AOM 2010 Montreal (Day Three)
Hi again, Day Three of the AOM 2010 conference. Well I was excited. There were several sessions scheduled (I’ve always loved alliteration) on training that is now being provided, to ensure organisations in the future can access PMs and Program and Portfolio people who can do what organisations want done. But think about it… what do organisations want?… I started to write this up and then thought – wait a minute – has anyone actually said what organisations want? I trawled back through my notes and here is what I found (again, and at the risk of sounding/reading like a broken record these are not my thoughts or words – though having looked at it I think we might do well to pay attention). So at the risk of offending people and in anticipation of the many emails I know will come to me as a result, here is the list of what I heard reported that organisations want from PMs (including program and portfolio – please note that managers were not as keen on the distinctions as we are).
- The outcomes they want – actually delivered
- Without forensic defensibility being the main focus
- Updates and reports that mean something to the business
- PMs who are multi lingual
- PMs who lead teams not just chase tasks or update plans
- PMs with the soft skills to get along with people and work with the realities of business
- PMs who are ready, willing and able to work in and across the organisation
- PMs who can fit and blend in and continue to deliver
- PMs with critical and conceptual thinking ability
- PMs who work with the business not expect the business to work with them
- PMs who cost the same as the people doing BAU – apparently we haven’t done well enough to justify the prices we generally expect
- More heavy duty PMs (this is a phrase and subject that came up often and I’ll do a bit more looking into it and give you and update in a day or two)
- Help us understand consequences of what we are doing – retrospective predictability of failure is a waste of time and money and we don’t like the attitude.
Ok, there is a pattern developing here so I’ve decided to paraphrase – they simply want people who can understand the strategy and the business and make the strategic outcomes happen. This means they need BAU people and people who can make stuff outside BAU happen (even while using BAU people). Oh, and they don’t want to pay much…Now, what could be easier than that!
I listened to presentations from several universities and here is what they are doing:
- Adding psychologists to the faculty
- Insisting that all PM scholars are assessed by psychologists and ‘helped’ with their personal development when needed
- Insisting that every student does a real life project under supervision before they can graduate
- And one very forward thinking uni has set up with universities in other countries to run real projects across time, culture domain etc and the grades for the PM students and the students in other courses learning to work in projects are tied. So, the PM doesn’t pass if the project fails and the team fails if the PM is useless. Now that’s a radical idea and it seems to be working and reportedly it is a real job seeking edge to have completed this course (this course has been conceived and is being run by a woman).
- Note: not one mention anywhere of better or more methods or tools – it is all about making things happen through people!
Ok, that’s about it for today.
Back tomorrow, Diane