Category Archives: Professional Development

The Future of Everything is Project Management

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A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about the project manager as a generalist or a specialist. I am most definitely a specialist.  Every project I undertake is to implement or extend human capital management systems, including payroll, timekeeping, recruiting, and employee benefits administration systems.  I’ve been working almost exclusively in this domain since 1989, and in addition to my PMP credential, I have professional level credentials in both human resources and benefits administration.  Most of my customers are global firms, and my ability to talk about the details of their business practices and legal compliance challenges has given me a lot of credibility with their subject matter experts.  It’s a big chunk of my personal value proposition.

I was in Seattle this week, attending a review course prior to taking the Global Professional in Human Resources exam.  I’ve held the Senior Professional in Human Resources credential for nine years now, and decided in January that an upgrade would be worth the time and money.  It was quite an experience, sitting in a room for three days with a mix of twenty-four very senior HR people from industry, universities, and NGO’s.  We were all Boomers and Generation X; this is not an entry-level topic.   Several of the attendees hold PhD’s.  About a third of them were from other countries, as was the instructor, Lisbeth Claus.  By the end of day three, we were all exhausted, but I probably doubled the value of my address book with the contacts I made.

But the money shot, as it were, happened on the morning of the second day.  Lisbeth is essentially the founder of the Global Professional program within the Society for Human Resource Management.  In addition to teaching at the Willamette University MBA program, she has held executive HR positions with two global firms.  She is one of the dozen or so primary thought leaders in the field of human capital management.  In the midst of reviewing business issues in outsourcing, Lisbeth stopped and said, “Eighty percent of the things you are doing today in the HR department are going to be gone in five years.  They will be outsourced to specialists.  You need to prepare for what you will be doing with the rest of your time, five years from now.  Do you know what that will be?”  She paused for effect.  “Project management.”

We use the term “accidental project manager” to describe someone whose primary job function is something else, but somehow ended up managing a project in their domain.  Many of these folks have had little or no preparation for leading a project, and receive little guidance from experienced project managers.  Most flail, some fail outright.  But some of them develop a taste for it, and find other projects to manage.  These folks are going to be the professional development models for most organizations over the next few years.  Develop competency in some functional area, and then develop project management skills.  And as Lisbeth warned: if you don’t, expect to be doing the low value-added, transaction processing jobs.  And expect to be paid a lot less than the people driving change.

The future of everything, at least in management, is project management.  But don’t feel too comfortable about that idea, because if you’re not already competing for project management jobs with domain specialists, you soon will be.  And if enough of these domain specialists take Lisbeth’s advice, there soon won’t be anything accidental about them.

Managing Another Upgrade Project

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A few days ago, Patrick Richard posted an interesting question on his blog, The Hard-Nosed PM.  “I’m seeing more and more job offers where the description requires the applicant to be PMP (or even PgMP) certified.  Is this really warranted?”  To some degree, the PMP is being used by recruiters and hiring managers as a proxy for management skills, as opposed to technical skills.  But as Patrick points out, “The PMP should command a salary premium.  If you insist on hiring a PMP, you may be insisting on overpaying for the position.”  And while PMI’s salary surveys would seem to bear this out, it appears that recruiters don’t see it that way.

Although it was once a distinguishing asset on a resume, the PMP is on its way to becoming a check box item for all but the most basic management position.  There are now nearly half a million people with the PMP credential, so some organizations are willing to use it as a filter in the application process, just as they use a bachelor’s degree.  There are enough potential applicants, even as the economy recovers, that employers feel they can be extremely selective.  And while PM salaries have increased over the last couple of years, there is still quite a broad range.  The perception is that even companies that don’t want to pay above the 50th percentile can get highly qualified people, if they wait long enough.  And this is why so many requisitions stay out on the job boards for months at a time, even after getting a flood of resumes in the first 48 hours.  The basic accounting concept of opportunity cost doesn’t seem to apply here; the project manager is seen as a commodity, so they hold out for the best quality at the lowest price.  And demand that the new hires hit the ground running at a four-minute mile pace.

In order to sit for the PMP exam, PMI requires 4,500 hours of experience leading and directing projects, if you have a four year degree; if not, they require 7,500 hours.  In his book, “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell posited the idea that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery of a particular skill.  In response, Seth Godin noted that the 10,000 hours is “necessary, but not sufficient,” and offered the example of bar bands in his native Buffalo, who played just as many gigs as the Beatles but were never able to quit their day jobs.   There’s something else required: a desire for personal excellence and performance at a high standard.  For some of us, that PMP credential was an opportunity to test ourselves against a high standard.  But like the four-minute mile, it’s no longer as impressive, once enough people can do it.  A mile is still 5,280 feet, and four minutes is still 240 seconds, but somehow, even those of us who can’t run a mile in seven minutes aren’t going to get excited unless it’s a family member.

So, that PMP I earned over nine years ago isn’t a differentiator any more.  And neither is my other professional credential, Senior Professional in Human Resources.  Over 50,000 people now hold the SPHR; another 70,000 hold the more junior PHR credential.  But fewer than 1,500 people hold the Global Professional in Human Resources credential.  And just over 1,800 hold the PMI-ACP credential.  I have far more than enough professional experience hours for each of them, so this year, I’m upgrading.  I have the Official GPHR Certification Guide, and Mike Griffiths’s “PMI-ACP Exam Prep.”  I’m going to sit for the GPHR exam in May, and for the PMI-ACP exam when I’m ready, likely during the third quarter.  And I’m going to develop a plan, with milestones, and get buy-in from my primary stakeholder, Lien, who needs to accept the selfish reasons why I’m not spending as much time with her.

No, I’m not doing this to get a better job.  I’m simply taking the next step in my quest for personal excellence.  But you can count on one thing: I’ll do it at a sustainable pace.

If I Were Designing a Master’s Program in IT Project Management

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Capella University has redesigned its online Master’s in information technology, now called a Master of Science in Information Systems and Technology Management.  Capella says the new program “places a greater emphasis on the IT management skills desired by today’s employers and is designed to meet the needs of both IT professionals and career changers.”  Naturally, they have a concentration in Project Management.

Looking at the program, it seems like the focus is heavy on information technology, management of global enterprises, and project management.  In addition to the three Foundational courses and the five project management specialization courses, students will be required to take three Core courses, and then a capstone course.  The Core course on Innovation, Leadership, and Ethics sounds very interesting; I hope they can fit all three into one quarter.  I think it’s definitely a solid curriculum.  But I’d like to suggest that it leaves out some real world business skills.  For example:

  • Foundational Skills for Business Leaders.  Because the operative word in project management is management.
  • Foundations of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.  Individual and team workplace behavior.
  • Fundamentals of Business Law.  A solid grounding in the concepts, with a special focus on contract law.
  • Financial Accounting.  The details behind balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements.  You’ll realize why it’s important and useful once you take it.
  • Governance, Risk Management and Compliance.  IT management is no longer insulated from the audit committee.
  • Managing and Leading in Dynamic Environments.  Because management isn’t enough.  We have to be able to lead.

If this looks more like an MBA program than a Master of Science program, it’s because project managers need business skills in addition to technical skills.  Even if you specialize in some extreme technology, you’ll need these skills to perform well in senior positions.  Of course, all of this assumes you have already had undergraduate exposure to statistics, economics, financial analysis, ethics, public speaking, and technical writing.

As a graduate of the old Capella program, I find this to be a significant improvement.  Not perfect, but one thing I learned while pursuing my Master’s was that you can make your studies as challenging as you want.  It’s just a framework; what you learn will be defined by what you do with it.