PMI's Newest Tool Helps Organizations to Identify Needed Skills and Create Career Paths
In today’s economy, with companies struggling to find the right people or even enough people, keeping turnover low is key. But not enough organizations provide their employees a track for moving up.
According to PMI research, only 30 percent of organizations have defined career paths for project managers.
In response, PMI launched career framework, a knowledge base of job descriptions in the project management discipline. The framework provides the tools and resources necessary to identify employee strengths and weaknesses and implement a project management career ladder.
Going one step further, in late September PMI launched PathPro® as the online delivery of career framework. The tool can be tailored to meet the individual needs of an organization, including different steps within the project process and different roles within the organization.
”Our research shows that although executives within organizations believe that project management is crucial to the success of their organization. Yet, only 31 percent have a career path to guide the development of their project managers,” says John Roecker, Ed.D., manager, Career Planning, PMI. “They have no way to grow project managers within their organizations. Even though they believe that project management is crucial to the success of the company.”
PathPro can also aggregate data of all the skill assessments employees perform to help organizations identify areas that need improvement.
“That aggregated reporting I think will be a valuable tool for an organization,” Mr. Roecker adds.
The tool’s biggest user, São Paulo, Brazil-based CPM Braxis, is the largest IT services company in Brazil, but has its sights set on becoming one of the top 10 global IT companies.
And they believe the way to make that list is by developing the best project managers.
"Project managers are critical to the success of CPM Braxis,” says Marcus Vinicius Villalobos Mendes, CPM Braxis. “If we don't have very good and capable project managers, we won't reach our goals.”
The company made the investment in PathPro to provide project managers with the best way to develop their careers and link the platform with the mission of the company.
PathPro is for Practitioners, Too
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PMI members and credential holders can also use a practitioner version of the tool. It allows end-users to view sample job descriptions and assess themselves against those job descriptions.
Users can also ask colleagues and supervisors to assess them, Dr. Roecker says.
Marisa Benson, manager of academic communities, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, first signed up for PMI’s PathPro to work on her individual development as a project manager.
“Looking at [PMI’s] career framework has helped me to think about where my own experience and skills would place me in another institution, as well as how our institution might better classify our project management staff.”
Going forward, Ms. Benson says her organization also plans to make an investment in PathPro.
“The University Technology Services division] will use these as a basis for new job families and descriptions, career paths, and one of the steps in bi-annual evaluations,” she says.
