learn from the contractor s experience and gain knowledge that will help in future. 2
PROJECT MANAGEMENT LIFECYCLE There are opportunities to enhance business agility by looking afresh at how the organisation approaches every stage of the project lifecycle. In simple terms, all project management lifecycles have start, middle and end phases. Phase 1 PLAN The Association for Project Management breaks down the beginning of a project into two steps: concept is this a good idea? and definition if it is a good idea how are we going to do it? The definition phase of a project is very much about assigning teams, defining skills and identifying resource requirements. At the initial conceptual stage, the business sets about writing its outline business case that looks at whether the change is a good idea, the budget and the likely payback. A business case should be a IS THE PROJECT SUFFICIENTLY RESOURCED? RECRUIT/TRAIN TO FILL THE MISSING GAPS WHAT ARE THE PROJECT GOALS? strategic document outlining where the organisation is heading and how this project, however niche, fits in with that. Failure to document and communicate the intention articulately may result in lost opportunities. REVIEW D O PLAN IDENTIFY PRICES & PEOPLE GAPS Projects are about people and people requirements interlink with all aspects of project lifecycle. A skills gap analysis mirrors the project management cycle and starts by identifying where the business is going and what it needs to achieve. It then analyses the skills and the people the business has and then plans to address the skills gaps with training or plug them with external resources, be that a permanent hire or contractor. The agile approach to project management training focuses on identifying opportunities it is key not to fall into the trap of thinking things always have to done the same way. Agility is about constantly being aware of the alternatives and opportunities available to you and how training or recruiting can contribute. Phase 2 DO The middle part of any project is the major part of the work to deliver the project. The delivery phase commonly breaks down into stages, particularly on bigger projects. Each of these stages will repeat the Plan Do Review cycle but at a greater level of detail. The recruitment cycle is repeated at each of the stages as it may not be possible to identify all the skills needed in detail right at the start. During the lifecycle of a project and programme the focus, is of course, not just what you need here and now but also what you might need at points six months, a year or two years in the future. Recruitment and succession planning is a key part of this with judiciously applied training it would be possible to train existing staff in new skills, motivating and retaining them, while backfilling some jobs with new recruits. The need to be more strategic about people planning has never been greater. The recruitment market has transformed in recent times, according to the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) the industry has now surpassed its pre-recession peak. The REC s Recruitment Industry Trends Survey 2013/14 highlights a shortage of candidates with appropriate skills and experiences as being the key concern for recruiters. In project management there is a big skills shortage at all levels as confidence returns and everyone is recruiting. With continued growth in Asia and the Middle East staffing huge projects it is increasingly common for organisations to select from an international pool of talent which in turn has made competition to secure the best people a global challenge. 3
Phase 3 REVIEW The final stage is about handing over the finished product, closing down the project and reviewing successes and failure. Project evaluation should result in a clear lessons report, setting out what the business needs to do better next time. An effective evaluation has to be comprehensive and honest, not just covering technical and organisational aspects but also people factors. The evaluation should cover who did what, who learned what and who was good at their job. The recommendations that emerge should cover staffing and whether the recruitment or training decisions were the most effective they could have been. Organisations looking to embed an agile approach should at this point encourage project managers to evaluate individuals and feed back on the performance of individuals to their line management. Otherwise the learning and experience gained on the project stands to go to waste. This is a major issue not only do organisations lose out on all the knowledge gained but they face difficulties retaining people who are simply placed back into their old roles with no recognition of their increased value to the company. In some cases, if someone has been on a project for a long time, their previous role may have been filled by a new recruit. Tuckman recognised this when he added to his project management model of forming storming, norming and performing a final stage of mourning an agile model must enable all kinds of staffing changes. The fact is that not many post-project evaluations are comprehensive enough, especially in reviewing the people aspects, and this may be due to time pressures or because organisations simply do not have the necessary evaluation skills. It is advisable that all the appropriate functions from across the organisation get involved in an evaluation HR, your recruitment firm and IT as well as project managers to ensure a wide-ranging assessment. Inexperienced project managers tend to want the security of throwing the entire PRINCE2 book at a project, but that defeats the object of getting the benefits of an agile project management approach. MAKING PROJECT MANAGEMENT AGILE Agile projects come from very little paperwork, light control, good resources and piles of trust, but organisations still talk about the need for control. One of the biggest complaints about project management methods, particularly PRINCE2, is that they are bureaucratic. It is vital to scale project management to suit the needs of each different project. Even the admittedly hefty PRINCE2 manual has an entire section on tailoring the method to individual projects and cautions that the approach should not be used in full every time as set out in the manual. That is a major training issue. Inexperienced project managers tend to want the security of throwing the entire PRINCE2 book at a project but that defeats the object of getting the benefits of an agile project management approach. One effective approach that some organisations take is to have skilled staff document the minimum requirements and rules for the smallest projects while still following the PRINCE2 guidelines. If this is flexible it can be scaled up as needed. Project management in an agile organisation carries an expectation that you will add detail as the project and programme progresses through its planned stages. That way a skills gap analysis can help define proactive planning for training and recruitment needs that will enable organisations to source the very best people at every level and make the most of development opportunities for current staff. 4
TOP TIPS FOR HIRING PROJECT MANAGERS 1. Plan your hiring as far ahead as possible. Occasionally you will need to be reactive but planning most of your hiring requirements 6 18 months in advance will give you greater flexibility to hire the right person at the right time. 2. Don t hire only on what someone has done previously look at what you want them to achieve for you. Recruiting to a person spec is like hiring by numbers; past experience is not the only way to judge someone. 3. Focus on soft skills. Candidates softer skills are all important. If someone is a better team fit but lacks an element of technical experience over another candidate, choose the better-matched team fit. 4. Get the most out of your interviews with candidates. Project management interviews should focus on projects delivered were they brought in on time and on budget? What was the business objective? Was it achieved? What were the issues encountered and how did you cope? What did you learn? A great question to ask is tell me about a project that went off track. 5. Don t forget to sell yourself. The recruitment landscape is changing into a more candidate-centric environment. Candidates will typically have multiple opportunities to consider. Ensure you are offering a competitive package and be sure to convey the benefits that your organisation offers. About ILX Group (ILX) ILX Group is a global all-in-one provider of Best Practice Learning Solutions. ILX delivers Portfolio Programme & Project Management, IT Service Management, Risk Management and Business Financial Literacy learning solutions. The Best Practice courses are delivered through a blend of classroom, workshops, e-learning and mobile platforms. ILX is a market leader in PRINCE2 training and has provided Best Practice learning to more than 250,000 people across 5,000 organisations in over 100 countries. ILX works closely with its clients to deliver industry standard qualifications and helps organisations to deliver continuous workforce improvement. The company and its multi-lingual trainers can support customers around the world with local offices also in the UK, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. For further information visit www.ilxgroup.com About Progility Recruitment Progility recruitment finds and places talent for business change, project and programme management. Progility meets the demands of clients asking for the best talent to help them achieve their organisational goals. The specialist team of advisors offer a range of assessment tools to help its clients with their current and future workforce requirements, whether it s for short term contract, temporary or permanent role. For more information visit www.progilityrecruitment.com. References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/tuckman s_stages_of_group_development PRINCE2 is a registered trademark of AXELOS Limited. 5