PMI

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Project Management and Change: Getting “Buy-in” for “New”

By Peter de Jager

obtain buy-in for changeWhether you’re a project manager, supervisor or just one of those people who make the world go round – then from time to time you’re going to stumble across a method or process that you know – will benefit others if only they’ll adopt it. You’ll then discover, to your surprise, that your enthusiasm isn’t shared by those around you.

Welcome to the very common problem of implementing a Change of any sort.

As a project manager for any length of time, you’re well aware we repeat certain processes time and time again and these patterns of process evolve. Good PMs understand the need to identify, categorize and generalize these patterns and use them consciously.

There is a flip side to this, there are also patterns of failure, ‘solutions’ we try time and time again, that don’t lead us towards our goal. In a sense, that’s why we attempt to categorize those that work, because this knowledge helps us avoid the ones which don’t. Good PM practices steer us towards successful processes by steering us away from bad processes. Do this consciously, and we end up with something like Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3).

Get buy-in

The “Buy-in” strategy is a perfect example of a commonly used unsuccessful approach to a common management problem. Yes, I’m well aware that questioning the value of a commonly held belief is heretical, but it is an accurate assessment of the efficacy of “buy-in”.

Typically, when we find a good, new solution we get enthusiastic about it. Let’s assume we’ve glommed onto OPM3 as our most recent discovery. Our immediate strategy is to try and convince others that OPM3 is the answer to all our PM problems. We want them to ‘buy-into’ the new idea, after all, we know OPM3 works. It’s a recognized best-practice standard for assessing and developing capabilities in Portfolio, Program and Project Management and it’s published by the Project Management Institute (PMI).

getting buy-in for newOur approach is to concentrate on the benefits of implementing OPM3. Our goal? To get our audience or organization to adopt this proven way of doing things.  And then we’re surprised when they respond with the annoying question… “Why?”

It doesn’t matter what new idea we’re trying to implement, it could be OPM3 or a new way to tie our shoe laces, we will always encounter this well meaning “Why?” We then incorrectly, in my opinion, label it as ‘resistance to change’. We also mislabel this phenomenon as being ‘negative’ and perhaps even as an ‘obstacle to progress’.

Solution to creating change

The problem we’ve created is this: We’re selling a solution, before we agree on the problem.

Here’s an experiment, one with ‘convincing’ statistics, that was performed by Dr. Robert Cialdini (Described in his book, “Influence: Science and Practice”)

This experiement was conducted at a busy photocopier. The researcher stepped to the front of the queue and asked: “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” The result was that 60% of the time she was allowed to make her copies.

On the next trial she asked instead: “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” This increased her success rate (immediately making copies) to 94%.

The initial request with no reason given is 60%, adding even the flimiest of reasons, ‘because’ to the unspoken ‘Why?’ increases that success rate to 93%.

So… what is your answer to the reasonable question ‘Why?’ going to be? That this “idea” of ours is better than what we’re currently doing isn’t enough. That’s basically what we’re saying when we’re enthusiastic and merely sing the praises of a new solution.

What people need to hear is a description of the problem that the new idea is supposed to solve. You cannot sell anyone the benefits of anything until they agree that the benefits are necessary.

So? What problems does OPM3 solve? What are the failings of your existing process? Can you point to specific failings which everyone agrees need addressing?

And remember… “OPM3” is best considered a place holder for ANY change…

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About the Author: © 2014, Peter de Jager is a speaker/consultant/writer on Change related issues. If you’ve enjoyed this article, you can view a few dozen of his presentations at: vimeo.com/technobility and you can subscribe to his monthly mailing by sending a request to: pdejager@technobility.com

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Agile Practitioners – 7 Tips to pass the PMI-ACP Exam

AgileYou have been using the Agile methodology on projects for one year or longer and you would like to become Agile certified. Here you will find 7 tips to ensure you are prepared to meet the exam head-on and achieve optimal results both on exam day and in your future career.

The Project Management Institute (PMI®) has developed a set of criteria and credentials for recognizing project management professionals who use Agile methodologies in their project, the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)® certification. Your credentials need to include: 2,000 hours or twelve months of general project management work experience, 1,500 hours or eight months of Agile specific project experience, and 21 hours of training in Agile specific practices.

The amount of material that is covered by the PMI-ACP Exam is extensive and can seem overwhelming, but the following tips will help you be successful.

#1 PMI-ACP Handbook

The PMI-ACP Handbook gives you all the details of the PMI-ACP Exam process including exam policies and procedures. The first two sections are a must read for anyone considering PMI-ACP certification. These sections cover the must know basics such as exam eligibility requirements, how to complete the online application, the payment policy, and the PMI-ACP Exam blueprint. The PMI-ACP Handbook is available for free online at: www.agileprepcast.com/

#2 Time

The material covered by the PMI-ACP Exam is extensive, detailed, and spread throughout many sources of reference material. This is not an examination you can “cram” for in a couple of weekends or simply rely upon your experience and pass. Plan to take the exam after spending 10-12 solid weeks of studying for an hour or two just about every day. Of course you will need to develop a schedule that is flexible enough to fit in with the rest of your responsibilities and commitments.

#3 Study Plan and Schedule

Use your valuable planning and scheduling skills to create a study schedule for a 10-12 week period that fits well with the rest of your responsibilities. Depending on your job and household commitments, you may need to schedule more or less time. Take a practice exam to identify the areas that you need to spend more time focusing on during this 10-12 week period. Make sure your schedule is realistic and set weekly goals to track your progress. Also include time in your schedule to take breaks and participate in activities you enjoy.

#4 Study Materials

The PMI-ACP Exam, unlike the Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam, does not have a primary publication for examinees to study. Instead, PMI provides a list of reference materials.

A second source is the PMI-ACP Examination Content Outline. This document covers information about the Agile tools and techniques as well as the Agile knowledge and skills that will be covered in the PMI-ACP Exam. I recommend that you ensure that any PMI-ACP courses or books you purchase cover all the items listed in here.

#5 Self Study Course

With the great number of material covered by the PMI-ACP Exam another option is to enroll in a self-study course. The latest generation of self-study comes to you in the form of Agile Podcasts / Videocasts. These can be downloaded to your smartphone, laptop, tablet, computer, or other portable media device. This makes your PMI-ACP Exam training portable, allowing you to listen or view whenever you have some free time.

Self-study Agile Podcasts cover agile frameworks, tools and techniques, knowledge and skills, and methods required for the exam in everyday English. As an added bonus, taking your lessons in this way can count toward the required 21 contact hours of Agile specific training.

#6 PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book

There are a wide variety of PMI-ACP Exam prep books available, which are also sometimes called “study guides”. They explain the concepts covered in the PMI-ACP Exam and can be a great addition to the reference materials suggested by PMI. Go to your local bookstore and select one that fits with your style of learning and covers a variety of high- and low-yield topics.

#7 Questions, Questions, Questions

A large number of free PMI-ACP Exam sample questions are available from a variety of resources on the internet. Free questions are a good place to start, but will only go so far for you. You will also want to subscribe to an online PMI-ACP Exam Simulator in order to access the highest quality of sample questions.

Your study plan must include answering as many practice questions as possible and taking several complete 120-question practice exams. This type of preparation will allow you to evaluate your study progress and prepare you for the format of the real thing. You will be nervous on exam day, but being familiar with types and formats of questions will help reduce anxiety and prepare you for success.

In conclusion: preparing to pass the PMI-ACP Exam can be a stressful process, but with these seven items you will reduce anxiety and exam day stress. Study hard and good luck!

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Project Manager Career Tips

To all project managers who want to make a career move, or for contractors who need to move to new project management contracts, there are a few important things to consider.

You need to have an updated resume and a good LinkedIn profile. In addition, you need to be prepared for Interviews that are part of this process.

Today I want to share two great resources to assist you in your journey.

  1. “Interview Advice and Tips” is a curated list of articles, by Patricia D. Sadar. It contains several great articles covering Interviews from every possible angle.
  2. One Page Resume

One-page resume

 

Let me know in the comments what you think of these resources. 

Please subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting not to miss future articles, tips and success stories!

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Recognition for Excellence in Project Management

An announcement from the Project Management Institute (PMI):

Submit a qualified nomination for the PMI Award for Project Excellence, PMI Project of the Year Award, or PMO of the Year Award before 1 April 2014!

A PMI Professional Award will help you gain new business, recognition from your colleagues, peers, current and future employers and the personal gratification of being recognized for excellence in project management. Plus, you’ll gain visibility among more than 700,000 PMI members and certification holders – the largest professional network of project managers in the world.

Award recipients will be honored among their peers at the 2014 PMI Professional Awards Ceremony preceding PMI® Global Congress 2014 — North America in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

Please visit PMI Professional Awards for a complete list of all the PMI awards.

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Is Project Management a Growing Profession?

As a professional project manager you are concerned about your career growth and the future of your profession. You enjoy your work and receive much satisfaction from completing projects successfully. Yet the economy is not growing as expected and more people are reported to be part of the unemployment statistics.

How is the project management profession impacted by this?

A report published by the Project Management Institute called: “Project Management Skills Gap Assessment”, looks at Project Management between 2010 and 2020. (you need to be registered to view the Report)

The forecast is that between 2010 and 2020 15.7 million new project management roles will be created globally across seven project-intensive industries, along with tremendous growth in salaries.  This enormous anticipated growth, along with higher-than-average salaries, will make the next seven years an opportune time for professionals and job-seekers to build project management skills.

Rising Salaries

It is said that this high demand for project-oriented professionals is reflected in both average salary and salary growth. Project Management Professional (PMP) ® credential holders in the U.S. earned an average of 16 percent more (approximately US$14,500) than their non-credentialed peers in 2011.

Growing Industries

project intensive industriesCurrently, project-intensive industries in the U.S. that support the greatest number of project management roles are business services and manufacturing, with 2 million and 630,000 project management jobs, respectively, in 2010. However, business services and healthcare (not currently a project-intensive industry) are expected to lead the pack in terms of growth between 2010 and 2020. In particular, the healthcare industry is projected to increase project management roles by 30%.

In 10 countries with established or quickly developing project management industries, project management roles are expected to increase by over 13.4 million between 2010 and 2020, to over 41.5 million. In addition, the economic output of the profession in these 10 countries will increase.

China and India will lead the growth in project management, generating approximately 8.1 million and 4 million project management roles through 2020, respectively. Total employment for project managers will increase in nine of the 10 countries.

The 10 countries with established or quickly developing project management industries are:

  1. Australia
  2. United Kingdom
  3. Canada
  4. Germany
  5. Japan
  6. China
  7. India
  8. Brazil
  9. Saudi Arabia
  10. United Arab Emirates

Conclusion

The rapid growth of demand for project professionals and the exceptional salary levels make the project management profession highly desirable to job seekers. Currently, demand for project management professionals is not matched by availability of resources with relevant project management skills. This means that job seekers will find the next 7 years to be an unparalleled opportunity to build project management skills and enter this flourishing market.

The report results point to immense growth of the profession globally. If you are an existing project management practitioner or an aspiring project manager, please take a look at the many project management resources listed on Virtual Project Consulting. You will find recommended training, products, software or valuable websites that will enhance your growth as a project manager.

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Is Project Management A Profession?

This debate whether project management is a profession or not, has heated up again in the past year. I wanted to have a closer look at what it means to receive acknowledgement as a profession and if I think we will ever arrive there.

According to Wikipedia, the formation of a profession is as follows:
“A profession arises when any trade or occupation transforms itself through the development of formal qualifications based upon education, apprenticeship, and examinations, the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers to admit and discipline members, and some degree of monopoly rights.

Even though there are many other descriptions and traits associated with an occupation actually becoming a profession, but this is clear and easily lends itself to a step approach when trying to define how far Project Management has progressed towards becoming a true profession.

Project Management can be described as relatively static with respect to its education, apprenticeship and examinations. Right, wrong or otherwise, the adoption of the Project Management Institute’s Code of Ethics, education requirements and examinations based on their Project Management Body of Knowledge has become the de-facto standard for education, apprenticeship and examination.

Project Management is clearly not dependent on any particular type of hardware/software application or platform. Project Management methodology can also be applied across multiple industries.

Again, using the Wikipedia definition of a profession, the following is the classical manner in which an occupation becomes a profession:
1. It became a full-time occupation;
2. The first training school was established;
3. The first university school was established;
4. The first local association was established;
5. The first national association was established;
6. The codes of professional ethics were introduced;
7. State licensing laws were established.

Source: Perks, R.W.(1993): Accounting and Society. Chapman & Hall (London)

Obviously, if we accept PMBOK as the Body of Knowledge, and PMI as the local and national association and accept and embrace their Code of Ethics, Project Management has satisfied the first 6 steps to becoming a true profession. The final step, State Licensing laws being established, remains to be enacted. Since we are in fact global though, that requirement may not be possible, or at least may be unrealistic in many cases.

Does that preclude Project Management from being a true profession? I think not, especially due to the fact that there are other accepted professions that do not have licensing requirements.  If in fact there are other, better qualified, organizations than PMI that would better represent our interests as a profession, then that organization should be identified, promoted and voted on by the members of the profession.

Like many other Project Management Professionals, I also believe that the Project Management occupation has satisfied the definition of a profession and has matured to a level that we should move forward as a truly professional organization.

For more Project Management training, software and product resources, don’t forget to visit our Resource page here.

Please subscribe to the RSS feed of Virtual Project Consulting not to miss future posts.

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Project Management Announcement: PMI Launches AGILE Certification

Agile is a topic of growing importance within the project management industry, and more project managers are embracing Agile as a technique for managing their successful projects including PMI who is launching an Agile Certification.

Growing Demand For Application Of Agile Practices

A recent statistic which emerged from PMI’s latest Pulse survey is that standardized project management practices result in better project performance. Many project managers who use Agile techniques for managing projects have seen the value of quicker delivery of projects to clients.

PMI research has revealed that 68% of organizations using Agile practices would find value in an Agile certification for project management practitioners. In addition, 63% of hiring managers would encourage their project managers to pursue an Agile certification.

Organisations have reported that the use of the Agile techniques have resulted in the following:

  • Early and continuous customer feedback – because the customer is continuously involved during development, resulting in an end-product to their satisfaction.
  • High visibility and influence over the project highlights problems earlier in the project.
  • Early measurable return on investment – allowing for reporting on defined deliverables early during the process.

Who Should Obtain PMI Agile Certification?

All PM Practitioners currently applying Agile practices in their projects or organizations who are adopting the Agile approach to project management are all excellent candidates for the PMI Agile Certification. Earning the Agile Certification could:

  • Demonstrate their level of professionalism in Agile practices to employers
  • Increase professional versatility in both project management tools and techniques
  • Show their project management leadership capacity by holding a more credible certification than training-only or exam-only based training

PMI serves the project management profession by providing practitioners with a toolbox of selected tools and techniques—and Agile is one of those tools. For example, those who have the PMP® and are working in an organization that is using Agile techniques, the Agile Certification provides an applicable knowledge base of Agile principles and concepts.

Important Dates For Agile Certification Launch

  • May 2011 – Candidates for the Agile certification will be able to submit an application for the pilot.
  • August 2011 – Pilot testing is scheduled to begin.

If you have questions that cannot be answered by the information on PMI.org/Agile, please contact PMI Customer Care based in your region:

North America/Latin America at customercare@pmi.org

EMEA +31-320-239-539 or customercare.emea@pmi.org

AP+65 6496 5501 or customercare.asiapac@pmi.org

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5 Reasons To Become a Certified Project Manager

You may be an aspiring or existing project manager. If you are new to this profession you are perhaps considering certification to become a professional project manager. If you are an existing Project Management Professional (PMP), you may be in doubt about your on-going training requirements. This article should give you clarity about the purpose and motivation for becoming a certified project manager and the benefits for staying certified. In this context certification refers to the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.
Project Management Professional

To be Certified or not

Project management certifications matter. Especially given the current unpredictable market in which companies must operate and succeed.  Project management certification makes for better project managers and reduces risk of project failure in an organisation.

After the first best practice project management standard was founded, it became apparent that following best practice and hiring certified project managers are crucial to successful project management and, hence, business success.

5 Reasons to become a Certified Project Mangager

1.       Research is showing that today’s marketplace is demanding an increase in project management certification. Holding a certification and having the letters PMP, CAPM, PgMP, PMI-RMP or PMI-SP behind your name gives candidates access to greater job prospects and thereby places them in a higher salary bracket.

2.       Project management, however, still remains a business skill that is acquired through experience combined with an internationally recognised project management certification, such as Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute. (PMI). The PMI certification currently has the largest footprint and is represented in 238 countries.

3.       The Standish Group International, publisher of the CHAOS Report says that two-thirds of CIOs surveyed regard a PMI certification as valuable and the number of CIOs who require their project managers to be certified grew from 21% in 2005 to 31% by 2009.

4.       Certifications such as the PMP and Prince 2 help unify teams as each member speaks the same language and uses identical processes when executing projects.  This contributes to greater project performance.

5.       Project management certification is also important from a governance perspective as certified members sign a code of professional conduct.  This automatically provides the employer with confidence that the certified professional acts with integrity and executes tasks with soundness of judgment. This minimises risk within an organisation and enhances the chance of project success.

What comes after certification?

Project management certification is an on-going process and every three years certified professionals must recertify and maintain their professional status through on-going development and enhancing the project management profession by attending conferences, writing- and presenting papers, as well as transferring their skills. This on-going learning means that certified project managers stay informed about latest project, programme and portfolio management best practices earning professional development units (PDUs).

Project management professionals stay up-to-date, through the use of the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), which assists project managers globally to apply certain standards in project management in order to meet business goals and business intent.

PMBOK

The PMBOK Guide presents a set of standard terminology, guidelines and tools and techniques for project management. It is non-industry specific and provides project managers with a basis from which to work and can be tweaked to suit each project manager’s project. Now in its fourth edition, it was first published by the PMI in 1987 as a white paper to document and standardise generally accepted project management information and practices.

Conclusion

It is important to remember that although a certified professional has dedicated thousands of hours and numerous years to pass the exam, exceptional project managers are those who combine that knowledge with passion and strong leadership abilities. The real test for being an excellent project manager, is in the constant application and enhancement of this knowledge.

Resources to consider for aspiring and existing project managers:
Want to do the PMP exam and become certified, I recommend the PM Prepcast, the best resource to help you succeed in the PMP exam. 

For an existing PMP who need PDU’s, I recommend the PDU Podcast, an affordable and convenient subscription to earn PDU’s in your own time: