Becoming world class

What does it take to become a world-class profession? Jason Hesse reports on this year’s APM Project Management Conference.

While there is no silver bullet for building a world-class profession, more than 400 delegates converged at Kings Place in London on 21 April to discuss the idea at APM’s annual conference. 

The 2016 APM Project Management Conference, sponsored by 20|20 Business Insight, welcomed 15 speakers across 20 individual streams and talks. The event is a highlight of APM’s calendar, offering attendees the opportunity to meet, network and discuss the key themes surrounding the project management profession. 

At last year’s event, project professionals were challenged to question their assumptions and myths about the profession. How could a change of philosophy open more possibilities? What could a change in mindset towards projects, programmes and portfolios mean for the economy, environment and society?

This year, the APM Project Management Conference pushed the envelope even further, exploring how the project profession can transform itself into one recognised as being world class. 

With hundreds of billions of pounds entrusted to project managers for the delivery of projects right across the UK, the need for dependable, reliable people who have the right ethics and commitment to the profession is absolutely key. This was emphasised throughout many of the streams during the day.

Conference chairman Sue Kershaw, who is UK head of infrastructure programme and project management at KPMG, opened the conference by welcoming delegates and explaining the event’s theme. After outlining the three different streams – profession, organisation and individual – for the day’s talks, she asked the audience, “How do you want to change your lives and become world class?” She added: “We want to help you reflect on how you can make that happen.”

Challenging the profession

The first speaker of the day was David Waboso, newly appointed head of Network Rail’s Digital Railway directorate and APM president. His presidential address centred on four key challenges that the profession faces: delivery, collaboration, capability and the digital revolution.

Project management is moving towards a greater stage, with greater prominence, he said, but the profession must adapt and respond to the challenges of successful delivery.

“The holy grail of project management is the assured delivery of projects,” Waboso explained. “Offering certainty, whereby you can embark on a project knowing that it will come out on the other end, is what we must do as project professionals.”

Increasing collaboration is one way to achieve this, Waboso said. In an increasingly globalised world, it is difficult to do things in isolation. Furthermore, it is counterproductive. Working collaboratively towards the same end goal – successful delivery – means working together within projects, but also with other institutions. “We need to work across organisations, national boundaries and cultures,” he explained. “The complexity of what we deliver has never been greater. That means that collaboration has to be at the core of our values.

This was a theme that was echoed throughout the day. In her talk about the role of politics in project management, Isabel Dedring, global transport leader at Arup and the former deputy mayor for transport in the Greater London Authority, emphasised that collaborative working is the optimal way of pushing projects forward.

“It’s basic stuff, but it’s about getting the right people in the room together. Bring key people from stakeholder organisations and government together to create conversations and get projects delivered. That is how you get things done,” she explained

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Speaker Marc Woods, a four-time Paralympic gold medallist, also spoke of the importance of collaborating with others to meet your goals. His talk was a highlight of the day, taking the audience on a remarkable journey of challenges and success, and inspiring each person to do the best they can professionally and personally.

Building capability

Capability is another recurring issue that the conference addressed. Increasing the number of capable project managers is essential to building a world-class profession.

Waboso explained: “There are not enough good people coming to the profession to service the demand that is growing. We have to think about how we attract, retain and assess as competent those people coming to the profession.”

This is a major concern for APM and, as a professional association, it is part of its role to build and maintain competence in the profession. 

The role of professional associations in recruiting, educating and developing industry professionals was examined by Jon Prichard, chief executive officer of the Engineering Council. 

A key aspect is qualifications, which are integral to building trust in the profession. Qualifications and formal accreditation, he said, allow you to ascertain credibility when looking for a project manager. “How can you authenticate the person in front of you?” Prichard asked.

He then outlined how his own profession, engineering, has developed itself: defining competence in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude. By delving into the history of regulations and standards, he exposed the need for a code of conduct and professional development across project management. This is needed to ensure that competence and professionalism are maintained. 

Prichard left delegates with a key takeaway. He explained that, for professionals – be they engineers or project professionals – to become world class, it is important to develop the right state of ‘MIND’: motivation, initiative, nimbleness and decency. “This means displaying enthusiasm, learning to excel beyond threshold standards, demonstrating agility and flexibility, and doing the right thing, with integrity and ethical behaviour,” he said.

Soft skills

During the rest of the day, industry experts and leaders gave interesting talks in their respective streams. Talks around ‘soft’ skills – attributes that enable people to interact effectively and harmoniously with others – were popular, with many of the sessions oversubscribed.

Michele Owens’ discussion in the ‘organisation’ stream, sponsored by ProjectPlace, focused on how organisations can become world class through great people strategies.

Owens, formerly the head of HR for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), explored the tools used by the ODA during the build-up to London 2012, explaining how building manager capability through learning, coaching and mentoring can help to transform organisations. Small things can make a big difference to people, she said. 

Elsewhere, David Gurteen, the founder of Gurteen Knowledge, made the case for conversational leadership.

“This is a style of working whereby you understand the transformative power of conversation,” he explained in his ‘individual’ stream session. “You take an open, conversational approach to the way that you work and interact with people, purposefully nurturing and stimulating the natural conversations that take place within your organisation.”

Being a ‘conversation architect’, Gurteen said, helps you to be a leader by learning to identify the strategic conversations that need to take place, the questions to trigger them and how to design the processes to initiate them.

World class

Throughout the day, delegates were actively encouraged to ask questions, and were challenged to discuss with one another the issues that affect the project management profession.

There were also exhibits by leading industry organisations, such as headline sponsor and training provider 20|20 Business Insight, stream sponsor ProjectPlace, defence and aerospace group BAE Systems and enterprise software provider Deltek, among many others. These gave attendees a chance to discover the latest products and services available to project managers.

Delegates left the three different streams with their heads full of thought-provoking ideas from the diverse speakers. 

By the end of the conference, after Infrastructure and Projects Authority chief executive Tony Meggs gave his closing speech (see below), it was clear that Waboso’s opening presidential address was prescient in encapsulating the main theme of the day, which was to understand where project management sits as a profession, where it is going and how it can achieve world-class professionalism.

“Sitting in this room – here in London – are project, programme and portfolio managers that are managing huge amounts of wealth, complexity and business criticality, nationally and globally,” Waboso said.

“APM is what pools the profession together – there has never been a better time for APM and its members to look with confidence to the future, and to embrace the challenges that come with it.” 

For readers unable to attend the conference, all of the speaker presentations are available at apm.org.uk.

 

Tony Meggs: “Speak truth to power”

Tony Meggs, chief executive of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, was the closing speaker of the APM Project Management Conference 2016.

As the chief executive of the newly created Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), Tony Meggs spoke on behalf of the government to explain how the IPA is working to help projects succeed. In front of a captive audience of influential project management leaders, he did not disappoint, and he was not afraid to answer tough questions.

Meggs set a challenge for the audience to “speak truth to power” – that is, to stand up and not be afraid of challenging the government on project delivery.

“A successful project is about being in the environment for success, and the key is to get projects set up in the right way from the very beginning,” he explained. “We need to make sure that we know what we are going to do before we say we’re going to do it.”

Breadth and width

Equally, Meggs – who comes from a private-sector background, including a role as BP’s head of technology – said that the scale of projects that the government is undertaking is staggering.

“As an outsider, what happens in government is breathtaking. Every morning, I come into the office and have to decide if I will work on nuclear submarines, HS2 or transforming the justice system. The scope and the scale are breathtaking, as is the ambition.

“When I look across government at the 100-plus major transformation programmes we have under way, I realise that there is no corporation that would undertake such an extraordinary set of activities in every single part of its business, at the same time. But that’s what we are doing.”

Infrastructure is a large part of the government’s programme, and Meggs said he believes the UK could be entering a golden age of infrastructure.

“There is increased investment and increased confidence. For the government to invest all of our money into huge and important national projects, there has to be a degree of confidence that the projects will be delivered. There is a growing sense that they will.”

However, he emphasised that, to achieve success, change is necessary. Planning projects early so that they are not committed to unreasonable expectations is essential. Measuring performance and having clear benchmarks is key. And developing capability across government is needed.

“I would like to get us to a point where all of the departments are so good at project design and execution that there is very little need for central support and intervention.

“Building capacity and capability at the front end, where the work actually gets done, is our foremost duty.”

#APMconf: A social conference
Attendees were encouraged to tweet and discuss the conference on social media channels throughout the day using the hashtag #APMconf. In the main hall, a Twitter feed projected related tweets onto a wall so that delegates could see how their colleagues were responding to the day’s events as they occurred. What did they share?
Lucidus Consulting (@LucidRus)
It looks like the theme of World Class must somehow tie into ‘a world where all projects succeed’ #APMconf

Julian Smith (@apm_xa)
We have officially launched the @APMProjectMgmt Project Professional Qualification (PPQ) at our annual conference this morning. #APMconf

Jo Stanford (@jo_stanford_pm)
#APMconf Wow! Marc Woods’ stunningly brilliant motivational speech at the conf. Powerful, moving, inspiring and incredibly relevant!

Kirsten Bird (@KirstiBird)
#APMconf Accelerate incremental learning to transformational – PM can embrace this step change

Peter Dirken (@PeterDirken)
HS2 is one of the first public projects to use detailed BIM2 to deliver it on time and to budget #APMconf

Natacha Redon (@NatachaRedon)
Soft skills presentation by far the most popular one this morning at #APMconf APM members understand challenges of PM profession

Helen Curel (@CurelH)
Clear frustration around the lack of investment and prioritisation given to major infrastructure projects in the UK – Steve Elliott #APMconf

Roy Millard (@RoyMillardUK)
Tony Meggs: “The hardest job that a programme/project leader has to do is speaking truth to power.” #APMconf