Profit more important than people for project performance?
Managers challenged by budgets not resources; Research conducted by QA, Training Company of the Year 2005, shows that project managers find their biggest challenge is delivering projects that are both on time and to budget, and that meet their customers expectations.
Identification of this task as most challenging may be because of a lack of focus on how project success is achieved, with only 9% of respondents citing getting the best project manager on the most critical projects as a challenge and only 16% seeing identifying the most appropriate resources for a given task as critical.
Director of Learning at QA, Brian Sutton, believes that all companies want to avoid project failure, but the importance of resourcing is underestimated; "It sounds like very positive news that so few people feel that it is difficult to assign the best manager to their projects, but we don't believe that this is representative of current business practice. Often managers are assigned on an availability basis rather than on their suitability for the project because companies often don't have a clear picture of the skills available to them. Ensuring that the right skills are matched to the project is not perceived as challenging because companies don't have the structures and information in place to achieve this, and it is therefore not seen as a priority."
"While there are core skills that all project managers need to succeed, there is no question that all projects are different, and some require a different mix of strengths to others. In particular, this applies to complex projects where there may be significant negotiation with stakeholders or those where specific technical knowledge would be of importance. Making sure that the manager assigned to these projects has the skills for success does of course mean that you need a clear picture of both the existing strengths and areas for development within your project team."
Addressing these issues is central to developing successful project management practice, and understanding the skills available within project teams should be one of the first steps taken. Matching skills gaps to training requirements and building a programme in line with business objectives will provide a development strategy to build strong teams and individuals.
QA has used its wide-ranging experience of creating project management training programmes to develop a 360° review tool to measure the strength and skills gaps of project managers, allowing companies to form a clear picture of where skills lie within their department for both for technical and softer tasks. Providing a full audit of project management capabilities the review combines self-assessment with feedback from peers, direct reports and management.
Developed as an end-to-end solution, the results of the tool can be combined with QA's comprehensive portfolio of project management and business skills learning opportunities and ensure that skills gaps are addressed. Programmes can be based round our broad public portfolio, or bespoke programmes can be developed on a cost-effective basis to address specific requirements.
For more details on a 360° diagnostic review, please contact QA on 0870 90 600 90 or by email on responsecentre@qa.com. Information about QA's project management services is available at www.qa.com.